The End Of Something

The month reaches its close and I feel a bit like closing down myself. It's been one of those days when any effort has felt like an effort, if you know what I mean. I'm hoping that tomorrow's new month will feel like a refreshing new start; but I'm too wise, too old, too knowing to count on that.

Slow Reading

It took me just over a week to read Samantha Harvey's Orbital - which I completed this morning, having saved the final four pages for a leisurely read before getting on with my marking for the day. Since the whole novel (novella?) comprises just 136 pages I can't make up my mind whether I'm pleased or embarrassed that such a slight text took me so long. 

Pleased because: this is a work that in its sheer intensity cries out to be read slowly.

Embarrassed because: time was I would have read that number of pages in a day, or possibly two, and I'm really just making excuses for an old chap's lack of focus. 

Anyway, I reckon it's a brilliant book. In almost every way highly original. Gem-like in its beauty. And convincing in its often radiant picture of our poor planet in a similar light.

Found And Lost And Found

Noi has returned from her adventures in Surabaya and Malang, so life is returning to its usual satisfying routines here. I met her at the airport just now where she arrived happily on time after a smooth flight, but unhappily without her watch which she had taken off in the restroom at Terminal 2 before getting her luggage and left behind. When she tried to retrieve it, it had gone. I assumed for good, but we made a report at the info desk at Arrivals before grabbing a bite at the Cafe O upstairs at Departures.

Astonishingly we received a text there, telling us the timepiece had been found and handed in by the restroom attendant. And it was back on Noi's wrist by the time we set off back home.

Yet again the airport staff score maximum marks in this writer's unofficial title race for world's best staff at a great airport. Somebody here is definitely doing something right. 

The Days Are Packed

14.00

After a busy morning I still have a busy afternoon and evening ahead of me. Now in transit from Friday Prayers to receive an award I don't really want. (No money involved, I'm afraid. Yes, I'm really that calculating.) I'll be late for the event, but I quite enjoy being late for this kind of thing, so that adds to the fun. Then I'm off to the cinema to watch The Odyssey, having bowed to pressure from quite a few students to do so. Could be fun, but might not be. Watch this space for further details, as they say.

19.10

Briefly back at the ranch for a quick shave. Then it's onwards! (Again!)

23.55

Gosh, that was good. The film, I mean. I surrendered to the story-telling from the get-go - which was easy given the craftsmanship on display. In advance I did wonder whether I'd struggle with the sheer length of the movie, but it seemed pretty much perfectly paced for this viewer.

The Unexpected.

A good day - until a late-night case of students' items going missing took the final hours in a new, less positive, direction. Stuff happens, I'm afraid.

Feeling Obliged

Attended an interesting talk this afternoon delivered by three young ladies who recently directed a production of Medea. There's a video of this available to us in school, but I've not had the chance to watch it yet. From their account it sounds like quite an adventurous version of the tragedy with lots of inventive creativity involved.

Which got me thinking in broad terms of how much of an obligation a director owes to a text he or she is staging. I didn't want to put this directly to the three ladies this afternoon since it sounds a bit confrontational if you're not aware that my view is that if you're putting on a show your only obligation is to make it work for your audience and all other considerations come a long way after that. So the fact that their production features a deliberately individuated (if that's the right word) chorus doesn't worry me in the slightest - indeed, sounds exciting - but it's definitely not what Euripides intended, or how Greek drama works.

Actually a kind of answer did emerge when one of the directors said they didn't alter the sequence of events in any way. That seemed to point to some sense of the kind of obligation I had in mind. To be honest, I doubt the notion of 'obligation' had crossed their minds in any explicit sense, since thinking about this made me aware that in my days of putting on shows I never consciously took this into account. But I'm very sure I did have a kind of intuitive sense of the parametres I set for myself in terms of playing around with the script being worked on and how it was to be manifested on the stage.

Essentially I've only ever worked with material that I felt I wanted to deliver in something akin to the form originally intended. I was always in thrall to what I vaguely saw as the magic of the original. So I don't think I would have ever tried to do something with a chorus that the progenitor of the text would have found foreign to their understanding of what a chorus should do. The fascination for me lay in making whatever the writer wanted work - even if that meant an audience might struggle to 'relate' to what was on stage. Indeed, I suspect that the most exciting kind of shows are difficult in that sense.

