Go In Peace

Book of the Week: Buried by Mark Billingham

I was on the line this morning when the call came, so Ewan took it. When he passed me the note saying Helen had called, I thought it could be one of any three things:
a) Iain was going home.
b) Iain had got a Marie Curie Cancer Care nurse.
c) Iain had died.

It was c). Around 9.30pm last night, in hospital, instead of at home like he had wanted. It was just so sad, and I felt quite down the rest of the morning because he had died under circumstances quite similar to Uncle Leong’s, in that they were both terminal, given six months to live, and passed away so much quicker than expected. He was the first person I interviewed in hospital.

Probably because I was reminded how I didn’t go back the weekend before Uncle Leong died, I returned to visit him, with Gareth – and a couple of classic motorcycle magazines – in tow on Monday. It was quite surreal, how badly he’d deteriorated since I saw him on Tuesday. In hindsight, he was already on his deathbed, and it’s quite weird really how one of the first things I said to Gareth yesterday morning was death-related, when I told him that it was 17 years since Mungus died. Even weirder when you consider the title of the book I just finished reading over breakfast this morning.

I only met him twice, but Iain’s death has weighed on my mind all day. I guess I’m having the usual maudlin thoughts about how frail and fragile life is, how quickly it goes by, and how you lose the ones you love sooner than you expect – especially if you take them for granted. I’m also thinking of Helen, about how, in the space of perhaps three hours, she went from wife to widow. (They decided to get married just before Iain died.) I think that encapsulates how quickly things change, and I hope I learn from that how to cherish the people I truly treasure even more, and appreciate and remember the joy they bring, no matter how fleeting.

Factoids of the Week:
Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK, affecting both sexes equally.

It’s the third most common cancer affecting both sexes in the UK.

Every year, over 35,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel cancer – or one every 15 minutes.

Every year nearly 16,000 people in the UK die from it – one every 30 minutes.

The Ides of September

Book of the Week: Dammit already…

Today marks a celebration and a milestone.

Happy 30th birthday! (You know who you are.) I wish for you the fulfilment of all your wildest, dearest, most compelling dreams; friendships that bind hearts and minds; an abundance of love and joy all your life; and a dog to make your life complete.

It was also exactly two years ago that I arrived in Glasgow to read for a master’s degree. And today, I live and work here! (Scotland, I mean, not Glasgow.) It took a leap of faith, and I have been very blessed.

Factoids of the Day:
The building of Hadrian’s Wall began on September 13 122AD.

Michaelangelo began work on ‘David’ on September 13 1503.

Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner on September 13 1814.

Hannibal Goodwin patented celluloid photographic film on September 13 1898.

On September 13 1899, Henry Bliss had the dubious honour of being the first person in the United States to be killed in an automobile accident.

The temperature (in the shade) at Al-Aziziyah, Libya reached a world record 57.7°C (135.9°F), on September 13 1922.

Chiang Kai-shek was elected president of the Republic of China on September 13 1943.

Super Mario, the best-selling video game of all time, was released on September 13 1985.

Famous people born on September 13 include Milton S. Hershey – founder of the empire of the taste of evil (1857), J. B. Priestley (1894), Claudette Colbert (1903), Roald Dahl (1913), Maurice Jarre (1924), Richard Kiel (1939), Peter Cetera (1944), Jean Smart (1951), Michael Johnson (1967), Shane Warne (1969), Goran Ivanisevic (1971), Stella McCartney (1971), Christine Arron (1973), and Fiona Apple (1977).

And a throw-away birthday one: Ingrid Bergman, Corrie ten Boom, Betty Friedan, King Mongkut, Raphael and Pompey all died on their birthdays.

For The Sake Of Posting

Book of the Week: This is getting embarrassing... (see last post... AGAIN!)

I got my second front-page lead last Thursday. The interview with Paul Gudgin was very cool. Even better was beating the BBC to the story – their write-up only showed up on the website at 3pm the same afternoon. Apparently, the Scotsman and Herald had also been hankering after the story. So it was sweeeet.

