G’day.
I’m Tom Gara.
This is an attempt to get back into the habit of blogging, after Twitter – the only form of media that could make blogging seem like a deep, high-effort act of committed writing – led me to abandon the medium for about two years. We’ll see how it works out.
In the daytime, I’m a reporter covering the Middle East for FT Tilt, an online news service at the Financial Times that is unhealthily obsessed with emerging markets. Everything I say here has nothing to do with my employer, unless it reflects extremely well on them, in which case I guess it has everything to do with my employer. You know the deal.
I’ve been in the UAE since 2008, when I moved to Abu Dhabi to join The National, where I was a tech and telecom reporter. I moved to Dubai in 2010, alongside almost everyone working in Abu Dhabi at the time. Before the UAE, I was in Cairo, for about three years, working as a writer and editor for Egypt Today and Business Today Egypt. Egypt is more of a home than anywhere for me now, so do forgive my tendency to describe its people as the greatest in history and similar crazy talk. But seriously, did you SEE those badasses overthrowing Hosni Mubarak?
From my university days until 2006 I worked for AIESEC, which took me to Dublin for a year, Cairo for another year, and then to Rottedam in the Netherlands, where I was an external relations guy at AIESEC’s international headquarters. I studied commerce at Adelaide University in Australia, not hugely successfully.
My guess is that this blog will deal primarily with the changing Middle East, Egypt, the UAE, politics, cooking, YouTube videos featuring either hip-hop or animals fighting, media and technology (is there a blog that doesn’t focus on media and technology?) and maybe, every now and then, Australia.
This blog looks so freaking good because it uses the Basic Maths template designed by Khoi Vinh of Subtraction.com, which is the best looking blog out there, full stop. I just thought I should mention that.
Want deepen this promising relationship? I’m tom dot gara at gmail dot com, @tomgara on Twitter, and a whole bunch of other things that you can find over at about.me/tomgara.
Peace.