Mind you, it's also the case that I'm not all that creative as an individual so maybe I was just taking the easy way out after all.

Sounding Delicious

Forgot to mention the 'other' reading I'm indulging in at present, in addition to the fiction that's on the go. Won't try and list it all, but suffice to say it's well under control being manfully restricted to just three 'extra' tomes at present.

One of these, that I will say something about, is the very chunky Tennyson - A Selected Edition in the Longman Annotated Poets series (which is always value for money.) The notes, courtesy of Prof Christopher Ricks, are excellent (as you might expect coming from the great prof) and a huge help in putting the individual poems in context. And I must say that reading Tennyson is a lot easier than getting on with Henry Vaughan just at the level of straightforward clarity.

The only problem, and I'm not really sure it is a problem exactly, is that it seems to me that the early poems are clear simply because they don't have a lot to say. Oodles of atmosphere, yes, and they sound gorgeous, but other than expressing a general mellifluous longing I'm not sure there's all that much going on. Mind you, I suppose there's a fair argument that mellifluous longing is quite enough to be going on with, especially for the lovelorn. 

The Right Spirit

Today had a look around the WWW for responses to Leila Aboulela's River Spirit, the novel I finished over the weekend. Was heartened to see how many good reviews it had got, especially over at Goodreads, a sign, I think, of a text with mass appeal. I suppose that's what most forcibly struck me about the novel: it obviously has abundant literary merits, especially in the expertise with which the writer switches point-of-view; but it's a strong story also, something of a Romance, I suppose, with central characters who manage to be both believably true to their time and place, yet actually likeable. I have in mind Akuany and Yaseen, who carry the central 'romance', if that's what it is, and Salha, Yaseen's actual wife, who by the end of the story seems to occupy its moral centre. It's also worth saying that the European characters escape caricature - especially the Orientalist artist Robert. Even General Gordon evokes some sympathy, possibly more than the Mahdi himself, though Ms Aboulela is completely convincing in her portrayal of the oppression suffered by the Muslim population of the Sudan.

Indeed, she strikes me as a formidably empathetic writer, as well as an assured stylist. 

Oh, and I must say it's refreshing to read a novel that embodies a fair and insightful view of Islam, especially through the abundant good sense and intelligence of the merchant and scholar of the Qur'an Yaseen. 

Real Reading

Noi is going with her sewing chums to Surabaya this week. I saw her off at the airport early this afternoon and jolly nice it was there, at Terminal 2. Her group of four had already checked-in on line before we even got there, and it took less than ten minutes for them all to complete the automated stuff needed to get boarding passes and check-in their luggage with no queue in sight. In fact, the main business of the proceedings was to catch a bagel and chai latte at Starbucks and then say cheerio, which was all highly relaxing in its way.

I took the MRT back, with a cunning detour into the centre of town for a visit to the big Kinokuniya bookshop. Must say, the shelves were looking a lot healthier than the last time I was there which made me a little more sanguine about its future. And the place was absolutely packed, for the most part with young people who kept getting in my way around the Literature shelves. Which added considerably to my optimism about the future of reading on these shores.

Picked up a copy of Samantha Harvey's Orbital of which I've heard nothing but extremely good things. And on the evidence of the opening pages, it looks like those extremely good things were accurate. This is my replacement for Leila Aboulela's River Spirit which I finished yesterday, a novel of which I'd heard nothing until it landed on my desk, though it did win the Caine Prize for African writing. Which doesn't surprise me as it proved to be a deeply engaging read. Actually genuinely exciting in terms of the action therein, and genuinely insightful regarding Sudan and its people.

Looking forward to getting some real reading done in the last couple of weeks of term and the holiday week now the marking has scaled down to reasonable proportions.

In Theory

It's that Saturday at that time of year when I find myself serving as a 'Lit Critic' at the annual Lit Seminar that takes place on these shores. Last year I found myself a bit more uneasy than is my usual wont on account of the degree to which all of the kids' presentations, first-rate as they were, were heavily informed by my bête noire: Theory. And it was the same this year. Excellent presentations, but the insights afforded by the theories referenced struck me as not as insightful as the texts themselves and the experience of reading those texts.

