I have mentioned how big cricket is here. Huge. Not just big. Monstrous. A big match will stop traffic. If I see 50 guys from the subcontinent massed outside an electronics store, jostling as they try to peer in the window, the odds are about 100-to-1 they are trying to see a cricket match. (World […]

[Read more →]

I’m fairly sure I know who would win a vote for “most annoying person in Abu Dhabi.” And in a landslide. The woman whose voice scolds/warns taxi drivers when they are speeding. Whoever she is. These are the words you hate to hear:

[Read more →]

Many of us in North America, in particular, have no expertise in various major sports competitions in other parts of the world. But we have a vague idea of them. The Copa Libertadores is big in South America. The UEFA Champions League is huge in Europe. So is the Euro Cup. The specifics may be […]

[Read more →]

Every serious soccer nation has several layers of competition, and most have annual competitions that involve all of them in one big messy group. Such is the case in the UAE. It’s called the President’s Cup, and it involves all 30 or so real soccer clubs. Which actually are quite a lot considering about 90 […]

[Read more →]

First thing I think of when I look at the hed I just wrote is to be sure I spelled “license” correctly. The British, and I work at a British-language newspaper, spell license one of two ways. To “have a document which allows you to do this, that or the other” actually is a “licence” […]

[Read more →]

Seems a long time back, already, but it was just two weeks ago in Doha that my colleague at The National, Chuck Culpepper, and I were talking about revolutions, and we agreed that the “default setting” for most people who grew up in democracies is to side with the revolutionaries against autocrats. Even if we […]

[Read more →]

Read it and weep. Remember how we were discussing, not long ago, the concept of “who is the next great U.S. scorer? From where is he coming?” Well, we have an answer. The next great American scorer was born in (and grew up in) New Jersey … but plays for Villarreal and Italy.  Ugh. Here […]

[Read more →]

Two events conspired so that I could see most of Super Bowl XLV live. I checked late Saturday night to see what stations were showing the game locally, and “ESPN” was one of them. Turns out, yes, it was the ESPN we now get in the apartment since we got a minimal TV package last […]

[Read more →]

The Super Bowl isn’t a new idea anymore, though some of us remember when it was. We are becoming fewer. Of course. And those intimately involved with the game … to the point of being at all of them … well, only a handful remain. I knew most of the journalism side of this story. […]

[Read more →]

A few people have asked me via e-mail how the situation in Egypt looks from over here in the UAE. I can’t speak for a country or even a city, but I am certain of this generality: Everyone is watching.

[Read more →]