Al Qusais

Drifting on the torrid breeze, morning foul stench

from the mountain

ascends unyielding with trash

Heat in blue skies, now brown

Red sand lost

Ocean desert, now concrete

bitumen, plastic, steel, glass, refuse

Heat, dust, stench. Nothing more.

Thursday

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

Plato

I have finished The Republic.

2500 years ago people knew children learned through play.

“Then don’t use force to train the children in these subjects; use play instead.”

Plato

It is an interesting read. I have not read Marx’s Communist Manifesto, but the foundations are laid out in the Republic and it is easy to see the Marx utopian vision.

Told in the first person of Socrates, it explores how the corruption of man spawns tyrants from democracy and dictators from oligarchs. And this is the flaw of the Republic and Communism, the greed and deception of man.

At least Socrates acknowledges the problem.

There is a touch of Brave New World with the selective breeding of children and removal from parents.

I can’t entirely agree with his interpretation of music, art, poetry and literature. Considered imitation and third removed from truth and a corruption to goodness.

“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.”

Plato

I will move on to Plato’s Statesman next.

I pick up Shell from work and jump on the scales for the first time since arriving back from holidays.

It is disappointing to see I am so light, yet carrying so much fat. At 97.2kg I would estimate I have lost 5kg of muscle mass and gained three kilograms of fat over the five-week trip.

“Though their life was modest, they believed in eating well.”

James Joyce

It will take me at least six months to bring this back into balance.

I am cooking chicken with arrabbiata sauce to serve with linguine and all I want is a glass of Chianti. Honestly, any wine will do. If Shell were to ask for a glass I would not hesitate.

We remain steadfast and skip the wine.

“One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters…But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.”

Charles Baudelaire

Friday

Gym and breakfast.

A lazy day at home reading.

“Things are just put together wrong. There’s so much shit in the world a man’s gonna get in it sooner or later, whether he’s careful or not.”

Larry McMurtry

We decide to watch Hud, starring Paul Newman. Made in 1963 and based on the Larry McMurtry novel Horseman, Pass By.

These old movies are outstanding. Dialogue, brooding landscapes. Similar to The Last Picture Show, there is no hiding behind special effects.

Saturday

“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”

Plato

Gym. Breakfast.

We are considering heading to Mirdif Mall. Even thinking about it makes me depressed.

Pies play today. I have lost interest now the season is all but over for us.

In the end we give Mirdif a miss and head more local and less hectic.

Pies come back from 30 points down to win by a point. A mathematical chance to make the finals but it is looking unlikely.

Salmon and sweet potato for lunch. The salmon is wild, not farmed, a positive. It is from Norway, so the very large negative is the carbon footprint to get it here.

We grabbed some local caught Nile perch, considered green, and an invasive species. It won’t offset our salmon carbon footprint but it will help offset the guilt.

“[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives.”

Slavoj Žižek

I finish the Larry McMurtry biography. I have never read a biography before and I have to admit that I am impressed with Tracy Daugherty and the way he writes.

I think the Lonesome Dove series represented McMurtry’s best work, although Horsemen, Pass By, and The Last Picture Show are worth reading. Maybe another time.

I am now switching to Jack London and will work my way through the American authors of the 20th century. I will reduce the number of books to four from each and add a biography.

First up, Call of the Wild. One of my favourite books as a kid.

“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.”

Jack London

Sunday

“Clouds sink down the hills
Coffee is hot again. The dog
Turns and turns about, stops and sleeps.”

Gary Snyder

I dream of owning a dog. Probably the book put the seed in my dreams.

There are drawbacks to living overseas and the nomadic life.

I miss owning a dog.

I miss Ellie. She was never my dog, but I miss her just the same.

We take a trip to Ajman for a bottle of white wine to go with the Gazpacho we will make for a friend’s birthday next weekend. We have French and Portuguese white, but I just can’t bring myself to make a Spanish soup and not serve it with a Spanish wine.

Near Ajman is a nursery, and we grab a plant for the gift.

Deserts can be beautiful, but when man scars a sandy ocean with freeways, powerlines and concrete buildings it looks ugly and deformed.

As we turn off the freeway the breeze picks up the rust red sand and dances across the road. It moves like a spirit, flowing across the tar in rhythmic waves.

There is some beauty here.

“Water, water, water….There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be.”

Edward Abbey

Home and we cook the perch for lunch.

I spend the afternoon reading.

The Blues win. The Pies cannot make the finals.

Work tomorrow.

All things end. Holidays included.

One year to go.

“It began as a mistake.”

Charles Bukowski