bulanbiru

A New Year, A New Daughter-In-Law

2012-01-09T04:02:00.000-08:00

It's a new year, and it's a new daughter-in-law for me and wife. No, I'm not replacing my daughter-in-law with a new daughter-in-law for the new year. Nobody does that as far as I know. People change or replace oil filters, but not daughters-in-law. Calm down, Azalia.

Actually we've just been blessed with another daughter-in-law when my younger boy married the only girl of his dreams (I don't think he had other girls or other dreams). His first morning at kindergarten seems to me like this morning. And how he quickly progressed by learning all the cranky wrestlers' names and fake moves. Time flew and who knew. His wife, Siti Sarah, is our new daughter-in-law. "New" here is strictly contextual and technical: she's new to us and we're new to her. That's all to it. Azalia, our first daughter-in-law, has been with us for slightly over a year now. So by all industry standards, she's no longer new to us, but she's not old, please. We're no longer new to her and we're, well, plain old. Semantics can be chaotic, sorry.

With two daughters-in-law now, I've become father-in-law twice. Two titles in two years, I'm luckier than Liverpool. But I'm still called father-in-law, because there's no English or Malay or Kelantanese term for somebody with two or many or too many daughters-in-law. There are thousands of living and dying languages in the world today and I'm sure there's one or two that make this important distinction. Or maybe it's not important. I mean it's not important and not urgent to differentiate or discriminate people based on the number of daughters-in-law. So there's no real need for any word or terminology for it. There's no medical breakthrough linking somebody's sugar content or arthritis to the incidence of daughters-in-law in his vicinity. This is why it's still unlawful for any desperate insurance company (meaning all insurance companies) to load up more premium on anyone with multiple daughters-in-law.

Whatever it is, I must say that this time around I'm better prepared. To be honest, there's nothing much to prepare. Nothing in the sense of having to conceive a clever transformation program or a five-year plan. If you're a colourless and redundant retiree, there's absolutely nothing to prepare. Just remain colourless and redundant. Your cholesterol and calcium would stay safe. Your daughter-in-law might even choose part of your name for her secure password. That's it. You're in seventh heaven.

Maybe not. Because there's nothing to profit from the status quo and ceteris paribus (what?). I still think daughters-in-laws in this day and age are a precious learning opportunity. Deeply literate and fiercely independent, they epitomize most of the newfound ideas and wisdom. You know, complex beliefs like "bigger burger is better burger". Or simple ones like "Wayne Rooney is either a born moron or born a moron" (my idea, but what the hell). You'll fall for their their fancy English and faux Malay. And they don't write the (archaic) way we write. They don't write, actually. It's just LOL, LMAO, he he, @$%# and all the wordless counterculture. Obviously there's so much for us to engage, learn and achieve here. It's easier for mothers-in-law to get on because they rule the kitchen. All daughters-in-law, new or not new, know well enough not to upset the foodchain. But a father-in-law is a pointless afterthought, just like the oil filter. He needs the extra guile and craft to get in the groove. But, who'd really know, with time and some luck "Di Ambang Sore" might find its way into his daughter-in-law's playlists. LOL.

Five REAL Reasons Why MU Fell in Basel, or Basle, or Whatever.

2011-12-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Manchester United (MU) crashed out of the Champions League after an inexplicable loss to FC Basel. For the second time in less than a year, MU played like FU (Felda United). The whole social and anti-social media erupted into an all-out feeding frenzy, pouncing on the debacle in Basel with both delight and dejection: seismic, catastrophic, comic, and, simply, sick. The Gary Speed inquest is hardly done, and here's another one. Overnight the world over was awash with clever theories and hindsights. Senile Sir Alex, ugly Rooney, dud de Gea, no Cleverly, get Sneijder. Even Park Ji Sung, far right in above pic, wasn't spared (a bit unfair because he's supposed to only run, nothing else). One football writer offered five reasons for the scandalous performance. Not to be outdone, another suggested six. But both completely missed the point simply because they either hate MU or love MU. They're biased to the bone. As a long-suffering but impartial Manchester City fan, I'm just happy to jump in with my five REAL reasons:

1. Monotony: after 25 years of playing the same style and putting up with the same Scottish Gaelic language, MU as a team are bored to death. MU is, by and large, the proverbial one-trick pony. Only they're very very good at this one trick. If there's anybody who's successfully mechanised the art of football, it's MU. You could still see Keane, Pallister and Parker playing week in, week out this season even though they've long retired. With no semblance of variety and makeover, players (including Park Ji Sung) get tired, demotivated and even deluded. They collectively collapsed when they got found out at Old Trafford against Man City and in Basel against part-time watchmakers. And, of course, those one-nil, clean-sheet craps in between.

2. Manchester City: For the first time in 40 years, MU are substantively and earnestly upstaged by their perennially pathetic neighbours. So potent was neighbours' threat that MU had to resort to desperate taunting and name-calling: noisy neighbours, bitters, 35 years, football lessons, plastics, sheikh's toy. The Fergie-lapping media was just happy to fuel and foment the ill feeling. It's not so much Man City's newfound riches that irk MU, but more of their swaggering and irreverent pitchside ways. The 6-1 derby hiding at Old Trafford was the last straw. All in all, MU players are a mentally depressed and disturbed lot, Park Ji Sung included. You can't move if you're unhappy. Simple.

3. Otelul Galati. Or something. Until today MU players and the entire coaching staff are still wondering what they've done wrong to deserve a home-and-away fixture against this team. Champions League is treacherous enough as it is. Playing an obscure team with a strange moniker often adds an unwanted distraction and romance, not to mention Jonny Evans. The city of Galati is not far from the high forests of Transylvania (ha, ha, you know who slept here). So it's a bit of a stretch to expect MU to beat up Count's boys home and away and get away with it. All the rumours about his stake-to-the heart death are just that: rumours.

4. Michel Platini: You can't see the connection. Neither can I. But there has to be some connection. This is UEFA, remember. His loathing of big, rich and non-French teams is an open and shut case. If he could have his way, he'd have the French cycling team in the Champions League, taking on BATE, Apoel and Genk in a group of death. Lyon's cynical and convenient 7-1 away win is proof of his complicity. Circumstantial, but proof all the same. Resign, Platini, now.

Did I say five reasons? Actually it's four. I miscounted. Or I just couldn't improvise another one. Nonetheless, good reasons, all of them.

Mindless Miscellany (No. 9)

2011-11-24T06:10:00.000-08:00

We're into the last gasp of a frenetic 2011. The year just seems to be in a huge hurry to complete itself. Libya's back to the Libyans with Gadaffi now gone for good. If anything, his passing saves everyone the pain of figuring the right spelling for his name (Gadaffi, Ghadafi, Kadaffi, and 100 other variants). Europe is imploding as Germany plays Ah Long-in-chief. The US, well, never mind. Steve Jobs, the visionary, is now history. Man U mauled 6-1 by neighbours (just can't help). Yingluck is out of luck: she won Bangkok then lost it to the floods. Indonesia is holding on to its maids despite Malaysia's repeated promise of one mandatory rest day and six optional work days in a week. You don't have to trawl the world for a good laugh. There's plenty right here at home in Malaysia.

1. The Curious Case of The Hundred Handout

If you think Malaysia is overly kind to foreign maids, just consider what it's giving to its citizens: If you have a school-going child, and you or your child isn't an illegal immigrant, you'll get RM 100 in cool cash, no question asked. If you have five children and five Porsches, you'll get RM 500 (even if all your five Porsches are illegal). Of course, we, ever curious and suspicious, have some questions now: Is this black money? Is this one-off? Can we use the money to buy a condo? Can we still vote for Elizabeth Wong?

2. Tired Teachers?

Minister of Education recently advised the MOE staff to ease off a bit. They should find time to relax, exercise, destress, breathe, live and so on. MOE has a staff of 500,000, hard to believe. What comes to mind is the teachers. Are they working too hard? Based on my calculation, the total number of schooldays in 2011 is 180, as against 185 non-schooldays (i.e. holidays). More holidays than working days in one year. And that 180 includes unproductive schooldays like Sports Day, Before Sports Day, After Sports Day, Teachers' Day, Hari Kantin, Jogathon, floods, Malaysia Cup Champions etc. I know teaching is tiring and stressful, but it's only half a year. Plenty of time to rest and recover. No issue here.

3. Ah, Kelantanese Again

A genetics study on the Malay race by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) confirmed what I'd long suspected: that Kelantan Malays were the first to set foot in Peninsular Malaysia, some 60,000 years ago. My formal training in history or anthropology is limited to the History Channel and Masterchef, but 60,000 years seems such a long time ago. Or is it a gross misprint or miscount, and it's actually 6,000 or even 600 years? 60,000 or 6,000, I'm just delighted. Being Kelantanese has never felt this good. Now I've the bragging rights over friends who're Jawa Malay, Minang Malay, Bugis Malay, Rawa Malay, uncertain Malay and other ethnic Malays who, according to the same study, came much later (though earlier than the Banglas). As first comers, Kelantanese certainly deserves some privileges. Like RM 200 instead of RM100. And oil royalty.

4.Thinking Tanking

Do you know that there's a Malaysian Malay Professional Thinkers Organization or Persatuan Pemikir Profesional Melayu Malaysia? No, it's not a scam or spam. It's a bona fide NGO led by a prominent professor. With a convenient catch-all name, this NGO has taken on a wide spectrum of local issues ranging from the serious ones like the UMNO-PAS merger to semi-serious ones like nasi lemak at school canteens. I've nothing against NGOs, they're fine and useful as a concept. But how do you get to be a member of this exalted NGO? Any minimum qualification? Can a non-thinking professional like Carlos Tevez be a member? No. He's born in Argentina. Fair enough. Then how about a hard thinking but non-professional retiree born in Kelantan?

5. Readers' Ripostes

As a redundant retiree, I've all the time and space for news and stories on my Yahoo! homepage. Politics, sports, music, health, archaeology, whatever. And I love readers' comments. They're clever, whimsical and, at times, coarse. Plenty of wit and humour and misspellings. Follow the ongoing slugfest among the US presidential hopefuls. Readers are having a field day ripping into their gaffes, flubs and faux pas. And why not. Mrs Bachmann wished Elvis happy birthday on the anniversary of his death. Amidst howls of "idiot, go away etc", one reader coolly suggested " Elvis doesn't care, why should we". One reader thought Mitt Romney is a moron (he's actually Mormon). Rocked by sexual harassment claims, Herman Cain badly botched an interview. Asked on Libya, he simply bumbled and failed to muster anything coherent. One reader suspected that Cain mistook Libya for labia. Brilliant.

