Interesting profile in Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/fe...4/dubai-201104
Interesting profile in Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/fe...4/dubai-201104
Dubai is the parable of what money makes when it has no purpose but its own multiplication and grandeur.Originally Posted by Hermes
Glad to know I'm not the only person who thinks Meydan is rather hideous.
First rule: Try always to do what's right for the horse. The people part will work out. -- Josh Pons, Merryland, 2007
This writer is a hack, though. A.A. Gill is just a restaurant critic in Great Britain who goes out of his way to offend and personally trash others on a regular basis. While Dubai would not be my cup of tea, either, and I have no doubt that his superficial expose of the Emirate is about right...anyone who goes by the pen name A.A. Gill shouldn't talk.;-)
Other than that, he did get the purse of the DWC wrong. Yes it is 10 million. But in total, the winner receives about 60% of that. If you want to be gratuitously vituperative in Vanity Fair, at least be accurate.
I'm familiar with Gill's M.O. Still find it refreshing compared to the vapidity of the turf press coverage of Dubai. That mistake about the purse is quite common among the mainstream press -- and the essence of it is true: $10,000,000 to the connections of one horse for winning one race.This writer is a hack, though. A.A. Gill is just a restaurant critic in Great Britain who goes out of his way to offend and personally trash others on a regular basis. While Dubai would not be my cup of tea, either, and I have no doubt that his superficial expose of the Emirate is about right...anyone who goes by the pen name A.A. Gill shouldn't talk.;-)
Other than that, he did get the purse of the DWC wrong. Yes it is 10 million. But in total, the winner receives about 60% of that. If you want to be gratuitously vituperative in Vanity Fair, at least be accurate.
First rule: Try always to do what's right for the horse. The people part will work out. -- Josh Pons, Merryland, 2007
I much prefer Chris Hitchins in that tone...Hope he's still hanging on.This writer is a hack, though. A.A. Gill is just a restaurant critic in Great Britain who goes out of his way to offend and personally trash others on a regular basis. While Dubai would not be my cup of tea, either, and I have no doubt that his superficial expose of the Emirate is about right...anyone who goes by the pen name A.A. Gill shouldn't talk.;-)
Other than that, he did get the purse of the DWC wrong. Yes it is 10 million. But in total, the winner receives about 60% of that. If you want to be gratuitously vituperative in Vanity Fair, at least be accurate.
I assure you the essence of the difference between 6 million vs. 10 million to the winner is quite profound. Don't even know why you would defend a mistake like that in major international publication or excuse it. Not that hard to fact check in fact.
I didn't find his downright prejudicial tirade that refreshing, but somewhat amusing nonetheless.
Sorry for my error, but I don't find the difference to be particularly profound. It's an utterly ridiculous amount, whichever way you parse it, to give out on a horse race. That was his point -- and he's right.
First rule: Try always to do what's right for the horse. The people part will work out. -- Josh Pons, Merryland, 2007
No he is as wrong as you are. It isn't a parse, either, it is a flat out mistake. (I don't care if they give out 50 million for one race.) Say it is a race valued in total purse at 10 million, not that 10 million goes to the winner, which is completely fictional and not justified in a desire to make a point. If it is such a dramatic point to be made, then I am sure it could have stood accurately on its own. Anytime someone, but particularly a journalist in a well known famous publication on a large stage, gets something so simple so wrong it reduces their own credibility. Especially when they are going out of their way to be nasty and extraordinarily one sided.
Hermes, you make an excellent point and I hope you cut and paste the above rant and email it straight to A.A. Gill in care of Vanity Fair, if you haven't already.
After watching several days of the gooey HRTV coverage (although a lot of it I think is not their own feed) its nice to read something one-sided on the other side. It seems to be a requirement for being interviewed that you agree to have toffee all over your nose.
I ran marathons. I saw the Taj Mahal by moonlight. I drove Highway 1 in a convertible. I petted Zenyatta.
*Snort*
The vulgarity of Dubai does make me cringe at times, but I guess racism's ok when it's aimed against rich Arabs. Blech.
Anthony Bourdain went to Dubai last year for one of his "No Reservations" shows, which peered beyond the country's glitz and materialistic facade.
He went into the homes of U.A.E. natives to sit down for a meal with their families, as well as to cafés serving working people and local restaurants off the beaten path. The show also looked at camel racing with robot jockeys.
It offered a more balanced look at the good and bad that is modern Dubai, in contrast to the Vanity Fair article that trashes the place.
"Sinclair Lewis aptly predicted in It Can't Happen Here that if fascism came to America it would come wrapped in the flag and whistling The Star Spangled Banner." ~Harrison Evans Salisbury
Don't knock Dubai. The world used to look at us as the most self centered and self serving. We have been replaced in grand style.
Everyone come home sound
Great article what gets me about Dubai are there foreign working class slaves they take their passport once they arrive it must be scary.
Dubai's pretty much one of those places that you either like or dislike. I found Meydan to be amazing, but to each their own.
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