View from Leopold’s of London Cafe, Abu Dhabi

The water lay dark and still, a reflection of the night sky. Around its bay-shores sparse and dim lights murmured on its dead surface, blurring like smudges, misshapen and utterly accidental. Above and behind those shores were such arrays and variations of lights fantastic, coloured, bright, dim, electric, fluorescent, neon, kaleidoscopic, piercing, flashing, irritating the eyes and disguising the reality of the buildings and streets which lay immersed beneath them. The scene was like a fairground, a thing shouting so much promise from afar yet a place when finally met yielding only broken machines, maddening cacophony, the stench of sick and burnt popcorn, and the squawking of deluded youth amongst ruined fantasies.