Looking Ahead

As 2018 staggers to its conclusion I find myself feeling thoroughly refreshed after our brief stay at Mak's house. Had a fine old time with the family and am actually looking forward to the drive back to our usual Far Place since I've decided it will feature quite a bit of Dylan (Bob, not Thomas.) Not sure that Noi will approve, but she's likely to be asleep as I do driving duty. She's got a bit of a cold and didn't sleep terribly well last night in contrast to Yours Truly who effortlessly packed in the zzzzzzs. Not too sure if we might meet with a jam or two on the way back, but I'll be practising patience and singing along with the Bobster if we do.

Now considering the most important business of this time of year: carving out a meaningful resolution for the year ahead. Funnily enough, I never took this seriously in my youth. I'm not terribly sure I take it all that seriously now, actually. But it's fun to fantasise.

With Enthusiasm

The one thing I missed when we were in New Zealand was a ready supply of music. I thought of taking the iPod along to supply the necessary, but decided in the end to travel light. I think that was the right decision since I rarely, happily had a spare moment in our sojourn on South Island. And now I'm very ready indeed to engage in some attentive listening.

The one exception to the general lack of sweet sounds on the trip was the opportunity to listen to music on the plane journeys. The ear-phones on the various flights weren't up to much but I managed to enjoy a fair amount of Dylan on the ways there and back. On the journey out, flying British Airways, I found an odd, highly eclectic selection of various offerings from the great man. Not exactly a greatest hits collection, it seemed more like a grab-bag of someone's particular favourites, but not in any obvious chronological order. The effect of this was to create some very striking contrasts between individual songs, serving as a reminder of just how extraordinarily varied Dylan's oeuvre is, and also to jar me into giving old favourites a fresh listen. For example, I've heard the live version of Idiot Wind, from the Hard Rain album, at least fifty times. But this time round the ferocity of the performance was startling having accessed the track between calmer pieces. The anguish of the singer became more obvious than ever and, for the first time ever, I felt something like genuine pity for him rather than just revelling in the sonic glory of the event.

Ironically on the way back I found myself listening to a very different version of the song. The Singapore Airlines flight we took from Auckland offered a selection from the recently released More Blood, More Tracks featuring the slower, gentler, essentially acoustic version originally intended for Blood on the Tracks. It was a revelation. I've never thought of the song as essentially tender, almost wistful, but that's how it was in this incarnation. And twice as moving as a result. Genius.

And it's the genius of the Bobster that is conveyed so convincingly in Richard F. Thomas's Why Dylan Matters. I'd heard the prof (of the Classics at Harvard) speaking before (on youtube somewhere) of the connection of Dylan's work to the great writers of antiquity, but never quite bought the argument. However, the accumulated detail of Thomas's book on the connection(s) is generally convincing, and even when you think he's pushing it a bit far the sheer excitement and fun of the writing carries you with it. It's wonderful also that real attention is paid to the greatness of the later albums, post Time Out Of Mind, and Dylan as performer in the final glorious phase of his work. Plus you get the clearest argument so far for the genius of Dylan as a master thief. Finally someone who understands the nature of inter-textuality as real creativity.

With all that in mind I'm about to put the ear-phones on and lose myself for a couple of hours. Bye!

Coming Alive

At Mak's house in Meleka. Attended a kenduri for Mak this afternoon. We read Surah Yasin for her.

The house has come to life again, busy as in the old days. Gosh, can't small kids make a lot of noise? And isn't that splendid?

Down To Earth

A day of meetings. Something of a reality check. Though, ironically, the kind of meetings I attend often don't seem quite real.

At An End

07.45 (New Zealand Time)
Now enveloped in the gentle frenzy of getting ourselves to Queenstown Airport to fly back to our Far Place of residence. Will need to adapt routines accordingly. No need for masses of sun block this morning, for example, which is something of a relief. Intending to enjoy the routineless limbo of the in-flight world, as much as I can.

23.35
A very jolly flight indeed, featuring a good deal of Dylan, both in listening and reading terms, and an excellent movie. More anon. Tired. Very.

A Bit Odd

Talk about a packed day! This being our last full day in New Zealand, we've been on the go since 7.00 am trying to get as much done as possible. This has resulted in a number of highlights, too many to count, though I'll just mention Fafa's first bungy jump and my first ever sighting of a real life kiwi (the actual bird, that is) as an indication of the sheer range of our undertakings

The day also featured one of the oddest works of art I've encountered: a version of the classic painting American Gothic rendered entirely in gourmet jelly beans - some 20,000 of them, in 32 different colours. Beyond strange.

Another Happy Day

 

Started the day in Te Anau, popping into the centre of town to see if anywhere was open (we weren't entirely sure, it being Christmas) before moving on to Queenstown. In the event we enjoyed a happily active morning, finding a few places open and quite a few folk around. I managed to read a few of Thom Gunn's poems, having now reached my favourite collection, Jack Straw's Castle. The ones that I remembered as magical were exactly that, and there were several more that spoke to me this time around in ways they'd never done in the past.

The last time we were in New Zealand we'd spent Christmas Day moving north from South Island all the way to Auckland, if memory serves me right. It had been extremely quiet all the way, with almost everywhere shut down, so I vaguely wondered if Queenstown might be much the same. I couldn't have been more wrong. The place was and is happening, in the happier sense of the idiom. I've never seen a beach, and it's a very small one, quite so crowded. It's a tad overwhelming considering how delightfully quiet our holiday has been so far. In fact, it put me in mind of the bustling Blackpool of my childhood. But with the sun shining and ourselves established in a very cosy apartment and very much at ease that's not a cause for any kind of complaint.

Hope you're having as happy a Christmas Day as we are, especially those who keep the season.

A Bitter Pill

As far as I can tell Julia Lovell's translations of Lu Xun's short stories are excellent. I say this based on the sheer power of the stories I've read so far from the Penguin Classics edition, those that appeared in his first collection Outcry. The ironic harshness, often bitterness, of the tales is extraordinary, and so economically conveyed. It's easy to imagine how their first readers must have felt something close to despair with regard to what is being said about China in the early twentieth century. Yet the fundamental honesty and clear-sightedness of the fiction carries with it a sense of hope.

A bit odd to be reading these vignettes of pain at a time of deep satisfaction and enjoyment. But perhaps it helps create a balance of sorts.

Going Sane

 

Words of wisdom just before our arrival at Monkey Creek, on the road to Milford Sound, with regard to the landscape we were about to step into: It will make you feel small and insignificant. Our excellent guide for the day's tour to the Sound was correct. It did. The walls of granite put things into perspective in a big way, as it were.