Gareth made monkfish tails wrapped in prosciutto on Saturday. Went to see the Simpsons movie (finally!) and got caught in the stoooopid bridge tailbacks for about an hour and listened to the first half of the Scotland-Lithuania match on the car stereo. Total sports-mad weekend, with Euro qualifiers (all GB countries in action), Monza, rugby World Cup (with the USA this time, the cheek!).

Which reminds me – seems like it was just yesterday that Jonny Wilkinson drop-kicked the Aussies into rugby back of beyond. And six years to the day since Gareth called from work to tell me to turn the telly on. It’s quite odd – don’t know if it’s media overexposure or because so much has happened in my own life since then, but 2001 seems so much longer ago than, say, 1996. Maybe I’m just getting old. Getting to the stage when I can remember further back in time better than I can yesterday. (I had to think really hard what we did over the weekend.)

I really need to get a credit card. So many great deals on Ryanair! Could go to Krakow for £20 in December. Ditto Budapest. Barcelona for £30. Might go check it out on my days off this week. Have to grab all the opportunities I can in my two years here. Don’t want to go back to Malaysia and look at the Ryanair page and think, if only. The two saddest words in the English language.

Don’t know if it’s because I’m lazy or just plain fed up with working (it can be really depressing some mornings getting up to go where I do five days a week these days – Tuesdays are the worst) but I’m thinking of quitting. Yes. Chuck it all in to travel round the world. Would love to do that. Just that the logistics make my brain hurt. I love the timetables and schedules – but the money bit kills me.

I really need to win the lottery.

Factoids of the Week:
The world’s longest place-name is now the world’s longest domain name (though this is unverified). A right mouthful. http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.com/

Another stupid one... but calls itself the world’s longest alphabetical e-mail address. http://www.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com/

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

Book of the Week: Still dipping in and out of Jonathan Strange (this is taking me forever...) And Harry Potter in between.

Malaysia is 50. I still remember the year of the 25th anniversary celebrations. I was in P4, had just placed a shitty 9th place in class in mid-year exams, one of my best mates was moving to another town, had a cool teacher who didn’t always give me a row when I read other stuff / doodled rude drawings instead of paying attention to the lesson, and we had to go line the streets and wave flags. From what I’ve been gleaning from the good ol’ government-controlled dailies back home, it looks like the brain-washing and idiocy masked as patriotism is even more alive today as it was 25 years ago.

I always thought I would be around to see the 50th anniversary celebrations, but in a way, I’m glad I am not. Because it would mean that I still hadn’t got out of the country, and right now I’m not sure if I want to go back. It’s getting increasingly racially and religiously segregated, and I’ve already had more than my fair share of discrimination. I don’t miss the shitty politics, the even cruddier politicians (the keris-waving ones are the worst), and the holier-than-thou twats. But Malaysia is where I’ll always find family, friends, fantastic laid-back people and what is absolutely the best food in the world. So happy birthday, Malaysia. Long may all the good things about you prosper.

Oh, and happy 10th anniversary, Diana.

Factoids of the Week:
Malaysia is 50. That’s all you need to know (well, going by the press coverage in Malaysia, anyway). Most people don’t even know there’s a country called Malaysia!

Richard Jobson, the frontman of the Skids, and Fay Fife, a.k.a. Sheila Hynde, of the Rezillos, are both from Dunfermline, Fife. (Pretty amazing what you learn on the job, eh?)

Cover Girl

Book of the Week: Still getting through Jonathan Strange (see previous post)

Got my first lead story in the paper yesterday. Well done, me! Finally! (Though some small part of my brain keeps telling me it was probably because there was a lack of strong news stories this week. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers – and as if I was ever going to say no, don’t use it as the front page lead! It’s not good enough!)

Bomb scare at Tescos over the weekend spilled over into the paper on Monday – the bosses got an anonymous letter on Saturday asking that we do the necessary to ensure that casualties were kept to a minimum. A right comedy of errors, really, given that there was some postal strike or other and we didn’t get it until the bomb threat was over. Don’t think Da Big Mon was too pleased at having to spend three hours on Monday morning being quizzed by cops.

