Prior to last Wednesday, what I knew about the manufacture of wiring harnesses for cars and trucks could be written on the back of a matchbox. But I have a good friend who manufactures these things and he invited me to visit his factory, as I was interested to see how a business survived in [...]
Karachi and a busy round of work and social engagements – and a little time to relax. Thursday saw the sampling of a recently opened coffee shop on Zamzama. All very smart and expensive, spotlessly clean cutlery and tables, slightly intrusive music, excellent coffee and snacks and disappointing cookies – especially at the price. My [...]
Wiggy and Sparky were the first I can remember with certainty — the first was a moody beast belonging to my grandparents, the second an altogether friendlier item owned by my parents and with whom I spent my early years. Cats have been a part of my family life for as long as I can [...]
“Give me one good reason for staying in Pakistan,” said one of my friends in Canada last week; and my response was immediate and spontaneous… ‘the wildlife’. It was one of those answers that pops out unbidden and took me a little by surprise, but true nonetheless. Living on the outskirts of the city in [...]
A discussion about an academic paper on teaching methodologies was the blue touch-paper for this week’s musings. There was nothing wrong with the paper; it laid out the arguments, detailed the research and came to a satisfactory conclusion. I know personally — rather than at a cyber-distance — the person who wrote it and they [...]
Having done three earthquakes as an aid worker Kalamata in Greece, Badakhshan in Afghanistan and the 05 quake here I have something of a feel for how these disasters get handled at a number of levels. One of them being the media. The Haiti quake is a real monster, and the most recent estimates are [...]
Venturing into the turbid and much-disturbed waters of the political ocean is not something I often do in these columns, but events of the past week merit a dipping of the toe. Years of exposure to the venality and general incompetence of all things political has imbued me with a weary cynicism that roughly goes [...]
It is not often that I get spoken to by unaccompanied adult women travelling on the same bus as myself – it’s just not the done thing. But it happened last week as I travelled to Lahore and was sufficiently significant for me to explore why it was that – sometimes — women felt able [...]
If it’s a struggle for me then what must it be like for all the rest? There is a roof over my head, food in the larder and a warm bed to sleep in. I lack little. That which I do not have I either don’t need or don’t desire — but if I did [...]
It was only recently that I discovered that we — as in the family unit I am most intimately a part of — live our lives as an acronym, moreover one that is recently coined and currently in vogue (some acronyms have a short shelf life and it remains to be seen if this one [...]