Fortunately the students' sense of enthusiasm for the texts was palpable - for the most part. Oddly the most sophisticated of the presentations in terms of real intellectual firepower also struck me as being the most detached from any sense of the actual texts referenced being genuinely worth engaging with. Mind you, one of the texts under scrutiny was a recent Disney offering so the notion of real value was in doubt from the get-go.

I can't help but wonder if all this is related to something I've often been made painfully aware of over my years of teaching Lit here: the strange fact that the idea of the simple enjoyment of novels, plays & poems seems almost frowned upon, as if essentially frivolous. I suppose I should be rather more reticent than I am over letting people know that I basically have a good time teaching the stuff I teach and it's not exactly work in any sense. But let that be our little secret, Gentle Reader.

The Shallow End

Now complacently pleased with myself for getting to the gym this evening, keeping up a decent level of frequency for August. Got good numbers without really trying and thought I'd tell the world the good news. Really should aim for greater depth in my life, but just can't be bothered.

The Damage Done

Still thinking about Maureen today. Dwelling on the damage I saw, and wondering when that damage was done. You wouldn't have predicted her problems with alcohol when she was younger - say, in her thirties. Another mystery, but we're all mysteries, I suppose, not least to ourselves.

This time round teaching Williams' Streetcar I've been struck by the palpable sense of damage not just to the obvious case, Blanche, but to her sister, Stella, to Mitch. Even to Stanley. Brando gets that in the movie, somehow. Possibly allowing his own damage to peep through.

It strikes me that in all Williams' work we see the same hypersensitivity to the damage done to others, as well as to himself. 

Not Forgetting

Another birthday for Maureen. Cheryl texted us to say that our card arrived safely at her house and she passed it to her mum to open it today. She seems to think that my sister will know who it's from and that in some sense she remembers me. Not sure she remembers Noi, though she was entirely comfortable with her the December we saw my sister last. 

It occurs to me that even as I strive to remember the many, many good years we had as brother and sister, there are things I would rather like to forget about the misery of the darker times. But that would be cowardly. Any life has its ups and downs, as Mum would have most likely said, and for Maureen to survive those downs and get through to the other side is, in its way, a small triumph.

Inconsequentiality

I was chatting with a colleague in the late afternoon, at that special hour that sees most teachers weary with woe in an affable kind of way - basically looking forward to packing our bags and setting off to homesweethome. Not sure why, but I asked him about a meeting he'd attended an hour or so back and he told me he hadn't actually been present for the duration as he was, essentially, inconsequential.

That struck me as pretty much the perfect state for anyone to aspire to in my line of work. Almost worth taking on board as a personal mission statement: To strive for inconsequentiality. 

Reading On

I'm a bit irritated at myself for not getting more sustained personal reading done. I have reasonable excuses - being close to overwhelmed on the work front; finding a lot of genuinely worthy stuff to read online + genuinely interesting podcasts to listen to relating to some key issues on my mind - but the fact remains that fundamentally I'm a reader of longer-form texts in old-fashioned hard-copy books and nothing should take priority over that variety of reading.

Most of all I really should have zoomed through Leila Aboulela's River Spirit, my current novel-on-the-go, because it's a fine and gripping work and spinning it out doesn't do justice to its impact & pace. Now halfway through and enjoying it immensely.

Intend to finish it by the weekend; and if I don't I have no excuses.

A Very Different Moment

Glancing back just now at what I was getting up to in August 2023 I was startled to hit upon a brief reference I made then to the Lucy Letby case; specifically to her sentencing for the murders of seven babies and the appalling malice involved in her deeds. Strange to think I've come to entirely change my mind over this. Indeed, from being extremely doubtful of her guilt in July I would now place myself in the 'convinced she's innocent' camp and feel certain that a major miscarriage of justice has taken place.

