I read an interesting interview with Filipina Isabel Yap. To begin with the standard American voice dominated a great deal of discourse. This is followed by diverse voices, but they remain in an American context: the concerns of Asian-Americans (or South Asian Americans, since in America ‘Asian’ refers to people with epicanthic folds), which feels […]
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An example
An example of what I find to be Malaysia’s somewhat horrific, yet fully publically accepted, xenophobia. A news item in the Star: Almost all foreign workers in study carry food poisoning microbes.
Burger and squid
I went out to dinner with the relative plus one, as well as her old friend who lives in London and is an academic. The old friend has recently moved to a university I was once employed at, so we shared some gossip about members of her department-to-be. We met at Bobo Social, which is […]
Steak and marrow
We went last night to Hawksmoor. The steaks were excellent as ever, and I ordered some roasted bone marrow to top mine, but the service was surprisingly poor. The bone marrow arrived long after the steak, one dining companion’s medium raw steak was medium or more, and generally it was hard to catch an eye […]
A vision, thwarted
I had a vision of a top suitable to wear with loose, short trousers but that was not a snug crop top. This was a vision of a loose button-down collared shirt, down to the hips, and cinched at the waist by a wide fabric belt. With this vision in mind I went to Covent […]
Football
I watched (part of) my first World Cup match today. The Gentleman Friend is very keen on the sport, though in recent years has been thwarted by important matches playing only on paid sport channels, and a dislike for pubs and bars. But the World Cup is playing everywhere and tonight was the first England […]
Trouble with an astrolabe
The ending to ‘The Astrolabe’ remains unsatisfying. Usually I’m quite good at final scenes, but it occurs to me this is because they are often the first thing that comes to me, whereas with this I didn’t have an ending before I began. I read Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West last night, and that clearly suffered […]
City stroll
We met friends from Malaysia at the Quality Chop House, an old favourite, for lunch. They were doing Sunday lunch, which was very good (despite my disinterest in Sunday lunch) but not quite as spectacular as I remember it. Whether this is because of Sunday lunch or that it has gone down in quality, I […]
Deptford
With an overseas relative visiting, I took the opportunity afforded by someone who didn’t know London distances to propose we visit the Cockpit Arts open house in Deptford. We had been regulars at the Holborn open houses back when we lived around the corner in Bloomsbury. It proved quite easy to get there: the DLR […]
Your clothes
My mother’s birthdays are always sad. She had mixed feelings about them; she was excited, they never lived up to the anticipation. The birthday parties required immense preparations, great expense and a lot of stress for everyone, but were something I had to endure for her sake, though I was less kind than I could […]