Families, extended families and friends gathered to break fast. Despite the restaurant being full to over capacity there was no animosity, no snarling, and no berating of table staff. A genuine, if rather ineffable, sense of community hung in the air. Fasting had not only reawakened people's gastronomic appreciation, but at some level it had also heightened their appreciation of our shared humanity.
There is an Afghan proverb that goes something like: "the cure for tooth ache is to set fire to the house". The idea being, big problems distract us from relatively trivial issues, thereby affecting a cure. In some subtle way I think fasting achieves the same end. It's harder to be overly upset about trivial slights or dissatisfied with ones' lot in life when you're weak from hunger and thirst.
Once the fast is broken, for some people there is also the gift of spontaneous savouring. Psychologists define savouring as the conscious intentional act of focusing our full attention on the pleasurable qualities of an experience.
Generally the act of savouring will amplify and prolong pleasurable experiences, also rendering them more memorable. This makes savouring an important psychotherapeutic concept, especially since anhedonia (a diminished ability to experience pleasure) is one of the two defining symptoms for major depressive disorder.
Ramadan, iftar dinner in particular, affords a routine opportunity to practice savouring skills, especially the savouring of little things generally taken for granted, like water. Imagine getting the same buzz from a tall cool glass of H2O as you might derive from a brand new BMW X6.
Sometimes, though, too much savouring can be a bad thing.
Along with being affordable our iftar restaurant was also a buffet specialist - all-year-round they operate an all-you-can-eat-buffet. This place is so specialised they've totally dispensed with menus, a la carte is not an option.
But the idea of an all-you-can-eat-buffet does have its disadvantages. For one it seems to encourage over consumption, even gluttony. For some people the all-you-can-eat prefix is taken as a statement of challenge. Plates are heaped and re-heaped with gravity-defying mounds of meat, as well-fleshed diners stress-test their stomachs.
Perhaps as we become increasingly health conscious the concept of an all-you-can-eat-buffet will seem as alien as a smoking section on a plane, or in a hospital ward. Maybe the all-you-can-eat concept will give way to a futuristic all-you-should-eat buffet. This buffet might use body scanners to perform anthropometric calculations and then warn diners as they approached their caloric quota.
Eating disorders aside, the real issue for me at my Ramadan iftar was not how much food people ate, but rather how much food people wasted. One table of six diners left behind enough food to comfortably feed a party of 20. This was sadly not the exception, but rather the rule.
We stayed long enough to watch staff clear up, and any illusions we harboured about the leftovers being used to some good end were shattered as we watched huge quantities of perfectly good food unceremoniously binned. It was hard not to juxtapose these images with those of the famished presently suffering in the Horn of Africa.
We began discussing ways in which we might be able to reduce the wastage associated with what we were now terming the all-you-can-waste-buffet. One suggestion was to add a clearance tax, payable only if the table in question was littered with uneaten food. Then there was the carrot-approach, offering a clean-plate discount, 10 per cent off for diners with clean plates.
Neither is likely to work but there is no denying less waste ultimately translates into a better bottom line for the eatery, not to mention a small contribution to environmental sustainability. Ramadan, and fasting in general are beneficial on so many levels it seems a shame that there can be such a rapid degeneration into wasteful excess so soon after breaking the fast.
There is a well-known and often repeated verse from the Quran pertaining to dining: "Eat and drink but waste not by excess". It's wisdom worth remembering as the holy month comes to a close.
Ramadan should never be a time where both waist and waste increase.
Justin Thomas is an assistant professor of psychology at Zayed University
UAE SQUAD
Khalid Essa (Al Ain), Ali Khaseif (Al Jazira), Adel Al Hosani (Sharjah), Mahmoud Khamis (Al Nasr), Yousef Jaber (Shabab Al Ahli Dubai), Khalifa Al Hammadi (Jazira), Salem Rashid (Jazira), Shaheen Abdelrahman (Sharjah), Faris Juma (Al Wahda), Mohammed Shaker (Al Ain), Mohammed Barghash (Wahda), Abdulaziz Haikal (Shabab Al Ahli), Ahmed Barman (Al Ain), Khamis Esmail (Wahda), Khaled Bawazir (Sharjah), Majed Surour (Sharjah), Abdullah Ramadan (Jazira), Mohammed Al Attas (Jazira), Fabio De Lima (Al Wasl), Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Khalfan Mubarak (Jazira), Habib Fardan (Nasr), Khalil Ibrahim (Wahda), Ali Mabkhout (Jazira), Ali Saleh (Wasl), Caio (Al Ain), Sebastian Tagliabue (Nasr).
