Fans opt for Dubai’s relaxed atmosphere over Qatar during World Cup
Fans opt for Dubai’s relaxed atmosphere over Qatar during World Cup/node/2205936/lifestyle
Fans opt for Dubai’s relaxed atmosphere over Qatar during World Cup
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Fans from participating countries have opted for Dubai’s more relaxed vibes and lively nightlife over Doha’s more straitlaced atmosphere. (Reuters/File Photos)
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People watch a football match in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Reuters)
Fans opt for Dubai’s relaxed atmosphere over Qatar during World Cup
Daily round trip to Qatar allows supporters to attend matches while enjoying city’s nightlife
Updated 25 November 2022
Arab News
LONDON: Dubai has enjoyed a huge boost in tourism as thousands of football fans have decided to base themselves in the UAE during the World Cup after being lured by the city’s relaxed atmosphere, the Financial Times has reported.
Supporters have reportedly preferred the vibrant UAE, making daily trips to Qatar on the shuttle flights that connect the countries during the tournament.
Fans from participating countries have opted for Dubai’s more relaxed vibes and lively nightlife over Doha’s more straitlaced atmosphere.
“If you cannot stay in Qatar, Dubai is the place you would most like to go as a foreign tourist,” said James Swanston, a Middle East and North Africa expert at Capital Economics.
“It is somewhere safe, somewhere more liberal in terms of Western norms. It is the most attractive destination.”
Concerns were raised in the weeks before the tournament about available hotel room space in Qatar, while a controversial 11th-hour U-turn to ban alcohol in and around the stadiums resulted in many fans looking for an alternative place to stay.
Dubai has been buzzing with supporters from all over the world in recent days, and they have added to the many tourists in the city in search of winter sun.
Passenger numbers have surpassed 6 million a month in the latest quarter, topping pre-pandemic levels, according to figures released by airport operators.
“Dubai has extremely strong demand at this time of year and I’m sure there will be people traveling through Dubai to the World Cup,” said Issam Kazim, chief executive of Dubai Tourism. “This tournament will be a boost for the entire region.”
Although exact figures have yet to be disclosed, the Dubai Sports Council said the city was expecting an estimated additional 1 million visitors during the course of the tournament.
Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, previously described the city as “the major gateway” to the World Cup and predicted it would see more tourists than Qatar itself.
However, officials say the number of fans visiting the emirate with the sole purpose of catching games in Qatar is likely to be in the low tens of thousands, or the equivalent of a three percentage point increase in hotel occupancy.
Many match tickets have been sold to expatriates living in the city, which constitute up to 90 percent of Dubai’s 3.5 million population.
Although it is still too early to evaluate the impact of the World Cup across the region, the demand for hotel rooms has seen a massive surge compared to last year.
Many of the fans who chose Dubai as their base to travel to Qatar, or as the main hub to immerse themselves in the tournament atmosphere, have had the opportunity not only to enjoy the city’s lavish lifestyle, but to explore its world-class attractions.
Bella Hadid’s childhood home destroyed in LA fires
Updated 11 sec ago
Arab News
DUBAI: US Dutch Palestinian model Bella Hadid took to Instagram this week to share a devastating moment as her childhood home in Los Angeles caught fire.
The model posted a photo on her Instagram Story showing flames and smoke engulfing the house, accompanied by the caption: “Childhood bedroom,” with a sad face emoji.
In a following Story, Hadid shared an aerial view of the house after the fire had been extinguished, revealing the extent of the damage. The once-familiar home was visibly charred, with remnants of the fire still evident.
The model posted a photo on her Instagram Story showing flames and smoke engulfing the house, accompanied by the caption: “Childhood bedroom,” with a sad face emoji. (Instagram)
While Bella did not provide further details, her posts offered a glimpse into the heartbreaking loss of a place filled with cherished childhood memories.
The Malibu property, where her mother Yolanda Hadid once lived and raised Bella and her sister Gigi, frequently appeared on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
In a following Story, Hadid shared an aerial view of the house after the fire had been extinguished, revealing the extent of the damage. (Instagram)
Hadid is not the first celebrity to experience such a loss. Billy Crystal lost his Pacific Palisades home, where he had lived since 1979. Paris Hilton watched her Malibu beach mansion burn live on television.
Perennial Oscars host Crystal and his wife Janice said they were heartbroken to lose the Pacific Palisades house where they had raised their children and grandchildren.
Media personality Hilton said she was “heartbroken beyond words” to lose her beachfront mansion.
“Sitting with my family, watching the news, and seeing our home in Malibu burn to the ground on live TV is something no one should ever have to experience,” she wrote on X.
