I realised on Friday evening, during my first social with my new team after work, that I’m actually fine being an anti-social git. I don’t fit into those spaces at all. I can’t do the idle chitchat, nor do we have anything in common outside work. It was, thank God, a virtual gathering, given that …
At nearly midnight, after a full day’s work, I think I will call this a success. The room feels much brighter at last. Normally white wouldn’t be my first choice, but dark furniture in a small space really doesn’t work. The house needed this lift. I may still add an LED panel to simulate natural …
People forget that the purpose of our news media is not to neutrally report what is happening in the world, but to influence public opinion according to the political ambitions of their proprietors. Each media outlet has its own agenda and biases. State controlled media, whatever their claims of independence, aim to further state objectives, …
Today’s job: wrapping the rest of our dark furniture in matt white vinyl. Seems like sacrilege, but it’s time to take ownership of these hand-downs and bring the light back in.
One day, if the Most Merciful wills.
I remember a health professional telling me shortly after diagnosis that I was so lucky to retain my youthful looks. I guess she would have been in her fifties then, and so may have been yearning to discover the elixir of eternal youth. But for me? No sorry, to still look like a teenager at …
How tragic: the very mention of my old school can send me into an instantaneous downward spiral. Today at work a colleague asked me, based on an expression I had used, whether I had been to public school. He asked in jest, but I had to admit that my school had indeed had those pretensions. …
The Hindu far-right seem to be obsessed with their Love Jihad conspiracy. This the idea that there’s a deliberate ploy of Muslims to convert Hindus and others to Islam by pretending to fall in love. I suppose that’s a little more creative than the British narrative concerning Asian grooming gangs, despite most such offenders being …
We’ve been stung so many times that you might think we would have learned by now. But that’s the trouble with trusting people: you’re naturally inclined to believe people are generally honest, and moved by conscience. My father once said, when approached by a relative for help, that he would never agree to be a …
Did you dust on the top? Did you mop under there? Did you wipe the table? Did you clean this? Did you vacuum round there? Yes, my dear, of course I did! I’ve been married to a Turkish lady for over two decades. I’m well and truly domesticated.
Alhamdulilah, I’m on good terms with my family today, but it wasn’t always so. Most siblings, whatever their fractious relationships in adolescence, tend to bond as they enter adulthood. Regrettably I sabotaged that opportunity by becoming a Muslim just as we should have been enjoying each other’s company. That was a hard act to swallow, …
I tend to have an optimistic view of others, believing that everyone has the potential to change. Some say this is a positive characteristic, whereas others would say I am simply extremely naive. The latter could well be right, of course. How often has it only belated occured to me that some people have no …
Down our allotment twenty years ago. It’s good to recall the road once travelled. That was our garden in those days, an escape from our tiny flat a fifteen-minute walk away. It puts the present in better perspective.
I confess that despite working with the web professionally, I struggle navigating parenting in this digital age. Where does the desire to safeguard our children become being overly protective? Where does being worried about the harms tip over into causing harm? I guess most people would say we are too restrictive, and in doing so …
I’m neither a royalist nor a republican; I’m apathetic. I have no interest in that parade of the insanely rich. I spent the morning of the coronation clearing out the junk from the cupboard under the stairs. A better use of my time all round. Some friends have been sharing platitudes about the meaning of …
