A peculiar misdirected email arrived just as I clicked on ‘publish’ – an email in German from a left-of-centre Swiss political party inviting me to join it to discuss how Switzerland can stand up against a Trumpian/ Muskian world order.
Shocked
A little shocked to see this item for sale on the website of an LA design studio. Aside from the weirdness of referring to the ‘Assamese people’ in this fashion surely these could not have cost more than $50, if that, to produce. Assuming there is no more to say about the blanket than what […]
Smoke
The smog has descended on Lahore. The air is still and orange-yellow, and feels greasy, like a nicotine stain. It smells. I can’t believe we do this to ourselves.
Struck down
Sad news from the village. The grapefruit tree, which gave particularly fine fruit, was struck by lightning. About half has survived, and is being used to graft new trees, but neither they nor what’s left of the original tree are likely bear fruit for some years. A few grapefruit were salvaged, slightly sooty and a […]
Dolphins
We went for a stroll today, looping around the historic penninsula along a newly opened walkway. To reach the walkway one had to go through the most congested and unpleasant bits at Eminonu, shuffle through one underground chokepoint where an elderly woman used her very large belly like a bludgeon, knocking me out of her […]
Achy day
The day remained achy, though I found a good stretch which seemed to help. The night was also achy, but at some point, mostly asleep, I breathed and felt the air move through my body and into my back and my limbs, causing the muscles to uncoil, and I could sleep. I hope tonight is […]
An accident
Of a sort where I don’t quite know what happened. This morning I warmed up, more thoroughly than usual, feeling pretty solid, and then when I began my stretching, did the first squat and felt something seize in my back and since then it’s been going from discomfort to agony. Quite miserable. It’s happened before […]
Winter returns
Winter returned to Istanbul. It was cold and rainy all day long so we did our usual thing on such days and went to Cihangir to buy groceries, despite the carefully angled hills to catch the cold wind and the slopes down which the rain turns into muddy torrents over cobblestones. But that was later […]
Spring clean
This evening I started on my spring clean, inspired by the GF. This was clearing out clothes, largely, and as usual my mind went quite blank, unable to determine what I needed, or indeed wanted, to keep. Finally I decided on a simple rubric, whether or not I found something comfortable, which got rid of […]
Ministry of fun
Read a news item that made me grumpy: Nur Khan airbase wants action against ‘pigeon cages’ in vicinity. The basant that I grew up with is gone, the mehfils died long before I was born, and now they want to shut down another graceful urban past-time, and all for a bunch of military planes and […]