The Lady Ran

It all seems banal and benign enough. I’ve to walk briskly and run at two stretches, back and forth seven times, 420 metres each time, for a total distance of roughly three km. Three km. I’ve been running 10 km every evening back home. This is going to be a cakewalk.

The lady ran. Her baby cried, and cried incessantly. He’s thirsty. Water, where’s water. She must find water for the infant Ismail. The blazing sun and the burning sand conspired as the smell of death overwhelmed any prospect of water. Oh God, is this Your test? Gripped by panic and fear, she ran frantically back and forth, in search of water.

I walked and trotted and walked, hardly ruffled. The first leg was a breeze. But as I pressed on through the throng, my fertile mind began to conjure up visions and questions. Images of the stricken lady appeared in flashes, panic and fear in her eyes! How could I not feel for her. What if it’s my wife and my baby? Or my mother and the infant me? What's supposed to be a routine reenactment of the lady's frantic runs turned into a poignant walk of poetic proportions. My proud 10 km run is absolutely, utterly poor and pointless compared to the lady’s flailing run. God, this is all so humbling. After the third turn, the man and the wall in me simply cracked and caved in. I broke, choked and….

Back from Hajj. Still thinking of the sai'e. Just can't get over it.

Tests and Testosterone

I'd always consider myself a bit of an oddity and an outlier among the Tiger Lane brethren on at least one count: my youngest is in primary school, and her sister in lower secondary. Sarah is sitting for UPSR this year and Aida PMR. My classmates, by and large, are way past this fun and festive period. Some are passionately engaged in sports. Not golf, the slow-blow sport, but the high-energy types like football and the hurdles, all at a tender age of 57. But most are now busy marrying off grown-up sons and daughters. One was so busy that he married off three sons at one go! A novel and original solution to a perennial logistical problem. Another one went one better when he married himself off. He'd apparently found a solution to all problems(or was it the mother of all problems?) Oh, a couple of guys in our ranks are still on diaper duty, an outcome of yet another high-octane activity. Don’t beat yourself up just yet because it's not level playing field, if you know what I mean.

Pushing sixty with my over-run, skinhead persona, I'd easily pass for one of those grandfather-rappers in cargo pants waiting for their teenage charges outside the school gate. That's alright with me. I feel young and healthy because of them. It's payback time of sorts, as they'd been left to fend for themselves when I was deep in corporate hellhole. My retirement couldn't have been more opportune, just in time to prepare them for their exams. My ambition now is to transform them into near-geniuses, good enough for Princeton, and, who knows, one of them might even end up marrying a President or Prime Minister! Sorry, bad joke. I know you can take the whole range of jokes. I had plenty during my school days. Food jokes, HM-with-Kedah-accent jokes, Sekolah Izzuddin Shah Ipoh (SISI) jokes. My physics and chemistry grades were best-kept jokes. My good friend Azlan and his posse of prefects were, by default and design, a fertile and steady source of jokes.

Sorry for the digression. Back to the serious subject of my girls and their tests. It’s like a huge proverbial monkey off my back when the exams were finally done and dusted. There's no UPSR or a similar test during my time. But I remember LCE, a PMR equivalent. I’d thought LCE was tougher because it’s in staid English but I quickly changed my mind when I read Aida’s textbooks and was stumped by the plethora of strange and even fancy Malay words and terms like nyah tinja and pasangan tertib. Until this day my parents didn’t know that I’d sat for LCE. It’s definitely a world of difference between my parents and my girls' parents. I know my girls’ exam timetables. I feed up my girls with brain nutrients like double cheeseburgers. But this attack of awareness isn’t necessarily laudable. Why? Because I’ve to also fork out something like RM500 a month for their tuition, that’s why. Outsourcing of tuition is tragic because teaching is a huge missed opportunity for paternal bonding and learning. But I can't do it myself. Malay as a learning language has developed beyond recognition, and I've to unlearn, learn and relearn if I want to teach the girls any subject. To prove this point, let's attempt Question 5 of the recent PMR BM Paper 1, which had me flailing and flagging in despair. (This is an actual question, not a prefect joke):

Question: Zulkifli berasa.....................apabila melihat Zaleha yang disangkanya telah meninggal dunia muncul secara tiba-tiba di hadapannya.

Answer: A. kaget B. takjub C. kagum D. pelik

Be very afraid. This is figurative and literal Bean. Aida checked D and was roundly roasted because, according to her teachers, the right answer was A. kaget. Aida’s mum was furious because kaget wasn’t even Malay. It's Indonesian and probably illegal, just like cewek and cowok. It's hard to argue because she'd been watching all those serials. This Malay mayhem, for some reason, reminds me of my former HM, (Datuk)Mohd Khalid Halim. Long on passion but short on patience, he spoke Malay or English with a thick Kedah accent which got thicker when he lost his temper and turned physical. I always thought his grasp of the Malay language was kind of suspect, which makes me wonder how would he handle this question. And how would he handle (or manhandle) the person who wrote the question, if he ever gets to meet him. For an average and active Kelantanese, I’d rate my Malay as excellent. In my mind all the above answers are, technically, fine. But takut would be the best answer in the context but somehow it’s not there. Sending my girls to tuition is a right decision. Fire must be fought with fire.

Apart from the colourful Malay language, there are other glaring differences between my LCE experience at Tiger Lane (a residential school) and Aida’s PMR experience at a humble daily school close to home. For starters, she doesn’t have to attend evening preps in sarong like I did. She steps out for tuition in whatever fashion she fancies. She eats any time she feels like eating while I had to wait for the sweet ritual ring of the bell three times a day. What does she eat? KFC, McD and all the juicy stuff while I’d to contend with the unbranded and scary stuff prepared by the cooks and spooks in the kitchen. I’ll skip the taste comparison. Finally what comes between Aida and a possible straight-A performance is the three main sources of distraction: Facebook, Astro and Lady Gaga. While my only distraction was the prefects, but there’re thirty of them! The upshot of all this is that Aida’s better prepared and conditioned for the exam compared to her dally daddy. So there’s no reason for her not to outperform him. I’ll update you on this once her PMR results are in.

Exams are an obsession and a big industry now. Parents rudely confront teachers for a slight slip in their children's midterms. Lady teachers retire early to open money-spinning tuition centres. Fathers go back early to send children to these tuition centres. Mothers cook early to feed children before their tuition. Perhaps this exam sub-culture and mindset that's bothering the fair-minded people at the Ministry of Education (MOE). A proposal to scrap UPSR and PMR had been floated for years, and recently it took a serious turn when people from all corners of life (only Nepalese security guards and illegal immigrants were excluded) were solicited for ideas and feedback. Why ditch these exams? Well, according to the hard-thinking MOE people, exams breed rote learning and stifle creativity and thinking skills among students. If you asked me, I'd be more worried if there’s lack of creativity and thinking skills among teachers, what with all the telltale signs like the above PMR question. (Don't worry if you don't know what rote learning is. Neither do I. But it sounds bad, so it must be bad). The education minister finally announced in Sydney on 9 October that UPSR would stay with a new format, while PMR would be replaced by a school-based assessment beginning 2016. My immediate and two-sen response to this was, why Australia?

What exactly is this school-based assessment? I’m not supposed to think because I’m fully retired. So your guess is better than mine. It’s still a long way from now to 2016. In this age of internet chatting and blogging, it’s an eternity. So expect another flip-flop and volte-face. Remember cluster schools? Maths and science in English? Moving SPM grades from A1 to 1A to A+? And back to vocational schools? Scrapping public exams is never a good idea, not for the reasons cited at least. I'm not sure about your girls, but my two girls won't open their books without strong, hard-hitting reasons like UPSR and PMR. School exams, mid-term or end-year, are right behind You Tube in priority and urgency. There's already so much distraction in their lives, why take away the one denominator that's keeping all our children on a straight line?

Sensing the fragility of this issue, the MOE showed off their thinking skills by proclaiming that public exams are costly. Without the exams, the government will save hundreds of millions ringgit (they forgot to mention my good RM500/month). This suggestion smacks of desperation because it doesn’t quite add up. If the government really wants to save, the better option is to do away with schools, teachers, free text books, students and, laugh with me, the MOE. This will encourage thinking skills. Our thinking skills. Because now we’ve to figure out how to educate our girls.

Malaysia and Indonesia: A groovy kind of love

They're at it again. Screaming down and roughing up the Malaysian Embassy, threatening to root out every Malaysian in Jakarta, and prepping up for all-out war. It's all too familiar. We've seen this many times before, only the scale of frenzy and fury now is more frightening. There's so much hate and spite on display. Fiery faces and filthy faeces, graphic and shocking even by Indonesian standards. You just wonder what can be worse than this.

For all the crush-Malaysia hysterics, I've always had a soft spot for Indonesia. Some of my good friends are Indonesians. I don't mean my contractor or plumber, although they're good friends too. What I mean is friends in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan, places that I used to ply my trade during my final years with Petronas. People like Mariezka, Rifki, Faisal, Ahmad Bambang, Darius, Hanung, Muid, Yoko, Djoko, Koko, Desrial, Bayu, Wisnu, Adi Subagio, Hidayat, Ibu Nina, Haris, just to name a few that I can spell with confidence. I can't for a second imagine any of them among the crowd, burning Malaysian flags and shouting 'Ganyang Malaysia!'

Vini, Vedi, Vici

My Indonesia inroads began in early 2004. The Indonesia oil market had just been liberalized to allow entry of foreign players, and I went there specifically to start a petrol retailing business. We're all game and gung-ho, relishing the prospect of building the first Petronas service station in Indonesia. If we can build in Banding, we can build in Bandung. On personal level, it's a rare opportunity of making a difference, to the company and the country (really? Cemerlang, gemilang, terbilang?) Well, nothing like climbing the Everest or the outer space, of course. The task seemed simple enough, until I realized that we're in Indonesia, not Indiana. The whole country was a huge project in progress, nothing was in place except bureaucrats and backhanders. How do you break Pertamina's hundred years of firm monopoly? How do you ride against the torrent of deep nationalism and cultural barriers? Suddenly it's beginning to look like the Everest.

The first day at Petronas office at Bapindo Plaza in Jakarta feels like yesterday. I was together with Husnin and Hilmi from KL on this project, and we're received by a youngish President Director named Faris (not an Indon, but as close as you can get since he's from Batu Pahat), and he introduced us to a young Indonesian lady named Mariezka. Nothing spectacular except for the short and strange name, probably meaningless, too. "Mariezka will help you out with your work in Jakarta". Husnin and I had between us about 50 years of retail business experience, and this girl was going to help us ! Faris must be stoned or something. We sat down for a lengthy but rather casual business discussion and, in the thick of it all, Mariezka's more personal details inevitably trickled out. She's from Bangka island, single and, you've to believe this, she's an engineering graduate. I could sense an air of nonchalance despite her sketchy working experience. We're clearly unimpressed. She could be a model from Mongolia or butcher from Baghdad for all I cared. We're on a serious project here. A national interest was at stake.

The going was rough initially because we're in Indonesia (not Indiana). We're at a loss, moving in fits and starts. We gate-crashed the oil and gas directorate (Migas) every Monday morning and met different people each time. Migas changed the ground rules and goal posts every other week. Datuk Anuar (Oil Business VP and project champion) was on my back all the time and his mind was all made up. He wanted a petrol station in two weeks. And beat Shell to it for good measure. Yet I was extremely cautious, circumspect at every turn, erring on the side of right rather than speed. In hindsight, it's a wise decision not to remind him that we're in Indonesia, not Indiana. He's a rugby player and you wouldn't want him to get physical. As laboured on, it finally dawned on my senses that the engineer from Bangka wasn't just helpful. She's indispensable. Indonesia was crawling with cronies and talented showmen, but she's always one step ahead. I could see that the men fell quite easily for her easy and disarming demeanour and finesse. Just right, not less, not more. She could break and melt even the toughest and wackiest anti-Malaysia nut among the 230 million Indonesians. We finally secured our license, a piece of land and a supply storage to start our business. I could see Mariezka's deft touches all over. And what a reversal, because I've to bite the bullet and admit here that I learned a lot from her. Did she learn anything from me? Yes, a few Kelantanese words.

