Christmas Eve candlelight services are my favorite church event. I am fairly sure I have not missed one since I was 13 years old, and the acolyte for the 11 p.m. service on December 24 at First Lutheran Church in Long Beach. Again, we were at Saint Andrew’s Anglican Church, here in Abu Dhabi. Again, […]

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This is a sweaty country. Summer lasts six months, and it’s an extreme summer. A person breaks a sweat moments after emerging from his or her air-conditioned cocoon. But most of the sweat is environmental, and not exercise-related. Not for the UAE’s citizens, anyway. This is a part of the world where running and lifting […]

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For those of us who did not live in temperate climes, and that is most of us, the winter solstice is a big moment. Especially in the northern hemisphere, where the days are about to get longer. The winter solstice generally is December 21, and it was, here in Abu Dhabi. It was the shortest […]

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Americans and milk chocolate. What a deep and awful relationship. Did Hershey’s chocolate sell dark chocolate, until the past few years? Did any of us eat anything but milk chocolate? I remember when a Hershey bar in my lunch was a wonderful thing. Milk chocolate, of course. Like Hershey Kisses. I also can remember giving […]

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“Sack” is a particularly British word. Used little, if at all, in North America, outside the circles of the New World’s Premier League acolytes. It means “to fire”. To dismiss. To give the boot. To make redundant. (Oops; another Britishism.) I’m not sure either league is aware of it, but I sense an international soccer […]

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Well, actually, it’s camel season the year round, here in the Gulf. The aficionados talk about the ships of the desert all the time. But winter is when it goes to another level, in the UAE, because of the Al Dhafra Festival, where the biggest “camel beauty contests” are held each year. The news this […]

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Yes, they are still playing. Still alive, for that matter. The Rolling Stones. Most of them. The two that matter, anyway. Mick Jagger turned 70 in July and the hard-partying Keith Richards somehow is about to be 70, too, later this month. Their latest (last?) tour begins early next year, named the “14 on Fire […]

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999 magazine is published in English by a UAE government ministry, and the December issue had an interesting bit of information that makes for a handy list, too. (This was picked up by nearly every media outlet in the UAE, including The National. With comment from local law officials who make the point that ignorance […]

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A weird thing about being in Thailand — which is physically closer to the U.S. than is the UAE, and by several thousand miles — is an even bigger sense of disconnect from American sports. It’s the time zones. By 10 a.m. UAE time, just about every sports event “last night” in the U.S. is […]

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A fair question, especially if you live in North America. Why Phuket? Hawaii or the Caribbean are very similar, and much closer. I can’t imagine I would have come here, from L.A., for instance, because the distance is so great. Hawaii is five hours; Phuket is more like 18 from LAX, with a plane change, […]

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