Lembaran Terakhir: Ahmad Jais (1936-2011)

2011-11-04T08:12:00.001-07:00

The first time I heard "Di Ambang Sore" over the old Radio Malaysia in 1965, I'd to catch my breath. The melody, the music, the lines, just blended and melted into one supreme and sublime song. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's 11. And that pure and flawless voice simply swept me away with all of its unrestrained and surging smoothness. Barely twelve, I fell for Ahmad Jais and his serenades of love and loss. "Sejuk senja ku nantikan, namun dikau tiada datang". Who wouldn't.

Those who'd summarily dismissed him as another one-or-three-hit wonder were left to rue as Ahmad Jais brand flourished. And how: 15 benchmark albums, 100 timeless tunes, countless kudos. His legions of lovers, drawn in equal measure by his unprententious persona, grew fast, far and wide, quite a feat in those dark and dreary days without YouTube, Facebook and Masterchef. Some of his ardent admirers grew up swooning over his signature staples like"Gelisah" and "Sumpah Setia" to become accomplished lawmakers and professors (no wonder).

Ahmad Jais made no attempt to emulate P Ramlee because he knew enough he could never rival the versatility and virtuosity of the only genius this country has ever produced. So he remained Ahmad Jais, and rightly so. But his lush vocals and lovely ballads stood out in a vibrant local music scene dominated by nonsensical and insanely commercial pop yeh yeh largely blamed for giving us paranormal and forgettable tunes like "Si Cincin Emas" and "Ngalompak A go go". To be fair pop yeh yeh did have its inspiring moments with creative forces like A Romzi and The Hooks (the slap bass on "Sengsara" had more chops than Red Hot Chili Peppers, ha ha ha), but that's about all. Nothing came close to Ahmad Jais, the master crooner. During my Tiger Lane days, his songs provided the occasional solace and deviation from the gruelling demands of chemistry experiments and dull afternoon debates (mostly in Kelantanese English).

For those pining for a Malaysian equivalent of Indonesian doyens like S Effendy, the wait was over with Ahmad Jais. They did collaborate at one time, a testament to the high respect and recognition the two leading lights had of each other (listen to "Jumpa Mesra"). The Indonesian music has since progressed so much that none of their talents could find any motivation to work with their struggling Malaysian counterparts until very recently: when artistes on both sides descended into artistic indecency by labelling each other "diva". While Indonesia has practically stopped the flow of its maids into Malaysia, its divas continue to fly into KL to link up with local divas for live gigs, promotional blitz and more money. And with new maids now being offered higher pay, medical, rest days and singing lessons, Malaysian households will soon be getting their own divas. Sorry for digressing.

Ahmad Jais's melodic and lyrical style finally hit its best-by date and succumbed to the relentless advance of the newer and noisier genres in the 80s. You know, the rockish, rappish and rubbish variety. Regraded as nostalgia and esoteric, his songs rule Radio Klasik (FM 87.7 in KL) and retain a cult following, mainly those at "Di Ambang Sore", so to speak. This fiercely passionate crowd just refuse to let go and move on, and the songs are as fresh as they're 40 years ago. The iPod generation may argue that Ahmad Jais lacks the musical complexity and artistry of, say, Yuna, Ana, Gaga. Well, to each his own, and stupid is as stupid does, as the saying goes.

Ahmad Jais passed away Tuesday, 11 October 2011, at 75, leaving a rich legacy of endearing and evergreen songs. I've more than 50 in my drawer, each and every one is a veritable treat and treasure. One or two my two school-going girls should be able to (sarcastically) hum along by now due to my frequent late-night airings. He's no longer with us, but his renditions will continue to calm our nerves and liven up our daily blight and grind. "Jinak merpati makan di tangan, jangan dikurung di sangkar hati". You'll break down and cry.

What's more befitting than closing this encomium with his definitive number. But which one? It's never easy to pick out. They're all so bewilderingly beautiful, each with its own personal mood and character. I've to choose at random. So here's "Seloka Kasih":

Bermadah puan lembut alunan, terpikat hamba dik halus budi.
Jinaklah hamba di taman hatimu, benarkah puan cinta padaku.

Bila mata bertentang mata, kelunya lidah untuk berkata.
Jangan diturut katanya hati, kelak nanti merana diri.

Manis madah mu tersusun rapi, terbayang jugak wajah berseri.
Mulut tak hangus berkata api, memang tak nampak sakit di hati.

Kilas mata ikan di air, sudah kutau jantan betina.
Bukan mudah jadi penyair, lagunya ada pantun tak kena.

Seloka puan bijak bistari, terpaut sudah si anak muda.
Kuharap luka sembuh kembali, walaupun parutnya tetap ada.

Kalau pandai meniti buih, selamatlah nanti badan ke seberang.
Siapakah serik bermain kasih, walaupun dia di tangan orang.

The Mauling of Mister Potatoes.

2011-10-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

Utterly and altogether unbelievable. For more than 40 years I'd been fantasizing about something close to this. It finally happened, and more. Manchester City routed Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford. The Theatre of Dreams, football Fort Knox or plain swamp was battered and buried, taking with it the ghosts of that freaking overhead kick. Nobody, not even the deepest City-loving romantics, were quite prepared for what's unfolding in plain sight: a complete dismantling of the 19-time champions heading for 20. The feeling hasn't really sunk in. It won't.

Remember the snide and cynical broadsides from Rooney the white Pele my arse and the Fergie-lapping tabloid toerags after the Community Shield? (Football lessons, Barca and Real rejects, poor old City, as ugly as sin, bunch of strangers etc). The pain was brimming over and reaching out for retribution. What a rich reversal and a cruel vindication. No fluke, no freak this time. Just a brazen display of exquisite and articulate football I hadn't seen in 40 years of following City. No football lessons here. Only merciless mauling of Mister Potatoes.

Potato chips lovers, including those at Putrajaya, should take heart when, only two days after the Old Trafford hiding, Man U won a Carling Cup fixture. Against Aldershot. All the what? Quite a nameless team at the wrong end of the 4th Division. Owen scored a goal amidst local fans' cheeky chants of "We're going to win 6-1." Call that a quick recovery if you want.

"We're Manchester City, we'll do what we want." The new shout of swagger ringing across the Etihad just about sums it all up.

There's no better time to tell jokes and rub the occasional salt. Here's an assortment of jibes picked out from the social network:

1. Sick swan
2. Six and the City
3. Man U trauma line: 016 16 16 16 16
4. What's the difference between Man U and a black cab? A black cab lets in five.
5. What do Col Gadhafi and Man U have in common? Both slaughtered by the locals.
6. Man U expected to win the second and third set?
7. 4th official: How much time do you want to add, Sir Alex?
Alex: Just get the whistle blown.
8. What time is it? It's six past De Gea.
9. All Man U players looked upset. Except Rooney. He can't count to 6. He just looked confused.
10. David De Gea's mum rang him up at half time. Told him to be home before seven.
11. Finally, the best of the lot:
Monday morning in the Fergie house.
Mrs Ferguson: Get up, Alex. It's just gone seven!
Alex: Goodness me. They scored again.

.

Break-in Redux

2011-10-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

Now repeat after me: "This country is going to the dogs!".

Somebody broke into my house - again, for the second time in less than a year. And maybe by the same twisted scum of the earth. We'd yet to fully recover from the first one and now this. Horrendous, and hard to believe our (wretched) luck. But I'm sure this isn't the worst on record. Not in a country with two million illegal students and one million illegal policemen. I've heard of houses broken into twice in a month. I love this country just like the Zimbabweans love theirs. Malaysia is definitely transforming and is well on track to becoming the only developed country with hudud laws by 2019. Bring on the laws, guys. Lop their hands off for all I care.

It's a sad Saturday. The dark, gathering clouds were ominous enough. We'd only one nagging suspicion: that it's going to rain (ha, ha). We left at two and came back at about 7.50 only to find a broken window with pure and natural air gusting in, a telltale sign that something was amiss because we hadn't had fresh air in our house for 20 years. I sprinted up faster than Usain to find all rooms plundered and pillaged. Clothing and things strewn all over. I'd never seen a refugee camp but I could picture it when I saw my bedroom or what's left of my bedroom. Only my son's room appeared untouched, because it's plundered and pillaged everytime. Apart from my watch and wife's knock-off jewellery, nothing much was missing. I finally found an old Manchester City t-shirt I'd been looking for the last ten years (thanks, thief!). Lucky thing no Mercedes was taken (because there's no Mercedes to begin with).

While the pain of losing a watch should ease off the morning after, the cerebral trauma should linger for a while. Something like post-partum, only worse. We've to be prepared for symptoms of cognitive failures like confusion, anger, hearing loss and constipation. A friend who's also a multiple victim recommended an elegant quick fix for break-in depression: blame it all on UMNO and Perkasa. It's not quite clear how he contrived this placebo. There's no conceivable way the venerable political institution and the well-meaning NGO could've had a hand in his misfortune, and certainly not in burglaries. He recovered in seven days. I guess it's mind over matter.

Now the police report. Actually, I was in two minds about filing a report. With the country's entire police personnel already short-handed by the thousands of reports lodged against Anwar Ibrahim, Ambiga and Mohamad Sabu, my bothersome break-in report wouldn't stand any chance. But my good sense prevailed, for two reasons. One, with all those ETP, NKRA, KPI, MACC, EBITDA, filing a police report is now faster than figuring out what those abbreviations stand for. Two, police might be enlightened enough to be able to crack this case and recover the loot. The odds are no better than seeing Elvis at Mydin, but who really knows. Without a police report my wife can't claim her fake bangles.

With nothing to lose, I drove to USJ 8 police station and filed a report with the investigating officer, one Inspector Faisal. I used to work for a Fortune 500 multinational champion and I could tell with 90% precision that this particular law enforcer was 100% unmotivated. A repeat burglary isn't an unnatural sex act, fair enough. But the least he could've done was to feign some interest and curiosity. I've been religiously paying my income tax for the past 30 years, I'm sure a good part of it has gone into sustaining a functional police force. It's hardly paying back.

We're having a late dinner when a police officer came to visit the crime scene. He's a CSI-type, with camera, gloves and all. He dusted the broken glass for fingerprints. No fingerprints, the shithead wore gloves, probably local and gay, he said (not verbatim). He took some pictures, and more pictures upstairs, and that's it. I wasn't totally impressed, but at least he tried. They did the exact same thing for the first break-in a year ago. I'm beginning to believe that this is a police SOP (Standard Operating Ploy) to scam us into thinking they're serious.

I was expecting police cars flashing and blaring around my area the next day, harassing and hounding the workers at a couple of construction sites nearby. Nothing. Maybe it's Sunday. Nothing on Monday. Tuesday, still nothing. I understand, for the police to proceed they need clear leads, like the perpetrator's passport, his name cards, or, better still, Mr Perpetrator announcing himself at the police station. But utter inaction sends the same stark message to both the victim and the villain: that break-ins are no big deal and they're very much part of our multicultural sophistication which also includes running red lights and Malay hantu movies. At this rate, you'd be forgiven for deciding that the transsexuals are creating more value for this flagging country.

