You gotta smile.

I really don't like shopping.

It gets worse when sales assistants invade my personal space hovering two millimetres from me, when other shoppers insist on pushing in front of me to look at whatever it is I'm trying to look at, when the shop doesn't bother to display things in an orderly way so that I'm expected to spend hours trying to find what I want. I get very irritable.

But, in Dubai there are plenty of things that make it a little less annoying and even raise a smile or two.

Example, I'm in Spinneys pork department and in the big display of meat there are three trays of obviously different types of sausages. I point at the middle tray and ask the 'butcher' "What type are those?"

His face registers 'you're stupid' as he tells me "Sausages, Sir."

Silly me.

Someone comes from the back room to tell me they're Cumberland.

And simply walking around, you come across things that raise a smile. This is quite a common phrase on signs...



Then, you wonder what on earth they sell at Mega Mall...



Something different to hang the clothes on...



And wandering through Deira yesterday, I noticed this one. Not good for business confidence I would have thought...