The change in my way of thinking on this has been very gradual, but the final pieces of the puzzle, as I perceived it, fell into place on watching again the 'Botched' series of films on YouTube put together by Guy Rowland. I'd viewed Part 1 and Part 2 in our sojourn in KL in June and been impressed by the many insights provided and the depth of analysis involved, but I'd not really put the whole critique of the investigation together since so many parts were involved. But watching again with a greater sense of the whole deeply sorry tale, followed by seeing Part 3 for the first time, having also listened to Mr Rowland in conversation with Christopher Morris, the guy who's written what I suspect might turn out to be the definitive book on the case, served to seal the deal on my certainty.

The thing is that it's only by accepting the young lady's innocence and the simple fact that there were no murders at all that all the parts make sense. And once you accept that, a deep anger over the extraordinary injustice involved takes over.

Bad News

It's sad to say this, but the news of Jason Arday's death can't have come as a complete surprise to anyone who's been following the story of the accusations made against him and the very public humiliation that followed. One of the disturbing features of the whole sorry saga was the sheer weight of the online pile-on that followed the breaking of the news and his subsequent resignation. I think it's a fair guess that this was a contributing factor to the breaking of the man. Even if you'd reached the conclusion that he was a fabulist on the grand scale - which I had - it was puzzling that so many online commentators seemed to think it was incumbent upon them to state the obvious without adding much in the way of insight, except for their own tiresome outrage.

I'd been thinking of posting something about the dangers of celebrity in relation to his story, particularly in relation to actively courting such celebrity, but this morning's news has put a stopper on any enthusiasm I felt for doing so. So I'll just state the obvious. If, like me, you've successfully hung on to being a complete non-entity for the span of your tenure in this world, be deeply thankful for what must be among the top five blessings of a good life. I'll certainly be keeping my head even lower behind whatever parapet I can find.

Oh, and I'd gently suggest that it's best to keep your outrage to yourself unless you're quite sure you have nothing to gain from unleashing it (especially in the way of 'views' and the like) and sharing it might just lead to some benefit for folks in general.

Falling Apart

For reasons best known to itself my trusty school laptop decided to fall apart just before I conducted a couple of online lessons this morning. It's a bit tricky to maintain one's cool when one's laptop screen is visibly breaking off from the body with the keyboard, but one sort of managed this as one delivered the necessary lessons. And then went into the necessary panic.

By an extraordinarily providential coincidence it was only yesterday that I'd booked an appointment with our ever-helpful IT guys to receive a brand new device as the not terribly trustworthy old trusty computer had been in my possession long enough to mean I deserved an upgrade. Unfortunately said appointment was several weeks ahead. Anyway, throwing caution to the wind I managed to charm one of our IT-support honchos into doing the swop in the afternoon, once I got back from prayers, on the grounds that by the end of the day I was likely not to be able to function as an IT-enabled sort of chap.

And the result of all this is that I'm happily typing these words on a rather spiffy brand-new laptop which has already drawn an admiring 'oooh' from The Missus. Which is all very well, but said device is missing all my old documents which for some reason didn't manage to transfer. So I'm manfully not panicking and trusting that the gods of IT know where they've gone and I'll get them back come Monday.

Positivity

Mulling over my brief thoughts on perfect moments from yesterday - in a precious few stolen moments today - made me consider the value of Positivity. And that consideration was further reinforced by a pleasant interlude this evening being in the audience for some of our students celebrating International Friendship Day. A reminder that in a world seemingly dominated by the short-sighted, narrow, grubby nationalisms espoused by those who wrap themselves in their flags, there are those who can genuinely celebrate their sense of identity whilst generously enjoying that of others.

Oh, and it's always nice to see kids dressing up and showing off.

Just Perfect

The world may be damaged, possibly irreparably, but once in a while our sorry species manages to create moments of perfection. Chanced across two today. First off, a stunning cover of the greatest pop song ever written. Gorgeous in its simplicity. And then an implausibly brilliant live version of one of the most sophisticated.

Maybe, just maybe, there's hope for us yet.

Even More Food For Thought

Last Friday I referred in passing to the controversy surrounding accusations made against Professor Jason Arday as Dom and I were discussing issues around equality & equity with our class. The story was sort of breaking then, and I've been trying to keep up with its developments, some of which have been bemusing to say the least. I've also made an attempt to acquaint myself with various points of view on the case, of which there are many, to put it mildly.

