The news this morning is distressing, terrifying, even. It is infuriating to read a site like Metafilter where it is viewed so intensely through American eyes that much of the discussion so far is about Democrats being better. As though it matters? As though they are? But I have just read that discussion coming from […]
Christmas miracle
For all my bah-humbugging yesterday, some magic happened overnight and my computer’s battery has decided to start working. May it last past twelfth night.
What I make of Christmas
I will freely admit that I dislike and resent Christmas. I resent how it – and, specifically, one version of it – bulldozes over every other celebration, in almost every part of the world. I hate the consumption that surrounds it. If in the UK, where it is genuinely celebrated, the anxiety and expense around […]
The stupidest idea I have ever heard
Popped onto facebook and, as usual, regretted it, as I was confronted with the usual firehose of stupidity. This time my favourite was undoubtedly a video on reducing plastic by using a shampoo bottle made of soap. So much stupidity.
Curing cancer
Read an interesting piece today, a short interview with an oncologist who wrote a book advocating for the diversion of cancer research funding towards prevention and early detection rather than cures or late-stage scrambling for every week of life. It seemed sensible – I gather a lot of oncologists feel this way – but medical […]
Stiff neck
That’s what my mother always told me, and I suppose she was right. I went to a physiotherapist for the first time for what I had long thought was incipient RSI. Turns out it’s not what I think of as RSI, but an exceptionally stiff neck which is sending referred pain down my arms. So […]
Prancing on a cloud
In the night I woke, or sort of woke, and thought, fuzzily, that the thing to do would be to imagine myself doing something I never would do. I imagined myself prancing, half dancer, half gymnast, on a roiling cloud, similar to one of the desserts we had at El Cellar de Can Roca some […]
Hellfire
Soon after my last post, something unexpected happened: the Gentleman Friend was suddenly struck down by excruciating pain on his back, in the places where he had been sunburnt during the weekend’s surfing. It was clearly agonising. I looked it up online, and (it seems reasonable to diagnose this particular ailment on the internet) it […]
Soundstage
When I left for my class this morning there was much hustle bustle around the nearby big street with bars and restaurants. There were metal barriers and rows of policemen in uniform, listening attentively to a briefing. There were horses corralled off in one side street. A little further and I saw what was going […]
Another crack
Another crack appears in our world as we currently know it. The build up was frightful: troops sent to the region, then tourists and pilgrims made to leave, then political leaders put under house arrest, then rumours spreading, then a blackout and curfew and then a constitutional travesty. I don’t see how this will not […]