The Plot Thickens

Still pleasantly lost in Lee Child's Blue Moon, despite being impossibly busy. The busyness means I can only lose myself for a few minutes at a time, unfortunately, but being lost with Jack Reacher helps deal with the busyness.

As always I'm bowled over by the style of the novel - the slow-mo action sequences are models of finely-honed prose - but this time around I'm finding myself increasingly impressed at just strong Child's plotting is, and just how clever - yet without any kind of showing off. The details of our hero's frenetic involvement with the Albanian and Ukrainian gangs that dominate the small town he finds himself in are woven so tightly that they're close to impossible to unravel for someone of my limited apprehension, yet I find myself trusting in the integrity of the plotting, accepting that it all dovetails, though I haven't the nous to quite see the joins.

It's funny that for someone who reads so many novels I've never really developed in terms of following complex plots - or ever been able to actually conceive of a real plot myself in my own bits of writing for the stage. 

Run Down

Today for the first time ever I needed to pop back home in the early afternoon due to a lack of energy. It wasn't my good self short of oomph, by the way. No, the thing lacking was my handphone. I'd hardly used it in the morning, but it was down to 2% charge by 2.00 pm necessitating a scramble back to grab a charger. That this was a necessity is a sad indication of just how dependent I've become on the darn thing - I was worried in case I wouldn't get to receive some kind of urgent communication in the afternoon.

I'm completely baffled as to what was ailing the phone. Presumably our recent holiday had made it feel more laidback than usual and it just wasn't up to the demands of a working day. In contrast, this old body of mine managed to keep going fueled for the most part by cups of tea. Works better than electricity, I reckon.

Top Man

Macca at Glastonbury at eighty. Good grief! Talk about setting the bar high, eh?

The bit with the duet with John brought serious tears to my eyes, old softy that I am.

Boosted

Noi and I went to get our second booster shots this afternoon. It was an amazingly straightforward process. No appointment needed: just had to walk in and we'd both been jabbed within five minutes. After that, fifteen minutes waiting to see if there was any adverse reaction and we were free to go, with a gift of a box of face-masks to see us on our way.

So far neither of us has felt any side-effects. Yesterday Fuad was telling me he'd felt under the weather for three days after his shot, so my general sense of hunky-doryness comes as a bit of a relief, especially since I'm back at work tomorrow. In fact, I was a bit annoyed at myself for not having seen to this earlier, but it looks like I might have got away with it.

Was thinking back to my first jab, back in January 2021. That one involved a long wait and seemingly endless admin. But well worth it, especially considering it as one small part of the vast national effort to respond sensibly to the threat posed by Covid-19. I thought of myself as lucky to be in the right place then. Still do. Even more so.

A Man In Knead

19.00

Now at Fuad & Rozita's place waiting for my turn for a massage from the redoubtable Kak Sabariah. Noi has just survived the full body treatment but I'm limiting myself, wisely, to the old head and shoulders. Looking forward to the pleasure and the pain - likely to be about equal if previous experience is anything to go by.

22.40

I'd forgotten just how relentless Kak Sabariah is when administering a massage. Now I remember. And how!

Getting Lost

Needed to lose myself in a book, and chose the right one. Am engrossed in Blue Moon, one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. Prose so taut it hums with each encounter.

Paying The Price

Some concerns in the press here regarding the rising cost of living, with inflation moving to over 3%. But that compares favorably with the figures from the UK. Still puzzled as to how anyone back there ever expected a Brexit dividend. Wonder if those who did are now aware of just how naive they were. Doubt it, somehow.

Back Again

Of late I've been struggling with a mild stiffness in the muscle around my left hip. I mentioned it briefly to my back doc at my appointment in late May, but he gave me a clean bill of health in terms of the mobility of my back. To be on the safe side I came away with the usual variety of pills that I'd need to take in the event of any problems, and I'm glad I did. 

Late on Monday night, when we were sleeping at Melaka, I felt a distinct twinge in the vulnerable spot and woke next morning to distinct discomfort. Sensibly I medicated immediately, especially in view of the fact I had to drive a fair distance during the day. The pills seem to have done the trick since I was more mobile after the drive than I was before it.