The story itself is quite extraordinary - material for a deeply satirical novel. And I'm not sure anyone is coming out of it well, except for those dogged souls doing their best to establish the facts that can be agreed on. But I will say, just for now, that I've long nurtured deep suspicions regarding the quality of work coming out of the academies around the world and what I'm hearing now prompts me to think my suspicions may have had considerable foundation.

Good To Go

08.05

After yesterday's happy sense of stasis - we never went beyond the grounds of the hotel - today will see us on the move again. First up, we'll be off to the engagement do in a couple of hours. It sounds like quite an elaborate affair, concerning which Fahmi briefed everyone yesterday evening, but I'll be very much an observer with little to do except look old and respectable and eat & drink well. I think I'll be able to manage most of that.

Then it's off again down the highway. Although tomorrow marks another welcome break from being physically at work, there's still lots to do. As there always is. Indeed, I'm getting on with some marking now, in addition to enjoying the morning calm here in Bangi. So, more anon, assuming I get the chance.

20.35

Had a jolly good time at Shibri's engagement, mingling happily and quaffing three tumblers of a piping hot teh tarik. And our journey down the highway was pretty smooth all told - slow-moving traffic now and again, but we sailed through the Immigrations on either side of the Tuas crossing. So now it's just a matter of enjoying a very relaxed Sunday evening, which is fine by me!

Another Day In Paradise

Woke suddenly at 6.30 am from a dream, prompted by my alarm set for the Dawn Prayer, after a solid seven hours of sleep - a rare occurrence for me these days. This means I must have found the hotel bed pretty comfortable, though my back has felt a wee bit vulnerable during the day. Which suggests said bed was a bit too soft, but I'm not complaining.

Indeed, there's absolutely no cause for complaint over anything today. Far from it. This morning's breakfast was a bit of a cracker, for example. All sorts of goodies available from the buffet - if anything, it was all a bit too tempting. And that helped set me up for a day basically focused on work - marking and the like - whilst Noi relaxes and tries to get over the bout of head-achy coughing & spluttering, which has plagued her for the last couple of days.

I've been able to take a few breaks from my grafting over hot scripts to goof off to bits of music and stuff now and again, so don't worry about me. Indeed, at one point in the late morning I found myself deliberately fostering nostalgic memories of holidays as a small kid, inspired in part by the number of littluns on view in the hotel (all of whom seem to be having a rather jolly, noisy time - and rightly so, say I.) For some reason I found myself zooming in (in memory, that is) to a holiday we enjoyed when I was around eight-years-old at Butlin's Filey holiday camp the 'we' in this case being Mum, Dad, Maureen, little Brian, and Maureen's best friend Norma. My increasingly tired and unreliable brain couldn't recall the term for the accommodation in which we stayed and I needed to look it up by googling for the camp. It turned out to be 'chalet', a word which hugely impressed the younger version of myself. In fact, everything about the camp impressed me back then, though I'm now struggling to recall most of the details.

I have managed to salvage a few further fragments of memory through the help of on-line videos related to the place, especially the North Yorkshire Wanderer's lovely piece on YouTube which struck me as a fine example of a 'content creator' creating something that transcends content. Watching it added to the many pleasures of another day in my little bit of paradise. And now I'm going to goof off listening to The Kinks's Muswell Hillbillies which I've never actually owned but is now easily available through a multitude of streaming services. (Hope RD and the boys are getting plentiful royalties for the inestimable pleasure they have given the world. And me, particularly.)  

On The Move Again

15.20

We're off for another weekend in Malaysia - basically to attend an engagement ceremony for Shibri being held in Bangi. Got a feeling we might face a crowded highway, it being the eve of the National Day weekend. Well, we'll see.

22.20

Not too bad on the highway, and now safely installed in the Bangi Resort Hotel. Noi valiantly trying to order some grub from Room Service which has now been made efficiently difficult by having to access an on-line menu designed to be impossible to navigate. Ain't life grand! 

Really Really Hard Thinking

Was in the gym earlier this evening, doing my 60 minutes on the elliptical trainer. Set out to have an original thought to break the boredom. Failed. Ended up re-playing the old stuff and thinking other people's thoughts. Fortunately most of these were very interesting. Just wish my original ideas were actually original. I think I'd settle for that and forego the 'interesting' part.

