Sharjah Smog – now please now

“I don’t know about other people, but when I wake up in the morning and put my shoes on, I think, Jesus Christ, now what?”

Charles Bukowski

Thursday

Another week down.

A better pace to the days.

Home and the usual spread from Al Jeawerah.

I eat enough for four people.

Friday

Sleep in. Gym.

It is a day of cooking. We are hosting a friend for dinner.

“It seems to me that one of the great luxuries of life at this point is to be able to do one thing at a time, one thing to which you give yourself wholeheartedly. Unitasking.”

Michael Pollan

I am going off-script. Cooking something with no recipe, just a picture I once saw.

We need to head into Dubai Mall to pick up Shell’s new camera so I will get my ingredients there.

The skyline is a brown custard. AQI index 180 – Unhealthy is an understatement.

“Maybe I just worried too much about things.”

J.D. Salinger

The beef cheeks are on. Braising in veal demiglaze and red wine. It smells delicious.

I like to cook, but I don’t have an oven.

You can’t rush beef cheeks, so I read all day.

Head for a haircut and it is time for an Old Fashioned.

The conversation and wine flow.

The food is excellent, cheese to start. Auricchio Provolone; raw cows milk from a producer who has been making provolone cheese for over 150 years is the stand out.

First course, parmigiana di melanzane, is rich and delicious.

The risotto con guance di manzo brasate is on the money. The cheeks gelatinous and falling apart. I strained off the vegetables and herbs from the cooking liquor and reduced it to make a thick, sticky reduction.

Cannoli to finish.

Outstanding night.

Saturday

For the first time in months I decide to miss the gym.

I will do a make up session tomorrow.

I finished Huckleberry Finn and started The Gilded Age.

Like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn is a book for kids. I see the appeal, and the prose is attractive, but I still can’t see how these books made Twain a literary icon.

“I couldn’t bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn’t think about nothing else.”

Mark Twain

I am now balancing three books, at work, I read Shifting the Balance, and at home, I am working through the Gilded Age and Homo Deus.

I read and do very little.

We watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Gary Oldman. Based on the John le Careé novel I read a few years ago. I enjoyed it. The pace was a little slow for Shell.

Bed early.

Gym tomorrow.

“Survival…is an infinite capacity for suspicion.”

John le Careé

Sunday

Sleep in. Gym.

Shell took some photos of dinner on Saturday evening on the new camera.

We are waiting for the cables to arrive from amazon to transfer the images to the laptop.

You would think that the camera would come with the required cables. The best theory is that in a rush to use the camera, whoever unpacked the box threw the cables out and possibly the spare battery charger.

The name of the guilty party is redacted.

“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 have finish Homo Deus and start Nexus. This is the book that I am most interested in. I have been thinking about AI for a few years. The ethical and social implications. Nexus takes a look at how we have historically handled communication and information networks and explores AI through this lens.

“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.”

Yuval Noah Harari

Lunches are made and I continue with The Gilded Age.

A lazy afternoon.

Work tomorrow.

This weekends wine –