And today I seem to be back to something like normal. Indeed, I'm hoping to resume some kind of activity at the gym soon since it's now open for business. I might just give it a go over the weekend (and I hope those don't turn out to be famous last words.)

The Long And Winding Road

13.55 

Just got back from visiting the nearby cemetery to pay our respects at the graves of Mak, Abah & Nenek. Lots of memories. Good ones.

Now preparing for an afternoon's driving. Hope it's just the afternoon and doesn't seep into the evening.

18.35

The fates afforded us a smooth journey home with just a small jam at the Singapore side. I'm tempted to say that after the miseries of the journey up, and our previous experience in March 2020 of the epic jam at Tuas before the boarder was closed, that we deserved an easy time. But, of course, nobody ever deserves such. I remind myself to just be grateful when such grace comes my way.

Not Standing Still

Temporarily resident at Mak's house in Melaka, where we arrived late last night, after attending a rather jolly birthday do for Hamzah and Sabrina in Shah Alam. We'll spend a second night here before wending our way southwards.

It's been more than two and a half years since we found ourselves here (back in September 2019, then accompanied by our niece, Zahira) and things have changed somewhat with altered circumstances for various family members, so we've needed to adjust the routines which we've generally forgotten. I tend to think of life here as being essentially static when, of course, there's no such thing even in the sleepiest of corners. It took me quite a while to remember how the shower worked, but happily it flowed eventually, which is all you need really. That and a bed and a hot cup of tea.

Not So Quiet

Fuad & Rozita arrived from Singapore yesterday morning and we spent most of Saturday exploring the Malaysian capital. The highlight of the day was getting back some money on the expired Touch & Go cards we were holding. We've not used these cards - which are needed to pay the toll on the highways, and the parking for most carparks here - for more than two years, and we needed to acquire a new one in Singapore just to get up here, the old ones being useless. I'm not sure exactly what the point is in designing a card system with tricky expiry dates built in, but that's what we have to deal with.

The lowlight of the day was attempting to exit from the building we went into in order to get our money back on the cards. It turned out that the new Touch & Go card we'd used to enter the carpark couldn't be used to exit for reasons I still cannot fathom. We created quite a jam behind us as we were trapped at the gantry and then some nifty maneuvering was necessary to finally effect an exit. I suppose facing these challenges helps keep us on our toes, but generally I'd prefer a quieter life.

Peace

One of the benefits of being in residence on the taman is the ease with which I can attend Friday Prayers. The masjid is less than five minutes walk away which makes for an unhurried experience, in contrast to the usual need to find a good time to leave work and get a decent parking space - and get back to work in time to meet whatever demands happen to be on-going. And, for some reason, I nearly always find myself lucky here in terms of the weather around 1.15 pm. Typically it's hot, in a pleasantly heat-struck manner, and the masjid is satisfyingly cool.

Today was a case in point. We've now having quite a flurry of rain but the sky didn't begin to show signs of darkening until I was on the way back and the day felt glorious going to prayers. The fact that the mosque is so well-maintained added to my general sense of well-being. Amongst its various attractions, the carpet is thick and welcoming - and richly coloured in a predominantly blue and white confection. What's not to like? as they say.

The one thing that disturbed my peace was that I'd been reading the May issue of the New York Review of Books this morning and a couple of articles on the suffering of some of the civilians in Ukraine had strongly registered. The contrast with my personal feeling of ease weighed on me a little. I suppose this was due in part to the fact that my Friday has been so satisfyingly ordinary in contrast to the way that the ordinary life of Ukrainians has been so thoroughly trashed. (The word seems inadequate, I know, but it will just have to do for now.)

Peace seems so simple when you've got it. 

Blooming Puzzled

Bloomsday

Nice to celebrate this day of note with a copy of Ulysses at hand. In this case the copy being the Annotated Student Edition with its excellent notes from Declan Kiberd, one of their excellent qualities being that they by no means explain everything.

