Something To Look Up To

Spent yesterday evening over at Rohana and Osman's. He's looking somewhat frail, and is frustrated at the seeming lack of progress in his chemotherapy, but retains his remarkable fighting spirit, even if the odds don't look great. We talked at some length of the ins and outs of his current treatment and the doctor's prognosis and I suppose it should have been a bit of a sombre occasion, but it wasn't. Far from it.

I suppose that's something to do with being in the presence of grace & courage.

Something Special

People used to ask me if there was anything I missed about life in England. My stock reply was a simple no, though obviously there were people I missed. Funnily enough nobody ever bothers ask me the question these days, yet now I can readily identify one or two aspects of life as I led it up to the age of thirty-three that I do miss, though generally not in a yearning manner.

Chief amongst these is the greater frequency of exposure to live music available in the land of my birth. Today I was keenly reminded of this when I came across a video on youtube of one of my favourite bands performing at Glastonbury back in 2009. And I must admit I experienced a distinct sense of yearning to have really been there. Especially when Ms Amy Winehouse joined them on stage.

In an alternative universe somewhere beyond (where alternative universes tend to be) she lives on, having become a full-time Special, and every summer they make the glorious music of the spheres.

Getting Better

Just got back from the gym. Slightly improved on my previous performance, and I mean slightly.
 
Mind you, that's more than can be said for Germany, eh! Ha! 😁 😁 😁

Starting Over

I got myself to the gym last night for the first time since before Ramadhan began. I'd had the intention of getting myself there in the early days of fasting month, prior to leaving for KL, and as soon as we got back to Hall, but the muscles in my back and legs had other ideas. I wasn't all that sure about resuming business last night, in truth, having felt some strain after starting work on Monday, but I figured I had to get back in harness some time, and would probably always feel a certain vulnerability, which only regular exercise is likely to assuage.

I must confess, I struggled more than somewhat, coming close to giving up for the last ten minutes of my scheduled forty-five. Somehow - probably by going very slowly - I kept going, but it was painful to realise just how much general fitness I've lost in a month and a half or so. But just to be sweating hard again was a kind of reward. At least my body lets itself be used in this way. One day that isn't likely to be the case any more, so I'll seek to enjoy the experience whilst I'm still sort of able.

Regeneration

The recent Carpool Karaoke featuring Paul McCartney was a blast. A powerful reminder of the staggering talent of Sir P and the inexorable passing of time. He looks so old; at least, he looks old to someone like myself whose essential image of the man is fixed on the cheekily fresh-faced youngster he was when the Fab Four really were the Fab Four.

But something odd happens in the video in the brilliant sequence when Macca and band are playing in the pub for that lucky, lucky audience. At one point he looks at least forty years younger. And he sounds like he's twenty-five again.

Recovering

We watched the footy at Fuad's last night, after an excellent post-Raya nosh-up, with much hustle & bustle from Fahmi & the boys to add to the collective excitement. I predicted England would be two up by halftime, sort of jokingly, and was stunned when it turned out to be a lot more than that. I'm still in recovery from finding myself enjoying an England game in the World Cup in totally relaxed fashion. Can't remember the last time this happened. Possibly at some point in Italia '90? Doubt it, though. Offhand have no recall of a single easy game back then. 

The odd thing was that they managed to look very vulnerable at the back in the opening ten minutes, but still appeared assured somehow that it would be alright on the night. England have the look of a newly promoted club team who are still enjoying the game, despite the possibility of eventually being shot down by one of the big clubs. It's as if they see themselves as no-hopers with a chance to shine, though having considerable faith in their innate ability.

I reckon the key factor is the lack of big name players with medals to prove it. There's no one to live up to anymore.

Not So Mundane

Didn't get all that much reading done over the break, but I did manage to finish the two novels that Karen bought me for my birthday this year. Both made for easy reading representing, I suppose, the kinds of genre fiction that's intended to slip down with the minimum of effort. Certainly Lois Austen-Leigh's The Incredible Crime didn't pretend to be more than a fairly typical crime novel of the 1930s, though I was slightly taken aback at the degree of naked snobbery, of the social variety, implied if not displayed on every page. I suppose that was part of the fun of reading this in a twenty-first century context. The bland acceptance of fox hunting as a representation of the pinnacle of the English cultural heritage was a reminder of just how much a society can change - and this in less than a hundred years.