We operated our first service station, in Cibubur, just outside Jakarta, in December 2005, almost two years after my first trip to Jakarta, and two months after Shell. The station location was a marketing tour de force: President Susilo (SBY) had to pass our bright and beautiful station every time he went back to his home in Cibubur. Nobody knew whether he's inspired or insulted. Probably a bit of both. Even after so many years, I still choked every time I passed that station.

Jakarta jokes

I finally lost count of the trips I made to Jakarta. But I still remember that, into my third month, the Grand Hyatt staff began to address me as Datuk, and despite my (feeble) attempt to discourage them, it stuck until my last trip in 2009. I didn't bother to find out which bellboy started it, but I figured if they're happy to address me that way, why upset them. After all I didn't have to pay a single rupiah extra. So whenever my champion Datuk Anuar visited Jakarta and put up at the hotel, I kept a safe distance, just in case. Rugby player, remember?

The key success factor in Indonesia business is chumming up with as many people as you can, learning their full names, nicknames, phone numbers, karaoke numbers and so on. It's easy to mix up names. Djoko, Yoko, Koko. Matching names with the right persons was an art. I perfected it by loudly chanting the names using the technique developed by the world-famous Gregorian monks. I've met and dealt with easily more than a hundred different Indonesians over the period, and more often than not things didn't go my way. (I could repeat that Indonesia/Indiana routine, but is enough is enough). But I'd be hard pressed to find even one time when I felt offended. They're nice to the bone. Their yes and no were doublespoken in the same pitch, tone and face that by the time I realized they'd rejected my proposal, it's already too late.


There's a lot to learn from each other if we're not too engrossed in self-delusion. For starters, Malaysians are generally serious and surly, talk in one flat tone, and turn to reckless driving and illegal parking to beat the boredom. Indonesians are a more gregarious and happier lot with loads of good humour. Every one of them can sing and joke better than Mawi any day. Their language skills often left me short of breath. We should thank the Indonesians for enriching the Malay language. Think cewek, keren, cekep, gedek, ganteng, kangen, sirsak. Their ministers mostly speak without texts, not only because of their verbal mastery but also because they know what they're talking about. I couldn't help but admire how those guys talked with their bosses. No fear, no barrier. Humble, amiable and mutually respectful, with plenty of human face. Our excuse is that they don't get much done or done fast. That's fake and fictitious. What can be bad about greater appreciation and understanding of fellow human beings?

You wouldn't believe some of the jokes that were making the rounds in Jakarta. When Transparency International (TI)'s 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index placed Indonesia at 137 out of 159 countries, my Indonesian friends laughed it away, claiming that Indonesia had paid off TI to be at 137; they're actually last. At the height of the Ambalat and Sipadan crisis in 2004, Pak Faisal warned me they're rallying to crush Malaysia and save Siti Nurhaliza.

Now into my second year of retirement, I'm still in touch with my good and happy friends in Pertamina and Migas. We still meet and joke whenever they're in KL.

Waiting for Pak Dokter

So the ugly and shameful scenes of seige at the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta always leave me with a sharp sense of contrasts and contradictions. How do I reconcile all this with those hearty sop bontot dinners with with Pak Rifki and Pertamina guys? Or Mariezka's little help with our first petrol station in Indonesia? Or that Datukship from Grand Hyatt? It's easy to pass it for aberrant behaviour, roguish nationalist streak or paid theatrics by a road-rioting minority. Or even easier to blame the loose and lewd media and the spin-doctors for demonizing Malaysia and whipping up belligerent sentiments. It's a convenient diplomatic cover, of course. All credit to both governments for their measured and balanced response to the whole episode. But like all bad movies, there'll be sequels, remakes and repeats. We all know that there's more to all this than meets the eye. The root runs deeper and borders on the psyche. Sibling rivalry? Lovers' spat? Othello Syndrome? Superiority complex? Oedipus complex? Complex complex? Who knows.

Pak Dokter should know. He's my former dorm-mate Dr Fadzil Man, now known as Pak Dokter among serious and hilarious golf tourists in Indonesia. He's a debonair doctor and practising psychiatrist who plays golf in Bogor and Bandung, so he's well-placed to know a thing or two about the inner mind of the Indonesians. In the 60's Indonesia was far ahead of us. Malaysian students went to Bandung to study engineering because UPM somehow had only animal husbandry programs. In its early years Petronas went to Jakarta to learn oil trade and tricks from Pertamina. So much has changed. In August this year Newsweek's "Best Country" ranking had Malaysia at 37th and Indonesia a distant 73rd. More than a million Indonesians are in Malaysia now, and they're not here to study animal husbandry.

My dorm mate's explanation, when it finally comes, will be articulate and enlightening. He's the finest debater in Tiger Lane. But whatever his theory might be, it'll be too bullish to expect Malaysia-bashing to stop for good any time soon. There's simply so much freedom and room to express and protest in Indonesia, and it came right after long years of draconian rule. And we also know that freedom and unemployment are a potent concoction. Demonstrating is a full-time and gainful job in Jakarta. The Indonesians need more time to get used to the new-found riches and trappings of openness before allowing good sense, self-restraint and level head to prevail. But I promise you Indonesia is a living, functioning and vibrant economy and democracy. Randy investors are descending on Indonesia in droves while we in Malaysia are struggling with race relations and baby dumping. It's growing fast and it's only a matter of time before protesting and demonstrating becomes a dead industry. It won't happen next year, but it will. For now what should we do? Stay cool. Let's not give them a reason to rage. Don't touch the maid.


We opened a station in Bandung in 2008 (I thought you might be interested).

Mindless Miscellany (No 6)

What's become of the world we've known so well? From sand pumping to baby dumping, the mindless are having a dandy time. Why this sudden spate of the cruel and unusual? Lack of the mind-building Omega 3 with the higher price of egg and fish? Whatever's the reason, it'll get only lower just when you think it's hit the pits.

1.Dump, baby, dump.

Fashion is back in fashion. In Malaysia all things worse than bad happen in series, with increasing intensity. The first one will almost always set a benchmark for followers to up the ante. Religious deviants, maid abuses, school gangsters, bogus doctors, missing children, you name it. And now baby dumping. Bumping off babies is fast becoming a trend, if it's not already. A day hardly passed without somebody stumbling on a foetus somewhere. The relevant and irrelevant authorities were all at sea with this spike in the ranks of the insane adolescents. PAS blamed Valentine Day and New Year tender moments. A sharp deduction by the clerics, who're clearly working without the benefit of a CSI-class paraphernalia. The NGOs called for early sex education. Lucky thing we've a Cabinet of sensitive and sensible ministers who decided on the shock-and-awe route: reclassify baby dumping as murder. NGOs, being what they are, were up in arms and lambasted Bung Mokhtar (although he's not in the Cabinet and he'd not dumped anything yet, but who cares). They still wanted early sex education, now even earlier, like pre-school. But all the clever ministers and feisty activists missed one important point, that baby dumping is just a trend. More of a fashion. The obvious solution is to stop this trend on its tracks. Make the fashion obsolete. How? Do nothing, that's how. I mean stop publicizing or sensationalizing any new foetus found. No news, no details, no graphic footage. Total blackout. The police would still investigate and lock up the suspect longer, but without scripted and staid press conferences or media releases. Any baby-dumping aspirant will now be completely demotivated as the message crosses his/her brainless head: that nobody dumps babies anymore, baby dumping is out of date, it's no longer hip to hate babies. Dump is dumb. This way, the Valentine or New Year love child will get to see the light of day.

2. Titanic traffic in monotone

The 10-day, 100 km monster traffic jam on a highway leading to Beijing finally ended on 25 August. At its height cars moved at a speed of 1 km in one whole day. A well-fed tortoise can cover four times longer in one day, if the poor guy can last that long in open Chinese roads full of exotic-meat lovers. Homesick Kelantanese who fret annually about 15-hr trips back home for Hari Raya should be thankful that their hometown isn't Beijing or near Beijing. You lucky people. I've my daily dose of traffic jam sending Sarah to school in the morning. I don't mind the full 20 -minute commute especially with the radio on. Until lately. You turn on the radio, and there he is: Dato' Seri Utama Rais Yatim on the air, extolling the virtues of jalur gemilang, adat perpatih and gotong royong in a dragging, archaic and utterly incomprehensible Malay. Imagine if I've to listen to his monotone for 10 straight days on the road to Beijing! All in all, we KL road users can pretty much consider ourselves a pampered lot. Only one or two-hour jams, not ten days. Idris Jala and his transformers should find this handy when they're up for another round of scare-mongering.

3. King Kong vs Mickey Mouse

Football again. But don't skip this one. Deep in debts and spurned by all genuine investors and Nigerian scammers, Liverpool has yet to get around its swaggering and blue-blooded ways. Ahead of the match against moneyed Manchester City, a senior Liverpool figure likened it to King Kong vs Mickey Mouse. He went on further to suggest that the City Sheikh should've waited and bought Liverpool instead. In the Liverpool hierarchy of lamebrains, this guy is right at the very top. Mr Lamebrain, the Sheikh is uber-rich, and if he actually wanted to buy Liverpool he'd have bought Liverpool (and get rid of you) whether or not it's available. He could've bought Barcelona or the entire Catalonia if he wanted to. The Sheikh bought Manchester City because he wanted Manchester City. That simple. He didn't want to buy a big, boring club and turn it into a big, boring club. No fun. He's looking for the adventure and romance of turning a richly talented team into world beaters. RM and MU should be afraid. Liverpool? Never mind.

Oh, that match. I think you know the score.

4. Papa and mama, don't preach

Just be careful about what you preach these days. There's plenty of furor already over the off-the-wall khutbah at two mosques in Penang and the alleged racist-slanted speech by a runaway school principal. I was genuinely amused because I like jokes, especially the MAD Magazine variety. But once I regained my sense and sensibilities, I tried to make sense of each of these separate but subtly similar cases and keep it in proportion. A confused and lovesick khatib? Political conspiracy, as usual? I'm not sure what to make of it. But police has ruled out humour as a motive and floated the Sedition Act instead. Scary stuff. And that power speech, if the principal's objective was to find instant fame, she'd succeeded spectacularly judging from the speed and intensity of the brickbats. I wouldn't add anything to her strong views, but I like her literary and euphemistic expression. She writes poems?

This is our City

The new English Premier League (EPL) Season kicked off yesterday with the usual hooha and hoopla. EPL may not be the sexiest of the football leagues, but it's by far the most widely watched, thanks to clever marketing, extortionate merchandising and disguised human trafficking. In Malaysia, EPL has more followers and fan clubs than the sickly Liga Super and Liga Premier combined. For all the talk and walk, our PM has admitted that he's a hard-core fan of Manchester United instead of Felda United.

An EPL season consists of 1000 games or about 2000 hours of football, excluding cup contests, injury time, repeat telecasts and repeat injuries. Games are generally played at breakneck pace, and any talented teenage upstart can consider himself truly gifted if he can complete the season in one piece, with no bones broken by attack dogs like Vidic and Neville. Most of you, if not all, will watch most of the live games, if not all (Only a retiree can come up with loony lines like this). And most of you, like our PM, have a team or two that you like or like to hate. My unscientific research has unearthed a clear, racially polarized trend: Malays watch only Manchester United, Indians would die for Liverpool but not for Samy Vellu, and Shebby Singh supports Spurs. Malays and Indians (and rest of the world) tend to avoid Bolton Wanderers. Chinese? Illegal betting. Mind you, these are just statistical means or averages. There are outliers or exceptions, of course, who still support Kelantan etc. Since I've got all covered, there's no real urgency to argue with me on the validity of these findings.

So which team tugs at your heart-strings? Man U and Liverpool, you say. So passe, so yesterday, so Melayu. Best is dead, Beckham has left and Giggs is hitting 36 and you're still strung-out on them. That's still Ok compared to my Tiger Lane classmates. They went to England for studies in the 70's and ended up cheering Southampton and Brighton (both now in League 1, a glorified English 3rd Division). They still do, in the closet.

