LKC BLOG

Zoning

2010-05-06T19:47:00.002+08:00

This air force building stands defiant in a two storey building zone

This is our rule of law

Unbelievable

2010-05-02T17:57:00.002+08:00

There was a woman at the filthy wc of Song River coffee shop cursing and swearing while her little girl was peeing. I couldnt get what she was angry at but there was something about "hurry up". A very impatient woman I wanted to slap
Night before H Lay again displayed her powers of attraction again, the little hawker boy coming up to her and talking to her. She got him to wash his hands and taught him to speak up and order ice cream the proper way. The boy even guessed the man with her was her husband and followed him like a faithful dog when he went to a hawker to order something to eat.

ADICHIE

2010-04-26T16:44:00.002+08:00

I have just finished Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Sun At first it was reluctant reading having just finished the towering Wolf Hall but as I read on the book started to grip me with its terrifying and moving story about people involved with the Biafra war and hoping for its victory.
Its starting to rain but remains suffocatingly hot. Have not been out because I am just recovering from a cold and there is a lot of flem in the chest which slows one down
Sad news with JIng Quee in hospital and unable to walk

Second home

2010-04-20T19:45:00.002+08:00

At a talk the other night I learnt to my astonishment that Chinese headed the list of second homers followed by Bangladeshis There some 19,000 here cf to Singapore's 100,000

Attraction

2010-04-17T15:14:00.002+08:00

I marvel at the way some people are blessed with an attraction for children. Lay beckoned to the little boy the other day and he came rightaway and talked to her for a long time sucking the ice cubes she got for him (it was past midnight and there no more ice cream to be got) He is ill treated by his hawker father but never comes when we call to him to give him chocolate. I wonder whether it's her long black hair that attracts him. All my other friends have tried but he never comes to them.

Frogs

2010-04-15T16:13:00.002+08:00

Frogs used to sing me to sleep every night - mostly the high notes ones. Now with this drought in its 3rd month accompanied by killing heat they have disappeared. I often wonder where they are now

Help

2010-04-14T16:33:00.001+08:00

Thanks to Hooi Lin I ve got this blog going again!
More later!

Swindles

2010-03-18T20:22:00.002+08:00

Swindles never end. You often get "off duty" Blacklabel whisky adulterated. Now when you buy cigars loose and not sealed in a box you find one or two empty casings among those that you bought

Tukukor

2010-02-15T14:36:00.000+08:00

I was pleasantly surprised when I went to have my glasses fixed - one lens had dropped out when the specs slid off to the floor She fixed it and said nothing I only tied it up she said when I offeed to pay

The tukukor has also come to the rambutan tree to sing his sad song. He sings while I weed the garden

Did you know that crabs are kept covered because mosquitoes have a habit of stinging them in the eye which kills them and so makes them uneatable. I was the only one at table who didn’t know this.

Enjoyed Thai laksa at One Stop plus a helping of delightful coconut ice cream Inevitably there was pulot rice right at the bottom fo the pile. This place is sadly neglected and I llearn that at some floors allyou have to do to use a space is s to promisee that you will keep it clean no rent paid

I am now reading Wolf Hall, a Booker prize winner. The wealth of detail simply takes one’s breath away, you can actually smell the period and feel the pulse of those times. .

Bandoeng

2010-02-06T13:15:00.001+08:00

The other day I saw someone drinking iced milk with red syrup. A rare sight indeed! Later at a Mar Vista stall we learnt that the drink is known as Bandoeng

You must have read about the politician’s car skidding in heavy rain. It’s amazing that drivers to day still do not know about the aquaplane effect, which is that at above 50 mph in heavy rain your wheels float as on water like a motor boat and you are in danger of being swept aside by a gust of wind.

A son meets a student from China studying in the UK. The chance meeting is in Boston where a mutual friend is doing IT. Her aunt is a doctor in Beijing. Yes, her aunt will arrange for a liver transplant. It is done. And the father is back, happy and recovered in Penang. A story boook come true!

Albert has returned Xinran’s marvellous interviews with people in China and told me John lliked it so much he has ordered this and her first book for himself.

We were eating the flower crab - ch’i - when I discovered I was the only one who did’nt know that mosquitoes would sting them in the eye and kill them instantly.

It’s good to learn that the famous pomelo growers of Tambun have at last received grants to their land of 99 years.

Of all the well known bloggers I find the MP Teresa Kok the most honest with her figures. While others boast of millions of readers she publishes a modest honest count of only 775. Such honesty is rare indeed

sex and china writers

2010-01-25T14:52:00.000+08:00

Chinese writers are obsessed with showing off their sexual prowess. The latest is the Nobel Prize winner, One Man’s Bible, pages and pages of his exploits with women in various beds. It seems that a Chinese ant-Mao writer must not only show his eloquently stated anti-Mao credentials but must tell of his hot sex life to get the Nobel Prize.

The Johore Sultan has just died. I used to visit his father when was living in Singapore and later when I visited for polo. He was a very kind man, absolutely without malice. His son was always respectful when speaking to me and called me “uncle” He was rather erratic (born like that) but kind hearted like the father. He was a great friend of Tony Wee of Singapore, once a boxer and a DPP.

The oriel is back gurgling his deep whistle on the old rambuttan tree.

I would recommend looking at the amusing blog cheeseburgerbuddha.blogspot.com run by a journalist artist, a very entertaining fellow who has been all over the world.

The former minister Ghazali Shafie’s orbituary in the papers do not mention that he was in the British secret service then became head of Malaysia’s MI5. Amateur pilots were suspicious of his version of the air crash in 1982 which killed the co-pilot but which he survived. He was the one who changed the treatment of political detainees after arrest. Instead of being just asked to accompany the detectives the lock up, political detainees were handcuffed and even blindfolded as if they Viet-cong. And they were not even given water to drink for a long time after arrest

Bulgarians never smile

2010-01-17T16:51:00.001+08:00

13 January 2010

I told Peter about the Bulgarian restaurant, the complaint that the woman never smiled. Though beautifully redone in wood we avoided the place. Oh! Peter said, Bulgarians never smile. I once asked the manager of the Bulgarian airline why their air hostesses never smiled. What is there to smile at? He asked. So in we went to this restaurant and the woman actually came up to Peter and smiled. Yiong got hold of a booklet from her desk and it was full of jokes about Bulgarian stinginess. Substitute “Penang” and it could have been all about Penangites!

We were at Kroh late one night with a group of enthusiastic visitors I had brought to Betong and were looking for a place to eat - it was past 10 om and surprise. surprise, a Malay woman directed us to a Chinese coffee shop at the corner
unsmiling bulgarians

I have in the car Divakaruni’s Palace of Illusions which I read whenever I wait for KH in the car. I thought it highly entertaining and thought the kings and gods in her story were surely from Indian legends. Now I have received the Penguin Mahabharata and discover that hers is a very ingenious version of a story simply told of the Mahabharata but through the eyes of Draupadi, the doomed princess and very feminine.

At Telok Bahang at a restaurant the owner said to me dont come this way Thursday to Sunday the traffic jam sometimes stretches back as far as here. She complained the place was now full of gangsters and illegal structures.