The list of celebrities impacted by the worst fires in Los Angeles history reads like a Hollywood who’s who: Jamie Lee Curtis, James Woods, Mandy Moore, Mark Hamill, and Maria Shriver all publicly shared their experiences of being forced to evacuate as flames tore through some of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods.
The Palisades Fire between Santa Monica and Malibu on the city’s western flank and the Eaton Fire in the east near Pasadena rank as the most destructive in Los Angeles history, consuming more than 35,000 acres (14,164 hectares) — or some 54 square miles — and turning entire neighborhoods to ash.
Coldplay lights up chilly Abu Dhabi with visual and auditory spectacle
Band began 4-day UAE concert series on Thursday
Show is part of their Music of the Spheres World Tour
Updated 10 January 2025
Arab News
DUBAI: Grammy Award-winning band Coldplay lit up a chilly Abu Dhabi with a visual and auditory spectacle on Thursday at Zayed Sports City Stadium, for the first of their four-day concert series that is a part of their Music of the Spheres World Tour.
The setlist featured crowd favorites including “All the Love,” “Yellow,” “Hymn for the Weekend,” “Paradise,” “The Scientist,” “Clocks,” and “A Sky Full of Stars.”
Adoring fans wore glowing wristbands that pulsed in sync with the music. There were bursts of confetti, large illuminated planets suspended throughout the stadium, and balloons floating across the crowd.
Coldplay engaged with the audience, including having a couple reveal their baby’s gender, drawing cheers from the crowd.
Frontman Chris Martin charmed the audience further by speaking in Arabic. “Assalamu alaikum, wa masa’ al khair. Shukran jazeelan,” he said, translating to “Peace to you, and good evening. Thank you very much.”
Before Coldplay’s set, Chilean-Palestinian singer Elyanna warmed up the crowd with a captivating performance, singing hits including “Ganeni” and “Mama Eh.”
Later, she joined Coldplay on stage to perform their collaborative track, “We Pray.”
The concert ended with a breathtaking fireworks display.
Coldplay will perform in the UAE capital on Jan. 11, 12 and 14.
Highlights from the traveling ‘Art of the Kingdom’ exhibition
The show, which is on display in Rio de Janeiro until Jan. 12, features work by 17 contemporary Saudi-based artists
Updated 10 January 2025
Arab News
RIYADH: “Art of the Kingdom” is perhaps the most significant exhibition so far for Saudi contemporary artists. It has already been on show in Brazil’s capital city for three months, and will soon move to Riyadh, before heading to China.
It features works by 17 Saudi, or Saudi-based, artists — Ayman Yossri Daydban, Ahmed Mater, Emy Kat (Mohamed Alkhatib), Ayman Zedani, Shadia Alem, Nasser Al-Salem, Manal AlDowayan, Lina Gazzaz, Muhannad Shono, Sarah Brahim, Daniah Alsaleh, Faisal Samra, Filwa Nazer, Moath Alofi, Ahaad Alamoudi, Sarah Abuabdallah, and Ghada Al-Hassan — and, as the press release states, “offers a unique opportunity to explore the ways in which Saudi contemporary art contributes to shaping new cultural narratives.”
The press release also states: “Two main themes emerge from the exhibition … The first is the desert as a definition of space, infinity, and life; the second is the singularity of cultural tradition, and the evolution of a unique visual culture, shaped by diverse pasts and presents.”
Here are just a few of the artworks that make up the exhibition, the theme of which is “Poetic Illuminations.”
Nasser Al-Salem
‘Arabi/Gharbi’
The Makkah-born artist’s work, according to the exhibition brochure, “challenges the traditional boundaries of Islamic calligraphy by re-contextualizing it through mixed media, minimalist approaches, and architectural methods.” This piece, the title of which translates to ‘Arab/Foreigner’ is made up of neon lighting that presents both words simultaneously: a single illuminated (or not illuminated) dot allows it to switch between the two — when lit, it says ‘Gharbi,’ when unlit it reads “Arabi” — thus highlighting the minor differences that help form our images or ourselves. It is used as both the first and last piece in the exhibition, because, according to curator Diana Wechsler, “it installs a border between the contemporary Saudi world and the cultural horizon of the public. The journey through the exhibition shows, piece by piece … different aspects of this fascinating culture in which past and present, traditions and changes are involved. Arriving at the end of this journey and finding again the twinkling neon of Nasser Al-Salem, I like to imagine that the public will see it differently; that the experience of the journey has been able to broaden their horizons.”
