I’m in a rather annoyed frame of mind today, easy to take offence and feeling persecuted by everything. At one of my work places, I got very prickly about a proposed piece related to Eid being shot down (Islamophobia! I growled to myself), and felt my experience and expertise was being undervalued. Not something that particularly bothers me, usually, but it did today. Then a message from a relative asking about my return to Pakistan, and I would have snapped had it been by phone rather than text. And word on another relative getting a passport renewed to travel abroad and feeling that they’d never travelled to see me all the years I’ve lived abroad. That sort of thing. Not quite sure where this prickliness comes from (well, genetically I know exactly where it comes from), but it is a struggle to remain aware of it and stop myself from dwelling on imagined slights.
Pakistan has decided to become politically interesting in the most annoying way possible (this is not my prickliness speaking). Imran Khan has been arrested.* I find it utterly unforgivable how, first, the PTI made me defend the PPP and PML-N, and now the latter are are making me defend the PTI. It’s easy to say that none of these parties are pulling the strings here, which is true, but had they not all been venal chasers after power the strings would have been more fragile.
After my grump-inducing meetings I decided to go out for a coffee, but my usual cafe was closed for what seems to be an away day judging by the poster showing the staff seemingly escaping over a back fence. Instead I went to another cafe, on my own street, which I’d thought I should try out. This was just closing but the very nice woman made a takeaway of her recommended coffee for me. This turned out to be a rather peculiar beast, not at all the austere drip or unsweetened latte I normally have, but a tall glass filled with ice, a layer of something I thought was condensed milk (this being SE Asia) and a rather thin layer of coffee. It turned out not to be condensed milk at all but some sort of sharp juice blend, with lots of lime and other fruits. Pleasant enough, but not quite what I was after, and I have been avoiding OD-ing on sweetness these days, which is far too easy to do in this part of the world.
My current Ishiguro, The Unconsoled, is also peculiar, quite unlike the other three. I’m enjoying it though in a much less visceral way than Never Let Me Go.
*If by arrest one means bundled into an armoured vehicle by paramilitary forces whilst at a court hearing.