Dogs, Shakespeare

2009-12-16T14:54:00.005+08:00

At lau hio hnui the other day I wondered if the well fed well groomed stray dog with a beautiful coat belonged to the coffee stall. I asked the boss who in answer gave the waiting dog a slice of bread telling him to go home. He disappeared in a flash, the bread between his teeth.

At the sio bar stall I asked the boss whether he had replaced his dog which had died of old age with another. Yes he said. He took a pariah pup when it was still blind and fed it with a milk bottle. Now it had groan big but its bark was strange - more a groan, like a long “wooooow.”

Peace and quiet at last. The piling having ended I snatched an hour of starved sleep.

Bought a Toyota Rush to replace the Prado. It has a cassette player which is very welcome for I am now able to go through my BBC collection: Edward Greenfield playing his huge library. Talks on classical music and opera, jazz and poetry, music from Africa and Latin America, Jazz for the Asking, Anything Goes. Requests came from all over the world. It was these BBC talks that taught me that many singers based their singing on Louis Armstrong. The condition of the cassettes is very good. I don’t tune I to the BBC nowadays because all you get is football and more football.

Shakespeare compels KH's attention after meals. Plots and murders, scheming nobles and ruthless kings and cardinals - great theatre!

New planning authority

2009-12-09T17:02:00.002+08:00

After the lapse of a few days, piling has resumed at the air force place. The “Tuan YB” letter has had no effect. As if in reply a new signboard proclaims that the Ministry of Defence has authorised the building of a “block” at the site. This the first serious test for the DAP government and it does seem to have failed in enforcing the rule of law. We will suffer bang bang bang bang for another week or so.

The building workers at the site work long hours. Even after sunset the trucks, cranes and diggers never stop work.

Suffered ear bashing again at the Dewan, attending a charity concert, where the stage hands pumped smoke?clouds?mist? without stop onto the stage, and cameramen roamed at will, blinding the audience with their burning lights . It was an evening of revelatory sadness. Young women writhing in worship of James Bond in the temple of sex with their god towering above them on a screen, hopping around with a gun. Little children playing electronic organs and pianos and dancing in celebration of Star Wars and Terminator. One wonders whether all music schools offer the same syllabus - wallowing in the cultural dregs of Hollywood and exulting in the roaring music of the US bully and his gun.

Secret service: We now learn that Italy’s fascist dictator Mussolini was paid £100 a week by MI5 to keep Italy in the first world war. Archived documents have revealed that Mussolini got his start in politics in 1917 with the help of a £100 weekly wage from MI5. Mussolini, then a 34-year-old journalist, was not just willing to ensure Italy continued to fight alongside the allies in the first world war by publishing propaganda in his paper. He was also willing to send in the boys to "persuade'' peace protesters to stay at home.

Bang! Bang! goes on

2009-12-04T17:30:00.000+08:00

Piling has resumed at the air force school. There is no signboard to show that planning permission has been obtained. Does it mean the air force is above building regulations? The latest is that the assemblyman for this area and member of the government who describes himself as a YB Tuan” has written to the City Council about this. We shall wait and see whether this big shot can be effective.

I see that the DAP people at their convention stepped on pictures of Perak assembly members who jumped over to the other side. So we can see that hooligan culture is not confined to the government side. Makes one wonder, if the DAP comes into power will they treat the opposition the bestial way their mentor treated J B Jeyaratnam?

People continue to leave his country. The dy foreign minister tells us that between March 2008 and August this year 304, 358 emigrated (this figure is of those who registered and includes 50,000 students)

The rain came the other day fast and furious December rains?

Becoming normal

2009-11-29T17:15:00.000+08:00

The noisy piling in the air force school has stoppped. The welcome silence allowed me to hear the tekukor call in the morning. I wrote to the Tanjong Bungah Residents Association but had not reply from them. I also wrote to the chief minister’s office. I suspect that the later protest by the residents of Hillside, who feared that piling must imply a four storey building, must have been heard by the city council. Let’s see whether the military are governed by our zoning bylaws. Last year, our opposition, made in answer to a notice from the city council, stopped a 3 storey plan from being successful. I must say that ours is an active road containing very aware residents..

I am sleeping less and less, from 12-13 hours a night to 11-12 and now about 10 and 1/2 hours, a progress that has delighted because it gives me more time for reading and working. I put it all down to the bicycle accident a few years ago when I had a mystery fall from which I had a concussion which lay me down in bed for five days to wake up sleeping 12-13 hours a day which made Barbara misthink, on a visit shortly after the accident, that I had died when at 1.30 pm I was still in bed!

Come back!!

2009-11-23T19:38:00.000+08:00

My vertigo has now receded so much so that I am reading Dickens Litle Dorrit before bed and in the car - while waiting - Banerjee’s Palace of Illusions, a fantastic tale of magic powers and of supermen which made me a 12 year old again. What a great writer Dickens is. The wealth of detail fascinates whereas The Ship, a story about the history of a glass noodle making family in China, tens to boredom. I now realise that “dunking” doughnut in coffee is American and “Toast sopped in coffee” was English.

KH missed the Chinese passumbul the other day and instead bought one from Fettes Rd from an Indian hawker. It was awful and had a strong hint of the wc; another example of the sort of thing you get nowadays - unemployed fellows trying their hands at cooking to earn a few dollars.

Few weeks later ...

Much better. Some of my former staff visited. One spoke of her caning her children mercilessly and I always thought her an always cheerful and gentle person. She admitted she inherited the habit from her father. All through her account, another of the girls murmered “child abuse” over and over again. We had a great time talking about sprits and dreams and charms.

At a dinner party some visitors from KL said they wanted to have a look at Hard Rock Hotel’s first hotel in Penang. Strange I thought.

It’s been raining cats and dogs robbing the month of its reputation as one of the kite season

With the substantial recession of the nauseating vertigo I have come back to this message to finish it

Much better now and was able to do the back breaking, eye tiring job of preparing The Penang File for launching which was finally published with the aid of Firefox.

Beauty

2009-11-09T22:08:00.001+08:00

Sorry but this vertigo thing wont go away and keeps me away from the piano and the computer
But I thought I must keep in touch so here is something about beauty from the Tunhuang Caves

CHAPTER TWO
WU TZU-HSU
Once upon a time there was a King of Ch'u so powerful that his dominions reached as far as the land of Buddha. This King had a minister called Wu She, whose two sons were in service in other kingdoms. Tzu-shang, the elder, was at the Court of the land Of Cheng; Tzu-hsii, the younger, was serving in the land of Liang.
The Heir-Apparent of the King of Ch'u was old enough to have a wife, but was not yet married. The King said to his ministers, 'Who is there that has a daughter lit to be his consort? I have heard that a kingdom without an Eastern Palace<26) is like a land that is half wilderness. . . . Half the majesty of a kingdom belongs to its Crown Prince, yet our Prince has no bride. What should be done?'
'I have heard', said the Grand Minister Wei Ling, 'that the Duke Mu of Ch'in has a daughter of sixteen whose beauty surpasses that of all women. Her eyebrows are like the moon at its waning, her cheeks are like frozen light (?), her eyes are like falling stars, her face has the beauty of a flower, her hair is seven feet long, her nose is straight and her forehead square, her ears are like hanging pearls, her hands fall below her knees, her ten fingers are slender and long. I would have your Majesty give orders that a marriage with her should be negotiated for the Prince. For if arrangements can be made that meet your wishes, it would bring glory to all your domains and be a fine thing!'
So Wei Ling was sent to solicit the Duke of Ch'in's daughter. When he came home with her, *he King of Ch'u sent for him and said, 'I am afraid you have had a hard journey through wind and frost.'

vertigo nuisance

2009-10-26T20:05:00.001+08:00

26 October 2009

Sorry for the silence I have been laid low by vertigo a nuisance but I am defying it and sending this off while I can concentrate.

