If only the Bundesliga was won on the basis of a calendar year.
The 2016 pacesetters would not, surprise, surprise, be you-know-who, not the Bavarian club who have made such a habit of towering over the rest in the past four seasons that the casual outsider barely thinks it worth looking at the table after about February.
Bayern Munich, at least in the two full seasons Pep Guardiola has been there, tend to have the title all but confirmed before the clocks go forward in the spring.
This year that coronation has been at least delayed, thanks to Borussia Dortmund's many goals and gathering momentum. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is even some suspense to be contrived over the next six weeks.
These are Guardiola’s last months in charge at Bayern.
He will join Manchester City officially in July, but has been in conversation with his future club's executives about strategy already.
The notion he may have taken his eye off the ball in Bavaria, with his inevitable glances at City's slightly fragile status as a top-four Premier League club, is taken almost a slur by the hard-working Catalan.
Read more: Want tickets to Barcelona v Real Madrid? You are about 10 years too late
Also see: 'No inner battle between old and new love' Jurgen Klopp says of facing Dortmund
But sift through the recent results, and some of the performances of Bayern in the three and a half months since it became public knowledge that Guardiola would be leaving, to be replaced in the summer by Carlo Ancelotti, ex of Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and AC Milan, and there have been stumbles.
In their Uefa Champions League last-16 tie against Juventus, Bayern were the second best team for well over 90 minutes of the tie.
To Guardiola’s credit, they showed enough gumption, over the whole three and half hours that the two-legged contest stretched to, to emerge with a place in next week’s quarter-finals, where Bayern meet Benfica.
In the league, 2016 has already featured that rare event, a Bundesliga defeat at the Allianz Arena, a month ago to Mainz. Indeed, this calendar year, Bayern’s win ratio in domestic competition is a mere 70 per cent. They have dropped seven points of a possible 30.
Dortmund, in the same period, have won eight of their 10 matches and drawn two, including the goalless impasse against Bayern, itself a statement that Dortmund have come closer to the champions in standard in the course of the season. Bayern had thrashed Borussia 5-1 in the autumn.
The gap between first and second place now is still five points, with seven fixtures to go, but it is more legitimate to consider the Bundesliga an edifice with a two-storey penthouse at the top, shared by Bayern and Dortmund, with more modest apartments beneath, than a simple one-horse race. Third-placed Hertha Berlin trail Dortmund by 12 points.
Thomas Tuchel, the Dortmund coach, meticulous and precise, has certainly completed his mission, which was to restore status in the upper reaches of the German top-flight after last season’s decline at the end of Jurgen Klopp’s long reign in charge.
Saturday’s home meeting with Werder Bremen will carry reminders of the Klopp farewell. It was in this fixture last season that Dortmund’s fans said goodbye to “Kloppo”, hugely appreciative of how he had galvanised the club for most of his time there.
On Thursday, they get to thank him again, when Tuchel's high-scoring Dortmund meet Liverpool, Klopp's new project, in the Europa League.
Mostly, the outlook for Dortmund is rosy, though there are some shadows cast over what might be a very exciting spring. Neven Subotic, the central defender, has just been ruled out for the season with a thrombosis problem, and the long-term future of Henrikh Mkhitaryan, outstanding this season with his 10 goals and 13 assists in the Bundesliga, is uncertain, with interest reported from Juventus and Arsenal in signing him.
“Everybody knows how much I value Henrikh,” said Tuchel yesterday. “The ball is in his court.”
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Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
START-UPS IN BATCH 4 OF SANABIL 500'S ACCELERATOR PROGRAMME
Saudi Arabia
Joy: Delivers car services with affordable prices
Karaz: Helps diabetics with gamification, IoT and real-time data
Medicarri: Medical marketplace that connects clinics with suppliers
Mod5r: Makes automated and recurring investments to grow wealth
Stuck: Live, on-demand language support to boost writing
Walzay: Helps in recruitment while reducing hiring time
UAE
Eighty6: Marketplace for restaurant and supplier procurements
FarmUnboxed: Helps digitise international food supply chain
NutriCal: Helps F&B businesses and governments with nutritional analysis
Wellxai: Provides insurance that enables and rewards user habits
Egypt
Amwal: A Shariah-compliant crowd-lending platform
Deben: Helps CFOs manage cash efficiently
Egab: Connects media outlets to journalists in hard-to-reach areas for exclusives
Neqabty: Digitises financial and medical services of labour unions
Oman
Monak: Provides financial inclusion and life services to migrants
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel consumption: 10.5L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh129,999 (VX Luxury); from Dh149,999 (VX Black Gold)
The five stages of early child’s play
From Dubai-based clinical psychologist Daniella Salazar:
1. Solitary Play: This is where Infants and toddlers start to play on their own without seeming to notice the people around them. This is the beginning of play.
2. Onlooker play: This occurs where the toddler enjoys watching other people play. There doesn’t necessarily need to be any effort to begin play. They are learning how to imitate behaviours from others. This type of play may also appear in children who are more shy and introverted.
3. Parallel Play: This generally starts when children begin playing side-by-side without any interaction. Even though they aren’t physically interacting they are paying attention to each other. This is the beginning of the desire to be with other children.
4. Associative Play: At around age four or five, children become more interested in each other than in toys and begin to interact more. In this stage children start asking questions and talking about the different activities they are engaging in. They realise they have similar goals in play such as building a tower or playing with cars.
5. Social Play: In this stage children are starting to socialise more. They begin to share ideas and follow certain rules in a game. They slowly learn the definition of teamwork. They get to engage in basic social skills and interests begin to lead social interactions.
Profile Idealz
Company: Idealz
Founded: January 2018
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Size: (employees): 22
Investors: Co-founders and Venture Partners (9 per cent)
The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
Last-16 Europa League fixtures
Wednesday (Kick-offs UAE)
FC Copenhagen (0) v Istanbul Basaksehir (1) 8.55pm
Shakhtar Donetsk (2) v Wolfsburg (1) 8.55pm
Inter Milan v Getafe (one leg only) 11pm
Manchester United (5) v LASK (0) 11pm
Thursday
Bayer Leverkusen (3) v Rangers (1) 8.55pm
Sevilla v Roma (one leg only) 8.55pm
FC Basel (3) v Eintracht Frankfurt (0) 11pm
Wolves (1) Olympiakos (1) 11pm
