Last night my host and I went shopping for me and I returned with three new kameezes, and narrowly left behind one more. I had realised, you see, that of the seven kameezes I had to wear to work, three were plain white, which was a bit much. Got home and realised that I’d spent […]
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Natural history
I met a friend for breakfast at a boulangerie yesterday. This actually did have very good bread and even pastries – how Pakistan has changed. Of course they were very expensive, at least by local standards, but the croissants were flaky and buttery and the scrambled eggs were proper scrambled eggs and the pomegranate juice […]
Boar sighting
I finally saw the fabled boars of the Diplomatic Enclave, by the side of the road in the dark. They were very large; no natural predators in these parts, since I doubt jackals and leopards are permitted in the enclave. Happy news: I have some sort of work agreement thrashed out, and even a piece […]
Party town
Got back home to find a party going on. Not my thing at all, so I crept into my room and had a quiet dinner before going to sleep – quite forgetting that actually I had quite an important bit of work to compelete. A constitutional crisis appeared to have manifested. I daresay it will […]
A lot of time
Overheard in the office: I have a lot of time for the Kurdish community.
Blessed Friday
Not yesterday, nor today. Pakistan has embraced Black Friday sales with its usual ready enthusiasm for consumerism. But one can’t insult the holy day, of course, hence the advertisements. Work was tedious and frustrating, and the only good thing about it was that I brought my own lunch and sat in the garden by myself […]
Young and beautiful
Last night I went to an Auratnaak performance along with a couple of others, one of whom had been involved in the past. It took place in a small room in G-8, the room painted with truck art on the walls. I am rather suspicious about truck art now — that said, I’ve just bought […]
Curing cancer
Read an interesting piece today, a short interview with an oncologist who wrote a book advocating for the diversion of cancer research funding towards prevention and early detection rather than cures or late-stage scrambling for every week of life. It seemed sensible – I gather a lot of oncologists feel this way – but medical […]
Weekend day
A quiet weekend day. I woke early and did some work, then when my hosts woke we went for a desi breakfast of halwa puri. This had its usual soporific effect but we persevered and went to a shop that sells the excess stock from Pakistan’s residual textile industry. I got myself a very bright […]
A spot of shopping
Work finished early today – not something I should get used to – and I returned to the house and then went off on foot to the F-10 Markaz. F-10 is the sector of Islamabad that I am staying in. It’s a highly planned city so all the numbering makes sense, and there is a […]