Elephants and judges

The last time I met Logan was at dinner plus wine and he passed me a book to read It was “I have to move my car” by David Pannick It turned out to be an entertaining bedside fun companion. Consisting of short tales of crazy judges and lawyers, you pick your choice as you go along and understand why the subtitle of the book is “Tales of Unpersuasive Advocates and Injudicious Judges”. We have been entertained by scandals involving our despised judiciary but we have had nothing like the first story, the story of a judge who was found guilty of using a penis pump while on the bench. I was pleased to discover that I am like Lincoln who thought that the role of a legal adviser was to discourage litigation. At first meeting the client thinks, why the hell did they introduce me to this coward of a lawyer? But as you get known they stop thinking that way.

The koel has come back after a few days absence, singing his sad song, perched on a tree right opposite me. I wonder where he went the last 3 days.

You must have heard of the astonishing Susan Boyle. In 1991 she sang that wonderful song “Cry me a river” but no one took any notice. I wonder whether she will survive her initial popularity

The Daily Mail of UK has exposed the elephant painting of Bangkok as manipulated by their masters tugging at their ears to guide their brushes These men are geniuses at survival We were so sorry to see their elephants begging for food in the streets of Bangkok. KH went under the belly of a baby elephant because that brings good luck, they say. When the government banned them their mahouts thought up this gimmick to earn money for their upkeep.

Lang Lang is being criticised for doing acrobatics when playing the piano but some critics say he is bringing in the crowds. In opera it’s stripping that is coming on stage, the latest being the singer taking it all off at the end of the “Dance of the Seven Veils”. I remember in the late 80's in Oxford at Leslie’s place when the TV which was on had naked girls at an orgy of the usurper’s in Boris Godounov. More music news. The John Lennon of South Korea has infuriated his govenment by praising the launching of a rocket by the North Korean government as an act of sovereinty and self defence. The Americans are disliked you can see. The latest is the great Zimmerman declaring that he will never perform in the USA ever again.

US lawyers are the envy of our lawyers who only ask for 30% from accident victims. Over there they ask for $11,000 per hour in contingency fee cases
Willie Gary, a Florida attorney whose personal Boeing 737 has an
18-carat gold bathroom sink, wanted Motorola to pay him $11,000 an hour
for his work on a lawsuit against the company, something unheard of..

Iron and Toer

Yiong has learnt from a Mr Zimmer that the iron I bought was a child's iron made in Westphalia in 1880 Mr Zimmer says more interesting things can be see at www.saareisen.de but I could not get to the english edition at saareisen.de/index.eng.htm

and she tells me that Toer has another story, Girl from the Coast, about his grandmother which i must get to read

Last night tried a new place which is one of a chain selling pizza opposite our petrol station and a few doors away from the German pub and thus conveniently near. The Margherita had a overwhelming tomato flavour but the base was not too bad but did not compare favourably with the wood burnt one at Northam Beach Cafe. The coffee though was surprisingly hot and their self made tiramisu was excellent. The very pleasant woman told us ( I am not sure if she is a partner or employee) said they make their own mushroom soup and we promised to give it s try one day. They also made English apple pie, very tempting , but they were "out of stock"

Why am I writing all this? Because we are having a rest, recovering from dinners and lunches with visitors who are thinning out afer cheng beng.

Mangrove

Hoe Koon surprised me with a gift - a Balinese painting - when he came for ch’eng beng and taught me how to mount it. It’s the usual modern Balinese style, its serene calm, placid like its food and so rejecting colour, denying its violent past. I showed him my early Balinese style work which had some colour and which to my astonishment turned out to be earlier than the earliest hanging at the Bali Museum of Art.

Just finished Pramoedya Toer’s Arok of Java. What a great story teller. Its all about pre Islam Java with its many castes, religions and the rise to power of a low caste Arok, taught by a guru to be a learned Brahmin steeped in the Sanskrit language and tradition. The battles, killings and plots reminds me of the chaos of The Three Kingdoms.

The koel who whistled his two and half tone courting song very loud for the world to hear must have found his mate. There seems no other explanation for his sudden silence.

The tiny mangrove plants which evidenced the depositing of Kuala Muda silt on our beaches which disappeared have now reappeared, 6 of them thrusting upwards above the waves

Hyacynthus orientalis

Lin has commented on my photo of the plant in Armenian Street (April 7) and thinks it is a Hyacinthus orientalis. I looked up GOOGLE and found 14,000 pictures of the species but found nothing looking like the Armenian Street plant the first 100 images I looked at. I shall have to find time to go to the Botanical Gardens and find out all about the plants that mystify me.

I see that Alex Rose’s great book on music The Rest is Noise is now a paperback which should get it the wider readership that it deserves.

My taxi driver tells me a story that explains the groups of taxi drivers found in certain locations. He says they are formed racially, Indians and Malays and Chinese in different “stands”, forming monopolies. They spend their time gambling while waiting for customers. You wont find that racialism in KL, he says.

Ch'eng Beng

I visited the old cemetry at Western Road, it being ch'eng beng, took some photos of old tombstones dating back to 1907, the digital camera unable to read the words carved on them and one of mother's tomb, the lettering not showing despite the bright sun

Tongkat Ali

Finshed Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. I thought that the conversation between the narrator and the taxi driver about where the ducks go in winter uproariously funny

Bread have moved from their place next to the socks shop to the Burmah Road entrance where Kenny Rogers used to be. We used to go to this place at One Stop for cheese cake and coffee after the Artist Gallery. They have now on sale home made kaya, very good but it has a lighter colour than the traditional and is more eggy in taste. While having coffee we noticed four men, real hulking hefties with two girls, one scantily dressed. They were obviously night club thugs escorting the two girls on their afternoon off.

Bought another copy of Lucy, a great book on her terrible life recalled without bitterness, because someone has borrowed my copy and I don’t remember who.

Had a look at the Spirits of Music dvd that I bought the other day. I thought Vivaldi’s concerto for two cellos with Bobby Mcferrin miming the second cello was cheeky but highly successful. He seems to be well known to the Leipzig crowd, the square filled to the full with a standing crowd.

Had five days of tongkat ali pills and the terrible knife pains on my broken left leg came back to rob me of sleep. I tried panadol to assuage the pain and resorted to visiting various places in town to distract me from the killer strikes. Went back to the powder form morning tongkat ali coffee and now after three days peaceful sleep has made a welcome come back. The tongkat ali pills did me no damn good.

Today

It rained like hell this morning (Thursday) but the regular dirt car came to clear the stinking bins next door as usual, its engine roaring to crush the mess. But the Bangladeshis did their job as if the sun was high in the sky. Oue locals shun this dirty job, get foreigners to do it then beat them up

Last night stopped at Artist Gallery which I hadnt been for a long time and patiently went throught the stacks of CS and discovered a Ferrier singing Mahler. A rare one of her. There were lots of dvd but I bought Magic of the Dance, all about the Irish and tap dancing. KH wondered if tap dancing originated from there. Another one we bought was Music, which included dancing pf the Dervish which we havent played yet.

Temp went down to 85. Nice and cool cf yesterday’s 98

in Armenian Street

Walking down Armenian Street I saw this strange plant at the Nanyang Restaurant
Wonder what it's called

Tiny iron

I bought this 4 1/2 inch old German iron at a recent exhibition. It's called an ox tongue iron; the "ox tongue" is first heated then inserted into the iron. Apparently it is used for fine lace work but no one could tell me. The web site of the German museum I went to was closed for renovation. Does anyone know?