Aside from feeling small and insignificant I felt hugely privileged to be there, and in all the other locations which engendered such a salutary sense of wonder. Talk about lucky! It struck me, even as I was feeling these feelings, that these feelings felt enormously sane, genuinely healthy.

Ever Changing Moods

Drove south today from Lake Tekapo to Te Anau. Started in bright sunshine and finished ditto, but encountered a number of varieties of rain in between. Fifi tells me that one of her friends who visited South Island told her that the landscapes become rather boring due to their sameness. Does she (the friend in question) have eyes? I experienced a number of feelings during the drive, but boredom didn't feature amongst them.

In Association

 

I will forever associate Thom Gunn's excellent extended poem sequence Misanthropos with the equally excellent Lake Tekapo - though, as you may have guessed, they are excellent for very different reasons. I'm guessing that Misanthropos concerns the thoughts and experiences of the survivor of some cataclysmic war, probably nuclear. All very 60s, which is when it was written. And, let's face it, deeply clichéd. Yet Gunn's poem is never less than fascinating, and technically virtuosic, though not believable in the story-telling sense. But no one ever believes poetry, so it works in ways that a novel or play featuring the same material wouldn't. In contrast, the lake, if it's about anything, is about peace - or at least it was today.

In case you're wondering about the link between the lake and the poem, I read much of Gunn's assured and often biting verse whilst keeping guard of the bags and devices of my companions as they kayaked upon the lake. A most fulfilling way of occupying guard duty.

Obscured By Clouds

 

 

 

Despite still feeling the aches and pains brought on by our ascent of Roy's Peak, we spent most of the day engaged in one of the walks available at the base of Mount Cook. The track in question took us along Hooker's Creek and served as a reminder of the sheer joy of ambling along in a landscape comprising a continual photo opportunity. Mind you, the great mountain remained enigmatically shrouded in mist - which means, I suppose, that we'll have to come back one day to see it properly. Which is fine by me.

Grey Skies

Drove up to Lake Tekapo today on a grey, rainy day, our first such day in NZ. Didn't detract from the beauty of the countryside, though added a little to my sense of melancholy at events unfolding on the other side of the globe. I'm referring, of course, to the sacking of the Not-So-Special-One at Old Trafford. I'm neither a hater nor a major fan, but I don't think it makes any sense at all to get rid of a manager so early in a season when there are still things to play for, or to lose faith when things don't go well. I'm also deeply suspicious as to what's going on behind the scenes. The great puzzle for me this season began pre-season when everything surrounding the club seemed fractious before anything really got started, and this when they'd finished second the previous season and you'd have thought were ready to move up a notch.

Football, eh? Bloody hell, as a wise man said.

At Random

Decided to minimise the number of books brought to NZ knowing that we'd keep ourselves busy, thus reducing reading time. So I've got just my Thom Gunn Collected and The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun to dip into. Much enjoying the Gunn, having completed the first three individual collections and looking forward to the middle period of the 70s, which I'm generally more familiar with. Reread Lu Xun's Nostalgia today, with much greater understanding than on my first encounter, mainly due to the excellent introduction to this edition (in the Penguin Classics) of his work. Not sure that any of this has any connection at all with our little holiday, but suspect that I'll forever connect them.

The arbitrary nature of one's reading has an odd charm of its own.

Better Quality

 

We are now very tired but rather pleased with ourselves for having ascended Roy's Peak today and, even more importantly, having got back down again. It was, as old chum Tony would have said when he was alive, a bit of a pull. Fortunately we had enough basic fitness to achieve the pull, despite a few moments of uncertainty.

It was wonderful, by the way, to take note of the large numbers of obviously very fit people accompanying us (mainly in the way of over-taking.) It was especially edifying to see a significant number of young ladies out on the hills, possibly out-numbering the men. I was struck by the contrast between the sorts of values that seemed to be manifested through the various walkers and recent things I'd been reading about various health crises in places like the UK and USA. Eventually I found myself pontificating to Fifi regarding the varieties of unhealthy lifestyles I'd been reading about and how wise it was to develop the kinds of habits that might well lead to an excellent quality of life for those in their 60s, 70s and 80s (assuming one were lucky enough to avoid the various random ways in which it's possible to die in one's early or middle years.)

I reckon it would be useful to focus rather more on issues of the quality of life likely to be enjoyed by those in their 50s if they avoid smoking, excessive drinking, poor diet rather than linking everything to life expectancy. And promote the idea of exercising as a way to secure a better future - not just for its immediate benefits, real as these are. I suppose the difficulty lies in the fact that no one really thinks they're going to get old until they do.

Take Nothing For Granted

 

 

 

 

On our first full day in New Zealand we popped up by Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka to the Blue Pools Walk. The usual astonishing amounts of beautiful scenery which I suppose I'll soon take for granted. But not for now, I'm happy to say. Every view a reason to celebrate.

Something Great

Now occupying a most comfortable, albeit temporary, residence in Wanaka, New Zealand. Quite a comfortable journey all told, made especially memorable by being given the opportunity to watch the BBC series about the downfall of Jeremy Thorpe featuring an astonishingly good Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal. In fact, everything about the three episodes was astonishingly good - the acting, the writing, the directing, the music. If this isn't great art I don't know what is.

Taking Off

Now occupying that anticipatory space that comes prior to getting on the plane to get well away from it all. But still quite a few things to get done before we can relax and let the cabin crew take over dealing with all our concerns. Have already decided which books I'm taking to occupy any spare moments in NZ, so that's one crucial aspect of the trip out of the way.

Seasonal Sounds

I was slightly nervous this evening as I gave a spin, my annual airing, to Bob Dylan's Christmas In The Heart. After all, I was expecting magic and, as we all know, magic has a way of wearing off eventually. Fortunately the magic worked and for forty or so glorious minutes I relived Christmas as it used to be, the innocent one of the heart.

Why and how the magic works is beyond analysis - and, though it seems strange to me, I'm very much aware of being in a fairly small minority of even Dylan fans for whom it does. But it does so, completely. I suppose it's partly to do with the playing - impeccable - and partly the imaginative arrangements. This time round though I was more aware than ever of the extraordinary quality of Dylan's voice on this material. He sounds like he's having great fun, and feeling great joy and, in the traditional carols, a nostalgic kind of reverence.

It also helps that this is not overplayed Christmas music, though I suspect it might survive a mall or two.

