I left early in the morning into cold rain and wind as I had an appointment with a hairdresser in Xinyi. This is just on the edge of downtown-y bit with all the malls and megastores, a sixth floor office in an office block turned into a hairdresser’s salon. This sort of setup seems quite […]
Whirlwind
We persist in reaping the whirlwind as the President of Pakistan, armed with a fatwa from Al-Azhar, the closure of the Kaaba and Al-Aqsa, a revised azaan in Kuwait, and the example of nearly every other Muslim country in the world, meets the jahil-e-azam mullahs of Pakistan and comes away with the the following decision […]
Deadline
Yesterday was the submission deadline for a document that had been badly disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak. We squeezed it out under the wire. In the process I managed to annoy my oldest colleague/ friend at the organisation who doesn’t like his indolence to be brought to attention. Some years ago I think I would […]
News of a lockdown
So Pakistan is now also in lockdown, after days and weeks of ostrichism and prevarication. I have one sister in Islamabad, by herself in a flat in the Diplomatic Enclave; another outside the enclave, a father mostly by himself (though, happily, his house help returned from vacation just in time, hopefully not bringing the pest […]
Flower shopping
The GF woke up late and I waited for him, so we parted ways with the Boddhisattva and the Woodland Creature for the day, planning to meet up in the early evening at the Jian Guo Flower Market to buy some plants and flowers for the flat. So off we went, first for lunch at […]
To Da’an
This morning we moved to Da’an. We called an uncle who has one of those gigantic taxis and loaded it up with all our belongings: two suitcases each (one large, one small), assorted backpacks and handbags, and a few bags of household stuff acquired here: lamps from ikea, mugs, the GF’s basketball, the Woodland Creature’s […]
Slight untilt
After the heightened worry of the day before, yesterday felt a little calmer. Not that things were much better. My possibility of return to Pakistan has been blocked as the government has put in a requirement that all travellers be formally cleared of coronavirus in the day before travelling, which is just closing borders without […]
Wobble wobble
The world wobbles on its axis. Strange that there is nothing outside this current crisis. When I did humanitarian work in the past there was always something outside it. Here there is nothing outside, no escape for any of us. The GF and I have had a few conversations on what we should do. The […]
Window on Taipei
A magnificent cloud is rolling in over Taipei. I am sitting in the living room of our flat, watching from the tall windows, one whole wall of the flat. Taipei has disappeared and now the cloud is coming towards the hill on which this building is set, engulfing the trees. The world shrinks to sight […]
The end of this fucking world
This morning, suddenly, it all began to feel real, that today is the moment that the world has changed, that this is the day that defines the rest of the lives of my generation. I had viewed the plummetting of my meagre investments a few days ago with equanimity, as they feel imaginary anyway, and […]