"From you come country?"

Among the taxi drivers in Abu Dhabi are some cheerful souls who always ask where their ex-pat passenger comes from.

"Scotland," I say.

"Ah, Scotland, good!" is the invariable response, as it would be if I claimed to hail from Uzbekistan or Liechtenstein.

Since I speak no Urdu or Pashtun the conversation rarely goes beyond this initial exchange. Although some drivers are wont to repeat "Ah, Scotland," at intervals during my five minute trip to or from the office.

I pay the equivalent of one Euro, which includes a 30 Cent tip. Not a bad price, considering that the standard bus ticket in Paris is Euros 1.40. Of course this is all going to change very soon. The Abu Dhabi taxi fleet, currently mainly comprising gold-and-white liveried Toyota Corollas with the quirky green signs on the roof, is about to be modernised. The fares will rise and there will be howls of dismay if they approach the high tariffs charged in Dubai.

The dismay will be justified. Taxis are at present used even by modestly paid office staff and shop assistants to commute to their place of work. But if two dollars a day is an affordable expense, double or triple that (and reach the Dubai level) and there'll be a big problem, particularly since public transport is as good as non-existent in the Emirates' federal capital.

"It used to be so much better," some will say.

I haven't lived in Scotland since I was fifteen years old. Nor in Britain since 1971. It seems that I would find the country much changed were I to return.

In a rather depressing article in yesterday's Observer Jason Cowley writes: So much of our lives are devoured by habit that a long absence from home can often, on return, help to revitalise our sense of things. It can make us more alert to what is going on around us, so that we can begin to see and notice with renewed vigour and freshness. And what I can't help noticing is just how coarse is so much of our public discourse, and how degraded are so many of the spaces in which we interact: our trains, our cinemas, our high streets.

And this after an absence from Great Britain very much shorter than my own!

"It used to be so much better," some will agree. I wonder, though. I wonder why I would still welcome the chance of spending another chapter of my life 'back home', in spite of the tawdry, trivialised if not vandalised Heimat Cowley describes.

Perhaps because I simply accept that change is often painful. It will be painful when Abu Dhabi workers have to pay much more than today to ride in sleek Chevrolet taxis with uniformed drivers who can speak English. It is painful to witness the dumbing down of England, the rise of the yob culture. And when a simple walk to the grocery store involves an appearance on half-a-dozen closed-circuit security cameras, yes, there is cause for concern.

When I was very young the Raj fell; families of impeccable British pedigree, for whom India had been home for many generations, returned to the Isles which was at the time embracing Socialism. Many were bewildered, adjustment was hard and painful. This was not the nation they or their forebears had left.

It never is.

"From you come country?"

Unless you're a tourist here in the Sandlands, the only really honest answer is "From a country which has changed since I lived there".