So which is the team of today? It's Manchester. Manchester City. Unlike its tired and debt-ridden neighbour United, City is a gust of fresh air. It's a modern and cosmopolitan football club crawling with new-age, smooth-looking internationals like Hart, Johnson, Tevez, Boateng and Balotelli who will set your pulse racing. (Ok, Tevez does have some rough edges)

If that's not inspiring enough, how about this: Manchester City is now owned by a Muslim moneybags from Abu Dhabi, not 10%, not 50%, but full, 100%. Impatient and ambitious, he's already invested more than 200 million pounds (money, not weight) on new players. You can only guess how much is that money worth in Kelantan Gold Dinar. The Sheikh's noble mission is to break the monotony and stranglehold of the CLAM cartel (Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, MU), and turn City into something bigger than Barca plus Real. It's a serious and sensible business proposition any day. Instead it's drawn an unprecedented level of envy and anger and expletives. About everyone outside the City of Manchester Stadium and across Europe just wants City to implode and flounder. Including, ironically, that balding, stammering and irritating former and failed City player Steve McMahon. Why is it not right for somebody with the right cashflow to invest bigtime in City when it's OK for the Americans and even the Russian mafia to invest in the CLAM cartel and pile up dead debts? Shah Rukh Khan flaunted all his dirty movie money and star power to buy and fly a cricket team and nobody raised a whimper. Hypocrisy and double standards to the core.

I've no problem with PM's wife falling for Man U. She loves our PM. Not much of a choice there. But you have a choice. If you're caught in the CLAM scam or you just happen to be one of the Brighton lost boys, it's time to move on and get some life. Join the Blue Revolution. Watch Manchester City.

Mindless Miscellany (No.5)

For a reigning retiree, the two-month lull between the World Cup final and EPL ranks among the most stressful of times. Not as bad as the notorious post-natal variety, but it's depressing enough. Nothing seems to move, not even Samy and his MIC. Luckily we have morons, plenty of them, to fill up the void. Like the ubiquitous manholes, they're real and here with us for some reason. (Samy and morons in one line is pure coincidence. Honest):

1. I was stumped recently when my youngest, Sarah, asked me the meaning of 'terkedu'. Yes, it's a valid Malay word. Not Kelantanese or youngish rubbish like kantoi, awek etc. Frankly I wasn't quite sure about the meaning of 'terkedu'. But I could guess by its sound! That's doubly disturbing because Sarah was preparing for UPSR and my Malay had been officially certified as excellent by virtue of my A1 in an exam 40 years ago ( my F9 for Chemistry is irrelevant here). In a weak attempt to appear unruffled, I asked Sarah for the question paper, and there's the question in its full glory. It ran like this:

Question: Ahmad .............bila melihat seorang gadis cantik di hadapannya.
Answer: A. Terkejut B. Terkedu C. Terpegun D.Terbabas.

One look, there's nothing wrong with the question, written by, I guessed, a well-trained lady teacher with at least 20 years' experience. Shaken, I looked again and almost screamed in triumph and sweet revenge. The correct or intended answer was 'terpegun'. Really? Is that a standard reaction or response from a boy (assuming Ahmad is a boy) upon seeing a pretty girl? What if Ahmad was just a five-year old? Or an overrun retiree, like me? Or a ripe 17-year old but with, well, a 'different' lifestyle? The answer might well be none of the above. Or 'terkedu', whatever it means. Or even terbabas !

No insinuation or allusion here. I've nothing against the teaching profession. The teacher is NOT a moron. On the strength of this particular question, she's at least average. My argument is strictly hypothetical. It's not fair to expect the poor teacher to reframe the question by expanding Ahmad with qualifiers like his age, social orientation etc. That would certainly add more confusion for Sarah and probably her mom, too. More information isn't necessarily helpful, especially if you're untrained. My friend and I learned this the hard way when we sat for GMAT about 30 years ago. You've to score a near-perfect GMAT if you're gunning for Harvard, Kellogg or Wharton. In the maths section, the first question began with " x is an integer. What would be the value of x if.............." I skipped and jumped to the next one, again it began with " x is an integer.........". So was the next one. And the next one. Five consecutive questions. Man, I couldn't breathe. I'd heard of odd and even numbers, but integer? It's basic maths but I was completely wrong-footed by this seven-letter fear factor. What? You know integer? I didn't attempt the five integer questions because there's a steep penalty for a wrong guess. I could've easily aced the questions without this little clue about x. The sad, subdued atmosphere on the way back was finally broken when my friend asked me "What's an integer?" ( with ger as in burger!). We laughed out loud the whole week. We didn't go to Harvard. They accept only geniuses and near-geniuses. Not near-morons.

2. A study led by a Harvard economist found that your early childhood education did shape your later life. A tracking of 12000 children (age 30 now) in Tennessee showed that those who 'd learned much more in kindergartens were more likely to go to college and earn more. This is scary. Kindergartens in Malaysia are bad enough as they are. Unlike sugar and flour, kindergartens are largely unregulated and unsubsidized. Annual fees are typically made up of tuition fee (10%), books(10%), stationery fee (5%) and stationary fee (75%, non-refundable). It's not uncommon for a kindergarten in KL to charge a five-year old kid RM5,000 a year. UTM is charging only RM3,000 a year for undergraduate engineering. Apparently the kindergarten owners increase their fees based on their brain waves. Of course you can never get to see the waves because of the brain size. The fees will soon reach moronic proportions once they hear about this little Harvard study !

3. Two recent public appointments have already breached the moronic level. One was the reelection of a former and failed deputy president as a new deputy president of FAM. He 'll be having 'hard times' reporting to the unopposed president, who happens to be his father. Malaysia is currently ranked 142nd by FIFA, just below Burundi. Enough said. The other appointment was equally mindless. Two hyperactive local movie producers were appointed to FINAS Board. No rules were broken, claimed an (quite rightly) unnamed official. The players now are regulating themselves and fellow players. This must be good-governance's finest hour. What do we get next? Ah Longs on Bank Negara Board?

Coming Home: My First OBW

Ahhh old boys! That misnomer. And not a pretty sight, literally. Blank pates, bleached hair, bloated bellies, blurry eyes and beat-up teeth, we'd never be mistaken for make-believe male models. But we're real people and mortal mates, friends, fellows, buddies, boys and babes, who, by some twist of fate and fortune, share a common life-shaping experience of going to the same school. Our great and proud school.

Well, it's the annual Old Boys Weekends (OBW) on 16 - 17 July. Two days of communal reunion, it's time for sharing, reflecting, renewing, and paying back and forward. I'm not sure whether it's the 14th or 15th OBW, but I'm sure it's my first. Such a shame. I've been living quietly with this poetic pain and guilt of leaving the OBWs on the backburner. Four times is bad enough, but 14 times? It borders on criminal. Weekends and only once a year, even a triple heart bypass seems a poor excuse. After eight glorious years in the school, annual homecoming and a tip or two is the minimum payback. The occasional attacks of conscience just get louder whenever an old boy comes back with sad stories of toilets and tiles. Or tales of the more grateful sons who've launched noble projects to lift dear school, like giving free add maths tuition. (Admittedly the mere mention of add maths gave me another kind of attack). Azlan's constant loan-shark-level harassment paid off when I finally relented. Nothing new here. He's been hounding me and my laggard ways since he's made the head-boy in 1973. A head-boy is always a head-boy, with or without hair on the head.

Tiger Lane was damp and dark as we veered off Jalan Tambun at the Wak junction. It's dinner time when we (I was with Engku Aziz, a fellow old boy, not the more famous namesake) showed up at the iconic main gate. The old, oblong classrooms building was barely visible, but our poor eyesight couldn't miss the well-lit canopies, a make-shift stage and round tables all nicely set up on the field next to the former Green House. Not exactly a Hilton ballroom, but it's more spacious, and the all-round festive air was unmistakable. We saw Mat Amin Mahmud looking all lost without love, and he jumped with joy on seeing us. Familiar faces, finally. We're received by some of the best-looking current students who made us walk red carpet style to the dining area. On the way we'd to squeeze in between tables already packed with older old boys, most, like me, had physically evolved beyond recognition. Along the way we saw Azlan, Che Wan and Yuzer all comfortably caught in the company of 'strangers'. We found an empty table next to two groups of younger and loud old boys. The crowd was building up quite fast and soon we're surrounded by a sea of young old boys, old old boys and very old old boys, chattering away, cheering for no reason, or just exchanging glances. More than 500 old boys, according to the organisers, and a record turnout. We're about to settle down when Yahya Daud joined in. All three of us immediately mistook him for somebody else. Cikgu Ya was fit and fluttering, and he's apparently a bit of a celebrity here. You'd still see him regularly on the school track and field like the old days, training the school hurdlers into champions. A grandfather doing hurdles? Why not. Mat Amin was in his element, with trademark tirade and thoughts. Seriously it's hard to find anybody, old or new, half as literate and informed as him. Food was good, better than what Amri and the gang used to feed us 40 years ago. Time simply flew, and we're among the last to retreat. I called the hotel only to discover that they'd just cancelled my booking.

We're down at the school football field the next morning (Sunday) to watch the Under 14 football final between Blue House and Red House and the Under 16 final between Blue and Black. This was actually the culmination of the Striking Star project organized by Yuzer. My House in both finals? There's no better time to be back. With classmates Azlan, Yahya Daud, Rosli Mohd, Hamid, Che Wan, Engku Aziz prancing around, and Yuzer, of course, running the show, it's like PE time, only without the kindly Mr Lee Kum Choon to push and time us And there's Amran, a senior from Black House whom I'd not met for 40 years. 40 years and we still got each others' full names right. If I needed one more reason to be here, this had to be it. I found a chair right behind the touchline, next to Fadzil Man, a Blue House dorm mate, now a practising psychiatrist. We'd not met for 20 over years. One look at my skinhead and rundown image, he concluded that I was a Black Panther (the notorious Black militants of the Woodstock era). I'd been a dead ringer for dead kings and Hollywood has-beens, and now a Black firebrand. Dr Fadzil was completely casual: deep, Dutch orange pants and colourful, psychedelic belt (another Woodstock leftover). I didn't quite get his flashy fashion sense. I mean, he's the psychiatrist, not the patient. What had become of the boy with the beautiful mind? Male model? Only when he started talking golf with Hamid, the little mystery was unravelled. John Daly and all. Golfers get away with anything.

Now back to the finals. After a month of non-stop breathless World Cup football, you'd naturally be itching for EPL or La Liga, not under-age football. Blue versus Black Under-16 right after Spain versus Holland? Not a smooth transition surely. But the beautiful game is beautiful and sexy at any level. And, wait, this one was certainly different and even personal. Watching the Blue House boys running, passing and falling, I almost choked with deep deja vu. It's like watching a replay of my younger self playing on this very field ages ago. I used to play football for Blue House, running, passing and falling, just like these boys, only better! And how we beat the daylights out of Black boys. You ask Bain, Hamid or McGoing. Don't ask Basir. He, he. The Principal (an old boy and an old boy's brother) and Datuk Nasir, the new Old Boys President (an old boy, of course) were gracious enough to give away trophies and goodies. Grandpa Yahya Daud gladly received the trophy for Black House, prompting Che Wan to chuckle "Ini Under-16 ka Under -60?". Good one, Che Wan.

OBW 2011. Just can't wait.

The world at their feet 40 years on

I thought so. That sense of loss and deprivation now that the World Cup is done and dusted. Life has been blessed and blissful for the past thirty-one days with the relentless flow and flood of live actions, updates, commentaries and even prophesies. The World Cup has been the silver lining in a world of dark clouds. A cheery respite amid the global gloom. And one more reason to remain retired.

