Much of Saturday was spent firefighting at work, including chasing down people who had already left for their Christmas vacations but the machine never stops, so most of them had replied by Monday. Saturday morning I made it out to an early breakfast with a couple of friends, both with an interest in heritagey stuff, […]
Head case
The second day was less pleasant than the first. The first part of the walk was very easy indeed: first a steep walk down to the floor of the narrow valley with a small yellow silted river (I would call it a stream really) running down in, and then along the stream for about four […]
Unwanted children
I listened to the latest Talking Politics podcast this morning, which had an interview with the historian Tom Holland about Roman collapse and the present day. One throwaway point he made was that Europe, Russia, the Islamic World, are all descendants of Rome and, before that, Greece and the Near East, and their thought descends […]
India, Indonesia
A couple of good new political podcasts in my listening list. Polis Project which had a few very good episodes on upcoming elections, and Talking Indonesia, where I just listed to a superb reaction episode to the elections. Great stuff.
Cold feet
I am in Beijing airport. I stupidly lost the will to leave the airport at the last minute, having had a terrible flight from Karachi, feeling nauseous and uncomfortable, and assigned to an emergency row seat. I know most people prefer these, and certainly it is nice to have space rather than a close row, […]
On the road
Today was my flight. The cousin who is a former rally driver, and can drive indefinitely it seems, offered to take me to Whangarei airport by the long, scenic route, and the Gentleman Friend would go as well to see me off. (Something very alien to the British side of him, though a way of […]
Tapeka point
Last night the music continued at the pub nearby till past midnight. Execrable rock covers, with a really unnecessary bass. It kept us up, so that we ended by sleeping through what we were told was a fire alarm, with sirens blaring. There was no work today and the two new visitors had gone sport […]
Market morning
In the morning we went for brunch (of course) and there was a long queue, but enlivened by a little sparrow picking delicately at a croissant, and the Chinese Malaysian (I think) man ahead of us who was clearly much more interested in chatting to other people than his glum companion. Interesting, the clientele was […]
Trablous
On Friday, soon after I finished my work the prayer took place at the mosque across the road from the cafe. Soon after it ended the Gentleman Friend arrived, and we hailed a taxi to take us to Al Mina, the port city of Tripoli where we had booked a bed and breakfast in the […]
Belt and Road
I listened to a very good podcast episode today, on Sinica. It was on China’s relations with Pakistan over the years, and particularly around CPEC and the election of Imran Khan. The person being interviewed was uncharacteristically informed about Pakistani politics and how it works (and even pronounced all the names correctly, which is rare […]