Beyond Board Games

When I was a kid, my cousins and I used to play Monopoly.

To be quite honest, it may be a bit of a fallacy to say we played; we cheated more than we actually played - bless our little black hearts.

My eldest cousin brother and my sister used to team up together and collaborate to steal various chips or move the existing ones on the board, usually by having one divert attention while the other did the deed.

Another cousin used to discover their trickery and a war usually was to ensue in the house.

Needless to say, all three are now lawyers.

But I digress. I meant to mention Liverpool station, which was a prominent train station in the game of Monopoly.


This is the modern-day Liverpool station at Lime Street.

I have come a long way from those days of board games.

But it's strange. It really is.

P.S. My friend Tim pointed out that "the train stations in Monopoly are actually all London train stations. Liverpool Street station is in (wait for it) Liverpool street in London, not in Liverpool".

The Blackpool Tower

I keep mistaking Blackpool Tower for the Eiffel. But in reality, it was inspired by the huge steel tower near the Bir-Hakeem metro station in Paris, which I once visited in 2006.

While the Blackpool tower is smaller, it is located in the beautiful seaside town after which it is named. It was designed by two Lancashire architects though, and opened in 1894.

Check out the old-fashioned taxis parked at the curb. It almost gave me a nostalgic feeling.

Malaysian Pretensions

There was a news article that irritated me to the bone when I read it some time back. For various reasons, I chose not to comment on it publicly.

But here it is: Malaysia Willing To Offer Help Where Malays Are A Minority

Obviously, even the Malays in Malaysia are beyond help - they have been given special privileges for about 30 years now and yet nothing much has improved - so what makes our government think it will be making progress in helping a bunch of insipid foreigners?

Most of us probably took it in a light vein.

Philip Bowring is evidently not as nonchalant. In his Opinion piece, he implies that our Malaysian Pretensions are worthy of criticism from human rights groups and other governments.

Malaysian pretensions could be dismissed as hot air. But official discrimination against non-Malays in the country was eventually going to attract criticism from human rights groups and other governments. It is hard to argue that the numerically dominant Malays, who control most of the political, judicial and bureaucratic levers of power and many of the country's major corporations, need help. Yet Malaysia's leadership continues to claim that the Malay race and religion would be threatened by removal of privileges.

I don't know if China and India would intervene.

But we've tried to fight this battle on our own and failed.

Repeatedly.

Perhaps as Bowring says, it's time for the outside world to speak up in support of equality for non-Malay Malaysians as well as for Malay minorities elsewhere.

Do You Know...

... who these two little boys are?


You don't?

No?

Well, neither do I. They came up to my colleague who was busy snapping shots of the general area and asked him to take a photograph of them.

He evidently obliged.

And well, they disappeared just as suddenly as they materialised. You can't blame them - they're British - it's hardwired into their genetics to be rather strange.

But hey, here's to their few minutes of fame on the other side of the planet! :)

After 100 Years Of History

I was browsing the web and I came across this career recruitment for Woolworths. If you've been following the news, you'd be aware that just a couple of days ago, the group closed down the last of over 800 stores in the UK.

For some reason, even my mother thought it fit to inform me of the demise of Woolworths after about 100 years. The first store was apparently opened in Liverpool in 1909.

The irony of it all. It says:

Congratulations! You've just taken your first step towards your career adventure with Woolworths, the UK's largest general merchandise retail group.

Here at Woolworths we never lose our sense of adventure. We love a challenge. And we’re determined and tenacious enough to make new ideas work. It’s that unique team spirit that has led to us becoming one of the UK’s market leaders.

It's obvious that no one is going to be hiring anyone to work at Woolworth's. Team spirit or not, they've obviously failed at being market leaders.


Look at the empty store.

It just reminds me that life is fleeting and oh so temporary.

I Have No Confidence Too

Haris is a man on a mission. He says:

If we fail to stop Najib, at least we can look at the next generation of Malaysians in the eye and say, ‘God knows we tried to end the rape of this country’.

To at least attempt to end this rape of Malaysia, go and sign this.

Black Or White?

There's nothing that grabs my attention more than an argument about race.

A lot of the arguments of late can be blamed on the USA as usual - or to be more specific, Barack Obama.

Now I have a friend with a long-running severe obsession over the man. Any less-than-gushing remark about Obama could potentially spark off a rant and more.

I tried once to gauge the source of her enthusiasm for Obama. Between various torrents of emotion, I gathered that she was excited about him being the "first African American man to become the president of the USA".

Frankly, I beg to differ.

He is not an African, a Negro or a Black man alone. He is also White, something that the rest of the world seems content to dismiss.

Exceptions exist, in the form of Jason Haap of Cincinnati, USA who (rightly, in my opinion) protests the "one drop rule" - that old racist theory that claimed one drop of black blood made someone forever black.

Haap is a White man who is married to a Black woman and has two multi-racial sons. But not everyone in the same situation agrees. My friend, Ax is also a White man married to a Black woman.

He, however seems to be fixated on the notion that Haap is claiming being Black is less than an ideal condition to be in. Or in his words, "offensive".

But that is the USA. What do other people around the world think?

David Aaronovitch is half Jewish. He writes for The Times. His children are also multi-racial or in his words, "who are not black and are not white, or who are both".

He makes an observation that I have, in the past, put forward before as well: "To say that Mr Obama is black is to say, in effect, that his mother had no race or that her race was somehow obliterated by her choice of husband."

It is interesting to note that in the UK, the fastest-growing ethnic category is that of mixed race.

That can never be a bad thing. I note with approval that Britons in general have become better looking in recent times, evidently a positive side-effect of miscegenation.