In contrast, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus seemed very much a work of today despite the fact that the action is set around the turn of the nineteenth century. To be honest there was little real attempt here to conjure any kind of historical reality. Rather, readers are invited into a version of the past that's intended to be little more than comfortable atmosphere. I suppose this is an example of modern-day fantasy, and I'm guessing the readership is predominantly female. (Yes, unpleasantly if not appallingly sexist, but there you are.) There are no fewer than two young couples in love, and this is the kind of love that reads as destined and transcendent from the first glance. There's not much of the mundane involved here, and I guess that's the point. It was easy to imagine someone wanting to make a movie of this involving a fair amount of CGI, and, again, I guess that's the point. Not quite sure why the writer went for the fragmented chronology, but did wonder if this was simply to make the whole thing feel a lot cleverer and more significant than it actually was.

Time Gone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now back in our usual quarters and Raya seems a long time ago. But memories persist. Fortunately aided by photos.

Pointlessness

Isn't it a privilege to live in an era when there are two clearly, obviously, unequivocally, brilliant-to-the-point-of-genius footballers plying their trade? - and isn't it astonishing that they've done so relentlessly for so many seasons? - and isn't it wonderful that it's pretty much impossible to differentiate which is the greater player, such that any argument over this quickly becomes manifestly pointless?

The odd thing is that for so many vocal fans out there the answer to the above seems to be in the negative. Reading the Commentariat dealing with Argentina's defeat last night is a powerful lesson in the astonishing ability of the human mind to fail to recognise the obvious. It seems that it was all down to Messi, regardless of the fact that his team were uniformly clueless and, what's hardly been recognised at all, that Croatia are one hell of a side, both on paper and on the field.

But I've emerged a little wiser after the day's reading. I've been a bit puzzled as to why I've kept coming across the acronym GOAT of late in connection with the beautiful game, especially in contexts in which the names of Ronaldo and Messi have been the focus. I'm guessing it stands for Greatest Of All Time, debate over which in any sport is utterly pointless if conducted in any spirit of acrimony. Since almost every discussion of the two players I've read has been characterised by painful (and painfully stupid) acrimony the pointlessness of all this is especially intense.

Killing Time

In the last couple of days I've read articles relating to the addictive qualities of on-line gaming and viewing series on Netflix. Both have been followed by significant numbers of comments happily and often angrily debating the very notion of addiction as applied to these activities, with many suggesting further usefully useless ways of eating up time. Indeed, the very act of reading the repetitively pointless commentary had about it something of an ironically addictive quality. I'll really have to stop doing this.

Further Adjustments

The original plan was for us to go back to Singapore tomorrow. But in the light of the latest developments concerning Mak that's been shelved and it looks like we'll be staying until the weekend. Mak is back home, which is very good news, of course. However, she's likely to be back in hospital very soon unless being home involves her being completely rested. The family are planning a meeting on Saturday morning to figure out what needs to be done and Noi needs to be there.

Life throws up all sorts of problems, doesn't it? The secret to living well lies in our response, I suspect.

Signs Of Progress

I wonder what the reaction to England's first outing would have been were it not for Harry Kane's (very) late winner. I suspect there'd have been a good deal of I-told-you-so despair around despite what was obviously a good performance. I suppose it's in the nature of cup competitions to breed this kind of manic intensity, and I suspect it's in the nature of good teams to carry on regardless (and get late winners, because you somehow believe you can.)

From what we've seen so far, given the stumbling of some of the fancied nations, this tournament is wide open, though the best game so far suggests that those might just be the two teams to go all the way. (I'm thinking of Spain & Portugal, by the way - which would be a good thing for the game in general, I suspect.)

Zero Expectations

Two years ago, in Euro 2016 to be specific, I assumed that England would push Iceland aside with some ease. The team seemed to have gelled and were playing with what seemed like confidence. How utterly, devastatingly, embarrassingly wrong I was, to the extent that I managed to close out any interest in my national team for the next two years, other than to register a mild disgust at the misdeeds of Big Sam leading to his sacking.

So I've been playing catch-up in every department as to England's recent fortunes over the last two weeks, and, I must say, the news hasn't been all bad. Against the odds Gareth Southgate has made the current squad look viable and restored some sense of intelligent order to the camp. I liked him as a player, but I didn't think he'd be this much of his own man as a coach at this level. He looks like he knows what he's doing and intends to do just that and get on with it, not letting the babble surrounding him distract too much.

Will this work? It stands a chance. This time round it's hard to detect any genuine expectations of success, and that's what a youngish team need, I suspect, to thrive. But there's a brittleness at the heart of English football that no coach can magic away. I suspect that if heads go down, they'll go down deeply, and it might not take that much bad fortune to lower them.