The Girls Take A Pet

2011-09-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning, my nose sniffed a whiff of musk, or was it skunk? Somebody must have poached my Kiehl's Original Musk Blend No 1.

Since my first day of retirement, I've been trying to reverse my age and debunk Mayo geriatric studies by oversleeping. This is still a project in progress. Whenever I wake up from a lengthy slumber, my olfactory nerves will react violently and I'll smell things. A side effect, I suppose. Due to thinner air, morning time is a smells sanctuary. In my case, its the plain, everyday odours that get amplified: morning breath, dirty laundry, school bus, Banglas, neighbour's curry, neighbour's dogs, neighbours, but never musk or skunk. Then it struck me. Yesterday my two girls took in a cat as our pet. It's a ten-month old brownish black American Curl, one of the few known feline varieties that can tolerate Malaysian weather and public. The skunk was him.

We'd never had any pet, except for a short period in the early nineties, when my two boys took in a rabbit or a guinea pig or something in between. The short period was actually all of two and half days, long enough time for him to scarf down something close to our one year's supply of carrot. This guy was born to eat and un-eat, so we had no choice but to un-pet him. It's all peace and pet-free until 2000. That's the year when my youngest (Sarah) was old enough to muster the magic word "cat". She bugged and badgered me senselessly until I finally relented - in 2011. To be fair, my mind was failing and I was deeply disturbed by this revisionist idea that Kelantan was never colonized by Winston Churchill. Sarah caught me off my guard, to say the least. My OK was only partially audible and would amount to no more than a hearsay in any court of law. But it's all sweet and clear enough to her that she broke down and cried, tears and all. Who wouldn't, I mean, after 10 years and lost hopes. Israel would've allowed the Arabs in the West Bank to have their own pets in less than a week.

Although I've a slight condition with snakes, I really have nothing against cats. They're a fun and friendly lot when they're not dispensing anything. My only peeve with pets in my household is the very real prospect of my ending up as a champion janitor despite all the verbal and written promises and pledges made by the girls before we take any pet in. Apart from the little joy of gratifying the girls with this gift, I'm hard-pressed to find an upside to living with a cat and a high cholesterol (my cholestrol, not cat's cholesterol). Maybe, just maybe, this cat, for all it's worth, is an answer to a retiree's natural urge and yearning for adventure and failure.

Although financial cost was never an issue, we got him on the cheap. Actually he's free, given away by Aida's friend, Nadia, who's now left with only 15 cats. His given name was Cooper. I wasn't sure which Cooper: Gary? Henry? Mini? We thought we should change the name to something closer to us. It took us less than 10 years to agree with my proposed name: Dzeko (pronounced Jeko), after Manchester City's Bosnian hotshot Edin Dzeko, who's actually pink, not brown or black. I know Balotelli would be better, but no cat in the world would respond to a name like that.

Wait for updates.

A Crude Guide to Buying a TV ( And a Blender While You're at it )

2011-08-27T00:50:00.000-07:00

Have you bought a TV lately? Well, according to my old English teacher, you don't buy a TV, you buy a TV set. He's an English purist. It's always TV set to him, non-negotiable. So have you bought a TV set lately? Ha ha. Imagine walking into a Harvey Norman or Best Denki and telling the Sabahan in uniform that "I'm looking for a TV set." He'd immediately whip out a set of three latest Samsungs (32, 40 and 50 inches) and offer you a basement price for the set of three if you buy today (tomorrow different price, he'd warn you). Don't blame him. He's a TV salesman, not an English purist. Now that we have TV in LED, HD and 3D, you can be more specific and helpful by asking for a HD3DLEDTV set. He'd gladly show you another set of four or six.

I was out looking for a flatscreen last week and had a brain seizure. Problem is, I'm retired, and time is firmly on my side. I've all the time and space for about anything. So whenever I decide to splurge, it's a major project. I'd search, research, analyse, paralyse, compare, run a DCF, anything to make myself half-clear. There's no democracy deeper than consumer electronics in this country. You'll enjoy the unfettered freedom of choice and expression. There's even a 'TV strip' in Taipan USJ, a row of five fiercely competing outlets with bright lights and loud music, all pitching Samsung. Even with plenty of restraint that came with the holy month, I still managed to prepare myself by learning a litany of audio-visual standards and specifications, dummies-level solid state engineering, Japanese branding strategies and Korean ancient history. As a bonus, I picked up a smattering of show-off parlance like ghosting, passive glasses and crosstalk. Call me if you're interested.

If you want to buy a flatscreen today, and budget isn't an issue, you'd have exactly 420 choices. But since budget is always a constraint (I'm retired, remember), I can cut through the chaos and winnow my options down to roughly 210. Fewer but still frightening. Even with a paltry budget of Rm 2000, you can already choose among four sizes, five technologies (plasma, LCD, LED, 3D, 2D), ten brands and two brains (Smart and less-than-Smart). The dynamics will double instantly if the salesman throws in the clever purchase-with-purchase ploys. A word of caution: if you fall for a PWP, you'll be lugging home a Smart flatscreen and a dumber blender. There's an upside though. You can restart your love life by showing your wife the blender and tell her softly that all along you've been thinking about her, and the flatscreen actually comes with the blender. Buying a new HDTV can be as complicated as buying a recond MPV.

But I did make my decision finally. How? I ruled out Sony. Sony is Samsung in disguise. I'm ready for lawsuits, but just trust me. I always have this nagging suspicion that most Japanese brands are just that: brands. It's all marketing and image and perception that, sadly, leads to higher price. TV technology has reached a point where one brand is intrinsically no worse than another. But it's OK to be more vigilant with unimaginative names like Toba or Tony because they could well be products genuinely made in Balakong or nearby Universiti Putra Malaysia. Stay clear. How about 3D? Out of question for now. My two girls and me putting on those monstrous, battery-hungry goggles to watch Pirates of the Carribean? We'd look like pirates ourselves in no time. With Sony and 3D out of the way, I was down to 40 or so options. It's easier now. No, I won't say flat out here which brand or model I bought. This is a carbon-free and commercial-free blog. Ah, watching Kun Aguero in HD, life's so good.

Sharir Sharuddin (1951-2011): A Celebration

2011-07-07T07:47:00.001-07:00

It’s OK if you’ve never heard of Sharir, because he revelled in anonymity. After all, he’s not a political master or a decorated soldier. Neither was he a quick investor with billions to burn. He’s a Star boy and bred, like you and me, only he happened to love and live distance running.

I can’t think of any Star athlete, past or present, who runs quite like him. Power with grace. He just flowed, like poetry. That’s why, watching him in action, I was reminded of Colin Bell, one of my all-time football heroes, whose trademark ghosting runs from behind often caught opponents off their pants. And Sharir was similarly unflappable, understated and easy to overlook. While the hurdles and sprint poster boys (you know them all) were out flashing and flaunting their bravura, Sharir chose to remain inconspicuous. But behind the façade of thick glasses and glam-rocker hairdo, lurked a precocious talent and devastatingly competent running machine. Ever so gracious and diffident, he didn’t celebrate or even discuss his record-breaking feats. Uncharacteristic and uncommon for sure, but a Star champion and prodigious son no less.

A born distance runner, Sharir was one-sided to a fault. He could attack the old cross-country course behind the Field Force camp, through the rubber estate, deep in the muddy stream, across Ampang Baru new village, among the cattle crowd on Dairy Road, up the old Tiger Lane, without breaking a sweat. But he laboured to pass the 100-metre standard tests. A humbling reminder that he, like all of us, was imperfect. Running up to an Ipoh District athletics meet in late 60’s, the fraternity was abuzz with the upcoming cross-country showdown between Sharir and Othean Sunthiran, a long-distance god from Anderson or St Micheal, I’m not sure which. Mindful of the portentous Indian runners’ “live to run, run to live” work ethics, the smart money was all for an Othean’s sweep. Totally unruffled, Sharir settled down to a good night’s sleep. The next day he won with a generous hundred yards to spare. After the race, he quietly faded into the crowd. No victory jigs, no celebratory air-punching, only vintage Sharir. All in a day’s work for the champion.

Sharir and I both shared the unforgettable Blue experience, burning and bringing down the old house together with Bain, Pak Dokter, Pak Chat, Chot, Sany, (Datuk)Ishak Shideburns, Ridzuan and other assorted personalities. I must admit that I took up distance running myself, moved and inspired in part by Sharir’s effortless and all-conquering running style. Short on gift and talent, I’ve never won anything. I can never be like him, I know, but I’m still running today, every evening, with the same schoolboy vigour and fervour. Jump and conclude that I’m a libidinous show-off if you like. But it’s only because I’m out to drive home the point that I owe this little passion to Sharir. I’ll keep on running, for another thousand times or more, and he'll always be ahead of me.

Sharir passed away early morning 3 July 2011 after a brave fight with cancer. Our prayers and thoughts are with his family. It’s never too late to celebrate his life and achievements.

(This article has been posted earlier on staroba.org, the Star Old Boys website)

Mindless Miscellany (No. 8)

2011-06-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

We're still in 2011, just in case. And what do we have already: end of the world, no-fly Libya, 99.99% sex video, tsunami back where it belongs (Japan), Prince William took a wife, Sir Elton John became a wife, Obama killed Osama, Barca blew Man U, Parisian pervert nabbed in New York. Bags of big stories, but it's the daily turns that stand a redundant retiree on his head:

1. Wicked Cricket.

I don't understand. Every time I read or watch sports, there's an update or two on cricket. Test match in Colombo, match fixing in Karachi, dope in Delhi, like everybody cares about this low and slow sport. And there's even a Cricket World Cup to boot. I'm not sure which world, but the last one ran from March until April this year over a period of 43 days. 43 bloody days! Full 12 days longer than Football World Cup in South Africa, just because players and umpires need more time to understand cricket rules. If you're not from south Asia (or illiterate enough not know where south Asia is), chances are you don't understand cricket concept, rules and nomenclature (bats, balls, bowls, dope, wickets, howzat etc). Among my many friends, only Hamid understands cricket. He's a certified accountant, if you're wondering. Sorry I can't talk much about cricket. But I can tell you one cricket joke. It's a clever one, about Muttiah Muralitharan aka Murali, a fast and famous bowler from Sri Lanka. The way he bowled was so complex and controversial that some cricket critics deemed it illegal (he doesn't bowl, he throws). Now the joke. Question: What's the difference between Murali and Camilla Parker Bowles? Answer: Camilla Parker bowls.

