I’ve written fairly often about Diego Maradona. I know that. Almost unavoidable. El Diego coaches the Al Wasl team up in Dubai, and I cover a lot of domestic soccer/football here in the UAE. So Diego comes up a lot.
We are trying to find the latest answer to the great sports question: How rare is […]

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It was about 5 a.m. at this end of the Arabian Peninsula when Tim Tebow hooked up with Demaryius Thomas on the 80-yard scoring pass on the first play of overtime, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 29-23 in the playoffs.
By the time I got to the offices of The National later in the morning, something odd […]

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Getting old. It isn’t all bad news. Mostly, it is. Sure. But not entirely. Past a certain threshold you get breaks on tickets at museums and concerts, etc., and you can collect Social Security, in the U.S., if the system hasn’t yet gone bankrupt.
Another significant advantage pops up on the “literature” side of things.
To wit: […]

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Well, 6.6 pounds lighter, to be exact. And it didn’t involve violent illness or amputation.
You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I weigh myself fairly regularly. Not that any of us really need to do that. Because if the clothes that used to fit don’t fit anymore … we’ve lost weight. Or, far […]

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Kobe Bryant ranks third in the NBA in scoring, so far, at 26.4 points per game. But the Lakers are 4-4, and are beginning to have the feel of a .500 team.
Are these concepts related?
Well, yes. In that the Lakers have managed to win four games … but have contrived to lose four.
It seems increasingly […]

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The big story in the offices of The National here in Abu Dhabi today … or most talked about, anyway … was the bar tab at a Dubai nightclub for 387,988 dirhams — or $105,638.
Dubai is the biggest city in the UAE, and the best-known — which kills people in Abu Dhabi, the actual capital […]

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This was a first: A Briton asking me to write a story about Landon Donovan.
The news peg is that Landon is back in England, for two months, on loan with the Premier League side Everton, and he seems likely to play his first match (in his second Everton go-round) Wednesday night.
Here is that piece, which […]

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I actually know only one person who attended Stanford, and as I watched the second half of the Fiesta Bowl at 8 a.m. UAE time, I was thinking of his (and other Stanford fans) suffering.
Frankie, my condolences. I feel your pain.
Fourth-ranked Stanford contrived to lose to third-ranked Oklahoma State, 41-38, in overtime, in a Fiesta […]

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I addressed the question, in the headline above, in a comment piece for The National.
Diego Maradona is the coach at Al Wasl, one of the top clubs in the UAE.
As noted earlier on this blog, the FIFA co-player of the century (with Pele) is extraordinarily popular here. Loved to death.
But can the man coach? And […]

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When 2007 turned into 2008, in Long Beach, California, I had no idea I would experience New Year’s Eve outside the U.S. for the next four years.
Way outside the U.S.
The first in Hong Kong. The next three in the United Arab Emirates.
I don’t quite yet consider myself an expatriate, but the evidence is beginning to […]

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