But I was wrong. It's Spain, and not Argentina. Even some seasoned experts, pundits and punters (legal or illegal) were way off the mark. I don't think Paul the Oberhausen oracle would've picked Spain if he were given 32 teams to choose from instead of just two teams at a time. I'm not trying to discredit Paul, not after all the ballyhoo and brouhaha built up by the hungry media. It's still a phenomenal feat foretelling eight right outcomes out of eight without the benefit of telltale clues like which team consumed more beer or which team had a philandering skipper. A head-to-head comparison with an octopus will reveal that I indeed have a superior brain-to-body ratio, but I still doubt whether I'd have performed better than Paul.

The World Cup has come a long way since my first World Cup experience in 1970. Media coverage then was almost non-existent mainly because media was non-existent. Match reports, written in staid and superficial language, shared the sports pages with the Malaysian schools athletics. No live games, no recorded games, no highlights, no 24/7 repeats, no Power Root commercials. Only the hard-core football freaks talked about the World Cup those days. I didn't watch games at 2.30 am in the comfort of a living room and LCD HD TV. I had my World Cup fix watching the World Cup movie 'The world at their feet' at a local cinema. Back-breaking wooden seat, sweaty air and stale smell of second-hand smoke, all for 65 sen.

The World Cup now is one huge commercial franchise propped up by massive media machinery. Its planning, organization and marketing is text-book Blue Ocean. When the World Cup is on, nothing else is relevant. As much as I enjoy the hard, physical battles on the pitch, it's the soft, journalistic sideshows off the pitch that fire me up. Match commentaries and game build-ups now are no longer run-of-the mill write-downs. ''Dull as ditch water" moaned an English tabloid when England was bombed out by Germany. Not to be outdone, coaches and players are constantly engaged in complex mind games. Ahead of match-up with Argentina, Bastian Schweinsteiger warned his German team mates of underhand tactics and gamesmanship by Maradona's man-kissers "If you see how they gesticulate....." . World Cup websites and blogs were jostling for space and reach, and there's so many that it's impossible even for a full-time retiree to read them all. Each one produced its own ranking or list of bests and beasts, hots and nots. FIFA released its official list and David Beckham jumped in with a Beckham's eleven. Competition finally got out of hand when one site ran a poll to rank footballers on the basis of their looks. The beast? Wayne Rooney, hands down. Journalism had never stooped this low.

I have my own World Cup list. The problem is, I'm not sure what to call it. It's a miscellany of World Cup magical and mediocre moments that kept me delighted and intrigued. Let's call it my list of ten World Cup whatever:
1.Top Five Goals: All the five goals by Diego Forlan. The one against Germany is cream of the crop. Ultimate artistry. The goalie just stood and watched the Jabulani.
2.Best Match: Spain-Germany semis. Open, flowing, expressive. Not a single card. So civilized.
3.Least Inspiring Team Nickname: No, not Italy and France. They're least inspiring teams, not team nicknames. For nickname, it should be Switzerland. They're called, hold your breath, the Swiss National Team.
4.Most Hilarious Miss: A toss-up between Yakubu (Nigeria) and Gyan (Ghana). I've seen plenty of penalty misses in my lifetime. So my vote to Yakubu's howler against South Korea. Emile Heskey's mother (or even dear Emile himself) would've tapped that one in.
5.Most optimistic supporters: Russians. A poll found that a significant 18% of Russians believed Russia would win the World Cup although the Russian team didn't compete.
6.Most Misspelled and Mispronounced Name: Schweinsteiger. (I saw Schweinsteigern in the Star and other mangled variants in Utusan). Nightmare compared to, say, Maradona.
7.Least Flattering Online Comments on Spanish Team: Cheats, Divers, Sissies, Babies, #%$@&?!
8.Least Flattering Online Comments on Dutch Team: Dirty, Kickers, Neo-Nazis, Skinheads Brutes, Rugby, #%$@&?!
9.Most Sporting Team: New Zealand. The only unbeaten team, they're theoretically better than Spain or Holland. So why no medals? Until today, no complaint or request for use of video technology from NZF.
The 10th is a killer. It's the Best Taunt. Worn out and weary of Schweinsteiger's mind-game antics, Maradona mocked the German winger in German accent "What's the matter, Schweinsteiger? Are you nervousssh?". That about made my World Cup.

Rating, Rigging, Ragging

Just in case you're interested, here's the latest PM's approval rating as announced by an independent opinion research group. It's 72% in May, up from 69% in April and 44% when he's sworn in in April 2009. At this rate his rating will hit 108% by May next year. Sorry, can't help a jibe. Apparently this 'contractor' has been secretly tracking PM's popularity on monthly basis, and has selectively made known the numbers. Secret and selective? I mean, have you seen this 44% published when it's 44%? As usual sycophants are braying for early polls. PM would be wise not to read too much into this feel-good statistics. His predecessor's approval was at 60% just two months before he lost Selangor, Penang, Kedah, WP and Perak. Bloggers and opposition hatchet men dismissed these numbers outright and on sight : misleading, meaningless, mindless, and the usual opprobrium. I've had some experience in marketing and consumer research run by research agencies when I was with Petronas Dagangan. The findings were so fraught with inconsistencies and outliers that we'd to normalise for the final report. The point here is that research, any research, is susceptible to a varying degree of rigging. Asking an opinion about PM of the day is even trickier. Granted Malaysia is not North Korea. But we're not New Zealand either. For all the One Malaysia atmospherics, the level of respondents' objectivity, frankness and sarcasm is a big blind spot, and this indeed should be an opportune subject for a separate and secret research.

I'm not sure why, but I just can't resist a take on ragging while on the subject of rating. Probably because of the rigging subtext just now. Ragging and rigging rhyme so bloody well. Incidentally both are evil. After a respite, ragging is back with a vengeance when an RMC student died in a botched ragging ritual. It sparked off fiery debates and clarion calls for stern and swift action. My stance on this issue is unequivocal: ragging, bullying, hazing, initiation and similar forms of abuse in schools, ivory towers, twin towers or anywhere is cruel, criminal, despicable and reprehensible. All the reasons and justifications advanced by some lame-brained ragging rogues are lame excuses at best. Ragging instills respect and humility? Bull. It's nothing more than a cheapish, thuggish and agricultural form of entertainment. No amount of research or study will ever show that ragging victims would be better off or more successful in life. The reverse is more likely. I know you'd suspect that Bung Mokhtar was a ragging victim in his formative years. Ragging is one last, meaningless and purposeless sentimental holdover from the bygone British imperialist streak. One only wonders how has this relic found its way into the bowels of our education system and left undone for so many years.

My own ragging experience is minimal. My first year in a residential secondary school at Tiger Lane (in Ipoh, not India) was a cakewalk. We're pampered and protected like rural princes. That's the way it was and all's well long after I left until about ten years ago, when the school somehow lost all its humdrum grace and glory, and turned into a hotbed of systematic ragging, extortion and gangsterism. Reading all the scathing media headlines and public condemnation, it's hard not to feel sad and angry. The school managed to recover but was never quite able to completely shake off this dark episode. When I enrolled at a local U, I skipped most of the two-week orientation program, and watched movies instead. There's no bigger misnomer. It's disorientation in disguise. I checked into campus when classes started and didn't really feel bad or uninspired like I'd missed something. I made a lot of friends and graduated, not at the top of the class, but enough to land a decent job and retire blissfully. Going by the raggers' rationale, I'd have become a humbler, more respectful and better person overall had I attended the two-week life-changing orientation program. A member of parliament, maybe?

So what do we do? Legislate against ragging, that's what we should do. Criminalize it. Don't generalize or dilute it under violent conduct or ungentlemanly behaviour (that's ok for football). Outlaw it under a Rag Act or something, or, better still, classify ragging as attempted rape, or just about anything that justifies strong police action and quality time behind bars, preferably with real and serial rapists. I'm sure a Rag Bill would have an easy passage and a minimum of debate in parliament!

Mindless Miscellany (No 4)

The World Cup romance continues. The defending champions and runners-up bit the dust and meekly surrendered their titles. Reputation and pedigree counts for nothing. Expect more shockers. A continent away, another monumental performance unfolded when a tennis match between two relative but unrelated unknowns at Wimbledon ended after 11 hours over three days, setting all kinds of tennis records. Life's full of mind benders. Let's celebrate them. This week's picks:

1. That Italy and France wimped out with a whimper is hardly a surprise. For France, it's poetic justice of sorts. They got the World Cup ticket on the back of a non-goal against Ireland 'scored' with Henry's hand. The Irish would have been a more worthy competitor. As for Italy, they're living in the past. The players were burnt-out and well past their expiry date, strutting around more like Milanese male models than world beaters. Good riddance.

2. Another flip-flop is well in the offing when the Ministry of Education floated a proposal to scrap UPSR and PMR. I'm not an expert in education and the way things are going neither is the ministry. You're still sore about the volte-face in the teaching of science in English. And if you're still struggling to understand the cluster schools concept, don't bother, because it's just been replaced by the high-performing schools concept. The reason given for the no-exam learning is that exams inhibit thinking skills. Whose thinking skills? The ministry's? And no exams also means millions of RM saved, the thinking minister claimed. This one doesn't add up. If we want to save, the better option is do away with schools, students, teachers and, you 're right, the ministry. What's more, this option also promotes thinking skills. Your thinking skills. Because now you have to think of ways to educate your children.

3. "Cops score against illegal bookies", screamed the headlines, almost daily now with the World Cup in progress. Illegal betting syndicates around the country are being hounded and rounded up like common criminals by the police. What an irony. No other commercial transactions in the world embrace the free market and 'the willing buyer, willing seller' principle more ardently than gambling and betting. Betting is based on an informed and unforced decision, unlike buying Proton cars. The crackdown apparently was part of an effort to stamp out the spread of social ills and promote wholesome values. I've never realised that I'm actually morally and socially sound because I don't bet. No, I'm not arguing for legalising betting. It's just that, on the priority axes of 'urgent' and 'important' for police action, illegal betting should be right at the very bottom corner, next to illegal parking. At the top should be reckless driving, followed by the rest (you know them all), which are more urgent and important than illegal betting (and illegal parking). Taking my youngest to school every morning I've to pass no less than five mistimed traffic lights, which have been the source of massive jams, accidents and obscenities. Every time I'm stuck at a traffic light, I wish the police were here instead of bagging the bookies.


4. This one is cute. On her rare descent on Wimbledon, the Queen was greeted by a number of tennis greats, including Martina Navratilova, a nine-time Wimbledon champion. Holding Martina's hands, the Queen enquired whether Martina had played at Wimbledon often.

Mindless Miscellany (No.3)

The World Cup is in town, so everything is on the backburner. It's hardly ten days old, but the big guns are already tumbling like tenpins. Bettors and bookies are biting bullets. Pundits are in hiding. The romantics are having a field day. Great, heroic and incredible performances are coming out of South Africa. Life's full of twists and turns. Let's celebrate them. This week's picks:

1. Five of the world's top ten football teams are staring at early and unceremonious trips home: Spain (ranked 2nd), Italy (5), Germany (6), England (8) and France (9). Their pathetic performance, drawing or losing to lowly, make-weight teams, have made great World Cup stories and history. The shocker of them all is what is now known as the Kiwi conquest, the New Zealand - Italy draw. Just consider the contrasts: Italy is 5th ranked, four-time winners, defending champions, with players selected from Europe's richest leagues. New Zealand is 78th, only one World Cup appearance before (losing all games), players selected from a population of 24 million (including 20 mill sheep), best player Ryan Nelsen plays for Blackburn but nobody knows. Sweet dreams are made of this.

2.The 13th Sukan Malaysia (Sukma) in Malacca ended last week, after competing head on with the World Cup. Looks like a foul-up of the highest order. What's the National Sports Council up to? Ambush marketing? And you guess what happened. Empty venues, sleepy judges, absent coaches, confused runners, half-pace press. All this despite PM's relentless rally for innovative ideas and breakthrough performance. A year has 52 weeks. Sukma runs for about two weeks. Even if you pick the two weeks at random, the chance of hitting World Cup weeks is a remote 10%. So my hunch is that Sukma dates have been selected on purpose by the bare brains, to pit the pitiful games against the World Cup. Why? You tell me.

