Holiday in Pakistan (3): Lahore
April 9th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Lahore is the second largest city in Pakistan – the first is Karachi – with a population of over 13 million (one and a half times that of London). As the capital of Punjab province, Lahore is considered the most liberal, progressive, and cosmopolitan city in the country.
Under the control of numerous empires throughout its history, including the Hindu Shahis, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Delhi Sultanate in the medieval era, Lahore reached the height of its power and splendour under the Mughal Empire between the late 16th and early 18th century, serving as its capital. It boasts wonderful and diverse architecture from the Mughal Dynasty, Sikh Empire, and British Raj. It was in Lahore that Indian independence was first announced in 1929 and the resolution calling for the establishment of Pakistan in 1940.
On Monday, we left our hotel at 9 am and took the new Chinese-funded metro, running overground through the different neighbourhoods of Lahore, to obtain a sense of the city as it exists today. We visited a site being considered for UNESCO World Heritage status, the Shalimar Gardens, built in the 17th century as a Persian style paradise garden, with extensive engineering to create a canal from river Ravi to support over 100 water features. Sadly none of the water features were in operation during our visit because they were being cleaned in preparation for celebrations of the end of Ramadan.
From the Shalimar Gardens, we travelled to the tomb of emperor Jahangir, a remarkable blend of Mughal and Persian architectural styles, featuring intricate tile work, frescos and calligraphy. We were advised that site had been the subject of much renovation recently, but a lot more work needs to be done before it can rival the Islamic architecture of Uzbekistan or Iran. More tourists and more funding will in time make this an even more impressive location.
In the afternoon, we drove to the town of Wagah on Pakistan’s border with India. This is famous for the colourful Wagah border ceremony that takes place every late afternoon – in our case at 5 pm for 30 minutes – with great pomp and circumstance.
It is preceded by at least an hour of patriotic music broadcast at almost painful levels of volume. Then the performing soldiers must be the tallest men in the whole nation and their high-stepping and arm-waving can only remind one of the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks. We witnessed the energetic and theatrical performance put on by the guards of both sides as the border closed for the day. It was a weird and even comical display of fervent patriotism and I confess that I declined to wave the Pakistani flag or cheer the soldiers’.
Back in Lahore, we went the Western Union office for local currency (the staff were busy breaking their Ramadan fast so we’re not available) and a boutique store for a traditional shalwar kameez provided as part of the tour price (I declined the offer) before having a good dinner at the Avari Hotel. We were back at our hotel at 10.10 pm, very tired but very happy.
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Holiday in Pakistan (2): getting there
April 7th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
I’ve done so much foreign travel that I know that, on most trips (especially outside Europe), something goes wrong and one just has to accept this and go with the flow. However, this has been my first holiday abroad when the first major thing to go wrong was before I’d even left the country.
We are flying Qatar Airways. We should have left London’s Heathrow Airport at 4 pm on Friday, but eventually departed at 9 am on Sunday – a delay of over 40 hours! Our original aircraft had a technical fault and was withdrawn, other flights to the Middle East were full because of the end of Ramadan, and so we had to spend two nights in a Crowne Plaza hotel surviving on voucher-covered but very indifferent meals.
Eventually we flew from London to Doha (six and a half hours) and then Doha to Lahore (three hours), arriving at the airport at 1.15 am and checking into it hotel room for 3 am local time on Monday morning. Five of us were in this escapade; the others in the Jules Verne group arrived earlier and started the original programme without us. We will have a separate, curtailed programme for the Lahore part of the holiday before we link up with the rest of the group.
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Holiday in Pakistan (1): introduction
April 5th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
I am about to go on a holiday to Pakistan with the company Voyages Jules Verne. This will the 89th country that I have visited. The country is huge and we will only be visiting the north which is the most interesting part and contains the capital Islamabad (the south is more commercial and contains the largest city Karachi).
I have my visa and I’ve had my typhoid injection, so I’m good to go. I will be away for two and a half weeks. There will be four long haul flights: two there and two back. We will stay in eight locations and make two internal flights. So there will be a lot of travelling.
Most of my friends wonder why I would want to visit a country like Pakistan. Certainly, economically and politically, the nation is a disaster. But historically, culturally and geographically, it is fascinating and that’s why we’re going there.
