Sandlander

Christmas Eve... and the feeling that the past twelve months have gone by with amazing rapidity. The menu above was served at Le Beaujolais in Abu Dhabi a year ago. And, yes, it was a joy to be in the Sandlands for three months, escaping the German winter. And yet it was a sobering visit to the Emirates, a reminder that the time I invested... almost the entire first decade of the new century... in the UAE had no really positive outcome. I cannot look back with pride on any significant professional achievement. There were just a series of false starts.

I was, perhaps, too timid in my initiatives, too 'politically correct'. The visual on the left makes me smirk. Imagine linking Santa and cigarettes today!

In future, I promise to be all else than 'politically correct'!