blog

Urn churn

How relieved I am, in retrospect, that our death customs are so clearly laid out. I see others worrying about what to do with the urn of ashes, what to put in the funeral service, what music to choose, what flowers, which funeral director, what kind of coffin, whether to embalm, and am relieved I […]

Some help, perhaps

The woman at the shelter left for Pakistan today. I think I was of some help, in retrospect. I insisted that she call the shelter and go there, getting away from the house – I don’t think she was ready to until then. I was a familiar voice speaking her language and in the same […]

Embarrassment

I had a longish phone meeting with a new client today to discuss a project. It is very interesting and genuinely important. At the end they asked me for my fee. I gave my quote and held my breath. There was silence. They said, diffidently, that they didn’t think that was quite right and they […]

Meditations on the nature of the self and memory

We went to see the sequel to Bladerunner over the weekend. Bladerunner itself is one of my favourite films. We watched it last week in preparation, and once again I was blown away by how beautiful, how intelligent, and how whole hearted it is. It has complete conviction in itself which is one of my […]

Mixed bag

I am wondering today if I was any use at all to that woman. I feel rather guilty: what I should have done is got an Uber, gone to her flat, picked her up with her four children, and brought them to my flat until their return could be arranged. But what if her family […]

Midnight calling

Got caught up at the margins of a situation yesterday – a former colleague whom I barely knew included me in an email shot to people in KL about a Pakistani woman, uneducated, at risk of extreme domestic violence from her husband. The woman herself called me at 2 in the morning and I spent […]

Food magic

This morning a misdirected message arrived advising me to feed my mother frozen and grated lemons which would kill her cancer cells and leave the healthy ones alive. The sender apologised, it being a few years too late, but it reminded me of how irritating I found the many, many recommendations for miracle cures that […]

NOOOOOooooooooo………

My hairdresser has disappeared! After a very long search I’d found someone I quite liked, who was silent and just gave me the haircut I wanted without faffing. And now he appears to be gone. Sniff. The hunt begins again. What a disaster. Not quite Brexit proportion but far more immediately inconvenient.