Nasim Marie Jafry's Blog, page 6

The Appa Dance (made us happy as carpets)

We had much hilarity with MadLibs over the holidays. My eleven year old nephew introduced us to the game. You're asked for adjectives, adverbs, nouns, names and places, but only the questioner knows the title of the story. A narrative emerges, flash fiction, nonsensical and surreal. Appa is my nephews' nickname for me, sometimes they will call me Appa instead of Auntie Nasim. (My brothers and I had a very old aunt in Pakistan when we visited in the seventies, we knew her as Auntie Appa, we di...

The Bridge

When we speak of The Bridge we are usually thinking of the Scandi drama. My stepfamily in Sweden (my late Danish stepdad's children from his first marriage) tell me they had the final episode of Bron last weekend and it is thrilling right up 'til the last minute. I say, Don't tell me, I don't want to know!, but when I say I don't trust Saga's mother they hint that perhaps I am right. But now in Scotland we have our very own bridge drama, the Forth Road Bridge has been closed for at least four...

The clamjamfry of the PACE trial

It's quite a clamjamfry in the world of ME research at the moment. The dodgiest-of-dodgy-trials aka as the Oxford PACE trial is having the life shaken out of it in the form of American health journalist and academic David Tuller. Tuller has recently and comprehensively demolished the trial over on Prof Vincent Racaniello's virology blog. And James C Coyne, professor of health psychology - and visiting professor at Stirling University - is weighing in too. The Americans have come to save us.

I...

Two papers and two films

I very much enjoyed this paper by Rose Richards: Writing the Othered Self: Autoethnography and the Problem of Objectification in Writing About Illness and Disability - she writes from the point of view of someone who has had a kidney transplant and notes that there are not many narratives around her particular illness. I found lots  resonated, although the paper refers to non-fiction/academic writing.
Also, a recent USA report via ME Research UK  is well worth a look, I have not read...

Art and death and farewells in Glencoe and Greenland

Twitter can be wonderful. I first met artist and writer Nancy Campbell via Twitter, last year in March. Nancy had favourited a snowdrops photo, and I discovered she had produced a beautiful book, in the form of art cards, How to Say 'I Love you' in Greenlandic. I immediately got the book for my stepdad (I may have traded a copy of my novel for Nancy's work, I can't recall - I've done this several times, used my novel as currency for art).

My stepdad spent many happy hours reading through the c...

Prof Julia Newton's excellent severe ME research; & active verbs & buffoonery

Terrific to see Julia Newton's recent research project: identifying those with severe ME in Newcastle area. 

Real science.  That might actually help people.
The buffoons are, to be sure, slowly retreating. The new BACME - those self-appointed experts - medical guidelines state that 'CFS/ME is not a mental health issue'. No shit, Sherlock! You can tell they are trying weakly to embrace the biomedical model, having, of course, previously supported the horribly flawed biopsychosocial mod...

Writing, Rituximab & a Japanese film about death

Three pieces on writing I have recently enjoyed:
An interview with Janice Galloway, who has a new collection of short stories out. Speaking about the blurring of memoir and fiction, she says: 'It’s all stories, as far as I’m concerned and your job is to tell the story interestingly and not be dull.'

 I agree with her wholeheartedly.
Here, writer Fiona Melrose on how a Caravaggio painting she loves makes her think about story and construct: 'Someone central in your story has to want somethin...

'Trying out different fathers' - my thoughts on Omar Sharif

Had tears today, hearing that Omar Sharif has died. Sad for his family, but happy for him that he no longer suffers the ravages of dementia. To me, he is more than the handsome Egyptian actor who glittered in Dr Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia.

I grew up hearing that my father looked like Omar Sharif. My father was my mother's first husband, she met him in the sixties when he was a doctor and she was a nurse, a Mills & Boon romance without the happy ending. My father died in tragic circumst...

The longest day

Today is the longest day and also Father's Day - the first one without my stepdad. I can hear his lovely voice. Since he left, I wear his Harris tweed jacket when I am cold or missing him, it feels like he is hugging me. And today, I miss him and feel cold, it is freezing, June in Scotland usually is. An orange poppy bloomed this morning, of course I see it is a sign that he is here.
And below some gorgeous wee pink wildflowers that I rescued before my mother, who was visiting, mowed away.

The daft neurologist (cont'd) ...

My book being published has been one of the happiest times in my life - though the process was certainly not without its trials  - and on the launch night I was in heaven. The room was packed, copies of my novel piled up beside me, my nephews - then just three and six - were sitting in the audience and walked up to the front with roses during the reading. That was the only actual launch event I did, I can't run around the country/world doing writerly things and that breaks my heart.
Stil...