Nasser Al-Salem's Arabi-Gharbi. (Supplied)
Ahmed Mater
‘X-Ray Illumination Diptych 1’
Mater is one of the most internationally famous Saudi contemporary artists — last summer he was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at Christie’s in London. This work comes from his “Illuminations” series, which, according to the artist’s website, blends “the past, represented by traditional Islamic arts, with the present, through the innovations of modern medicine.”
It continues: “Faith and science are brought together — two subjects that are often treated as essentially separate and full of tense contradictions.” It is perhaps no surprise that the work of Mater — a doctor and an artist — should tackle these contradictions.
In a brief essay about the series, Linda Komaroff, of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, writes: “What could be more intimate than literally to see inside another individual? This is most eloquently expressed in (Mater’s) great diptychs in which a traditional type of richly illuminated double page composition frames two X-rays set face to face; the skeletal images suggest some elemental form of humanity, stripped of the skin, hair, eyes and clothes that differentiate as well as separate us.”
Ahmed Mater's Illumination-Diptych-I. (Supplied)
Sarah Brahim
‘Soft Machines/Far Away Engines’
This work by visual and performance artist Sarah Brahim was originally commissioned for the first Diriyah Contemporary Biennale in 2021. The screens show individuals moving and embracing. Small gestures, Brahim told Arab News in July 2022, are “amplified through repetition and layering, conjuring up multifaceted images of beauty.” Her work in general, according to the show brochure, “is a response to and reflection on how we can heal both internally and externally, and how art and culture can serve as a vehicle for this movement.”
Sarah Brahim, Soft Machines Far Away Engines, 2021. (Courtesy: Canvas and Diriyah Biennale Foundation)
Ayman Zedani
‘The Return of the Old Ones’
“The construction and consumption of nature in the Gulf are central” to Zedani’s “exploration process,” the show brochure states. “His projects serve as platforms inviting the public to observe the symbiosis between human and non-human elements.” This experimental film offers “a poetic perspective from a non-human entity,” according to the artist’s website, “weaving factual information with a science fiction narrative to explore the story of oil through the life, death, and resurrection of ancient giant fungi known as Prototaxites,” remnants of which “have only been found in a few places in the world, including Saudi Arabia and the US.” The story, “reminds us that fossil fuels comes from ancient life forms that have been crushed down into raw black energy.”
Ayman Zedani's The Return of the Old Ones. (Supplied)
Shadia Alem
‘Negatives, no more’
Alem’s installation consists of thousands of photo negatives hand-stitched together and covering 20 years of her and her sister’s life from 1985-2005, as well as larger DVD images. It symbolizes the difficulty of being both an artist and a woman in the Kingdom at that time. “In the world’s conscience, we remained indifferently invisible and when accidentally subjected to the media’s light, we were outlined as passive, veiled/ negatives without prints,” Alem writes on her website. “Nonetheless, we were there all along, actively creating, struggling, weaving our lives … Nowadays, we reached a point in our history where all is changed … we rode the tide casting away the darkness overshadowing our identities.”
Saudi-born American author Natasha Burge: ‘I wanted to celebrate autistic linguistic traits’
The Saudi-born American autistic author on how her condition has influenced her work
Updated 37 min 19 sec ago
Jasmine Bager
DHAHRAN: The first thing you notice when you meet Dhahran-based American author Natasha Burge are her playful eyeglass frames and her focused curiosity.
Burge self-identifies as an “autistic author” — a label she finds neither empowering nor offensive. When she was diagnosed as being on the spectrum in her late thirties, she says she felt relief. And then she decided that she wanted to showcase her autism in her work.
“For much of my life I felt embarrassed about the ways autism impacts me,” she says. “I didn’t feel like I was able to do what was considered ‘normal’ and I hid my struggles because I didn’t think anyone would understand,” she says. “I felt vulnerable sharing things I had kept hidden for so long. But, as a writer, my allegiance is to the story I am telling.
“A defining feature of autism is an extreme focus on specific interests. Three of my most intense interests are autism, transcultural identity, and the culture of the Arabian Gulf,” she continues.
Burge was born in Dhahran in 1982. The Kingdom is not just ‘home’ to her — it’s a living, breathing force in her storytelling.
The Burge family in Ras Tanura in 1959 - Natasha's father Rodney is on the right of the front row. (Supplied)
“My childhood smelled of horses, tack soap, ‘oud, frangipani blossoms and the library,” she says. “My childhood tasted like French fries dipped in hummus, yellow cake topped with chocolate frosting, and late-night shawarmas eaten with friends in my garage.”
