I can state categorically that before arriving in the UAE, I had no idea the English city of Wigan had a serious soccer team. I very possibly had never heard of Wigan at all, which I am not going to feel bad about because 1) it is not a place tourists go, on purpose and […]

[Read more →]

A few days ago I wrote about Josef Hickersberger, one of my favorite soccer coaches in the UAE, and how he had been rushed back to Abu Dhabi from retirement in Austria in an attempt to salvage the season by leading a struggling team to a victory in the President’s Cup semifinals. And how did […]

[Read more →]

I don’t know Justin Bieber from the man in the moon. I have to keep checking to make sure his first name is Justin, not Dustin. An old-guy thing. Except that I never would have been a fan at any age. Hmm. I do know this: Dustin … Justin Bieber made some impressions in his […]

[Read more →]

Justin Bieber is doing a particularly long/grueling world tour, working name the Believe Tour. One of his stops is in Dubai, tonight and tomorrow. A certain segment of the local population — the usual Bieber demographic of girls ages 10 to 14, or so — has gone ape. And what went on today demonstrates at […]

[Read more →]

It’s been decades now that parents have been hectoring kids about video games. “Nobody is going to pay you to play video games … no careers in that!” May not be a career, but a guy who has spent enormous stretches of time with his thumbs on a controller … can make $272,000 for winning […]

[Read more →]

I am immersed in soccer. Football, as it is known on this side of the Atlantic. I watch a half-dozen matches a week. Sometimes more. I edit soccer copy every day I walk inside the offices of The National. Soccer (or cricket) is on the TV behind me hour after hour. I can tell you […]

[Read more →]

It is difficult to convey, via the printed word, the sights and sounds of living in the UAE. Public photography here is actively discouraged and sometimes illegal. And conveying a sound … that is difficult in print. Thus, a video of Emiratis interacting would be a handy thing, for those of you who wonder what […]

[Read more →]

The UAE is not really fit for agriculture. Perhaps a few valleys in the north of the country, where some modest mountains create a bit of shade and hold some water, or in the interior near Al Ain, once an oasis and now a city of 570,000. But most of the country is just … […]

[Read more →]

The UAE is made up of seven Emirates, and you are forgiven if you do not know more than two — Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The three northernmost emirates have little or no oil, a fair number of Emiratis who are anything but wealthy, and a predilection for conservatism, both in matters of religion and […]

[Read more →]

The final stages of the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers began during working hours in the UAE. I can vouch for this because one of the overhead televisions at The National was audible from where I was sitting, and I got the endless loops of the limited available intelligence from one of the news […]

[Read more →]