Clearly, the Mackinaw Peach episode of Seinfeld made an impression on me. I made reference to it in this post, only five months back. But this time we’re actually talking about peaches! Particularly good peaches. And a good peach is something exquisite, indeed.

[Read more →]

We have reached a point in sports history … and perhaps it is a compliment, although of a back-handed sort … that any time an aging or semi-flaky player is thought to be on the move … he invariably is linked to a club in the UAE. Earlier, it was Jorge Valdivia, Chilean midfielder. Now, […]

[Read more →]

In journalism, stories that seem to come up regularly … stories endemic to your coverage area … sometimes are lumped under the topic of “standing heads”. Coming from the time when newspaper pages were put together using hot metal letters, via linotype machines, and linotype operators kept already prepared certain common topics. Thus, they were […]

[Read more →]

Americans travel around Europe or Asia, and they soon discover that U.S. history — and California history, in particular — is nothing, compared to most of Eurasia. Egypt has recorded history going back more than 5,000 years. China can account for 4,000 years. Nearly any country in Europe, even in the north, has history going […]

[Read more →]

Turns out this is a specialty of the UAE government. The nine-day holiday. For the third time in our five years here, all government workers have off nine consecutive days. Well, actually, one of those previous episodes, in 2009, was 10 consecutive paid days off. And another was six days. Which is mind-boggling, really. In […]

[Read more →]

One of the surest ways to move your soccer career forward is to do a little something with a successful team at the World Cup. Like the one that ended on Sunday. —Luis Suarez scored two goals against England, bit a guy, and got a huge deal to more from Liverpool to Barcelona. —Toni Kroos […]

[Read more →]

I pretty much hate sports movies, and football movies are a big part of the problem. (Just behind boxing movies, I’d say.) I have never seen a football film that correctly conveys game action, and that lack of verisimilitude kills football movies in the cradle. That, and casting teeny Al Pacino as an NFL coach […]

[Read more →]

A lot of sports editors around the world today weren’t exactly surprised that, with the end of the World Cup, not a whole lot is going on … but it still represents an unpleasant reality. A limited number of scheduled events in the near future. It is the case in the UAE, and it is […]

[Read more →]

Deadline! Journalists love it and hate it. We love the rush. We hate that it probably will shorten our lives. (Or, less dramatically, get us in trouble for missing it.) We will be dealing with deadline for the World Cup final tomorrow.

[Read more →]

Soccer is a young man’s game. Watching it, as well as playing it. Well, it is if your time zones are not quite lined up. Another week of Brazil 2014 could leave me with severe sleep deprivation, if not a sort of “never left the city” jet lag. The issues with Brazil, when based in […]

[Read more →]