A bit of very sad, even horrific, news this morning. The personal trainer came this morning and when I asked after his family, he told me that his daughter, born in February, and whose delivery I helped with, died in late August. She had a fever and they took her to a doctor who injected […]
Old, new
We went to old Dubai today, not the part with the sky scrapers and the athleisure, but the older bit, with rows of restaurants, jewellers, sari shops etc, from all over the subcontinent, the restaurants with a Salt n Pepper aesthetic and filled with families from all over Asia. This time it was to a […]
Social contract
Went to what is supposed to be the best coffee place in Dubai. A bit soul-deadening, like the rest of the city, and everything is breathtakingly expensive. The taxis feel especially pricy after Central Asia – my journey to the airport in Almaty was the same length as the taxi from the airport to where […]
Not the bestest
And written under a pseudonym, but here’s a piece I wrote for a friend recently.
Istanbul art scene
Last night in a fit of unusual sociability, the GF and I went with an artist friend to the opening of a show at a gallery in Cihangir. It was a tiny space, the basement of a building so very arty. The first person met was a European photographer who had just come from giving […]
Various developments
The Israel strike on Iran was wiped from my mind this morning by a more immediate development, that of the dishwasher repairman coming and fixing the dangling door panel, though he has to get a part to replace the broken spring that causes the door to fall open (and dislodged the door panel in the […]
Death of an unpleasant man
There was a death in our buildinng some weeks ago. There was screaming and calls for help. I was asleep but was woken. Her distraught voice stayed with me for a long time. The man who died was in his forties and he was the most unpleasant person living in our building. His last message […]
Personal enmity
Murders are often attributed to ‘personal enmity’ in Pakistani newspapers, I suppose a relic of colonial reporting. Strange what lingers and what doesn’t. It was a working day in which I did most of my work in the second half. Began with a session with my trainer, then a short work call, then faffing around. […]
Weekend tombs
Among the delights of our current way of living is that weekends take on themes and routines that never become stale. Here, in Egypt, living within an easy stroll of the Valley of Kings, what is there to do but to visit tombs of a weekend. We began with a lunch of koshary at a […]
To Nubia
It was a long day’s driving, but pleasant as it passed through interesting landscapes of barren hills with a vivid streak of green between, and drab houses made of worn brick, but the walls inside the balconies were painted vivid colours, sometimes with patterns or immense flowers, so I think the houses must not be […]