The Midlife Log

No Crisis. Just Blog.
The Midlife Log

The Midlife Log

Inauthentitudes

A few years ago, I was on one of my flying visits back home to the UK (I’ve been expat-ing in the Middle East for a while, and a “supply run” was needed at intervals). A distant relative spotted me at a family gathering. We …

The Last Meal

My favourite food critic wrote a book which compiled the varied and strange last meal requests of death row prisoners. It makes me think of an alternative, less macabre, spin on the choice: if you could, from now on, only eat one meal, every day …

Calling It a Day

There’s something very accurate about the expression “calling it a day” when retiring to bed. It means you have to call it, you have to actively decide that enough is enough, the credits are rolling on the movie called My Day, and it is off …

Music Memories

I’m discussing guilty musical pleasures with a work colleague, when she screws her face up. I have just mentioned the group “Il Divo”. “I loved those guys. But I just can’t listen to them any more”, she sighs. She recounts the fateful day when she …

Fusion Delusion

When it comes to dining out, few words stop me in my tracks quicker than “fusion”. For every one innovation in cuisine that fusion has served up into a culinary mainstay, there are fifty examples where it’s just misadventure masquerading as ingenuity. Often I can’t …

Manufacturing Joy

With Valentine’s Day approaching I am reminded of a contrarian comedian who once remarked that he doesn’t “do Valentine’s Day” because his expressions of love are not dictated by a random date on a calendar. I get that.  Sure it’s a bit of fun for …

The Full Statham

This week, Prince William did the deed and unveiled to the world his new buzz cut. As a Royal, the only crown anyone had talked about was his thinning one. So, in a singular act of self-acceptance, he sheared away years of smoke and mirrors …

Couch to 5k, Almost

There are two things, amongst many others, which I consider unnatural. One is flying and the other is running. I don’t believe humans were designed to sit for hours on end in a pressurized aluminum tube at 35,000 feet, slowly ingesting hundreds of other people’s …

I’m Lovin’ IT

I approach the man at the counter. “Three for “IT”, 3:45 showing, please”. My two teenage sons flank me, like youthful bodyguards. We are buying tickets for a newly released horror film based on the Stephen King novel about a demonic clown. I know that …

Perspective

I am sitting with work colleagues at a Turkish restaurant. It’s a team evening out. I endorsed the choice of venue although it’s my first time here. It’s not a well-known eatery but is there anything better than discovering a hidden gem? There were no …

Too Soon?

“Empathy is…the capacity to understand…that someone else’s pain is as meaningful as your own.” Barbara Kingsolver I’m plugged into my laptop, watching one of those comedy specials that Netflix seems to throw out weekly. The stand-up takes aim at the expense of some tragic historical …

The Airport Bibliophile

“The description “airport novel” is mildly pejorative; it implies that the book has little lasting value, and is useful chiefly as an inexpensive form of entertainment during travel.”  Wikipedia There’s something about sitting at an airport, waiting for a flight, that puts me in a …

CantFaceitBook

I wouldn’t even call my Facebook page a Facepamplet page. For a start, there are no faces on it.  I joined at my younger brother’s suggestion (come join the 21st Century bro!) but, having poured the soil into the window box, I never went on …

Memory, Reframed

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” ― Marcel Proust I’m at Madison Square Garden, NYC, watching U2.  Despite being seated in nosebleed territory I have parted with some substantial coinage to be here, having bought from an …

Carpe Momentum (or “The Moment I Realised How To Be In The Moment”)

“You should always be taking pictures, if not with a camera then with your mind. Memories you capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones you pick up by accident.” ― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies Recently my younger brother sent me a picture …