2. National Disservice

Be afraid. The government is mulling a dead-brain proposal to extend the National Service (NS) for your 17-year-olds from current three months to six months. I'm already having sleepless nights. Yes, my two girls, 13 and 16. Admittedly their chances of being called up for NS are slim, but as long as there's a chance, I'll remain paranoid. NS tops my hate chart, above MPSJ and Indah Water (both collect money for no reason). I've never come across a government initiative shorter on purpose than NS. Good money (about RM300 mill a year) is being frittered away while some straight A students have to study marine biology in Dungun instead of medicine in Dublin. One of the purported objectives of NS is "to create a smarter, active and confident young generation". Really? How about all those schools, universities, colleges, university colleges, parents, Perkasa, pakar motivasi etc? What are they for? There's only one surefire way to improve NS: stop it. And declare the day we stop NS a public holiday. Please, minister or somebody.

3. Pretty Police

Pathetic piece of baloney, this one. Malaysian police is planning to station good-looking, smart and personable officers at all frontline positions (NST, 19 June). The main reason, you've to believe this, is to improve the public image and perception of the police (unfriendly, bureaucratic, corrupt and so on?). With most of the male models and Akademi Fantasia graduates now out of contract, all that's needed is just a crash intake and training for stage-to-street transition. Apparently this tactic isn't new. The Indonesian counterpart is mobilizing full-time and full-grown policewomen to report on daily traffic chaos in Jakarta on TV (reminds you of Copenhagen's speed-control bikini bandits?). Hopefully this works, so that we can fastrack our efforts to cure the burgeoning social and economic ills by extending the template: appoint only good-looking ministers, vote for good-looking MPs, promote good-looking customs officers, employ good-looking bus drivers and so on.

4. Failure is Success

Failure is now in fashion. "No such thing as failure, only feedback", cries one mantra. "Fail forward" is the new success. Some companies now celebrate or even encourage constructive failures. Nothing epitomizes the failure frenzy more than Rory McIlroy's epic triumph at the 111th US Open Golf recently. First, youngest, highest, lowest, simple superlatives were in short supply as the Woods-starved golf fraternity and media went into overdrive, raining high praises and accolades on the boy visionary. What's so remarkable about Rory's victory is that he's actually risen from the ashes of failure at the Augusta Golf Masters two months ago, in which he led until he limped on the very last day to finish 15th. "Augusta was a very valuable experience. I learned a few things about myself........I knew what I'd to do to win". Needless to say, Rory has learned and profited from his failure. But I'm sure he'd have preferred to win both.

5. Mike Tyson (Real One)

Last month, I was outraged when Astro ran a trailer of an upcoming Animal Planet production featuring Mike Tyson. I don't mind Iron Mike on Masterchef or I'm Not Smarter Than a 5th Grader, but Mike Tyson on an animal channel is unacceptable and bad, bad taste. I was distraught because, for me, Mike Tyson is a phenomenon, a living legend. In a world plagued by political sleaze and corporate scams, straight-talking Tyson stands out like a blast of fresh air. Reading about him, I couldn't help but conclude that he'd been massively misguided, a victim of circumstances and filthy friends, which explains that ear-chomping episode. How could they lump this fine and fair-minded human champion with the rhinos and hippos. He's not an animal, not even metaphorically. Imagine my relief when I discovered that that particular Animal Planet program actually showcased Tyson's deep passion and partiality for his first and true sport: raising and racing pigeons. I'm not entirely impressed, but at least I can see the animal connection.

6. Women's Football

For retirees with time and mind to spare, FIFA Women's Football World Cup currently on show in Germany is a tempting option. For those who grew up watching women playing netball for one hour and mahjong for one week, women's football is an acquired taste, just like operatic music. I'm ambivalent about women playing football. You've to agree that it's part of natural progression which includes weightlifting, wrestling and reckless driving. About the only female-free sport in the free world now is parallel parking, which even a woman footballer with 30 years of driving experience would avoid. Sorry if I sound sexy or sexist, but the jury is still out, with opinions largely diverging from supportive to downright cynical. Are women smart enough to understand the offside rule? Should they be allowed to do Tevez's goal celebration jigs? Unlike their miserable male counterparts, the US women's team always perform well because American women play football while American men play American football (which is actually wrestling). Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA no less, even suggested tighter shorts for women footballers to ramp up waning interest. But judging by the 73,000 sellout crowd in the opening game in Berlin, no sartorial transformation is necessary. Proof that Blatter is a big-time sex pervert. An excited fellow retiree messaged me this morning to look out for one J Lo look-alike in the Mexico team. Apparently he'd watched the Mexico-England game (pervert!). Thanks, mate. I'm watching cricket for now.

Seven reasons why MU played like FU.....!

2011-06-08T23:09:00.001-07:00

The Champions League final is already ancient history. But the tragedy, comedy and mystery linger. Why did Manchester United (MU) play like Felda United (FU)?

MU lost to Barcelona. Well, this should go down as the understatement of the year even with more than six months of the 2011 remaining. The 3-1 scoreline in the one-sided affair on 28 May is technical to the core. It's a 5-0 Catalan cakewalk by any standard of fair play. MU had been ruthless and unstoppable before that Wembley whitewash, dismantling Chelsea and Schalke with aplomb. But the way they’re bullied and battered by Barcelona belies belief.

British tabloids were measured and restrained in their response, taking great pains to cover up darling team's pedestrian performance by heaping praise and more praise on Barcelona. A clever misdirection for an untrained eye. But the rest of us know better. British football literates, pundits and pundeks are, by and large, articulate bootlickers pandering to Sir Alex and his attack dog Gary Neville. Since I don’t owe Alex anything, I’m free to explain and expound why MU played like FU and sank in shame. Don’t get me wrong. I was rooting for MU and wanted them to win simply because of my visceral soft spot for English teams. I was firmly behind Liverpool when they won over and lost to AC Milan. I’ve been following the English League for longer than 100 years now. In my schooldays I begged and borrowed to buy Shoot, a football (not rifle) magazine. It’s only fair that I should be allowed my two-sen.

Now for my seven reasons:

1. Team formation: Fergie’s famed 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 or whatever was doomed from the first whistle. Barcelona are unplayable when they’re in form, and they hit form every playing day. So the only formation that has a ghost of a chance is 10-0-0, known lovingly as the PTB. Yes, park the bus. MU should take a leaf out of neighbour’s playbook. Man City’s Mancini, bred and broken in Milan, has honed this fine art to perfection. Italy won the World Cup four times by defending to death.

2. Team line-up: One look at the team, you’ll see a horde of hard runners with a combined skill equivalent to all 30% of Lionel Messi’s. Michael Carrick is a huge talent as a bricklayer, but not a ball-player. Park Ji Sung ran before, during and after the game. He’s still running while you’re reading this.

3. Ryan Giggs: Let’s be honest. This serial shagger had no business groping about on the field alongside Wayne Rooney, a relatively respectable guy given that he’s only an occasional shagger. He should be off the field doing what he does best with that priceless grand injunction.

4. Rio and Vidic: Over-rated and over the hill, this defensive duo were apparently having a divine time watching and marveling at poetry in motion as Barcelona players stroked the ball right under their noses with sheer finesse and panache. Should we blame them?

5. Lionel Messi.

6. British Media and Arsene Wenger: Together they spun the hype. Arse lived up to his name by loudly suggesting a MU win. The media, while grudgingly giving Barelona the nominal edge, were actually bullish and upbeat about MU’s prospects. Result: MU’s pumped-up ego and irrational exuberance. They’re caught pants down and only recovered five seconds from the final whistle.

7. Sir Alex was posturing for the FIFA job: Mere conjecture. MU’s loss would allow a rare opportunity for our friend to be gracious and magnanimous in defeat. He didn’t blame the referee or any conspiracy and looked all-round a saner, cleaner candidate than Blatter or Hammam.

I know some MU hardliners will find this less than funny. Loads of bollocks, they'd howl, baying for my blood. Go ahead, guys. Bring out that video. Oh, I'm sure our friendly PM and wife aren't too offended by these sly digs and jibes at their blue-eyed team. At least I mentioned Felda United in the same breath to balance things out. Touching on the local la liga, my home team Kelantan, the Red Warriors, are all poised for the league and FA Cup titles. Catalan and Kelantan rhyme in an uncanny way. No coincidence if you compare the way both teams play! Now that’s funny.

A Father-in-law And His Alma Mater

2011-05-14T00:17:00.001-07:00

I finally joined the ranks of rookie fathers-in-law when my eldest got hitched recently. I’m not sure what to make of this. Should I celebrate? Nothing to shout about for sure because some of my Tiger Lane classmates are already multiple father-in-law. My good friend Azlan became a father-in-law three times last year. No way to beat this feat, it all seemed, until one of us went one better. He himself got married and became a son-in-law. No sooner had the dust settled than another one followed on, making it two on the trot. Now that’s dandy. While most of us are blissfully in bed with grandmas, they’re on diaper duty and milk runs.

I guess becoming a father-in-law is no longer, or even never, an important milestone, which is a pity. For some, it’s best forgotten. Ask Prince of Wales. When he became a father-in-law recently he’s largely ignored and insulted. People spoke and wrote and raved about his dead wife and his daughter-in-law's living sister. Nothing about him and even less about his new wife. Amid all the media slagging and libido innuendo, Kirk Douglas had to defend his son's huge spousal age gap (25 years) over daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta Jones by proclaiming that "I'd want to have her for myself". A father-in-law, drunk or not, can be your last line of defence.

Modern-day daughters-in-law are fine-looking and seriously cultured. With fast-paced Facebook, twitter traffic and eponymous websites, they're wired to the teeth. They come with hordes of so-called followers and friends, which reminds you of those deviant religious teachers on the lam. Fathers-in-law, be afraid. There's plenty of pressure piled on us to accommodate and even reciprocate this new language, only we're not sure how. Sorry, maybe you know how, but I still have some way to go.

It's unfortunate that, despite the legal appellation (in-law), there’s no special course or training for a prospective father-in-law, unlike lawyers and police. There's not even a Father-in-law's Day to begin with. What we have is jokes. Loads of father-in-law and mother-in-law jokes. Most are cruel, like who to kill first and so on. I wish there’s a manual or handbook, or at least a FAQ, to guide a father-in-law and allow a smooth transition. You know, the delicate dos and don’ts. I need to know, for instance, whether it’s OK for a father-in-law to belt out aloud old Mohd Rafi or Ahmad Jais numbers while his daughter-in-law is twitting or twittering or whatever. Will he be hauled up for improper conduct, like Sir Alex? My good friend Yuzer (another recent father FIL) forced his daughter-in-law to support Liverpool Football Club and watch all their games on Astro. Is this illegal? I guess there's always that proverbial learning curve for both father and daughter (in-law) to adapt and adjust, and, if necessary, water down all expectations. Sounds like plenty of fun in store. Who needs handbooks.

