WHAT WE TRIED: The first and only high-end sports car club in the Middle East. For info, email info@scudiera-250.com or visit www.scudiera-250.com
WHAT WE HOPED FOR: A red Ferrari driven by a George Clooney lookalike. As I didn't have the Dh55,000 needed for membership, I couldn't be insured to drive any of the cars the club owns myself, so I had to be allocated a driver for the test drive.
WHAT WE EXPERIENCED: Joy of all joys… a red Ferrari F435 driven by Tim Conniff, the sales manager, who as luck would have it bears an uncanny resemblance to George Clooney.
But before we could roar around town I had some paperwork to complete to emulate the real process, which goes like this: 1. First you register on their website, www.scudiera-250.com. A very nice lady called Susan comes to your office or home, and you fill in a form, which on a scale of form-filling in the UAE, is as easy as working a Formula 1 gearbox (very easy since you ask). 2. Then you pay your membership fee, which is on one of four levels starting from Dhs55,000 and going up to Dhs135,000 for the top membership. There is also a one-off joining fee of Dh10,000.
The membership entitles you to points, which you use to borrow one of 30 cars the club owns. These include a Lamborghini Gallardo, an Aston Martin DB9 and a Porsche 997 Turbo (is there any other kind of Porsche?). 3. You collect the car in Dubai or they bring it to you, whatever suits. They deliver to Abu Dhabi. The club will be limited to 250 members - hence the name - and membership will entitle you to an average of 50 driving days a year.
"It is a great way to enjoy high-performance cars without actually incurring the expense of owning one," says Conniff, who estimates that the cost of owning a Ferrari for a year is around Dh280,000 if you take into account insurance, depreciation and maintenance. "You get all the driving experience without all the cost."
THE FINAL VERDICT: A perfect solution for credit-crunch-hit car enthusiasts. Everyone will think you own not one but several drop-dead cars. And the best of it is that you get your own car valet-cleaned while you roar up and down the Atlantis tunnel in a red Ferrari as I did. It's an experience I highly recommend, with or without the George Clooney lookalike.
Part 11: memorise two letter Scrabble words On the surface, Scrabble is the wordsmith's game. However, Scrabble is also a maths puzzle, like Sudoku, just with words. For the best Scrabblers, the words themselves are simply obstacles in the way of amassing points. And nothing is more devastating than the two-letter knockout. In all, the Scrabble dictionary recognises 101 combinations of two-letter words. There are the simple ones - at, do, it, of - but it's the obscure that impresses. So here's a primer on two-letter triumphs. To start, every note on the diatonic music scale - do, re, me, fa etc - is fair game. If you are serious about learning them all, find an online list, then memorise to your heart's content. Until then, here are some of our favourites:
Aa - a form of lava Ai - three-toed sloth Al - East Indian tree Em and En - measurements in the print industry Fe - periodic symbol for ferrous and a Hebrew letter Hm - to express thought Ka - Egyptian spiritual term Mu - a Greek letter Oi - to express dismay Op - abstract art form Sh - as in what you say at the cinema Qi - from Chinese philosophy Xu - a monetary unit in Vietnam Za - the frat-boy term for pizza
Watch out, Oprah. As if being a fabulously fit movie star, rock star wife and friend of Madonna isn't enough, Gwyneth Paltrow now has her own lifetyle blog called GOOP, instructing readers to "nourish the inner aspect". Critics, and there are many online, will snort at her attempt to dole out perky advice on how to live like her. Fans, however, will be able to read about her fitness routine, favourite hotspots and exhibits around the world, recipes for detox diets and tips for dressing in her "uniform".
Tired of searching for a postbox? Next time you're due to go for dinner at one of the hotels in town, take your stamped and addressed envelopes to the concierge desks and ask them to mail them for you. No one has ever declined our requests just because we weren't guests.
Earth Hour, a global event in which people turn off their lights for one hour to show their support to fight climate change, is on March 28 at 8:30pm this year. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Fujairah and Sharjah are among the cities pledging to take part. Visit www.earthhour.org to declare your intent to turn your lights off, and you'll start receiving newsletters with useful energy-saving tips.
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Equinox
Price, base / as tested: Dh76,900 / Dh110,900
Engine: 2.0L, turbocharged in-line four-cylinder
Gearbox: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 252hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: Torque: 352Nm @ 2,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.5L / 100km
Race card
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
6pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m
6.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
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The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
SHAITTAN
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COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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Fixtures
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Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
