With the arrival of Janice, odds on the imminent collapse of the not-really-yet-started “Leadership and Management” course’s collapse have dramatically shortened. She’s an extraordinary piece of work. Every time I see her, I’m thinking: “What strange path brought you to this place?”. She bears out a personal theory of mine that Glaswegians are great but folk from the peripheral towns are often odd.

Like TOHH, with whom there’s a worrisome deal in common, she managed to tell me in our introductory small-talk “I don’t drink alcohol.” Fair enough. I don’t do heroin, but I’ve never felt the need to work that fact into casual conversation.

And then the other night I called into the communal room to see what football was on telly, and she was there indulging in banter with IT Bloke, who seemed very uncomfortable that she was ribbing him as if they’d known each other for years.

I said I was going to the corner shop and she asked if she could come, and went to get some cash. She was gone ages and I hoped that she was changing, but no, she re-emerged still in tight jeans and vest, long dyed-blonde hair uncovered... It crossed my mind to say something but I chickened out. I couldn’t now think of an excuse not to go to the shop.

We set off and she said “these sandals are a bit big but all my other shoes are high heels.” I looked down and she was indeed wearing a pair of roughly size ten plastic sandals. She’s a very small person and I suppose her shoe size would be five at the most. “I don’t know whose they are, I found them in the house when I moved in.” I looked down at the sandals again and noted how scruffy they were, the sort that the workmen here use.

In the hundred or so yards to the shops she managed to tell me as she shuffled along that this area, which I think is quite posh, would be one of the poorest in Dubai, except of course for the Indians who get treated like shit... And then we were at the shop and the usual young lads hanging round, and everyone staring, and I was mortified.

In the shop itself the young guy who runs it tried not to look. Just as people would if, say, a woman went topless into a corner shop in the UK. That’s what it was like, dressed the way she was, here. I bought the beer I’d come for, and waited. She was looking around the meagre shelves. “I’ll get milk. I’ve got milk at home but I’ll get some in case I run out.” Another long look at the shelves. And then up to the counter. “Is this chewing gum?” she asked me. I didn’t know. Then some banter with the mystified shop keeper. An old Haj came in then and I couldn’t meet his eye. Meanwhile, Janice is getting the shop keeper’s help with regard to the contents of the ice-cream cabinet.

I said I had to be back for a phone call. She was obviously having too much fun to be hurried because she said she’d find her own way back. I fled.

She claims to have lived in Dubai and to have been married to an Arab. Surely she would have learned something about the way not to dress?

And the next day, I was helping HPYM find someone, and went into a class to see her sitting on a student’s desk. This is absolutely not on, here.

Fwiw, I do think that any religion or culture which purports to tell people what they can or can’t wear is absurd, and that the physical gender separation here is damaging to all concerned. But I’m not on a crusade. This is not my country, this is not my culture or my religion but I am here and I need to respect it. By analogy, I think that laws prohibiting cannabis are absurd, but I wouldn’t dream of walking to the corner shop smoking a big spliff.

Janice seems to have upset KST2 (I don’t know what the story is there), and T3, who heard that she’d gone to Shelly, fucking and blinding, saying that we (that’s me and T3) didn’t want her to use the kettle in our room. This was entirely untrue, and if the report is correct, Janice’s need to manufacture anger about something which never happened is just downright weird.

I know that she might say, and probably will, that we’re a clique and that she’s being excluded. Nothing could be further from the truth. I spend an evening a week with LM, and that’s enough. All of the others apart from PTI I quite like, but don’t particularly want to spend any social time with them. Of the others, LM spends the occasional night on a student organised expedition, T3 and KST2, I think, sometimes go shopping together. Shelly goes out on her own, and seems to be carving out some kind of party-life with the locals. Mostly, we all stay in our houses and do our own thing.