I’d have concluded this short take here if not for the impulse to thicken the plot a bit with a dose of drama. You know I'm proud of my Tiger Lane connection, and I'd rate my first day there way back in 1966 as one of my finest hours. The eight years that followed was a watershed, a life-shaping experience I wouldn’t trade off for anything. I suppose it’s one of life’s little twists that my boy should marry a girl from Ipoh. On a brilliant January morning, I could feel a whiff of sweet nostalgia sweeping over as I watched my son take his marriage vows at Masjid Jamek Tambun, right behind my old school at Tiger Lane. I should celebrate.

Spectacular SPM?

2011-04-05T01:34:00.000-07:00

SPM results flew in with a flourish. Another record performance, and not totally unexpected. SPM has now turned into a high-scoring spectator sport just like cricket is of late. More than 9000 students aced the exam with all A, compared to about 8000 last year. 403 racked up a mind-blowing all A+, compared with ‘only’ 214 last year. I’m out of breath. The National Grade Average improved from 5.34 to 5.19. Nobody outside the MOE knows how to compute the NGA, but apparently the lower the number the better, unlike the KLSE Composite Index.

No mistake. There’s a clear and present uptrend in SPM performance. Detractors are having a field day, rejecting the glowing statistics with plenty of insinuating and alarmist tone alluding to dumbing down, grade inflation, soft scoring, exam exploitation, electioneering and even new DG. I’m not an educationist. My passion now is behavioural economics and the English Premier League (football, not snooker), so I’m least qualified to judge, let alone offer a cynical hypothesis on this serious subject. But certainly some of the gripes are unfair and unproductive. We’re certainly not academically adrift, so to speak. We have more doctors and dentists today than at any time in the past. Of course, you’d argue that there’re many more students and medical schools now than at any time in the past. Why do you like to argue?

I took an equivalent exam (called MCE) in 1971 and managed a mixed bag of one A, one F, and C’s and P’s in between. I wasn’t unhappy mainly because nobody scored all A as far as I can remember. This year 31 students at my former school scored all A, and it isn’t even the country’s best performer. We’re number 30-something in the SPM league table. More like Blackpool than Liverpool. It's laudable because there're more than 2500 secondary schools in the country. It's laughable because the school is one of only six or so truly national secondary schools that cream off top students from all states in Malaysia, as opposed to the many and more regional ones like SMS, MRSM, SBP and other strange abbreviations. How is it possible for the lesser-known regional upstarts to rout the star-studded national heavyweights like my dear school? You tell me.

During my time, students with perfect score were few and far between. It’s so rare that if you were one of the few, you’d get featured and feted in the local newspapers. Some straight-A students were anything but straight. No, I don’t mean that. What I mean is, you know, their weird and strange demeanour. Freaks of the fourth kind, if you like. There’re always horror stories behind their academic heroics. I still remember reading about a top student from a school in Kuala Kangsar who’s a recluse. He talked to himself in the toilet, a clear symptom of mild bipolar disorder. (Serious bipolar is when you talk to toilets). High-flyers those days were exceptional and extraordinary to the core. The Bobby Fischer and John Nash crowd. To score all A in the good old days, you’ve to be irregular and off the wall, unlike the current crop whose only eccentricity is probably a mild addiction to Gaga or Glee or both.

Most of my former classmates scoff at the SPM spectacle, dismissing it as statistical misdirection. One look at their MCE results and you can understand why. Now the fun part: would my results be any better if I were to take last year’s SPM instead of 1971 MCE? Possible, but not much. I might not flunk Physics. But nothing would’ve changed. I’d still not be a dentist!

Melbourne Memory

2011-03-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

You can get burnt in Melbourne. Australia is expensive now, and Melbourne is the most expensive city in Australia. About the only affordable commodity in Melbourne is the free tourist tram and trap that circles the city. But you need to sleep and eat, and this is when an unsuspecting traveller with lousy currency is caught with his pants down (even literally if he's not careful). A half-liter store-branded mineral water costs RM 6.00. Street parking is another RM6, for 30 minutes. Newspapers? RM4.50. But Melbourne is not without its upsides. Grapes are fresh, firm and pleasantly affordable. Pancakes at the Pancake Parlour are made in heaven (price aside). The city is safe, clean and cultured. The people witty and clever. Parks and gardens. No Ah Long phone numbers anywhere. You see more traffic in USJ Taipan than downtown Melbourne at any time. The Economist ranks Melbourne the second most livable city in the world. We can go on.

We're in Melbourne for six days, in 10 March, out 16 March 2011. Why Melbourne? Because it's not Bandung. No. Actually we fall for Air Asia fare fraud, RM 640 including all the shady charges for meals, luggage, oxygen etc. It's a lottery: you book and pay full ten months ahead and then quietly pray to God you'll live long enough to fly. If you lose, they win. If you win, they win. It's win-win, for them. No wonder Tony is so rich.

To be honest I'm not all that fired up for this trip, I mean compared to the UK fling last year. After all, we've been to Gold Coast, Sydney and even sleepy Canberra. Australia is, well, Australia. But things always have a way of developing (whatever it means). Midway into the return flight, without nuts or chips to chomp, the idle mind succumbs to flashbacks. Memories flutter in. Melbourne, decidedly, has its moments.

1. Melbourne Airport (10 March, morning)

Friendlier than Sydney and Brisbane Airports. No dogs sniffing your bags or snapping at your legs. The customs lady even tries, in genuine jest, to pronounce our 'rendang tok'.

2. Hotel Formule 1 (10-12 March, 2 nights)

It's French chain minus the chic. Unabashedly spartan, it's anything but F1. Room is slightly bigger than our wet kitchen. Good enough for the five of us, really how little space we actually need to live. And a flatscreen to boot! The hotel is on Elizabeth Street, just 100m from Bourke Street mall, the hippest and coolest part of Melbourne. RM 300 per night, you'd struggle to find a better value in Melbourne.

3. Trams, trams, trams

Nothing more iconic in Melbourne than its trams. Trams on your left, your right, ahead, behind, trams everywhere. I can promise you'll get tired of trams after just two days. They're not cheap, and tickets are confusing with zones, time, days and even your age. Only experienced actuaries can figure out the best deal. We get around the problem by taking the free tourist tram that circles the city. I bet some of the Chinese on that tram were free-loading locals.

4. Great Ocean Road (12-13 march)

Spectacular 200km coastal stretch south-west of Melbourne, with winding and hill-hugging roads. The lavish and lush ocean opens with abandon, but we're here for the Twelve Apostles, rugged limestone columns left behind by retreating headlands. World famous, nationally celebrated, vastly overrated, instantly forgettable. But fish-and-chips at balmy Apollo Bay blows us away, its sweet and crisp whiff still lingers. Port Campbell, where we pitch for the night, is a hiding gem. We come with no baggage of expectation, so what we see is delightfully understated. This pretty-like-postcard fishing village has its own cove and beach to frolic on. Park View Motel is excellent, and even extravagant by our frugal travel standards. Wish you're here.

5. Return to Melbourne via Ballarat (13 March)

We take the inland route on the way back to Melbourne for the opportunity to feast on Victoria's vistas. We cut across rolling and sweeping farms, villages, towns and other rural stuff. Drab and dreary for Aida and Sarah, nothing like Katy Perry. Admittedly not as idyllic as the Lake District, but expressive enough for a retiree without workload. Roads are narrow but so quiet. Speed limit is a generous 100 km/hr, proof that life is much easier without Malaysian bus drivers. Before hitting the freeway, we stop over in Ballarat. Despite the showy name, there's nothing much on show in this old mining town.

6. Penang Inn, Motel Maroondah, Petaling Street (13-16 March)

No. It's still Melbourne, but 15 km out in a neighbourhood named Box Hill. How're we so sure that this is still part of Melbourne? We see lots of trams, that's how. And lots of Chinese and Chinese shops, too. There's a Penang Inn, and a Petaling Street Restaurant that lives up to its name: it opens until 3 am. We put up at Motel Maroondah, a no-frills motel with an unmistakable run-of-the mill charm (ok, ok, it's rundown). But its location offers easy access to regional attractions like Yarra Valley, Dandenong Ranges, Phillip Island, Healesville Animal Sanctuary, Mornington Peninsular and other exotic monikers. But we change our plans, and go somewhere else. We go to, hold your breath, Melbourne Zoo !

7. St Kilda (14 March)

Melbourne's stylish seaside suburb to the south, St Kilda is diverse and colourful, with heavy tourist crowd. There's even an amusement park with roller-coaster and ferris wheel to scam the underage travellers. St Kilda's youngish and offbeat look and feel is unmistakable as we stroll along its noisy Acland Street, the main tourist thoroughfare (If you're above 50, don't come here). The heady stretch is bursting with shops and cafes with fancy names and offerings. We stumble upon a Kotaraya Restaurant and a Chinta Ria Restaurant, and immediately decide that we've seen enough and turn back.

8. Melbourne Zoo (15 March)

Zoos and museums have never featured in our travels. But we make an exception this time because Sarah wants to cuddle koalas. Koalas are native to Australia, much like Mat Rempits are native to Malaysia. Koalas are cute and lovable (unlike Mat Rempits) and active only at night (like Mat Rempits). There are koalas in Melbourne Zoo, snoozing and snoring on a tree, at 12 noon, well out of anybody's reach. As we're not zoo zealots, we can't really rate and compare Melbourne Zoo. But as an intellectual experience it should be better than Taiping Zoo (Perak, not China). We've not been to Taiping Zoo, but we've met a lot of people from Taiping, so we know.

9. Queen Victoria Market (11 and 15 March)

A market with a thousand stalls selling everything imaginable and unimaginable. A notch below expectation actually. Sterile and listless compared with the fast and furious Paddy's Market in Sydney. But why's this memorable? Because we come over twice and come away unimpressed each time.

10. Supre (15 March)

Another Android from Samsung? New Kelantanese sugary pastry? Never heard of this until Aida hounds me days and nights in Melbourne. Apparently it's a local chain retailer for girls clothing and silly things. We finally find it at Doncaster Shoppingtown about 2 km from Box Hill. I'm in luck because it's already ten to 5, Australia is about to close and stop functioning. Does she have enough time to buy anything?

