Wagyu, Wagon, and Watching the Semis Take Shape

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoEngland versus Norway called for an early start, and it delivered — a proper quarter-final, the kind that refuses to resolve itself tidily and drags you through extra time before letting anyone breathe out. Bellingham was, once again, the man of the moment, a brace that carried England through to a 2-1 win, the second goal arriving deep into extra time when the whole thing looked like it might crawl towards penalties. Haaland, by contrast, had one of those days that happens to even the best of them — quiet, contained, never quite finding the space he's spent the tournament living in. England through to the semis. Norway home with their heads held reasonably high, having gone rather further than anyone expected of them this time last month.

Ward round followed straight after, conducted with one eye on proceedings elsewhere, as Argentina and Switzerland were doing their own version of the same drama in Kansas City. Extra time again, a Julián Álvarez strike from distance eventually settling it, Argentina through 3-1 and now lined up against England in the semis — which means Wednesday just became rather significant viewing.

Lunch was the day's proper centrepiece: Bendang KL, a first visit, tucked into Kampung Baru in a way that made the whole outing feel slightly like a discovery. We'd booked ahead and arrived early, which turned out to be the right instinct entirely — by the time we left, the place had filled up considerably, queues forming at the door for a table we'd had the good sense to claim in advance. Mak joined us, the lunch doubling as a proper extension of the birthday celebrations, and the food more than justified the trip — good service too, attentive without hovering, the sort of lunch that makes you wonder why you hadn't been before.

From there, a change of pace entirely: Mid Valley, and the ongoing saga of Irfan's phone situation, which finally resolved itself with his old SIM card reactivated and back in service. Not the most glamorous stretch of the day, but satisfying in its own small, administrative way — one of those loose threads finally tied off.

Dinner at home rounded things out gently: a beef carpaccio salad, light and unfussy, exactly the sort of thing an evening asks for after a day that had already delivered its fair share of drama, both culinary and footballing. Two extra-time quarter-finals, a new restaurant discovery, a resolved SIM card, and a semi-final now looming on the horizon — not a bad haul for a Saturday, all told.

Desk, Wagyu, and a Small Victory of Timing

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe morning began the way most working mornings do — early, purposeful, ward round first before the rest of the world had properly stirred. This one came with a slightly unusual travelling companion: Irfan's Jellycat, smuggled along to the clinic for no better reason than birthday afterglow, sitting somewhere near my desk like a small soft-furred colleague who contributes nothing but morale. It did its job admirably.

The rest of the working day settled into its familiar shape — behind the desk, steady and unremarkable, the sort of stretch that doesn't ask to be remembered so much as simply got through. Straight through to the afternoon, no great drama, just the quiet accumulation of tasks ticked off one after another.

Lunch, though, was the day properly announcing itself. Kyomo, and wagyu yakiniku that did exactly what good yakiniku ought to — arriving in modest portions and somehow still managing to feel generous, each piece better than the last. Irfan went the sensible route with a kale salad, presumably atoning in advance for whatever excess the rest of us were about to commit. The kimchi tray deserves its own mention, genuinely excellent, sharp and well-balanced in a way that elevated everything around it rather than simply sitting there as garnish. A properly good lunch, the sort that leaves you slightly regretful about the afternoon's remaining commitments, except today there weren't many, which made the whole thing feel entirely without consequence.

From there, a change of register entirely — the pasar malam, all noise and steam and the particular chaos that only a good night market can produce. Otak-otak first, that smoky, wrapped little parcel of a thing that never quite photographs as well as it tastes, followed by nasi lemak, because no proper night market visit really concludes without it. Street food after fine dining is an odd sort of whiplash, but a welcome one — the day covering an impressive amount of culinary ground without ever feeling indulgent for its own sake.

Altogether, a genuinely good day, the sort that doesn't announce itself as special in advance but adds up nicely in the retelling. Wagyu at lunch, otak-otak by evening, a plush bystander watching over the desk in between — not a bad spread for a Wednesday, or whichever day this technically was.

Early to bed regardless, with England kicking off the next morning and no intention of missing it groggy. Some things are worth protecting a night's sleep for, and a quarter-final is squarely one of them.

A Justified Kind of Tired

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere's tired, and then there's the specific, self-inflicted tired that comes from staying up for a football match that actually delivers. England's win last night falls firmly into the latter category — the sort of fatigue you carry around today almost proudly, like a badge you'd earn again given the choice. Worth it, in other words. The bill has simply come due rather sooner than one would like, payable in heavy eyelids and a general sense of moving through syrup.

Knowing the day would need a bit of managing, I skipped the drive in altogether. A physio appointment sat in the afternoon calendar, which meant navigating across town at some point regardless, so I called a Grab instead and let someone else absorb the burden of Kuala Lumpur traffic. A decision that looked cleverer by the minute — the roads were jammed solid in that particular mid-week way that makes you wonder whether everyone in the Klang Valley had the same idea to go somewhere at once. Watching it all crawl past from the back seat, phone in hand, felt very much like the correct choice rather than the lazy one, whatever the difference actually is.

Lunch was dim sum, which is one of those meals that asks very little of you beyond turning up with an appetite and letting the trolleys do the rest. Small plates, steady grazing, no great decisions required — precisely the register a sleep-deprived body wants from a midday meal. There's a gentle sociability to it too, everyone reaching and sharing and topping up the tea, that suits a slower kind of day rather well.

From there it was off to Kota Damansara for the physio session, and the place turned out to be doing a roaring trade — packed to the point where finding anywhere to park became its own small expedition. A minor comedy of circling the block, weighing up increasingly dubious spots, before eventually accepting defeat and improvising. Small mercies that I wasn't driving my own car through that particular scrum; Grab earned its keep twice over today.

