I am getting some help here. I don’t necessarily notice much of this. Maybe length of skirts … but that’s about it. So, what is going on here, in the capital of fashion?

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The streets in the 17th arrondisement of Paris had gone dead by 8 p.m. The Italian restaurant down the block was operating, but it seemed as if it was open only to sell take-out pizzas (like the three we bought) to people in the neighborhood. You could feel a sort of hunkering down, and a […]

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A good way to help the time pass, when you’re doing slow laps in the little park at the east end of Ile de la Cite … is to indulge in people-watching. Almost impossible not to, because you find yourself dodging tourists streaming through, on their way to the Maris from the Left Bank or […]

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Predictability is no fun, and those familiar with this blog can guess where we have gone to spend two weeks of vacation. Or as a co-worker put it: “Where are you going on holiday? Oh, never mind.” The answer, of course, is:

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Recycling is an idea the UAE is just now getting serious about. Even now, nearly nothing is recycled. Not even the items that could be fairly easily separated out, or that have some value. Like aluminum cans. Newspapers. Here in Abu Dhabi, they have distributed new, rolling trash cans in several neighborhood, with the idea […]

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Is this well-known in the U.S.? I tend to think it is not. The Manchester City football team that plays in the English Premier League … that just won the English Premier League … is owned by an Abu Dhabi sheikh, Mansour bin Zayed. So when City was trying to nail down the Premier League […]

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No one can criticize UAE soccer players for a lack of imagination. A year ago, the late Theyab Awana scored what must be the only back-heel penalty kick in an international game — a friendly with Lebanon. The audacity of the moment was jaw-dropping. (I was there and didn’t believe it even as I saw […]

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I watch/cover a lot of sports, but I don’t often have a strong opinion on how an event will turn out, before the fact. This is an exception. The Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets meet in Game 7 of their first-round NBA playoffs series tomorrow night, and I want to get on record with […]

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I have driven an automobile more than 1,000 kilometers — more than 620 miles — in four days. Making it the most intense siege of driving inflicted on me since leaving California more than 2.5 years ago. And the verdict? I did not like it. At all. I have decided that, like many other activities, […]

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To live and work in the UAE is to believe water is plentiful. A fair amount of green, especially in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi. Fountains. Plenty of the stuff streaming out of our taps. Which is madness, because the UAE is on the edge of one of the driest deserts in the world, and […]

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