Last leaves falling, winter’s stage is nearly set

Karl Irwin
Nov 3 · 3 min read

Enjoying the last week or so before the central heating comes on irrespective of whether or how I want it; the last month is always the golden window of sleep quality for the year (even with Arthur’s mid-night musings).

After mentioning the paper money thing last week, I was on my home on Monday only to have the footpath blocked by someone burning plastic, zero response when I asked what impact this might have to pedestrians and particularly young children. I asked my students what they thought of it and they were rather indifferent, saying that they people who do it will die off in a couple of generations and they’re not that bothered by it. I do feel in general there is a rather meek (maybe this is me being unreasonable, and it should read cool-headed and impartial?) attitude to a range of social “phenomena”, in part due to a lack of concern and awareness of their immediate environment, and in part due to a sense of well what can I do about it. I looked on Taobao (China’s Amazon) to see what range of items there were to send to one’s passed away loved ones in the other-realm: heated toilets, iphones and cars being a few of the top hits. Brings to mind: “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”, in China you can just get around this by “posting” the stuff latter!

Zhouzhou’s mum has made a nice little Dragon-horned hat for Arthur. Teeth are beginning to come up, so he’s been a little grouchy this week. Off doing the radio show last Friday (photo below of the building from outside), was paired up with a lass from Israel who essentially just ignores the tones when she speaks Chinese (this someone speaking monotone English). One of the 3 topics was on “top attractions not to go to worldwide” couldn’t help mentioning the Titanic museum in Belfast (which I remember being 25 quid for the cheapest ticket to essentially see a couple of films and displays).

Arthur’s new dragon hat
Radio station
Remnants from the night before
The swankiest villa in Heaven, butler and maid included apparently
Sacrifice in action

Living in Beijing. Maths. Physics. Philosophy. Language. Go.

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