Let me provide a short introduction to the country.
The name Pakistan comes from two Urdu words: pah meaning ‘pure’ and stan meaning ‘land’. But the name is also an acronym: the P is for Punjab, A is for Afghania, K is for Kashmir, S in for Sindh, and T stands for ‘tan’ as in Baluchistan.
The modern state of Pakistan was created in 1947 when the predominately Muslim population broke away from the majority Hindu nation of India. Then Pakistan consisted of two regions over a thousand miles apart but, in 1971, what used to be East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh, leaving West Pakistan to become simply Pakistan.
Pakistan is now the fifth most populous country in the world with a rapidly growing population of some 245 million. The only nations with a larger population are India, China, the United States and Indonesia. Crucially, Pakistan is a young country: about 65% of the population is under the age of 30.
Pakistan currently has the second largest Muslim population of any country – second only to Indonesia – but it is projected to have the most Muslims by 2030. Some 80% of the country’s Muslims are Sunni, while the other 20% are Shia.
The national language is Urdu but English is widely spoken. Each ethnic group has its own language, so the Punjabis – who constitute around half of population – speak Punjabi, while the Sindhis – the second largest ethnic group – speak Sindhi and there are 77 languages in all.
The economy is in a desperate state. Currently, inflation is running at around 30% and interest rates are 22%. Since independence, the country has had no fewer than 23 bail out packages from the IMF. Economically Pakistan is a very unequal society. Although it has a middle class of some 40 million which is growing quickly, a fifth of of the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.
The country faces so many major challenges, including poverty, illiteracy, corruption, terrorism and the impact of climate change (recent floods devastated a third of the country). This is a nation that funds a standing army of 560,000 but spends less than 2% of its GDP on education (illiteracy is 40%) and under 1% on health.
Pakistan’s governments have alternated between civilian and military, democratic and authoritarian, relatively secular and Islamist. The current government, formed after the general election in February 2024, is a coalition of the centre-right, Punjabi-based Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the centre-left, Sindh-based Pakistan People’s Party, although candidates aligned with formed prime minister Imran Khan (now imprisoned) won the most seats in the National Assembly.
The recent election marked the first time that the country has voted in a civilian parliament three times in a row. However, no Pakistani prime minister has completed a full five-year term since the country’s foundation in 1947, largely because the army has always exerted considerable political control even outside periods of explicit military rule.
The armed forces of Pakistan are the sixth largest in the world in terms of numbers in full-time service. Like its neighbour India, the country has nuclear weapons and, since Pakistan left India, the two countries have gone to war four times with frequent more minor skirmishes.
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An update on my latest book
April 2nd, 2024 by Roger Darlington
For five years now, I’ve lived in a block of flats on London’s South Bank called Rennie Court. It is managed and staffed jointly with another block on the opposite side of the road called River Court.
The longer that I’ve lived here, the more I’ve appreciated just how fascinating are the staff and residents. But – partly because of the structure of the buildings and partly because of the different lifestyles of the residents – most people don’t know each other.
I decided to make a contribution to this special community by interviewing all the staff and and a selection of the residents and then curate a series of personal profiles based on these interviews. Between May 2023 and March 2024, I managed to conduct 40 interviews and write a series of profiles totalling just over 57,000 words.
I spent the Easter weekend doing a final read-through of the full text and I’ve just forwarded that text to a professional proofreader. I’ll be publishing the book via Amazon and giving a free copy to each participant at a launch event in June. I’ll provide more details then about “Rennie & River: Tales From Two Courts”.
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A review of “How To Stop Time” by Matt Haig
March 30th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
It is an intriguing, if fanciful, proposition: a small number of special people age so slowly after puberty – about one year for every 15 of a normal person – that they can live 900 years or so. Since such a person will eventually and inevitably attract suspicion from ordinary mortals, these subjects of exceptional longevity need to move every eight years and must never fall in love.
The novel tells the story of one such character, currently called Tom Hazard and a history teacher at a London school, who was born on 3 March 1581, making him 439 years old. In the course of his extraordinary life, he has met a variety of historical characters including William Shakespeare and F Scott Fitzgerald.