The appointment itself did what these things do — a bit of prodding, a bit of stretching, the usual professional interrogation of which bits complain and which stay quiet. Nothing dramatic, just the ongoing maintenance work that a body accumulates a need for over time, rather like a house that needs the odd wall re-plastered.

With the day's obligations dispensed with earlier than expected, I found myself home well ahead of the usual hour, which after last night's late kickoff felt like a rare and welcome gift. Dinner came early too, eaten at a civilised time for once rather than negotiated around whatever the evening had left standing.

The rest of the night went to catching up on football news — reading round the matches I'd missed, the reactions, the inevitable inquests into performances both heroic and hapless. A tournament like this rewards a bit of idle scrolling, piecing together the wider picture from headlines and highlights rather than watching every kick live. A quieter way to stay involved, and rather kinder to the eyelids after the exertions of the night before.

Halfway, and Slightly Behind

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoAnd here we are in July, which means the year has quietly folded itself in half while I wasn't paying attention. I could have sworn 2026 arrived only yesterday, still creaking with resolutions and good intentions, and yet somehow six months have slipped past like coins through a hole in a coat pocket. There's a particular vertigo to reaching the midpoint of a year — the sense that the ledger is now half-spent and the columns don't quite balance. Time to get things moving faster, I keep telling myself, though telling oneself is rarely the same as doing.

It was, ironically, a slow day that gave me the room to think all this. There's a certain kind of quiet that doesn't soothe so much as prompt — the mind, given a little slack, immediately wanders off to audit itself. Not unpleasant, exactly. Just a reminder that stillness and ease are not always the same thing.

The middle of the day was given over to a lunch meeting with a pharmaceutical rep, that peculiar genre of appointment where the food is generally better than the conversation demands and the pitch arrives somewhere between the mains and the coffee. Pleasant enough, and mercifully unhurried.

The afternoon clinic, however, had other ideas. What began as a manageable list stretched well past its expected borders, helped along by a couple of emergency admissions that arrived without appointment or apology, as emergencies tend to. There's no arguing with the genuinely urgent — you simply rearrange yourself around it and get on. So I finished considerably later than planned, the afternoon having quietly consumed the early evening before I noticed it was gone.

Still, I made it back in time for dinner, which after a day like that feels like a small negotiated victory. There's a great deal to be said for arriving home while the table still means something.

Then came the evening's great moral test. My Oura ring — that small, well-meaning tyrant on my finger — has been increasingly pointed in its counsel, nudging me nightly toward the radical proposition of proper sleep. It has a case. It usually does. Unfortunately, England were kicking off at midnight, and no wearable device yet invented can compete with the pull of a knockout tie at an unreasonable hour.

They made me suffer for it, too. DR Congo led early and held that lead with alarming conviction, until Harry Kane finally remembered his job description and scored twice in the closing stretch to drag England through, 2-1. A nervy, unconvincing sort of win — the kind that gets you into the next round and precisely nowhere in the estimation of anyone watching. Mexico await, apparently. I'll worry about that later.

For now, I've made my choice, and the ring will note it disapprovingly in the morning. Tomorrow I shall suffer — bleary, under-slept, and entirely without regret. Some bargains are worth the interest. This, I suspect, was one of them, though I reserve the right to revise that opinion at around six a.m.

A Day Measured in Fares

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSome days announce their length early, and this was one of them. It began, as the busier ones tend to, with rounds — the steady morning ritual of working through the ward, that unhurried procession of names and notes that grounds a day before it has a chance to run away. I moved through it knowing the rest of the morning had other places to be.

From there the city took over. A Grab across town to Hospital Ampang, that particular Klang Valley experience of watching your estimated arrival time negotiate quietly with the traffic and losing. The occasion was the launch of the new CPG — one of those events that exists somewhere between ceremony and admin, equal parts polite applause and genuine usefulness. There's a satisfaction in seeing one of these things finally put down on paper and sent out into the world; a great deal of patient work goes into a document most people will only ever skim.

Lunch followed, and then I dropped by Jerome's office — the kind of unscheduled detour that turns a working day into something more companionable. A conversation here, a familiar face there, the small social mortar that holds the professional bricks together.

And then the long crawl back to SJMC, which is where the day presented its bill in the most literal sense. Sixty ringgit. I sat in the back doing the arithmetic of distance against fare and arrived only at a quiet resignation. Surge pricing has a way of finding you precisely when the city is at its most congested and you are at your least patient. I paid it, of course. One always does. But I noted it, the way you note a small injustice you've no intention of contesting.

Home, mercifully, came early — early enough for a proper sit-down dinner rather than the rushed, standing-over-the-counter affair that long days usually produce. There is a particular pleasure in an early dinner after a day spent ricocheting across the city: the food unhurried, the chair welcome, the sense of the day finally consenting to slow down.

The evening, though, still had one thing left to offer. I settled in to listen to a talk by Elias Jabbour, over from MD Anderson, with Jerome in the chair — the same Jerome whose office I'd lingered in hours earlier, now presiding from a stage. Jabbour is the sort of speaker who makes a complicated thing sound almost conversational, and there's a quiet luxury in being able to take it in from the comfort of home rather than a conference hall's unforgiving chairs. I listened with the contented attention of a man who has done his travelling for the day and intends to do no more of it.

A long day, then, and a crisscrossed one — measured out in fares and finished, fittingly, with someone else doing the talking. I was happy enough to sit and absorb, the city's traffic safely on the other side of the window.