I find from Word that there are all sorts of English to choose from: - there is even one version for Malaysia and one for Singapore!

Plumber came. Talked from the moment he came through the door until he left!

Garrison Keilor in a piece in the International Herald Tribune tells us of a sign in the backseat of a London cab which reads: APlease keep your feet off the seats.@ In America, he claims, such a sign would only stimulate certain people to plant their shoes directly on the seats. Here such a sign would simply be ignored.

It rained so heavily just a day before Hari Raya that river behind La Salle School overflowed its banks and long roads of cars were stranded wet in Green Lane and the area around the Mesjid Negara. They have been promising the past umpteen years to deepen the river but it=s just all talk.

There is a golden aureole that has chosen the born again rambutan tree to sing from. It comes in the morning and again in the late afternoon about 6 when I am in the garden. A fearless troubadour.

Today is the last day of kiu ong iar (the nine goods festival) and true to form it rained like hell. Next month will be November when we are dry and Kota Bharu is flooded

More later when and if I recover

More blackouts

2009-09-17T16:29:00.001+08:00

Here is another page from the New York Herald Tribune. You can see from the photos what the censor tolerates and what immorality invokes his anger.

The other day we made monkeys of ourselves when guests were here. The electricity was out and I cursed corruption, inefficiency - the whole string of usual curses. We waited 4 hours and yet the air con still remained silent. Our neighbour was out so we couldnt check with her. Then we phoned to complain and the woman at the other end said they had not received any complaints. That should have alerted us but I think we were so full of prejudice that we blamed Tenaga for everything. Then one of the guests noticed that the fuse box switch was down. Should be up she said. Yes the washing machine had indeed done the blackout. The air con came one again.

Car repairer Ah Aun told me that his customers have discovered that when they went to the dealers workshop for servicing the workers in fact did not change the engine oil but charge him for the oil which they stole and sold. So they go to him for servicing which he is reluctant to do.

I saw the gardener at one of the houses on the hill opposite throwing rubbish into the garden of the house No 3 opposite and told him about it. He says he knows who the man is – he is a lawyer.

The censor's brush

2009-09-03T19:42:00.002+08:00

The censors are so busy (overworked?) they have even blacked out the chest of a male dancer in this photo from an issue of the New York Herald Tribune.

Very busy with visitors from US, Italy, Johore, Malacca and Singapore, hence the delay with this blog.

Lucky May came from 40 degrees in Rome to our rain soaked 26 and was delighted. It was a great feeling with these few cool days when one slept without the air con. And it was really chilly by the sea at Northern Beach hawkers complex.

KH came back with a lot of Laurel and Hardy. It was amusing to see the beautiful lady in the 1936 car armed with a parasol; I saw the girls carrying parasols in Thailand in a new light, gutsy things braving a speed much faster than Laurel’s open carriage and not being carried off.

My dinner at Nyonya Breeze was spoilt by the din created by much shouting augmented by the very low ceiling. The following night we went to the other Nyonya place at New World Park thinking we would have a quiet dinner but, alas, a fellow giving a lesson in hip hop to some girls and boys at the theatre next door had his amplifiers on full blast.

I have just finished reading Tash Aw, When his book first came out it was cooly received then it stunned the world when it won the Whitbread first novel prize. I thought it deserved the Doris Lessing endorsement of him as a good story teller. He has an inventiveness for fantasy. But it is less close to realty than Han Su Yin’s ‘And the Rain My Drink’.

I am glad they are reprinting Anthony Burgess’ great ‘Malayan Trilogy’ which originally came out as ‘Time for Tiger’. It was from one of the stories that I learnt that Chinese are “shits in the head” because they ate prawn heads. Another great book reprinted is Farrell’s ‘Singapore Grip’. I have introduced these two books to many friends. I am now reading Xan Ran’s interviews with Chinese in China, a fascinating, free of propaganda series of very detailed interviews which gives one some idea of life in China before and after the Cultural Revolution.

Eric Came with a bottle of 30 year old Glenfiddich. A great gift!

The exercise bicycle broke down the other day and we rang the shop. A man came round. He was a free lance and repaired exercise machines in hotels and sports centres. I was pleased to see that he was a young Indian and also he knew Malay but not English.

Rose came from Singapore the other day and was very pleased that in Penang the young called their elders Uncle and Auntie. In Singapore, she grumbled, the women would be offended if you said “hullo Auntie “ to them.

Firefly and Greta Garbo

2009-08-23T22:12:00.002+08:00

Betong boasts an enormous statue of Buddha which was a donation from China, I am told.

At Albert’s place the other night we saw a dvd of nine year old Niu Niu playing Mozart. I liked the way he played Mozart. Unlike others who perform as if they were deep into Beethoven such as Ridi Lupu he smiled and looked around as he played, a real entertainer. I wonder why his parents call him Niu Niu (bull bull). Reminds me of the old song Abdul and Bull bull le mare (not sure of the last two words though).

I was astonished to see a bright light coming from the bathroom floor one night. As is usual when one is completely astonished it never occurred to me that what shone like a lighthouse in the darkness was but a firefly until KH came in and identified it. The creature was however dead. I havent seen any fireflies around here and indeed none since I was a kid.

I went crazy the other day at the music shop and bought dvds of Soviet and Russian ballet, of masters of the cinema like Fellini, Kurosawa, Renoir, stars like Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, and a complete BBC Shakespeare. That should keep me occupied for a long time.

2009-08-08T17:12:00.001+08:00

I’m afraid I have neglected the blog again and for the same reasons - visitors, dinners, concerts, a very good local film, “Gadoh” which I think might win first prize at this year’s Freedom Film Festival, and Marion D’Cruz’s Retrospective Dance which showed what a fine dancer she is.

However the August 5th NY Herald Tribune prompted me to make a complaint rightaway and it is this - seeing the part where the legs meet of a female ballet dancer blacked out and - surprise - the chest of her male partner !

You see here the photo of the Mango Tree eating place in Betong which is our favourite. The woman there is a very special person who can turn out an amazing variety of dishes. Food is always fresh because her assistant simply gets on her motor cycle and collects what ever the cook wants from the market just round the corner. Luckily I had some years before photographed the place, because now the landmark Tree is no more.

I forgot to mention the last blog that the rich yachtsman from Langkawi stumbled on a Tune Hotel and spent the night there. It was good value he said, and showed us photos of the MR17 a night air con room with bathroom attached, Amazing!

