Minalm decline

moved on, plenty of other places to sit.

Some young people from the Sheraton came by and offered me a free pillow and blanket . . . then took my photo and asked me to sign a waiver. I’m coming to a hotel in-house magazine soon. I’m the one looking like a tramp wishing he were anywhere else but Dubai’s clean and deserted airport. Only 14 hours to go. I dozed fitfully, had strange dreams about my adult children as little kids and some weird castle, woke to rows and rows of empty seats, charged my phone and dozed again. Later I found the free showers — no soap, no towels (thank you Sheraton for that multi-purpose blanket).

In the very late afternoon I shuffled past a shop where I could have bought How To Have A Good Day by US economist Caroline Webb, which was being given a very high profile. But that would have been cheating. And anyway, every day is a good day. Except this one. I found a corner and slept, only to be woken by a call to prayer. About 10 hours to go. As the sole patron in a bar I watched Donald

Emirates flies four times daily from Auckland to Dubai with Economy Class return fares from $2509

Trump on television, walked around the enormous emptiness and along an avenue of perfume shops. Are we really that smelly we need all this stuff, these many options?

I was a victim of Morpheus, a solitary beast left behind by the herd, doomed to wander the fluorescent wastelands of Armani, Chanel and Minolta.

I bought a steak with mashed potatoes and a glass of wine: $108.

With the swipe of a card I became an indigent transient . . . with free wi-fi.

As I waited near the generically-shamrocked McGettigan’s (an oddly familiar logo and five million transients served monthly) a young Arab man came up, shook my hand and said: “You are very nice looking”. Then, quietly as he walked away, “I like you”. I didn’t know whether to sit or follow. Not long to go. I charged my phone again just for something to do. The airport became more and more busy after 10pm. At 2am it was heaving again.

Dubai — little more than a large sand-trap half a century ago — will soon have the largest airport in the world. In fact, it may well have become so in the time it took me to get from Gate C — by walking, lift, train, travelator and more walking — to my new departure gate.

Sitting under the towering indoor palm trees I was weary but wide awake and eager to get on that plane. I made damn sure I did. You could easily spend 24 hours in Dubai airport. But are you a crazy person? If a bug flying into your mouth is a highpoint . . .

Graham Reid paid twice to fly to Stockholm from Dubai. He hasn’t missed a plane since.