TWO shots of vodka, one shot of peach schnapps, add orange and cranberry juice. That’s the recipe for Sex On The Beach, a delicious cocktail.
Actually having sex on the beach, as a couple of English revellers in Dubai have found to their cost, is a recipe for trouble, possibly leading to a prison sentence of up to six years.
Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors, fired up by excess consumption of champagne at an ex-pat brunch, indulged in the risky strategy of getting down and dirty and probably very sandy on the Jumeirah beach.
They compounded their foolishness by failing to take the advice of a passing Dubai policeman to cease and desist forthwith from their activities.
Ms Palmer dug a deeper hole for herself on that beach by addressing the officer in colourful language when he returned to find the couple still at it. Worse still, she waved her high heels (Jimmy Choos, £500 a pair) in the policeman’s face. Waving a shoe in a Muslim’s face is, apparently, the worst kind of insult.
Despite her idiocy, it is possible to feel sympathy for the couple. My extensive knowledge of Dubai, based on a two-night stay, is that it is a decidedly dubious place.
Double standards obtain in this paradise of sun, sea, plenty of sand, shopping and general sybaritism.
Dubai adheres to strict Sharia law. Ms Palmer is charged with having extra-marital sex as well as public indecency.
At the same time that Dubai enforces a strict moral code, when it suits it, the country is busy establishing itself as a playground for westerners.
On my brief visit, a native guide showed me around the lively nightlife.
Inside the five-star hotels, binge drinking was going on to a fine tune.
The local women may have been at home, happed up in the hijab, but the men were out to play. Exotic ladies of all nationalities, dressed to kill, populated the night clubs. It appeared that money was being used to oil many of the encounters.
But much worse than the hypocrisy is Dubai’s apartheid system. Asian immigrant workers toil in the sun to build the hotels, luxurious apartments and shopping malls.
At night they are herded out of sight, off to swelter in shanty towns in the desert.
Dubai is a callous combination of the exploitation of the poor and glorification of wealth.