Since the notes were there to assist I thought I might as well plunge into one of the knottiest episodes in the novel, one that has come into quite a bit of critical flak over the years. I'm referring to Oxen of the Sun, segments of which seem designed to simply baffle. The notes were mildly helpful, but I remained generally uncertain as to what exactly was happening. However, this wasn't too troubling since I don't think much of note does happen other than most everyone getting roaring drunk in the loudest possible manner. The various prose styles adopted by Joyce admirably convey the necessary sense of clever chaos, it seems to me, so I just went along with how rich it all sounds.

Towards the end of the chapter when the prose seems to break down almost completely we get something close to the world of Finnegans Wake. Take the brief penultimate paragraph as an example: 

Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up. Pflaap! Tally ho. You not come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap!

Haven't a clue what it means, but gosh it sounds good. Which reminds me that I recently decided that once retirement arrives (if it ever does) I'm going to read the Wake cover to cover as my first project. Not sure why. Just for the heck of it, I suppose.

Beyond Reason

In terms of my regard for our fellow creatures, dogs feature pretty high on the list. As a species there's undoubtedly a lot to be said for them - at least, that is, for the common or garden friendly mongrel type. I mean, it's easy to see how the whole 'man's best friend' thing came about. Though, having said that, I've never quite trusted the pedigrees who seem to have had the common sense bred out of them.

However, there is one aspect of a dog's way of looking at things which I've been reminded of this afternoon as being very much in conflict with my own. I'm referring to their remarkable capacity for barking at length when there can't possibly be that much going on to upset them. Case in point, some pooch from a near-by house has kept up a stream of singularly mindless mumbling throughout the afternoon. Occasionally there's a lull of a couple of minutes and I'm inclined to think it's worn itself out, but then the barking kicks in again with that oddly pointlessly frantic quality that's so disturbing. I suppose in the mind of the pooch there lurks a good reason for disturbing the rest of the world so relentlessly, but I'm lost as to what it might be.

It's helpful, I suppose, to be reminded that our sort aren't the only show in town. Just wish the reminder didn't set my teeth on edge quite so much.

Slowing Down

We thought we'd solved our problems related to getting on-line at reasonable speeds last week on acquiring a new modem. However, the last couple of days have involved a distinct sense of frustration as even the simplest tasks have taken a good deal longer than expected. It's all curiously reminiscent of the kind of issues we encountered here years ago, in the first decade of the century. Mind you, time was that you could get on-line here by going to a restaurant providing free wifi, but you don't seem to see that anymore, I suppose due to the ubiquity of the 4G network.

In some ways I'm not entirely unhappy to have had this reminder of bygone days - just as long as I don't get messed up with regard to some major piece of work or business, of course. It's nice to be forcibly slowed down once in a while - just so long as it's only once in a while.

Uncertainties

Left to my own devices I would never have considered reading Antonio Iturbe's The Librarian of Auschwitz. I did so since a copy of the paperback suddenly appeared on my desk at work earlier this year, presumably a gift from a colleague. In the event I found it a readable enough text, but even after completing it I'm still not quite sure how to place the work. I suppose it's a novel, but there's a strong element of a memoir about it, based as it on the experiences of one of the survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, one Dita Kraus. The problem is that it isn't at all clear how far the Spanish novelist (the translation into English is by Lilit Zekulin) has taken liberties with the real life events in his fictionalising of the horror undergone by Ms Kraus - and the other real-life inmates of the camp who appear in the narrative. It doesn't help that the shifting of point of view is extremely clunky. As soon as I finished reading I did a bit of googling around the text to get some background and wasn't surprised to find the novel classed as being written for Young Adults. That helped account for the clunkiness of the narrative and the odd feeling that the text seemed haunted by rather ham-fisted attempts at the inspirational.

I suppose I feel quite guilty about reading the book. As if I'm unable to manage a response involving the kind of deep human sympathy the victims of the camp deserve. And particularly so for Dita Kraus herself. Maybe it's just this book, but I have a feeling that I'm just not the right kind of reader for any kind of fiction related to the Holocaust. Somehow the very notion of story-telling seems suspect in the face of the enormity of what took place. Though as a way of introducing young people to the horrors of it all perhaps there's some virtue in this work and others in the field.

Getting The Story In Order

I thought I'd be able to deliver a reasonably coherent account relating to the last couple of years and the impact of the pandemic upon my life and work. So it came as a bit of a surprise just now when I was talking to Hamza, who was visiting along with Sharifah and Aiman, that I really had very little idea of the sequence of events after March 2020. Even something as simple as placing the dates on which Noi and I got vaccinated stretched me and it came as a surprise to realise the relevant year for this was 2021.

I suppose I'd thought of the general sequence of events as following a sort of gradually easing curve from severe lock-down circa April-May 2020 to the relatively relaxing circumstances of today. But it wasn't quite as straightforward as that, was it? There were a number of ups and downs and all sorts of uncertainties.

I suppose I could check on this and work out a coherent narrative, but perhaps it's best to simply fare forward, voyager? I've never been much good at stories of any kind of length and, after all, this was just stuff that happened haphazardly. 

With The Flow

Have been getting on with reading the second volume of the Collected Poems of A.R. Ammons whilst we've been here. I finished the second volume in the W.C. Williams Collected just as the fasting month was ending but took a little while to get going on the Ammons volume, I suppose because I found its sheer bulk intimidating. Odd really, since it includes two of my favourite long poems - Garbage and Glare - which some years back marked my real introduction to his work, and which I've been looking forward to rereading.

The thing is that I've come to realise that quite a number of the poems don't make for easy reading regardless of how attractive I find so many aspects of the work. Yet I feel a strong compulsion to make sure I do justice to as many of them as I can. At least to feel how the thoughts move within them, even if some of those thoughts are beyond me. 

Feeling The Noise

Just walked out to wrap up the garbage and get it safely locked up so it doesn't attract any monkeys, or other curious denizens of the night. It was very noisy outside - insect noise mainly, -with the occasional higher-pitched screech from something bigger, and a couple of dogs barking. Strangely restful. Like the world should sound. Alive.

Life Going On

We've been out and about enough now to get a sense of Malaysia in the aftermath (hopefully!) of the pandemic. Things here seem much the same as in Singapore. People are still dutifully wearing masks in the indoor locations, like the malls, and quite often outdoors. Otherwise there's a feeling of business as usual - and most of the retail businesses with which we're familiar appear to have survived.

To be honest, I've always been puzzled as to how exactly any business survives at Melawati Mall, where we were this evening, even in ordinary times. I mean, the place wasn't ever exactly packed out and there are a lot of shops there, with plenty of eateries, but I didn't notice any obvious closures from when we were last there two years back.

All this seems cause for celebration if it means ordinary folks have been able to stay in work and earn some kind of decent living.

Not So Pleasant

Finished reading Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men along with completing my marking. Not sure mixing the two was wise but I find McCarthy so intense that I didn't mind breaking off fairly often to get back to something a bit more normal. The thing is, of course, that the writer has a way of making you acutely aware that his version of what's normal might just be the more accurate. Not a pleasant thought.

Soaking myself in the everydayness of just getting stuff done (marking, the house) is my remedy for the darkness, I suppose.

Getting Straight

Quite a number of things to get in order here - hardly surprisingly since it's been over two years since we crossed the threshold. Lots of cleaning to do and a refrigerator to fix amongst other things (if it can be fixed, that is.)

The biggest problem for me has been getting on-line to complete my marking, which is quite urgent with a deadline early on Thursday morning looming. The trusty Maxis modem we've used for a few years decided not to be trusty anymore, making access to the essays I needed to mark extremely intermittent. Very frustrating experience - especially when something you've marked just disappears and you need to start all over again. We plied our way to the Maxis shop at KLCC this afternoon and managed to get a new modem (though not from Maxis, which is a tale not worth telling.) Anyway, we're now back to accessing the World Wide Web at a reasonable speed, which feels quite civilised in its own way.

