I was never really a fan of 2013, the year. Not that 2013 did anything to harm me, far as I know. The number was awkward. That was the main thing. It might have helped if a number that awkward were a prime; that would give it some cachet. But no. It is divisible by […]

[Read more →]

The UAE is oriented towards the sea. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Umm Al Qawain and Ras Al Khaimah face west to the Gulf. Fujairah faces east to the Indian Ocean; Sharjah touches both bodies of water. The explanation for the waterside population centers is easy: Between those bodies of water is not much more than […]

[Read more →]

Thank goodness we have Indians working in the newsroom of The National, because a major Bollywood star died in the UAE this weekend, and the newspaper’s Western and Arab staffers were unlikely to have known him. It shows up again what I have pondered a few times previously — the cultural divide between India and […]

[Read more →]

An advantage to living in a small country? When celebrities visit you tend to get much closer to them than you would in a bigger, more impersonal place. Like, say, a tennis tournament. Going to Wimbledon or the U.S. Open might be fun, but your interaction with players will be minimal. Same as any other […]

[Read more →]

This is interesting and a little strange. The Major League Soccer club FC Dallas has announced its intent to travel to the UAE in late January and stay in Abu Dhabi for nearly two weeks as the team begins preparations for the 2014 MLS season. Apparently, FC Dallas in recent years has gone to Cancun, […]

[Read more →]

Let’s start with full disclosure: I have not been in the same room with Landon Donovan since 2009. Rarely even in the same hemisphere with him. In touch, in contact from time to time, but not in the same place. My perceptions of him are based on lots of conversations from around 1999 to 2009. […]

[Read more →]

This is always a bit tricky. Putting out newspapers on December 24 and December 25. Even in the Middle East, where Christmas this year was “Wednesday” … not much goes on. End of the year, a batch of sports taking a few months off … that happens even in Arabia. December 24 is the slowest […]

[Read more →]

Christmas Eve candlelight services are my favorite church event. I am fairly sure I have not missed one since I was 13 years old, and the acolyte for the 11 p.m. service on December 24 at First Lutheran Church in Long Beach. Again, we were at Saint Andrew’s Anglican Church, here in Abu Dhabi. Again, […]

[Read more →]

This is a sweaty country. Summer lasts six months, and it’s an extreme summer. A person breaks a sweat moments after emerging from his or her air-conditioned cocoon. But most of the sweat is environmental, and not exercise-related. Not for the UAE’s citizens, anyway. This is a part of the world where running and lifting […]

[Read more →]

In a way, Peyton Manning and I go way back. To 1996, when I made the trip to Knoxville to see UCLA play Manning and No. 2-ranked Tennessee. We were in the same stadium, anyway. The two of us and 100,000-plus other people, most of them wearing orange. Tennessee won 35-20 before the usual Neyland […]

[Read more →]