Have I mentioned I love the Volvo Ocean Race? Oh, yes. I have. The first leg, from Alicante, Spain, to Cape Town, South Africa, ended yesterday, with the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing boat, Azzam, the first across the finish line. Azzam needed 25 days to cover the 6,500 nautical miles from the Mediterranean to the […]

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That was perhaps the inevitable headline to a story that ran in The National over the weekend concerning a group of people dedicated to researching paranormal activity in the UAE. This was known as the Ghostbusters story, in the newsroom, harking back to the wonderful 1984 movie with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. The theme […]

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It was noted here, a few days ago, that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is in the country. Today, he was in the building — the offices of The National here in Abu Dhabi. It created a bit of a stir, even though most people in the UAE are not familiar with the former Laker and Bruin, the […]

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Been here five years, and this is as specific a warning as I can remember getting, from the U.S. embassy. We have gotten generic warnings about avoiding travel to Syria or Egypt or Libya or … well, fill in the blank of a regional country that has issues with stability since 2009. But this is […]

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We get this sort of story fairly often, in the UAE. Dubai has one of the world’s primary transit airports. People going from Europe or even Africa to Asia or Australia. The traveller stops and changes planes. And Abu Dhabi, a 90-minute drive south of Dubai’s airport, is not far behind in the transit race. […]

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The Big Fella, the Captain, the master of the skyhook, is in the UAE capital. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, leading scorer in NBA history, UCLA and Los Angeles Lakers star, arrived in Abu Dhabi tonight, flying in on that new Etihad nonstop from LAX to AUH. He got off the plane and Tweeted, from @KAJ33: “Best service […]

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The National’s coverage of this was, perhaps, a bit dramatic. Abu Dhabi is the New Hollywood … well, not quite yet. Not until it has the sort of ongoing and deep-rooted industry found in and around Los Angeles. But the point of the story is this: There are advantages to making movies — or parts […]

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As the pace of Baby Boomers leaving this dimension — a process that takes them, as newspapers a century ago might put it, “into the shadows” — I predict a sharp upswing in a very annoying post-mortem task. Getting rid of the dearly departed’s T-shirts. Boomers, or male Boomers, anyway, have been wearing T-shirts their […]

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It was about 3 p.m. The air-conditioning had been off for four hours, and it was still mild inside the apartment. I had an idea. A bit crazy, for October 23, but I thought I would give it a try. Open the sliding glass door between the living room and the balcony … and close […]

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This is a sailing event that lasts nine months, so it’s not like you need to follow it day by day on the first leg of the round-the-world race to have a sense of the eventual winner. But I am doing just that. Following it day by day.

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