Jonathan Leake writes in The Sunday Times (London):

"Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world's first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days.

"The beach will be next to the the new Palazzo Versace hotel which is being built in Dubai where summer temperatures average 40C and can reach 50C.

"The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface.

"The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach . . ."

On the Treehugger blog, Lloyd Alter quotes Soheil Abedian, founder of the hotel:

"We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on," he said. "This is the kind of luxury that top people want."

Sometimes I just have nothing more to say on the subject.

Many thanks to Victor Dover, who pointed me to this one.