It wasn’t like 1914. Now that was an awful year. But 2014, a century after the outbreak of the First World War, certainly was a sobering 365 days. It ended as the sort of year where personal successes or situations seemed diminished by what went on in the wider world. Like, it is fine to […]

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This may have been the highest-profile sports event in the history of the UAE. No, really. Perhaps the most famous soccer team in the world, Real Madrid, led by one of the two most famous players in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, against an Italian club, AC Milan, that has won more European championshps (seven) than […]

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The UAE is a star-struck place. Are you a celebrity? A sorta celebrity? Drop on by, especially in Dubai, and we will make a fuss over you. Kim Kardashian could tell you about it. Thus, it was not difficult to imagine how big a stir the Real Madrid soccer team would make. Real Madrid is […]

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This really is crazy. While the rest of Europe’s prominent soccer leagues take off at least two weeks during the Christmas/New Years period … the English Premier League goes into overdrive, during what they call “the festive season”. The Premier League celebrates by going into hyperdrive. It is madness.

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Now and then, all of us ought to allow a caricaturist to sketch us. It’s a good reality check. Reality isn’t always a fun thing, but it is a form of honesty, and we generally can stand some of that. We know how we look … or we think we do.

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A key part of the Volvo Ocean Race are the stops they make along the round-the-world, 39,000-nautical-miles-sailing part of it. When an ocean event gets a chance to sell itself to landlubbers. The organizers pack up and ship a race-themed village to each of the major stops around the world, and the six-boat fleet has […]

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I spent a chunk of Christmas Day re-reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is Ernest Hemingway‘s book set during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. It certainly ranks among his three best books, with A Sun Also Rises (Paris and the Lost Generation) and A Farewell to Arms (Though he won the Nobel prize […]

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That makes six consecutive Christmas Eve-into-Christmas-Day services we have spent at St. Andrew’s Church in Abu Dhabi. And the one before that was in Hong Kong. Cut this one a bit close. One of us walking over from the office, most of a mile away, after wrestling a section to the ground, the other arriving […]

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The Federal National Council is looking at the UAE national budget for 2015, and raising some questions. –Why does nearly every federal department spend more than 80 percent of its money on salaries? –Why are Abu Dhabi and Dubai the only contributers to the federal budget, from a country with seven emirates? Short answers?

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Etihad Airways is competing with Emirates and Qatar Airways for the lucrative high-end traveler. Etihad may be winning. The Abu Dhabi-based airline has introduced a three-room ultra-class ticket they call The Residence. It is available on their A380 flights to London, beginning Saturday, and can be had for … No need for a spoiler alert. […]

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