Dear Professor
Several months ago I started giving a friend of a friend a ride to work. He refuses to drive himself because of high-blood pressure. His office is close to mine and dropping him off requires a small detour. More often than not I also give him a lift home. I didn't mind at first, but now I'm starting to get really annoyed by him. He taps his fingers on the dashboard throughout the journey, makes lewd comments about good-looking women in passing cars, and slyly passes wind without apologising or confessing his crime - which turns my car into a foul-smelling torture chamber. Worst of all, he has never offered to give me a single dirham towards fuel costs. He claims to earn a low wage, yet he is a single guy with no responsibilities and wears designer-brand clothes. How do I kick him into touch, so to speak?
Rahul
Rahul, you feeble sap! Can't you see that you're the one being taken for a ride here? By now, I would have had one of those James Bond ejector seats installed in my car so that I could dispense with this leech's company at the flick of a switch. You say he refuses to drive due to a medical condition. But I think it's because he is of a timid disposition. A man who, as the well-known Siberian saying goes, ‘flees the forest at the sight of a one-legged bear' (OK, so it sounds a lot better in the original Russian). Let's look at the evidence. He ogles the fairer sex from afar, preferring to shoot them lusty looks from the safety of a speeding car than chatting them up face-to-face. He has never once owned up to his flatulence, despite the fact that there are only two of you in the car. And he doesn't even have the generosity to cough up half the petrol money. Tell him you have a sister who is desperately looking for a husband. Mention that she shares many of his interests. Tell him she is so mind-blowingly beautiful that she would have reduced Don Juan himself to a blushing, weak-kneed mute. Once he's been lulled into the idea of becoming her other half, whip out a photograph of the ugliest wart-nosed hag this side of an aerial broomstick convention. Tell him she can't wait to meet him and has already started planning their romantic honeymoon. In Baghdad.
If he turns up for his ride the next day, my name is Nelson Mandela.
Yo, wassup, Tufflov!
I've been living in Dubai all of my 21 years, and now that it's time for me to get a job, my parents say I need to stop acting like an American rapper. I can't help the way I speak and dress. Due to the homies - I mean friends - that I hang around with on the mean streets of Satwa I've been reared on a cultural diet of Jay-Z, Phat Farm sportswear and Hollywood action movies. How can I become normal, bro?
Yousef
You need to be respectful of your elders for a start, Yousef. Starting your letter with "Yo wassup" and addressing me as "bro" is the behaviour of a lout. Painful as it may be, you need to toss your entire collection of rap CDs in the garbage and spend a bit of time listening to the likes of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Once you are able to recognise their genius over the likes of Eminem and Usher (I can't believe I mentioned Prokofiev and Usher in the same sentence) you will find yourself on the path to real manhood and, dare I say it, sophistication. Sound good, bro?
Dear Professor,
Do long distance relationships work? My other half lives in Abu Dhabi and I live in Dubai and we see each other on weekends. It's tough, and I seem to be spending all my evenings on Skype. How much longer can we go on like this?
Marco
I refer you to my Filipino plumber, Ricky, who just happened to be fixing the bathroom pipes in my villa when I read your letter out loud. Ricky, normally a calm and gentle soul, expressed the following with the ferocity of a Manny Pacquiao jab: "Seriously, Marco, I'd like to put you in a headlock and beat some sense into you. You think Dubai-Abu Dhabi is a long distance relationship? My wife and child are in the Philippines and I haven't seen them for nine months. Grow some balls and quit complaining!" Nicely put, Ricky!
