In London a fire in a tower block inhabited by refugees killed perhaps a hundred. In Bahawalpur a fire at an overturned oil tanker killed perhaps two hundred poor rural people who came to collect the fuel. In both cases there is a breakdown of state and society’s responsibilities towards its weakest. Neither administration or […]
Get out
But the main thing I forgot to mention. We watched Get Out last night, another fantastic film which has knocked 20th Century Women as both mine and Gentleman Friend’s favourite film of the year so far (more meaningful where he’s concerned as he watches far, far more films than I do). A small, simple, hilarious, […]
Over to the dark side
The Gentleman Friend has convinced me, and I’ve bought myself a small selection of technical sportswear. It’s Lululemon, so more yoga than hardcore, but I had never been convinced of the virtues of lycra and polyester. The t-shirt, bought for future jungle hikes and so on, is extremely comfortable and airy, though, and with it […]
Dispiriting day
Not my finest day at work: I prepared a document for finalisation and sent it off to immediately get a query because the title hadn’t been changed to the new format. I fixed it, sent it back, moved on to something else. Then realised 3 hours later that the reason the title was in the […]
Back to work
Returned to work, finishing up edits and holding a meeting on skype. The meeting led to new work which sounds very interesting and will, potentially, shape education in Pakistan for the next decade or so. In the evening we sat to watch Better Call Saul but did not with the after-effects of phone calls and […]
Eid with leeches
We went to Taman Negara over Eid. There was barely any internet there, so no updates. The jungle was beautiful, far more dense than I’ve seen elsewhere, such as Mulu in Sarawak, and filled with gibbon cries, though we never saw one. We did spend some time at a hide and saw deer and what […]
Ulluengdo
Ulluengo lacks three things: thieves, snakes and something else undesirable. It certainly lacked thieves, for I left my Kindle on the ferry over and it was returned to me on my way back. I had not expected this and was downcast as it was quite new and the most expensive model, bought perforce fecause it […]
Heroes and terrorists
A white man drove a van over Muslims leaving a mosque after prayers in London. It has been declared a terrorist attack, along the lines of other lone wolf attacks committed by Muslims in recent months, which is encouraging. I feel churlish in noting that the narrative about the attack has coalesced not around the […]
Long awaited day
The ICC Champion’s Trophy final was a long awaited delight yesterday. I used to follow cricket avidly, was even a cricket correspondent for a newspaper for a time. That experience during a historic India-Pakistan series which took much that I found interesting out of the game and replaced it with hype, along with the changes […]
Arrival
I watched Arrival last night. I had been looking forward to it before it came out but it was marred due to a small personal reason which kept me disengaged, but also because I had read the story it is based on and the only real suspense was in seeing how they filmed something I […]