We also got our first Couchsurfing enquiry this week. A 36-year-old French teacher of Spanish who’s taken a year off to go around Europe on her Vespa. That sounds fantastic. Really hope she comes to stay. Thinking of going for an Edinburgh Couchsurfing event this weekend – barbecue on Salisbury Crags – but we’ll see how we feel tomorrow. Got quite a lot going on.

Today was Rob’s last day. I’ll miss him, in a way, although we only met when I started work in May. I thought perhaps he didn’t like me at first, but I think it was just me in the end. He was always very obliging – with the best computer in the newsroom, he was always being asked to check this or that (mostly by me) – and very friendly. I hope he has great fun in South America (am very jealous!). I also found out that journalists over here, even after they have passed the NCE, only earn £19k max. Hmmm. Might be time to consider a change of career.

The last Harry Potter book goes on sale at midnight (Saturday). Just a little under six hours to go here – guess kids in Malaysia have already got their noses in the book. It’s already 1am back home. Looking forward to going out in Edinburgh tonight and seeing what Potter parties are like over here.

Factoids of the Week:
Gay and lesbian youth are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other youths and 30% of all completed youth suicides are related to the issue of sexual identity.

Before they were the Windsors (or Mountbatten-Windsors, as a few of them are called), the royal family were the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.

Catching Up Is Hard To Do

Book of the Week: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

I was going to start this post with a rant about the little things in life that have really annoyed me over the past week but I am going to be a big-picture person and look at the things which make me happy instead. And then maybe I’ll get back to being negative and bitchy.

It’s an absolutely beautiful blue-sky day out. Inverkeithing is looking positively golden from the living room window. Just looking out makes me happy. It’s been a crappy summer – rain, rain, clouds, chill, more rain – and I’m feeling a bit guilty that the first weekend it’s been sunny and summery in weeks, I’m sitting indoors catching up on the last two months. All my fault – if I’d been more diligent at posting, I wouldn’t be stuck here now, so I should just get down to it.

The Big News is that I now have an additional five letters after my name. Whoopee! Became an M. Litt on July 2. It was quite surreal sitting in the Barony Hall thinking, this is the culmination of all I have worked for over the last five years. It’s almost too good to be true. Good things come to those who wait, they say, but it’s been Christmas all at once this year. I’m in Scotland, finally, living with a totally wonderful guy, being paid to do a job I like and am not too bad at, and 10 years after I started my first master’s degree, have one at long last. In the past, I would have been over the moon to achieve any one of those objectives in any one year, and this year I got all of them in one fell swoop. It’s just too good.

Still, graduation itself was a bit of an anti-climax – don’t know if it was because my family wasn’t there, or because I’d gone through it before, or if I’m just getting old and blasé about things. We went down on Sunday morning and stayed at the Alamo Guesthouse in Glasgow (as insurance against having to brave M8 traffic on a Monday morning, given that the ceremony was at 11am), and popped into Buchanan Galleries to get a few knick-knacks (earrings, press-stud brooch – the cheongsam didn’t have buttons for graduation gown eyelets – safety pins, and MAKE-UP!!! I still can’t believe I spent £30 on girly accessories – that could have bought me at least six books!). We lunched at the Buchanan Tea Rooms, where I had a rather mild chicken jalfrezi and where Gareth had to return to after two hours in the Galleries because he’d left the mobile phone on the table.

The shopping was an experience in itself – felt kind of stupid asking the salesgirls about foundation and mascara, and was introduced to the concealer stick, which literally covers a multitude of facial sins. We were so tired after that, me from looking for stuff I only interested in because I didn’t want to look like a total twat at graduation, and Gareth from being dragged around (the rubbish weather didn’t help), we just went back to the Alamo and had a really long snooze. Ended the day at Scarlet on Sauchiehall Street, where we had a lovely Italian dinner. I must be getting set in my ways – no matter how tempting the menu at any Italian, I always feel like I want pasta. The more mushrooms and sausages, the less I am able to resist. Then went back to the Alamo, played with the obese furball named Flash, and watched some more Princess Diana memorial concert stuff. (Duran Duran have not aged well.)

