REJECT GREED; TREAD LIGHTLY; CARE LOCALLY; RESPECT DIVERSITY ... by Martina Nicolls
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May 2021 Broadcast: Martina Nicolls
MARTINA NICOLLS - NEWS AND UPDATES FOR MAY 2021
Hello,
I'm in Paris. The third COVID-19 pandemic lockdown that began on 18 March 2021 was expected to end on 2 May. President Macron announced at the end of April that lockdown restrictions would now begin from 19 May. Domestic travel can begin from 3 May, and on 19 May non-essential businesses, restaurants and cafes (for outside dining), museums, theatres, cinemas, and sport facilities can re-open. The night curfew of 7:00 pm will be lifted from 9 June to 11:00 pm. This is all provisional though!
I'll be looking forward to mid-May. "She ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside" (Lewis Carroll's 1872 novel "Alice Through the Looking Glass").
Regards, Martina
NEW WEBSITE: A FLOWER EXPECTED EVERYWHERE
This month I launched a new website, based around flowers, with categories such as: flowers, trees, gardens, wildcrafting, floral art, poetry, books, and cafes. And a shop. View the website HERE.
PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO
This month I'm including photographs of flowers. Merchandise with flower photographs can be purchased via the links.
Photograph: Orange Tulips (above). Photograph and merchandise for sale HERE.
Photograph: Red Fuchsia. Photograph and merchandise for sale HERE.
Photograph: Passionfruit Flower. Photograph and merchandise for sale HERE.
More photographs and merchandise are available HERE.
PARIS BLOGS ON MY WEBSITE: THE PARIS RESIDENCES OF JAMES JOYCE The blogs on my website The Paris Residences of James Joyce are under the category Opal Hush, connecting the past to the present, and discovering people and places in Paris. Opal Hush is mentioned in James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses. It's a drink - a quarter of a glass of claret topped with lemonade from a soda siphon. Opals are my favourite gemstone, and hush ... well, it's just a whisper!
Read blog: Cherry blossoms - Paris in the spring time.
Read blog: French architects Lacaton & Vasssal - thoughtful and respectful approach to apartment living.
MY WEBSITE: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
POPULAR BOOK REVIEWS On my blog site, Feast or Famine, I include book reviews, food, photographs, and articles. And photographs of walks around the streets of my current location.
Read book review: The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books by Edward Wilson-Lee
A SIGN OF THE TIMES
"Nobody saw me writing this" - Paris, 21 February 2020
THE PARIS RESIDENCES OF JAMES JOYCE My latest book, The Paris Residences of James Joyce, was released on 1 May 2020. In March 2021, the book was a finalist in the 2021 Book Excellence Awards in the Biography category. To celebrate the book's first anniversary in May and the Book Excellence Award, I had a giveaway competition last month. The 3 winners are: Cathy from Germany, Patrice from Canada, and Colina from America.
WORK PORTFOLIO I've completed two assignments remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. One was an evaluation of USAID's five-year Somalia Alternative Basic Education program, designed to address the needs of nomads and migrating communities, such as pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The second was an evaluation of USAID's six-year Bangladesh Countering Trafficking-in-Persons program to build civil society and government capacity to combat human trafficking, mitigate violations of human rights for labour migrants, and to promote safe migration. I'm currently working on a European Union assignment, under the Support to EU Assistance in the Context of EU External Policies, called Education in Crisis: a diagnosis of the education sector in Lebanon.
Here are two photographs from Beirut, Lebanon, in 2019 during an assignment for UNICEF: a coastal view and Cafe/Bar Cantina. On the table in the cafe was a small bunch of flowers.
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
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