I'm still not over Iceland. (By the way, they're my other favoured team in the competition. I reckon they could well shake things up given the kind of self-belief and organisation they showed in their first game. Almost exonerates the England of two years back, eh?)

Matters Political

Have managed to talk some politics, the Malaysian variety, with brother-in-law Hamza on this trip north. It's good to hear him sounding vastly more optimistic post-election. I get a sense of many people here regarding the new government as genuinely representing the possibility of a new, cleaner, way of doing things. That might sound awfully naïve five years from now, of course, but Hamza functions very much in the real world of business here and knows more than a thing or two, or possibly three. In fact, his tales of the greed he's directly witnessed are pretty bleak, so his heightened optimism has some basis in how things actually get done (or, all too often, not done when they need to be.)

And Back Again

Just back from visiting Mak in hospital since she's been readmitted this afternoon. I suppose the doctors felt it best to make sure she was home for Hari Raya and knew there was a fair chance they'd be seeing her again soon. Her breathing speeded up again last night, so getting her back where she can be properly monitored was obviously the way to go.

Mind you, the ward she returned to was so busy with visitors that it's difficult to imagine any of the patients getting much rest unless they are completely knocked out. It's great to be in a culture that places such a high value on acknowledging and tending to the sick, but it's easy to see how that creates its own kind of demands on those who are ill.

Much Gained

Hari Raya Puasa, Eid ul-Fitr; 1 Syawal 1439

I've been worrying about the Prayers for Hari Raya for a few days now. With it being Friday, two trips to the mosque are required and I've been struggling with my back since before coming up to Malaysia. Last Friday I used a chair for assistance at the masjid at Bukit Antarabangsa, but the circumstances at the little masjid at Sungai Petai are somewhat different and I wasn't too sure of being able to get near any chair at all. In the event, all went well and I coped without assistance at both sets of prayers, leaving me feeling very pleased with myself just for doing something quite ordinary. A form of grace, I suppose.

And better than all that, Mak was discharged from hospital in the early afternoon and is back amongst the family. Here's hoping all who keep the season do so with their families healthy & complete: Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfithri - Eid Mubarak!

Something Lost

29 Ramadhan, 1439

We've almost reached the end of the fasting month, with roughly three hours to go before we break the fast for the final time this year. It doesn't get any easier - but neither does it get any more difficult. The challenge remains essentially the same, though the details differ. But it's never quite the same body or mind that you're dealing with, the next year on, though you may think it is.

In my first Ramadhan, some time in the last century, I had quite an appetite in the evening and would seek to make up plentifully, and enjoyably, for the travails of the day in those hours of what seemed like freedom. For this Ramadhan I've felt hardly any sense of hunger at all, either during the day, or having broken the fast. Indeed, on a few occasions I've felt overwhelmed by all the grub available and uncomfortably full on going to bed. And it isn't that I've ever really felt terribly thirsty. Dealing with the desire for a drink relates far more to habit than it does to actual need.

I'm guessing I've lost some weight. I checked myself on the scales after the first ten days or so and found I'd lost a couple of kilograms, sending me below my fighting weight. Since then I've had Hamza remarking on my thinness, in that slightly concerned way that suggests a bit of a worry over health rather than any kind of admiration for sharper contours. And Noi has commented a couple of times on the looseness of my jeans, in her case with a view to making sure I don't embarrass us in public by inadvertently revealing too much of myself.

None of this matters in the slightest, of course, compared to the importance of the inner journey the month invites and entails. The places you reach can't be measured, or even mapped. But something of their contours might be remembered, usefully.

Two Positives

28 Ramadhan, 1439

Finished reading Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables just now, whilst visiting Mak at Alor Gajah Hospital. Surprised at just how good the novel was (not sure why I should be surprised, but I was, so there you are) and delighted to see Mak looking a good deal better than I expected, and out of Intensive Care.

Hawthorne treads a very fine line in his novel between straightforward realism, in that all the events have completely rational explanations, and the world of the supernatural, the gothic, the Romantic. His sustained balancing act is impressive, suggestive of a writer in assured control of his material. I was particularly impressed by the chapter comprising a sustained meditation upon the death of Judge Pyncheon. The notion that the only spirits involved are those of the readers and we are the ones conjuring the procession of the various dead of the Pyncheon family that bear witness to the death of Jaffrey Pyncheon was done neatly and convincingly. Hawthorne is very good indeed at engaging the reader in the static. Not much happens in the novel, but it happens in a genuinely satisfying manner.