11. Free range chicken eggs.

Ten is tiring, so we make it eleven. This is not a rural attraction or a Melbourne Zoo exhibit. When we see this at a grocer's, Aida's mom thinks she's at last found one food item provided for free in pricey Melbourne. A housewife's dream is threatening to come true. It's not free eggs. Never in Melbourne. It's eggs from free-range chickens. (Reminds you of Eats, Shoots & Leaves?). There's a price loud and clear: AUD 5.50 a dozen (RM 17) . You can get five dozens for the same money at Mydin Subang Jaya, only it's not free-range chickens. Who really cares. Fish prices have gone through the roof. The Arabs are agitating for human rights. Freedom and reproductive style of the poultry is the last of our worries.

Afterword

You're less than inspired. It's OK. We never expect you to pack your bags now and head Down Under. Melbourne is no Paris. And, unlike Malacca the hysterical city, Melbourne doesn't pretend to be anything but Melbourne. We struggle to pin down its true character, if any. English? No. Not with those Chinese shops, Chinatown, Chinese mayor, Chinese Chinese. Cosmopolitan? Not yet. Not until Kelantanese is spoken (loudly) on trams. Melbourne is a shade restrained or measured. Walking and wandering around the city, mingling with the easy crowd, traipsing round the shops, counting trams, is richly rewarding (even more rewarding once you stop comparing and converting prices!). Roaming its wild coastline and quaint countryside adds a fine sense of relish and adventure. Melbourne is good value. At our price, it's a snip (you hate this cliche). Aida and Sarah have a terrific time. Better than math tuition, many times. Read it all in their latest Facebook. We'll always treasure this trip. Only one small regret: we forget to compliment the girl who serves us at the Pancake Parlour on Bourke Street. Warmth and welcome even for skimping customers foraging for free wi fi. We'll look no further for a reason why Melbourne is so lusciously livable.

The Social Network

2011-03-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

The social network started not in Silicon Valley, but in Kinta Valley, circa 1970. It's actually founded at the old Tiger Lane in Ipoh. In the students toilet on the ground floor of the main building of Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman (Star), to be exact. The early form was primitive and hand-operated, not digital and real-time, and certainly not as elegant as, say, Facebook or Staroba.Org. But it’s a social network nonetheless, at least in idea, concept and purpose. I'll never know who actually started it, but it's not too late to initiate another lawsuit against Zuckerberg.

Like all great discoveries and inventions, it started rather fortuitously, a serendipitous outcome of widespread anger, rebellious spite and mindless creativity. I’m not sure why and how, but a reign of terror suddenly descended on the good school. Was it the new Headmaster? Or the new head-boy? Or the groovy teacher from Texas with lush sideburns? Nobody knew. Prefects were running riot, enforcing all petty and pretty rules and regulations with an unprecedented fervour and ferocity. Students were rounded up and sent to DC and hard labour for the merest of misdemeanours, like late for debates or switching off lights at 10.35 or knowingly growing sideburns.

My heart bled for the offenders because inter-house English debates those days were only slightly more exciting than watching the matron. (Some debaters even spoke in heavy Kelantanese). For two long hours, you’d to listen to underage boys arguing heatedly on the stage about mundane matters like why “Intermarriage should be encouraged”. I mean, who cared? Why didn’t they round up and detain these deadhead debaters instead? But law is law. Love it or loathe it, you’d to sit through debates. You break the law, we break your leg, the head-boy gently reminded us. Man, how he walked the talk.

Naturally the hawkish stance didn’t go down very well with almost everyone outside the prefects room, not least the kind matron, whose sick bay was suddenly swamped with nervous wrecks. The fun-loving and trendy types were distraught now that their high life was in the cross-hairs. To be fair, they had a pretty strong case. Even without prefect brutality and excesses, life in general was already miserable with compulsory cross-country, Jack Palance movies, and those monster meals dished out by the cooks and crooks in the dining hall. Everyone was crying for breathing space. A bit of fun and merry-making should go a long way.

The prefects were roundly scorned, and sneered at the slightest opportunity. I felt for some of them who must confront their conscience and the dreaded dilemma: turn in the offenders or turn the other way. It pained and tore them because, deep down, they knew that these petty criminals were nothing more than misguided show-offs and small-time crooks not worthy of anybody’s salt. A slap on the wrist should suffice. But for every heart of gold, there’s a heart of coal lurking in the dark corridors. For the latter variety, they stuck and triumphed with the break-your-leg business model.

One of the leg-breakers was a good friend (I’m still proud of this association). No, I won’t name him here, just to get you guessing. So let’s call him my Friend. My Friend was the embodiment of a perfect prefect, easily the best in the entire Kinta Valley. Serious, smart and straight, the only sport he played was, be afraid, chess. Chess! You may argue that chess, like debates, is not a sport. Let’s not discuss this here.

Every now and then, pitched battles broke out between the two warring sides: law breakers versus leg breakers. For passive and fine-looking bystanders like me, the sight of the toned-up and browbeating law breakers could be unnerving. They’re football prodigies and rugby nutcases by day who turned serial smokers and bouncers when night fell. But the prefects were no sissies either. Most were star athletes on steroids: hurdlers, javelin launchers, triple jumpers and, don’t forget, one aspiring chess grandmaster. Fire, decidedly, must be fought with fire.

Spoils of the showdowns sometimes spilled over into the morning assemblies, where the vanquished were paraded. The most serious of offences might even earn the odd offenders the mother of all punishments: public caning (not to be mixed up with public canning, which is even worse). For legal clarity, public caning is caning in public, not caning the public, where public refers to the entire student population of the school, not the entire population of Kinta Valley. The luckless offenders would be caned by the HM or a (reluctant) teacher. I’m still questioning the reformative efficacy of this draconian form of punishment because I could clearly see the cynical and smug smile on their faces as the cane landed on the sweet posteriors. For these unrepentant hard cores, it’s all in a day’s work.

All the underground straw polls run by the students consistently concluded that my Friend was by far the most popular (read disliked, detested, derided), ahead of the hardheaded head-boy. His single-minded and unapologetic approach to law and order had won him legions of followers (read enemies, enemies, enemies). As a straight-thinking and law-loving citizen, I felt this was grossly unfair. Without honest and principled prefects like my Friend, the great school would’ve crumbled and sunk into disorder and decay, eventually losing out to its wholesome and well-behaved neighbour, Sekolah Izzuddin Shah, Ipoh (SISI). Sissy!

No armies in the world can stop an idea whose time has come. Who said this? Hugo Boss? Never mind. One fine day, a flash of brilliance struck one of these so-called followers, who felt something must be done urgently to stop the prefects on their tracks. He started a blog entry on the wall of the toilet, right above the urinals, on the ground floor of the school’s main building. The subject of his blog was, no surprise, my Friend. What he wrote was only slightly milder than pornography, but he seemed to strike the chord. Other followers pitched in, and more followers, and more. The proverbial floodgates crashed in record time. A my Friend thread emerged, and that part of the wall was finally transformed into a flourishing fan site, complete with unflattering comments and caricatures, giving birth to an early form of social network for my Friend’s ardent followers to air and share their rants and rage. As you peed, you pored over the angry entries and clever comments. Toilet trips had never been this good.

Emboldened by the roaring success, more forums and sites emerged, levelling at other heavy-handed honchos in the prefects room. New posts appeared almost every day at any time. No actual names were used, but just like the latter-day social network, it’s a fertile space for the creative mind and the grudging heart. You’d wonder at the variety and choice of words, some were candid and casual, some loud and lewd, all gloriously entertaining. I can assure you that even if you’re a boneless bodger the bookworm without one vein of humour, you’d come out of the toilet smiling, inspired, and ready for English debates. The head-boy and his posse of prefects, for all their strident and gung-ho ways, were now helpless. They knew they’d been hit back, and hard.

So that’s how the social network started. In Kinta Valley, not Silicon Valley.

Note: This retrospective work was inspired, in part, by "The Social Network". Heavily favoured for Best Picture at the recent Academy Awards, it lost to "The King's Speech". The film, however, won an Oscar for Best Film Editing . Just don't ask me what exactly is film editing.

Mindless Miscellany ( No. 7)

2011-02-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

Year 2011 promises to be one roaring, rabbit year. The super superstitious Chinese seem to believe that every new year brings a lot of luck, regardless of the animal. No year is a bad year. Even a snake year is a good year. I think this is the reason why Restoran Sri Melor, my wife's favourite roti canai joint, is flying a Happy Chinese Year banner with a crude sketch of a tiger on it. It's last year's banner, of course, but what's the difference, since every year is a prosperous year. A rabbit is as a good as a tiger. Mamak is right.

My earliest leporine experience harks back to the early nineties when my two boys were in primary school. We took in a rabbit (or was it a guinea pig?) as our pet. We fed him with carrot. Problem was, this guy ate non-stop, 24/7. I discovered that what he ate in a day was more than my two boys' combined vegetable intake for the whole of 1992. After two weeks, we put him out to pasture (a polite and political way of saying getting rid of a pet). I don't think he ever had a name. He's so busy crunching carrot that we'd no time to even name him.

The mad, mad world continues where it's left off in 2010. A long-running north African strongman fell. Another is fighting for dear life. Crude price is breaching USD100. Torres moved to Chelsea. And it's only February.

1. Pointless Procedure.

By the time you read this, most of the 10,000 or so students studying in various parts of Egypt are safely home, an outcome of a massive evacuation or "rescue operation" involving more than one ministries, more than one airlines, more than one countries (naturally) and, get this, more than one races (read 1 Malaysia). A deputy minister (an Indian) even risked his life. Just about everyone, it seems, pitched in to ensure that the operation was smooth and successful. And why shouldn't it be a success to begin with? What's there to stop us from ferrying those students back home? There's no war, no disaster, no flood and no threat of any form or scale that could potentially be in the way of the operation. The unrest and protests were in Cairo, not anywhere near the student hostels. What's exactly my point? The point is, this whole operation, costing a cool RM30 million, is pointless. Why get the Malaysians out of Egypt? Rescue? From what? Even Hosni Mubarak, the only one who's in real danger, stayed put. The Egyptian people wanted Hosni, not the Malaysian students, out of Egypt. So, if anybody at all should get out of Egypt, it's Hosni, not the Malaysian students. Of course the students, being students, were just too happy to be back in Kedah or Kelantan. They flew AirAsia without having to book one year ahead and buy their inflight meals and luggage space. Fast and free, there's little to complain. Some of them probably had been scraping in the Egyptian desert for six years and had only vague memories of the good life in Malaysia. The irony of all ostensibly well-meaning stunts like this is that they're fiendishly difficult to fault. It has all the look and qualities of a noble and virtuous undertaking. Even if it's politically loaded as alleged by fair-minded detractors, what can be bad about airlifting your people out of a hot spot?

