Knightsbridge is London's pop up oasis
It is 7.15pm outside Ladurée, the chichi designer macaroon café attached to the normally quieter back end of Harrods at the corner of Hans Road and Basil Street. It's a coolish July evening but the narrow, doglegging streets around the famous Knightsbridge brownstone are rapidly hotting up.
Forget Geneva and the fuddy-duddy old Festival of Speed at Goodwood. If it's sheer automotive flash and bestial muscle you like in your motor show, check out this central London location on any given evening from July through early August and you won't believe your eyes.
Here comes a low-riding Lamborghini Murciélago with a matt black, Batmobile-spec paint job and a garish yellow leather interior. Two boys, no older than 20, both wearing gold sunglasses, sit inside pumping the stereo and the gas pedal. The engine makes a noise like a scalded rottweiler as it is jockeyed up to its parking position, two wheels on, two wheels off the pavement. I can't help noticing that it has no number plate on the front.
As if to upstage the Italian super-car, an even more super one rocks up — a £1 million Bugatti Veyron. Every inch of its bodywork has been gold-plated.
Three vehicles behind is another Veyron. This one is white with chromium wings. The driver gets out — he is about 25 and dressed like an off-duty Lewis Hamilton. I compliment him on his car and ask him how he got it over to London. “In my plane!” he says with a huge grin and hands the keys to a flunkey.
The live action game of Top Gear Top Trumps continues with a pearl-white, four-door Porsche Panamera. The Porsche parks in a “pay and display” bay, but its driver does neither. With a pip of his locking zapper he disappears into a Harrods side door.
Around the corner is a Rolls-Royce Phantom customised with a stainless steel bonnet. The number plate on this car is “1”. Later on, I will Google-search this vehicle and discover something quite extraordinary; a couple of years back the Dubai resident owner of this car paid out the sum of, wait for it, $14 million for the registration number alone ... just to be top dog, number one in Dubai.
Now an arrogantly long Maybach limousine painted in distinct orange and matt black arrives. The letters “RRR” are picked out on the vehicle's boot in a diamond-studded font. A handsome young man and his friend (or PA? or bodyguard?) apparently dressed for a night out at Movida — faded jeans, Hermès belt, Ralph Lauren polo shirt, pastel suede Hermès driving shoes and bronze tint aviators — roll out and head off into the dark green and brass of Harrods for some late-night shopping.
This is Crown Prince Sheikh Ammar bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, flamboyant petrolhead son of the multibillionaire HRH Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi of Ajman. Ajman, in case you didn't know (I certainly didn't), is the smallest emirate in the United Arab Emirates but has grand plans to become a mini Dubai. RRR is the banner for the Crown Prince's vast portfolio of orange and black super-cars — it stands for Rich in Real Estate Resources.
I talk to a parking warden in Basil Street who takes off his hat to reveal a sweaty forehead. How do you go about writing tickets to these guys? I ask. “It's impossible,” he says, showing me the computerised ticket machine he wears around his neck. “This thing only has numbers and letters on it. Their number plates just …” He tails off, struggling for the right word. “Look like squiggles?” I suggest. “Yeah. There are no keys on my machine for those.”
Meanwhile, a man and his young wife walk up to the café's reception. Laden with shopping bags he is dressed, as all these rich young Arab men seem to be, like an aspirant R&B superstar in acid wash jeans, gold-rimmed shades and one of those rococo rock 'n' roll T-shirts by Ed Hardy.
She has a mobile phone clamped to her face and huge Dior sunglasses picked out with diamante around the rims. I notice that there is a small Gucci logo on the arm of her floor-length burka — Prada and Chanel burkas are also available.
They join the polite café society scene underneath the eau-de-nil awnings outside and order diet Cokes, £15 club sandwiches and plates of pink macaroons. Every single table here at Ladurée, at the Café Rouge opposite and the Patisserie Valerie around the corner, is taken by people from the Gulf states and the Middle East — Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Dubai.
The groups are either well-behaved families with Mum still in her abaya headscarf and big shades, groups of giggly young girls or groups of posturing young boys all in Arab-preppy finery, two or three mobile phones each, keys to Ferraris and Lamborghinis chucked down next to their napkins.
