Bowled Over

Some of the staff from BetterArf's school went bowling last night. Naturally I had to go too. I have not been bowling for about ten years, so it was about time for me to give it another try. The selected venue was the Mall Of The Emirates. The bowling alley (do they still call them that?) is very whizzy and moderne and with lanes so highly polished that if you accidentally step over the line you have no chance of remaining upright.

My performance was, of course, useless. Plenty of gutterballs, and not much actual knocking over of pins. Although I did get a bit better towards the end.

As we left someone said 'let's go in The Black Hole'. I didn't know what this was. I mean, I know what a physicist would consider to be a Black Hole, but I'm sure I'd have heard of it if they'd managed to install one in Dubai's newest mall. I read the sign at the entrance with some bemusement. It was along the lines of 'do not try this if you have a weak heart, a pacemaker, high blood pressure, pretty much anything else'.

You enter through a darkened lobby, and you walk across a narrow bridge. It's about eight metres, not a long walk, no big deal really. Except that the bridge is surrounded by a revolving tube which is covered in pinpricks of fibre-optic light that seem to bulge towards you randomly. The effect of this is that you really believe the bridge is swaying, leaning, buckling. Eventually you battle your way to the other end, and you look back at this perfectly immobile bridge with people on it who are having a real hard time standing upright.

Amazing.