Nasim Marie Jafry's Blog, page 22

Six gold medals

Our sodden little nation got six gold medals yesterday, three in athletics, I felt rather proud. I was hoarse screaming for Mo Farah and cried when he won. Also had tears when Jessica Ennis was presented with her medal, and earlier on, I just caught the lovely velodrome girls winning the women's team pursuit, all under 23, and I mused, for a moment, that velo-gubbed was half-Olympic, in name at least.

Books & snails & MRC behaving badly

Great to see that The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey has won the Stanford 2012 William Saroyan Prize for writing. (I have hazy/fond memories of Stanford, my brother studied there many years ago). If you google Amazon and 'myalgic encephalomyelitis', there's an Aladdin's cave of books, the quality varies greatly, but this is easily one of the best. It's a gem and made me think differently about snails, this one was on the shed for a few days last month.

Nice to have some...

Stunning

The Olympic cauldron was stunning,  that is no exaggeration, the copper petals floating up to form one single torch, I had tears. I also cried at 'Flower of Scotland' in Danny Boyle's wonderfully quirky and emotive opening ceremony, and at Muhammad Ali carrying the flag. It was a bit dislocating to see Kenneth Branagh (recently in Wallander) as Brunel, but you were reminded of what a great actor he is, so much in his eyes. The Palestinian athletes brought tears to me too. The Pakistan te...

Tra-la-la la-la

The Medical Research Council (MRC) is finally wising up, it would seem, just a shame it has taken thirty years, and so much damage done, but it's now seeking to fund more biomedical research: ME Association has the details. I can't help thinking that the MRC probably feels it should get a Blue Peter badge for its charming recognition of ME as a neuroimmune illness but that's just me being jaded and cynical (I wonder why).
And I found this review of The State of Me, had not come across it, very...

Love and war

Born in USA, Janine di Giovanni is a highly respected, award-winning journalist who has covered many zones of  war and hell, so I was keen to read Ghosts By Daylight , her memoir about motherhood and (failed) marriage after Jane Shilling described the writing as 'formidable' - I'd very much enjoyed Shilling's own memoir, The Woman in the Mirror. However, I must confess I did not find the writing formidable, I found it repetitive and recursive, the chronology confusing. Unsettling time shi...

Why I watched an episode of 'Doctors' - a daytime BBC medical soap

I can honestly say I never watch daytime TV, with the exception of when the Chilean miners were rescued, but I was curious about the ME storyline in Doctors I'd read about on the ME Assoc site and re-watched on iPlayer. You're hardly going to get an accurate portrayal of this complex neuroimmune illness in a fluffy, half-hour medical soap, but you could see the writer  was trying hard to weave some truth into this minor storyline. A young, hardworking girl felled by ME (no mention of the...

'Doctors' - an ME subplot on daytime TV

I can honestly say I never watch daytime TV, with the exception of when the Chilean miners were rescued, but I was curious about the ME storyline in Doctors I'd read about on the ME Assoc site and re-watched on iPlayer. You're hardly going to get an accurate portrayal of this complex neuroimmune illness in a fluffy, half-hour medical soap, but you could see the writer  was trying hard to weave some truth into this minor storyline. A young, hardworking girl felled by ME (no mention of the...

Rhubarb

Chopping rhubarb is exhausting but it makes a lovely noise. And produces tons of water when you cook it (this, my first time). My friends gave me some home-grown at the weekend, the smell reminded me immediately of Henry and Michael, my mother's bachelor uncles, who wore green cardigans and were smoking and coughing every time you saw them. I think Henry only had one lung (I think he had TB). They would give us wee pokey hats (made from newspaper) of sugar and we would dip in the rhubarb from...

Foxes, snails & beautiful Italian men

At the weekend I saw a fox, I couldn't sleep and opened the curtains at 4am and there it was, slinking into the darkness, I wanted it to come back but it had vanished into the ferns. There's a snail making its way across the landscape of the shed, I usually hate/fear them, the bastards eat holes in everything but this one is beautiful with a blue-patterned shell. I watched most of Spain/Italy, my nephews had helpfully informed me that Italy are rubbish, they are Barcelona supporters, and must...

Gems

I recently read a Ray Bradbury short story, 'The Veldt', from The Illustrated Man, first published in 1951, and I was blown away, it felt so modern - and creepy - and I wished I'd read him before now (I've only read the essays Zen in the Art of Writing). Then I remembered that in The State of Me, Helen admires a 'A Flock of Ravens': 'I just read a short story by Ray Bradbury, it's called 'A Flock of Ravens', I really liked the tone, the hysteria. The man who sold it to me couldn't bend his ar...