In Action

Now back in our usual quarters, I got to the gym earlier this evening, most likely for the last time this year. We're off to New Zealand this Friday, and for the New Year we'll be popping across to Melaka, so I can't see any window of opportunity to get any further intense exercise in December. One thing I've realised this year is just how useful it is to plan ahead in figuring when it might be possible to get myself onto my chosen instrument of torture. You can't just wait for opportunities to present themselves; you've got to force them to happen in a slightly obsessive manner. And by the way, the result of all my planning hasn't been me getting anywhere close to what I would regard as optimal performance. That would be to get to the gym on an average of three times a week and I'm well short of that. But I do feel I can reasonably claim to exercise regularly.

It was some years back that I was startled into action when I recognised the eminent good sense of a speaker pointing out that not looking after one's body and health in any way but focusing solely on getting through the working day was an insane way to behave. Crazy as I may be in other ways, I think I'm rising above my usual levels of folly in this aspect of my life.

At Rest

Just visited the cemetery at Sungai Petai. It's less than a two minute drive up the road. An immense sense of peace there, like any final place of rest, I suppose. Kak Kiah's brother, who used to do jobs about the place, is buried there, next to Mak. He died in an accident just a month or so ago. Strange yet fitting that he lies next to her.

Some tears shed at Mak's grave. For all the dead.

Seasonal Weather

Everywhere wet, commented Noi, with pithy accuracy, as we wended our evening way south to Melaka. It's rained every day we've been in Malaysia, and often rained hard, as it did in occasional patches on the highway just now. But this is the rainy season, so there's nothing untoward here. Indeed, our repairing of the roof to Maison KL in November was predicated on the notion that it needed to be done before the leaks that were appearing were tested again. So we've been mildly congratulating ourselves on our timing - though the workmanship has yet to be thoroughly tested.

And this is not the chilly, soggy, rain of Manchester or Edinburgh. No matter how melancholy it gets, we never really quite enter Lear on the blasted heath territory. For which relief much thanks, as someone in another of the Bard's more melancholy efforts put it.

Not Quite Resolved

Looking back on the declaration of my New Year's Resolution for 2018 I'm agreeably surprised at how sane and apposite it was: When the bad times come, keep a sense of proportion, and remember all the good ones. For once I seem to have been thinking clearly.

The problem lies, I'm afraid, in several failures in the course of the year to live up to my own good sense. The last few days, for example, have been somewhat tarnished by my irritation with Astro, the so-called service providers for satellite television in this nation. The on-going saga of my unfortunate relations with them uncannily parallels the on-going saga of my equally unfortunate relations with Singtel Ltd in another Far Place.

Now you may be thinking at this point that since I've been having an equally fraught time with companies operating either side of the Causeway that there must be some fault in how I've been conducting myself. But all I can say is that I'm only too ready to pay what it takes to get the various channels both companies seek to provide their viewers - and this despite the fact that I'm not all that bothered about watching the telly. The problem is that I'm just not designed for modernity. Or perhaps it's the other way around.

However, none of this provides any kind of good reason for getting hot under the collar. So I won't. Or at least I'll try not to.

Another Country

Made our way to a somewhat out of the way kampong in the Gombak area this afternoon to attend a wedding. Our GPS didn't recognise the address so we needed directions from Noi's brother Yazzir to get there. Slightly to my surprise we managed quite well, getting a bit lost, but nothing overly traumatic. The final leg of the journey featured narrow winding roads in what felt like the middle of nowhere, but quite a well-populated nowhere with all sorts of fascinating houses and a wonderful lack of uniformity. And, as ever, once we arrived we enjoyed the typical unforced hospitality native to these parts.

In contrast to our comfortable little adventure we were vaguely aware of some kind of political rally taking place in the centre of KL. We caught wind of this when we heard a travel advisory for Singaporean citizens to avoid heading for the capital over the weekend, ironically as we were crossing into Malaysia. We took it that there were some worries that things might turn violent - the word 'skirmishes' was used in the warning. Happily we were heading in a completely different direction, and even more happily it turned out that the demonstration was peaceful and went off without incident.

We're still not entirely sure what prompted it, though, despite me buying a newspaper yesterday that featured some coverage. Another example of just how little I really understand these parts, fascinating as they are. But I suppose that's true of anywhere in this strange world into which we find ourselves thrown.

Not So Obvious

Read Shakespeare's Pericles over the last few days. It's got some good publicity of late and is reckoned by those who know about these things to work well in the theatre. Impossible to tell from the page, though the Act 4 brothel scenes are obviously excellent. The problem lies in the early acts, though nobody seems to think these actually come from Shakespeare himself. Very wooden stuff. I'm not convinced by those who rate Pericles as some kind of masterpiece, but I'd love to see a production to get a better sense of the impact of the drama as a whole.

What Dreams May Come

I've had occasion to make note here in the past of the mundane quality of my dreams - those that I recall, that is. I suppose that in some vague way I consider myself an imaginative sort of cove. After all, I teach Literature which if it's about anything is concerned with the workings of imagination, and I sometimes direct plays, an activity which would seem to demand some kind of imaginative output. Yet my infrequent dreams are pretty much uniformly ordinary to the point that they can seem like tepid replays of a rather tepid life.

With one exception, which I experienced in the early hours of this morning: around 09.00. I woke up genuinely shaken from a dream featuring at least two massive aircraft crashing in the distance ahead of me, followed by various rocks, or blocks of something like concrete rather, hurtling down from the sky with me below skipping around hoping to avoid them. It was all very apocalyptic and even as it was happening I had an awareness that I've experienced this before in dreamland.

I suppose it's a kind of anxiety dream, though I'm not exactly sure why I feel anxious about aircraft landing on my head. And it's really quite spectacular. But I'm also aware it's very derivative of disaster movies and the like, so even in this respect I seem cursed with a lack of individually creative imagination. The most worrying feature of all is just how much of a coward I am in these dreams. I never feel the slightest concern for anyone around me, though there are others with me, in the sense of an anonymous crowd. I'm entirely focused on self-preservation. So it's all very down-heartening, despite the special effects.

Much The Same

Spent a not unpleasant evening in the new mall at Melawati, coincidentally named Melawati Mall. It's much like any other mall, which makes it a huge improvement in terms of basic hygiene on the streets outside. The downside is that whereas the streets evoke some sense of identity the mall has none, being, as noted previously, much like any other mall.

I am conflicted. In some ways this represents progress. And there's a lot to be said for cleanliness. But it's a progress towards a kind of wasteful uniformity. And cleanliness can easily become a sterile blandness.

Weighing It Up

Now resident in Maison KL, and set to be so for the week ahead.

And the journey? The negatives: Slow-moving traffic in the capitol, whence we arrived just in time for the evening rush hour, so to be expected, even if irritating. And more than a few aches and pains driving, just from the five and a half hours of it all. The positives: Excellent tea and toast at the Arab Café, and a scrumptious Noi-baked chocolate muffin just after getting through Malaysian Immigration. Plus music from The Strawbs, Van Morrison, Bill Frisell and Walter Becker. So, on balance, an excellent journey!