The young women from the more liberated countries of Bahrain and Dubai are dolled up like J-Lo (they must watch an awful lot of MTV back home).The girls who choose to keep wearing their burkas — mostly Saudi Arabians, I am told — are extravagantly made up with kohl-lined eyes and red lipstick.
A subtle courtship ritual may be at play here but if it is, it is too subtle for me to detect. Indeed, there seems to be little or no interaction between the sexes. Everyone pays with cash produced in wads from croc wallets. No wonder locals call the area “Little Kuwait” during August.
For the mega-wealthy oil billionaire families of the Gulf states, summertime means central London. When temperatures at home hit 50 degrees, they flock to the capital for the cool weather, the thriving social scene and the shopping — especially at Harrods which is, rather neatly, now owned by the Qatari royal family's investment arm.
Some keep summer houses in London — there are said to be more than 100 billionaire Saudi families with second homes in the Knightsbridge area alone — while others prefer out-of-town locations such as Bishops Avenue, Coombe Hill in Kingston and St George's Hill in Weybridge.
They'll go to the Derby, Royal Ascot and the Berkshire Festival of Falconry, which is sponsored by the Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Falconers' Club and attended by His Highness Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan.
Otherwise, whole floors of hotels around Hyde Park — the Jumeirah Carlton Tower now owned by the famous Dubai group and the Four Seasons Hotel, owned by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al-Saud (who also owns the Savoy Hotel) — are block-booked.
During the days, the women have their drivers drop them in Hyde Park where they promenade around the Serpentine, stopping to soak up the coolness and cloudy skies on the benches or laying out on the grass in large circles with their friends. And then there's shopping.
The men rise later, do some shopping (lots of gift-giving to do on these holidays), maybe head to the cafés of Edgware Road for quail eggs and brioche or smoke a bit of sheesha, then get into their cars for a cruise.
This influx of super-rich holidaymakers and others attracted by such wealth has not pleased everyone. Last year, the Evening Standard reported how complaints from people living in the area adjacent to Ladurée had led to summertime tension. Beggars, drug deals and road rage-generated fist-fights were mentioned.
This year police have reacted by issuing an anti-social order around the busy café that lasts from April 1 to September 30; all summer long, basically. Now anyone creating a nuisance in a zone that extends from West Yeoman's Row, Lennox Gardens, Ovington Square, Brompton Road, Lowndes Square and Pont Street, can be removed, and rowdy, revving groups can be quickly dispersed.
But the first anti-social behaviour order in Knightsbridge history doesn't seem to have put anyone off.
London, especially during these straitened times, does go to great lengths to court Arab business. When the people at Harvey Nics discovered that the year-on-year Arabic spend figures in the Knightsbridge area were showing a 66 per cent increase, the department store extended its hours to 9pm all week and the Fifth Floor food hall got a sheesha smoking terrace. An advertising campaign with a playful Arabic creative theme showed a picture of a single Lanvin shoe. The strapline below, written in Arabic, read “The English are known for having bad teeth, that is why they need beautiful shoes.”
But what's the big deal about shabby old London anyway? Yes, we have nice shoes, but can't you get those anywhere? Doesn't our capital seem a bit old and worn compared with bandbox-new Saudi?
“Many o
f the visitors from the Gulf states will tell you that they come to London because, unlike in the US or France, they are made to feel welcome here,” says Hussam Baramo, a Syrian-born, London-based features editor at Al Quds newspaper.
“Many of the younger, more fashion-conscious visitors from Qatar, Dubai and Bahrain even prefer to speak English (rather than Arabic) to each other, throwing in bits of youth slang they have learned off the TV.
“They think this is more modern. You hear reports of women getting changed out of their burkas on the aeroplane so that they can feel free as soon as they land. They like London because they think it is safe and friendly.”
However, London is just a holiday, and once the temperature drops, westernised behaviour is put aside for another year. All the shopping and beautiful cars are loaded onto private planes and everyone heads home for the start, on August 11 this year, of the holy month of Ramadan.
