Sometimes you just want to go somewhere where everyday life feels far away. Where things are not quite real. I get that feeling when I’m in Dubai – which is also known in my head as Arabic Disneyland. It’s all so clean and shiny and sparkly and unreal – and that’s just the airport…

There are many elements of the UAE that don’t sit well with me, like their environmental degradation and poor labour laws, but I seem able to ignore those when visiting friends for a luxurious couple of days. And a surreal balcony vista like this helps make my daily stresses feel very distant.

Dubai's motto: build it and they will come? The marina awaits its floating tenants.