Spinal Tap and the Haddock's Bathing Costume

I found this from the Dubai trip in November 2012 which I had written but not published - seems a pity to waste it...

When I go to the Gulf it rains (see Just Like Home 2). It did it in Qatar, Oman and now in Dubai. My visit coincided with the day we got access to what would be the production office in the Burj Khalifa complex in Downtown Dubai for the next couple of months. The complex is a mass of electronic security and you cannot move without swiping cards and a being beeped at by gates, doors and barriers. This is state of the art security - no doubt about it.

It rained on the way to Downtown Dubai but thankfully, it stopped just as we got out of the car.

Then it started again as we looked for the way into the building

It continued raining and the lake became as one with the sky...

.. while the tallest man made structure in the world disappeared into the clouds.

We finally found the outside of the office and were then passed from pillar to post trying to get in... 

Ryan tries to find out which door we can use.
We are already sort of wet.

Armed with fresh instructions we headed off again, and heavens opened and we got really wet. Not just rained on wet, but sodden, soaked through. I have been less wet in a power shower.

Soaked to the skin, literally, we met a man who said he could let us in (if he can find the door).

It's down here.

On the way we met the local crew who are looking for us and the Spinal Tap experience commences*

OK, we'll go down here.

And though here.

And along here.

Oh no, it's back up here

And up here.

And out here.

And along here.

And through here.

And in here, to the pass  office.

We waited here for the best part of an hour, while someone authorised our passes found the right key by which time it had stopped raining and we had dried out and we were able to get on with some real work.

For the next eight weeks we used another door hidden in the corner of the office. It was never locked, had no security guard or electronic access system and was right next to the parking area. Tra-la-la...

* for the uninitiated;
Spinal Tap is a movie where the eponymous band get lost in the bowels of a venue looking for the stage. In the TV show, Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson (as Edmund Blackadder), describes a soppy and childish character as being 'wetter than a haddock's bathing costume'.