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
Racecard
2pm Handicap Dh 90,000 1,800m
2.30pm Handicap Dh120,000 1,950m
3pm Handicap Dh105,000 1,600m
3.30pm Jebel Ali Classic Conditions Dh300,000 1,400m
4pm Maiden Dh75,000 1,600m
4.30pm Conditions Dh250,000 1,400m
5pm Maiden Dh75,000 1,600m
5.30pm Handicap Dh85,000 1,000m
The National selections:
2pm Arch Gold
2.30pm Conclusion
3pm Al Battar
3.30pm Golden Jaguar
4pm Al Motayar
4.30pm Tapi Sioux
5pm Leadership
5.30pm Dahawi
MATCH INFO
What: India v Afghanistan, first Test
When: Starts Thursday
Where: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengalaru
IF YOU GO
The flights: FlyDubai offers direct flights to Catania Airport from Dubai International Terminal 2 daily with return fares starting from Dh1,895.
The details: Access to the 2,900-metre elevation point at Mount Etna by cable car and 4x4 transport vehicle cost around €57.50 (Dh248) per adult. Entry into Teatro Greco costs €10 (Dh43). For more go to www.visitsicily.info
Where to stay: Hilton Giardini Naxos offers beachfront access and accessible to Taormina and Mount Etna. Rooms start from around €130 (Dh561) per night, including taxes.
ANATOMY%20OF%20A%20FALL
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Squads
Australia: Finch (c), Agar, Behrendorff, Carey, Coulter-Nile, Lynn, McDermott, Maxwell, Short, Stanlake, Stoinis, Tye, Zampa
India: Kohli (c), Khaleel, Bumrah, Chahal, Dhawan, Shreyas, Karthik, Kuldeep, Bhuvneshwar, Pandey, Krunal, Pant, Rahul, Sundar, Umesh
Company profile
Date started: Founded in May 2017 and operational since April 2018
Founders: co-founder and chief executive, Doaa Aref; Dr Rasha Rady, co-founder and chief operating officer.
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: Health-tech
Size: 22 employees
Funding: Seed funding
Investors: Flat6labs, 500 Falcons, three angel investors
How do Sim card scams work?
Sim swap frauds are a form of identity theft.
They involve criminals conning mobile phone operators into issuing them with replacement Sim cards by claiming to be the victim, often pretending their phone has been lost or stolen in order to secure a new Sim.
They use the victim's personal details - obtained through criminal methods - to convince such companies of their identity.
The criminal can then access any online service that requires security codes to be sent to a user's mobile phone, such as banking services.
Representing%20UAE%20overseas
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RESULTS
Bantamweight title:
Vinicius de Oliveira (BRA) bt Xavier Alaoui (MAR)
(KO round 2)
Catchweight 68kg:
Sean Soriano (USA) bt Noad Lahat (ISR)
(TKO round 1)
Middleweight:
Denis Tiuliulin (RUS) bt Juscelino Ferreira (BRA)
(TKO round 1)
Lightweight:
Anas Siraj Mounir (MAR) bt Joachim Tollefsen (DEN)
(Unanimous decision)
Catchweight 68kg:
Austin Arnett (USA) bt Daniel Vega (MEX)
(TKO round 3)
Lightweight:
Carrington Banks (USA) bt Marcio Andrade (BRA)
(Unanimous decision)
Catchweight 58kg:
Corinne Laframboise (CAN) bt Malin Hermansson (SWE)
(Submission round 2)
Bantamweight:
Jalal Al Daaja (CAN) bt Juares Dea (CMR)
(Split decision)
Middleweight:
Mohamad Osseili (LEB) bt Ivan Slynko (UKR)
(TKO round 1)
Featherweight:
Tarun Grigoryan (ARM) bt Islam Makhamadjanov (UZB)
(Unanimous decision)
Catchweight 54kg:
Mariagiovanna Vai (ITA) bt Daniella Shutov (ISR)
(Submission round 1)
Middleweight:
Joan Arastey (ESP) bt Omran Chaaban (LEB)
(Unanimous decision)
Welterweight:
Bruno Carvalho (POR) bt Souhil Tahiri (ALG)
(TKO)
THE BIO
Age: 33
Favourite quote: “If you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill
Favourite breed of dog: All of them. I can’t possibly pick a favourite.
Favourite place in the UAE: The Stray Dogs Centre in Umm Al Quwain. It sounds predictable, but it honestly is my favourite place to spend time. Surrounded by hundreds of dogs that love you - what could possibly be better than that?
Favourite colour: All the colours that dogs come in
SHADOWS%20AND%20LIGHT%3A%20THE%20EXTRAORDINARY%20LIFE%20OF%20JAMES%20MCBEY
%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20Alasdair%20Soussi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPages%3A%20300%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EPublisher%3A%20Scotland%20Street%20Press%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EAvailable%3A%20December%201%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
