Clocks in Western Europe and Britain were moved ahead by an hour over the weekend — about three weeks behind the U.S. clock-tweaking. They have moved to Euro daylight savings time, and England is now three hours behind Abu Dhabi, sted the four hours during the winter, and the continent is two hours behind, sted […]

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I should get some sort of award for this. Or, better, a reward. An extra 10 RBI the first week. An extra home run for each of the next 26 weeks. I could cite biorhythm studies here, but I most certainly was at a huge disadvantage when the Sun Baseball League conducted its 33rd draft […]

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The Asian Cup gets very little attention outside this continent. This is the local equivalent of the European Championships, a closely followed quadrennial, but isn’t remotely the global event the Euros are. Nor is it as big a deal as the African Cup of Nations or the Copa America, South America’s national tournament. But it’s […]

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The most genuine of UAE sports events is a domestic football match. Perhaps the national team is a bigger deal than the upper-tier clubs … but not always. Especially when it is a leading rivalry, like Al Jazira home to Al Wahda, Abu Dhabi rivals whose stadiums are about three miles apart. When opportunities like […]

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  So, our visitor wanted to see a camel up close. Generally, interactions with camels here come as part of a “heritage” package that likely includes tea on a stretch of carpet inside a tent, a falcon or two, a “dune bashing” ride in someone’s SUV … and a ride on a camel. A very […]

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I’m a bit slow on the uptake. Or maybe I haven’t been down to the water enough. After 4.5 years, I have decided what Abu Dhabi … well, actually, the whole of the UAE … should focus on as its business model, After The Oil. The beach. It won’t bring in megabucks, like oil has […]

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When a visitor arrives in the UAE, you pretty much have to take that person to a Dubai mall. Or two. Dubai is about shopping and malls even more than it is about top-end hotels and tall buildings. Dubai’s motto: “I shop, therefore I am.” The plan was to go to one mall, but Dubai […]

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This is so Saudi. The interior ministry of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has a long border with the UAE, has issued a ban on 50 names for newborns in the country. As the link suggests, the bans seem to fall into three broad categories. But Alice? Linda? Elaine? Lauren? All banned in Saudi […]

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I have seen this too many times now to dismiss it as isolated incidents. Remember the New York Cosmos? The soccer team from the old North American Soccer League? Pele played for them. Franz Beckenbauer did. Giorgio Chinaglia. They were a thing for a few years, in an era when North America wasn’t actually ready […]

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No, I did not have a seizure while my right index finger was poised over the “7” key. That is the cell-phone number auctioned by a UAE telecom … that went for $2.14 million. Or, to be specific, in UAE currency: 7,877,777 dirhams. An interesting thing about this?

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