We had pork knuckles at Ingolf’s Kneoper the other night, our guest being lucky that there was a table available. We three shared one dish and you can imagine what big eaters the Germans must be.

Just dug up from my computer a BBC story about an African parrot called N’Kisis with a 950 word vocab.

Last night we were at the Wind Orchestra concert (Woon’s group), an impressive crisp playing demonstrating what great strides have been made in music making in Penang. Then to the North Beach Café to be greeted by a storm of rain which forced us from the sea front to the not so welcome covered space where, we saw two women eating mashed potatoes from the German sausage man. They looked like Filippinos.

Pig's ears & fried grasshoppers

2009-07-29T13:43:00.000+08:00

At the goo bar koay tiau t’ng place I was astonished to see a man in a tie serving coffee. KH thought that he must be the man who used to be at the back of the shop making coffee. This we confirmed when the woman answered my question as to why the poster on the wall announcing English breakfast had disappeared. Here answer was: “Because my husband is no longer helping me in the morning.” Shortly afterwards he hopped into a car and went off. He must have got a job and visited the coffee shop when he had a break, This, by the way, is the only coffee shop in Penang where the proprietors are English educated.

The goo bar koay tiau t’ng woman is busier then before and even at 3.30 pm the coffee shop is full with her customers. Chen’s friend from Langkawi fell in love with her beef soup and had two bowls. He thought the beef was superbly cooked. Chen had made friends with the old English man whose yacht was tied up next to his in Langkawi. They were in ecstasies over the Thai food at Sebai Sebai and so we started talking about food in other countries. The man told me that the fried grasshoppers in Cambodia were “lovely” which led me to telling him about Lao which I was sure produced better fried grasshoppers and cicadas and better still, hornet’s grub. I told him why Lao was shangri-la and he has decided to sail there.
The boss came to greet them with her bottle of whisky and we had a round with her.

By the way, the old man was adamant that the tim sun he had at Cintra Street (?) was one of the best in the world. I had never even heard of the restaurant and never heard that our tim sum was first class. The Cantonese who should know better, call Ipoh is “little Hong Kong” and Cintra Street “little Ipoh” anad it was never promoted.

We learnt something new from the old man’s visit. That we have a string of hotels called Tune which charge MR17 a night with air con. He was in the one in Burma Road and showed us photos of the room and shower to convince us that what he said was true; Chen must have regretted putting his younger friends into the E&O.

Chen’s younger visitors were friends from the days when he was a student in England. We gave Trevor and his wife pig’s ears at North Beach Café at 1.30 am and they liked it. They were also lucky with the ch’i - flower crabs just landed by the fishermen down on the beach which we had steamed at Hai Wei restaurant. We explained the special sweetness in the meat of the Penang crabs and their habit of staying high on coconut trees. Chen disdained the nutcracker and cracked the soft shells with his teeth the old fashioned way. Talking of crabs those writing about food in Penang do not seem to know that Penang people eat only ch’i and not cheem - rock crabs, which are tasteless to them.

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Parasol and motor bike

2009-07-22T16:37:00.002+08:00

I’m afraid that dinners, visitors have made me ignore the garden, The Penang File and this blog. But I have at last managed to publish The Penang File and now turn my attention to the blog and jot down what’s been going on in my head since the last issue.

Yes this photo of a woman with a parasol on a motor bike in Betong has been waiting to be publicised. It was the same in Lao. I wondered how they kept their balance and why they were not swept away by the wind while holding the parasol in one hand.

Thinking that STRADA meant an Italian restaurant we went there to find that it is Canadian owned (two flags inside betrayed its origins). It’s been operating in Burma Road for a year and we failed to notice it. The man inside explained they had good business lunch time with Malay women customers - that explained why they served no pork. I liked the New York cheese cake which the manager, who looked as if he were the cook, said was made by the boss’s wife. The braised lamb shank was good too and the coffee was American. So now we have a Canadian place in addition to a Bulgarian restaurant, German pub and a Serb pub.

The censors are still at it. This time the victim is Durga, the Hindu goddess. In Off the Edge she suffered the indignity of her breasts being blacked out. Imagine how much it cost us to maintain hundreds of government staff with their brushes ready when the magazines are opened and scrutinised.

Tiles and durian

2009-06-19T14:09:00.002+08:00

I have been unable to do this blog mainly because we were out for dinner 5 nights in a row. And also there was the third Choral Festival to go to and a concert by the PESSOC orchestra. A few days’s rest and I am back at the job.

The photo above is of a section of the hall of the late Soon Eng Hooi’s house in Aboo Sittee Lane, built in the later 1920s. I was delighted to see the same tiles along the five foot way of the shophouses along Moulmein Road built in the 20s in Pulau Tikus.

I was photographing the same tiles at Armenian Street which enabled me to establish that houses along the same street were tiled in the same period to bring them “up to date” and get rid of their terra cotta red when Beng commented that they were tiles from Morocco. When I told him they were Italian he could not tell the source of his information.

Beng is a former businessman who was once locked in his flat by thugs hired by lawyers acting for a buyer who had bought the property from a bank which had foreclosed when Beng failed to pay his instalments. The purchase price was lower without vacant possession and it was cheaper to hire thugs to get the man out. Luckily Ben phoned a friend who got him out and took care to photograph the lock and other things that locked Beng in. They made a police report and are now suing the lawyers for damages.

Beng has made friends with the two lively children of the Serb who runs a pub. He is married to a local. We dropped in for a drink one night when he told us he had a million jazz songs in his computer. That was the night that Beng and the kids were outisde on the five foot way, caring for two baby sparrows that had fallen from their nest.

Sylvia has opened a home for old lonely people to play mahjong and otherwise pass the time. She is a Catholic and has come back from Taiwan where she spent one year learning to speak Mandarin. I suggested lessons in painting and clay working,

One day, along Tanjong Bungah, I looked into a humble eating place to see what food was being offered. To my surprise the man called me by by name. He turned out to be Tat Thong’s hill estate caretaker’s son who reminded me that he was always there when we went up to the rubber estate Sundays for whisky and lunch. He turned to be a jovial fellow, introduced us to his wife and daughter. Food turned out to be good.

Had one piece of buttered bread and 4 durians for dinner one night - excellent stuff. When KH said I was nuts I reminded her that in Trengganu they have durian in curry eaten with rice.

Post box and lazo

2009-06-06T18:04:00.004+08:00

Above is my photo of the post box in Betong, just across the border. It’s been variously described as “the largest mail box in Thailand” and “the world’s largest post box.”

I have just finished Khaked Hosseini “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” A story that makes you thank your lucky stars you are not an Afghan woman.

Started on Mo Yan’s “Big Breasts and Wide Hips.” His “Red Sorghum” I put down without finishing because it was so painful to read. This new novel begins with the birth of a child just when the Japanese army invades the village and promises to confirm that he is one of the greatest out of China.

You will see an astonishing account of the invention of the second wheel by Jansen. Just go to led.com and search for “Jansen.”