Graduation day the second time around was a lot less stressful – I still remember Hoon sleeping over for the first one, to help me do my hair and make-up, and then panicking when, probably due to lack of sleep, she burnt a wee patch in my cheongsam. (Fortunately, it was small enough to be covered up by a stylised daisy brooch.) This time, it was wake-up at 7am, breakfast (no fry-ups, bleah – the owners really should have mentioned this on their website, I felt quite cheated), then it was a good hour at the bathroom mirror, trying hard not to look like the lovechild of Bozo and a raccoon, by smudging the mascara and/or applying too much blusher. A double first for me – applying make-up on my own, and for my own graduation to boot! We must have looked like a scene out of Suzie Wong when we stepped out of the guesthouse, with Gareth walking in front and me teetering in heels and all dolled up in glittery cheongsam, fighting with the luggage and trying to keep the door open simultaneously.

Glasgow at 9.15am on a Monday is hell. Bloody Weegie drivers. At a traffic light, one of them – who was already in the yellow box, no less – came out of the car to ask Gareth “what do you think you’re doing”. Mr Kiasu Weegie thought we were cutting into his place in the yellow box. The irony. Then we had to rush to the registry on George Street to collect my invitations (I got three, which meant Ken and June could have been there as well, but of course the uni doesn’t tell you these things), and then brave the one-way system to get to the Student Union to pick up the gown. I ended up swopping my £6 George at Asda heels for the Salomon trainers and sprinting uphill.

Weather was starting to get rubbishy by the time we got to the Barony Hall, so after a few more shots, we both went through separate entrances (Gareth by the front, me by the back) to be seated. I spent ages in the ladies’ sorting out my stupid bird press-stud brooch, which seemed to have an aversion to the centre of my dress. I kept getting it squint and although it probably looked all right to everyone else, I just had to adjust and readjust it until it felt absolutely right. (Otherwise I don’t think I could have sat still during the ceremony – it would have been like trying to scratch an itch at the back of my mind.) Met Sallyanne, Cat and Michael – very happy to see Sallyanne, and I like to think she felt the same.

Don’t remember much of the ceremony, probably because I was trying to not-too-subtly point to Gareth what shots to take. (It’s the control freak in me.) Disappointed to end up not having that many, given what the day meant to me, but tempered some by ordering the DVD. Remember an Indian professor being awarded an honorary PhD, and then it was time for us to wait in line for the dean to call our names (he got mine spot-on), go up on stage with our gowns over our left arms, bow in front of the principal (who said “Congratulations, very well done, very well done indeed” – he sounded like he really meant it too, because he was so smiley and enthusiastic) and then move a little further along where a couple of other uni heavies threw the gown over our shoulders and presented us with our certs (was expecting a scroll, but got a thick blue cardboard folder – looks quite smart, I must admit, and it’s certainly something different). Was supposed to have a procession to the Lord Tod afterwards for the reception, but as it had started to piss down by then, it was a no-go. Will always remember the principal’s posh-speak for the rain, though – “the weather has not been sufficiently clement”. Whoo!

Waited in the car for the rain to clear and got to the Lord Tod in time for one of the last few champagne glasses of apple juice, caught up with Sallyanne some more, and then went back to the Student Union to return the gown and get my official portrait taken. Was a nightmare walking uphill in those heels. Wondered about the gown being perfectly centre, but a spry, chirpy old man in charge told me not to worry – the scroll used for the photos had a hook at the end of it, so you hook the gown eyelets onto it. Genius. Had to queue to get photos – very different from back in Malaysia, where we can have the gown for a week and go to whichever professional studio for whatever style of photo we wanted. Over here, there are “package deals” – got a Prestige Pack for £46, on top of £32 for gown rental and only having it for a day. Typically, after I returned the gown, the sun came out. Ah well. At least lunch at The Bothy in Ruthven Lane was nice. Sausages and mash for graduation lunch, plus sticky toffee pudding with ice-cream. Felt totally bloated. Felt a bit better about lack of photos after I came home and rang Dad, he was very comforting and said as long as I had the official portrait it was all right. Think I must have sounded right upset.

