In the latest episode, the twelve hopefuls that remain have been getting all fired-up in Dubai!

BBC’s The Apprentice – Series 9, filmed in Dubai

Scheduled to be broadcast on Tuesday 28^th May at 9pm on BBC One, check out a teaser for the show at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p019dfl6

The hour long programme will show candidates receiving a pre-dawn call, informing them that they are jetting-off on a business trip to the UAE. Upon arrival the group is taken to an un-named Dubai hotel and informed their task is to complete the interior design of its newly-built lobby, on-time and on-budget.

Episode promo: Dubai or not to buy?

As the candidates rush panicky from the Creek’s souks to Dubai Mall in search of tasteful, traditional décor, their ingenuity and cultural knowledge is tested to the max.

The trailer amusingly shows, 25-year-old contestant, Luisa Zissman randomly stopping passers-by to ask where she can source “Frankincense…crystals..[to] smell?”

While 26-year-old Jordan Poulton unsuccessfully tries to overcome the language barrier with a foreigner as he explains what he wants to buy. “You know the hood that falcons wear?” he says, much to his fellow-shopper’s bemusement.

At which point, 29-year-old Jason Leech attempts to help by making flapping movements with his arms: “Falcon – like an eagle.” he urges  “You put a hat on it, so it does not see.. A big bird, you put it on your arm and it flies away?”

Other excerpts show the team looking for a traditional Arabic coffee pot only to be dismayed when a miniature, glass-encased ornamental dallah is presented to them in one shop.

BBC’s The Apprentice: Candidates shop for an Arabic coffee pot

The UK show, just like its American cousin featuring tycoon Donald Trump, has a huge following. Greek-born historian and property entrepreneur Leech seems to be flavor of the month, with fans commenting on his performance in the upcoming Dubai episode on social media sites from facebook  https://www.facebook.com/BBCApprentice  and Twitter  @bbcapprentice to the BBC’s homepage http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b020xrpd

“Lol Jason is brilliant” commented Tom Small on the channel’s site.

“It’s like observing people in a people zoo” remarked viewer Alec Brooke.

The post The Apprentice: Candidates get fired-up in Dubai appeared first on The National.

When people apply for a new job, many of them rarely think about their position and what they wish to achieve in two to five years. Without a roadmap they get bored of their new job after few months and decide to quit. Sadly, the same scenario is befalling most young Emirati couples. Too often, the couple fantasise about their honeymoon, being with their Mr. or Mrs Right for eternity, and they forget to plan ahead. Marriage is not a two- to three-year bond, it is a long lasting relationship which many of us fail to grasp.

There is a misconception that love can conquer all obstacles. This notion works perfectly in a Hollywood or Bollywood love story that lasts a couple of hours and ends in a beautiful union – but it does not apply to real life.

Nor does reaching certain age mean a person is ready to get married.

As a Muslim nation, we are commanded by the Prophet to look for two traits in a spouse: religiosity and mannerism because both go hand-in-hand. Other factors, such as a man’s education and profession, are secondary.

When receiving a proposal, families should not be hasty in their response. Nor should they push their children to marry someone, because eventually it will be the couple’s future children who will bear the consequences, not them.

If we take the time to properly investigate the possible life partners for our children, it could go a long way in cutting down the divorce rate.

The post Marriage is an unplanned commitment in the UAE appeared first on The National.

A restoration project to give new life to the forgotten masterpieces that line Jeddah’s sea front is well under way and nearing completion.

The 27 bronze statues, that include works by Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, and Joan Miro were brought to the city between 1973 and 1986 and were installed on the Corniche. Over time, they have become damaged by the sea air and exposure to the elements.

Thanks to a waterfront development plan from Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives (ALJCI), a British consultancy firm Plowden & Smith, have been restoring the statues to their original condition since January 2012.

Restoration continues on Jeddah’s priceless collection of bronze statues

The team have dismantled most of the statues and moved them to a workshop to conduct the restoration work. ALJCI have organised a training programme for Saudi artists on to run alongside the restoration works to ensure that sculptures will remain in a good condition in the future.

Once finished, the statues will be moved to an open-air sculpture park close to the Al Anani mosque, on an area of 7,000 square metres.

Fady Jameel, President of ALJCI International, stated that he is proud to be contributing to reviving Jeddah’s beauty and glory and added that this is only the first phase of this initiative, and will be followed by other stages to restore all other sculptures in Jeddah.

The restoration project has been going on for almost 18 months

The post Work continues on Jeddah’s seafront masterpieces appeared first on The National.

Well, not so much flying as much as breeding. And no, we’re not talking about Usain, the now-legendary Jamaican Olympian. It’s a pigeon. We explain:

Like his human counterpart, “Bolt” the racing pigeon is a record-setter in every sense, fetching €310,000 (Dh1.4 million) from a Chinese buyer impressed by his winning pedigree and successes.

Named after six-times Olympic champion, Jamaican Usain Bolt, the pigeon was put up for auction on the Belgian specialist site pipa.be — which comes in several language versions, including Japanese and Chinese, reflecting the sport’s global appeal.

