Travellers often feel superior to working expatriates. Such condescension is unjustified. Expats are the sinews of the developing world, builders, creators, administrators, invariably they are adventurous, inquisitive and independent, otherwise they would be at home instead of in distant, inimical parts of the world. It’s not just high, tax free earnings that drive them, at least not only. Almost anywhere else in the world when you’ve finished work you can quench your thirst with a beer. Not in Saudi Arabia, Sharia law anchors the country’s inhabitants in the 7th century. The production and consumption of alcohol is subject to punishment, including flogging and imprisonment, in one of the world’s most brutal prison systems. Fortuitously it provides a personal opportunity to experience 1920’s prohibition Chicago, complete with stills, bootleggers and shebeens. The risks are real, particularly if you are not an employee of one of the international Oil or Defence companies, living in their protected compounds. Periodic crackdowns during Ramadan and the Haj result in arrests, floggings, imprisonment and deportation. Yet amongst Riyadh’s expatriates fierce competition exists to be the ‘best’ bar. Why people take such unnecessary risks intrigued me, was it pride, vanity, boredom? It was why I found myself beside the Dhahran Highway, walking between ranks of Japanese SUVs and a vast car showroom to a walled, gated villa beyond, home of the much praised Tudor Inn. A camera appraised us before the gate opened. Tom, the landlord, stocky, bald, gregarious, met us at the villa’s door. We stepped inside. And back in time, to an English 1940’s Saloon bar. Pewter mugs hung from smoke blackened ceiling beams. Beside a photograph of Churchill hung a film poster for ‘1984’ declaring that ‘Slavery is Freedom’. Dorsey quietly reprised “Song of India”. Men and women talked at the bar, glasses to hand. An Irishman in a green rugby shirt told, in staccato bursts, of Friday morning’s public executions in Chop Square. “The crowd were very polite, pushed me to the front for a good view. It happened quickly, less blood than I expected. They’re drugged, apparently…” “Ignore Brendan. His face was the colour of his shirt when he came in.” said Tom, pulling our pints. His concessions to the heat outside were a fierce AC system and the glasses chilling in the fridge. The beer was strong, malty, mature. The price was half that of a pint in England. If profit was not his motive what was? When his homesick wife left him Tom had taken two years to convert his villa to the pub of his dreams. He cast and painted the gargoyles that hung on the walls. Friends collected materials, bringing ephemera through customs, decorating. But only Tom brewed the beer and wine. His new girlfriend Kim, a nurse at the Royal Military Hospital, was barmaid. “No Sid Served Here!” advised a bar notice. Tom explained. “The Police know about us, of course. But as long as we’re careful, stay over or take taxis and avoid illicit spirits, they’ll turn a blind eye to a few foreigners and their ‘wives’ having an evening get together. Even so, I’ve been searched and arrested. As the General Manager here my employer was influential enough to secure my release. No one else could run the place.” Why do it? “Bloody mindedness! I enjoy turning Riyadh’s tasteless desalinated water into wine! As individuals the Arab people themselves are friendly and hospitable, but the West’s oil dependence means they live under a technological dictatorship we help enforce! A puritanical clergy buttresses an absolute monarchy, thought control is enforced by religious police. Here we maintain the right to meet, talk freely and have a drink. If I didn’t have the Inn for my friends, something normal. I’d leave, or back home. Ultimately, we’re upholding our right to think, meet and speak freely, as long as it doesn’t injure others, in an Orwellian culture that represses all those things.” It was a powerful, if contradictory insight. On leaving I gave Tom the present I had brought, precious smuggled sachets of beer yeast. He thanked me gratefully, an artist given oil paints. “I lost my beer culture when the A/C broke, bread yeast just isn’t as good.”