Samuel Pepys wrote: ‘Indeed it was past imagination, both the greatness and the suddenness of it’ as he walked through London with ‘all the bells in all the churches’ a-ringing as the rump parliament was dissolved. An entry I remember from the last time it came through my feedreader. I have been reading Pepys’ diary […]
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To the capital
We’re in Phnom Penh. I of course have been working frantically, with no end in sight. I was working and in meetings till past midnight last night, then woke at 5.30 as usual, had a shower and started working, worked in the car except when I felt car sick (exacerbated by the driver’s repellently fruity […]
Aftershocks
A previously unfamiliar pink alert on my phone, an earthquake in southeastern Turkey. I have an app which monitors earthquakes. It was nerve-wracking when it was set to Indonesia, and of course it reported the earthquake outside Jakarta while I was at lunch, which ended the lives of many, but also at least 2-3 earthquakes […]
Death of the general
General Musharraf has died. How upset I was that day in 1999 when he seized power. I was in university, just a few weeks in. I remember walking through Harvard Square with one of my roommates, trying to speak the mixture of anger and fear I felt, and her lack of understanding. Then, weeks or […]
Desolation
Today we took a car first to Kampot for breakfast and then up to Bogor, the French hill resort. It was a surprisingly gentle ascent, though perhaps comparing it to Murree etc is silly (speaking of which I learned recently that Murree Brewery used to be run by the family of General Dyer of Jallianwala […]
How many hands
During my long break from this blog I had a birthday and since I was in Bangkok at the time I took the opportunity to buy myself (on behalf of another) a birthday present I had long wanted, a nice though not extravagant watch but simple and clean in design. The downside, or perhaps its […]
Nursery rhyme
Another fleeting dream, this time of an online conversation (as are so many conversations now, but still disoncerting in a dream) and one of the participants was Elon Musk. We all rolled our eyes when we saw his user name (I know others did too, though it was all text based) and then he started […]
Under water
I dreamt last night that I went underwater. It was in the Bosphorus, off Uskudar. I had heard this and found it was true, that there was a silent landscape of lush yellow coral there, extending as far as one could see. I stayed there for a long time, looking around in wonder, and realised […]
Today, outside
Today I feel I have nothing to write, as nothing much happened other than desultory work late into the night. The GF and his mother went to Rabbit Island and enjoyed their trip, I enjoyed having things to myself though would have preferred it to be without work. It’s been a breezy day, a little […]
The past
This morning, or rather early afternoon, we rented a car to take us to a pepper farm. In the morning I woke up early as usual, bought some rice and assorted meats from the breakfast woman along with a steamed dumping containing coconut. and then read for a couple of hours. At some point the […]