Today we walked through faceless Istanbul, through wide streets lined with blocky mid or late-century commercial buildings that, in Pakistan, are called plazas. There are streets like this in virtually every city, and if the signs had not been in Turkish it could have been in any of a number of countries I’ve been to, […]
blog
The Greatest American
I woke up this morning to the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. What a incredible person she was, a qutb of her country in this age. She leaves behind an abiding sense of fear and dread. It is going to be a terrible few months up to the election, and to the inauguration, […]
Nearly two months later
It’s nearly two months after the Beirut explosion. This blog has not reflected how much it’s been on my mind. The horror of what happened, in a long line of terrible events, is very persistent. Partly because I did fall in love, or at least in fascination, with Lebanon when we stayed there, and to […]
A new prospect
After the glumness of a few days ago, we encountered a new prospect. It is a complete tip: a small flat in an old building which has clearly never been updated or cared for particularly, other than layers of paint slapped over each other and the occasional odd flourish, like a hole in the wall […]
Determination
I closed my Metafilter account today, and deleted all the bookmarks. It had been increasingly clear to me that I was not getting much pleasure out it, only a lot of irritation. This was before I listened to a Talking Politics episode in which Jill Lepore appeared and talked about social media. What she was […]
Grumble
Seriously annoyed that Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light was not shortlisted for the Booker. Made significantly worse by the fact that all but one of the shortlisted authors are American or joint-US. I was amongst those who were genuinely upset when the Booker opened up to the US, fearing that it would swamped by […]
Babes in the wood
After a few days of feeling quite confident and increasingly knowlegable about this whole house buying business, yesterday was a setback which left me feeling, again, as though we might be a pair of babes in the wood, ripe for the taking. First, there was the increasing suspicion of that nice flat with a view, […]
Uphill
It was a quiet Sunday: we walked down to Taksim Square (stopping for a kibbeh for me along the way), and then onward to take the cable car to Nisantasi. This turned out to be unexpectedly enjoyable, as the cable car was just two capsules each way, and went over the park, over ruined walls […]
Further thoughts
Flat hunting continues. I am finding it rather painful as my attention moves between work and flats, with little attention for anything else. We took a friend to see the place with the beautiful views I mentioned a few days ago, and he was rather good as an impartial, unemotional eye, and showing up the […]
گوشت کی دکان
Horror in Lahore as a woman driving along the Motorway with her children stopped as the car broke down, called for help, and before help arrived was accosted by several men who gangraped her. The horror of that is bad enough, what is worse is the response – of the police, of the politicians, of […]