Leaving Early, Arriving Late
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 9:09PM 
Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe haze has stopped being polite about it. This morning it sat over the city like a damp tea towel, and I left the house already squinting at the horizon as though that would help. It didn’t. It rarely does.
It was an all-day clinic, which is a phrase that sounds manageable on paper and rather less so by mid-afternoon. The morning was long, not in the dramatic sense, just in the way some mornings stretch out like a queue you can’t see the end of. One person, then the next, then the next. I kept the timer going and it kept me honest, though I suspect even a very good gadget has its limits against a full list.
After the ward round there was a meeting, the kind that begins with everyone agreeing it’ll be quick. I’ve sat through enough of these to know that the word “quick” is purely decorative. Halfway through, I had to excuse myself. Not out of boredom, I should add, though I’d be lying if I said leaving early didn’t carry a small, guilty thrill. There’s something about standing up mid-meeting with a genuine reason that makes you feel briefly like a man in a film with somewhere better to be.
The somewhere better was Le Méridien, for a talk. The drive over was the usual Kuala Lumpur negotiation between optimism and traffic, and the haze gave the whole city a sepia filter nobody asked for.
The speaker had come from Kraków, and the talk was very good. I say that without the usual qualifications. Plenty of talks are fine, informative, competent, the sort you remember for the coffee break. This wasn’t one of those. It was clear, well-paced, and delivered by someone who knew the material well enough not to hide behind the slides. I find that rarer than it should be. Anyone can fill forty minutes. Making them feel like twenty is a craft.
It ran late, as good evenings tend to. By the time I was heading home the day had folded itself into night without my noticing, which is either the sign of a good day or a badly managed one. Possibly both.
The haze had worsened by evening. From the balcony I could see it properly, a thick grey wash across the city, the usual skyline softened into suggestion. Buildings I know are there simply weren’t, or were only half there, like a photograph left too long in the sun. I’ll admit it has a certain eerie beauty, which feels like an inappropriate thing to say about air you’re not meant to breathe. But I stood and looked anyway, for longer than was strictly sensible.
Then I came inside and shut the door. Some views are better appreciated through glass.
It was a long day, though not an unhappy one. Full at both ends, interrupted in the middle, and finished with something worth the effort. I’ll take that, haze and all.
Sunday Talk
I liked to have Sunday afternoons for myself. Either taking my boys out to the park, taking my camera for a spin or just chilling, I prefer to keep it low key.
But sometimes, I had to go out and join the reset of the world. Such occasion was yesterday afternoon.
I will make it a point in the future to politely turn down any invitations for pharmaceutical talks on a Sunday afternoon or evening. Yes, they do provide lunch, and the topic may be interesting and all, but best to leave Sunday alone.
As it happened yesterday, looking around, not many of my senior colleagues were around for the talk. I myself didn't stay for dinner and I promised to take the boys out. I spent the earlier afternoon taking the E-M1 for a quick spin at the Bird Park.
Shame that the topic was quite good ...