A curious aspect of life in the tower we have lived for nearly two years … is how many residents are convinced that some of the little guys who work in the halls of the 20-or-so stories … sleep on the roof. I am not sure I believe it, but I certainly wonder. Would it […]

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Soccer is pervasive in England. You can hardly go over a hill in that part of the British Isles without bumping into another soccer team. FiveThirtyEight.com rose to prominence while appearing in the New York Times, tracking likely outcomes in elections for the past 10 years or so. It’s a generic website now, with a […]

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The Asian Games. Held every four years … somewhere in Asia. The biggest world’s sports event that isn’t the Summer Olympics. Something like 10,000 athletes, and closer to 13,000 people involved, when coaches and staff are counted. The Asian Games are almost as big as the continent. And the 2014 edition opened offically tonight, with […]

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The Angels defeated the Seattle Mariners 5-0 tonight, and when Texas got six in the ninth to defeat Oakland 6-1. the LAAA (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) had clinched the American League West. Which should also mean that Mike Trout has clinched the AL Most Valuable Player award. The turning point of their season would […]

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Waited all of 10 days or so to buy the 19th Jack Reacher book, entitled Personal, which came out on September 2. When I got around to reading it … I was done on the second day. How does this version compare to the others?

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A couple of generations ago, it was considered a mark of a thorough American elementary education to have kids memorize things. Bible verses, in the King James translation. “… and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.” Writers. In Latin or Greek or Elizabethan English. “We few, we […]

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These words came out of my mouth tonight: “Mahmoud Khamis is with Nasr! That’s where he went!” Which is revealing, in this sense: I know way too much about the Arabian Gulf League, which began play in the 2014-15 season tonight. Good times!

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At The National, in Abu Dhabi, we work in a newsroom with at least 30 English and more than a dozen Scots. At the moment, the English and the Scots live in the same country and carry the same passport. That could begin to change, come Thursday, when Scotland votes on whether to leave the […]

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Ever tested your memory … because you could? Some odd collection of something, to see what you recall? Like the starting defense of the 1979 Los Angeles Rams? Not looking it up: Jack Youngblood and Fred Dryer, ends; Larry Brooks and Mike Fanning (?) at tackle; Jack Reynolds, Bob Brudzinski and Jim Youngblood at linebacker; […]

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Utterly random anecdote. UCLA was playing DePaul in the NCAA basketball West Regionals in, oh, 1979. The game was being played at BYU, and at halftime BYU sent out a batch of dancers, and the show ran long, and the Bruins came onto the court and started warming up, shooting around … while the hometown […]

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