Left Wanting

It's that time of year when I set about doing a bit of cleaning - essentially involving books on various shelves, and other inter-connected bits and pieces. This is quite hard work, but curiously satisfying, helping create the useful illusion that I'm in control of things. The only problem is that as a soon as I pick up a book for vacuuming (that's how it's done, Gentle Reader) I find myself wanting to read it, and since I vacuum every book that's a lot of wanting.

Another One

 

 

We celebrated another birthday for the Missus today in reasonable style. The strange thing is that no matter how many birthdays she has, she remains enviously younger than myself.

A Very Good Dinner

Was reading an article on Casanova's memoirs in the late September issue of The New York Review of Books (print edition) and discovered he writes about no fewer than 200 meals he ate as well the 122 - 136 women he is estimated to have slept with. It struck me that I'd much rather read about the dinners than the women. Not sure what this says about me, but I think it says a lot about the Great Lover that he valued his dinners so highly. Makes him a lot more human somehow.

You may be wondering why I'm still reading an obviously out-dated NYRB and so am I. I've actually only managed to read 3 print editions in the whole of the year. In some ways I'm pleased that I'm holding to the discipline of not buying another copy until I've read the on-going issue from cover to cover. But I'm also uneasily aware of how reading stuff on-line seems to be taking up more and more of my time. For reasons I can't quite articulate such reading seems shallow somehow.

You also may be wondering what I had for dinner myself this evening - though most likely you're not. But sticking to the food theme I'll tell you anyway. The meal went by the somewhat improvisational title Crème Salmon a la Yati and it was sensationally good. Better than anything Casanova ever set about, I reckon, and definitely eaten in better company.

Good Guys

The saga of our difficult relations with Singtel continues. We thought they'd cut off our services. Indeed, a young lady speaking on their behalf seemed to think the same thing, but it turned out we'd lost our broadband simply because it seems they simply don't know how to maintain its supply. That was some time ago. And we've lost our connections more than once since then. In fact, this time round we've been without an Internet connection for about three weeks.

Each time we talk to a customer service officer about this on the phone they ask why we haven't switched to fibre and we say we'd like to but you don't seem to want to allow us to do so. Then they go silent. Each time a hard-working technician comes round to try and restore our various connections they ask the same thing and we give the same reply. They usually look puzzled, but sort of knowingly so, as if familiar with the strange workings of the Singtel bureaucracy, or whoever's bureaucracy it is that is reluctant to allow us to be connected despite our desire to pay to be so. 

We've had three such technicians round already this week, and we're due another tomorrow morning. But here's the thing. It's impossible to get annoyed with the guys who come round, or the people we speak to on the phone, because they are so obviously doing their best to help us and are genuinely sympathetic. There's a kind of sincerely unaffected courtesy about these 'ordinary' workers that gives one hope that the inhuman systems we create might sometimes work to the good of people. But it's a faint hope, at best, and probably illusory. 

A Fresh Start

Surprised myself by finishing the Collected Poems of James Merrill before the year's end. Can't say I enjoyed all of its 869 pages, finding quite a few almost entirely baffling, but it was rare to read a poem without at least a few striking phrases to admire and often there was a good deal more than that. As is so often the case on these readings of a Complete or Collected, I generally found myself enjoying the later poems more than the early stuff. Indeed, the last two poems in the collection, both written in the year of JM's death, were probably the two I'd pick out as 'favourites', at least for now.

The slight irritation I suffered in making my way through the whole volume came when I fancied reading a good chunk of someone else at moments and realised this wouldn't be wise. I've been longing to give Thom Gunn's Collected a go, and I'm happy to say I'll be doing just that from tomorrow.

Hardly Matters Of Life And Death

I've been feeling somewhat weighed down by various trivial matters in the last few days - trivial, yes, but still needing to be resolved. When I tell you that one such matter has involved an improbable amount of admin work to settle the finances for the various English courses we have to run for overseas scholars new to the school from this time last year through to October 2018, you'll perhaps be able to guess at the sheer remorselessly plodding dullness of it all. And I can guarantee a sequence of interrogatory emails to follow once the paperwork reaches those who task it is to submit it to scrutiny and spot the gaps - which I'm sure are there.

It's at times like this that I desperately need to remember my own worthily wise advice to colleagues beset with troubles of their own to keep a perspective and disengage. I'm actually better at doing this now than I used to be. The problem is, though, that I'm still not particularly good at doing what I know is the obviously sensible thing.

Matters Of Life And Death

We've just been watching 6X7, the Malay drama centred around a funeral company. Focusing on the day to day dealings of such a company sounds an unlikely premise, but it works extraordinarily well. The simple pieties, typical of this kind of Suria production, with which it deals become powerfully moving at times due, I suppose, to the honesty in how it deals with the simple, painful reality of death and how ordinary people deal with it. Remarkably the series manages to avoid the usual melodramatic tropes, even when the deaths involved have a quality of the unexpected, I suppose because death is so ordinary.

In The Moment, Again

I really should be reading Descartes's Meditations. An old Everyman edition of his writing primarily featuring A Discourse on Method is my main designated reading of the moment, and I read said Discourse quite happily a couple of weeks ago, assuming I would race through the Meditations, having become familiar with them long ago in my first year at university. But I've found reading them again extremely laborious, to the point of wondering whether I'd read them in a highly edited version back in 1974, or skipped all the troublesome bits in youthful impetuousness.

Anyway, it's not difficult to distract me from reading our French friend, and James Shapiro managed to do so effortlessly through his wonderful 1599 - A Year in the Life of Shakespeare. I first read this in its year of publication in paperback, 2006, and knew then that I'd go back to it one day - specifically if I were to be teaching any of the four plays Shapiro features: Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and, best of all, Hamlet. Since Hamlet is on the cards for one of my classes next year I felt I had to pick it up again and remind myself of Shapiro's very convincing thesis on the likely revisions of the great play. 

In fact, pretty everything Shapiro suggests regarding the Bard's output in 1599 is intuitively convincing. The notion that the lived experience of the social and political ups and downs of the period is central to Shakespeare's dramas, rather than the conventional notion of the influence of literary 'sources', just feels so right that you begin to take for granted that Shapiro's hunches and suppositions are spot on.

And what an astonishing run of plays it was. Each one brilliant in its way, and entirely individual.

Apocalypse Now

Watched a documentary on the opioid epidemic in the US that aired on BBC World today. Wished I hadn't. It ended with the simple caption: America is losing the war on drugs, and that was the obvious conclusion to be drawn. A few days ago I'd read a powerful essay entitled Opioid Nation in the NYRB that was equally despairing, but somehow the reality of the suffering involved was more haunting in encountering the pain of the various victims interviewed in the documentary.