I had previously enjoyed a later novel by Matt Haig, “The Midnight Library”, and this one too has been a bestseller, so I approached it with some enthusiasm. Haig is a good storyteller, if not that fine a writer, and so the work is highly readable, but ultimately it is rather disappointing.
The problem is that Haig does not know what to do with his proposition and his conclusion is too rapid and trite. As average longevity is already increasing and we are on the threshold of some major medical advances that could further extend longevity, the novel could have explored what a longer life can offer and what problems it presents.
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What if the Labour Party wins the coming General Election with a huge majority?
March 19th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
Do you remember the General Election of December 2019? Do you really remember it? The Conservative Party, then led by Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6% of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the General Election of 1979.
For the Labour Party, then led by Jeremy Corbyn, the result was an absolute disaster. It was the fourth consecutive general election defeat for the Labour Party. In the worst result for the party in 84 years, despite a better vote share than other losses as in 1931, 1983, 1987, and 2010, Labour only won 202 seats, which was the lowest number since 1935 and a loss of 60 compared to the previous election.
At that time, it seemed unthinkable that the Labour Party could secure a Parliamentary majority in one election cycle. There was much talk of pre- or post-election pacts with the Liberal Democrats or the Scottish National Party to obtain a. working majority for a possible Labour Government. An agreement with the Lib Dems would, it was assumed, require a commitment to a referendum on a new, proportional system of voting.
Four or so years later and few observers doubt that the Labour Party is set to win the next General Election and secure a working majority on its own. Nobody is now talking of electoral pacts and PR is barely on the agenda. The issue now is not: will Labour win? But: how big will the majority be? Almost certainly, it will be a three-figure majority. It could even be a larger majority than the 179 won by Tony Blair in 1997.
What will that mean? It would not necessarily be good for democracy. A sound democracy needs an effective Opposition. The Tories will los many of their ‘stars’ from Parliament and could well descend into civil war.
Some in the Labour Party feel that the majority could be ‘too’ big in the sense that it will enable and, and maybe encourage, backbench Labour MPs to revolt against their own government. I doubt this – at least for some time. The Starmer machine has exercised tight control over the selection of Labour candidates and I don’t think there will be many natural rebels. Also, after 14 years in Opposition, there will be a powerful sense of loyalty and discipline in the Parliamentary Labour Party.
My concern is that a thumping majority will lead the electorate to have excessive expectations of the new Labour Government. Voters will feel that that, with such a huge majority, the Government can do anything. Voters may not fully take on board that, whatever the size of the majority, the circumstances of the British economy will be the same – that is, terrible: tight expenditure plans, crippling debt, virtually no growth, and the continued impact of Brexit. And there will still be the war in Ukraine.
Over the next few months, you can expect a lot of effort by the Labour leadership to manage expectations. But the electorate is crying out for hope. We want something better – much better.
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Where do people live the longest? Welcome to the notion of blue zones.
March 14th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
I met somebody earlier this week who recommended to me a series of programmes available on Netflix. The series is called “Live To 100: Secrets Of The Blue Zones” and consists of four programmes averaging around 40 minutes each.
Presenter, American Dan Buettner, visits five locations around the world where there is an exceptional number of centenarians, so-called ‘blue zones’: Okinawa, Japan; Barbagia, Sardinia; Lomo Linda, California; Ikaria, Greece; Nicoya, Costa Rica.
In each case, he looks at local factors than could explain the situation in that ‘blue zone’. then he pulls together the commonalities and summarises the emergent key factors.
Nothing here is new, but it’s fascinating to see the factors highlighted in actual communities where demonstrably something special is going on. So, in the and, Buettner promotes four ideas for longevity: move naturally through work and walking; have a positive outlook with a purpose in life; eat wisely with more plant-based foods; build connections through family, friends and local communities.
In the final programme, Buettner looks at where one can actually create ‘blue zones’ even in a country like his own, the United States, where three-quarters of the population is overweight or obese. He outlines a successful trial in Albert Lea, Minnesota. Then he considers the dramatic increases in longevity in Singapore and how the government there is using nudge theory to promote healthier living.
