East End for lunch yesterday, to Som Saa, a Thai restaurant that used to be a pop up under some arches and is now a proper restaurant on Commercial Street. It remains one of my favourite Thai restaurants anywhere, getting the vigour and freshness of real Thai food. Then to Whitechapel Gallery for the last […]
House to myself
The GF has gone for a very lengthy interview – talk about bad timing. I dreamt last night that he was wearing a silk navy blue suit covered in watercolour flowers but didn’t want to suggest he wear something else. While others in the house have gone to the so-called Chapel of Rest. I stay […]
Yesterday
Got through yesterday, a week after the long-awaited news arrived. Left a little ragged by it, but still walking. It is notable to me how very different the approach is to death between Pakistan and the UK. Perhaps it’s a sign of increasing age and conservatism, but I strongly prefer the Pakistani way. A person […]
Two lunches
Dinings, yesterday, was disappointing. The food was as good as ever, but the staff made me genuinely uncomfortable. It used to be a quiet, elegant place where the staff were helpful but discreet and retiring – very important in that cramped space. Over the past two years they’ve changed to all-hipster staff, most of them […]
Heath walk
A stroll through Hampstead heath yesterday, visiting the pergola, Golder’s Hill park and other familiar sites, though taking routes used less often. At the pergola there was the usual photography taking place but instead of a wedding shoot it was, I think, a fashion student’s shoot as the model was dressed in exquisite black feathers, […]
Here
I arrived in London last night, after a couple of days scrambling to arrange travel plans and set things in motion for the business. It was a longish flight, the first time in several years I’d flown between Pakistan and the UK indirectly. The direct flights are PIA which are typically like travelling in a […]
News from London
Not from the GF, but of an election called. I have no idea whether to vote Labour or Lib Dem this time and am inclined not to vote at all. And from Pakistan the usual breastbeating about the poor boy beaten to death by fellow students for blasphemy. Of course most of the breastbeating is […]
Today
Article 50 will be triggered today. I have felt sad all day, not like the disbelieving anger on the day after the referendum, just sad and despairing. Another hope for cooperation and peace gone. The EU is certainly not perfect, but if only the Brexit movement could have been used for reform, not to gouge […]
Tryst with destiny
The date for Article 50, starting the Brexit process, has been announced. How dark these times feel, at least for the West. For Pakistan there were far darker days before this, but then at least there were bright uplands just out of sight, where others lived. Now a sludge engulfs the world, with much that […]
Resolved
The decision was made – I’ve accepted in principle an extension to one of my editing contracts, but will not have to travel for it. Normally I like travelling for these things, but this time it would have been a little too close to the gentleman friend’s return after three weeks away, and come soon […]