One major issue I have with the new place we moved into last month. A tub instead of a shower in the bathroom. And my only question is … why?

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Both are exotic here. Golf. And rain. And I got some of both today. The European Tour begins its season in the Gulf. First here, in Abu Dhabi, then over to Qatar and Bahrain, then back to the UAE, at Dubai. (Did you know the world’s top-ranked player, Lee Westwood, spends most of his time […]

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The country has one professional sports league of significance,  and it’s the soccer Pro League, which is 12 teams spending significant amounts of money to try to win a domestic championship and perhaps last for a while in the Asian Champions League. Your basic soccer competition. Except with a bit more upheaval. If you thought […]

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This feels like a depressing movie we’ve seen before. We know how it’s going to turn out, and it won’t a happy ending. Milton Bradley is in trouble with the authorities again.

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Not getting enough exotic news in your reading diet? Check out this blog post from our friend and former colleague Suzie Ahn, who is working with the Peace Corps in Benin. In Africa.

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Two consecutive days of it on this blog. Let’s go for three. For the Tuesday a.m. newspaper I did a column about the 1993 Asian World Cup qualifying tournament, which was held in Doha. An event I actually covered. (Gannett News Service; the good old days; stuff like that happened.) It was wild, six countries, […]

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This is a topic not one person in 100 understands, including most journalists who work inside the office. The logistics of writing sports — how you get to the venue and how you file on deadline. It’s logistics. Lots of it. And these logistics dominate your thoughts and darken your dreams and engage your adrenal […]

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Did an over-and-back to see the UAE national team play Iraq in the second game of Group D competition at the Asian Cup. As I may have mentioned yesterday, the night before the match, I had been struck by a sense that this would be an important game. For good or ill. I became convinced […]

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We decided tonight that I will go to Doha tomorrow to see the UAE play Iraq in a key Asian Cup game. It’s the second match in Group D play. The so-called Group of Death (every tournament has to have one). The UAE can’t clinch a spot in the second round, nor can it be […]

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When you move into a new place, don’t you always wonder who lived there before you? Often, it can be difficult to figure out, if the place were carefully cleared out and cleaned up, maybe repainted, washed, even new carpet. (Though nobody carpets their houses here; not the nailed down kind of carpet, anyway.) We […]

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