We spend a lot of time in the UAE thinking about Floyd Mayweather Jr. No. Really. We do. The strange part of that is … he is an American boxer, on the other side of the world from us in the Gulf … and he is a boxer in an age of UFC … In […]

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First class is a way of life, in the UAE. For the Emirati citizens, certainly, but also for a significant chunk of western expats who eagerly join in to the notion of “only the best”. Today, one of the business reporters at The National did a piece about flying first class with Emirates, the Dubai-based […]

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I took a break from the production of the sports section tonight to run an errand across the parking lot, behind the back of the newspaper. It was 8 p.m., and twilight had long since turned into night, and as I returned to the newspaper campus. I found myself walking parallel to the windows on […]

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I know just enough about wind-powered sailing to have deep respect for those who do it. Those who cover great distances over blue water. Distances so great they eventually turn a lap of the planet. I find that mind-boggling. Around the world, however, is the idea behind the Volvo Ocean Race, originally known as the […]

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This brought back some memories, absolutely. A place not known for bicycles but interested in notions of healthy living and reducing carbon emissions, ready to be convinced that cycling is a good thing, somehow or other … bringing in a professional race over a series of days, and everyone sorta gawking at it, and some […]

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Live in Abu Dhabi long enough, and you lose the “sense of weather” that might serve you well in most of the rest of the world. Waking up, this morning, looking out the window … and it’s quite dark, even at 8 a.m. Let’s run down what that might mean, in Abu Dhabi.

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Well, OK. Make it a 9.8. That fifth snowflake didn’t bloom into a ring, early in the show. Mechanical malfunction of some sort. But otherwise, the Russians did well tonight with Opening Ceremonies for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Which came as a bit of a surprise, given the battering (see @Sochiproblems) Sochi 2014 had taken […]

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Does this work? Really? People get jobs using these methods? Every day, here at The National in Abu Dhabi, we get unsolicited resumes (CVs, in the British parlance) from people who have no idea to whom they are sending them. Often, they are littered with typos and misspellings. We get engineers asking to match them […]

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It’s not just Americans who have an unhealthy attachment to McDonald’s. Anyone who has traveled has found the golden arches in the unlikeliest of places. The McDonald’s on the Champs Elysees, in Paris, tops my list of “unlikely locations” for the brand. But the French do not feast on McDonald’s. Not like people do in […]

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Not even four years is long enough, for the average pet-friendly westerner, to grow accustomed to the often distant and abrupt manner in which natives of the region treat animals. Certainly, there are instances of local citizens importing big cats and keeping them in their yard, for fun. Often in poor conditions. But in this […]

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