blog

Start of something new

The news this morning is distressing, terrifying, even. It is infuriating to read a site like Metafilter where it is viewed so intensely through American eyes that much of the discussion so far is about Democrats being better. As though it matters? As though they are? But I have just read that discussion coming from […]

Auspicious beginning

I rang in the decade lying in bed, working — not even on my own work but something very similar for someone else. I tried desperately to finish up before midnight so I could maintain my tradition of being fast asleep for the new year, but didn’t succeed, and it wasn’t till about 20 minutes […]

Lost weekend

It was a weekend of work, also of freezing into an icicle, as winter has properly come to Islamabad. My shawl and occasional cardigan will no longer suffice so I have borrowed a coat from my host at least for the morning walk to work, when all the leaves and the ground are rimed with […]

Lost interest

Spoilers follow. I came to Star Wars late, in my mid-teens instead of the more usual pre-pubescent sort of phase. What can I say? Movies were only to be rented from a video shops and only one, in Mini Market, had a decent selection that wasn’t 90% camera prints of the year’s Indian releases. You […]

Besieged

There are rats in the office. I was the first to spot one, a dark little creature which scampered across my line of sight while all the others had gone to the cafeteria for lunch. A few days later, two others spotted a rat climbing up the wall and into the false ceiling. Then it […]

Explosion

This working day I worked, except for three breaks of note. The first was when I accompanied one of my hosts to the markaz for a few errands and a quick lunch. We found a table in the open space served by the surrounding restaurants and cafes, ordered our paratha rolls and a cup of […]

What I make of Christmas

I will freely admit that I dislike and resent Christmas. I resent how it – and, specifically, one version of it – bulldozes over every other celebration, in almost every part of the world. I hate the consumption that surrounds it. If in the UK, where it is genuinely celebrated, the anxiety and expense around […]

Two shows

In the past two days I have watched episodes from two different TV series and though the audience (I imagine) overlaps substantially, one was repellent to me and the other gripping. The first was something called Rick and Monty, one of the (relatively) new breed of animated television series for adults. It was basically the […]

Sepia to technicolor

Much of Saturday was spent firefighting at work, including chasing down people who had already left for their Christmas vacations but the machine never stops, so most of them had replied by Monday. Saturday morning I made it out to an early breakfast with a couple of friends, both with an interest in heritagey stuff, […]