In fact, in some ways The House of the Seven Gables is really a tightly wrought short story given room to breathe.

Restoration

27 Ramadhan, 1439

Now reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables. Read The Scarlet Letter many years ago, at university I think, and didn't much enjoy it. Also read a number of the short stories over the years, with a bit more appreciation, but never quite seeing quite why Hawthorne seems to be so rated  - or, at least, I assume he is - over the water at any rate. But at the halfway mark of Seven Gables I think I'm beginning to get some of his appeal. There are enough biting phrases and even memorable paragraphs to give the alert reader a sense of a keen and searching intelligence at work, even if that searching seems to take an unduly long time.

Loved this description of the restorative powers of a good cup of coffee, as it works on the generally dreary Clifford Pyncheon:

In a little while, the guest became sensible of the fragrance of the yet untasted coffee. He quaffed it eagerly. The subtle essence acted on him like a charmed draught, and caused the opaque substance of his animal being to grow transparent, or at least translucent; so that a spiritual gleam was transmitted through it, with a clearer luster than heretofore.

"More, more!" he cried, with nervous haste in his utterance, as if anxious to retain his grasp of what ought to escape him. "This is what I need! Give me more!"

I'll no doubt be repeating that final demand when quaffing a teh tarik after breaking fast this evening.

Keeping Watch

26 Ramadhan, 1439

Woke to the not-so-good-news that Mak was being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital at Alor Gajah. Her breathing was laboured and she's been assessed since as having water in her lungs and an enlarged heart, due, I think, to water retention. We'll be changing our plans and going to Melaka a bit earlier than intended in order to see her. It seems she's conscious and chatting away, so this isn't, we hope, as much of an emergency as the one after last year's Hari Raya which saw her in the same place under more desperate circumstances. I take it she's being kept in the ICU under observation as things stand, though I'm not at all sure of how things work in the system here.

In some ways being in hospital over Eid might prove a more restful experience than being at home for the big day - but I doubt that Mak will see it that way. Hoping for the best.

Feeling Right

25 Ramadhan, 1439

The degree to which I've adjusted to the demands of the fast became apparent in the late afternoon when I realised that no thought of eating or, more pertinently, drinking had occurred to me despite being engaged in some heavy duty cleaning duties on a very hot day. At the moment of actually thinking the thought I was aware of a lack of desire to break the fast and a complete acceptance of the conditions of the fast. A sense that this is the way things are and have to be.

Later on, at the breaking of the fast, I experienced a similar kind of acceptance. There was no great pleasure involved in finally drinking, just a feeling of rightness that it was time to do so.

Under Examination

24 Ramadhan, 1439

I completed my quota of marking for the May IB paper I specialise in today, I'm happy to say. It's a bit of burden to begin each day with a target in mind of essays to complete, and even more so when all sorts of oddities can crop up in the team of which I'm in charge to derail progress. The responsibility for the team is still on-going, by the way, but it doesn't feel anything like as onerous now I'm in the clear on the personal front.

I suppose part of the burden is the sense of the importance of the marking for each individual taking the examination. I try and stay fresh for each essay, bearing in mind this is someone's attempt to do his or her best. But that can be difficult when a fair proportion of essays strongly suggest that their writers were not terribly bothered about how a marker will receive their efforts. At times work was not so much careless as determined to demonstrate a consummate lack of care for accuracy, or consideration for any reader. But these were a minority. And there was much to cheer in terms of students obviously finding value in what they'd read and sometimes real illumination in their texts. It's a bit much to expect this of every script, but I suppose that's what those who teach the texts are hopefully/hopelessly looking for.

Living Through The Horror

23 Ramadhan, 1439

I've never been a fan of Defoe's fiction. It's some years now since I put down Robinson Crusoe, and I've never felt in the slightest inclined to pick it up again. And I found Moll Flanders unreadable.

So I'm not too sure what made me pick up a copy of his A Journal of the Plague Year, though I suspect the striking title had something to do with it. Can't say I found it a great read, but it proved interesting in its way as an example of a kind of early journalism. You certainly feel like you're with the narrator in the plague-struck London of 1665, which is all the more remarkable for the fact that the account was actually written in 1722, more than sixty years later.