3.The 2010 US National Annual Spelling Bee (a spelling contest) concluded in Washington DC recently. The champion was again an American Indian or Indian American or Indian Indian, but not Red Indian. It's simply amazing that in the past ten years, Spelling Bee has been won by an Indian six times (six different Indians). No surprise really. Indians' language skills and prowess is well-known. If anything, Spelling Bees are proof enough that English words are devilishly difficult to spell. I've never heard of any spelling contest for Indian words. At the same time, a peace-loving crowd of four people took to the streets demanding a wholesale change to the English spelling system. Slow should be slo, for example. I'm sad that only four people turned up for such a noble and urgent cause. I'd join this group anytime. We all know that, in English, we don't spell what we say, or conversely, we don't say what we spell. Spelling English words is a nightmare on daily basis. We're not talking about "onomatopoeia" here. We're talking about everyday words like access, necessary, accommodate, business, which can trick you into missing a "c" here or an extra "s" there. I've seen bosses who do nothing an entire day but correct spellings. I don't blame them if they've to sign off the papers or letters. Poor spelling makes poor impressions, and dooms an already slim chance of a VP hopeful. A high-achieving friend at Petronas had spelling problems even with plain and harmless words like response, which he spelt responce (probably a hangover from the defence/defense mix-up). He's a GM, but that's another story.

The UK Road Diaries: 12 - 22 March 2010

Treats and Traps: A Teaser

Touring a foreign country, whether it’s the UK or the Ukraine, is always a tale of treats and traps. Treats are rewarding and mind-changing experiences: places, people, sights and scenes that delight, surprise, inspire, and fire up your senses. Traps are, well, traps. Only worse. They make you wish you’d remained in Kg Pandan. It’s relative. A treat to you is a trap to your wife. The trick for a smart traveler is to anticipate and avoid the traps. Of course if it’s Ukraine, it’s 98% traps, to you and your wife, no relative here. If you’re born a loser, it could even be real, live traps. Sand traps, booby traps, marriage traps and the like.

But why would anybody want to visit Ukraine in the first place? Well, that’s not why I’m writing now. What I’m writing is actually about our recent 10-day UK getaway. Why UK? Because Air Asia doesn’t fly to France or Spain, that’s why. Actually you won’t go wrong with UK. It’s so well trodden, and the heavy hype in Malaysia has reached a pitch where if you’ve not been to London, you’ve not travelled. You may have solid proof that last year alone you’ve made five trips to Bandung for those Armani knock-offs, but Bandung is not London. UK is de rigueur for both serious and hilarious travelers. Just go to the travel section of any book store, you’ll find more guides on UK than France, Spain and Bandung combined.

The silver bullet for travel traps is preparation and more preparation. No short cuts or cheating like your college chemistry tests. In our case, we booked our flights in October 2009. We had a solid five months for planning, searching, arguing and online booking. I read Michelin, Fommer’s and almost all UK-related and unrelated websites, and drew up the best possible travel plans, complete with options and fallbacks. Fortune favors the prepared, somebody said. I knew, for example, which stretches of road in Wales had speed cameras. I could also tell you the night temperature in Lisbon. The problem is that Lisbon is not in UK. So much for more preparation. Honestly we’d never been this poised and primed for travel. We’re all set for a trap-free trip. Or at least that’s what we thought.

UK 101

The United Kingdom comprises the tentative countries or states or regions or whatever of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some of you may feel offended by this fifth-grade explanation, but one of my many sisters-in-law, if she happens to read this, may indeed find this useful and enlightening. She's a UPM graduate, nothing less, and she still thinks that Ottawa is the capital of Japan (Lisbon? Never mind). About 60 million people live in UK today, and naturally they are English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Pakistani. The country is made up of 60 shires with 647 castles and 1245 museums (OK, I made up the numbers, but you got the idea). Castles, like haggis and scones and afternoon tea, are really an acquired taste. If you’re culturally illiterate, like most Kelantanese are, you really need a lot of grooming and upbringing to appreciate the full grandeur and finer points of a castle, and even more training for all the 647 castles. Just about every industry, trade and settlement with more than 200 people has a dedicated museum. The British Museum, railway museum, ship museum, sheep museum, and so on. There’s even a museum museum to keep track of all the museums (yes, I made up this one, too). You don’t need training to see them all. You need a lot of stamina.

Most of us have a soft spot for anything English or British, thanks to childhood exposure, personal experience, English wife, or plain nostalgia. After all at one time we’re very much part of the now-defunct British Empire, together with Zimbabwe (Fortunately the British at that time couldn't find any economic value in merging Malaysia and Zimbabwe) There used to be a Padang Churchill and Tanjung Duff in Kelantan. While everyone knows that Susan Boyle is better-looking than Sir Winston Churchill, this Duff character remains a mystery. A railway clerk, maybe? Back in the 1950’s, we had some teachers trained in Kirkby, near Liverpool, to teach in the English-medium schools. I learned English words before I could speak standard Malay, and I had my share of run-ins with my maths teacher in form six, one Chris McLeod, from N Ireland. We still keep the name George Town for some reason. And, of course, the English Premier League and Wayne Rooney. Everyone now claims to be a diehard supporter of an EPL team. On an average day, all Malays will support Manchester United, all Indians (except Shebby Singh) support Liverpool, and the Chinese bet on any team that wins.

The Best-Laid Plans

Since we’d spent so much on the low-cost flight, low-cost terminal and low-cost meals, it only made sense that we should go for maximum return on investment. The same concept apparently was at the core of our government’s investment in 1 Malaysia F1 Racing Team. To achieve this, we decided to roam the roads and reaches of England, Wales and Scotland by car, with the last three days in London. A driving tour of the length and breadth of UK, if you like. So much about these places had been written and bandied about - their scenic variety, deep history, cultural diversity, football hooligans- that the lure was just impossible to resist. Only ten days and in six degrees C, this UK foray looked overly ambitious, self-indulging but sure-fire fun. It’d be a journey of more than 3000 km through unfamiliar cities, towns, villages, lakes, farms and, you guess, castles. Our itinerary read like a National Geographic’s A-list: York, Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, the Trossachs, the Lake District, Manchester, Chester, Wales, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Cotswolds, Stonehenge, Salisbury, London, and all things in between. These places came with stellar reputation and glowing recommendations, and our expectation was uncontrollable as the departure date neared.

We’re a mixed bag. As diverse as it gets: three male, three female, 10 - 60 age range, one housewife, one retiree, two working adults and two students, with interests diverging wildly from Cartoon Network to History Channel. Looking at our wayward profile, it’s almost impossible for anything on the list to please ALL of us. We would’ve been a statistician’s dream sample had it not been for one glaring glitch: one of us was born in Kelantan.

Peanuts and Hitler (12 March, Friday)

We boarded Air Asia flight D7 2008 for the 3.50 pm flight to London Stansted Airport, expecting a cattle-car ambience. We couldn’t be more surprised and mistaken. The seat, the leg room and the pitch were anything but low-cost. Tony’s always one step ahead. No difference from the other airline (name begins with M) except for the free movies and peanuts. But for half the price, who’d need movies and peanuts.

The flight was long (13 hours) and smooth (no movies) and uneventful (no peanuts). Asrif, Aida and Sarah slept like a log after a round of low-cost meal. Fadli was reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf (heavy stuff. Give me peanuts). We landed at Stansted at about 11 pm local time or 5 am in KL. For us it’s early morning, mentally and physically. So we’re fresh and wide awake. Unlike Heathrow (where the other airline lands), Stansted was much smaller and friendlier. The crowd here was easier. No rich and rowdy Arabs to make a scene. No Indian immigration officer asking why we’re in his country. We’re cleared in under 30 minutes, and, hooray, there’s no customs to check our Brahim’s, Maggi and Old Town White Coffee. A great start for us.

York, York (13 March, Saturday)

It’s five past midnight, an ungodly hour and a new day here. We’re still milling about the arrival lounge at Stansted, catching our breath and praising God after a long, safe flight. Aida and Sarah had yet to see anything worth bragging to friends. Fadli was browsing in W H Smith, a book shop. After picking up the key for our rented car from the Europcar counter, we wheeled out of the building towards the car park. What hit us was an early spring chill, about five degrees Celsius. Shivering, we quickly loaded our bags and literally jumped into the car. It’s a seven-seater VW Sharan MPV. Aida took the back seat, with bags all over her. Asrif turned on the heater and took the wheel. As it turned out Fadli, despite all the fancy reading, was still too young and needed special insurance to drive a rented car in UK. Did he also need a special insurance to read Hitler in UK? Who knew. We easily found our way out of the airport, and took the M11 and then A1 route towards our first stopover, York, about 300 km north east of England. This was really a defining and milestone moment for us: the beginning of a 3000 km, 10-day epic journey together, all six of us crammed up in one car. Imagine, at home we’d never been together like this for more than 16 minutes! Ah, tell me what’s sweeter than this.

It’s drizzling along the way. I’d call Aida every twenty minutes or so to make sure she’s still breathing behind the bags. After nearly four hours (4.30 in the morning), we stopped at a big 24 hr rest area outside York. Nobody else was around except the cashiers. All the shops, including a W H Smith, were wide open. Selling books on a highway at 4 am? You can’t get more literate and civilized than this. In a backpackers trade-mark style, we took the free hot plain water from the machine, made our own three-in-one Milo and shared one big muffin. For the record, a cup of coffee here would set you back RM5.00.

Dawn was breaking when we entered the medieval city of York. What greeted us in the early morning shroud simply took our breath away. The whole city was a castle. Partially walled with narrow entrances, the silhouette was hauntingly beautiful. The narrow streets, with some parts cobblestoned, were flanked by ancient buildings with unmistakable, timeless English character. Even Aida could appreciate this testament to early architectural elegance. I told her to do well in exams and come to study in York and live in this castle. We eased our way through the city and stopped at the city centre for some low-light shots before making our way out. York was a fleeting dream.

The Wall. Where’s the Wall? (13 March, Saturday)

We’re back on the A1 leading to Durham, another old city with the famed Durham Castle. Our plan was to make a quick detour, find a sweet spot and take a few shots for the album. True enough the castle was the centrepiece of this city, and you could see its full bloom as you approached the city centre. I sat back to appreciate and wonder what’s the rate of return on this kind of investment. We turned back without resolving the issue and headed further north, past Newcastle before turning sharply west towards Carlisle and then north again to Glasgow, Scotland.

Durham showing off its prize asset

The B grade road to Carlisle was a single-lane affair, not far from the Scottish border. We chose this route to Glasgow with only one objective: Hadrian’s Wall. Parts of this route apparently ran parallel to a 100 km wall built by the Romans for the same reason the Chinese built the Great Wall. As we drove by the site, we’re straining to see any wall or any Chinese. Seriously, we couldn’t see any semblance of a wall. Aida, of course, couldn’t see anything. With bags and pastries around her, she’s completely unsighted. But the rest of us had a clear, open view of what’s around us. What we saw was nothing like the Great Wall. It’s just a meandering stretch of wall-like structure made of crude stones. This wall was supposed to be a defensive line against invaders (Scottish, not Chinese). But only three feet tall, this wall couldn’t keep out even the occasional stray lambs. With modern panties and boxer shorts not invented until 1000 years later, Hadrian must have figured that three feet was high enough to discourage the vicious Scottish marauders in skirts and kilts. Smart ass, this Hadrian. We stopped at a lay-by for some shots, and then drove on. Hadrian’s Wall, a World Heritage Site, was a let-down. A typical tourist trap.

Hadrian’s Wall and the comical engineer who built it.

Gretna, Golok and Glasgow (13 March, Saturday)

We joined the northbound M6 towards Glasgow at the Carlisle junction. As we crossed the Scottish border, we couldn’t help but notice a factory outlet on our left at the edge of the border town of Gretna. Since we had some time to kill, we dropped by to have a look, and rounded off rather quickly. A bit on the tame side compared to what we’d seen elsewhere. But there’s nothing tame about Gretna and the nearby border village of Gretna Green. They’re once notorious for quickie nuptials and marry-in-hurry (just like Las Vegas and Sg Golok) due to the more liberal Scottish marriage laws. At its height, even a blacksmith, believe it or not, could solemnize a marriage here!