And here is an extract I promised from Darwin’s notes of his tour in

THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE

“So many works have been written about these countries, that it is almost superfluous to describe either the lazo or the bolas. The lazo consists of a very strong, but thin, well-plaited rope, made of raw hide. One end is attached to the broad surcingle, which fastens together the complicated gear of the recado, or saddle used in the Pampas; the other is terminated by a small ring of iron or brass, by which a noose can be formed. The Gaucho, when he is going to use the lazo, keeps a small coil in his bridle-hand, and in the other holds the running noose, which is made very large, generally having a diameter of about eight feet. This he whirls round his head, and by the dexterous movement of his wrist keeps the noose open; then, throwing it, he causes it to fall on any particular spot he chooses. The lazo, when not used, is tied up in a small coil to the after part of the recado. The bolas, or balls, are of two kinds: the simplest, which is chiefly used for catching ostriches, consists of two round stones, covered with leather, and united by a thin plaited thong, about eight feet long. The other kind differs only in having three balls united by the thongs to a common centre. The Gaucho holds the smallest of the three in his hand, and whirls the other two round and round his head; then, taking aim, sends them like chain shot revolving through the air. The balls no sooner strike any object, than, winding round it, they cross each other, and become firmly hitched. The size and weight of the balls varies, according to the purpose for which they are made: when of stone, although not larger than an apple, they are sent with such force as sometimes to break the leg even of a horse. I have seen the | balls made of wood, and as large as a turnip, for the sake of catching | these animals without injuring them. The balls are sometimes made of iron, and these can be hurled to the greatest distance. The main difficulty in using either lazo or bolas is to ride so well as to be able at full speed, and while suddenly turning about, to whirl them so steadily round the head, as to take aim: on foot any person would soon learn the art. One day, as I was amusing myself by galloping and whirling the balls round my head, by accident the free one struck a bush; and its revolving motion being thus destroyed, it immediately fell to the ground, and like magic caught one hind leg of my horse; the other ball was then jerked out of my hand, and the hone fairly secured. Luckily he was an old practised animal, and knew what it meant; otherwise he would probably have kicked till he had thrown himself down. The Gauchos roared with laughter; they cried out that they had seen every sort of animal caught, but had never before seen a man caught by himself”.

Rice and ice kachng

2009-05-29T14:11:00.000+08:00

Came across a dvd of Callas interviewed by Lord Harewood. Great and revealing it was. And they still don’t have any of her operas here in the shops.

I bought a Pilger film War on Democracy. Sickening to hear an arrogant ex CIA man commenting on the murder of some people in one of the countries of south America saying “500! That’s nothing in the battle for democracy!” or something like that.

I was deafened night after night during the French film festival by the overloud surround sound adverts showing mainly US trailers, bing bong bang, killings, explosions, heroic defenders of the US ad nauseum. Shows Americans are a terrified people still surrounded by Red Indians as Slessinger Jr explained in a book written 40 years ago.

The French films were great and we saw Hunting and Gathering, Sseraphine, Crime is our Business and Saint Cyr. What was impressive was the audience - 40 cf to the miserable 7 last year.

A Malaysian film Sell Out was also on but we did not notice it until I stumbled across it in a blog which reported that it was highly commended at the Venice Festival. Too late! It was discontinued the day we tried to buy a ticket. Will have to wait for the dvd.

Saw a “pipa duck” sign at Rangoon Road, had no idea what it was until when we got to the hawker complex next to Island Plaza. Very well done and a new discovery in taste. But why “pi pa”? Apparently after the shape of the Chinese lute.

At the next table was a man who was dark skinned but puzzled; he was reading a Chinese newspaper. Alone with a cup of coffee and a small bottle of beer, Sitting there doing nothing, staring into space. Was he waiting for a friend? When we were just about to leave the chicken rice woman joined him. She was about to eat her late dinner, a plate of rice, a cup of what looked like soup and as well as a bowl of ice kachang. She must be his wife. And what a dinner!

The itch that tormented me for more than a year has gone. The skin specialist here, and he is one of he best, told me to cover up all day because my skin is a very dry skin and sensitive to ultra violet rays. This meant anti hystamine pills, ointments, special lotion for baths and no more swimming in the sea - the deadlist blow of all.

I am also no longer sleeping 12 hours a day and instead do 11. It must be that the effects of the concussion caused by my falling from my bike for no reason at all is losing its effect. I suspect it is also the cause of my false palsy which causes bits of food to go down the wrong way causing severe and prolonged coughing - even a slight vomit - to get the intruder out of the wrong tube. My surgeon tells me this partial paralysis of the region of the throat is due to brain damage.

French film week and rambutan

2009-05-23T16:36:00.000+08:00

Went to the first of the French film week films, a delightful comical light touch to an Agatha Christie murder mystery with the title, Crime is Our Business

WL was here for two days. I haven’t seen him since he left for Canada in 1974. He was one of the early political prisoners, interned by the British under the predecessor of the ISA on St John’s Island in 1951.A very brave man. When he set up his clinic in KL gangsters demanded protection money. He refused. They smashed his glass front and did the same on the second refusal. They found this guy too tough and left him alone.

The old rambutan tree, probably planted by the first owner in 1962 and cut down some ten years ago when the trunk had gained the mature girth of a coconut tree. It had put out fresh branches which formed a screen between us and next door when we came and is now producing fruit, not as prolific as when it was young but more than we can consume. Its super iar bar (coconut meat) and no loot k’ark (clean peeling) shows that the man who planted it knew his rambutan well.

Tat Thong’s grandson, from Hong Kong, visited and brought us a box of Wife Biscuit, a round thing containing lotus seed paste. Delicious! In return we gave him some mangosteens and some of our super rambutans. He has never eaten mangosteen in his life.

SC came and we went to a new Thai place called The Thai Garden run by a woman from north Thailand and married toa Pole. Adeline joined us at 11 pm and we showed her and SC the heartbreaking “Running” (about the cruel plight of Myanmar refugees here made by Suaram, the human rights organisation) and first three chapters of Water Margin only, because it was already 2 am. Adeline brought a bottle of 15 yr old Grouse whisky. I told SC about the “White Tiger”, which she borrowed.

Meeting an old friend from Ipoh, a first generation from a pioneer immigrant tin miner, I was not surprised to find that his reaction to my saying that the UN found China as one of the biggest exporters of Chinese women for sale. His reaction: that’s very small compared to the huge population. His reaction to the news that three woman had committed suicide because they had no food: they always like to take their children with them when they go. (In fact they were Indian women all over 40 years old). No pity at all, although a devout Catholic. Was that typical of this country? Seems so, if we take the audience at the filming of “Running”. At comment time, no one spoke sympathetically or with pity although they were young and “liberal” folk: Questions like “how do you know how many are criminals?” “Why don’t they take it up with Burma” suggested hard heartedness form the floor that I couldnt tolerate. SO I made a long comment on how Austria looked after 3 million refugees after the war when they themselves were short of food and how cruel we were in treating these people though we were a mixture of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam Hadari. It was clear from the floor that, that we are still sick with mahathirism, reflecting his infamous battle cry: “Shoot the boat people!”.

