After leaving the U.S. for Abu Dhabi, in 2009, my interest in college basketball waned. As I noted in blog posts from recent years, while living in the UAE, it requires work to follow the college game from the other side of the world. Too many teams, too many games, too big a time gap […]

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What a cultural intersection this is for me! National anthems, the Middle East and military bands. I lived in the United Arab Emirates for more than six years and I covered a lot of international soccer. So I was exposed to the UAE’s military band more than once, just ahead of a game pitting national […]

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In the summer of 1975, my little brother and I drove across the United States to Washington D.C.  And back. We returned to Southern California via a less-direct route, one that took us to Gettysburg, Niagara Falls and Canada and across the I-70, rather than the I-40, which we had taken heading east. We arrived […]

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The upside to getting an English-language-based TV package, here in the south of France, is that it allows me to look at about 50 sports channels broadcast in a language I more fully comprehend. The downside is, when sports events are live in the U.S., it is some time after midnight in France. When, in […]

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This has been an oft-revisited topic over the past five or six years. Has Arsene Wenger, on the job since 1996, stayed on too long as coach of English Premier League side Arsenal? Increasingly, the answers have come back, from fans and pundits, “Yes. It is time for Wenger to go.” The criticism of his […]

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Let’s get right to it. A recent example from the irreverent/spiky/pissed-off/influential wine blog of my childhood friend Ron Washam: There are too many f***ing wineries. Why do we need so many wineries? Really. All of you who are planning to start a winery some day, or your own label, DON’T! You’re not that good at […]

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A key part of French culture, certainly in small towns, is to greet everyone you encounter while walking or jogging with a hearty bonjour! That is, “Good day!” At first, it struck me as a sort of empty gesture, a cultural tic, probably conveying “we both know we don’t really mean it but it’s the […]

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I am not a huge fan of brew or breweries, but I like a good dark beer. I’m the guy ordering Guinness stout on tap. One of the wine shops in the nearby town also sells craft beers, and that interested me, for that one night in 10 I feel like a beer would be […]

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We expect some chilly weather here, given that we are further north than 90 percent of the continental U.S. But this batch of weather has been the coldest we have seen in more than a year in the south of France. Tonight? A low of 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, below freezing. Tomorrow night? A forecast […]

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This was a fine idea. An anglophone couple on the other side of our little town — about 150 yards away, that is — hosted a “reception” for New Year’s Eve. A fine idea, and also handy on the safety/law-and-order front, in that most of the people who arrived walked less than five minutes to […]

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