Creating a market

I forgot to mention yesterday the ridiculous ad that was played before the film. It was for toilet paper, and clearly a struggle in a society where lotas and hand-held bidets are the default and toilet paper is regarded with some disgust. So they went for toilet paper for drying to avoid humidity around the […]

So long lizards

We finished The Bear, as much as has been released last night, and it’s now one of my favourite TV series ever. There was so much to enjoy about it: superb directing, writing and acting, great characters, subtlety, an amazing facility with taking things that are stereotyped or sentimental, and handling them with delicacy to […]

Chugging along

The back still quite painful, but shifted a little so that it no longer feels tight and seized up, but does feel more painful. Despite more stabby pain this felt like a positive development somehow. A day of small annoyances otherwise, some at work (a bad edit of something I’d written), some from myself (realising […]

Disaster strikes

Did something to my back this morning and am now feeling quite miserable. It’s hard to stand up, especially from sitting. It’s sure to be temporary, but very dispiriting and it was truly unsettling to try to stand up and feel that my lower body is unable to support me. We had someone over for […]

Working hours

Had a meeting and have changed my work plans for the first half of this year to make them more reliable but also more restrictive. A bit of a hassle since we’re off to Egypt soon, but necessary if I’m to take a long break in the summer. What I’ll be working on is moderately […]

Last sunny day

Today was the last sunny day in what has been a very warm winter thus far. From tomorrow onwards the clouds will come, and then next week the temperatures are due to drop to zero. I spent the day working, finishing up the final edit of a very interesting monograph, quite gripping as these things […]

Final acts

Last night we watched the final episode of the first season of Succession. A very entertaining TV programme, though not yet approaching the greats. I understand that this may change in the second or third season. I was correct in my prediction as to where Kendall and his father would end, and correct in spirit […]

Evening stroll

The highlights of the day were: tamarind juice in the afternoon an evening stroll on the beach a tiramisu brought home to have with an episode of Succession The not-highlights were: a working day which caused some annoyance as senior management destroyed much of what I had worked on on the very day of the […]

Truly dire

An astonishingly poor meal today from a very expensive restaurant. One of the only times (perhaps the only time ever?) I sent a dish back. This was at one of the expensive beach resorts so I didn’t have very high expectations of the food, but I was surprised when my fish tacos turned out to […]