blog

Ground down

I am feeling rather ground down today. Oppressed particularly by work, as I have taken on too much, but also by the grimness of the world so that I can’t bear to listen or read the news, or anything to do with politics and society. Even the magazine is making me feel raw – not […]

Unwanted help

The Pakistani labourer who works for our contractor is very eager indeed to show me his friend’s warehouse of second-hand housewares, especially the lights. I must say, I’m sceptical, both that the lights will be any good and that the GF will approve, but I might go take a look. Not sure if there is […]

Good news story

This delightful, though probably hopelessly misrepresentative item: Taiwan official urges people to stop changing their name to ‘salmon’. The motivation is a promotion at a sushi restaurant. “I just changed my name this morning to add the characters ‘Bao Cheng Gui Yu’ and we already ate more than Tw$7,000 (£176),” a college student surnamed Ma […]

Wistful thoughts of poison

There is a cat in our neighbourhood which has the most godawful yowl. Every late morning, from around 10 to 1. It is absolutely nervewracking, and has been going on for weeks. Today I even heard a neighbour shout at it, which is rare in Istanbul.

Locked out

I have been locked out of my Facebook account. It’s actually been several days now but I only just tried to log back in, to no avail. Well, I’m not going to send them a copy of my passport, so I suppose that is that, at least for now. My only concern is if someone […]