The Brits are usually low key. They don't mind outsiders buying things, it's usually the Ostentatiousness that turns them off ..
However, media like The Daily Mail, Daily express etc tend to highlight these things and turn them into issues, when they are not - to the ordinary man.
and as we all know, no one likes to be colonised, only coloniser :)
And don't forget the American Glazer family that own Manchester United. That received loads of negative publicity and sarcastic remarks about how he thought he was buying an American football team, etc.
The reality is that no country likes to see foreigners flaunting their wealth and finds ways to criticize when they do, Britain and Qatar included. Plenty here have made remarks about Western frauds and leeches. The Evening Standard is a little more subtle, but then their audience is not people in the Gulf but rather the middle-aged English middleclass at home, who would have seen the negative tone of this article to be about as subtle as a brick wall.
Britain claimed over a quarter of the world's surface at its height; seems only fair that the old colonies get a chance to colonize it back.
Chelski and its owner - Touchy subject.. Now Man City have been bought by Royals from Abu Dhabi ...:O(
By the way, the Russkies are also snapping up luxury property in Dubai..
or buying designer bags shouldn't be a reason to attack someone or even turn up your nose. But there is a lot of jealousy in human nature and right now the economic crises intensifies that. Londoners have never been fond of having their city taken over by tourists who can enjoy the things many locals can't afford to, but that's life, right? Besides, we've always been a bit snobby about "new wealth" and "old money" and maybe it's time we had our nose rubbed in it a bit to make us get down off our self-styled pedestal. ;)
I think we're also experiencing second thoughts about selling off so much of our real estate and "heritage", although it has been necessary to remain solvent. Still, it's bound to concern many and we'll see more articles like this.
I'll have to be sure to head over knightbridge when I am in London next week to chek out the cars. Maybe I'll run into some of my colleagues from work ;)
And the English middleclass make fun of the Russians and Japanese (but not so much any more) for it in London, too. And they have been doing it to Americans for generations. Here's an example of Russian bashing in the English press:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-458832/Invasion-Russian-gold-diggers.html
Lots more where this came from--specially when Russians started buying English football clubs.
Thank you :)
Squandering wealth is not flattering at all,but I don't see how hanging out in a Posh cafe or buying a gucci handbag can be called that. As I think many can afford that not only royals or the super rich. I see also, Japanese & Russian tourists attracted to luxury traveling
I guess it all depends in people preferred lifestyle
exactly. the ES can be a snobby paper and aims at the over-forty male middleclass english readership. anyone who knows the paper will know that portraits of conspicuous materialism like this are not meant to be a flattering. is the author motivated by jealousy? probably at least a little. if anything it reflects the growing discomfort england has with increasingly visible arab wealth. backlash like banning veils (67% want to) is how some deal with it.
@scotia. youre paranoid. i just met you here but considering how we got into it and you woudnt let go i am guessing youve made plenty of enemies. either this lady is an old one or a new one. i dont care. just put your ballcap back on and leave me out of your delusions and conspiracy theories mate.
am off on holiday. including london ironically. see you folks after ramadan.
resent that many brits have towards what they see as the conspicuous consumption of the Khaleejis that summer in the UK. Yes, their money is welcomed in these hard times, but trust me that this is not a positive article at all. The average brit will read it and turn up their nose at gulf arabs if this is their only real knowledge of them. Note the descriptions of the way khaleejis dress and the attention to their cars (and planes). I think the article is not flattering at all, but certainly understand it being interesting to qataris (or those of us who live in qatar). London has been so welcoming because it is multicultural and going through very hard times economically. Can't say anyone really likes their nose rubbed in others excessive wealth.
On the other hand, the one thing I do agree with scotia about is that they have every right to enjoy their wealth as they choose.
Thanks for posting this, mate, and enjoy your holiday.