Rummaging through the CD’s at the music shop I was delighted to see a collection of Julius Katchen ( I had been hoping they would do his Brahms Works of which I have the complete LPs but alas this is the only one I found consisting of a collection of works by various composers. From the accompanying booklet I learnt that this great pianist died when only 42 of a mysterious illness and was American (I’d always thought he was Hungarian for some reason) I listened to his playing of Rorem’s Sonata No 2 and was swept off my feet by the Tarantella. The gentle Nocturne was dedicated to Billie Holiday. The Tarantella and Balakirev’s Islamey, on the same CD, truly show off the piano’s grand range of sound, as Chopin does.

Dandin: Tales of the Princes. Written 1300 years ago in sanskrit this is now available in Penguin classics. Great stories which show a different culture from the Greeks and the Chinese.

You will find Darwin’s Origin of Species fun. I will extract a few stories from his letters which are as exciting as cowboy stories.

After a night of heavy rain I went to the computer ad found it rather cold. I looked at the thermometer, it was 86F! Shiver!!!! But it’s hot again and we are being fried alive.

Tree cafe and tongkat ali

2009-05-13T16:58:00.003+08:00

I must tell you about this sea food place along Weld Quay, popular with artists both sides of the causeway. Some call it the Tree Cafe because of the old tree at the entrance. It has an enormous variety of fish, prawns and crabs and the pork kegs are excellent.

C has a problem with her legs which sometimes need a blanket to keep warm. I asked her to try tongkat ali coffee which has stopped the knife pains in my once broken leg and saved my friend's life when he was poisoned by an enemy agent in the jungle during the guerrilla war. She SMS to report that her legs are now warm and comfortable.

KH has bought a motorised lawnmower which annoys Mango next door who runs up and down barking at it furiously. He once got through the gate and got lost and was brought back by a Malaysia My Second Home woman who had it brought to her by the temple people down the road. She traced the owner via the licence tag and came in her car to make sure that she was was going to deliver him to his proper home.

The woman who bought No 1 down the road is very friendly and says she will visit us when she moves in after renovation is done. Always chit-chats when she parks her car near our gate. Latest we learn from her is that the doctor at the corner is moving to KL and is asking for $2 million for his house! The recession hasn't yet hit house prices yet you can see.

Pizzas and a rabbit

2009-05-06T16:38:00.001+08:00

Certain rumours about Ingolf and morbid curiosity led us to his pub down the road Although a Tuesday it was full but lucky us, “John” gave us the big table in front which was “reserved” but unoccupied. “John” because when they come to work at Ingolf and they adopt English names; you never will know their real names. What is good about Ingolf is that the shop next door sells Williem II cigars and they are fresh. We spent a pleasant few hours there trying out the special German spaghetti with meat balls and had stout with cigars watching the other tables like old busybodies. At the next table four old English couples were enjoying wine and beer and happy conversation. I thought they were drinking a wee bit too much.

H Lay’s parents were crushed in their car when a man driving very fast jumped the road divider and went smack into their car. Mother had concussion and has just been discharged after hours of talking nonsense. Father is still in hospital with a broken arm and hip. The fire brigade had to do a lot of hacking to free him. A passer-by took a photo of the helpless father in the wrecked car and it won a prize of $50 from The Star. H Lay I discovered worships Wunderlich as I do so, I played one or two CDs for her. I also discovered that she has never heard of Bolet or Roget.

I wonder if you have heard the new woman pianist Yuja Wong and the new violin wonder boy, Sergey Kachatryan. Going through Edward Said’s collection of essays ‘Music at the Limits’ I find that in the comment on pianists in middle age he was highly critical of Azhkenazy.

A neighbour lost her pet rabbit and dropped a note into our letter box to ask that we keep a look out for it. The darling rabbit eventually found his way back home. The rabbit is lucky. My experience is that when they get lost they are killed at once by dogs

I have just heard that Mohan Appaduray, the Kuantan lawyer, has died. As I could not attend the court reference being in KL, the daughter has asked my to write something which I have done. The death brings back memories of happy whisky hours with him and Ten Chin Yong, his boss and later, partner. One of the things I recall is the eccentric Mr Justice Hashim being angry with a taxi whose noisy diesel taxi shattered the silence of his court. He had the police drag the poor man to the magistrate’s court. Fortunately for the fellow , those were the days ofudicial independence. The magistrate, ignoring the background of the story, found the taxi driver had done no wrong and acquitted him. Hashim, on being told of the outcome, just shook his head and is reported to have said "cheeky fellow!"

Those who have heard about the story of the Three Kingdoms but have delayed reading the fat volume will find the summary by Li Lienfung of a mere 160 pages a great introduction to the story She does translations of the poems as well. She finds Liu Bei a crafty and dishonest man. She also gives a bit of the background to the story, giving snippets now and then of real history.

In KL at the Park Royal Hotel I enjoyed the wood fired pizza which did not have that overwhelming tomato juice flavour that pizzas in Penang are impregnated with.

Elephants and judges

2009-04-29T16:39:00.000+08:00

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

2009-04-26T13:06:00.002+08:00

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

2009-04-25T14:17:00.000+08:00

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

2009-04-19T14:58:00.000+08:00

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

2009-04-14T16:35:00.005+08:00

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

2009-04-11T13:35:00.002+08:00

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

2009-04-09T10:38:00.001+08:00

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

2009-04-07T16:27:00.002+08:00

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

Tiny iron

2009-04-03T13:05:00.003+08:00

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?

Opera stars

2009-03-31T15:44:00.002+08:00

Here's something to keep you up to date

Ian Griggs in the Independent tells us that slimmer and more active opera stars are bringing back the crowds. Here is his list

Marina Poplavskaya, 30
Russian soprano. Appeared as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin' at the Royal Opera House in March and replaced Anna Netrebko as Donna Anna in 'Don Giovanni'. Briefly married to the US bass baritone Robert Hale, with whom she remains friends. Her voice has been described by critics
as 'turbocharged'.

Danielle de Niese, 29
US soprano, born in Australia. Appeared as Cleopatra in Handel's 'Giulio Cesare' at Glyndebourne in 2005 and returned there this year in the title role in Monteverdi's 'L'Incoronazione di Poppea'. Seen by some
directors as the great hope for connecting with a young audience.

Jonas Kaufmann, 39
German tenor. Appeared as Jose in 'Carmen' at the Royal Opera House in 2006 and as Alfredo in 'La Traviata' at the Metropolitan in New York. Described by critics as the finest tenor his country has produced in 50
years.

Anna Netrebko, 36
Russian soprano. Appeared as Donna Anna in 'Don Giovanni' in 2002 and, last year, as Susanna in 'Le Nozze di Figaro'.

Erwin Schrott, 36
Uruguayan bass baritone who played title role in 'Le Nozze di Figaro'. Has just had a baby boy with his partner Netrebko.

Deborah Voigt, 47
US soprano whose weight, then 25 stone, prevented her playing title role in 'Ariadne on Naxos' in 2004 at the Royal Opera House. Is now 16 stone
and has returned to the role.

I have Netrbko and she is simply too powerful a singer, swept me off my feet

Palm Tree Fruit

2009-03-29T21:12:00.004+08:00

I shamelessly trespassed on the privacy of a house in Pulau Tikus by poking my camera uninvited through the fence to steal a picture of a palm tree in the garden. Reason (excuse)? - I had never seen this common palm bearing fruit, which looks like pinang from a distance.