We're remarkable for being consistently inconsistent. Remember when the Indonesian protesters roughed up our Embassy in Jakarta? They defaced, defecated and explicitly warned Malaysians: leave Indonesia or risk forcible ejection. What did we do? We issued a feeble protest note and a mild travel advisory. No rescue operation was even discussed. It's the right decision, of course. But why spend hot money now to "rescue" the Malaysians in Egypt? With ikan tenggiri now running at RM30 a kg and Rotiboy RM2 a pop, the money is better spent on saving Malaysians in Malaysia

2. Park Your Bus, Arse.

My friend, who religiously follows the English Football League, is still scratching his blank pate, full five days after Arsenal squandered a four-goal lead to draw with Newcastle. Had the game gone on for another five minutes, Arsenal would've lost 4-5. Real arse, this Arsenal. I'm not sure, but I heard that it's the first time that something like this happens in EPL. Arsenal are famous for playing a breathless, sophisticated and, at times, highly complex ball-passing football. It's there for all to see in the first half of that game. In the next half, the crybabies simply crumbled and crashed for no apparent reason. Perhaps they forgot to 'park their bus' a bit. It's fashionable now for an EPL team to accuse opponents of 'parking their buses' whenever they fail to win, alluding to opponents' strategy of mass and panic defending with only sporadic attacking (if at all) to protect a draw or a win. Arsenal accused Manchester City of parking their bus in the recent scoreless affair at the Emirates. City, in turn, blamed Blackburn, Birmingham and any team beginning with B for practising this dark art. I'm not sure how this expression got a life, but there's certainly a cynical edge to it. This is unfair. Football is as much about defending as attacking. Italy won the World Cup four times virtually by defending to death each time. It may not be a pretty sight, but there's no rule against parking buses. Arsenal learned this the hard way.

3. Tragic Trend

I've written here about Malaysians being a trendy lot. Bad things are popping up around us in series. Maid abuses, deviant teachings, baby dumping and, of course, bus crashes, slated to be the longest-running sequence in the annals of our country's tolled-road system. Now it's suicide. People are falling and plunging for no reason. Two or three in a day, it's hard to pass it off as isolated or remote. Suicide statistics are dodgy because some of the unexplained deaths have been classified under convenient catch-alls like undetermined, sudden or misadventure. With routine inquests now taking more than a year to return even open verdicts, it's definitely cheaper and greener to determine the cause of a death as misadventure. Something is bothering some of us to death. Ah Longs are the usual suspects, but were quickly ruled out when it's a young Chinese girl. So it's love triangle, or exams, or even tuition. Without early signs, it's difficult to prevent. Of course, there's the incoherent or curious entries in Facebook and so on, but Facebook entries and comments nowadays are mostly muddled and confused to begin with, making it impossible to detect any sign of impending mental dysfunction and breakdown. Suicides are sad and tragic but it's probably a trend. It'll disappear once an overly functioning chief minister comes up with another clever solution.

4. Watch out, wives.

Our Prime Minister's wife reminded all Malaysians to lead a healthy lifestyle, which includes proper dietary habits, plenty of exercise and stress-free homes. According to her, an average of six persons suffer a stroke every hour in Malaysia. She, quite rightly, appealed to all wives not to 'stress' their husbands. She revealed that she herself made it a point not to add stress to her husband's already hectic day. Sorry, I've nothing really to add.

In Praise of Poetry / What is This Life

2011-01-18T02:06:00.000-08:00

My youngest, Sarah, is now in Form One. She’ll be twelve this year, but she’s still very much my little baby girl. This is tragic because all the cash-crazy airlines and hotels in the world, for some sinister reason, have cruelly colluded to grade any male or female twelve-year old as an adult. Anyway, we went ahead and celebrated her scholastic milestone and commercial coming of age with a low-light, low-cost dinner at a restaurant at Empire Gallery in Subang Jaya, three traffic lights away from our house. She’s all eager and excited: new school, new friends, new prefects. Her school now is just 500 metres away from home. What’s not to like. It’s completely the opposite when her father learned that he’s to go to Tiger Lane (somewhere between the tin mines and the ground-nut farms in Ipoh) for his secondary education. No dinner at fancy restaurant as far as I can remember. No dinner in fact. No restaurant in Kelantan in 1965, to be fair. He’s all apprehensive, uneasy and technically unhappy. New school, check. New friends, check. Prefects, umm, check. Only the school wasn’t 500 m away. It’s 500 km away.

Sarah came back with a bundle of books on the first day. All borrowed books, meaning I didn't have to spend even one sen on text books, a massive financial reprieve for a full-time retiree. You’ve to love this country. I chanced upon one of her English books one evening, and curiously flicked through to compare her standard of English with my Remove Class English. With the raging debates and brickbats on the state of English in the country now, my expectation was no better than that of a Liverpool win. I stopped at page 11 and read. And read again. And again, aloud. There it was, in full glory and grandeur, the perpetual poem ‘Leisure’ by W H Davies:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I learned this poem in Remove Class way back in 1966. But only now I can appreciate its simplicity and clarity. You get what you see. If only we could all be be as open and outright. The lines rhyme so effortlessly. Now, is Sarah’s English sub-standard or second-rate compared with her father’s Remove Class English? Honestly I’m not sure now. Every time I say ‘poyem’, she shrieks. ‘Pom’, she suggests, with slight e and swagger. She wins.

Anyway, it took me a while to memorize this poem in Kelantanese English or English Kelantanese, you choose. Mr Chan Teng Hong, the class teacher, was just happy and proud that everyone in my class could recite it by heart. I mean everyone except the class monitor. Ask any of my 1966 classmates, and he’ll tell you more.

The Lady Ran

2010-12-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-01T22:54:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-23T01:34:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-15T08:07:00.001-07:00

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)

2010-08-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-02T22:54:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-06-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-06-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

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.

My cup runneth over :The 2010 World Cup

2010-06-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

After months of hypes and vibes, the 19th edition of the World Cup finally opened in Johannesburg last Friday with typical African pomp, pageantry and beehive blaring of the vuvuzelas. I was moved by Jacob Zuma's opening speech: 'We as a country are humbled by this honour to host one of the biggest tournaments of the world. Africa is indeed happy. This is the African World Cup. I declare the 2010 FIFA World Cup open'. Such brevity, such humility. No political statement, no personal grandstanding. A minimalist and measured performance, by a leader better known for his shady past and many wives. How I wish our own leaders take a leaf out of this PR playbook, and apply the same restraint in their public proclamations. No puffed up numbers, no developed nation crap, no bankruptcy threat.

My first brush with the World Cup was way back in 1959. Man that's half a century ago. I was in standard one. I stumbled upon a grainy footage in Utusan Melayu, a Jawi newspaper, the only Malay language daily at the time (?). I could read and write perfect Jawi even before that year (I struggle now, of course. I blame my eyesight instead of hating myself). Anyway, it's a French player, probably the legendary Just Fontaine, executing a bicycle kick. I must've been peering at a 1958 newspaper, because the World Cup was held that year in Switzerland. My football exposure at that time was limited to Kelantan Third Division league, in which our local team played. That's the lowest tier, and our team never got promoted, but we never got relegated either. Half the team were full-time teachers, and their own students had a dandy time heckling them for miskicks and own goals. Win or lose, all home matches were sell-outs hours before kick-offs. It's no Nou Camp or San Siro, but it's a sell-out all the same.

England won the World Cup in 1966, my first year at secondary school. That's a pivotal year for my football fall-in. It sparked off my football interest, and it grew as classmates Hamid, Ibrahim, Yuzer, Bain were tossing around names like Pele, George Best, Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton and Gordon Banks. I doubt they'd actually seen them in action. The main news feed was the Straits Times and the football mags: Shoot, Goal etc. Yes we all could read and write a fair amount of English. But until today I still can't figure out how was it possible for us to pick and choose our favourite teams and players just from the still photos, staid match wrap-ups and gossip columns. It made sense if we all picked smooth strikers like George Best as locker pin-ups. But some of us inexplicably plumped for defenders; my dorm-mate fell for the dentist-driven Nobby Stiles.

You could say that I was late catching the World Cup bug, but when the 1970 edition kicked off in Mexico, I could name all the England and Brazil players, their positions, back-up player for each position and players' smoking habits. Banks, Moore, Charlton, Lee, Mullery, Peters, Pele, Tostao, Rivelino, Gerson, C Alberto, Jairzinho, to name a few. My maths and physics, already bad to begin with, turned for the worse. Those days recorded or delayed telecasts were unheard of, let alone live ones. We'd to rely on unreliable RTM news for scores and the papers for match reports. Anyway, Brazil beat England and later Italy to win the World Cup for the third time. This team is still considered the best football team ever. I'd little to argue with that. A few months later FIFA released 'The World at Their Feet', a movie chronicling the 1970 World Cup, with relatively lavish clips of crunch matches. I watched the movie at Lido theatre in Ipoh three times.

The 1974 World Cup was a milestone of sorts. For the first time the World Cup was telecast live in Malaysia. It's in black and white, but who cared. I'm not sure now how many games were shown, but I managed to watch only the final (TV was quite a rarity at the time). The Cruyff-inspired Dutch team delighted the world with its brand of 'total football', where players switched positions at will to confuse the opponents. They stormed to a final showdown with the then West Germany. About everyone outside West Germany wanted the Dutch to win. But the West Germans somehow wised up to the Dutch tricks, and took the World Cup.

From 1978 onwards, live telecasts of the World Cup, at least for the big games, were routine and in colour. Now of course it's in high definition. Next will be colour, HD and 3D. But colour or not, every World Cup is special, spectacular and always colourful. It's rich with prodigious talents, ground-breakers and one-time wonders. Pele, Hurst, Muller, Cruyff, Zoff, Platini, Figo, Zico, Zidane, the list rolls on. But for me the greatest of them all is Diego Maradona. When he's not drunk or doped, Maradona was a miracle and God's gift. He single-handedly (pun intended) won the World Cup for Argentina in 1986. For sheer artistry, no players before and after him came close. His vision, skills and trickery with the ball were simply, well, scary. He declared recently that the current Barcelona hotshot Lionel Messi was better; it's his way of motivating the pretender. No way.

The ongoing World Cup in South Africa is yet another milestone. I'm watching it with the free, flowing and flexible mind of a retiree. England vs USA live at 2.30 am? Argentina vs N Korea repeat at 7.00 am? I'm game. It's up to me now. I can now watch with open eyes and mind. No bosses to please, no projects to finish. Only real, total football.

Expect some shockers and controversies. Italy won the World Cup in 1982 without a single Italian expecting them to make the semis. Brazil were firm favourites in every World Cup, but won it only five times. Italy dumped by South Korea. Beckham banished. The headbutt of hate. The hand of God. And that iconic waltz past five English defenders for goal of the century. The list is long. Spain and Brazil are early front runners for 2010. But who knows? Most Malaysians, including me, are England fans at heart, but expect other teams to win. Germany is again the team to hate. My pick for champions? Argentina. The team is bursting with talent. And, in case you forget, the coach is a certain Diego Armando Maradona !

