I have mentioned how big cricket is here. Huge. Not just big. Monstrous. A big match will stop traffic. If I see 50 guys from the subcontinent massed outside an electronics store, jostling as they try to peer in the window, the odds are about 100-to-1 they are trying to see a cricket match. (World […]

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This is alarming. We know it will be hot here. For a long time. Like, seven months. But we don’t expect 90 degrees with two days left in February. Yet there it is. Seemed hotter than that, actually. Maybe it was just the surprise of it.

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Going on 17 months now that we have been out of California — and out of the United States. I feel as if I have kept fairly good track of several American sports. Others, however, I hardly realize I haven’t been paying any attention until I blunder into some online story and realize that I […]

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Can’t pick your neighbors, generally. If the UAE had its druthers it wouldn’t live just across a narrow gulf from Iran, the erratic regional superpower. Iran is not popular here, but the little countries on the south side of the Gulf don’t make too much noise about it. Iran has 77 million citizens. The UAE […]

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I worked at The National for more than a year without setting foot in Dubai, which is about an hour’s drive up the coast of the UAE. More than a few people here thought that was just plain strange and, yes, I concede it was. A little bit. It would be like taking a job […]

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Just wanted to make sure you’re clear on that. Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, madman. That’s the take in the Arab world, as well, or certainly the part of it that is Abu Dhabi and the UAE … and certainly those who have been speaking out on Libya. Everyone in this country seems pretty much convinced Qaddai […]

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The guys at Caltech are conditioned to think in terms of big numbers, but this was getting ridiculous. Caltech, one of the world’s leading mathematics and science schools (if not the leading), finally won a conference basketball game today, 46-45 at home over Occidental. The victory snapped a 310-game losing streak in Southern California Intercollegiate […]

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I’ve written about this before. The “names” attached to spam you get in your e-mail. When I go into the spam folder in gmail I often am fascinated by the names someone has invented for the junk they’re trying to sell you or the lottery winnings they want to hand over. Today’s list?

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I’m fairly sure I know who would win a vote for “most annoying person in Abu Dhabi.” And in a landslide. The woman whose voice scolds/warns taxi drivers when they are speeding. Whoever she is. These are the words you hate to hear:

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Many of us in North America, in particular, have no expertise in various major sports competitions in other parts of the world. But we have a vague idea of them. The Copa Libertadores is big in South America. The UEFA Champions League is huge in Europe. So is the Euro Cup. The specifics may be […]

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