£7 million Christmas tree



The Emirates Palace hotel has installed a Christmas tree decorated with diamonds and other precious stones with a value of £7 million. The tree is meant to represent the United Arab Emirates' values of openness and tolerance. It has become a bit of an embarrassment for the hotel which has realised that the opulence of the tree may not be considered by people in other parts of the world to be in the best possible taste.

I felt a bit sorry for them. It is easy for people to witter on about "openness and tolerance" but the hotel has at least managed to avoid anyone challenging them in the British popular phrase: "put your money where your mouth is."

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