A couple of days before graduation, I became an aunt. Dina’s kid Toby was delivered by C-section on June 30 at around 12.25am, nearly two days after Dina’s waters broke. (Even as I typed that I could hear the Geordie voice-over of Big Brother in my head: “Twalve twenty-faive ehh-emm: Dyena gaves birth in the hawspetal.” An indication of the kind of summer it’s been so far.) Found out from Auntie Giek all the way from Malaysia, and not the happy parents themselves, but I think the important thing is that at least I got to know on the day, and not a couple of weeks later.

But that’s it – I’m now a bonafide Lee aunt. While I look forward to meeting the new arrival, I’m also very aware of how very fast our lives and roles are changing. Feels like yesterday Dina came to sleep over, with the three of us crammed into a double bed, making stupid jokes and giggling like idiots throughout the night. It made me wonder if I was the only one not moving on – Hoon and Dina are married, with one a new mother – and I still live like I’m 25, not thinking about settling down or motherhood, or, to be really Chinese about it, my retirement fund. The birth of a new baby also drove home the point how much my generation is taking over the roles we had always ascribed to our parents. This kid is, in a way, me, the first-born Lee baby of the next generation, and I can understand all the better now why I have always held a special place in the hearts of my aunts and uncles.

I will always associate Toby’s birth with my day at the Scottish Parliament. June 30 was the opening of the Third Session, and it was special because I got to take part in the Riding down the Royal Mile (actually, it was more like half the Royal Mile – the procession only came up around New Street) along with local heroes from communities across Scotland. I got up around 7.15am, and after a hearty breakfast of oats, left to get the 8.36 train to be there for 9. But, as is usually the case whenever I have good intentions, the train didn’t show. Neither did the 8.37 and 8.41, and I ended up catching the 8.51, which meant by the time I got into Edinburgh I was almost half an hour behind my schedule.

Found Waverley Court on East Market Street easily enough, but there was a ridiculous wait – the queue wasn’t even very long – to get past security. Got a wee saltire flag at registration, which made up for the wait some. My first impression of the building was that it was the love child of KLIA and an office – the seating was very KLIA (blue, cushioned, armrest-less), there were escalators which seemed to criss-cross each other, and big pillars. Great view of the courtyard with two coos perched on the road overhead, leftovers from last year’s Cow Parade.

Met Brendan O’Brien from the parliamentary press office, whom I’d been harassing almost daily for the last one week before the Riding (“Where’s my bloody press pack?! What are the arrangements for Saturday?! How am I going to get the photos?!”) – was quite impressed that he recognised me, but then realised it was probably because I was the only non-ang moh reporter, with a name he wasn’t sure how to pronounce. Made small talk in between my flits to get taxpayer-subsidised orange juice (I also had scrambled egg and a couple of sausages – there were bacon rolls but the bacon didn’t look as crisp as I liked). Watched some of the events going on in Holyrood live on the tv, and then the start of the Riding, which was quite surreal and made me realise how close I was to the scene – the muffled sounds of the pipe bands starting up outside were amplified on tv.

(Hmmm… I may be dragging out the details here but I want to make sure I get in as many as I can because I want to try to remember as much of this day as possible. Anal-retentive trait. I’ve been a bit hysterical since I “lost” an entire weekend last month, no thanks to my crap memory. For the life of me I cannot remember what we got up to on the weekend of June 9. Gosh, this is beginning to sound like an alien abduction. But back to June 30.)

As we were ushered out I met another reporter – Catherine from the Fife Free Press (if I’d got that job last October, I guess I wouldn’t have been taking part in the Riding yesterday morning then) – and got a peek at a very smart band lounging about in the meeting rooms on our way around the corridors. I then took my place in Group 3 of the Riding procession, ogled more members of the same smart band (who knew men in skirts could look so sexy), admired a pseudo-bhangra band behind our group, and before I knew it, we were told to get ready and were off!

