Watching the sky ahead of son’s sea voyage

Frank Kane

I have become a meteorological obsessive in recent days. Not because of the prospect of seeing the Supermoon or the Perseid meteor shower, although it has been quite soothing to gaze at these from the 44th floor of my Dubai Marina apartment block.

No, I have been transfixed by weather reports from Dover, UK, and Calais, France. Any day soon, weather allowing, my 17-year-old son will be setting off in a small boat to accompany an heroic, if slightly crazy, attempt to swim the English Channel … twice.

My boy Patrick is the official social media correspondent for the attempt by a man called Parviz Habibi to make the return journey across the 22-mile stretch of water. Parvis is doing it in aid of a charity called Cosmic – Children of Saint Mary’s Intensive Care – which is one of the most estimable institutions in the charitable world, in my not disinterested opinion.

Saint Mary’s is the hospital in west London that saved Patrick’s life some 16 years ago, and Parviz was the senior consultant on watch at the time at the paediatric intensive-care unit. Parviz has made it his life’s work to conquer meningitis, the awful disease that struck down my son and which still causes tragically premature deaths by the thousands around the world.

The two have since struck up an apparently unbreakable friendship, and when Parviz decided he would try the feat, he wanted Patrick along to record it and tell the world via Twitter, Facebook and the rest.

Parviz has also enlisted the help of Sir Richard Branson, who has been a generous benefactor to the Cosmic cause over the years. The Virgin tycoon is sponsoring the boat and the pilot, in a splendid demonstration that his largesse goes beyond Abu Dhabi space ventures and cruise liners.

Branson’s son Sam is also swimming the English Channel this summer, so it’s a neat coincidence, and one which the BBC is planning to broadcast in some depth, apparently.

But back to the weather. Northwestern Europe has for the past few days been battered by the tail end of an Atlantic hurricane, which has made any attempt to cross the Channel suicidal, rather than just plain crazy.

Each night, I get the weather briefing from Patrick. He has been ready to go for the past three days but there is no sign of the storm abating sufficiently for the attempt. The latest climatic intelligence is that it will be possible tomorrow.

If any readers who want to make a contribution to this fantastic cause, please just send me an email and I’ll put you in touch with Cosmic.

*****

There really is nowhere like Dubai for cosmopolitanism. Last week, I listened to an Italian singer, the wife of a good friend, singing in Spanish at a theatre, the Music Hall in Zabeel Saray hotel on Palm Jumeirah, originally inspired by the venue of the same name in Beirut.

During the performance, I chatted with a Tunisian music lover while sampling Japanese sushi prepared by a Filipino chef and served by a Vietnamese waitress. Then the music turned to Arabic, followed by French and Russian.

A couple of days later, I was in an Irish restaurant – the D Grill at McGettigan’s by Dubai World Trade Centre – enjoying dinner with a diplomat from a former Soviet country.

I can’t say which because he is touchy about publicity, and we were having a candid discussion about political events in Ukraine. He thought it was almost inevitable the Russians would intervene, and soon, in the situation in the eastern Ukraine.

It was almost enough, but not quite, to put me off my Australian steak.

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