Sometimes, the UAE can seem like a fairly regular place. For days at a time. People have jobs, they go to work, they encounter traffic along the way, they watch sports on TV, they plan vacations …

And then we get a story in The National that reminds us that we live among a very high concentration of extremely rich people, many of them visitors. Both in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. That sort of stupid-rich that might buy, oh, a gold piano for 4.8 million dirhams, or $1.3 million.

The best part of that story?

The firm that sells the gold pianos doesn’t actually expect that the purchasers will play the pianos. They can be conversation pieces — or just examples of ostentatious wealth.

We had another “fur-lined sink/electric dog-polisher” moment (Steve Martin reference) during the Luxury Gift Show here in Abu Dhabi, and that was the Bentley with the diamond-encrusted hood — or “bonnet”, as the Brits would have it.

Maybe it’s just me, but I want my 101 karats of diamonds to sparkle a bit more than they do in the photo posted with that story linked, above. Just looks like another cream-colored Bentley, to me.

But the diamonds are there, and that is why the Bentley is being sold 2 million dirhams ($545,000).

The key to keeping the diamonds on the hood, and not in some thief’s pocket, apparently is 30 layers of paint. From what I can make of this, the diamonds are then sort of anchored in the paint, and some clear layers of something on top of the paint allow the diamonds to shine without coming loose.

In theory.

So, yeah … just another place on the planet … if you don’t happen to bump into the golden piano or the diamond-encrusted Bentley or the the electric dog-polisher.