“Bolt is a super pigeon,” owner Leo Heremans was quoted as saying, with a string of race victories to his name.

Reports in the Belgian media said Heremans, a well known pigeon fancier and breeder, sold virtually his whole stock of 530 birds which were described as “killers” who stand out for their ability to “dominate and outclass opponents”.

The sale brought Heremans reportedly a sum of €4 million.

RTBF TV station cited another pigeon specialist, Nikolaas Gijselbrecht, as saying that “Belgian pigeons are known the world over – just like Belgian beer and chocolate!”

Gijselbrecht added: ‘Leo has done so well with his birds this year and there has been a lot of hype.

“That’s why he has been able to get so much money. The prices have just gone crazy.”

PiPa, the abbreviation for “Pigeons from Paradise”, was founded in 2000 to promote the sport which attracts a huge following, with breeders as selective and fussy over their bloodlines as the most exclusive racehorse owner.

* Agence France-Presse

The post Whoever knew Bolt could make money flying? appeared first on The National.

Although the picturesque promenades of Europe’s Cote d’Azur or the summit of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong may seem a million miles away, perhaps if you close your eyes and relax with a cup of exotic blended tea, you might be able to drift away?

At least that’s what the people behind the TWG Tea Weekend Collection would have us believe. Whether it is a A Weekend in St Tropez – a blend of red fruits and berries - or the grand mélange of green tea, wild rhubarb, blossoms and malty toffee of A Weekend in Hong Kong, the latest selection promises paradise in a tea cup. For those who want to stay closer to home, A Weekend in Dubai is green tea blended with rare fruits and flowers.

* The Weekend Tea Collection teas is available in sets of two, three and five, priced at Dh222, Dh296 and Dh455 respectively. Each tea is packaged in an artisan tin featuring an image of the city that inspired it and is encased in a luxurious TWG Tea gift box.

The post Paradise in a tea cup? appeared first on The National.

The best images from the last seven days from around the Gulf and across the Middle East.

Photo edit and sequencing by photo editor, James O’Hara

The post The best photography from around the region this week: May 23, 2013 appeared first on The National.

Manchester City have headed west for a Major League Soccer tie-up with the New York Yankees. We look at some statistics that define the sport in the US.

The post Major numbers you need to know in Major League Soccer appeared first on The National.

How do you tell a story using the details in photographs? How do you get across a sense of feeling and atmosphere?

Staff photographer Silvia Razgova spent a few days with the Monte Carlo Circus last month, and as well as producing the photographs printed in the news pages of The National, she was asked to complete a special assignment – to show, through her pictures, how it ‘felt’ to be at the circus.

Here she tells photo editor RJ Mickleson how she tackled the shoot.

RJ: The circus has been photographed by a number of photographers over the years. How did you stay away from some of the stereotypical circus shots and offer a fresh look into the circus world?

SR: At first I didn’t think about it at all. I tried to shoot what I found interesting. Then when I realised there was going to be a news story, it posed more of a challenge for me because I needed to show specific elements. And I then found that it was more challenging to photograph the circus than I thought. The lighting changes very rapidly – the intensity and the direction. And the people are moving very fast and at the same time it’s very dark. If you just look at it technically, it’s a challenge just to keep the images sharp.

I actually went online to Magnum and Getty to see what people had already done and to see what’s considered a ‘newsworthy image’ from the circus. I thought ‘Oh, i could have got this’ or ‘I could have got that’, only to find out later that I couldn’t because my circus was different. So I didn’t try to be too different (from what I saw online), I only tried to convey what I felt and thought about it.

Can you describe what you are thinking when you bounce between an editorially focused image and a more abstract image? Is it a conscious effort on your part or are you just shooting what you see?

With this circus story, I was conscious of what I was photographing because I needed to decide what was more important to the news story and what was of interest for the blog essay. It is always a conscious effort, I rarely just ‘snap’. Then while I was making decisions as to what to photograph I knew that this was going to be for the newspaper or this is going to be for the project. For the newspaper, the image had to contain a certain amount of information and for the essay I was going more for what felt right - it was  intuitive and emotional. What was important to me was what the moment felt like.

A lot of your personal work is very intimate. Can you explain how you illustrate intimacy and abstraction in your work? 

With some images it’s in the framing. There’s an image in this essay of one man resting on another man’s feet. I don’t need to see their full bodies, I don’t need to see the space where this moment is happening. What they are doing is a lot about trust, their physical contact and their intimacy. All I need to see is that point of contact, how he’s gripping his legs. I explored that scene for while and I tried to get their eyes in the picture, then I decided I didn’t need to see the eyes, eyes are overrated. People always want to see the white of the eyes and in journalistic or news images then yes, it would be more compelling to see another person’s emotions, to create contact with their eyes. In other images however I don’t think you need them, in fact I quite like portraits with closed eyes.

