Michael Jackson at Wild Wadi?

I just saw on Foxtel a story that Michael Jackson hired out a "water theme park in Dubai" where he and family and friends spent a day - apparently Jacko had on a white lycra bodysuit covering everything except his eyes nose and mouth, scared of exposure to the sun.

Lucky he hired the whole joint out because when we were there people were pretty fucking rude. They all bump you hip and shoulder trying to cut in line, and when you tell them to fucking calm down and turn to get served their arms come in over the top with their ticket or whatever, waving at the girl behind the counter still trying urgently to be served first. Mostly expat arabs behave like this over there. Xmas day at a hotel dinner they had free presents, it was like a fucking riot, with screaming matches, shoving and kids nearly getting trampled by adults. It was quite disgusting and depressing.

It's one of those funny cultural things. Being stared at over there by Indian labourers is one thing - guys who don't think it's rude and really don't mean any offence, they're standing around with a finger up the nose minding their own business (anyone who thinks I'm being racist doesn't know me well, those who do will testify that I have my finger deep in my nose for a large part of the day) and some wierd dude walks past, so they stare. But this other thing is just a bizzare lack of courtesy. There is a perception that the English are particularly pompous, but I think AUstralians, while perceived as being fairly relaxed, are a bit pompous too in the sense that we are taught that to be rude is shameful. Even yanks don't mind talking loudly over tourguides while the rest of the bus is trying to hear what's going on, on this tour they paid money to go on. It's not that we're inherently more polite, it's that we would feel ashamed if we behaved rudely in that way. It's the kind of thing you might do if you were drunk.