“Darling, would you like to go to Santorini?”

“Ooh, yes! Those gorgeous Cycladic sunsets watched from the hillside!”

“Um, kind of…”

“And those beautiful old windmills and blue-domed churches wreathed in bougainvillaea!”

“Yes, about those churches…”

“Bouzouki music, calamari fresh from the sea, that lovely laidback family life the Greek islanders live!”

“…”

“[sighs] You’re talking about Abu Dhabi again, aren’t you?”

This, improbably, is a conversation currently playing out in households around the world, after last month’s news that the high-end Anantara chain of hotels is opening a Santorini branch before the end of the year – but not opening it in Santorini.

Instead, the new resort is landing in Ghantoot. (What do you mean, you’ve never…? It’s that lovely little parcel of barren Abu Dhabi dust beside the NOMAC Gulf Coal Power Plant and Dewa Hassyan 132 KV Substation, as any fool with access to Google Maps – though not, apparently, Anantara’s planning experts – knows.) The Anantara Santorini Abu Dhabi Retreat has been designed to Replicate its namesake island in every way, say its owners, offering as examples its low-rise white-walled buildings, Greek food in its restaurant and (perhaps scraping the bottom of the ouzo barrel just a bit) “an indoor cinema with private screenings on demand”.