Her family’s connections to Saudi Arabia go back well beyond the 1980s, she explains. Her paternal grandfather relocated to the Kingdom from the US for work in 1957. He was joined in 1959 by his wife and children, including Burge’s father, Rodney, who was five at the time. Rodney ended up staying in Saudi Arabia for 60 years. Burge’s mother’s family, also American, arrived in the 1970s.
“Three generations of my family, on both sides, have lived in the Kingdom. It has profoundly shaped my family and we are grateful for that. My grandmother — who is now 99 — says she would have loved to stay here forever,” Burge says.
Having moved away from the Kingdom for school, Burge now lives back in Dhahran with her British-American husband, who also grew-up here.
Burge’s writing — which has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (a US award given to literary works from small publishers) and translated into Arabic, Japanese and Chinese — does not follow conventional storytelling structures. It is highly experimental, packed with sensory imagery and acute attention to detail. Burge coined the term “skoliogeography” (the Greek word skolio can mean ‘twisted’ or ‘divergent’) to describe how she experiences space as an autistic person — blending the physical and emotional.
The cover of Burge's 2023 memoir 'Drifts.' (Supplied)
“Instead of downplaying autistic linguistic traits — repetition, non-linear chronology, echolalia, bricolage, fragmentation — as merely signs of pathology, I wanted to showcase them and celebrate them as exciting artistic interventions,” she says.
She describes her 2024 novel “The Way Out” as “a surreal portrait of a young woman’s psychological journey that could have been set anywhere in the world; I chose the Gulf because that is where I’ve lived all my life. There are a vast array of stories that emerge from this place that do not conform to outsider clichés.”
While there’s an obvious temptation to describe Burge’s work — and life — as ‘a cultural bridge,’ as her previous statement suggests, that’s not her intention. Rather, she sees the central purpose of her work to be about authenticity.
“All we can ever do is speak for ourselves. Individual authors can’t speak on behalf of every single person in an entire culture or place — nor even for the autism community,” she says.
“I hope readers come away from my work with a new appreciation of how much there is to marvel at in the mundane,” she continues. “The streets we walk every day are places of sublime beauty — if we are ready to recognize it.”
In this story, Fletch, a former investigative journalist and current freelancer, is hired by a billionaire Italian count to investigate the whereabouts of his valuable art collection, which suddenly goes missing
Updated 10 January 2025
Jasmine Bager
Jon Hamm, renowned for his role in “Mad Men, steps into the elegant shoes of Irwin Maurice “Fletch” Fletcher in “Confess, Fletch,” a 2022 film that modernizes the classic 1980s character — which is based on a novel from the 1970s — originally portrayed twice by the beloved Chevy Chase.
In this story, Fletch, a former investigative journalist and current freelancer, is hired by a billionaire Italian count to investigate the whereabouts of his valuable art collection, which suddenly goes missing.
In true Italian fashion, Fletch falls in love with his boss’ daughter, Angela, while in Rome, and things get even more complicated when her father, the count who hired Fletch, goes missing.
The plot thickens further when Fletch finds the dead body of a mysterious woman at the luxury townhouse he is renting in Boston — a place Angela found for him. Fletch becomes the prime suspect in that murder investigation while simultaneously trying to recover the stolen paintings and salvage his now-strained relationship with the secretive and passionate Angela.
Jon Hamm as Irwin Maurice “Fletch” Fletcher.
The film offers several laugh-out-loud moments, particularly thanks to Fletch’s dry wit and the quirky characters he encounters. Some of the dialogue is cringey and goofy but presented in such an endearing way that you don’t even mind it.
Directed by Greg Mottola, this version of “Fletch” dials down the slapstick humor of the Chase versions in favor of dry wit and sharp dialogue. Hamm brings a suave, albeit slightly arrogant energy to the role, skillfully balancing irreverence with understated charisma.
Respected actress Marcia Gay Harden plays the count’s wife, Angela’s stepmother. Sadly, her stellar performance is overshadowed by her misstep in terrible accent work, which distracts from an otherwise competent portrayal of a key character in the film. Despite this, the other supporting performances in general remain strong, including the sergeant inspector — who often has his baby on his hip — and the junior detective who is trying, and sometimes failing, to prove herself.
Fletch also encounters a strange neighbor, a woman with an eccentric dog, whose odd behavior and mysterious presence add another layer of intrigue to the film. Meanwhile, Fletch’s rental house — where the dead body was found — showcases its own oddities, with the owner sneaking into the property unannounced and beating up Fletch — further fueling Fletch’s suspicion, and ours, about the situation.
Ultimately, “Confess, Fletch” offers a fresh and charming take on a beloved character. While its tone and pacing are more relaxed than its predecessors, it offers an enjoyable viewing experience for those who appreciate subtle humor and character-driven comedy.
