Not an unexpected defeat for the UAE in World Cup qualifying. South Korea is the favorite to win the group, and playing in Suwon … well, it was always going to be tough for the Emiratis. What made it more painful was arriving in Korea with zero points from the Kuwait match (3-2 loss at […]

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This story is getting a lot of comment in the newsroom and, apparently, in the city and country, because it’s been one of our most-read stories, at The National, for several days. The “sheep suicide” via jumping off a five-story building here in Abu Dhabi. Here is the link. Have a look, and we will […]

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It’s a day celebrated across the region. Not on the same day everywhere, granted. Next-door neighbors might not even agree on when it should happen. But it’s a big day here in Abu Dhabi, and we observed it today. October 9? Yes, it could only be …

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Al Davis has never been so popular. Within minutes of the news of his death today, obituaries were lauding him as a visionary (OK, he often was) a great football man (not lately) and a good and sensitive guy (not so much). And the litigation-happy man who had brought gangsta NFL fandom to Los Angeles […]

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This is a big topic that I’m going to write about without nearly enough research. Because to give it all the thought it deserves … I’d never get around to writing. I’d just disappear into the research. I’ve been around to see five decades from beginning to end, and I’m going to rank them from […]

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Does any guy look forward to a haircut? Can’t be many. It’s a chunk of time out of your day, and you could come out with a worse look than you had when you went in, and for sure it will be shorter and people will say silly things like, “Got a haircut, huh?” And […]

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In two years in the UAE, I’m certain I have written or edited more than a thousand stories for The National. But I’m not sure even five of them were about the emirate of Ajman, one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates — but the smallest and, if our newspaper […]

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A strange coincidence. Waking up in the middle of the night in Abu Dhabi, turning on the television to see if ESPN Classic was showing a baseball playoffs game … and there was Navy playing Air Force, and I will watch almost any college football game for X number of minutes. Even if it’s several […]

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I knew CC Sabathia was no small fry. He was rockin’ the XXXXL girth long before we left the States in the autumn of 2009. But I had no idea he had become this enormous, this huge, this gordo. The vision of CC’s bulk — has a fatter man ever played in a major league […]

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I never anticipated I would go bowling in the UAE. I expected to find soccer here, sure, and traditional activities like sailing and falconry and horse racing and camel racing … but I did not anticipate doing one bit of kegling, never mind discovering a 40-lane bowling center not more than five miles from downtown […]

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