Life is all about constant tests and new beginnings - from the very first day of your life as an infant held upside down by your feet and taking your first breath, to many years later when you wake, with your back and knees aching, four different types of medicine beside the bed and a grandchild sleeping beside you when you realise there is a whole new beginning ahead. The beginning of a new era, a new stage in life, or a new year is a time for re-evaluating what has happened and how, and what you want and why. The start of the new Hijrah year 1432 two weeks ago, and the year 2010 two days ago is a good time for us to pause and look back on the highs and lows of the past 12 months.
For me, 2009 was a long year that seemed as if it would never end. Although it held more smiles than tears, it was a tough year and a very intense one. I learnt a lot. I graduated from university, started my masters, wrote my first feature, was given a car by my father and a cat by a friend (both of which I love dearly). My cousin and one of my brothers got married. Nahyan bin Theyab, my friend's son, and Shreenah bint Hamed, another friend's niece, were born, both named after their grandparents and both very much welcomed and hugely loved by their parents. My father received a 30-year service award for his contribution to Adnoc Group in the energy industry. Finally, in the middle of December my fourth-grade brother Abdulrahman became a member of the Arab Council for Innovation and Creativity, in recognition of his prowess as an artist, which made us all very proud.
Alongside these happy highlights was a whole layer of complex emotions: I was overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, hopeful, expectant, disorganised and disappointed. I learnt that although we are taught as children to always look ahead, from planning out our day to planning out our life, sometimes God chooses a different path for us. God knows what we don't and, though we don't realise it at the time, usually this new path leads to greater happiness. I learnt that even when we pray for something we desperately want, we can add "fe kheer oo lutf oo afaeyah" at the end, meaning that it happens with God's mercy and care, and in good times and good health. I learnt that life is about different perspectives; it's about what we think of events, and how we feel about them.
When I sat with my grandmother remembering what happened last year, she said: "It took Khali Hussain with it." The death of her last living uncle, Hussain, was hard on all of us, but especially on my grandmother. He didn't have children but he was a father to us all. We remembered every moment with him as "the good times". He had a wonderful sense of humour, and with his death we lost something that we can only hope to regain with him in heaven.
A good year is about all the memories that will stay with us for ever. It's about births and deaths, new and old friends, initiatives and change. It's not about falling, but about how you stand up again and make every experience something you can learn from. Every morning when we open our eyes, we should take a long breath and thank Allah for the blessing of a new chance and a new beginning and then we will be ready to face the challenges and the tests of the day and year ahead.
2010: be a good one, please.
Fatima al Shamsi is away.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Normcore explained
Something of a fashion anomaly, normcore is essentially a celebration of the unremarkable. The term was first popularised by an article in New York magazine in 2014 and has been dubbed “ugly”, “bland’ and "anti-style" by fashion writers. It’s hallmarks are comfort, a lack of pretentiousness and neutrality – it is a trend for those who would rather not stand out from the crowd. For the most part, the style is unisex, favouring loose silhouettes, thrift-shop threads, baseball caps and boyish trainers. It is important to note that normcore is not synonymous with cheapness or low quality; there are high-fashion brands, including Parisian label Vetements, that specialise in this style. Embraced by fashion-forward street-style stars around the globe, it’s uptake in the UAE has been relatively slow.
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Spec%20sheet
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Our legal consultants
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Company Profile
Name: JustClean
Based: Kuwait with offices in other GCC countries
Launch year: 2016
Number of employees: 130
Sector: online laundry service
Funding: $12.9m from Kuwait-based Faith Capital Holding
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Brief scores:
Barcelona 3
Pique 38', Messi 51 (pen), Suarez 82'
Rayo Vallecano 1
De Tomas Gomez 24'
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Europe wide
Some of French groups are threatening Friday to continue their journey to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the European Union, and to meet up with drivers from other countries on Monday.
Belgian authorities joined French police in banning the threatened blockade. A similar lorry cavalcade was planned for Friday in Vienna but cancelled after authorities prohibited it.
Fixtures
Tuesday - 5.15pm: Team Lebanon v Alger Corsaires; 8.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Pharaohs
Wednesday - 5.15pm: Pharaohs v Carthage Eagles; 8.30pm: Alger Corsaires v Abu Dhabi Storms
Thursday - 4.30pm: Team Lebanon v Pharaohs; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Carthage Eagles
Friday - 4.30pm: Pharaohs v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Team Lebanon
Saturday - 4.30pm: Carthage Eagles v Alger Corsaires; 7.30pm: Abu Dhabi Storms v Team Lebanon
SPECS
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