Sitting Outside

The roast pork smell of old Charlie next door practising fire-walking in the garden certainly adds something to the morning ambience. The balcony came with a discarded lady's shoe (word order matters!), a pair of colonial khakis and an impenetrable story that improves on every telling. Dust is of the essence. He who sweeps clean destroys history. Nice one Charlie!

For Honoured Guests

Doha Stufital is not the Paranormal, and never will be. In fact it's a pretty dismal place with expensive beer (double the Para happy hour prices), a no-cash bar (you have to buy beer-tokens in the lobby), typically a 30:1 male:female ratio, toilets a roach would run from, and, following last month's refurbishment, a roped off V.I.P. seating area. This last passeth all understanding. Surely we all know that when His Royal Highness has a burning urge to boogie on down to the Filipino band he prefers to come in mufti and blend in with the lads from Kerala? Don't we all?

Don't cry for me, Paranormal

Things change, and Paraglider is finding it increasingly difficult to eulogise the Paranormal from afar. Now based in Qatar, visits to Dubai are all too infrequent. What, then, to do with The Paranormal Hotel blog? Three ideas come to mind: 1 - just let it exist as a strange memorial of a time and place, 2 - take it down, 3 - start writing about Qatar's nearest equivalent, the Stufital, instead. Much deliberation went into this trilemma. But option 3 prevailed. The blog title will of course no longer reflect the content, but worse things happen in the Middle East. Regular readers are of course welcome to provide news from the Paranormal in comments.

Your Feet's Too Big

There's good posture, and there's presence. Anna has both, especially the latter. And eyes. Eyes that don't so much look as inhale. Rather like the old Superman comics: Aside - With my X-ray vision, I can see that he's carrying a ray-gun in his haversack. It turns out (since you have no option but to talk to her) that her father was in the KGB and doesn't know she's in Dubai. Which says a lot for intelligence. And that she was an aspiring ballet dancer with a wodge of potential until, sadly, her feet grew too big. Well, they're not huge, but, looking down, her story is certainly believable. Still, you might think there would be some happy medium between stardom and the Para. Maybe some modern dance troupe with progressive attitudes towards feet? Apparently not. So it's good to know that the Paranormal is there, rather like a donkey sanctuary, for ballerinas in free-fall.