I woke up late this morning and it was snowing. Not a lot, though it varied from light flurries to quite thick. It settled a little bit, and there were streaks of snow on the fairytale cap of the Galata tower. I don’t think I’ve seen large quantities of snow since my first winter in […]
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Sleeting Saturday
I went to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water and realised it was snowing. Then it was raining, then it was snowing, so I suppose the net result is sleet. Quite exciting, though; if it must be this cold, I hope there is a proper snowfall. For the last few days I […]
Winter
It’s finally winter in Istanbul. The heating was on all day today, and even the window was closed for a good long time. Outside, the air feel properly wintery, whether or not the sun is out. The forecast says it might fall to -7 in the coming days, but I’m sceptical, as the forecast has […]
Empires of the west
I have been enjoying a new/old podcast: the podcast is the Ottoman Histories podcast which I have subscribed to for a time now, and the specific series is a lecture course on Islamic history. It has some problems: South Asian Islamic history barely gets a look-in, leave alone South-East Asian Islam and history; Central Asia […]
Boxes of chocolate
Today the GF and I distributed chocolates to all our future neighbours, with a card carefully written in Turkish (translated by a friend) apologising for inconvenience due to the noise and work going on in the flat. It was rather satisfying, even though we just left the box and card at each door instead of […]
Thoughts consolidating
My thoughts and opinions about Trump’s deplatforming are slowly consolidating, developing vague outlines. I had a vague feeling that there was something not right, but there is also so much schadenfreude, that it’s hard to think through how. But there is a feeling of an establishment mob to counter the more violent, unruly neo-Nazi mob […]
All clear
Our tests were all clear, hurrah. The GF had had a suspicious throat and wooziness for a few days which had us worried and isolating, but happily all seems to be fine. Such is a cold or allergy in the time of a pandemic, one worries about things that otherwise would go unnoticed. I have […]
Nasal outrage
Today I joined in the global trauma and got tested for the coronavirus. I hate having my nose touched at the best of times, and to be poked inside was truly a miserable experience. it was over an hour ago and the inside of my head still feels tender. Boo. Bring on the vaccine.
Moral degradation
I have not written here about the massacre of Hazaras in Baluchistan some days ago because what was there to say? And it was so ugly. Over the days it feels increasingly like (yet another) symbol of Pakistan’s moral bankruptcy, as the Hazara, who have been targeted and killed by Sunni militants for years, refused […]
Not a coup
As usual, alarm at goings on in America is accompanied by irritation at the people I agree with. ‘Coup’ is a grandiose term for a ramshackle mob, but such is the self-aggrandisement that everyone seems to be using that word. Then there are at least a couple dozen examples of my old favourite, the point […]