On another note, take a look at this two-tone miracle, repeated yet again.

Checking In

Hey folks.

Some of you probably know that I'm a few thousand miles away from home. On business, as usual.

I'm sitting in my hotel room in the wee hours of the morning, unable to sleep because I'm still running on Malaysian time. I know I should force myself to stay awake til it's late and then settle into the routine.

But well, the spirit is willing; it's just that the flesh is weak. :)

Anyway, BBC news on TV tells me that this is the coldest winter they've had in 10 years. I'm hardly surprised. It's just me - I bring the cold. They've had 2 soft winters, the last time that it was pretty cold was in 2006 when I happened to be there!!

The weather channel tells me it's about -9 degrees Celcius out there.

I believe them.

When I got home from work yesterday, the puddles in the carpark were frozen. Obviously, driving is rather treacherous, and I keep having to tell my colleague to take it slow.

You know how Malaysians drive.

But anyway, I'm bundled up in multiple layers and keeping warm. I hope it snows soon, since it usually gets warmer then - based on my previous experience.

My nocturnal habit are probably going to see me awake and online during Malaysian time, so while I miss not being able to join in with campaigning (especially for the Terengganu by-elections), I'll certainly be rabble-rousing from here. :)

I see the MSM perverts are back with their dirty tricks. Haris Ibrahim has some ground zero news on what ACTUALLY is happening with the Pakatan Rakyat issues.

Go kick some BN ass on my behalf.

Chaser's APEC Conference

It's no secret that the Malaysian government and law enforcement are screwed three ways to Sunday.

When it comes to adminstration of this country, they have no aim, goals & direction and wouldn't be able to acquire one even if you gave them a map, a compass and a GPS system.

And they are spectacularly incompetent.

You just know it by the way they randomly establish roadblocks, brutalise protestors at peaceful demonstrations and more recently, arrest young cyclists to intimidate them.

But there are also other governments, who need some work on their erm... skills.



A stunt like that would be a hoot in Malaysia, except that if we saw Osama bin Laden, a whole bunch of people like PEWARIS and the mamak boys from Penang will be rushing to embrace him.

The Rows In Pakatan Rakyat

If you've been following recent Malaysian politics (in spite of the festive events of late), you'd be aware of the political bickerings and tantrums being thrown rather liberally.

The MP of Kapar, S. Manikavasagam has decided to throw in the towel over his relationship with PKR, the party with whose affiliation helped win him his seat in Kapar.

Now a lot of Indians in Malaysia believe that they - through HINDRAF - were personally responsible for upstaging the ruling coalition, BN, during the March general elections.

I hate to break it to them, but no.

HINDRAF's Makkal Sakhti banner did come into play, but the rest of Malaysia probably thought that if the black brothers could go to the streets with ludicrous demands, then they (other Malaysians) had more credible issues to sort out with the government.

HINDRAF probably started the ball rolling, but they sure as hell aren't completely responsible for it, and taking the full credit is nothing short of being LAME.

Of course, our guy here Manikavasagam, having cut his political teeth via the HINDRAF movement tends to veer quite sharply into the group ideology of promoting Indian rights above all.

There's something wrong with that. While I'm a great believer of standing up and speaking up for one rights, I'm not for doing it at the expense of others. This is what UMNO has been doing for years and look what the country has turned into.

We're a bunch of asinine racists, who would run over a little old lady at the side of the road just to get ahead of the queue. We may not speak up for our rights for fear of "rocking the boat", but we express our priority for self in other ways.

As an MP, this fellow Manikavasagam at least does a good job in representing the people's views. Among some of the issues which have cropped up in Kapar, Klang are:

1. Moving the bus station to Meru. Traders at the old station say their income would be badly hit if the station is moved but the state government would have to pay compensation to the developer if the station is not moved because a whole new housing estate and shopping lots have been built around the new station.

I personally think the aforementioned traders should read a book called "Who Moved My Cheese" which is all about dealing with change. Their business may even boom in the change of location.

2. Demolishment of a temple in Ampang.

I think we have way too many Hindu temples built at the dodgiest locations.

3. The relocation of squatters.

Now that's a whole can of worms. Sometimes, squatters just love living where they've always lived, in spite of all the filth and squalor. Then again, I don't know the whole story.

4. Assisting flood victims in Kapar.

Again, I don't know the whole story, but perhaps more could have been done for the flood victims.

5. Favoured positions. He alleges PKR remains Malay-centric and campaigned for the Malay agenda, pointing out that Indians had not been offered positions in GLCs, state agencies and senior positions in local councils.

6. Resident representation. “Even in Kampung Sentosa where 95 per cent of residents are Indians, Khalid appointed a Malay as the ketua kampung,” Manikavasagam said.

I'm pretty clear on this. I don't need a representative who is of my race as long as he does his job. The problem with issues 5 & 6 is the blatant ethnocentricity. Why offer positions if the candidate in question has inadequate credentials anyway?

Now, what surprises me is the desire to keep all these carrying-ons under wraps.

Apparently, it will "hurt" the party image if the media ran too many reports on them.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find it oddly satisfying that for once, Malaysians are communicating even through their conflicts.

I have lived in this bloody country for a LONG time and I know for a fact that a lot of Malaysians say 'yes' when they actually mean 'no'.

And by watching PKR have their arguments and disagreements, do I feel compelled to disassociate myself with them or withdraw my support?

Hell no.

If YOU do, it's only because you're a bimbo.

And I say that without malice, only because I know you can't help being a bimbo, regardless of whether you're male, female or hermaphrodite.

Have a great year ahead.