There's something apocalyptic about the scale of the problem - such that the word 'problem' seems entirely inadequate in this context.

Living In The Moment

It's been a good day for my body. I went to see my back doctor this morning and he found me to be in full working order with good mobility. This was an improvement on my previous visit when he had noted signs of wear and tear. I seem to have staved off the inevitable degeneration of my lower back, at least for the time being, and that's more than good enough for me.

And then, without really meaning to, I achieved the personal best at the gym that's been eluding me for so long. Again, it's gently thrilling to think my old frame is in better nick than it was a year ago. I'm happily not thinking too far ahead, but just enjoying the moment, a kind of celebration of my almost complete lack of depth.

Not So Easy

Why is it that it's never actually possible to register a warranty for a product on-line despite the apparent simplicity of being able to do so? Case in point: I've just made a valiant effort to register the warranty for the water pump we recently purchased for Maison KL. I got all the way to the final segment I needed to complete which involved the details of the tax invoice for the product. Noi came back from KL with the warranty registration card and the invoice for purchasing the pump, but no tax invoice, since she wasn't given any; this means I can't fill in the last box so I can't register the product.

Is it cynical of me to wonder whether this final step is put there to make it extremely difficult for customers to actually complete the registration for their promised warranty? Could a business be so calculating?

I think I know the answer to the above.

Complete

Noi arrived home earlier this evening thus making the world a simpler, warmer, richer place.

Not Entirely Natural

I've been feeling particularly virtuous lately on account of upping my consumption of fruit. There is a problem though. All the fruit I buy comes, for reasons I don't understand, in plastic containers. I'm guessing this is the kind of plastic that doesn't do the environment any good at all. So here am I, striving for personal health whilst damaging the health of the planet. Somehow this doesn't add up.

Run Down

I've been doing my Man of the People bit since Noi took the car to KL, using public transport to get around this Far Place. Must say, I've thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Using the MRT is a breeze, at least at the times of day I've made use of the system.

Must say though, the bright shining modernity of the bits of the island I've been around gets a tad monotonous. I like the worn-down areas, those with a sense of having seen better days, and there's not too many such spots around these days. I suppose it's a case of looking for somewhere I can identify with.

Something Positive

As I was approaching the end of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness I was wondering whether Arundhati Roy would be able to tie the whole superb enterprise together. It seemed to me that providing the reader a convincing, satisfying ending would be evidence that she has done more than write magnificent polemic - though that's a key attribute of the text. In the event I think the conclusion of the novel is one of its strongest aspects, and reminded me of what I have come to see as a fundamental strength of The God of Small Things.

Without giving too much away, the powerful, unlikely warmth of the ending is what took this reader by happy surprise. I was reminded in an odd way of Dickens and the so-called sentimentality of his novels. That aspect of Dickens is seen by some - usually academics - as so easy to criticise, yet seems to me central to his genius. I think the same is true of Roy.

Standing Still

Came away from the gym earlier this evening feeling mildly pleased with myself for posting decent numbers. Indeed, I realised that if I'd really pushed it for the last four minutes or so I would have equalled my previous best, and I had the sense that I could have pushed it harder than I did. Actually I had something else on my mind which acted as a minor distraction throughout.

But I could only feel mildly pleased given the fact that it's taken almost six months to get back to the level of fitness I'd achieved around the middle of the year. I suppose there's something to be said for standing still. A kind of wisdom to be engendered in holding one's ground and not needing to advance.

Inimitable

Thoroughly enjoying Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, but finding it immensely disturbing. Couldn't quite pin down what made it so, then realised it's something to do with the blazing indignation of the text in terms of the social wrongs with which it deals (though 'deals' seems too mild a word for what Ms Roy is up to.)

Normally I'm highly inclined to distrust moral/political/social indignation - especially when I'm feeling it myself. It's rare that a writer convinces in this territory. The parallel that springs to my mind regarding the special quality of indignation involved in this novel is, oddly I suppose, with Dickens - the kind of generous, humanely ferocious indignation Orwell identified in the Inimitable. Roy seems to me to echo that, without imitation.

By the by, I think she'd make a very bad model for a younger writer to imitate. My mother would have called her a one-off. A quite astonishing, wonderful one.

Uneasy Viewing

Before getting back from work I decided not to watch anything related to Brexit. Got home and watched non-stop. It holds all the fascination of a complete disaster in excruciatingly slow motion.

Funnily enough there were some politicos talking various kinds of sense. Unfortunately they weren't actually listening to each other.

No End In Sight

Had a somewhat unexpectedly busy day and arrived home a bit frazzled. Proceeded to watch coverage of the latest on the mess known as Brexit on BBC World and Sky News, not quite simultaneously, though it sometimes felt that way. This was not a good way to get unfrazzled, I can tell you.

I suppose someone somewhere understands why all this is happening, but I've yet to meet him or her.

The End In Sight

As far as I can remember I've been reading James Merrill's Collected Poems since the beginning of the year and I've now completed all the main books of poems published during his life. But there's still some way to go to get to the end of the Collected. I've just embarked on a longish segment entitled The Yellow Pages. As far as I can figure this comprises poems he left out of the earlier published books but then decided were worthy of publication in a volume of their own duly published in 1974. Then there's a quite a hefty group of JM's translations of other writers, before a final substantial section of poems he never bothered to publish but that his current editors decided needed to be acknowledged as Previously Uncollected Poems. Even with a cursory glance ahead it's clear that even his less substantial stuff is, well, substantial.

So I have to ask myself again, has it been worth spending all this effort on a writer who is sometimes maddeningly opaque? (Or possibly is actually reasonably clear, but so clever he keeps going over my head.) My answer is, again, that I'm not really sure, but something is making me go on and that's enough. And I'd now supplement that with the observation that the more I read, the more I get, the more frequent become the rewards.

A Good Start

Recently embarked on a reading of Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. A brilliantly transgressive text. And funny. And sad. And that's just the first sixty pages.

Complicity?

Just been watching a programme about the murder of the little American girl JonBenet Ramsey from more than twenty years ago. The story was horribly fascinating in ‘murder-mystery’ fashion back in the last century, and it’s lost none of that fascination. Tonight’s programme ended with the father railing that his daughter’s killing was not a form of entertainment, as he believed it had been treated as being over the years, and it was painful to watch. Because it’s necessary to question one’s motives in watching this kind of thing, especially those that relate to the ways in which one entertains oneself.

