On Saturday Dubai stages the world’s richest ($30m) and most international race-day at Meydan, the racecourse whose grandstand is the longest horizontal structure in the world and which, like much of Dubai, took two and a half years from concept to completion.

Built on reclaimed desert, Meydan, which opened in 2010, is now in the suburbs and it will not be too long before it is part of down-town; it matters not if Dubai’s oil has run out or we all start driving electric cars, Sheikh Mohammed was a step ahead turning his domain into an international business hub and winter vacation land.

If I got my six-year-old daughter to draw a fantastical sky-scraper, blindfolded, it has already been built...