A major take-away from the series is that dramatic changes can be made quite quickly which will increase longevity for individuals and save costs for administrations. But these changes require interventionistrist administrations which take a holistic approach involving the community and providing nudges and incentives rather than mandatory dictates.
At the beginning, the series explains that the programmes are about information and entertainment and are not recommending fully-trialled and full-validated scientific principles, but there is a good deal of sense here that should be discussed and debated by individuals, families, and administrations.
If you can’t access the television series, you might like to read the book.
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A review of the new film “Wicked Little Letters”
March 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
The English are noted for their eccentricity and there’s a good deal of it on display in this rather odd offering. It’s as if two films were shot and then, in the cutting rooms, the pair were interwoven. One is a ribald comedy with lots of obscene language, while the other is a social drama in which the leading characters are all tragic figures.
In essence, it tells a true story located in the coastal of town Littlehampton in the 1920s (although it was actually shot in nearby Arundel) which makes it a rather interesting curiosity, although there is too much dependency on the language of the letters. But the best reason for watching the film is the casting which includes Olivia Coleman, who is rapidly becoming a national treasure, Jessica Buckley, who is one of my favourite British actresses, and Timothy Spall, who is one of our finest character actors.
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A review of the new science book “White Holes” by Carlo Rovelli
March 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
This is the third book that I’ve read written by the famous Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. He has a lively and engaging style, unusual for scientists, and this latest work contains a series of references to Dante’s “Inferno”. But the concepts about which he writes are hard to comprehend.
Black holes used to be a theoretical conjecture but now all physicists accept their existence and we have found many, many examples of them in the universe. But white holes? What are they?
According to Rovelli, a white hole is what you would find at the very ‘bottom’ of every black hole and it would manifest itself if one reverses time and the two spacetimes (that for the black and while holes respectively) are linked with a quantum tunnel. I hope you’re keeping up. Rovelli believes that he has shown this process at work theoretically through an imaginative use of Einstein’s equations for his theory of general relativity. He insists that these equations do not change if one reverses time.
If I’ve understood Rovelli correctly, this analysis derives from a mathematical structure called loop quantum gravity. This is a theory, pioneered by Rovelli, which currently rivals string theory as an attempt to reconcile the contradictions between relativity theory and quantum mechanics with a so-called ‘theory of everything’.
If Rovelli is right and a black hole can ‘bounce’ into becoming a white hole, something similar may have happened on the cosmic scale, so that what we call the Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce in which a previous universe contracted, rebound and created our current universe. Are you still with me?
So will we ever find white holes?
Rovelli admits “I do not even know if white holes actually exist” and tells his readers that “the calculations for this transition are currently in progress” (apparently they are based on a version of loop theory called ‘covariant’ or, more colourfully, ‘spinfoam’). Meanwhile,, at present, very few scientists believe in the existence of white holes and it is considered only a mathematical exercise with no real-world counterpart.
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A review of the new Netflix bio-pic “Rustin”
March 10th, 2024 by Roger Darlington
I confess that, prior to the release of this Netflix movie, I had never heard of American political activist Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) who – as set out in the film – played a key role in the organisation of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was a formidable organisational feat: in less than three months, publicity, transport, policing, food, toilets, loudspeakers, were put together for an event attended by an estimated 250,000 when Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream” speech.
So why have so few people heard of Rustin and why did it take until 2013 for Barack Obama (who, together with Michelle, was a producer on the movie) to award Rustin posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
The film is clear that Rustin faced so much opposition at the time to his involvement in the march and so little subsequent recognition for his superlative efforts because he was gay, openly and sometimes flamboyantly so.
Some of my American friends, who were very familiar with Rustin’s role in the civil rights movement, have criticised the film for overdoing his homosexuality and underplaying his radical political thinking. The film features a host of real-life characters and some of the disagreements between them that might make it difficult for some viewers wholly to engage with the narrative.
So the movie has its weaknesses, but overall director George C. Wolfe and writers Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black have done a commendable job in bringing this neglected story to a wide audience in an entertainment format.
As the eponymous activist, Colman Domingo is exceptional in bringing to life a colourful and complex individual. In the support roles, mention should be made of Chris Rock – normally seen as a comedian – in the unsympathetic role of leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who made plain his doubts about Rustin’s suitability for the organising role.
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