Customs of the country

I’ve been hit by malaise today, as happens every few weeks. I’m uncertain how else to decribe it: it’s a slight headache, a slight uneasiness about the stomach, and a general heaviness of aspect. Fortunately this didn’t get in the way of work, and I have just wrapped up an edit to be sent by […]

Cecilia must die

Having just trawled through the Amazon’s December deals for Kindle books I ask again why I was born in this cursed month. Amazon UK, full of the sort of rubbish books people give each other as presents, with the prize perhaps being ‘The Dinosaur that Pooped Christmas’. Amazon US with an even greater proportion of […]

Today is

Here in Malaysia it’s 12 Rabi al Awwal. In Pakistan it was yesterday, shadowed by what had gone before. In the day’s honour, here is Amjad Farid Sabri singing Bhar do jholi, one of my favourite naats. Since this Youtube link may not work forever, and in any case it is improved (as are all […]

Sadness

The resolution of the Faizabad interchange sit-in has left me, along with many others, feeling bleak and full of sadness. It feels a defeat, and not one that will spur one forward. Such a sense of despair across Pakistan, at least amongst the ‘liberal fascists’/ ‘fake liberals’ as they like to call us. It did […]

Reasons for learning

I read a very good article this morning, about something I have been thinking about for a while, but lacked evidence other than a gut feeling. It’s a review of a couple of books about education and radicalisation, and got to the heart of my unease about the instrumentalisation of education, as a tool for […]

A dark age

In the subsequent ‘dark ages’ – a propaganda term used by the elite – democracy and culture could flourish. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey date from the dark age of Greece. This is in marked contrast to the consequences of state collapse today, now that there is no longer an external barbarian world to escape into. […]

Biofilm

I read a fascinating article on microbes and their group intelligence, and useful one too, as I have an unfinished story (yes, one of many) in which biofilms play an important role. Lovely images too. Other than that it was a quiet sort of day, spent struggling with a couple of quite poorly written documents. […]

Urn churn

How relieved I am, in retrospect, that our death customs are so clearly laid out. I see others worrying about what to do with the urn of ashes, what to put in the funeral service, what music to choose, what flowers, which funeral director, what kind of coffin, whether to embalm, and am relieved I […]

Some help, perhaps

The woman at the shelter left for Pakistan today. I think I was of some help, in retrospect. I insisted that she call the shelter and go there, getting away from the house – I don’t think she was ready to until then. I was a familiar voice speaking her language and in the same […]