We moved down the Royal Mile in fits and starts – and the first one in a series came almost as soon as we had turned out of New Street. No idea why, but suppose it had to do with the procession marching past the Queen, Prince Philip and Alex Salmond in front of Holyrood. Was very excited to see the tv camera crews at the bottom of the Royal Mile – and when we finally marched past the Queen, I wondered if she didn’t feel a bit like a museum piece on display, with all the cameras going off. We’d been told not to take photos, but nobody really gave a damn.

Procession ended in Holyrood Park. I found one of my MSPs and her nominated local hero. Took photos of a Viking re-enactment group, all dressed in blue and grey, and even got to wield a sword and shield. Sometimes being a non-ang moh does get you treated better – the Vikings probably thought aww, Chinese girl, probably doesn’t see this in her village too often, and as a result they were absolutely lovely. Hung around them for a bit and didn’t see them let anyone else try on their gear. But overall the whole event felt really good, and it was meaningful for me to be part of such a historic event in a foreign country. There was so much joy, spontaneity, camaraderie and lack of stuffiness and “place” – I very much doubt if I would feel that way even if I had the opportunity to do something similar in Malaysia. It would just feel dirty, like I had sold out to the propaganda and racial superiority bullshit the Government feeds us on a daily basis. In Malaysia, I think it would smack more of showing “love and respect” for our leaders, with social status and hierarchy more clearly delineated than a Spiderman tattoo on the forehead.

The only downsides to the day were a) my lovely blue silk blouse, which Mum had taken so much trouble to send over, getting fuzzy and ruined as a result of the lanyard we had to wear for the riding; b) the weather (see what I mean about summer being ruined); and b) the crap organisation of the Parliamentary press team. My MSP is going to try to get me compensation for a), and nobody can really complain about b) seeing as this is Scotland, but c) really, really worked me up into a foul mood. It meant that I (not sure about other reporters who turned up) had to spend ages looking for my local heroes. Some press team heavy said she’d see what she could do when I approached her, but surprise, surprise, I saw her in the same spot five minutes later air-kissing God knows who and trilling some affected laugh. I really hate press officers like that – if you are not going to help, say so, don’t mouth platitudes about getting back to me when we both know you won’t. After some hawk-eyed scanning of the crowds, I finally managed to spot my other MSP (bright pink tie, rose on lapel, with wife and two little girls – man, my sleuthing skills are good!) and his nominated local hero, and after about an hour of to-ing and fro-ing and missed phone calls (Gareth had put the ringtone to “silent”, although it was on vibe-and-ring, and there was absolutely no money in it), I finally managed to locate the both of them and got my interview and photo. But typically, despite going through all that trouble, the photo wasn’t used in the paper four days later. Huh. Sometimes I really do think going the extra mile just ain’t worth it! The only thing I had to show for my efforts was appearing on STV. We were both cuddling on the sofa that evening (it had been a long day!) when we simultaneously spotted me in the coverage of the event.

I’ve also realised that my life here is beginning to be defined by how we spend our weekends. Last Saturday we went to Edinburgh to do some shopping (this could become a habit – how worrying!) – I had to get new shoes as my boots were coming apart. We first went to see Pirates of the Caribbean (overblown but lots of fun), and a lovely brunch of sausage of lamb sausages in a focaccia roll (very, very good, but would have been mind-blowing with chilli) at the farmers’ market, then ended up spending about £70 in Barratts and Debenhams. I was very aware of the date as well – 07.07.07 – Benjamin and Lilia were probably already married by the time we woke up that morning, and it was also the 12th anniversary of Mopper’s death. Said a prayer for both.