Gretna and its blacksmiths were well behind us when we spotted the jutting skyline of Glasgow. After a journey of 700 km, we’re finally in Glasgow. We checked into a Premier Inn at Ballater Street, about one km south of the city centre. We’d booked two rooms online for 29 pounds each. It’s not a Hyatt or Hilton, but the rooms were clean and comfortable with en suite showers and heaters, certainly better than my old school dormitory. Glasgow was a city well past its prime. As an industrial centre, it’d seen better days. You didn’t feel the vibrancy and dynamism of, say, Bandung. Lately it’s been busy reinventing and rebranding itself into a European cultural hub. But the remnants and relics of its industrial past were everywhere. What they actually need is an F1 Team. The city has a population of about 600,000, evenly split, with 300,500 supporting Glasgow Celtic and the rest Glasgow Rangers. I first heard of these two football teams and their relentless rivalry way back in 1970, when they’re running European football. Now they’re European football’s running jokes.

It’s already late afternoon when we ventured out, heading for the city centre, melting into throngs of Glaswegians, tourists and Pakistanis. The hotspot at this time was George Square and Buchanan Street pedestrian mall, which were teeming with boutique shops and British brands including Marks & Spencer (M&S) and W H Smith, the bookseller. Flowing aimlessly with the crowd and braving the frigid climate, it’s quite an experience.

What a feeling! What a freezing!


Gay Glasgow: Trying hard to be hip

To be fair, there’s a lot to see in Glasgow if you’re truly curious and cosmopolitan. There’s plenty of high-minded stuff like museums, cathedrals, art galleries, opera house, gardens. But for us, it’s already late and it’d been a long day and a long way. It’s not the time for opera house. The only option was to drive back to Premier Inn. It’s only about two or three km away, but with only 54% of his brain mass actually working, Asrif lost his sense of direction and we took an hour to reach the hotel.

Trekking the Trossachs (14 March, Sunday)

It’s 4.45 when I woke up. The body was still functioning on KL clock. It’s early but it’s Glasgow, Scotland. Everybody was up before 7 and ready for breakfast of Maggi and Brahim’s. Fresh and fit, we’re ready to invade Scotland. Our plan was to explore Scotland’s natural splendor: highlands, lochs, forests and glens. We’d be trekking the Trossachs, a national park with rugged landscape known for its scenic beauty, about 50 km north of Glasgow. The writer Sir Walter Scott had so deeply adored the Trossachs wilderness that he dubbed it ‘the scenery of a fairy dream’. I read only a simplified version of his ‘Ivanhoe’, so I was not well-placed to judge his trip advice. Anyway, if it’s dream to Walt, it’s dream to us.

Our Trossachs tour began at a small town of Aberfoyle. From Glasgow to Aberfoyle, it’s part motorway, part pretty country road running across open spaces, farms and dreamy villages. After a brief look-around at Aberfoyle’s Scottish Wool Centre, we’re all set for the Trossachs. The Trossachs trail from Aberfoyle climbed up treacherously, winding and twisting all the way along fenceless shoulders, passing peaks with patches of snow, treeless valleys, small settlements, and two lochs, before reaching the town of Callander at the other end after about half an hour. That’s all? That’s all. The panoramic views and vistas at various spots were impressive enough, but they didn’t exactly blow us away. Garden variety compared to, say, the majestic Grand Canyon. Which made us wonder why all the rage. To be fair, the route we took didn’t run the entire length and loop of the Trossachs, and we’re not sure whether early spring was the best time to sample it. Sorry Walt, your fairy founders, falling short of our expectation. But the anticipation and the experience was still well worth it. I’d still recommend it to my sisters-in-law.

Airy-fairy scenery: The Trossachs

Castle, and Castle Again (14 March, Sunday)

Stirling, our next stopover, was no stranger. A good friend who studied here in early 1980’s still boasts that he’s from a top UK university (where top means top part of UK). Fadli’s co-worker is also a Stirling alumnus. Our earlier plan was just to pass by on the way to Edinburgh. But we couldn’t resist the sight of the sexy Stirling Castle precariously perching up high on the edge of a rock cliff. It gave a clever impression that it’s about to fall any moment. We drove all the way up a narrow lane, and passed its grand entrance and into the visitor centre inside. From the castle, you could savor the sweeping view of Stirling, its fringe and beyond. It’s just exhilarating, to say the least. At the end of it all, we had to rush down, fearing the great fall (joke).

Stirring view from Stirling castle

We reached Edinburgh, about 80 km from Stirling, at 4 pm or so. So much had been written and promised about this highly celebrated city that we could feel our pulse racing as we closed in. The city was every bit what we’d visualized. Old, dark and handsome, without being flashy or extravagant. There’s hardly a new building here. I read somewhere that the city was founded more than a thousand years ago. The whole city is technically a museum. For tourists who are serious (like Mr Bean) and hilarious (like Mr Bean), the city offers a repertoire of sights, experiences, landmarks and oddities to suit all fancies and peculiarities, but the crown jewel is no doubt the Edinburgh Castle. Built and destroyed and rebuilt on a huge and monstrous rock formation, it looms over the city, casting a giant shadow since the 11th century. Edinburgh was a visual feast, best consumed ‘as is, where is’. Just soak yourself in its atmosphere, its sheer expanse, steep history and rich culture. Don’t complicate it with mindless modern art, long castle queues and tiring theaters. It’d be easy on your legs, and even easier on your wallet. It’s also a good excuse for us to set up our base at Princes Street, a tourist thoroughfare and a vantage point for viewing the castle and anything in between. Princes Street was bursting with locals, transients and, yes, Pakistanis. Lining the street were the familiar names (including, yes, W H Smith, the bookseller) plus a couple of tourist-friendly gift outlets hawking odds and ends. Aida, Sarah and Ibu hopped in and out of the gift shops, stretching thin our ten-day supply of British pounds and my credit limit. Asrif was freezing outside, madly texting all his friends in Malaysia. Fadli, well, you know where he was. And me? Well, it’s a constant and personal struggle against the bone-biting and pee-pushing cold, even in four layers of cotton-rich garments. We took a quick driving tour of the venerable city, passing various landmarks, parks, gardens and unfamiliar structures, before finding the right way out. You need two or three days to really discover Edinburgh, not two to three hours. But even in the short time, the city was still worthy of all the rave reviews and our long journey. Edinburgh was a gem.

Iconic Edinburgh Castle: High, Dark and Handsome

The way back to Glasgow was a quiet and controlled ride on the busy M8 motorway. I broke the repose, telling Aida to do well in exams so that she could come to Edinburgh to study. She replied ‘semalam Ayah kata York’. I said that? ‘OK, York or Edinburgh or Brown. As long as it’s not UPM’, I said. Without warning, Asrif swerved into a rest area for a coffee and texting break. We reached Glasgow and Premier Inn without complication. The texting break just now must’ve restored his sense of direction.

Poets and Philanderers (15 March, Monday)

We’re still in Scotland. It’s our third and last day here. With another long trip ahead, we left quite early. Asrif was behind the wheel again, and Aida was behind the bags. We left Glasgow, heading 250 km south on motorway M6, to the Lake District, in the shire of Cumbria, England. Don’t ask me why it’s not Cumbriashire. Lake District is reputed to be one of the most beautiful spots in UK. It’s once a hotbed of romantic poets and classical writers. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Southey, to name but a few, at one time or another, visited or lived and wrote here. It’s fine if you’re not familiar with all or any of these literary greats (no reason to feel uncivilized or anything). Sir Walter Scott had purportedly visited and fallen in love with Lake District. Knowing Walt and his fairy story, there’s no surprise here.

The Lake District without the lake

From the M6 motorway, we turned westward into the A66 at Penrith to a small, pretty town of Keswick, where we began our Lake District detour. It’s a scenic and wondrous drive all the way to Keswick and from Keswick to other lovely lakeside towns within Lake District. The road cut across mountains, valleys, villages, meadows, rolling pastures, rivers and, of course, lakes and more lakes (100 of them, big, small, very small). We stopped again and again to capture the stunning and sublime scenery along the way. At a small lake town of Grasmere, we dropped by Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s residence and now a museum. Millions of people descended on Grasmere every year to pay homage to this revered figure, but for us it’s nothing more than casual curiosity. The cottage was old but very well preserved. There’s an eerie air of serenity hovering about the place and everybody seemed to speak in whispers. ‘Di karet, sepi telah datang / pada akal puisimu yang bening dan bising’, wrote a Malay poet in his poetry piece “di kubur chairil”, a tribute to the Indonesian poet Chairil Anwar. The poetic parallel was palpable. Wordsworth, for all he’s worth, didn’t mean anything to Aida and Sarah. The closest they’d ever got to a literary experience was watching Lady Gaga. I bought a black t-shirt on sale with Wordsworth’s pearls of wisdom printed at the back: “Men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply”. He wrote that? Pretty pedestrian for a literary champion. I suppose it's harder to be a plumber. I’d never read his works myself. Must be heavier than Hitler. Modern English is stressful enough, why wrestle with the ancient version? I knew of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats et al just enough to get by and avoid any name mix-up with those footballers and philanderers.

Wordsworth’s poetry factory

Closest Malay translation: Pulau Pandan jauh ke tengah, Gunung Daik........

Finally Windermere. This town and lake of the same name is Lake District’s tourist centre. I couldn’t help but notice its touristy and overrun atmosphere. Nevertheless we spent more than an hour here, pursuing our divergent interests. Aida, Sarah and Ibu in and out of gift shops. Asrif madly texting his many friends. Fadli, well, you know. And I spent all the energy battling the climate change and chasing the toilet. We converged and immediately agreed on a well-deserved fish and chips. The Lake District was a fulfilling expedition, with Grasmere a clear standout. We came away inspired, but still not quite in the way that would convince even a retiree like me to turn to part-time poetry. Pottery is more likely. Or plumbing. We’ll talk about this later.

We rejoined the M6 at Kendal for a 100 km drive south to Manchester. We checked into a Travelodge on the M62 eastbound motorway rest area, together with some truckers. With two rooms at 19 pounds (less than RM 100) each room with three beds, bath and working heater, and free parking thrown in, it’s not hotel hell. There’s an M&S c- store and W H Smith (ha, ha) right next to the hotel. You couldn’t find a better value in this part of the world. We took a short trip to Manchester city centre, 10 km away, in the evening. Unlike Edinburgh or Glasgow, the city was comparatively modern, with new buildings and younger Pakistanis. It’s already late and nothing was open except the pubs. In no time we’re back at Travelodge and hit the sack.

I’m not hotel hell

Beth yw hwn? Beth sy’n mynd ymlean? (16 March, Tuesday)

What’s this? What’s going on? Yes, in Welsh. Today we’d be exploring Wales, another state, region or whatever in UK. Wales has its own language and writing system, which is almost vowelless and clueless. For those who’re used to Kelantanese language, Welsh shouldn’t be intimidating.

We reached the town of Conwy, on the northern coast of Wales, late morning after a 150 km drive west of Manchester. The imposing Conwy Castle, another medieval architectural masterpiece, was right at the entrance of the walled city. Conwy was smaller than York, but the buildings and streets were almost of the same character. It’s here that we discovered Welsh language, thriving and functioning everywhere. All English names and words here were proudly translated into Welsh. Or the other way round, Welsh translated into English. ‘The oldest house in Conwy’ becomes ‘Y ty yhnof yng Nghonwy’ in Welsh (yes, only two vowels). 16 March is 16 Mawrth, not 17 Mawrth. Not only the city was old, its residents were also old (but not as old as the city). In an hour or so we’re in Conwy, we saw only one young couple with a baby. Where’re all the young people? Out playing rugby?

Y Gloch Las: Perempuan Melayu Terakhir (Translation)


Near Betws-y-Coed: This is NOT a postcard. We actually snapped this beauty.

