One of the rarest books in Dubai is not Robin Moore's notorious bonk buster but a tome known best among of the Golden Era, when wives could actually afford to live in seaside villas, do nothing but shop and beautify all day, and employ half the to wait upon them. A few years ago one of the local newspapers had an inspirational feature on an Indian couple living grew vegetables on their city-centre balcony. They grow-bags, and had huge great harvests of tomatoes and peppers and so on, all thanks to the 365 days of heat and sunshine enjoyed in the sandlands.

Coidence, on a trip to the Dubai Garden Centre not long after, there was one tiny tomato plant left for sale by the till. At that time the garden centre was new, and the only one in Dubai, except for that black hole of If they ever find a living Tasmanian Tiger again, it won't be deep in the Antipodean rainforest. It will be in Satwa.But in just a couple of days the tomato plant had developed a score of rots, blights, cankers, diseases and for three palms with their still trussed up. The small solanum struggled, and withered, and died. And with it died all further dreams of self-sufficiency in the