At times, driving in Abu Dhabi, a person could be excused for thinking he was in south Orange County. The green medians. The palm trees. The sun. The four-lane (in each direction) highways crowded with SUVs and recent makes of high-end cars. At other times, we are reminded some significant gulfs exist between ways of […]

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We make room for offbeat stories and lists and lots of photos on pages 2 and 3 of The National sports section. The stories can come from anywhere in the world. Even, say, San Francisco, where the first ball of the Giants’ home opener was thrown out by … “Batkid”. But before we get any […]

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In an annual Arab Youth Survey, the UAE led all destinations on the question of “where in the world would you like to live?” The country was No. 1 in the poll, with 39 percent of all respondents (“youth” was not defined in the story) naming the UAE as the place they would like to […]

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I’m trying to figure out how this happened. How Al Ahli of Dubai went from being one of the better teams in the UAE soccer league to being the unrivaled best team in the country. And, like many takeovers, it was incremental. I saw Ahli play last night, against Al Jazira, just down the street […]

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Watching a team fall to pieces in European soccer is unlike seeing an American sports club go bad. The fall-into-ruin can drag out three months, easy. In baseball, teams can blow big leads, and it may seem forever, but it generally is a month, maybe two. In the NFL,  a collapse can be measured in […]

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It’s nice being on the 10th floor of a building. With a balcony. Sometime, it lends itself to a view. Such as a really interesting sunset, above. A couple of points:

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Violent rainstorms are nearly unknown in Abu Dhabi. Violent duststorms? Sure. That happens a couple of dozen times a year. The wind blows, it picks up dirt from far away, and pretty soon the whole of the city is covered in grit. But violent rainstorms? With heavy winds? Stuff being knocked down? No. That doesn’t […]

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This is a great idea. Why has no one thought of this before? The Commonwealth Games, designed for the United Kingdom and its various and sundry former colonies — aside from the Yanks, for forcibly removed themselves from the Empire nearly 250 years ago — will begin in Glasgow, Scotland, with a bang. To wit:

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Clocks in Western Europe and Britain were moved ahead by an hour over the weekend — about three weeks behind the U.S. clock-tweaking. They have moved to Euro daylight savings time, and England is now three hours behind Abu Dhabi, sted the four hours during the winter, and the continent is two hours behind, sted […]

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In the offices of The National today, a press release landed in company email under a Moet & Chandon logo. The message included the following: –That a new variety of the company’s famous champagne, “Moet Platinum” was being launched. –To mark the occasion, on May 25 the company would fill the Dubai Fountain, just outside […]

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