Protest in the park

This morning, the GF and I went to 228 Park to join the Black Lives Matter protest there. It was a curious affair. Every foreigner in Taiwan (excluding migrant workers) seemed to be there – the crowd was about 90% non-Taiwanese, and I suspect many of those who appeared Taiwanese were Americans of Taiwanese origin. […]

Ultras

The article for today is this short piece about Moroccan ultras. Football fans are hardly the most inspiring of people, but I do wonder why there is not more effort in modern societies to create such spaces for solidarity, carefully overseen, except by armies and fascists. And Scouts, I suppose, though it is hard to […]

Breathless

This morning I watched the video of George Floyd begging for his life, his life being crushed out of his body by a policeman’s. So, another death, another ‘I can’t breathe’ and America burns again. But this time it feels different. This time I hope it is different. That video has haunted me since I […]

Tidal rage

It has been striking to me, increasingly so over the past months, the voices that are absent in the West. Strangely, I feel they are more present in India, in Pakistan: I mean those who have been most affected by what is happening these days. I read of millions losing their jobs or being furloughed […]

Actual weekend

Today is the start of the actual weekend; yesterday’s idle day was a bank holiday for the GF and a day without work for me. In the morning, the four of us went back to Serenity for another excellent meal. I must say, they have the best fried rice I’ve ever had, I would dearly […]

Sad Eid

A plane fell from the sky in Pakistan, it’ll be a sad Eid. Two survivors, which feels miraculous: one who returned to consciousness and groped towards a light and leapt off the plane wing before the fires reached him, the other flung out, still strapped into his seat, to emerge only with a broken bone […]

Test

We had our Mandarin test this morning. Both of us passed with exactly the same number of wrong answers, though slightly different marks as the weighting was different. We preened a little at scoring in the high 80s until our teacher mentioned that the pass mark was 75%. Well, it’s done. I haven’t had a […]

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 […]

Saul returns

We watched the first episode of the new season of Better Call Saul last night. Very promising, particularly as I found the last season a bit flat. I was pleased in particular that I could follow much of the Spanish – I had thought I’d forgotten all of it. Otherwise it was a quiet sort […]