This is about achievements or skills, and not actions, though I could make several lists built around the latter. Instead, these are skills I was not born with, or couldn’t be bothered to master, and it’s probably a bit late to go back and see what I can do about any of them. But, to […]

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Near the sink of my home in Abu Dhabi is a plastic bottle of dish soap. It is the Pril brand, and beneath the name are these words: –MULTI POWER –AGAINST GREASE + CRUSTS –NEW –And at the bottom of the label, it has one more note, in smallish, white type: “German Quality”. And right […]

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The 2015 Fiba Asia Championships are going on in China, and the winner of the tournament goes to the Rio 2016 Olympics. For several Asian countries, that would be a big deal. For China. For Iran. For Lebanon and Japan. Each of them is serious, most of the time, about the game. But for one […]

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Any day now, the Los Angeles Dodgers will win the National League West, sending them to the playoffs, with the chance to win the World Series. And do any Dodgers fans really think they will do that? Win a World Series? This year? (We could ask “in their lifetimes”, but let’s not be dramatic.) It […]

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This was the mind-boggling score of the weekend. Actually, of the season, so far. Maybe the decade, to date. A team from a hamlet, really, of the northern UAE outback that is Fujairah, scoring four on Al Jazira, the big, proud club smack in the middle of the 1 million people on Abu Dhabi Island. […]

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When a person moves around, it’s hard to take along exercise equipment. It’s not like you can pack a treadmill or an elliptical or a rowing machine. It’s not practical to bring along 50 pounds of free weights in your carry-on at the airport. (May not even be legal.) You think about these things. “If […]

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You hang around Englishmen long enough, you realize that they do not consider their homeland a cultural monolith. Accents can change every mile or two, lifestyles, too, and a certain level of “tribal-ness” can be found. A particularly unique area is what they call the “northeast”, the area around the Tyne River, and particularly Newcastle, […]

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I was not old enough to fully appreciate Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees catcher, who died last night at age 90. He was a really, really good player for about a decade, from 1948 to 1958, and he was named MVP three times during that span, but I wasn’t really paying attention until the […]

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Just about everything trendy in the United States can be found in the UAE. It’s remarkable, really … the assumption by corporate America that the UAE will be a welcoming place for whatever it is they are selling. And, apparently, usually being right about that. Whatever It Is They’re Selling usually lands first in Dubai, […]

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Anyone who follows soccer at all in the Middle East knows about Omar Abdulrahman. Or “Amoury”, as he is known by fans. Tiny kid, enormous hair, advanced technical skills. Plays for the UAE and Al Ain club. This is a part of the world where putting a little mustard on every pass is considered a […]

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