Skip to content

Ismail Lagardien

in words and images

Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Bookshelf/Reading List
  • The Image
Menu

2022 The Year in 25 Questions and Answers

Posted on 24 December 202224 December 2022 by ilagardien

As a way to reflect on the past year, I copied the marvellous Nafisa Akabor‘s 25 questions. Check out Nafisa’s blog and her work on technology, consumer products and innovations, start-ups, smartphones, mobile payments, travel tech and electric cars.

1. What did you do in 2022 that you’d never done before?

The stand out thing was the book that I published in March. It was a hybrid memoir and commentary that wove in and out of history.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t make new year’s resolutions.

3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?

Probably reading

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Heard about the death of a friend I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years. She was one of the smartest journalists I have known and, well, a long time ago we were close

5. What countries did you visit?

All over Middle East, East and South East Asia.

6. What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?

Nothing different. Good health, shelter, food on the table, and to keep writing.

7. What date from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The day my book was formally launched

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting the first book out of the way

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not being able to fill the hole

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

The usual; bronchitis.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

About 25 books

Some of the books I bought this year

12. Where did most of your money go?

Travel

13. What song will always remind you of 2022?

Christina Perri. A Thousand Years (or Sia’s Unstoppable, because I heard it everywhere I went)

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercise

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worry about financial security

16. What was your favourite TV programme?

Taxi Driver and Stranger, on Netflix.

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No. Warmongers, racists, misogynists, homophobes, fascists and antisemites just will not go away.

18. What was the best book you read?

I started reading Joanne Joseph’s Children of Sugarcane, but had to abandon it when I set off for Asia in the middle of the year.

19. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I rediscovered Erik Satie

20. What was your favourite film of this year?

The Irishman – far and away. Still avoiding cinemas because of Covid.

21. What did you do on your birthday?

Family dinner

22. What kept you sane?

Knowing that I have a fresh start, and another opportunity to live every day

23. Who did you miss?

My Late Mother

24. Who was the best new person you met?

A few… Important, for personal reasons, were Malaysian film-makers and journalists, Sheril A Bustaman and Zan Azlee, film-maker Amir Mohammad, and television exec, Leon Tan (See Zan’s website, FatBidin)

With Zan Azlee at a min film festival of short documentaries. No! We did not coordinate our clothing choices that day. Picture by Sheril A Bustaman.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022.

Not sure … but I have been astounded by kindness and generosity I received over the past two-to-three years. Hard to believe I deserve it.

Finally, I have been listening to podcasts almost daily for at least 12 or 13 years. A highlight of this year has been the Empire Podcast hosted by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple. Twitter @EmpirePodUK While I have listened to and kept most of the Reith Lectures on my phones and computers over the years, and I always enjoyed the BBC’s Thinking Allowed, hosted by Laurie Taylor and Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time, the Empire Podcast has redefined the genre – at least to me it has.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RSS Financial Times

  • Saudi Arabia’s ‘prickly prince’ of oil bristles as crude price slides
  • Indonesia floats Ukraine peace plan, triggering sharp western criticism
  • US and UAE endorse security partnership despite frustrations
  • Hot jobs market piles pressure on Federal Reserve to raise rates later this summer
  • Train crash in India kills more than 200 people

RSS Branko Milanovic Personal Blog

  • “Succession” and the end of the illusion of ethical capitalism
     What “Succession” serves us is the end of the illusion of ethical capitalism. The issues are the same as they appeared in the beginnings of the commercial society, and were discussed by Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith. The question was the following: can the unchecked use of what are conventionally considered vices, namely passions for […]
  • Capitalism unchained
     Krishnan Nayar makes three key points in his recently published Liberal Capitalist Democracy: The God that Failed. First, he argues that bourgeois revolutions frequently failed to lead to democracy, a view strongly embedded in the Anglo-American Whiggish history and in simplified Marxism. Rather they provoked aristocratic reaction and the authoritarian economic developments which in many […]
  • The chronicle of the revolutions foretold?
     For almost two decades, Peter Turchin has been involved, with many colleagues and co-authors, in an epochal project: to figure out, using quantifiable evidence, what are the forces that lead to the rise, and more importantly, to the decline of nations, political turbulence and decay, and revolutions. This has resulted in the creation of an […]
  • On charisma and greyness under communism
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Several years ago in a conversation about politics and history,  a friend asked me something […]
  • Capitalists, the state and globalization
                 “The tendency to create the world market is directly given in a concept of capital itself. Every limit appears as a barrier to be overcome…In accord with this tendency, capital drives beyond national barriers and prejudices as much as beyond nature worship, as well as all traditional, confined, complacent…reproductions of old ways […]

RSS BBC World News

  • India train accident: Modi vows punishments over deadly Odisha crash
  • Three Israeli soldiers killed near Egypt border
  • Eyewitnesses describe pain and agony of India train crash
  • Odisha train accident: 'My mother was missing, I got a picture of the body'
  • Drone footage shows extent of India train crash destruction

RSS Channelnews Asia

  • Swiatek serves up double bagel as Gauff, Rune advance
  • Kremlin bans Western journalists from Russia's 'Davos'
  • Man City's Gundogan scores fastest FA Cup final goal
  • Contra lanes at both land checkpoints should be opened to ease traffic congestion: JB chief minister
  • Ruthless Swiatek dishes out double bagel to Wang

