What a very productive morning it has been. I have finally got email posting to work (so no excuses for irregular posts), went to the bank and sent off deposits for two holiday bookings, wrote an op-ed, sent off the paperwork for a new contract and completed the application for another contract. I also had […]
Rush rush
Today is a deadline and much remains to be done! Sisters arrive tomorrow and there is no food in the flat. Ah well, they are only sisters.
NaNoWriNo
Well it’s the first day of NaNoWriMo so I suppose I can stop sulking at the email-to-post plugin and commemorate it here. Consider it commemorated. More to the point, it’s just been a very busy week or so. I have a big deadline on Friday, with other work going on alongside, and two sisters arriving […]
Embarrassment
I had a longish phone meeting with a new client today to discuss a project. It is very interesting and genuinely important. At the end they asked me for my fee. I gave my quote and held my breath. There was silence. They said, diffidently, that they didn’t think that was quite right and they […]
Another cry of frustration
Just remembered, at the end of the working day, I had a report to proofread. Due tomorrow. Opened it up and it’s over 300 pages. Argh.
Volcanic interruption
It seems increasingly likely, with Agung a-rumbling away down in Bali and mass evacuations in the neighbourhood. The airport is quite distant from the volcano itself but the air space shall certainly be closed and flights diverted. Speaking of inconvenient natural disasters in holiday destinations, the response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico continues to […]
Escape! continued
A profound lack of motivation continues, largely around work but also in the ‘what’s the use of it all?’ sort of way. Yesterday the GF was working from home and we decided to go out for lunch. I had found an assam laksa place towards Ampang which was supposed to be good, so we walked […]
Escape!
Work and daily life seems particularly tedious these days to the extent that I was daydreaming today about going to Macau and placing everything I own on 0 in roulette, as that would offer a clear sign of something or the other. Yesterday we met up with a couple of friends for brunch, not the […]
Booked for Lahore
I bought my ticket today, annoyingly the many air miles I accrued flying between London and Lahore during my mother’s illness were still not enough to buy the ticket. I got a decent price anyway and will have to try to pass on the miles to someone else. I have an idea for a new […]
What aid is for
There was something in the Economist of a couple of weeks ago that got me thinking: Unless a government is wholly corrupt (and Liberia’s is not) it has two big advantages over a donor. First, it is mostly interested in outcomes. Aid agencies and charities often focus on inputs—the number of clinics built, the number […]