The bungor in bloom

The hot weather has encouraged an unusual profusion of flowers on the Lagerstroemia londonii (bungor) trees, bringing welcome colour to the streets. The former director of the Botanic Gardens Cheang Kok Choy called them the cherry blossoms of Penang. The Gardens have a magnificent tree which outshone even that grand plant in its great days that stood in the garden of Jag-Jit Singh's house in Northam Road. I can't understand why this plant was not included in the list of trees to be planted all over Penang by the State Forest Dept.

Do your friends observe the old custom of bringing presents when visiting? I get them but these days they bring bottles of whisky. There was an difference when a devoted lover of Mozart=s music brought a bunch of grapes.

I was astonished when reading Lee Ban Chen=s collection of articles that our writers in China have been said by a Taiwan editor to be superior to Taiwan and Singapore writers in Chinese.

I see that the Palestine government of one of the most progressive of Arab states has appointed two women to the Shariah court. One interviewed told her interviewer that she had been in anad out of the courts for the past ten years.

As I watched that excellent movie Slumdog Millionaire which exposed the slums of Bombay and the brutality of the police I thought if that film had been made here they=d all be locked up under the ISA

And Louis I have to tell you that all the pictures here were taken using the little digital camera you gave me last year