I finish work at half past five.
It snowed.
I got home from work at half past eight.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and pressies :) I had a great day and I’ll tell you about it when I’m less tired.

Ammar: look at me go on and on about STUFF!
Ammar: i felt the spirit of saima in me!
Ammar: when i wrote this
Ammar: i was like oh wow… this isn’t even a 2-3 liner blog
Ammar: this is like.. me going ON and ON! about something ridiciculous i did
Ammar: I’m Saima!
SaimaSaid: hahahhaha
SaimaSaid: thanks i’m ridiculous!!!
Ammar: really
Ammar: HAHAHAHA nO NO! NOOOOOOOoo
SaimaSaid: if that wasn’t such a good blog entry i would never have forgiven you!
Ammar: you’re uh.. Entertaingly Ridiculous!
Ammar: OR!
Ammar: better YET
Ammar: Ridiculously Entertaining!!!!!!
Ammar: shava shava!

Shopping trips to Oxford Street have many a time been wasted locating the shops rather than actually shopping. This leads to tired feet, crabbiness and dread of the train journey home during rush hour. Not anymore though!
Saluma Roaq is Jory Hemmelgarn’s exhibition of wintertime art. Like him winter is my favourite season. Jory explains that Saluma Roaq is one of many words used by Inuits to describe various forms of snow. In his book The Language Instinct, linguist Steven Pinker states, “Contrary to popular belief, the Eskimos do not have more words for snow than do speakers of English,” and that “counting generously, experts can come up with about a dozen.” The actual number is reported to be about four but this urban legend of sorts has sparked off some funny satire. ‘Wa-ter’ is the Inuit word for melted snow indeed!
Also: Fight fight fight!

Justin just gets sexier doesn’t he? Umm….his album’s pretty good too.
Also on RollingStone.com: Portraits of celebrity body art.

I recently received a calendar from Jalebi Junction featuring carigraphic paintings of Lahore in days of yore. With a bit of rooting around on the web I found that they are actually watercolour paintings by one Dr. Ajaz Anwar.
I particularly like the one titled ‘Basant’ because it brings back childhood memories of Pakistan, especially of Lahore and Sialkot where ‘Basant’, or the kite festival, is celebrated with such fervour. The family home in Lahore has about seven floors, the top most being only big enough for one person to stand. This floor is exclusively for kite flying so you can see how important this hobby and festival are.
During the festival, the object is to obviously have fun but by trying to cut the strings of others’ kites by wrapping your own around it. This takes an awful lot of skill and once you’ve managed to do it everyone shouts “kutta!”
When I visited Pakistan in 2001, we arrived the day of Basant and standing on a friend’s roof I’ve never seen such a Kodak moment. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera. Typical! But come mid-February, don’t forget to send out your Basant greetings cards.

I’m retiring the Three Word Blog featured at the bottom of this page because, frankly, I don’t think anyone cares. But if you missed it, here are all the entries. There are some good links in there, I swear!
• What You Sow
• Smart e-mail addresses
• Celebrity shopping lists
• Save Michael’s babies!
• Happy holidays Iain
• Asif Khan Designs
• History of Burberry
• MoMA Collection highlights
• History of Chemistry
• Stair climbing wheelchair
• Reactions to autopsy
• Filmed public autopsy
• Iftar recipes online
• Terminator 3 arrives!
• Realistic Internet Simulator
• Car MP3 player
• Gap casting call
• Journey through Palestine
• Beautiful sunspot picture
• Secret Santa returns
• Well thank you!
• Sometimes we forget
• Kit’s Mythic Norms
• Collaborative mosaic project
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Weekly group hug
• Survive Your PhD
• Weekly milk bottles
• Who lives here ?
• Fully functional GameMan
• Handwritten flash clock
• Eagerly awaiting artwork
• Make flowers last
• Sarees for men
• Dictionary of domains
• The finger history
• The White Company
• Overseas hand shake

We didn’t have a white Christmas and it doesn’t look like there’ll be snow anytime soon either. I don’t mean the measly slush that appeared this morning. The type that disappears in the morning sunshine by the time you’ve woken up and the only evidence of its arrival is the few patches left on the roofs of cars. I mean good, fluffy, inches deep snow. I mean snow that lets you have snowball fights. Snow that you can build a snowman with that you dress in a beret and call Claude and later paint him pink. Now that’s what I call snow. Has your town been stealing our snow supply?