RSS Singapore Straits Times

  • Russia warns United States: Don’t brandish ultimatums on arms control
  • ‘We have no days off’: The non-stop work of Ukrainian air defences
  • Iran says to form naval alliance with Gulf states to ensure regional stability
  • Turkey's Erdogan sworn in for new term as president
  • Experts warn bird flu virus changing rapidly in largest-ever outbreak
  • Ukraine’s Zelensky ‘ready’ for offensive against Russian invasion but fears major casualties
  • UK PM Sunak drawn into feud with predecessor Johnson over Covid-19 inquiry
  • YouTube scraps 2020 US election misinformation policy
  • Village binman helped unearth ancient bronze statues in Tuscany
  • Pope accepts resignation of India bishop accused of rape

RSS Business Times

  • For unlimited leave policies to work in Singapore, culture and managers matter: HR analysts
    THE impact of an unlimited leave policy depends on the company’s work culture and individual managers, particularly as Singapore’s employees tend to underutilise leave, said human resources (HR) practitioners.
  • Decade at the helm: Insead’s longest-serving dean on why businesses must be a force for good
    AFTER ten years at the helm of one of the world’s most famous graduate business schools, Ilian Mihov can be reasonably pleased with the report card he will soon leave behind at Insead.
  • Singapore, Australia to invest A$20 million in new green co-innovation programme for SMEs
    SINGAPORE and Australia will set aside A$20 million (S$17.8 million) for a new programme to drive co-innovation between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from both countries for green products and services.
  • CAG reverses losses to achieve net profit of S$33 million for FY2023
    CHANGI Airport Group (CAG) posted a net profit of S$33 million for the financial year ended Mar 31, 2023 – reversing its S$838 million loss in the previous financial year – on the back of a recovering aviation industry after borders reopened.
  • Daily Debrief: What Happened Today
    Stories you might have missed

RSS The Economist

  • Business
  • Politics
  • KAL’s cartoon
  • This week’s covers
    How we saw the world
  • This week’s covers
    How we saw the world

RSS Malay Mail

  • Patients transferred by stairs in Melaka Hospital due to lift breakdown, says state exco
  • Mata set to woo Haj, umrah pilgrims from China to transit in Malaysia, says president
  • Foreign minister: France’s statement further refutes attempts to challenge Malaysia’s sovereignty 

Tags

architecture Asia black and white book Books Bread Seller business day Cities city colour culture daily maverick DSLR fiction Film food heritage history iPhone iphonephotography Istanbul Johannesburg Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Media Melaka memoir memory Natural Justice Nikon paris photography politics race Reading review Rooibos Sheril Bustaman South Africa sport too white to be coloured to coloured to be black travel Turkey writing Zan Azlee

Categories

  • Architecture (2)
  • Art (9)
  • Asia (10)
  • Astronomy (1)
  • Books (2)
  • Cape Malay (7)
  • Cities (20)
  • City Scapes (1)
  • Cosmology (1)
  • Culture (13)
  • Culture (7)
  • Economics (2)
  • Family (3)
  • Family Roots (8)
  • Film (3)
  • Food (6)
  • Global Finance (1)
  • Heritage (13)
  • Identity (7)
  • Istanbul (2)
  • Istanbul (4)
  • Journalism (2)
  • Makanan (4)
  • Malaysia (14)
  • Melaka (5)
  • Memory (7)
  • On Writing (5)
  • Personal (2)
  • Photography (24)
  • Physics (1)
  • Politics (8)
  • Race (6)
  • Racism (2)
  • Random Shots (9)
  • Review (1)
  • Science (1)
  • Social Justice (3)
  • Social Media (1)
  • Sounds (1)
  • South Africa (3)
  • South East Asia (10)
  • Sport (2)
  • Turkey (4)
  • Uncategorised (1)
  • Vlog (1)
  • War (1)
  • Web Development (1)
  • Western Asia (2)
  • Writing (7)

Archives

  • May 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • December 2012

Categories

  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Asia
  • Astronomy
  • Books
  • Cape Malay
  • Cities
  • City Scapes
  • Cosmology
  • Culture
  • Culture
  • Economics
  • Family
  • Family Roots
  • Film
  • Food
  • Global Finance
  • Heritage
  • Identity
  • Istanbul
  • Istanbul
  • Journalism
  • Makanan
  • Malaysia
  • Melaka
  • Memory
  • On Writing
  • Personal
  • Photography
  • Physics
  • Politics
  • Race
  • Racism
  • Random Shots
  • Review
  • Science
  • Social Justice
  • Social Media
  • Sounds
  • South Africa
  • South East Asia
  • Sport
  • Turkey
  • Uncategorised
  • Vlog
  • War
  • Web Development
  • Western Asia
  • Writing

Anti-G8 and Anti-War Graffiti in Geneva 2003

Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003
Anti-war paint. Geneva 2003

Bastakiya, Dubai 2012

Workers. Heads bowed down in the heat

Verona

© 2023 Ismail Lagardien | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme