Putting this into historical context, I believe countries have a point where they feel a need to prove themselves to outsiders. This is when they enter their “biggest, longest, tallest” phase. Eighty years ago, the Empire State Building was built in an America coming to grips with its position in the world. As a major […]

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The UAE Falcons have been mentioned previously on this blog. Back in February I drove up to Dubai to watch them practice. A batch of guys, led by a German coach, are trying to play American football, as it is known here. (Just plain “football” in these parts being soccer.) They actually got a game […]

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One of the great urban myths from the days shortly after we arrived … was the “abandoned luxury car at the Dubai airport.” The narrative was this: High-flying foreign investor, realizes things have gone south as the real estate market implodes, well aware that white-collar crime is often heavily punished here … goes to the […]

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The most successful soccer club in the country is Al Ain FC, which happens to be located in the UAE’s version of suburbia, Al Ain City. Al Ain FC secured its 10th league title tonight in a 2-0 spanking of Al Jazira, the defending champions, who couldn’t be bothered to play hard. And UAE suburbia […]

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The Pan-Arabia Enquirer could be a regional English-language newspaper. It actually is an online satire site of The Onion ilk. And it is quite amusing, in my considered opinion, and points up the silliness of various concepts and institutions — which is the point of satire. If some of it is a little too “inside” […]

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The level of soccer in the UAE is often denigrated by the sport’s local cognoscenti.Both foreign and domestic. They seem to believe it should compare to top European leagues, which is unrealistic given that each team is limited to four expatriates, and the rest of the squad comes from an Emirati male population of about […]

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We do not lack for sand, here in the UAE. The whole country is sand, essentially. Except for some rocks up in the north. Anyway, we don’t need more sand. We don’t need what we already have to be strirred up. But we got that today. Check out the story via this link. Then we […]

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Time for a list. And why not some random facts from our home in the Gulf. 1. The Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi claims that 5 kg of pure edible gold is used at the hotel per year, mostly on desserts. Five kilograms is 10.1 pounds. At this writing, gold costs $1,648 per ounce. […]

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Something about Diego Maradona prompts people to break into song. Late last year, an Irish group named the Corrigan Brothers recirculated a song they had done a few years earlier entitled: Ooohhh Diego. Now, some Emiratis and fans of the UAE club that El Diego coaches, Al Wasl, have an Arabic-language tribute song entitled Maradona […]

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Five years ago I might have watched consecutive baseball games on television. Or consecutive basketball games.Today and yesterday … I watched consecutive soccer games, on TV. Involving UAE teams. Teams I didn’t know existed three years ago. It’s my job. More or less. I wasn’t covering any of these games. But even if I’m not […]

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