The Mystery of the Million Mercedes

Three things characterise The Gardens, aka Karama-by-the-Sea/Guantanamo, etc: it is cheap, it is unfashionable, and it is in the middle of nowhere. Located between a motorway, a power station and an industrial port, it is as far from a lovely desert oasis as it is possible to get.

Why then the plethora of luxury cars always parked out of the front of Building X? Tonight's line up included three Mercs, two BMWs, three four-wheel drives, a jaguar, and another probable jaguar covered under dust-sheets. Adding to the mystery: several Saudi numberplates.

Given that the vast majority of inhabitants in Building X appear to be subcontinental and arab families far overspilling the max-two-children-per-flat rule, one wonders why, if they can afford prestige motors, they don't also splash out on a (modest at least) villa. After all, there are plenty of desert Bovis homes popping up all the desert courtesy of Emaar. Arabian Ranches, with its logo of a lovely green-and-white sanitary towel, or the flat-as-a-pancake Emirates Hills.

For now, it is a mystery. Short of asking every head of the household why they drive the equivalent of a mansion with their family shoved into a shoebox, it will probably remain so.