Dalrymple recently visited Dubai again, and in a piece for The Globe and Mail, he considers the future of the city after its recent troubles. He is not optimistic that its “fantasy and illusion [will] return after a cold shower of double-entry bookkeeping”, but he hopes that it will, because “…Dubai is so fantastical, so utterly and genuinely ersatz, that, like Las Vegas, it adds to the gaiety of the globe.” Not the sentiments you might expect from a supposedly dour conservative, but Dalrymple really never deserved that reputation.

Read the piece here