My latest driving adventure: a Toyota Hilux Invincible pickup.
A vehicle rather more powerful and voluminous than anything I’ve driven before.
Simultaneously perfect for navigating fractured village roads, and a bit too big, threatening to send you slipping down a mountainside.
I drove it successfully to my wife’s village and back, then stopped off at a budget supermarket for groceries, after which I inexplicably discovered I could no longer remember how to drive the thing.
In my defence, compared to my own car, it’s like a tank. Not so much in my defence: I may have forgotten to release the handbrake. Who knows?
It is the perfect farmer’s car. A five-seats SUV at the front with a large cargo bay at the back, perfect for shifting agricultural produce to buyers. Not much of a city car, though.
Our first rental of this holiday holds more promise in that regard. I don’t think I’d be tempted by a Toyota Hilux for myself. But a Peugeot 2008, just maybe.
Whenever I listen to the news, Mr Wendal spri gs to mind.
When I was younger, I was silent a lot.
But this wasn’t due to wisdom or piety. It was a cognitive deficit.
In adult life, I replaced the silence of the tongue with the expression of typing fingers.
So even if it could be said I am a quiet man, it could never be said I am a man of few words.
It’s true that in company, I rarely get a word in. But that’s more a limitation on my part than a choice.
Frequently, I find myself interrupted mid-thought. Others say this is because I speak too slowly.
The sage who ascribes nobility to my silence merely misdiagnoses what seems apparent.
Listen to the sheikh who petitions the pious to silence: his is the loudest and most verbose speech of all!
Actually, the prophetic advice was speak good or remain silent. Indeed, the Quran uses the word Qul (say) 332 times.
Contrary to popular wisdom, we are not commanded to be silent but to be truthful.
So silence yourself of lies, yes. Silence yourself of speaking ill of others. Silence yourself of injustice.
But be silent in the face of injustice or tyranny? The actual instruction is be patient!
The Quran says stand firm for justice. Witness to truth, it says. Do not bear false witness.
It is distasteful to me that the sheikh demands of others what he is unable to achieve himself.
Be silent, he says, while speaking at length, mixing truth and falsehood, good and bad.
He is the kind who would mistake my own silence for honourable behaviour and the one who speaks up as uncouth.
As can be seen, I have plenty to say. It’s just that maybe I don’t know how to except in the written word.
That doesn’t make me pious or wise. Who knows, perhaps the one who speaks up in the face of silence is the best amongst us all.
After several days feeling hot and bothered in an Istanbul apartment… it feels so strange awakening to this refreshing coolness, the city roar supplanted by sweet birdsong. We now kick ourselves, wondering why we delayed our arrival. A lesson learned.
After ten days suffering the stifling heat of the Aegean Coast and Istanbul… I’ve realised something. We’re Karadeniz folk.
Walking into the house: the coolness… so welcome. And the sweet birdsong floating through the windows… so beautiful.
A real homecoming. Next year, if the Most Merciful wills, we shall come straight home. No more over-ambitious adventures.
AI is taking tech jobs. But not by replacing them.
Jobs are being cut for AI. But not because of its ability to perform such roles.
They are being cut in order to fund the insane spending frenzy on tech that does yet exist.
Some say it is the promise of things to come. Others suspect it’s just a bubble that will soon burst.
Either way, this is the primary cause of job losses in the tech sector.
Job losses are not the only fallout, of course.
Another consequence is increasingly flaky software, creaking with bugs.
But we’re not meant to talk about that. This is the dawn of a new epoch.
For activists, I am not sociologically Muslim. I am just a white man who practices the religion of Islam.
But my brother-in-laws — all of them atheists — are sociologically Muslim.
Despite holding religion in general and Islam in particular in complete disdain, they are counted as Sunni Muslims, no questions asked.
They are real Muslims, while I am not.
This is because I do not face the systemic discrimination encountered by people of Muslim heritage.
My Islam is just a costume that I wear, which I can take off at any time, matters of conscience or sincerity be damned.
With this logic, we should consider Hindus and Sikhs sociologically Muslim too, since they also face misdirected anti-Muslim prejudice.
As for those who have practised the Muslim faith for the larger part of their lives? We are no part of this collective.
Sociologically, we’re something else entirely.
When I was younger, I held the perception that friends did not like talking to me if others were around.
I took from this that I was an embarrassment.
While we might get on perfectly well one-to-one, in company it seemed I was forever the butt of the joke.
In adult life, this seemed less pressured, for I could more easily remove myself from social situations demanding group interactions.
Not always so, of course. In meetings, I still take note of the winking and laughter whenever I talk. It’s why I mostly work alone.
Some might say this is misperception on my part, and I’m open to that take on reality.
All that I perceive could indeed be a misunderstanding on my part, or mere paranoia alone.
On the other hand, it could genuinely be my experience of the world.
For what prompts this thinking aloud is my relationship with our children, who behave differently towards me in public versus private.
In public, they refuse to speak to me, shunning me as having anything to do with them.
Perfectly normal teenage behaviour, some would say.
But for me, it reawakens all those memories long suppressed. The joke I was and, I suppose, always will be.
Am I, simply put, an embarrassment to all who ever encounter me?
Sad. I’m a week into my holidays, and I’m still stressed about work. It seems it looms so large in our lives that we simply cannot escape it.
The British establishment is an absolute joke. They will profess rabid indignation for peace campaigners, slandering them as terrorists whilst aiding and defending those who are actually terrorising millions of ordinary men, women, and children without pause. They may not fear their accounting, but they should. All that they do has been witnessed. Soon they will come to know.
A new left-leaning political party for Britain doesn’t stand a chance.
Not because it will be short on ideas to improve life for ordinary people in Britain.
No, simply because the entire establishment will conspire against it, destroying the reputation of every candidate.
The charge of antisemitism will follow them everywhere. The risk they pose to national security will be deployed far and wide.
A party that promises hope for the ordinary man and woman of Britain can not be allowed to succeed.
Only a beige party that stands for nothing except protecting the interests of billionaires and maintaining subservience to foreign powers can succeed in Great Britain.
But good luck to those who try. If it allows the disenfranchised to make themselves heard, that’s a worthy cause in my book. Let them register their discontent.
