Something of a rite of passage today as I injured myself whilst doing crunches on the heath. Nothing particularly terrible, just a pulled muscle in the back of my neck/shoulder, but an affront nonetheless. I do feel since I’ve started this whole regular workout business I feel every ache and pain more than I ever […]
Facing west
Profoundly unimpressed by Tan Twan Eng’s The gift of rain. I read his second and more famous novel shortly before going to Malaysia and didn’t care for it but remember almost nothing of it, while this one, his first, is excruciating. It’s very much a first novel, for one: he’s lovingly put everything he wanted […]
Experiments yield fruit
My first encounter with the bizarre side of Chat GPT, in requesting a song about duck farming in the style of Bruce Springsteen. This came after a few questions about duck in Pakistani cuisine for which the answers were the usual plausible + suspect. But this song is just weird. I mean, terrible – an […]
Top shops
There is the old classic of Butt Sweets and all its variations, like Butt Lights etc, always good for a giggle. But I was especially keen on one sighting from today, on a road which has lots of tile and sanitary ware (ie sinks and toilets) shops: Quixotic Tiles. Mystifying but delightful. I can’t work […]
Lockdowns
This evening I was supposed to go to a birthday dinner, and in fact was supposed to convey some essential components of the dinner including the cake, the candles and a bag of smoked salmon. Then, about half an hour before I was to leave I got a message saying wait. The venue is in […]
News and views
The Dawn newspaper today, with three quite ridiculous headlines of roughly equal seriousness: A journalist of my acquaintance popped by this afternoon and was more despairing than I’ve ever seen him, and this is someone who reported during the terrorism years. I must say, I share his glumness at the tide of unseriousness that has […]
Talisman
There is black magic afoot here in Lahore. A few days before I arrived a taweez, a talisman made of a scrap of green fabric was found hanging from my grandmother’s bookshelf, inscribed with mysterious letters. It was promptly burnt as the protests made it impossible at the time to take the prescribed remedy of […]
Annoyances
A bit of an annoyance today as it turns out my credit card has been blocked and the only way to unblock it is by calling the bank. What is particularly annoying is that I didn’t know there was a block at all, I thought it was an internet issue so kept trying to use […]
A bruise on the mind
And after my mixed feelings about the other two books, I read Never let me go. One reviewer rightly described it as leaving a bruise on the mind. Astonishingly visceral for all the simplicity of its premise, with scenes and conversations – like the one of the title – playing out in horror, and characters […]
Bangkok new year
It is blessedly quiet here after Hanoi, and even my last stay in Bangkok where the sound of traffic was relentless, except at dawn and dusk when all the dogs in the neighbourhood howl for about 5 minutes. I arrived in the middle of Thai new year, Songkran, which includes, aside from visits to monks […]