Sometimes, the UAE can seem like a fairly regular place. For days at a time. People have jobs, they go to work, they encounter traffic along the way, they watch sports on TV, they plan vacations … And then we get a story in The National that reminds us that we live among a very […]

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The London Times once had the same reputation in Britain that the New York Times has in the States. The emphasis here being “once” … as in “bygone days”. Britons were clearly proud of it. And still are, almost instinctively. They refer to it still as “The Times” … as if there is only one […]

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When Canadians assemble in any numbers, these seem to be among their most important considerations: 1) organizing a Terry Fox Run, 2) displaying some maple leaf flags (so people don’t mistake them for Americans) 3) agitating for the imminent arrival of a Tim Hortons and 4) setting up a hockey league. Far as I can […]

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  We at The National have been writing stories about American football, here in the UAE, almost from the time the newspaper was founded, in April of 2008. Plans were laid by this or that guy who had started an academy, visions outlined, success assured … None of it ever amounted to anything. Until the […]

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The biggest sports event in a decade to be held in the UAE begins in 226 days. That would be the Fifa Under 17 World Cup, comprising teams from 24 nations playing 52 games in six cities over 23 days of competition, beginning on October 17. Some big events come through here, but the scale […]

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The UAE is nuts about records. World records. Any of them. But especially those involving tall buildings. Dubai now claims six of the world’s seven tallest hotels, for example. It had five of the top six, but the imminent opening of Tower 1 of the JW Marriott Marquis, which tops out at 355 meters (1,165 […]

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It must be hard to be the brother of a star. A sports star, especially. Many of us seem to embrace the notion that if one brother is a huge talent, the other must be, too. Same parents, right? Same upbringing? Same results. Easy. Almost never works out. The “other” is generally shorter or stouter […]

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For much of the past decade, the game of tennis has seemed on a steady slog towards a joyless aerobics-driven end in which He Who Can Keep the Ball in Play Longest will win the major events, often in five hours or more. Men and women, nearly everyone stands on the baseline and slugs it […]

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If you are of a certain age, you may recall a recurring theme in the Peanuts cartoon strip. Charlie Brown would be preparing to kick a football, which his tormentor Lucy van Pelt was holding (as for a field goal) and as Charlie Brown approached she would snatch the ball away, much to CB’s frustration. […]

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Don’t you love google translate? It will tackle that mass of copy in some exotic language and render it into English. Well, sorta. Late last night, one of our reporters spotted an item on the English-language homepage of the Dubai soccer club Al Wasl, in which it was reported that the team had fired their […]

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