It’s hard in the moment to make sense of the significance. I see online the shock and horror people are feeling, and some of the images are as memorable as the grainy ones seared into my memory of soldiers climbing like rats over the walls of the PTV building, the state broadcaster in Pakistan. After […]
Beastman
Startled to glance at the news to see a photo of a bare chested beastman brandishing a spear storming the US Capitol. Moved over to the CNN website to see what was going on, and saw the headline: ‘House members in chamber told they may need to duck under their chairs’. Remarkable times we live […]
Closing up
Good morning, happy new year all. It poured with rain this morning. Last night, at midnight, the church bells rang out and I could hear the sound of fireworks and people cheering. For myself, I clicked send on a particularly troublesome document, so celebrated in style. I was asleep for what was truly on my […]
Happy birthday
It was Jinnah’s birthday on 25 December, much to the relief of Pakistani Christians as this means that they can have Christmas off without the mullahs screeching blue murder. This was doing the rounds on social media – a celebration of his birthday somewhere or the other. One understands the ‘get me out of here’ […]
Deal done
I had a bad night last night, very anxious, and slept poorly. At some point during the night I became convinced that a piece of paint was going to fall off from ceiling onto the GF’s head, so when he came to bed I warned him anxiously. Then, I worried about why our visas are […]
Plague island
That’s the European headline papers in the UK have picked up on, understandably. There is quite the fog of uncertainty about this new variant. My own current understanding is that: Viruses mutate all the time of course, and there is a new variant. It is appearing often enough in testing that it appears to be […]
Tier 4
London went into Tier 4 lockdown last night and there does seem to be a great deal of anger. I wonder if we are reaching a point where it will break. I’m sure much of the anger is at “cancelling Christmas” but much of it is, correctly, directed at Boris and his government. Everyone could […]
Year of sadness
I listened to a podcast on the coronavirus response in the UK. It went through aspects of the pandemic response over the last nearly-year, and asked if it was inevitable that things would be this bad. The answer, inevitably, was no. They summed it at the end: an unserious prime minister, a weak centre, good […]
Curious
I have been listening to a podcast about the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and learning a little more about Malta. Curious that Malta was admitted to the European Union and, say, Turkey was not. Or perhaps not that curious. Curious also that there are at least three British colonies – Ireland, Malta and Cyprus […]
Consumer drones
It’s an argument I’ve often railed against, or at least fulminated against, the plastic straw argument of disempowered consumerism. That there is no point giving up plastic straws for environmental reasons because it makes so little difference in the larger scheme, when it is corporations and governments that are responsible for climate change. Its most […]