Scotiabank, just ignore them. They are here to provoke you
Apparently, all what you wrote earlier is so true about those guys or else
They wouldn't bother having you banned
I don't think the article is plainly sarcastic. but just a close up life style report
Gulf arabs like london because of the weather & its multiculturalism . In addition, london as a tourist Destination offers high end shopping, haute cuisine restaurants, and has fabulous theater scene
To many , this is the form of tourism they enjoy.
thank you ghazalz, you obviously smart to see that this poster is not genuine and only trying to stir trouble. It's a fake account obviously created by we know who, just trying to make me look bad.
seniormom, please grow up!
Interesting, this poster suddenly decided to sign up now and post this, if we scroll up above we will see where I simply said I found this article to be a good thing I was called a "wannabe" among other insults by papajohn for no reason, and then other threads the same thing papajohn started hounding and posting about me. Same threads "seniormom" decided to copy and paste this long history essay... is this how desperate you are papajohn? just because you insulted me with wrong information and I posted news articles proving you to be wrong? Making fake accounts won't help you appear smarter.
Dear Moderators and Qatar Living contributors,
*I am putting this letter on several threads in hopes that people will see this and take notice*
I have visited Qatar Living's website for over a year, enjoying the friendly advice and informative discussions. I have never bothered signing up for an account with Qatar Living until now, because, quite honestly, I am a bit behind the times when it comes to computers. However, watching the user named Scotiabank hound other participants these past two nights has infuriated me. He is the definition of a cyber bully, violating the rules of conduct and ruining discussions.
I have watched as he follows someone across QL to hound them. Yes, others have risen to his baiting, and they should be a little embarrassed, but the user Scotiabank's behavior is shameful and against the rules. After seeing his handiwork again this evening, I took some time to look up his other posts and discovered that he has been doing this for over a year, calling names, insulting nationalities, making racist and threatening remarks, and being generally divisive and inflammatory. The moderators have deleted many of his posts for abuse and last night even threatened to remove him. It is clear he has not learned his lesson, and so the threat should be carried out. Let him back in later if you must, but put him in "time out" for a good long while.
Some say Scotiabank is an "impostor" and that he has fabricated his user identity. I have found no proof of this beyond the accusations made on quite a few occasions. Many of the posts his accusers refer to as holding proof have been deleted or edited, so I cannot pass judgment but is is a little suspicious. At the end of the day it does not really matter much as I suppose plenty of others do a little fudging on their biography page.
I suppose now this Scotiabank will take a stab at me, calling me a thug, slut, leech or whatever filth his mind can conjure. And he will then blame everyone else for his misdeeds. But I am a forty-six-year-old grandma from Texas, so hardly the type. I am Christian but I have great respect for all those who are devout in their religion and I found the devoutness of some of our Muslim neighbors to be inspirational. I am no longer in Qatar, so I have little to lose here. I just like coming on to Qatar Living and reading about what is new with a people and a country that I found to be so welcoming.
Anyway . . . I have said my peace. I will not log-on to Qatar Living for a while, because I do not what to read the nastiness that Scotiabank uses against me. Hopefully when I do come back the moderators will have removed it and him, and Qatar Living will be a better place.
With all the best and sincerest of wishes,
seniormom
It's ok to make mistakes, but after your rant and attempt to mock me for pointing that fact you look like a major fool when I exposed the truth, so it is us who have to be suspicious about any of your claims from now on. And who is it claiming I am an impostor? Oh yeah your fellow internet thug on here. You're the one who entered other threads I posted in and quoted me to mock also, I can expose you again if you wish, believe me I am more sorry than anyone for debating with a net thug who gets angry about incorrect information he has. LOL.
Per Scotia's post above. good for qatar for overtaking the USA as the leading producer for LNG. happy to admit that I was looking at an article from earlier in the year and was mistaken. not a big deal.
scotiabank . . . now that fellow QLers have identified you as an impostor who has fabricated a false identity here i have no desire to have exchanges with you. i enjoyed our earlier exchanges as entertaining sparing, but since you are not who you say you are that makes them creepy and meaningless. stop following me around QL and trying to engage with me. i REALLY am done talking to you.
You mean you don't respond to posters who exposed your ignorance on topics you know nothing about.
i dont respond to impostors. go lie to someone else.
just read on the other thread you are an impostor and i wont waste my time responding. reading your posts and winding you up is not even worth the humor value if your are not genuine.