I suppose I was expecting a fairly grisly account of rotting corpses and the like, but Defoe goes easy on the horror, though horror there is necessarily. What he's very good at is giving a convincing sense of how ordinary people kept going through it all. There's a sort of admirable civic heroism involved as, for example, the bodies are somehow buried and the poor get fed. It struck me that these days a publisher would be much keener on the gruesomeness of it all than the unexpected wholesomeness that helped deal with the disaster. Perhaps if Defoe had really lived through it all, he'd have had a different kind of story to tell?

A Relief

22 Ramadhan, 1439

When I saw the tailback yesterday from the Malaysian Immigration after the bridge at Tuas, stretching back a good two kilometres, I thought we were doomed to be stuck in a jam for at least a couple of hours. The prospect of dealing with this, followed by the drive up to Kuala Lumpur, was, to say the least, daunting. And this following a very sweaty morning preparing to leave, with the sun at its fiercest for these parts.

In the event, the jam proved almost illusory. There was a jam certainly, but it involved only the massive number of lorries and buses wending their ways north. They should have been occupying the inside lane of the highway to the customs, but had spread to occupy two lanes and, temporarily, had managed to stop the cars seeking to make their way along the outside lane to the fairly quiet lanes at Immigration set aside for them. We got through in less than five minutes to my very considerable relief.

It wasn't exactly an easy journey after that, given the problems I'm currently experiencing with my back. When we finally disembarked at Bukit Antarabangsa it took me five minutes to straighten up so I could walk. But none of this seemed particularly significant in the light of the possible jam we had avoided earlier. I can still feel the sense of relief one day later, which shows you just how narrow one's concerns can be when it comes to dealing with the problems that life happily sends our way.

Onward

21 Ramadhan, 1439

A journey up to the Malaysian capital looms, and looms larger than usual since I'm troubled by a strained muscle on my right side. I've been suffering quite a few aches and pains in this season of fasting and the situation is not improving. Old age, I suppose - the catchall explanation for almost everything these late days.

Anyway, what must be done is about to be done. Wish me luck.

Alight

20 Ramadhan, 1439

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our twinkling lights are now up, and, amazingly, still operational after quite some years. It's all starting to feel official.

Loss

19 Ramadhan, 1439

A generally sombre day. We attended the wake for my colleague Suseela this afternoon. It was heartening to see so many of her students and ex-students there to pay their respects.

When I first heard that she was ill, not so long ago, I was hopeful, as were we all, that the treatment would be effective and we would see her back with us. It's good that we no longer assume a diagnosis involving some kind of cancer is somehow hopeless, as it seemed to be back when I was a teenager. But this has been a dark reminder of just how difficult the fight can be.

In & Around

18 Ramadhan, 1439

The Missus continues to astonish with her ability to get so much done despite the demands of fasting. We are splendidly awash with biscuits and various curtains and covers keep disappearing only to resurface looking even more spick & span than is usual. Since we're off to KL soon she's racing against the clock to get all in order.

I've made my usual effort to contribute to proceedings by getting all the bookshelves here cleaned over the last couple of days, along with a couple of shoe racks this time round. It's a timely reminder that the more you accumulate the more there is to look after. So far this year I haven't purchased any books at all, having decided to seriously address the reading of one or two items on the shelves that have never received the all-out attention they deserve. I'm rather pleased with myself for the new-found restraint, but do wonder how long it will last.

Tomorrow I'm intending to pop into work for a couple of hours to do a bit of spring-cleaning around my desk. I'm not sure why this kind of thing makes me feel virtuous, but I'll settle for the fact it does; if nothing else it helps to keep the chaos at bay.

Out & About

17 Ramadhan, 1439

We're off to the Bazaar at Geylang later this evening. The month begins its move towards celebration, inevitably, even as the testing goes on.

Postscript: Definitely a case of seeing the bright lights tonight. And we managed to pay our Zakat, making it a most fruitful, if busy, evening all told.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Others

16 Ramadhan, 1439

The temptation of Ramadhan I need to avoid, and never quite manage to, I'm afraid, is the temptation to turn too far inward in a time of otherwise useful self-examination. Fortunately there are devices in-built into the experience, as it were, that act as a corrective to excessive navel-gazing: amongst others, the need to worship in community and the necessity of giving charity.

I was reminded of just how important it is not to lose sight of others and their trials & tribulations on recalling that the terrible fire that almost consumed Grenfell Tower in London happened this time last year during the fasting month. And then I came across a quite astonishingly detailed account of the tragedy and its aftermath by Andrew O'Hagan at the London Review of Books. The rigour and quality of attention given to others in his article, simply yet tellingly entitled The Tower, seem to me to embody the kind of concern that we need to let others demand of us.