In my lifetime, suggesting that Barcelona could compete with Paris as 1) a place to visit and 2) a place to live, would have been ridiculous. Talking 1960, 1970 … In 2012, it no longer is a ridiculous notion. From the perspective of sitting in a lovely restored apartment in Barcelona, after another beautiful day […]

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When I got to Lienz, in the southwest of Austria, I had no real mental image of what it would look like. Mountains, probably, sure. Maybe a wide valley. Maybe something more like a plain. Possibly denuded hills, from logging. Maybe a dump or a belching factory. But I got far better than that. I […]

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To work in a British-English newsroom, like The National, is to regularly hear expressions unknown in the United States. One of the handier is “minus-one,” used when referring to media activities on the eve of a match. That is, it’s about the match, but “minus-one” day on the calendar. It is when coaches come out […]

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We reached the hotel in Barcelona at 5 p.m., after a four-hour journey from southern France. With air travel back to Abu Dhabi in the morning. What to do in, say, six hours in one of Europe’s most interesting cities? Simple: La Rambla, tapas and sangria.

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I’ve talked about this with sports journalism colleagues over two or three decades. What is the best sports assignment in print? Because I spent three decades in American journalism, the answers sometimes would be “covering baseball home and road” … or “being a major metro’s NFL writer” … and somesuch. Maybe “international sports reporter” which […]

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To go grocery shopping in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, is to enter a strange and exotic world. In the prepared foods area, where tikka this that or the other can be had, as well as Arabic rice, pulao rice, biryani rice, various sorts of grilled lamb … In the deli area, there are other […]

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Well, that was fun. And a little random. Thirteen people watching hockey from 12:15 a.m. till about 2:30 a.m., in a city where the only ice in town is in someone’s drink. The gold-medal game of the Vancouver Olympics. Canada against (pronounced “uh-GAINst”) the U.S., starting at 12:15 p.m. PST. Not something I normally would […]

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Busy day. Tiger Woods did his thing and we watched in a newsroom from the other side of the world. Probably the only American athlete who could command that kind of interest in such an international workplace. But people got a bigger laugh from the Gloria Allred stuff that came after. Count me among those […]

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It was a more eventful decade than my initial thoughts indicated. “Wow. I have to come up with 10 good sports events from the 0-somethings? I’m not sure I can do that.” Turns out, a few minutes of cross-referencing years and sports, and it’s no problem finding 10. The trick is limiting it to that […]

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The work week here is not the same work week followed by the Western world. And China, too, if I recall things correctly from the Beijing Olympics last year, and the four months I spent in Hong Kong, last winter. Friday is the prime day of worship in Islamic countries such as the United Arab […]

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