Oh yes, I was called an imposter by someone who enjoyed a negative post about Qatar, a post that the the original poster as a qatari has also said he found offensive. You and your internet gangsters enjoy being bad boys online, such wonderful lives you lead! LOL! If you want to argue with me at least get your facts straight, haven't you learned already from your rant about LNG where I proved you wrong with a simple article? LOL.
I read the first line of you post then stopped, can't be bothered to read an essay on 'insecurity' by someone who just got upset about how other people choose to spend their own money! LOL @ the irony.
sounds like youve got some real insecurity issues chief. you took my obvious point about the article's sarcasm and lashed out. clearly a sign of impotence. why dont you go buy something and feel better about yourself? vpn will get you an ip address anywhere in the world. mine says i'm in the US so i dont have to deal with qtel censorship.
if you are in london why are you logging into ql and not out being admired? my excuse is that i am in doha. why ask me what i am doing in doha? what are you doing? do you actually do anything for a living? oh wait, I forgot, you are a kid at home in doha wearing a baseball cap and playing on your xbox that was bought with borrowed money. whos jealous of that?
btw in english "damn" is technically a blasphemous curse. hope no one reports you or its seven years and the lash.
LOL I just noticed this jealous hater tried to imply I am a habarabish, I am in London right now you loser, mods can check my IP and prove it. Damn you are a jealous loser.
sure i'm a wannabe and I wannabe just like the people in the article--empty and materialistic. trust me the article is making fun of these people, and anyone with half an education can see it. the ES is a snobby paper and looks down on new money and is always running stealth sarcasm pieces like this. when it writes about hollywood stars like this the ES is making fun of americans.
the fact that you admire these people is sad and what are you, a self-professed muslim doing worshiping these false idols? and wanting to be one of these idols so that you will be worshiped? and what do you mean "we can enjoy these luxuries"? youre not one of the people in the article. i bet you wear a baseball hat but dont know what baseball is and listen to gansta rap and refer to your teenage friends at hagen daz as your crew. lol!
please, please respond to this to tell me how cool you really are. or tell me about all the great stuff you bought at your local mall today and how that makes you the envy of the world
You wrote two paragraphs all filled jumping to conclusions and no facts. How do you know if they give charity or not? Who the hell are you to say how people should spend their money? And why are you in Qatar (don't say culture because you already expressed how you feel about it in another thread)? You are just jealous, maybe some are materialistic, but some are enjoying their wealth. And why you bring islam into this? But even from islamic perspective, if you give zakat and follow the pillars you are encouraged to enjoy your wealth.
Where did I say I admire them? Damn you are one angry jealous man. Bet all you want on whatever but don't put money on it because clearly you don't have much of it and just jealous of those who do.
funny how these people agree and loved the article in new york times saying bad things about qatar (most of it fake)and they see it as a good thing, but these kind ofarticles are "bad",lol! funny how jealousy works.
no pappajohns, it just shows your are jealous. So articles in hollywood about what stars are buying is also saracastic? please, those people are worshiped and spend money like this too. dont be jealous that we can enjoy these luxuries and you cant.
that you saw this as something positive shows what a wannabe you are scotiabank. the article is making fun these people's shallowness and materialism. cant you understand sarcasm? sad oh so sad.
Louis Vuitton in Villagio for the exact same reason;-P
I was in Cannes and St. Tropez a few years ago and felt like a beggar..
London does rock though :O)
I liked this article, for once positive thing about us.
To be fair rich kids show-off everywhere.
They contribute to the economy. Why not !
Nice article...had a visual effect!!TFS
During summer in some areas you find mostly arabs showing off:)
I never thought London would be such a sought after destination to get away from bad weather ;)
its all about selling Petro, getting Dollar, spending..............hmmm, i'll leave it.
This article was featured on london evening standandard on 14 th of July .
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23856048-knightsbridge-is-londons-pop-up-oasis.do
It captures a glimpse of how some "khalijjis" spend their vacations in London or Paris