A Rare Opportunity

15.05
Now getting fired up for a performance this evening of Steve's Reich's Drumming by the Colin Currie Group. I'd not heard of this ensemble until last week at the Esplanade when I picked up a flyer for the concert, but they sound like the business to me. Let's face it, opportunities to hear Reich performed live in this part of the world come few and far between, and I'm pleased to take this one.

23.16
Magical concert. Reich may sound good in recordings but you've got to experience the music live to feel the sound as you need to. And when it's delivered by players of this calibre, then you're taken to another place.

I vaguely wondered in advance of the concert if the hypnotic qualities of Reich's work might have a narcotic effect in the concert hall. In the event, I've never felt more alert. And watching the performers move around the stage to their various instruments, movements effected with great care and a kind of stillness, gave the longer pieces played - Drumming especially - a kind of ritualised, dramatic quality.

A Perplexing Question

Late in the afternoon I was asked by a younger colleague, a much younger colleague if truth be told, Where do you get your energy from?

I was entirely stumped for an answer, the closest I could get being something along the lines of not being aware I had any energy at all. But that didn't sound even slightly elegant, and I like to keep a conversation humming along.

I suppose my inability to frame any kind of coherently suitable reply is linked to the fact that whatever I've got that keeps me moving and occasionally grooving doesn't seem to me to be energy in any real sense. I can't think of a word in English that captures the stubborn keep-going-ness that keeps me going. Just haven't the energy to think of one.

Sound And Visions

Had the happy thought today that some music is so innately visual it doesn't require a video to make you see it. Of course, Messiaen is the prime example of a composer who is obviously seeing what his music is saying. And for much of his work we are in the extraordinarily privileged position of being able to read his account of what, if we're lucky, we might just be able to construct in the mind's eye.

Was listening to La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ earlier and came across this, from Messiaen's notes on the fifth section of the First Septenary: The phrase is soft and tender in the male voices, louder and more emphatic when sung by the whole choir. Modal colours evolve: gold and violet, red and bluish-purple, blue-grey studded with gold and deep blue, green and orange, blue and gold, yellow and violet streaked with white. The solo cello sings of the simple clarity of everlasting light. The solo piano introduces the blue American robin, and the rock thrush (a mountain bird with bright orange and slate-blue livery) is heard amongst the ensemble of soloists. The movement concludes with the choir humming red and gold harmonies, a lush carpet of sound, a distant pianissimo, over which, in the night, there ascends on the piano the first strophe of the nightingale's song.

Blimey. Difficult to believe that any music could live up to that. But, of course, the Maestro's does.

Sound And Vision

I've never really come to terms with music videos. It's an odd thing to say, I know, since they've been around for so long, but when I try and think of ones that seem to me entirely successful in marrying image and sound I can only manage a very short list. Maybe some by Bowie - especially the more recent - and possibly Peter Gabriel - but those seem somewhat dated. Having said that, I'd be the first to admit that there are probably hundreds of good ones I don't know about simply because I don't watch all that much television, or view these things on-line.

Curiously enough I think I'd rate the stuff done by Prince as my favourites in this genre. I say 'curiously' not so much in relation to the music (of which any visitor to this Far Place would know I'm an unashamed fanboy of the first order) but in relation to the silly hyperbolic playing up of Prince's image as whatever His Purple Highness seemed to see himself as at any given time. What wins me over to the videos is the outright goofiness of so many of them in this respect, the idea that this is all mickey-taking on at least one important level, though engagingly serious on others.

Today, for example, I found myself goofing off in a spare moment to the brilliant Musicology, and enjoying the visuals as much as the groove. I love the irony in Prince's playing of the diva role to his younger fan-struck self, and the wonderfully rhythmic editing so perfectly in synch to the track. There really is a kind of education to be had here.

Slightly Melancholic

Noi has gone off to KL for some two and a half weeks to see to the work we're getting done to repair the roof of our house there. She's being accompanied by no fewer than four nieces, one thankfully of senior years, so she'll have her hands full. In stark contrast I find myself at something of a loose end. There's still plenty going on at work of course, hence my remaining here, but this place has felt more than a little bit empty today.

I took myself off to the gym this afternoon hoping for some improvement on my previous visit. That took place last Sunday, just before we took Fifi for her birthday dinner, and was strangely unimpressive. I say 'strangely' as I felt in pretty good nick before hitting the pedals on the elliptical trainer and I thought I would post good numbers. In the event I struggled through the last five minutes, knowing that if I pushed myself at all I'd be close to throwing up. Today saw a slight improvement - I felt okay over the final stretch, though I can't say I set the world alight over my designated forty-five minutes.

It's a melancholy, lonely truth that once you hit a certain age the kind of progress that might have been taken for granted is no longer automatic. And it feels that bit lonelier, that bit more melancholy, when there's no Missus around to complain to regarding that necessary truth.

Compulsion

Read Han Kang's short novel The Vegetarian over the weekend. Think this won the Booker International Award, or something like that. Actually it was Runima who passed me a copy, and I'm glad she did. My first ever Korean novel.

It starts off strange and gets steadily stranger - always a good sign. Han Kang is the kind of writer who seems to feel things with great intensity, as if she's missing a layer of protection against the world, I'm tempted to say a layer of skin, but hesitate to use such a trite image given her novel's deployment of a brilliantly original sequence of images of the body as the site of conflict. (Though the nods towards Kafka - think The Hunger Artist - suggest something less than original, but wonderfully allusive.) 

Very assured shifts of perspective also. It's a crafty novel, but hides its craftiness beneath the urgency of a compelling surface. I suppose many readers will see it as a novel of feminist protest, given the strikingly passive-aggressive figure at its centre, and the ways in which she is objectified by various males, but I think that's to underestimate the depth of its existential concerns.

A Jolly Good Time

Wonderful concert last night. I was in the right mood for a bit of Debussy and the SSO sounded sensationally good to me, especially in Jeux which has always seemed to get away from me in the past. It helped that Maestro Lan Shui provided an amusing introduction to the balletic aspects of the piece complete with musical illustrations before we were given the whole. Yes, it panders to the audience a wee bit, but if you can't have a bit of fun before playing Games when can you? (See what I did there?)

Noi and I managed to attend the pre-concert talk in the library upstairs in the Esplanade, not realising that it was to be delivered by my colleague Yi Fang. I think she was a little nonplussed to spot me in the audience. To my delight it featured an interview with Ye Xiaogang, the composer of Mount Emei, which was being premiered in Singapore by the SSO. He couldn't say all that much in the 10 or so minutes Yi Fang got to ask him questions, but what he said was down to earth and intriguing at the same time in terms of biographical detail - for example, talking about his experiences as a young man in the period of the Cultural Revolution. I'd never heard of the guy before, which doesn't say much for my knowledge of contemporary music I'm afraid, but it seems he's a really big cheese on the Chinese scene, and rightly so if Mount Emei is anything to go by. Lovely to listen to, highly accessible yet in an idiom that might fairly be termed modern, with glittering parts for the soloists - a violinist and an insanely gifted lady percussionist.