From Conwy we ventured inland, about 50 km south, to the village of Betws-y-Coed, in the county of Clwyd. We stopped for pastries and chips at a Tesco on the way out of Conwy. To reach Betws-y-Coed, we’d to pass the towns of Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Craig Tal-y-Cafn Eglwysbach and Llanrwst. If I stack up the names, I’d have a short, instant poem, in Welsh. The road was narrow but the journey was short and sweet. Betws-y-Coed didn’t do justice to its graceful name. It’s as plain as pastry. There’re the usual stone houses, rivers, mountains and the stuff, nothing out of this world. Not even a public toilet was there to compensate for the disappointment. We took a different way out, and were immediately rewarded with a splendid view of the Welsh countryside. It’s a long and winding road with miles and miles of rolling fields and pastures, and villages with even more exotic names. We’re back on the A55 at a town of Abergele. Nothing off- beat here except for one particular car dealership that sold Proton cars, complete with a showroom full of Personas. Hardly anybody around when we stopped to get some shots.

Chic Chester (16 March, Tuesday)

We’ve done Wales but we’re not done for the day. It’s still early, and there’s space for another excursion. This time it’s Chester. Located on the Welsh border, Chester was supposed to be an ancient city: Roman, walled, fortified, gated, just like Conwy and York. But once you’re in the city square, you’re smack in 2010. We’re impressed with its cool, clean and funky feel. The commercial centre was a network of pedestrian-only streets with rows and rows of overpowering black-and-white Tudor styled structures, mostly trendy shops, restaurants, department stores and a W H Smith. The evening crowd was surprisingly young. There were even schoolgirls running, prancing and crashing into equally upbeat strangers. We’re just happy to hang on, blending in with the festive crowd, and wondering why were there so many young people in Chester? Were they actually from Conwy? Since we’re not going to solve this little mystery here, the better option was to return to Manchester. On the way back to Manchester we diverted to Cheshire Oaks, a factory outlet mall of 60 stores selling mostly XXL and XXS size items made in 1986. We had only about an hour to cover 60 shops, or one shop a minute. I’d heard of speed dating, but speed shopping was something else. We managed this by spending the entire one hour only at one shop. Everybody, except Asrif, grabbed something at 5.99 pounds. He’s actually outside, madly texting all his friends.

Wales and Chester had been, in corporate speak, a productive and value-creating excursion. We learned a bit of Welsh. We saw, for the first time, a castle located at sea level. If you’re going to Manchester for some reason, or on the way to Scotland for no reason, we’d recommend a Conwy and Chester detour. One day is enough, but one week if you plan to spend one hour at every shop at Cheshire Oaks !

Funky town Chester

This is our City, Manchester City FC (17 March, Wednesday)

This one is personal and football. If you want to skip this, go ahead. Believe it or not, I’m a full-time supporter of Manchester City Football Club. I’m not a supporter of Manchester United, never. Our Prime Minister can say five times a day on TV3 that he’s a Man U fan, I’m not interested. I supported Man City since the groovy year of 1968 (bell-bottoms and all) simply because I liked one particular player who played for the club, for the same reason my friend Hamid supported Man U because he’s crazy about George Best. So that’s the way it’s been for more than 40 years. I’d call and taunt Hamid whenever Man City sank Man U (roughly once in seven years). When Asrif and Fadli were growing up, I taught them the truth. That there’re only two teams in Manchester: Manchester City and Manchester City reserves. You could call this parental discretion. They had no choice but to support Man City, until now. Life as a Man City fan has never been easy. It’s all passion and patience. Agony and agony. The club has hardly won anything worth texting around. But that’s the whole idea. Where’s the fun of supporting a team that wins two or three titles a year, like those phony wrestlers.

We left Travelodge and took the fastest route to the City of Manchester Stadium, home of Manchester City FC. Finally we’re here. The sight and the feeling was simply incredible. It’d taken me more than 40 years to be here, to see the club in the flesh. I could sense the all-round buoyant and bullish mood around this club. And why not? Owned and bankrolled by a multi-billionaire sheikh, the club is now the richest in the world. This guy has more than enough cash in hand to buy Man U stadium and burn it down for fun. He's waiting for the right time. At Citystore, we went wild, grabbing team strips, club shirts, fridge magnets, key chains and other club merchandise. Amidst the buying binge, Asrif forgot to madly text his friends.

Ecstasy: After 40 years


Repeat after me: I hate Man U, I hate Man U.

Pitiful Pottery (17 March, Wednesday)

We hit the road again, taking the M6 towards Birmingham, about 200 km south. On the way we strayed into Stoke-on-Trent, a haven for potteries and ceramic, looking for factory shops selling discounted seconds English dinnerware (Wedgwood, Spode). This was actually unplanned, and decided only when we saw the road signs. But most factories and shops here actually had closed down a few years ago. We turned back empty-handed. Apparently UK’s proud pottery industry had been hit hard by cheaper china from China. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before the poetry industry goes the way of the pottery industry. In case you’re not aware, about one million Chinese are now frantically learning Wordsworth and medieval English, and by 2015 they’re expected to flood the UK market with cheaper poems. Nothing is safe from cheaper Chinese exports, except plumbing. (Sounds like a cruel joke. Sorry)

It’s still early when we reached Birmingham, so we decided to improvise with a side trip to nearby Warwick, another historic city with a famous castle. Warwick Castle was a magnificent structure surrounded by gardens with narrow, high-walled lanes leading to its entrance. Sir Walter Scott (yes, that Walter Scott) had acclaimed the castle as ‘the fairest monument’. By now we’d all wised up to Walt and his fairies, enough as not to take his observation too seriously. With an extortionate per head admission fee of 20 pounds (money, not weight), we’re just happy to take some shots and use the hard-to-find toilet before turning back. We crossed the pleasant city of Warwick towards Stratford-upon-Avon.

Poets Part 2 (17 March, Wednesday)

If Sarah thought we’re all done with dead poets, she’s dead wrong, because we’re going to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace and home of William Shakespeare, the finest English poet, playwright and dramatist, also known as the Bard of Avon. The town of Stratford-upon-Avon, located in the district of Stratford-on-Avon, in the county of Stratford-under-Avon (I made up this one), is one of the hottest tourist attractions in the world, and we’re not going to miss it for the world. When we reached the town, it’s five past five, and everything was about to wind down for the day. The town was a delicate mix of the old and new. The main tourist hangout was Henley Street, where Shakespeare’s birthplace and Shakespeare Centre stood. The street was almost deserted when we stepped in, and only a few shops were still open, including the Shakespeare Book Store, where Fadli finally got hold of a hard-cover “The Complete Works of Shakespeare” as a companion to his Hitler. The city was heavily commercialized, with Shakespeare connections everywhere. Fommer’s was spot on when it concluded rather cynically that everyone here was out to make a buck off the Bard. Nobody would be surprised if there’s a Shakespeare Fried Chicken here. I sized up Shakespeare’s birthplace, a decent half-timber house, now a museum. It’s here that the Bard dreamed up all those sordid tales of trysts and treacheries, and left us the inspirational one liner ‘Et tu, Brute?’, which now comes in handy when your boss gets brutal upon seeing your KPI scores. Shakespeare was so good at his trade that conspiracy theories abound as to whether he used ghost writers (or even ghosts), or he’s doped (syabu, perhaps), or that he’s not sexually mainstream. Fancy Shakespeare a fraud, a junkie and a gay? Barbs off the Bard, I suppose. My own Shakespeare exposure is limited to a hilarious MAD Magazine parody of Julius Caesar plus a couple of Malay translations I read in the mid 60’s ‘Saudagar Venice’ and ‘Impian Di Pertengahan Musim Panas’. What would be the contextual translation of Macbeth? Your call, but Mat Rempit is fine with me.

Shakespeare wrote and doped here


Another tale of tryst?

It’s already dark when we left the mouthful Stratford-upon-Avon for the straight-forward Birmingham. We checked into a Travelodge at Maypole Road, just outside Birmingham. The Travelodge here was newer and more spacious, also at 19 pounds per room (money, not weight). There’s a Sainsbury’s across the road just in case we needed chips and pastries.

It’d been a fun-packed day. Football, pottery and Shakespeare. What a potent concoction. I certainly wouldn’t recommend City of Manchester Stadium to our PM or his lovely wife. But personally I wouldn’t trade it for anything on this trip. Warwick Castle should be in your list if you’ve plenty of time and pounds to burn (both money and weight). Shakespeare? By all means. The fame and name alone should be enough motivation to be there. If you’re a theatre freak, plays are all year round.

Beauty (18 March, Thursday)

Birmingham and its surrounding area is often referred to as the heart of England. We’d covered part of it yesterday, and today we’d be roaming the rest and, maybe, the best of it. We’re off early (which means at about 10 or so), cruising rural roads to the tune of Canned Heat’s classic ‘On the Road Again’ blaring out from the car audio. Our destination was Worcester, just 30 km south, the home of the world famous Worcester Sauce and Royal Worcester Porcelain. We’re not interested in the sauce because nothing on earth could be better than Saus Manis ABC. We’re after the Worcester porcelain and china which was supposed to be the world’s finest and available here at bargain prices at seconds shop at the factory. Aida squirmed at the prospect of sharing her tight space with porcelain. But we’re in for another disappointment when we’re told by a service station cashier that the factory had closed down two years ago. But there’s a museum, he added. Of course there’s a museum, we knew that. Just like the one in Stoke, the factory here had fallen on hard times. But the town of Worcester was surprisingly good looking, and drifting through it more than made up for the little let down.

From Worcester we headed south-east to another tourist hotspot called the Cotswolds. This area had some of the most charming villages in UK. One of them was Broadway. True enough, Broadway was a sleeping beauty. It’s open and spacious, with a generous layout of trees, gardens and lawns. The stone-rich buildings were an architectural delight. Old, quaint and English, what’s not to love? You’d wonder how did these people build and keep this village this way for so long. I guess things were easier without illegal immigrants. The dreamy, idyllic and laidback setting was almost surreal. Far from the madding crowd, you’d say. I just wished my artistic brother-in- law and his equally artistic wife were here. They’d fall in love with Broadway and even decide not to go back to working with the madding crowds at MBB and Mida.

Walking down the main street of this 15th century village was a pleasure beyond compare. Was it because of the free admission? Joke aside, it’s the loveliest street I’d ever seen. We couldn’t help but sneak in and out of its many dainty shops, with no real intention to buy anything. I still ended up buying a print of the village though. You should see it.

Breathless Broadway: No illegal immigrants here?


Me and Broadway. Better than me and USJ.

From Broadway, we swung south about 10 km to the market town of Chipping Campden, Boadway’s main rival for the prettiest village title. It’s a pity that they’re so near to each other. What we saw was what you’d see on a postcard. But Chipping Campden was more compact and livelier with rows of stone houses and structures of varied styles on both sides of the main street. The crowd was thicker here, just visiting or hunting for bargain crystals or tea set at the corner shops. Fadli was checking out the two bookshops here. If he’s in luck he could even find a rare Shakespeare’s “ Incomplete works”, as a companion to “the Complete Works” he’d bought yesterday.

Chipping Campden: We’re prettier than Broadway, ask him.

The Beast (18 March, Thursday)

Actually I’d lined up two more Cotswold villages (Painswick and Bibury) in today’s agenda. But from my thirty years of working my butt off in Petronas, I could scent the onset of low motivation with an 80% accuracy. It’s clear enough to me that the guys and the girls had had enough of pretty villages, English architecture and Sir Walter Scott. They wanted something different, something that could capture their imagination. Aida and Sarah, for example, wanted KFC’s cheesy wedges.

