The Infernal Diurnal Journal

 Today I had a wild thought, wildish anyway, with regards to an investment opportunity. As I reflected on my own portfolio, I realise everything that I had touched had basically gone to shit. Especially when I let myself be advised by salaried advisors in banks. This is a miserable bunch who dont know a thing about any asset class and will sell you anything at all to make their sales commission. Now, I wish I could blame it all on them. I have taken  big bets based on what they have put before me and suffered as a result. I did not understand risk properly either. I did not understand structured equity products until I ended up on the losing side myself. Now I understand them better than most people! Similar I bought an insurance product as a potential Annuity- but failed to consider interest rate risk. There is always a catch with these things and it can just make you go from not-much-of -a hero-anyway to positively-a-zero within a heartbeat. There is one exception this. Real...

 Digital Transformation- the seminal buzzword of our times. I can now claim to be in the middle of it, below it and finally above it. In my current role, the supply chain function is undergoing digital transformation so to speak. What does this mean I wonder? Because so many companies are at different stages of transformation. I want to conduct a thought experiment, in the most simplistic terms of what can be called a digital transformation, is it really possible and does it really work. Anyone using an ERP system for running a concern can claim to be somewhat digital. Thereafter, it is  matter of building processes above the ERP that are also automatic, autonomous or semi- autonomous. The sky is the limit of what is possible. But one can go too far. While at Shell, I had the unique advantage of visualizing both extremes. While working a JV in Iraq, I witnessed a palpably manual operation. SAP was implemented but the functionality being used was minimal. Excel sheets were flyi...

 Today Ishan pushed me to attend the Ed Sheeran concert next week-yet again. He was very persistent the first time around in November, when Sheeran's Dubai dates were first announced. I rejected the proposal at first, to which he seemed to be a bit miffed. He went on with a barrage of eloquent eulogies all pertaining to his talent as a solo performer. At the end of his piece, I was intrigued. Maybe it was just me, I thought. Maybe I have been prematurely dismissive. For the next several days, my Spotify was tuned only to Sheeran. I also checked out his YouTube videos- particularly him performing live on guitar. And I am pleased to report that I realised that his music was even more sucky than what I had imagined it to be. I could not sit through one song. There was soppy lyrics, no melody line to speak of, ordinary singing- just overall there was nothing whatsoever to grab my attention. I was far more moved by Maroon 5 or Coldplay- also groups that get the short shrift by Prog love...

This Sunday, I felt a bit better but still essentially a bit woozy- whether from the illness or the antibiotics. A slight discomfort on swallowing meant that my throat was still sore. This has been such a second curse for me- one of two curses. The first, is the fact that I tend to gain weight on my face rather than anywhere else- in the first instance. This makes me incredibly not photogenic 99% of the time. The second is that any viral or bacterial infection loves my throat more than anything. I have a sore throat so often that I am beginning to wonder if I need to really pay some special attention to it. It is particularly embarassing because my voice is affected. I sound different to my work colleagues and they know I am ill. I wish it were not that obvious. Also, there is coughing that tends to happen when it is least required- like in a conversation with an important person. Finally, I cannot hit any notes while singing- the unkindest cut of all. during the Covid years I did not ...

 Kakkar says that the Indian orientation is fundamentally at odds with the Western orientation in that the former believes in some form of spiritual energy that is overarching, pervasive and immanent. This is not all explained by the cold logic that is the mainstay of Western thinking- or rather Western Enlightened thinking, powered as it is by Logic, Rationality and Ideology.  This is why, he believes, that the Western thinkers tend to diss the Guru-Subject relationship within the Hindu tradition with a lot of malevolence. They mock the submissiveness of the subject, although the subject may be wealthy he is always in subservience to this Guru- a mysterious and hairy exhibit that seems to have a charisma- which in the Western thinker's mind, can be compared to the likes of a Rasputin. In general, the subject is mocked at and the object or Guru is vilified.  There are numerous Gurus who turn out to be somewhat Rasputinesque figures, and in remote villages in India, they a...

 I am already a day behind- thanks to the accursed flu. Lest this begins to slip up more, let me try to play catch up. Yesterday I was able to fix my OWNDAYS prescription glasses for no cost. This was a blessing as I really don't like any of my other glasses. Subsequently I went to se Johannes, my South African GP at the Meadows Mediclinic. A short conversation, 50 dirham co payment and a prescription for Antibiotics and I was out of there. The medical insurance provider had changed and so now I apparently needed to pay 30% of the fees of the medicines. As it happened, the pharmacy could not get through properly to my insurance provider and I got fed up and paid 100% of the cost of the medicines. This reminds me , I need to get on my own insurance and not my wife's. I will need to figure out how to change this. Here everything is tied to one's Emirates ID. And  mine was tied to my wife's provider. All in all this type of spouse dependency has decidedly made me a bit cav...

  A thursday which started off normally enough,  but I began to experience fever and dizziness, aside of the throat irritation that has been plaguing me for 2 weeks now. I ended up returning earlier from work- yes it was that bad. When one is ill, like I am, one covets for nothing more than to be healthy and fit. I have missed my excercise routine for several weeks now following travel to India and now again this illness. It is nothing short of morbidly frustrating, I am deeply disturbed by it. Somehow the flu strains are all different now, and the reaction I get is far worse than what I used to get. And these things last so much longer- they just never end. And I start wondering- is this just a new variant of the flu. Or is it a reaction to the Pfizer vaccine which has potentially wreaked havoc on the immune system. One will never know. At the time, was it an option not to take the vaccine, not really. There is so little that we control and so little that we can predict that ...