Still Getting Ready

10.47

Still getting things together for the big trip north - whilst trying to mark my daily quota of scripts for IB. Just had to deal with a candidate who decided it was a good idea to write as much as possible in the most illegible form imaginable. Not a good idea, I'm afraid. I wonder if anyone has shared this information with the writer in question in the course of his or her education?

11.30

Just received a Christmas card from Simon & Judy, for last Christmas. A quick check on the envelope showed it was posted in mid-December 2021. It also revealed that the card had made its way to Malaysia for some reason. Ironic, since that's where we're heading now. It seems to have taken almost a full six months to re-direct it to the right country. Nice card - and nice that it got here in the end!!

23.30

Whose idiotic idea was it to choose to travel up to KL on a public holiday here in Malaysia for the Agung's birthday? (Mine, actually!) Since it seems most of the population decided it would be a good idea to drive up to the capital from the south using the highway the traffic was horrendous. We were lucky to make it to our abode before midnight - hence this late posting. Next time remind me to check on random public holidays for our neighbours.

Getting Ready

It's been a long time since we've been at Maison KL, having rushed back to our usual Far Place on 17 March 2020 in order to avoid getting stuck in Malaysia once the border was effectively closed. Back then a trip north was all a bit routine, but now we have to re-invent or re-discover what we took for granted a couple of years back.

We're intending to drive up tomorrow and have spent this afternoon trying to remember how.

Getting Busy

Popped out this evening with the idea of dining at Prata Alley in mind, a favourite spot for us. Was surprised at how full the carpark was where we normally park when we go there, and even more surprised to find the restaurant chock full - something we've never experienced before. We passed on trying to get a table, electing to eat at the hawker centre just round the corner, where it also turned out to be pretty busy.

It occurred to us that life is going back to its pre-pandemic conditions, one of which involves the fact that there's a lot of people crammed into this Far Place and a Saturday night at Clementi is a busy time. It's nice to be going back to normal but there is a price involved, I'm afraid.

A Bit Problematic

Was alerted today by a post at the excellent Open Culture to an on-going project by the Netherlands Bach Society to upload live performances of 'All of Bach' to their website and YouTube. Dived into a very fine St John Passion this evening, particularly astonished - indeed, hypnotised - by the beauty of the opening chorus (with which I'm not all that familiar.)

This sort of thing almost justifies the existence of the Internet.

Mind you, it isn't going to be easy finding time to listen to it all (the 350 works now available of Bach's staggering 1080 total - not just the St John Passion.) Nice problem to have.

Making It Up

Tried hard to get the creative juices flowing over the lest few days. Achieved a trickle, rather than a flow, but have reached an age when that's good enough for me. 

Well Served

I'd just finished an extra lesson with some students this afternoon and thought I'd pop down to SAC to my favourite drinks stall for a cuppa before setting off home. As the lady who runs the drinks stall saw me enter through the far door she signaled that she'd make me a drink, so I went to put my various belongings at the table at which I intended to sit before going to the stall to pick up my cup of tea. That's why I didn't realise that the stall had pretty much shut up shop for the day and the lady had been about to make her own move home prior to my arrival. It was embarrassing to suddenly realise just how much I had put her out since all the equipment needed to deliver my cuppa had to be dragged out of storage again.

I apologised profusely, but to no effect since I was aware from past experience that putting herself out like this is second nature to the lady who owns the stall. She is genuinely happy to serve her customers, appearing to believe that we somehow deserve this. I don't think for a second I do deserve such consideration, but it's nice to be on the receiving end. In fact, a brief review of the day, an unexceptional one, reminded me of the number of times the non-teaching staff had made my job do-able by providing the stuff I needed to get it done. One guy fixing some technical equipment in the classroom I'd used happily gave way to my request to let me have the room for the duration of the extra lesson without looking in the slightest bothered by me getting in his way.

It's dangerously easy to take all this help for granted. Writing this is a way of trying to ensure that doesn't happen.