On the Sunday we went to the Stirling Highland Games, which were great fun. I had thought something like the Stirling Games would have been around forever, so it was a surprise to discover that they only started in 1985. Felt a bit bad though, because the British GP was on – Lewis Hamilton on pole – and I knew Gareth wanted to watch it. Ideally, we would have been able to do the Games and get back in time for the flag-off, but that’s not real life. I was really excited and just savoured all the sights and sounds – got to see Highland dancing (from a distance, the dancers looked like colourful epileptic spiders), cabers and weights being tossed (very impressive), super-beefy tug-of-war (some of the legs on those guys…!) and sheepdog show. Highlights of the day: the Golden Lions parachuting into the centre arena and the “quack commandos” – sheepdog herding three ducks around a course. Gareth also tried archery (he’s really getting addicted) and got three really lovely prints of Loch Lomond at sunset for the guest bedroom.

I’ve been reading a lot the last couple of weeks. In the last couple of days, I completed two Dean Koontz thrillers – Velocity and The Husband – nae bad, but could have been more taut. I remember some books I read when I was younger which just made my heart thump – Dean Koontz is good, but not exactly in that league. Also finished Gareth’s Jack Wonderful novel, which I quite enjoyed, felt it could have been better fleshed out in some parts but I liked a few of the concepts he had. It was a bit Back to the Future-ish, in terms of meeting your past selves and a thread of pre-destination came up towards the end, which could have been better explained, but it was fun. I hope he gets somewhere with the book, he certainly has been trying hard with literary agents and I hope he doesn’t give up although he keeps getting knocked back.

Before that I read Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George, which was absolutely tremendous. I’m not usually too keen on biographies – not that this was one – but this novel really brought the era (turn of the century) and someone whom I’d thought was this staid but intelligent Victorian/ Edwardian gentleman to life. I’d always intertwined Sir Arthur with his famous literary creation – a tall, thin chiselled but asexual man – so to read about his extra-marital affair with Jean Leckie was an eye-opener. As was learning that the word “cockstand” was Victorian-speak for stiffy. I’ve literally just opened the first page of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, but I have no doubt it will be a cracker.

I still have to jog my memory about what happened throughout June, but at least I’ve got round to recording the two most meaningful events of the last couple of months. No insights, just memories and associations, but that’s fine by me.

Factoids of the Week:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s middle name was Ignatius. His personal investigation of the George Edalji case – which moves the plot in Arthur and George – was a catalyst for the Court of Criminal Appeal being set up.

The barnacle has the longest penis relative to size of any creature – it can extend 10 times longer than the size of its body.

The smallest and largest hummingbirds in the world are to be found in South America. The smallest species of hummingbird is the Cuban bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), which measures just 5-6cm in length and weighs 1.6-1.9g. The largest is the giant hummingbird (Paragonia gigas), which measures 22cm and weighs 20g.

Life Is A Rollercoaster

Book of the Week: Blindness by Jose Saramago

Only four weeks on the new job, and this one’s been the best so far in rollercoaster experiences and emotions. The last five days, when expressed on paper, would look remarkably like the single-phase FWAC charts we had to produce in one of those double physics classes on magnetism and currents.

Monday: Boo. Continued investigations into death of a woman from town that shall only be known as Two Miles East (from the flat, that is), by calling up various people in the community and hoping the theory of Six Degrees held true. No luck, didn’t get anywhere. Worse, a woman who returned my call (wish she didn’t), got on her high horse. You could hear the self-righteous sneering and spittle spraying through the phone. I never buy your newspaper because it’s done some terrible things in the past, you’ve sunk to a new low, how would you like it if it happened to your mother or grandmother, I am disgusted and I am going to make sure Two Miles East knows about it, blah de blah de blah. Hysterical old bat really had an axe to grind with the paper. Not my problem. Managed to keep my cool and told her sorry you feel that way, but thanks very much all the same, when I really wanted to tell her, I’ll take it you can’t answer the question then? Or better yet, shut up and sod off, you conceited cow. Very proud that I did not.

