We at The National devoted four full inside pages to the royal wedding in England. As a republican and a democrat, I find it all fairly appalling. Some $50 million spent so that a couple of Brits can get married? Even though it was going on in the early afternoon here, I am happy to […]

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A photographer named Beno Saradzic has put together a visually stunning time-lapse look at Abu Dhabi. Most of it, but not all of it, focuses on downtown Abu Dhabi, near the waterfront. It’s four minutes, but it’s well worth looking at. Here it is. Need some help with what you are looking at?

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I’m not sure the importance of the Concacaf Champions League has been fully grasped by soccer fans in the United States. This is a big deal, and the fact that Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer has a good chance of winning the competition tonight is something they ought to be paying attention to. […]

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I’ve always liked spelling bees. I was the champion of my class from second grade through seventh grade, and I still remember losing in first and eighth grades. I admire the kids who get to the finals of the U.S. national spelling bee. Spelling isn’t as hip as it once was, what with texting leading […]

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I recognize I am not a soccer purist. For one, I still call it “soccer” after nearly a full year working in the sports department of a British-English newspaper, where it is “football” and what Yanks call football is American football. So. At the end of the shift today, I made the 10-minute walk down […]

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Back in 2008, I did an item on this blog asking for help in choosing a Premier League team for whom I could be a fan. Many of you were quite helpful in that respect, making impassioned and almost convincing cases for a variety of teams. I eventually did an entry on how I had […]

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You read that right. Al Ahli was champion of the UAE Pro League in 2009 but flopped badly in 2009-10, sinking to eighth and losing, shamefully, to a New Zealand semi-pro team in the Club World Cup. Ahli officials blew up the team last summer and opened this season with Fabio Cannavaro in the middle […]

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The United Arab Emirates is a devoutly Muslim country. Nearly everything we do here comes with a backdrop of Islam. The ubiquitous mosques, the electronically amplified calls to prayer, the holidays, the moral code, the legal code … So the idea of a few practicing Christians in this mix makes for some curious juxtapositions, the […]

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About six months ago, when it became clear I would be writing more than occasionally for The National, I finally asked the company to make me a batch of business cards. Business cards are big in the UAE. Especially when working to bridge the English-Arabic gap, which is real and significant when covering, say, the […]

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I don’t understand people who fight with blood relatives. Maybe if they do it for some sort of weird “fun” … but my family isn’t like that. I have always liked my siblings, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my nieces and nephews, and they have always been nothing but kind to me. When I […]

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