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Last week, I met the latest turncoat among us, Jack, in a Fulham pub. He was thrilled, having just landed a second-round interview with Shell and been quizzed about a possible relocation to Dubai. "Why not?" he asked, "Not much point in staying here."

My cousin Tom left for the region three weeks ago, another friend, Lloydie, shortly after that. If I sign into Facebook, I'm often met with someone else's profile status reading "Set the date for my leaving-party Charlie is off to Dubai!!!"

I mentioned the exodus to my uncle recently. As a thrusting twentysomething in the early Eighties, he was among the scores of London bankers temporarily despatched to Hong Kong. High incomes, low tax, organised accommodation and weekend jaunts to Bangkok were among the benefits. "For the first time in their lives, people had some disposable income and nothing to spend it on apart from enjoying themselves," he said.

So it seems now in Dubai. There's a lifestyle out there beyond anything possible in London, in part because no one pays a jot of income tax and the general mood is not apocalyptic but one of joie de vivre. In a fit of vanity, Lloydie, only 28, has just taken delivery of a Range Rover which will allow for trips into the desert. Tom spends much of his time partying in hotel bars (where the alcohol licences exist) and has just moved into an apartment overlooking Dubai's marina with the beach a short trot away. "It's a mix of Miami and Manhattan," he tells me.

Of course the transfers aren't without problems. At first, Tom grumbled endlessly about the humidity and last week's worry was that his container from the UK has been pirated off Somalia. More seriously, as the hapless "Dubai two" learned last week, behaviour that might be tolerated on a boozy night out in Soho is not allowed there.

Most, however, simply plan to enjoy themselves in the sun while saving enough money for a flat deposit back home. In two or three years, the hope is of available mortgages and stable house prices. It seems their timing couldn't be better.