From Chipping Campden, we dipped further south toward Amesbury, about 200km away in Wiltshire. We reached Amesbury after about two hours, and pressed on westward for about 20 km before coming face to face with Stonehenge. The guys and the girls literally woke up to the sight of this so-called prehistoric monument. For the first time in about a week they’re looking at an anti-architecture. Just a circle of stones. It’s so devoid of design, taste and style that nobody had been able to link it to anything. ‘A prehistoric monument’ doesn’t amount to much. My parents’ house in Kelantan is technically a monument and figuratively prehistoric. But let’s not split hairs here. The point is Stonehenge is overrated and oversold. We walked past two busloads of German-speaking Germans who swore in German after they’re made to circle the stones by their guide. The only consolation was the panoramic view of Salisbury Plain, the rolling plains and pastures surrounding Stonehenge. Bleak and wind-swept in early spring, it’s much more dramatic than our prehistoric prima donna. Fadli seemed to be the only one among us and the Germans who’s genuinely interested. Asrif was madly texting his friends.

Don’t come here, it’s only stones.

Our plan was to actually return to where we’d started: Stansted Airport. But we still had an unfinished business. It’s drizzling when we showed up at the historic city of Salisbury, about 20 km south of Stonehenge. Where did I come across the name Salisbury before? Medieval rockers? Vegetable (no, that’s parsley)? A street in Taiping? Too old to recall. The tourist catch here was the cathedral, which towered over the city. Salisbury itself was a pretty sight with old stone buildings, but the rain had dampened our mood for adventure. We lingered for a while, just drifting and harboring a sliver of hope that we might stumble on a shop full of bargain dinner sets. There’s one actually, Watsons, on Queen Street. You’d heard it before and you heard it again: it went out of business two years ago.

It’s still raining when we found our way out of Salisbury. It’s 200 km to Stansted, mostly motorway. It’s already dark when we joined the M3 towards London and then onto the M25 orbiting London towards Stansted on the east side. We finally checked into a Travelodge about 6 km from the airport.

It’d been a trip of contrasts. The flawless beauty of Broadway and the beast in Stonehenge. The Cotswolds is a treasure, and, in hindsight, deserves more time. You don’t have to be an architect or an artist (like brother in law) to appreciate its character and charisma. All you need is good eyesight and a free mind. Stonehenge is, well, better never than late. No, really, that’s too harsh for a World Heritage. Don’t go to Stonehenge just for Stonehenge. You must wander a bit (Salisbury and Bath are nearby) to get your money’s worth. Otherwise skip Stonehenge and go for cheesy wedges.

Salisbury. Not Taiping.

London Town 1 – Beyonce and Mugabe (19 March, Friday)

We’d be going to Stansted, but we’re not going back to KL just yet. We’d not done London, remember. What? You scream. All this winding and twisting travelling tale and more of the same? But if you’ve come this far, I’m sure you’re game for more.

We packed up, left Travelodge and were in Stansted in less than 20 minutes. We returned the well-behaved car with the odometer clocking 3293 miles. It’s 1390 miles when we took it, meaning we’d logged 1903 miles or 3045 km! That’s a massive travelling by any standard, about 500 km everyday for six days. That’s about it, the end of roaring road trip. From Stansted we’d be going to London by a National Express bus to avoid the hassle of London driving: jams, congestion charge, parking fees, double deckers, horses, loss of sense of direction, Pakistanis etc.

We got off at a Park Lane bus stop near Marble Arch in London at about 1 pm. It’s drizzling and dead cold in London. We had to lug nine pieces of bags across the street to our hotel at Portman Square, about 200 metres away. We’re booked at Hyatt Regency the Churchill. No, we didn’t win a Petronas station lucky draw or anything like that. I was using my Hyatt loyalty points amassed during business travels to Jakarta and Bangkok. We got two connecting rooms and, despite the fancy branding, the rooms were only slightly bigger than Travelodge.

There’s no specific program for London. The guys had their own plans. Asrif had a friend in London and planned to catch up with him. Fadli wanted to see the British Museum and Tate Museum of Modern Art (what’s wrong with this guy). I hope he’s not also visiting the British Rail Authority. That left the four of us, and no discussion here because Aida and Sarah had already decided on Madame Tussaud’s, firm and final. It’s raining when we walked to Madame Tussaud’s on Marylebone Road, about 1 km from our hotel. Aida and Sarah were all fired up as we went in. All the famous and infamous, beauties and the beasts, were here in wax. Nothing much for a retiree, though, but the girls seemed to enjoy this tremendously. I must’ve done more than hundred shots here. Aida with Diana. Sarah with Beckham. Ibu with Shah Ruk. Aida with Audrey Hepburn (her idol). Sarah with Beyonce. Ibu with Salman (Khan, not Rushdie). Sarah with I-don’t-know-who. Me and Mugabe. And so on. There’re a couple of passable side-shows to add some variety to the whole thing. The girls enjoyed it, so I enjoyed it. On the way back to hotel, we stopped at a Tesco Express to buy you-know-what.

Me and Audrey. Pity she’s all wax.

London Town 2 – I’ve found what I’m looking for (20 March, Saturday)

Still without any plan, we spent some time looking at the options. It’s drizzling again outside. We decided on Portobello Road Market, since it’s hip and happening on Saturday. Asrif was out with his friend again today. We took the tube from Marble Arch to Notting Hill Gate station for Portobello Road. This market is a haven for antiques, farm produce, food and art. The crowd was unbelievable despite the weather. People of all cultures and interests were here, drawn by the promise of bargains and basement prices. The dealers were all over the narrow street showing off their wares. It’s here that we finally found what we’re looking for: the elusive dinner set. Old, English design, pinkish red, made in Staffordshire, England. Twelve pieces for 35 pounds or RM 180. We bought it from a seller named Wayne. He had an earring (not sure which ear, left or right). The last twelve pieces, he said, and he made only 5 pounds. Should we believe a man with earring?

Pasar tani Portobello

The drizzle turned into showers, and it’s colder than Edinburgh now. Not the best time to see London landmarks. It’s time to stay indoor and close to the toilet. From Portobello Market we moved on to Camden Town and got drenched in the driving rain. Camden, a tourist trap, was forgettable. Finally we’re back in Marble Arch and into the famous M&S store on Oxford Street. We’re looking at food choices and varieties in the food section when we bumped into a Malay family. We’re about to greet them when they turned the other way. It’s the sad, unwritten code of ethics in London that Malays will look the other way when they see their kind, unless they happen to be Kelantanese. (It’s free-for-all when Kelantanese meet Kelantanese in London).

We spent the evening at Harrods, burning with curiosity about the trappings of the high life. This iconic institution was almost deserted except for the restaurants. No Portobello crowd here. Only overpaid footballers and their wags. We roamed the floors, gasping openly at the prices. After only two floors, we thought we’d seen them all. And there’s that sad memorial to Diana and Dodi on the basement. You could almost feel a father’s deep sense of loss and anger.

London Town 3 – London Landmarks and Comedians (21 March, Sunday)

Morning was clear, and we’re beginning to feel we’re too long in London, especially in this freakish weather. Maybe the famous landmarks could lift our spirits a bit. All six of us took the tube to Westminster Station for a tour of the Westminster area, where a number of travel-guide landmarks were located. Out of the station, we had a good view of the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and London Eye. Huge crowd here, all with the same idea. We just followed the crowd which somehow moved in one direction. Must be the herd instinct. Crossing Westminster Bridge, we strolled past Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Downing Street, Whitehall, and right up to Trafalgar Square before turning left along the Mall and onto the beautiful St James’s Park towards Buckingham Palace at the far end. I wasn’t sure whether Sarah was inspired by all this. She’s still very much into Barbies and Bratz. We took the tube at Green Park to Covent Garden. Sunday market at Covent Garden was packed with tourists from Bulgaria, and vendors were having a field day fleecing them. We stayed on for a while to watch a street performance by a black stand-up comedian. All comedians in the world are black.

Actually we’d prefer Raja Lawak on Astro.

After Covent Garden, Fadli split and off to museums. Asrif must be somewhere in London, madly texting his friends. I was back on Oxford Street with Ibu and the girls, ambling back and forth with the swelling afternoon crowd. The street was choked with people of all origins and shades, coming and going in all directions. They looked comfortable, confident, even with a hint of swagger, and as much at home in London as they’re in Karachi or Kampala. I guess here the Indians, Ugandans, Jamaicans, Pakistanis (yes) and even Kelantanese feel quite rightly that they have as much moral claim to Central London as the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish do. And why not? Hyatt Regency the Churchill in the centre of London and Padang Churchill in the centre of Kota Bharu. “bahawa sejarah harus dibayar dengan sejarah/ dosa yang terkumpul/di beratus pulau dan negeri/perlu ditebus di pusat London”. Wrote a Malay poet laureate in his early poetry piece ‘England di musim bunga’, an allusion to British colonial past and plunder. Man, this is some serious stuff.

St James‘s Park underexposed

No prize for guessing the one from Kelantan.

Leaving London (22 March, Monday)

Our last day in London. Weather looked good, and it should last for the next hour or so. Last night all of us had to squeeze into one room because we had to give up one room. Actually more than three people in one hotel room is illegal in UK (but not in Ukraine). But since a Kelantanese has an equal right to central London, we thought we had a pretty strong case. We took the opportunity to have ice breaking and filial bonding sessions while trying to find enough space to breathe. So this morning we’re friendlier than normal to each other, salam, good morning, sorry, please sir may I go out and so on. But, just like the English weather, it should last for the next hour or so.

Fadli was out early on the last leg of his museum and book store tour. Asrif decided to go out a bit later because he’s not done with his mad texting. We had to check out at three, and not much time left. It’s already ten when I was out on Oxford Street with Ibu and the girls floating with the crowd, most of the time at M&S. It’s about the only place that we didn’t really feel out of place in London. Prices were purse-friendly, too. And we bought pastries again.

We checked out at three and waited for our bus at the hotel lobby until about six, when we had to drag our bags again, now heavier, to the National Express bus stop about 20 metres away on Portman Street. The bus pulled up at 6.15 and we’re on our way to Stansted.

We’re at Stansted at about 7.30, and the Air Asia counter was still closed for the 11.20 flight to KL. I pondered worriedly over our bulging bags, which looked twice the 60 kg luggage allowance purchased. True enough we had to cough up 45 pounds for excess. Other than that, no complaint. Stansted even had a surau, apart from three W H Smiths. There’s no immigration, and security hassle was no worse than expected. One security guy even called out ‘kasut, kasut’ to liven things up. He’s black. I was right about the comedians.

Sweet Home (23 March, Tuesday)

We landed at LCCT at 8 evening, half an hour ahead of schedule. We came out of the plane and right into the pressure cooker. Hot, humid and home. For Aida and Sarah, it’s hot, humid and homework!

A Final Word

The journey of a lifetime! You’ve heard that said time and again by returning travelers. Romping through beautiful places is a richly rewarding and life lasting experience. Our ten-day UK road trip is just that, and more. I don’t want to get overdramatic, but all of us together in one car for 3000 km is certainly an affair to remember. It’s yet to sink in. We hardly travel together at home, never mind sleeping in one room. I’m struggling to compare the experience to anything. Treats or traps, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Before I leave, let’s have one final fling of fun. I’m going to list the top five UK experiences for each of us. But that’s still not the fun part. The real fun part is that each list is not based on what they think. It’s based on what I think:

My list: 1. Broadway 2. York (Rest area/city) 3. City Of Manchester Stadium 4. Edinburgh 5. Conwy
Ibu: 1. M&S 2.Edinburgh Gift Shops 3. Portobello Market 4. Broadway 5. Shah Ruk
Asrif: 1. City of Manchester Stadium 2. Driving 3000km in six days 3. Buying a prepaid in Glasgow 4. Texting in Chester 5. Texting in Edinburgh
Fadli: 1. London museums/bookshops 2. Edinburgh 3. Stonehenge 4. Conwy 5. W H Smiths (all 23 of them).
Aida: 1. Madame Tussaud’s (with Audrey Hepburn) 2. York 3. M&S 4. Hyatt 5. Harrods
Sarah: 1. Madame Tussaud’s 2. Hyatt 3.Madame Tussauds 4. Bratz 5. Madame Tussaud’s

Their actual lists maybe different, but who wants to know?

Where’s my homework?

Still in faraway Broadway.