Bananas!

2009-03-26T13:55:00.001+08:00

Hamid sent me this photo of a remarkable wild banana with hundreds of bananas on one pod.

Dancing whales

2009-03-22T18:48:00.003+08:00

Someone sent to his friends a photo of Chinese trainers training beluga whales to dance. I thought yu might like to see it.

The bungor in bloom

2009-03-18T15:32:00.004+08:00

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

Golf ball mushroom

2009-03-15T13:37:00.002+08:00

The Golf ball has appeared again This time three mushrooms cuddled close together
appeared

Insan

2009-03-09T19:48:00.004+08:00

My friend Hamid is doing good work in Batu Pahat among the underprivileged. They put up a show recently and performed Ten Little Indians and Old MacDOnald Had a Farm. Hamid tells me that they know no English and their Malay is poor.

Bees

2009-03-05T16:59:00.003+08:00

Tiny little bees (wasps?), no bigger than a fly, were building what looked like a miniature hive on a leaf of my born again rambutan tree. A friend, who is a bird watcher, says the photos are not clear but he thinks they are wasps. I promised that next time I'd use my old fashioned camera instead of this digital thing which is not meant for closeups

No 8

2009-02-26T17:01:00.002+08:00

Patsy asked for a photo of the house we have moved into so here it is

Tony Wee

2009-02-21T17:48:00.002+08:00

Tony

A good friend of mine, Tony, has just departed this world after an illness. I vividly remember his surprise visit to me in Penang a few years ago making a grand arrival his Rolls Royce. There were a few lawyers from KL visiting me then and after the introductions I asked him how he would react in the following circumstances if he was prosecuting a case of rape ( He was for many years counsel in the AG’s chambers, Singapore) and the defence produced startling evidence to show that the building where the alleged offence was committed was not then occupied, being under renovation. What would he have done? Tony said he would throw the file on the floor, apologise to the court for wasting its time, withdraw the prosecution and put a black mark against the name of the investigating officer; the fellow would be denied promotion for five years. The young lawyers were astonished because Anwar’s case was a recent memory: Anwar Ibrahimwas alleged to have committed an offence in a building that had not yet been occupied, but the Judge who sent him to jail simply amended the date of the offence, a amendment which simply would not have been countenanced by the court in 1959. It was a good law lesson for my visitors.

Dr Ng Kah-ming

2009-02-18T13:32:00.003+08:00

Dr Ng Kah-ming* and his Charivari Agreable were recently interviewed by BBC’s Radio Three. This will give a great boost to the reputation of the authority on Baroque and Medieval Music who lectures at Oxford University on Early Music. I remember hearing about this remarkable harpsichordist who had trained a group of housewives to sing in the choir that he had formed. This was in the eighties. I went to KL to hear their performance which was in a church and came away very impressed. I was astonished to learn very much later that Kah-ming had graduated from Monash, Australia as a bachelor of engineering. When he last visited in Penang I was pleased that this PJ man talked to his children in Cantonese; they live in England and have a German mother but he does not want them to forget that they are Cantonese. Kah-ming has been director of the Charivari Agreable since 1983.

The group has just produced a CD of Torelli’s original Brandenburg Concertos. Nicholas Kenyon of “The Observer” wrote that the playing was plangent and impressive, quite hard edged, and added wind give an extra lift to the textures

You can hear the BBC interview by clicking on

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h4dbx/In_Tune_Sean_Rafferty/

* I copied the photo from his alumni magazine

*****

Can anyone tell me what this plant is?

Music of the heart

2009-02-13T21:54:00.002+08:00

Can anyone name this fascinating plant. Some one gave it to me but just calls it a fern

******

Borrowed Albert’s DVD of Meryl Streep in “Music of the Heart.” I thought it surely must be one of the Hollywood sob stories but it delightfully turned out to be a cinema version of the true story of a single mother violinist whose obsession of turning Harlem kids into violinists finally paid off with a fund raising concert in Carnegie Hall supported, amongst others, by the great Isaac Stern. Gloria Estafan sang the theme song.

Registering a car

2009-02-08T14:39:00.000+08:00

I was enjoying a Cuban and a great whisky when SF rang to tell a remarkable story. For years he had been trying to discover the trustees of the estate of a certain doctor whose vintage car he had ages years ago. He had no reason to suspect it was stolen but the seller, whose honesty he trusted, had claimed that he could not find the owner to have papers signed. Some years back I told PC the story and learnt that she knew the family but a daughter had slipped to her death in Sungai Patani and her husband said he couldn’t help as he knew nothing. . But the other day, a happy SF said, he had a visitor who slipped and nearly fell outside his house and he warned her to be careful, telling her of the woman who had so tragically fallen to her death in S Patani. “Why! exclaimed the visitor, she was my sister!” The astonished but delighted SF reacted with, then you are the daughter of the late doctor so and so. She told him that she was in fact her late father’s executrix. On being told the sad tale of the car she said she would willingly sign the papers. I told SF that PC was in fact sitting next to me and handed her the phone to hear the unexpected good news for herself.

WL, a visitor from Australia, an IT expert scared us when he told us that Facebook people should not have their photos published; he warned that their pictures can be used to defame or shame them.

An article in “Starmag” of 18 January based on interviews with freemasons told us that blacks were blackballed in US. It failed to mention that those “charitable and brotherly” people admitted whites only here. Ong Huck Lim was after the war the first Asian to be admitted to the Lodge. Another lawyer, C O Lim was turned down but the Scottish lodge opened its doors to him. Yes, the Lodge here was in two “tumah hantu”, one English and the other Scottish.

Seen in Jalan Imbi, KL, Restaurant “Royal Ayam”.

Whisky and cheese

2009-02-02T14:37:00.000+08:00

It’s been a busy year with friends and relatives visiting from December 10th. Not yet charp gor mair but we continue to entertain with much fun thrown in. Lucky me, among the presents were a gold medal Medoc, a 15 year old Royal Salute, a 16 year old Lagavulin and a Bowmore 18 years old..

In KL I had dinner with LS who brought with him a Medoc and a Meursault which he bought in London some years ago. I had almost forgotten that Meursault was one of my favourite wines but a published newspaper interview with David Chan ( at 27 choirmaster of the Metropolitan Orchestra) reminded me of it. The paper said that David Chan so loved burgundy that he has organised concerts in the region.

From the US, SB sent me via Australia excellent Dutch cheeeses: Reypenaer VSOP, Wijngaari XO and Wijngaard Chevre affine (goats’ cheese). So excellent were they that I have abandoned my low ranking of the Dutch as cheese makers

And that was not all. HL brought me a DVD of the great Netrebco and a very entertaining Rene Fleming piece. Also ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, which I shall have a look at when the visits stop.

This year, the firecrackers have quietened down There used to be six houses opposite us that had lion visits during the New Year but this time only one up the road invited them. The nights are usually quiet but a few nights ago there was a nut on the hill opposite who sang karaoke till 1.30 in the morning, after exploding monster firecrackers at midnight.

Had dinner with eight of KH’s class mates and learnt that when Cantonese and Teochew bring you oranges you gave oranges in return but not so with the Hokkien whose return gifts need not be the fruit. I don’t remember anyone bringing us oranges when I was a kid.

