Who doesn’t like flowers in the house? The problems are … the expense … and the limited duration of cut flowers before they begin to wilt. Lilies and carnations might be presentable for more than a week, but roses can fall to pieces in days. If only we could nurture flowers inside a humble home! […]

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The most genuine of UAE sports events is a domestic football match. Perhaps the national team is a bigger deal than the upper-tier clubs … but not always. Especially when it is a leading rivalry, like Al Jazira home to Al Wahda, Abu Dhabi rivals whose stadiums are about three miles apart. When opportunities like […]

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  So, our visitor wanted to see a camel up close. Generally, interactions with camels here come as part of a “heritage” package that likely includes tea on a stretch of carpet inside a tent, a falcon or two, a “dune bashing” ride in someone’s SUV … and a ride on a camel. A very […]

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I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Or maybe I haven’t been down to the water enough. After 4.5 years, I have decided what Abu Dhabi … well, actually, the whole of the UAE … should focus on as its business model, After The Oil. The beach. It won’t bring in megabucks, like oil has […]

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So, nearly 4.5 years in Abu Dhabi, and not once have we been visited by someone from home. Until today! There came my daughter walking towards us in the Abu Dhabi airport, pulling two purple suitcases. We all have the week off, and we are going to take her to see some of the sights, […]

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And this does not involve soccer. I never thought I would encounter, in the UAE, anything even vaguely similar to the “prep football Friday nights” all sports journalists in the States know. For one, “football” here involves a round ball and, two, American football is rarely played here. As of about three years ago, it […]

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Another strange story. The world’s most popular and financially successful cricket competition, the Indian Premier League, will play the first two weeks of its season in the UAE. (A story The National’s Osman Samiuddin was all over today.) How weird is that? Imagine the NFL playings its first month of games in Canada. That’s how […]

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This is always a dreary day, here in the UAE. The first day in 2014 when we realized, with horror … “oh, my … it’s time to turn on the air-conditioner.” March 8. Ack.

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The biggest, fastest, most expensive … that’s Dubai. It is a way of life there, at the metropolis an hour up the road from Abu Dhabi. A mindset. And the latest? The fastest police boat in the Gulf!

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I saw Demetrius Walker play three or four times when he was a freshman and/or a sophomore at Fontana High School, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. I remember thinking “he’s OK, but not great”. He was good around the basket, he could leap, but he was only 6-foot-3 (later reduced to 6-2, in […]

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