Tales of a middle-eastern horse machine...

OK, so I'm not quite sure if agreeing to take the villa with an eccentric, Iranian inventor living downstairs was the best decision I ever made, but you know what, nothing's going to compare with the one we saw in the middle of the desert. And besides, this one is only 2,500 AED each a month, if we share a room, which is less than I paid for my shoebox in London and leaves me even more of my monthly salary to spend on hanging out in posh bars and restaurants, trying to find a rich boyfriend.

I'll admit, sharing a room isn't ideal. It's sort of like reversing in status from independent London career-woman, to student backpacker, even though T and I get on well and clearly won't steal each other's 'labelled' baked beans. The carpet in it is pretty minging, too. Well, it's new, but it's brown with a weird pattern on it that looks like something my nan might have had installed for visual entertainment in 1964. But it's big enough for the two single beds the landlord has promised to put in there and it comes with a telly and built in wardrobes. The bathroom, we'll have to share with the three or four other randoms about to move in (God knows who they are), and the kitchen doesn't have a cooker.. Oh OK, it's a shit-hole. Dammit. But we're seeing it as a temporary solution.

We could, of course, have considered crane-surfing, which I'm guessing is probably the Dubian equivalent of couch-surfing? There are so many of them here. I think 70% of the world's crane population resides in Dubai. Or is it that there are eight cranes per family of three? Something like that. Anyway, there are so many of them that should we adopt their cabins as our night-time shelter I'm not sure anyone would notice . Mind you, you can just see it on the news, can't you: "CRANE SURFING BRITS, WANTED IN 7 EMIRATES".

Back to the Iranian inventor. He seems to be a very sweet man, who's renting this villa in case any clients want to come and stay. By clients, I mean people who might be interested in funding his latest invention, which happens to be a car that's powered by a horse, running on a conveyor belt. No, seriously.

When we sat down in his ground-floor living room and he faced us, twiddling his thumbs and enquiring as to our heritage (very common here and not considered to exhibit possible prejudice at all), a quick glance around the room revealed a professionally produced display stand, featuring this 'fleet-horse' machine. He also had a map on the wall, of the world tour he's planning to take in this contraption. "I was going to start in UAE," he told us, "but now I think I start in America".

Because they won't laugh at him there?

When we got outside, there was actually a 'fleet-horse' on the driveway. Amazing. It looks a bit like a greenhouse on a tractor, with a strappy apparatus in the middle, presumably to hold the horse in place. The polythene surrounding, apparently, he's going to market as an advertising tool - the idea being that companies will pay him to display their logos and slogans on the side of this thing. Well, I'm sure it will attract a lot of attention. I know I'd certainly stop and stare at a galloping horse, doing a treadmill workout on the motorway. in a greenhouse. Even if I'd call the RSPCA afterwards.

I'm not sure he's really thought the whole thing through, you know. When I pointed at the suffocating, polythene sheath, trapping the desert heat inside and threatening to melt his entire invention all over the driveway, I asked: "Won't the horse get a bit hot in there, seeing as it's 45 degrees outside?" He looked at me for a second; then at the floor, as though a little dream had just been crushed.

"Shit, I have to start all over again", said his eyes.
"Er, yes. I just, er. put something inside,.. um. some cooling", said his mouth.

Yes, I think living with him will prove quite interesting. Maybe he'll even let me go on the road with him? Maybe I'll become the stable girl and recognise my true calling as a travelling salesman? Or maybe, when he pops his clogs through heat exhaustion, I'll just inherit his villa.