Will the last one out turn the lights off please?

There seems to have been a lot of premature nonsense, in the UK media especially, about Dubai having gone bust. Apparently enquiries for holiday bookings were up 570% immediately after Dubai World requested a six month suspension on their debt repayment. There certainly are some serious problems here, and I'm hearing stories all the time of companies being owed money, but ultimately this is still a rich country with a significant percentage of the world's oil and gas. Abu Dhabi finally stepped in earlier this week, in the form of a $10 billion loan, which should keep the wolf from the door for a little longer.

In the meantime, life goes on pretty much as normal. I travel past this royal palace on Al Sufouh road every day. It, and the surrounding wall, has been completely covered in lights, presumably for a wedding. The picture I took hasn't really done it justice - there was a decent view from the main gate but I didn't want to set my tripod up with all the police there - but it made me gasp and say 'wow' out loud to myself as I walked past.