Wasting Time

It's an odd quirk of my personality that no matter how burdensome marking might feel I don't really mind it because it's so fundamental to my work. On the other hand, put me in an urgent meeting that has absolutely nothing to do with the kids I teach and will be of no possible benefit to them and I'm liable to blow a gasket.

Yes, it's been one of those days.

Even Harder Thinking

Around about this time last year I was valiantly attempting to wrap my poor, tired, aged brain around issues attendant upon AI in education. I still am, and in my small part of the world complicated things have become even more complicated both at the practical level of real problems in the classroom, as it were, and the big philosophical problems looming behind it all. I have no answers and even my questions are confused. So it all remains, as it was for me in August 2025, exciting, destabilising and frightening, but now 'very, very' all those instead of just 'very'.

Content

It seems there a significant number of folks out there who regard themselves as 'content creators', presumably for the Internet. And, again, presumably, some of them, maybe most, do well out of this in financial terms.

The day someone tells me I too am a content creator (of anything, but most likely this very Far Place) is the day I finally shut up shop completely. Just saying.

(And if that makes folks content, then so be it. Hah!)

A Kinky Weekend

Alexis Petridis came up with a particularly excellent 'ranking' article in the Graun last week centred on The Kinks (though, I must say, I'm a bit puzzled he didn't go for the 50 greatest songs, at the very least.) And this had put in mind of giving various Kinks' CDs a spin over the weekend. But funnily enough I decided to kick off with a Ray Davies solo album, Working Man's Cafe, before plunging into the hard stuff. Not sure why. Possibly because I'd generally enjoyed the CD when I first acquired it, but thought of it as a bit routine. Not genuinely inspiring stuff. And I wondered if I might have been wrong.

Yes, I was. I gave it a spin on Saturday and every track worked for me, with the title track and Imaginary Man as bona fide classics, up there in the very crowded RD top ten tunes of all time. I suppose I'd finally listened often enough to tune in completely.

I followed that with my compilation CD of all the singles up to 1970 and, as I knew I would be, was blown away by the variety & simple brilliance of it all. It's so strange to think that we all took songs as profoundly beautiful as Waterloo Sunset and Days for granted when they first came out, as if we had some kind of right to be delivered works of genius almost as the throwaways of pop culture. And after that it had to be The Village Green Preservation Society - at which point it came to me that somehow The Kinks had managed to encapsulate in one album all of my feelings about what England has somehow carelessly lost.

Finished everything off by viewing a clip of Ray Davies's 2010 set at Glastonbury at which he dedicated the two songs I mentioned in the previous paragraph to the recently deceased Pete Quaife, the original bassist with the band, and a very tasty player indeed. At which point I dissolved.

Still Ranting

I found myself back at the doctor's across the road this morning, having blood drawn for yet another test ordained by MOM before they'll grant me a pass to work here next year. The last time I spoke to the doc was just ahead of the World Cup semi-final in mid-July when we'd talked seriously of it coming home. Today I launched into my rant concerning the ubiquities of a certain German coach following the scoring of England's goal around the 55th minute. Funnily enough I'd launched into a pretty much identical monologue last night talking to Peter & Chris. (Oddly Lia didn't seem interested at all.) I'm now hopping it's all out of my system, but suspect I'm likely to get triggered again before the year is out.

Funnily enough the news regarding my own medical condition continues to get better despite my bitterness over the events of July - though both the doc and myself proclaimed justice had finally been done with Spain's victory. It turns out that a chest x-ray requested by MOM earlier proved astonishingly clear according to the doc. He'd had a sight of the scans of my lungs as they were in late 2022 and 2023, distressingly full to the brim with an unpleasant looking grunge, so he thought the latest x-ray would show some scarring of my breathing apparatus. But it didn't, which left left me a very happy soldier.

I celebrated by performing some pretty impressive dance moves for The Missus in a free-form interpretation of The Kinks' You Really Got Me later in the afternoon. But she just seemed to find these funny rather than alluring. There's no accounting for taste, is there?