So, the Los Angeles Kings. They barely qualify for the playoffs, with the No. 8 seed in the West, and then they streak though three rounds, and win the first three from the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup finals … And then lose two chances to clinch a championship … I think a […]

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Huge sports day, on both sides of the Atlantic. Maria Sharapova winning the French Open women’s championship, giving her a career grand slam. Her tennis future was bleak a few years ago, after shoulder surgery, but now she is back to No. 1 in the world. Two more games in Euro 2012, including Germany 1-0 […]

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Euro 2012 began tonight, and if the Old World preening gets any worse these guys are going to dislocate shoulders from clapping themselves on the back. The quadrennial Euro soccer tournament involves 16 national teams from Uefa, and right about here in the discussion all Euro fans are obliged to inform the rest of the […]

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I love bobbleheads. I have confessed to this several times. At this minute, I have two bobbleheads on my desk at The National, here in Abu Dhabi. Duke Snider and David Eckstein area a little worse for wear, given that late-night cleaners handle them roughly, but they still nod at me, and make me smile. […]

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  It’s a fine story. But it may be nothing more than that. A story. A colorful story. And here is how it goes: My siblings and I … all direct descendants of Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. A Founding Father. A fun “fact”. The story has been repeated since I […]

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The Material Girl dropped by the UAE’s capital for a couple of shows over the weekend, and this time of year it is way too hot to be standing outside for hours. But the Sunday show was her first show in the Arab world, and it was a big deal locally. Something like 20,000 people […]

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On my first day back at work at The National, I was moved to do a column on the Los Angeles Kings, a team I covered a time or 100 in a previous life … and the surprise monsters of the Stanley Cup playoffs, so far. Hockey is not a major sport in this part […]

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That would be me. With the UAE long ago eliminated from contention for the Brazil 2014 World Cup, I have decided my team, here in the sprawling Asian Football Confederation, is Lebanon. I spent all of three days in Beirut for a qualifier last September, and I saw the return match in Abu Dhabi in […]

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Too bad it wasn’t December. Or January. Or February. Especially February, when the city has been dark and rainy for months with no end in sight and the idea of sun lures a man to the airport without complaint. It is hard to leave Paris like this, in early June. The birds singing and the […]

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  The City of Light was kind enough to stage the Spring 2012 edition of the “Salon Saveurs” food fair at the convention hall at  Porte de Champerret … beginning on June 1. Which was today. And we were there shortly after noon, having walked the half-mile from where we are staying, in the 17th […]

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