We are still playing soccer, here in the UAE, and the conditions get steadily more unbearable as we descend into the hell of a Gulf summer. The final competition in domestic soccer this season is the President’s Cup, which is not as big a deal as winning the league but ranks as the second-best thing […]

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No. really. That’s the name of the song. By the English band Electric Light Orchestra, in 1974. Which makes it the ultimate earworm song. It does what it set out to do. Have a listen.

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Again. Europe and the English-speaking world again worked themselves up into a froth of indignity and righteous wrath over the cesspool that is “Fifa business” … … and again the broad swaths of the world where such things don’t matter a bit reelected their man. The reform candidate — or the guy who was not […]

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When this day began it seemed inevitable Sepp Blatter would be reelected to a fifth term as Fifa president tomorrow — despite the arrests of several top Fifa officials yesterday and the amping up of the usual level of scandal surrounding global soccer. And, as I wrote for The National, that certainty began to fray, […]

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Our visitor from California was trying to open the can of Pepsi he had found in the fridge.  He lifted the ring atop the can … and nothing much happened. The metallic ring was standing up, but it hadn’t pressed into the top of the can, creating the opening consumers have learned to expect, over […]

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This is a big concept in advanced metrics. Well, actually, you don’t need a big brain, or a fascination with numbers, to grasp this. If a guy has a history of performing at level X, but for a month he performs at level X+50 percent … it is likely he will find his way back […]

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The worst kind of earworm. An infection from a source outside your own head. Ahhhhh! I work with someone who likes to hum, even sing, and he at some point in nearly every day will come around to a tune that has powerful earworm qualities: We’re Not Gonna Take It … by Twisted Sister. Here, […]

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The UAE has fingerprints on this story. Of course it does. This is the land of extremes, most of them on the outer end of biggest-fastest-tallest-most expensive. So why not a $2 million guitar?

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It comes as a surprise every time I see it. The big cricket stadium in Lahore, Pakistan? Gaddafi Stadium. Yes, that Gaddafi. Muammar Gaddafi. Or Qaddafi or Kadafi, or other spellings by which he was known. By any name, he was the bloody despot who ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years — […]

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Stephen Curry may not be the shortest or the lightest NBA MVP. But he seems the Most Likely to Break. He seems the most fragile. Which makes his current mastery of the game even more impressive. OK, little MVPs. Let’s consider them.

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