Mindless Miscellany (No.2)

2010-05-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

A week hardly passes without an update on the supermodel Amber Chia. Supermodel? Pah! I guess a super title nowadays is a dime a dozen. Void of all body fluids, she looks more like a super cashier with an eating disorder. But with the political landscape now clouded by the impending gassing of a long-time super leader, an unwanted update on an overrated model brings a whiff of fresh air. Life's full of delightful odds and ends. Let's celebrate them. This week's picks:

1. It's inevitable that MIC saw UMNO's hand all over the plot to GAS its super president. Desperate times call for desperate measures. My humble theory is that MIC accused UMNO simply because it couldn't pin the blame on MCA which, to all intents and purposes, had already been gassed for good. That MIC so brazenly accused UMNO of complicity is unprecedented, and only further underlines UMNO's descent from super boys to whipping boys.

2. After weeks of Bondesque hypes and teasers, Imam Muda finally kicked off with some style. It's a religious reality flick but the set, suit and songkok are bold, sharp and contemporary. Anything but conservative. The all-male cast of ten aspirants were picked after a round of auditions, ostensibly based on religious skills and competencies. But I've a nagging suspicion that, just like other talent contests, flair and hair were very much part of the criteria. Kudos to Astro for such a fresh and provoking offering. Do we have to wonder forever why it takes a fiercely profit-driven network with a non-Muslim ownership to produce a watchable religious program?

3. Now let's brace ourselves for crunch time. Everything from teh tarik to toll tickets will cost more if the government lives up to its promise to scrap subsidies and save the country about RM100 billion in the next five years and avoid bankruptcy in 2019. Scare strategies and scary scenario, all too familiar. My view is that subsidy economics has been oversimplified. Deliberate or oversight, who knows. The heavy, quantitative treatment of the cost side without even a casual inquiry about the upside renders the whole argument one-sided. Europe and the US have been dishing out farm subsidies for ages. I'm not advocating subsidies. But as literate and tax-friendly citizens, we all deserve a balanced and enlightened analysis.

Mindless Miscellany (No.1)

2010-05-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

World is full of mindless minds. Somebody (probably a half-brain flasher) asked in a motor advice column in the New Sunday Times yesterday which one, between the Lamborghini and Ferrari, is a better choice in terms of maintenance and resale value. The adviser's response: buy a Perodua.

If you're fixated on reason and logic, things like this can drain your brain faster than no time. Let's celebrate them instead. And here's more:

1. About 90% of men worldwide would rather talk about football than about their wives (45%) and their work (34%) . An unrelated survey carried out at about the same time reveals that, as far as wife and husband relationship goes, 63% of married women, also worldwide, prefer reading or sleeping or watching TV to sex. I think these two sets of findings are two sides of the same coin. They explain each other. What's there to talk about your wife if she's only turned on by books, Astro and pillows? Likewise, is there anything left to bother in a football-fatigued husband?

2. Inter Milan won the Champions League final with only 35% possession. That's what Hull normally get when they play Liverpool. No regret missing the 3 am telecast; a final without a Spanish or English team is never worthwhile. For such success, the coach would immediately get a lucrative contract extension. But Jose Mourinho, the Inter coach, immediately quit the club and joined Real Madrid. What do you expect from someone who's proclaimed himself 'the special one'. Just hope Real won't win with 35% possession.

3. The 8th Akademi Fantasia ended with the predictability of a declining franchise. Yes, I watch this low-brow show, and I won't apologize (actually no choice, wife loves this show). The winner was a loverboy from Perak (wife swooned every time he crooned). The only standout for me was the five new KRU compositions for the finalists, complete with video clips. With trade-mark titles like VIP and RSVP, they're all gems. For talent and creativity, KRU rules. After eight years, the popularity of AF is waning. Fire the teachers, please. The talent pool has dried up, and mediocrity has crept in. If something is not done fast, it'll lose out to Imam Muda !

Dio, RIP

2010-05-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

Chances are you've never heard of Ronnie James Dio. No, no, he's not a US past president. That would be Ronald Reagan. Dio was a metal rock firebrand; a champion and leading light for a rock music genre that's been variously tagged as medieval, classical, doom, suicidal, gothic, dragon, demonic, you name it. One look at some of his song and album titles and you know why: the devil you know, live evil, the temple of the king, kill the king, neon knights, killing the dragon, dream evil, heaven and hell. With Dio, it's kill, kill, kill. He died yesterday (Sunday) morning, 16 May 2010, succumbing to stomach cancer, at 67. Tributes from fellow doomers are still pouring in.

It's inevitable that Dio and his dark offerings have had an unfair share of bashings and brickbats. Much of what has been written by the mindless music critics about Dio is overblown. There's plenty of clarity and consistency in his musical direction. Unlike some of his metal brethren, he remained faithful to his roots till the end. His brand of beautiful noise won't please your average neighbours, but there's a solid and unwavering niche and cult following that would mourn his passing. I'm not ashamed to admit that I listen to Dio. I mean his music, not his satanic verses. My first Dio experience was way back in 1975. Ritchie Blackmore, Deep Purple's travelling frontman, had split to form a new act called Rainbow, and Dio provided the vocals. You should listen to him screaming, wailing and rousing above Blackmore's catchy licks. 'The temple of the king' was an instant rage, but my favourite until today is 'Self Portrait' which includes the lines: Hey, hey, hey, there's only the devil to pay. Pure Dio!

Over the years my music taste has wandered a bit, mellowing and ageing towards the mainstream crowd, probably the brunt of long hours pandering to bosses of diverse leadership genres, from the easy-listening type to the head-banging variety. Dio and his vocals have since migrated to Black Sabbath and later to lesser-known collaborations. But it's doom and devil all the way. No mellowing, no mainstream for Dio. Before his death, he'd been busy with live gigs, fronting a brand new metal lineup. He named it 'Heaven and Hell'. What do you expect? Singing Nuns?

My plan was to end my tribute here, but a casual reading of a Dio obituary and trivia left me pondering life's little quirks. This guy studied pharmacy in early 60's . Good thing that he didn't graduate. You wouldn't want your hypertension medications dispensed by a devil-worshipper, would you? Dio actually did his pharmacy stint at a university in Buffalo (UB), upstate New York. Nothing macabre about this except that I went to the same university twenty years later. We're both Buffalo alumni!

Chelsea, Chelsea, Champions

2010-05-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

So Chelsea are the EPL Champions for the 2009/10 season, by a whisker. What a breathless build-up to a cliff-edge conclusion. Chelsea took the title with just a single point ahead of Manchester United aka the world's most valuable brand aka the world's most debt-stricken football club. The rollercoaster season began with Spurs pretending at the top before the usual suspects Chelsea, Man U and Arsenal took turns and restored the normalcy of a three-horse trick. In the four-week finale, Chelsea held a slight advantage but Man U, with lady luck forever on its side (injury-time goals, dubious penalties), could still nip in. Both teams finished with a flourish, scoring a dozen goals. But Chelsea ruled. Arsenal hung on to third and Wenger blamed Blackburn, Gordon Brown and everybody except himself. Spurs finished fourth and celebrated like they'd won the World Cup. Shameless Shebby Singh, Malaysia's only known Spurs supporter, cried live on Astro after that clincher over moneybags Man City. My former boss Jan, a fierce Spurs supporter and unapologetic Man U basher, must be brimming with double delight. Did he also break down in tears? Not in this world.

Am I happy that Chelsea are the champions? Yes and yes. I'm not a Chelsea fan or fancier. But Man U with Sir Alex and his attack dog Gary Neville just turn me off (understatement). So between the two, my preference for the title is a no-brainer. A former office mate, Ramzul, happens to be a hard-core Man U fan, and there's been some kind of running war of words going on between him and another office mate, Anuar (not Anuar the VP). Don't guess which side I'm on. These verbal skirmishes have been a fertile ground for Man U bashing. Our modus operandi is simple and ingenious. Anuar and I would SMS or text each other (with a copy to Ramzul every time) snide and snappy comments about Man U, especially when they lose. We had a field day when Man U were bumped off by Bayern Munich in the Champions League. So the final and deciding Chelsea/Wigan and Man U/Stoke games on Sunday were a huge motivation for us to taunt and attack Ramzul, who doggedly believed that Man U still had a chance. (At the same time KL was abuzz with Thomas and Uber Cups preliminaries featuring make-weights German, Peru etc.) Sensing that Wigan were just a piece of cake for Chelsea, we drew the first blood. Anuar lobbed an SMS (copy to Ramzul) and I returned (copy to Ramzul), and fierce exchanges followed until the game ended. Highlights:

Anuar: Nak tengok ke Chelsea game ni? Macam tak ada makna aje....It's not academic. It's history.
Me: Yeah, watching Uber Cup is better, the girls slugging it out, more meaningful...
Anuar: Chelsea two goals up, can somebody tell the referee to stop the Man U/Stoke game...
Me: Don't, Man U are also two goals up. If they score eight goals, they might be champions...
Anuar: Even eighty goals is meaningless. Please stop the game........
Me: No, they've to keep playing and scoring goals. Sir Alex says Man U can carry forward the goals to next season, and start the first game next season with goals in hand. Then they don't have to wait until 95th minute to get the goal.....
At this point, Ramzul just couldn't take it any more, and jumped in:
Ramzul: Glory, glory Manchester Utd....
Anuar: Geli, geli.....
Ramzul: Man U are runners up even without Ronaldo, just unlucky to lose to Bayern, Wayne Rooney the top scorer, Glory, glory...
Anuar: Sir Alex wants to propose that Man U play in the World Cup....
Me: And become runners up again?......Felda Utd. is better.
Ramzul: Glory, glory, Reds march on and on.....glory glory
(Ramzul fired this SMS five times in quick succession to jam up our cell phones)
Me: Chelsea are six goals up. Gory, gory, Anuar you better take leave tomorrow or buy special
insurance......
Anuar: Glory, glory now gory, gory?.....
Me: Gory, gory when Ramzul sees you tomorrow....
Anuar: Eight goals now, I'll take two-week leave....
Ramzul: Man U till I die. Glory, glory. You know nothing about football. Go watch Thomas Cup....

Lots of fun. Ramzul would win a Man U supporter of the year award hands down. I stayed up until 2 am to watch the Chelsea celebration. Real spectacle, footballers dancing and prancing, showing off their wives and kids to the world. And why not? Football now is very much a family thing. With a contract running at RM500,000 a week, the wife has to be interested. I'm not sure what to make of two-timing Terry hugging his suffering wife. Fake? Farce? Who knows. Maybe Ramzul is right after all. Football is complicated now. Badminton is easier.