I also managed to purchase a couple of CDs featuring the SSO doing the business with lots of Debussy in the concert interval. These hit the turntable this morning, making for the best of starts to a thrillingly lazy day.

Goofing Off

Got a lot done today. And none of it was work. Well, some of the reading was vaguely work-related, but when was reading Shakespeare work in any real sense?

Just back from the concert hall, actually. Sort of the antithesis of work. More anon.

Hidden Treasure

Was luxuriating in a bit of Vaughan Williams earlier this evening. Well, quite a lot of VW, actually, the 'bit' being The Sea Symphony. Oddly it's the one of the magical nine I play least, yet I always find myself wondering why I don't air it more often when I do give it a spin. This time I found myself enjoying Whitman's poetry just in itself, as I was reading it from the accompanying booklet. I tend to blow hot and cold over his verse, but this time I think I grasped why VW felt compelled to set these particular words.

Then I decided to play through the Arnold Conducts Arnold set I downloaded a little while back and, do you know, for a moment there was a genuine contender for the title of My Favourite English Composer. In general I find much to admire and enjoy in Malcolm Arnold's oeuvre as represented in the pieces involved. He's a wonderful melodist and superb technician, but before this evening I'd not that crawling of the skin that RVW regularly evokes. Then tonight I found myself utterly spellbound by the slow movement of his Concerto for 2 Pianos. In fact, it's entirely bewildering to me that the concerto isn't regularly programmed by orchestras across the world. It's wonderfully accessible and would surely become an audience favourite anywhere. Yet I don't recall seeing it as part of a programme ever. 

How many treasures remain hidden. What an adventure it is seeking them out.

Impossible Choices

It's either Joyce or Conrad. And it's either Wordsworth or Keats. Agonising choices. Whichever way, not doing something that is really, really, really somehow necessary to do.

Caring

I struggled to finish Foucault's Madness and Civilisation, feeling by the end that despite its many moments of illumination I was falling short of all the book had to offer (which was plenty.) I think I grasped the central thesis, though, which was illuminating in itself. The problem for me lay in some of the detail inherent at the conceptual level, which was demanding and strangely abundant for what is, after all, quite a short work.

Having said all that, the idea that the pride that we might feel over what we consider the more humane treatment of the 'mad' (whatever that means, and Foucault is mind-bendingly good regarding whatever that means) in contrast to how they were treated in a less 'enlightened' age is entirely delusional, comes through loud and clear and painfully provocatively.

But it cannot match the pain engendered through watching Trapped In Care, a documentary aired this evening by Sky News. I caught a 15-minute snippet just now, focusing on the treatment of the intellectually disabled and autistic in various 'care facilities' in the UK. Initially I was struck by the odd coincidence of viewing this just after reading Foucault, though I hasten to add that the poor souls featured in the documentary are not mad in any reasonable sense of the word. (If there is a reasonable sense. (See M. Foucault.))

When pain in the abstract becomes pain in real human beings, it becomes more than food for thought.

Getting Radical

It's rare I feel any sort of keenness to watch a movie, but I'd love a chance to watch Mike Leigh's Peterloo. Mind you, any Mike Leigh movie is more than acceptable in this household. (Surprisingly the Missus loved Secrets and Lies, a sign of her unerring good taste.) I doubt very much the great director's account of the massacre that happened in the city of my birth will make it to these shores, but his brilliant account of Turner's life turned up on one of the Starhub channels to which we have access, so there's some hope there.

The Peterloo massacre mildly haunted my teenage years - I used to hang out in the Central Library near the site - and has, if anything, grown in significance in my mind. I'm firmly on the side of the tradition of Radical Dissent in historical terms and recent events in the nation of my birth have confirmed this essential sympathy all the more. There's a well-argued opinion piece in everyone's favourite sort-of-left-of-centre publication on-line going by the unwieldy but worthy title: Peterloo shaped modern Britain, as much as any king or queen did that pretty much says it all for me. Nice to see the great E.P. Thompson getting name-checked in there. Hope he's still read in the academies. He should be.

The Basics

We have a new improved system for booking venues at work on-line. So it's now a lot more difficult than it used to be. Case in point: I spent several hours sorting out classrooms for a course yesterday and today when previously it took me five minutes to sort out the rooms by sending a single email.

I've also been struggling to secure a venue for something dramatic we're planning for next year - in July actually. Given the fact that we have venues specifically designed for the performing arts this might seem odd, especially when I tell you that the problems have been caused by a key venue already having been booked for an 'event' that has nothing artistic about it whatsoever. Ironically it is booked during a period of time that has traditionally been set aside for drama, that being the case for the last twelve years at least, and possibly beyond that.

Anyway, there's no point in complaining, though it's fun to do so. The actual point of all this is to convey a simple truth about the kind of stuff you see on stage at all levels below that of the well-funded professional variety: it gets up there through sheer stubborn-headedness, not head-in-the-clouds-ness. The struggle comes with the territory; it's inherent in the experience; it's the very nature of the beast. The art lies in making it look easy.

Stirring Stuff

It's been a long time since we got ourselves to the concert hall. Fortunately it looks like our current engagements allow us the room to get there once again next Saturday when the SSO will be doing the business with a couple of Debussy favourites. I've had a couple of stirring encounters with La Mer live, as it were, but have never had the chance to listen to Jeux in that context, so it looks like I'll be able to set right that omission.

I've been even more inspired to make sure I attend by an excellent piece on The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy by Alex Ross in The New Yorker. When you hear people talk of the impossibility of writing about music in any meaningful way, direct them to anything by Mr Ross. In this particular article the bit about the first five bars of Prélude à l'aprés-midi d'un Faune nails that falsehood for good.

Lesson Learnt

Found myself being led round Mediacorps' big headquarters down the road yesterday on what is termed a 'learning journey' in these parts. Had quite a good time all in all, and learnt that those video helmet things, which they put on your head, complete with headphones, so that you're stuck in the immersive world created, are definitely not for me. I suspected such in advance but gave one a try for three minutes, which was three minutes too many.

It struck me that this might be related to the general difficulty I have in watching movies and the like. Part of me wants the freedom to put the world to one side now and again so that I don't get overly involved. You can do that with a novel easily, no matter how engrossing it is.

