Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Overheard in the newsroom: Cat bite edition

I've had 5 rabies shots and I still don't have rabies. It's not working. 

Overheard in the newsroom: Relationship edition

Men do have a self-sabotage button.

Welcome to the world's largest book, now on display at Al Wadha Mall


I don't think anywhere in the world is more obsessed with Guinness World Records (there is no 'book', it's a common mistake) than the UAE. For example, 2017 kicked off with this largest tin of caviar in Dubai. 

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

When travelling: Make a list, and then check it twice. And then check it again. And then grab your passport. Because you forgot it, you idiot



I've been to more than 30 countries in nine years in Abu Dhabi - just add the Maldives, where I am now. And sometimes I think that between all those airplanes and airports, and hotels and guesthouses, I've actually gotten worse at travelling.

I hate packing and always bring too much, except for one or two things I don't have that drive me nuts the entire time. I always forget the most obvious things (which is how I found myself paying US$35 for a bottle of sunscreen at Baros Maldives this week and borrowing nail polish remover from the spa at One&Only Reethi Rah) and beat myself up about them later.

But this trip I made the motherload of travel errors: I forgot to take my passport to the airport. How, you ask? Don't ask me. It's been a rough couple of weeks and my mind has been scattered. But still.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Kim Kardashian and Scott Disick in Dubai


I finally got around to watching the two episodes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians where Scott Disick and Kim Kardashian visit Dubai with their crew. I'm still sort of blown away with this family as a cultural phenomenon. A couple of years it didn't seem possible for them to be more famous, and yet here they are, more and more and more. 

Anyway, it was scintillating viewing and not at all fake. Here are a few takeaways:

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

I liked to write: I interviewed Dev Patel today

Dev Patel in Lion.

You can read my full Q&A here or turn to the print edition of The National on Thursday for a write-through. (Please keep in mind I only had 10 minutes to speak to him. This is de rigeur for celebrity interviews but it always gets my heart racing a bit. And don't even get me started about how much I worry that I'm going to erase the recording - you simply can't do notes when you've got so little time.) 

I can report Patel is as handsome as ever, very tall (6'2, he said during a group elevator ride at the Four Seasons DIFC in Dubai, where the interviews took place), thoughtful, fun and very polite. 

How to be a happy expat

Because a cloud wall makes you want to take a selfie.  After 10 years living in the UAE, some of that time happy, some miserable and ...