In speaking about eyes, or lack thereof, there’s a number of photos in this collection that don’t include faces, or if they do, the viewer doesn’t see any other features (hands etc). Are you aggressively pursuing these tight details and textures?

To know what it feels like to be at the circus, you don’t need to see the faces. The way a snake charmer lets a snake crawl over her is way more interesting than seeing her painted face. Again, it’s textural, there is this cool, smooth, mass of a muscular snake wrapped on her warm hair with a hard, metal hair-pin keeping the whole thing up. I find these different textures far more interesting.

I sometimes use people and objects in the frame as compositional elements… they all to come together to balance each other out or to work together, or just to be pretty in the frame. I think it’s fine to make pretty pictures. I don’t need to be conveying people’s innermost secrets with every picture. I find beauty in sheer objects and the way they come together, and the way they are revealed by light like the Lion’s Skin photo. I watched him panting a bit, I wish I could’ve conveyed that better, but as he sat back his skin wrinkled against the cold cage and it reveals the mass of his whole body. The texture reveals what’s beyond the photo in some of these cases. We know what a lion’s face looks like so I look for other elements to tell us more about the subject’s experience or its relationship to the environment.

Where in the process does the abstract come in? In the shooting (or not shooting) of certain images or in the editing process?

Both, but first you have to have the images to edit, so it was a conscious decision to shoot it this way. Then later, you can look at the images from the 3 days and put together several different edits based on what you needed.

My editors and I ended up putting together a couple of different edits, including this blog essay, and another that was more straight forward. The latter spoke to more of a general audience who may have seen, or would like to see, the circus. It said ‘this is what you’d see if you were there’.

But maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’d see the details and the abstractions that I saw.

The post Looking past the eyes: An intimate portrait of a circus appeared first on The National.

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi’s received a culinary make over. We check out the brand new menu on offer.

The New Menu

Not only the rides and attractions can change at Yas Island’s Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, the menu at the in-house Italian eatery Ristorante Cavalino also received a brush up with an array of new dishes on offer. Executive chef Massimiliano Valenzi says the new menu continues retains the old Ferrari spirit.

“The restaurants at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi celebrate Italian culinary traditions. We use organic ingredients, many of which are flown all the way from Italy, and all our dough, bread and confectionary is baked fresh in our kitchens every day,” he said. “We wanted the dining experience to stay true to the spirit of Maranello and the Emilia Romagna region of Italy that is Ferrari’s homeland.”

First Course

We begin with Prawns Bucatini (Dh 60); a thick spaghetti with prawns and Cherri tomatoes drizzled in a light Chili Sauce. A lot of UAE Italian eateries have the tendency to go all out on their pastas; using excess fillings and zany takes on sauces and thus stripping the dish of all identity. Fortunately, Ristorante Cavalino keeps the changes to a minimum and allowing the fresh ingredients to do the work. The Chili Sauce blends well with the sweetness of the Cherry tomatoes. The mixed herbs allows a fine balance and the prawns are fresh and firm.

Second Course

We hit the poultry next with the Corn-Fed Baby Chicken (Dh 95).  Unfortunately not even the mushroom and Pormiggiano Reggiano Sauce – a creamy garlic sauce – could over take the chicken’s dryness.

Beef Short Ribs

 The misfire was immediately rectified by Beef Short Ribs (Dh 95). The staff inform us it is the new menu’s best seller. I believe it. Slowly cooked for over four hours the beef is so tender that a gentle prod from my spoon allows it fall apart. It is simply delicious and when mixed with the grilled Portobello Mushroom it conjures a welcome tangy flavour. The creamed potatoes is also sensational. It is the first time I remember mourning for more potatoes at the end of a meal. The dish is a winner and a must try.

Desert

The Profiteroles

The Profiteroles (Dh 35)  - served as a pair – is given a new twist. Instead of cream, vanilla ice cream is used. It is also stuffed a fashion making the profiteroles resemble a hamburger. The heft of the ice cream, coupled with the warm chocolate sauce make it deceptively heavy.

Crème Brûlées

The Crème Brûlées (Dh 35)  large size warrants it’s own coffee session. It is luxurious and could easily be shared by two.

The Wash Up

With the restaurant’s already formidable wood-oven pizzas, the new menu offers good options for a more polished lunch or dinner experience. Those with a sweet tooth will enjoy the hearty selections on offer. The final word, though, belongs to the Beef Short Ribs and it’s accompanying cream potatoes. Like the roller coaster Formula Rossa, it is another must try at the Yas island venue.

For details: www.ferrariworldabudhabi.com

The post Ristorante Cavallino’s new menu has polish and heart appeared first on The National.

As Palestinians around the world recently marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement during the war over Israel’s 1948 creation, the refugees in Gezirat al-Fadel say they have it worse than others who fled to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon. Unlike the millions who live in refugee camps in those countries, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) does not have offices in Egypt and so does not offer Palestinian refugees in Egypt assistance.

Photo edit and sequencing by photo editor, James O’Hara

The post The forgotten Palestinian refugees of Egypt appeared first on The National.