I thought my friends had finished their New Year celebrations but was happily reminded that we had 15 days of it when A came last night with a bottle 15 yrs old Grouse.

Ponggal 2

2009-01-22T14:11:00.008+08:00

Went to a Ponggal celebration off Jln Yeap Chor Ee.

Thousands watched the climb up the greasy pole for the prize at the top; there was dancing and the traditional taming of the bull when young man show how brave they are.

Some lucky hundreds saw the fun of the taming but we were unable to look over their heads so we have reproduced a photo from 'The First Post'. One of the bulls, angered by attempts to mount him, jumped over the fence and escaped with the prize money.

Ponggal

2009-01-15T21:14:00.002+08:00

On the 14h January we came across a procession along Peel Avenue celebrating the Ponggal Festival, the only Indian festival to follow the solar calender. The first day celebrates a good harvest; the second day - Mattu Ponggal - is a worship of cows; on the 3rd day - Kanni Ponggal - maidens pray for a good husband.

In my polo days, I had a great mare called Lady Robyn, which gave me some wonderfull games. One day, a horse unlawfully broke into her stable. The result was a foal, born on January 15. I called him Ponggal Star.

Cucumbers & rambutans

2009-01-13T22:22:00.003+08:00

The rambutan tree in our garden was cut down by the previous owner many years ago. The gardener next door said the fruit was excellent. He proved to be right. The tree came to life with new shoots and to our astonishment produced a few fruits now and then and were first class and bo lark k'ak.

The creepers on the fencing at the back of the house have produced pigmy cucumbers (top) which taste very bitter.

Anything Goes

2009-01-10T12:04:00.003+08:00

I am gradually going through my collection (on cassettes) of the BBC request programme 'Anything Goes" to see if anything can be thrown away. The Oct 1988 "A G" was interesting because reception was clear; side A had Herbie Hancock with Tom Hubbard, the Maharajah of Megador, Tennyson's "Crossing the bar" (reproduced here) and Abdul the Bull Bull Amer. When I acted for Johnson Matthey the catalytic converter years ago they sang the Abdul song which, I said, proved their vintage. I was very flattered when they called me the Marshall of Hall of Malaya and even invited me to attend their do in Australia, which I politely declined.

Crossing the Bar
Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Ismail Hasim

2009-01-07T10:48:00.003+08:00

The shy and self-efacing Ismail Hashim had an exhibition at the Galeri Seni Mutiara or rather his friends put up this exhibition for him. Dato Sharom did him the honours of opening the show.

The photographs revealed Ismail be a wonderful camera man who sees the miraculous in the common place and the humour in the humdrum.

Dying Swan

2009-01-06T13:48:00.002+08:00

Coming home 1 am one night, I got down from the Prado, turned to the left, forgot to use the stick, sank to ground in a gross imitation of Galina Ulanova's Dying Swan. stretched out my left 'wing" to break the fall. Nothing serious, just bad scratches and lots of blood on the shirt sleeve.

Happy New Year to all

2009-01-03T20:13:00.002+08:00

The wining and dining delayed the publication of the January issue of The Penang File but squeezing in an hour here and an hour there I finally got it out on January 1, a day late. I was glad to come back to this blog to report that I noticed on my last visit to Pulau Tikus I saw that the row of terrace houses opposite the flat in which I lived until 2 years ago were now shops with signboards as SUN DECOR, STYCE, STAR STYLE STUDIO, SKINTOLOGISTS. Was I glad I got away from Pualu Tikus which is gradually being illegally converted into commercial from residential houses, and the City Council does not seem to enforce the zoning laws. Skintologists!!!

Eartha Kitt

2008-12-28T13:05:00.000+08:00

Noted with sadness, the passing of "I want to be evil" Eartha Kitt who was 81 years old. The great jazz singer aroused the anger of the American jingos when she cried out as a mother against the war of aggression waged against Vietnam. You can see and hear her in "Santa Baby" if you go to today's Observer newspaper

Installation art

2008-12-27T20:37:00.000+08:00

Went to an exhibition by Mexican artist Ricardo Tovar. I photographed one of the exhibits to remember 'installation art"

Feats

2008-12-26T14:09:00.000+08:00

JQ dropped in the other day to say that he has a friend who at 70 consumes half a bottle of whiskey a day and holds his urine for 48 hours. This reminds me of Tat Thong who at 10 pm after dinner and lots of whisky could do 50 pumps hands balanced on two chairs - and he was 55 years old!

Xmas

2008-12-25T15:05:00.000+08:00

Black out again! Same thing last year. Groped in the dark to get ready for Cecil's Xmas party where we waited till 2 am for Sinha and wife from KL. At 2 they rang to say just arrived, traffic jams, too tired to come.

The Salvation Army appeared as usual, at midnight. When the band master asked me I said his band was not as good as it was 3 or 4 yrs ago. He said he had two new players and hey would take time to learn.

Ranko Kurano, a Japanese visiting soprano, was a guest and she sang with the band and was good company.

AN old Japanese couple told me they were coming to Penang on the Malaya my second Home programme. Japan was now not a pleasant place to live in and they have fallen in love with Penang.

Beethoven's 9th

2008-12-23T10:41:00.000+08:00

Tonight the state orchestra and chorus will perform Beethoven's 9th with guest singers from abroad It is being done at the request of a Japanese millionaire living here and who is paying all the expenses It is a by invitation only concert and I have two tickets.

Very busy month. Am striving to get The Penang File ready for publication and will have to leave this blog alone for some time

Netrebko

2008-12-18T17:53:00.000+08:00

I was delightfully astonished when Adeline brought a La Boheme cd which she said her sister gave her. Thrilled beyond words because the soprano was Netrebko on whom Peter Conrad poured extravagant praise and also Villazon the Mexican star tenor whose interview with Peter Conrad showed that he was a force of nature. Of course I played it straightaway!

Competition, Bulgarian

2008-12-15T22:14:00.000+08:00

Went to the 38th panMalaysian singing competition and was glad the judges' choice was the same as mine - a tenor who sang Cilea's E la solita storia del pastore most movingly

Last night tried the new Bulgarian bar restaurant newly opened next to Ingoff. Nicely laid out but a lot of banging when stools are moved at the Bar upstairs. Excellent pork ribs and just as excellent spaghetti carbonara. This is not a pork free place. A woman outside asked me, HOW? I told her and she said the cook had won an italian prize A partner? Boss?

ferns and moon

2008-12-13T16:09:00.000+08:00

Last night after a disapointing "Bottom Up" by Actors Studio at Greenhall (Faridah Merican it was that made a full house) we went to Northam Beach cafe (garden of what was Ng Swee Kam's house) where I had German sausage and KH, omlette made by a new stall, cook French, amd admired the huge round moon that loomed overhead moon. I saw from today's Bangkok Post that it was a night when themoon wqas neaest to our earth.

I was thrilled to see that the fern I found on Penang Hill 20 years ago (photo 1) had offsprings seeded in a neughbouring pot and now threatening the original humble common fern tenant (photo2). So spores float in the air and sometimes commit aggression.