French footprints, Xtreme chicken and corporate dead wood

So much to rant about, so little space. The first order of business is to point out with a mixture of elation and anxiety the implications of France’s new, enlarged military and artistic footprint in Abu Dhabi. On one hand, it will be a true joy to expand the French connection in the UAE’s increasingly cosmopolitan urban landscape: it may finally be possible, for example, to get a halfway decent pain au chocolat along with one’s daily naan. And while one may be justifiably sceptical about the deterrent factor of a Ligne Maginot in the Gulf, it will doubtless help alleviate one of the long-standing concerns of investors to know that an attack on the UAE is an attack on France. On the other hand, this does virtually guarantee a mini-invasion of Francophones vying with the SUVs for sidewalks on which to park their Peugeots and Citroens. They’ll doubtless complain that the malls should be open air, rather than air conditioned. It seems only a matter of time, moreover, before this column is published entirely in French.

Oh well, c’est la crise. If the Anglo-American economic model wasn’t so tattered, it might well have been Barack Obama, the US president, or Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, standing in Mina Zayed port this week. Speaking of which, this week’s column was originally intended to be written live at the Dubai-based Institute for Corporate Governance (Hawkamah) symposium on insolvency laws and creditor rights systems in the MENA region, held yesterday at the Hilton in Abu Dhabi.

Unfortunately, composing a column on-site for a modern newspaper requires wireless internet access, a convenience that the Hilton’s business centre deems to be worth more than Dh200 (US$54.45) in value. While this may be true under the circumstances, this columnist refuses to pay high fees for something that in decent hotels has become as commonplace as lights and running water. Charging hotel visitors for Wi-Fi these days is like charging them to use the toilets. The Hilton’s management, for the record, apologised, explaining that the fees were imposed by a third-party company that runs the hotel’s business centre.