In Real Time

Just been watching the news out of the US and noticed an odd disconnect. A few minutes ago the big news channels were announcing the arrest of someone in connection with all those bombs that have been sent to various big cheeses. Sounds like the Feds have got their man. Good. Hope people over there are a bit more safe now.

But here's the odd thing. CNN announce the news from their reporter in the studio around 22.56. I switch over to Fox to see if they're saying the same thing, but they're showing a group of talking heads obviously not aware of any major development in the story being discussed. Fox then cut to some adverts ahead of their 23.00 news broadcast but as the voice is saying what they are going to continue with said voice, that of a lady, finishes with And CNN, oh - or something like that. I guess someone at Fox has been watching CNN and heard the news. I cut to CNN while Fox are running their ads and all sorts of stuff about the arrest, largely conjectural but sounding pretty well-informed is airing.

I cut back to Fox as their 23.00 broadcast begins, seemingly happily oblivious to the breaking story.  But I've got to say that their anchors look oddly stressed. Anyway, around 23.06 Fox suddenly announce the news, confirmed by the Department of Justice with the guys on screen sort of looking surprised, but not all that surprised, if you see what I mean.

Must say, I'm glad I'm not a reporter. It's all a bit too fast-moving for me. If the Fox guys were pretending not to know something that the rest of the US was well aware of,, and had been for a good 10 minutes or so, does that qualify as 'fake' news?

Not So Dramatic

Lots of young people live out their romantic dramas these days in the form of exchanged text messages. I know this because I've seen attempts to represent such dramatic exchanges in tv programmes, especially the Malay dramas that Noi watches. To be honest, I don't watch much else in the way of drama on the telly because I'm not much of a viewer, but I'm assuming that what goes on in the world of Malay tv drama reflects the kinds of programme watched in other parts of the world.

It's fascinating to watch dramatists and directors trying to solve the inherent problem of representing on screen a fundamentally un-dramatic activity - sitting down exchanging text messages - and somehow making it dramatic. The default solution is to cut between the characters in their different locations, showing the actual message floating mysteriously on screen as the messages arrive. (Which wonderfully, surrealistically breaks the standard verisimilitude of the 'realist' representation of life in process in the tv frame.) Music plays continuously, in the absence of the usual dialogue, and the characters emote like crazy in a kind of restrained dumb-show, sort of staying within the convention of reasonably naturalistic acting. In the moments of highest tension/emotion/revelation a character might expostulate to themselves in a kind of soliloquy, wholly inappropriate to the usual stylistic conventions of the on-going drama. I often think it would be handy to give them a cat or goldfish or something to address. The ladies might find a stuffed toy a viable audience.

I suppose the more folk become addicted to their ridiculous devices and live their lives through them, the more we're likely to be treated to attempts to improve on the standard model above. I must say, I'm looking forward to the possible developments. Who would have thought that handphones would end up provoking an entirely new dramatic sub-genre all of their very own?

Waxing Poetical

There are moments, quite a number actually, when I find myself wishing cyberspace had never been invented. (Was it invented, or just discovered? I don't even know the answer to that simple question.) But then I recall the pleasures afforded by being able to access particular websites, and my irritation fades. A bit.

Thank goodness for Carol Rumens's Poem of the Week page at The Grauniad on-line. The last three weeks have been particularly terrific. And the pages have the only Comments sections I know of that are actually edifying to read.

A Bit Crazy

Quick thought on a slow reading of Foucault's Madness and Civilisation: You don't have to be mad to understand Monsieur Foucault at his most perplexing - which is most of the time - but it helps. Hah!

Not Well

Actually I'm perfectly well health-wise, I'm happy to say, despite the misleading title of this post. But things have not exactly been going well, even though they've not been going badly, if you see what I mean. The last few days have not been a period of grace; they've been a time of things not quite working, not quite fitting, not flowing, as it were.

So what to do? Keep going. Lower expectations. Don't ask for too much. Indeed, don't ask. Accept. Count blessings. This too will pass. And will come again.

More to Do

11.54
Happy to report that marking for the day is done. But not exactly looking forward to the long drive back from one home to another. There's a lot to be said for staying put, but we're not in any position to say it.

23.24
And now happier still to report we're back in one piece, which is all that really matters, isn't it?

Done

13.30
It's amazing how much better life looks when one's marking for the day has been completed.

22.43
With the day almost done, it's good to record that most of it was spent actually living.

Getting Down To It

We're off to KL later this evening, intending to beat the Friday jam by travelling through the night. Fortunately Fuad is coming along with us and he doesn't mind driving in the early hours, so I'm hoping to get some much needed zzzzzzs in the car. But I can't say I'm looking forward to feeling tired tomorrow, as I undoubtedly will, with marking to do. However, arranging to fix the Maison KL roof is an over-riding priority, so the trip must go ahead.

I suppose this is a classic First World problem - i.e., hardly a problem at all in the great scheme of things, a problem of being fortunate enough to own a house and having more than one place in which to live. Actually, I seem beset by problems at the moment, which turn out not to be problems at all when you really get down to it.

Mixed Feelings

Feeling ridiculously pleased with myself for getting to the gym for the second time this week, and feeling similarly pleased with the part of myself that comprises my body for not breaking down (yet) as a result. Also feeling tired in the extreme as a result of my efforts in the gym and sort of waiting for the inevitable collapse likely to follow. But also feeling I wasn't firing on all cylinders today, feeling like I wasn't quite all there somehow in an irritable sort of fashion. Oh, and not to forget, feeling extremely full after munching a number of mini-shepherd's-pies, courtesy of the lady of the house - and feeling very grateful indeed for those highlights of the day.

Not Exactly Seasonal

Attended a Christmas dinner this evening. Yes, really. Felt uncomfortably cold throughout due to the severity of the air-conditioning.

Sometimes life here is possessed of a surreal quality.

A Crimson Moment - 5

We all need discipline. But sometimes the need for Indiscipline is greater.

Necessary Information

It's difficult to deal with the reality of the cruelty of which we are capable. It's easy to understand our collective ability to forget what you might think would be, or should be, unforgettable. It's easy to assume someone, somewhere will remember, and fail to make ourselves the effort necessary in remembering.

We need to be horrified by articles like Thomas Laqueur's painful essay in the recent on-line London Review of Books, Lynched for Drinking from a White Man's Well, and we need to remember it.

Very Cosy Indeed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quite a number of our erstwhile companions on the Haj joined us for tea and goodies this afternoon. A more than jolly time was enjoyed by all. Indeed, I think the word cosy might well be applied to the occasion. It strikes me that an ample supply of cakes and associated goodies, homemade, of course, helps considerably in ensuring a sense of cosiness, as does lashings of tea and laughter. Cramming folk into a relatively confined apartment also helps.