Manchester and Abu Dhabi in partnership

As I have already mentioned last week was Manchester week here in Abu Dhabi, with an 80 strong delegation of public and private sector dignitaries visiting to forge links and look at ways of working in partnership. It all culminated in a match between the UAE national team and Manchester City, though due to injury and international commitments it was a reserve team who came over from Eastlands and were beaten 1-0 by the local side (politics or just Man City losing - I don't know!) As a Man City supporter all my life I'm used to the disappointment!
We went to a lovely reception in the garden of the British Embassy where we met one of John's former colleagues from the University who was representing the President who is apparently still recovering from heart surgery. We also met lots of interesting people from both Manchester and Abu Dhabi on a balmy November evening in the garden. The British Ambassador remembered me from when we met in March and seemed quite impressed with the job offer from Emirates Advanced Investment, though the time its taking for them to sort themselves out I'll have worked my 6 month contract with the College in full! I'm getting quite good at eating standing up and the food was very impressive, including mini fish and chips in paper! There was some excitement when a large part of one of the tress in the garden came crashing down but luckily no-one was hurt and I think it was natural rather than terrorist activity.
The real highlight was being introduced to Mark Hughes and having my photo taken with him.
The next day we went to a second reception at Pearls & Caviar at the Shangri La where J was deputising for the CEO of Masdar City, Dr Sultan. I have a feeling that this was really aimed at connecting with the local Emirati population but that somehow they didn't have the right connections for that. Most of the people there were the Manchester delegation, us and a few people from Etihad Airways, including the CEO. This was great as Etihad are celebrating winning 'World's Best Airline' which they seem to celebrating by hiking their prices for business class to some purpose. The Manchester flight is clearly a real money spinner for them as they only fly 330's and so have very little business class available and as it acts as a hub for the rest of the world from Manchester flies at 80% capacity. Hopefully they will start to fly bigger planes before too long. However, for our return home at Christmas I have booked BA via Heathrow which worked out at just under half of the cost of the Etihad flight to Manchester. I did mention all of this to the CEO of Etihad and Manchester but at the end of the day they are in the business of making money not keeping me happy!
On this occasion I felt for the Manchester delegation as the leader of the Council Richard Leese gave a fabulous speech and we got given a whole host of goodies exhorting us to 'Visit Manchester' but it did feel like preaching to the converted and we clearly weren't the intended audience for this event! I was offered a 'Manchester cocktail' on arrival which seemed to comprise lemon juice, cranberry and strawberry. I have to say that in my experience that's not what they tend to drink on a Saturday night on Deansgate. At 8pm they obviously decided that no Emiratis were likely to show up and broke out the beers, but by this time John and I were starving and beat a hasty retreat to the Chinese restaurant at the Shangri La, whcih we've not been to before. The food was amazing though the service was pretty slow!
The highlight of this particular event was meeting Mike Summerbee - a childhood hero along with Frannie Lee and Colin Bell. He invited us to the Director's box at Eastlands next time we're in Manchester which I know Daddy would have loved. Perhaps next time they play out here I may even meet Colin Bell in person and be able to tell him how I grew up with the constant remonstration ringing in my ears 'Jennifer, Colin Bell wouldn't have behaved like that!'