Tuesday: Yay! My first big press conference. And they don’t come any bigger than the Flash Gordon himself. Official opening of an multinational engineering firm’s plant extension. Obviously a PR trip before June 27. The reporter from Auntie was bugging him about what he thought about Alex Salmond and Scotland having an SNP government, which was quite entertaining to watch, not least for the way the Lord Gord pointedly ignored him. The only downsides were a) having the firm leaving us in the office and forgetting to take us down to the plant floor, and b) my rubbish shorthand, which meant I was killing myself just trying to keep up with Gord’s rapid-fire statements. Thank you, Kingdom FM! And in the afternoon went up the High Street, in the pissing rain, to talk to homeless folk selling the homeless folk mag.

Wednesday: Boo. Woke up early to write El Gordo story – was a bit desperate upon finding out the .wav files didn’t work. Then wrote homeless folk story, but went into work to find that the person at the homeless folk mag who deals with the press was away, and so wouldn’t be able to get their response till next week at the soonest. Double boo because got telt for a totally innocent mistake which was made under duress – typical case of being told the story was urgent, working madly on it, only for it to be held back two weeks. Will take advice, but not outburst, to heart. If I don’t, I’ll just get depressed. I don’t need to do it to myself when there’s Big Brother – launched tonight – to do that to me.

Thursday: Yay! Had chat with Da Big Mon and he said I was doing fine and he was happy with my work. That’s cool, especially coming from him. Then come home and find that my NINO application has been approved. Double yay! As Gareth says, that makes me almost a proper British person. Phew. Almost. I could do without the cruddy teeth and walking about indoors with shoes on. I suspect I have yet to develop the “British” sense of humour, though. There isn’t as much light-hearted easy laughter in the home as there is in the company of other ang moh friends. Thinking about that makes me a bit depressed sometimes. Still, we had a great evening chilling out, eating strawberry white chocolate. Mmmm.

Friday: Boo/Yay. Exasperating day. Didn’t make any headway with interviews – either nobody around or couldn’t take call. But found out that filming has been cancelled and so the flat is still ours for the next two weeks. Which is great because we really need together time. And it’s the first time Number Two has really bothered to talk to me. Quite ironic – I just told Gareth the other night that I’m finding it difficult to make friends because it feels like nobody wants to have a conversation with me, and wondered if it was because I was “different”. Not calling anybody a racist, but it was starting to make me a bit paranoid that there was something about me that repulsed people.

Blindness is interesting, but perhaps because I’m reading it in snatches, I’m finding it hard to truly get totally absorbed and appreciate its brilliance. That may be a good thing, actually, because reading it in fits and starts only heightens the experience of suffering from a temporary blindness of the mind whenever I step into the world of the book – a situation compounded by my losing my bookmark. I can never seem to remember my place in the book, and so like the blind internees, fumble my way through. There’s no real day or night in the book, and so I find it doubly difficult to find my place by “incident”, or remember where I am, and so lose my way, like the afflicted in the book. Because it’s one of those books written without punctuation marks (or rather, punctuation that annoys me), I did at first think, oh bother, another arty-farty book. But the stylistics are really quite clever, in that they turn you into one of the blind, on so many levels. The rush of unpunctuated sentences gives the story a stream-of-consciousness feel and creates the atmosphere of babble, and I find myself having to pay extra attention to what I am reading to make out who is saying what without the visual guides of quotation marks to aid my reading – mimicking the condition of the blind having to rely on hearing as their most important sense. Another thing: it’s been a long time since a book has made me feel physically sick – I think the last one I read contained graphic descriptions of female genital mutilation – but Blindness has pretty awful scenes of squalor and filth, how being humans degenerate into animals. (Though I’m not sure if that’s a good comparison as Dusty and Lucky are always pretty clean.) It may be because I am a self-confessed anal-retentive clean freak, but reading about slime on floors, flooded toilets and the smell of 200 unwashed bodies just makes me want to gag.

Thought of having an overnighter in Glasgow and doing Kelvingrove this weekend since filming is now off. But might just leave museums till Sunday and stay home and make sushi. Whatever we decide to do, I hope it goes well. Last weekend went downhill after we got back from IKEA – no laughing, no conversation, no anything. After that, and the stress of the last five days, I really hope this weekend is stupendous. We shall see.

Factoids of the Week:
Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, is building his dream home: 27 floors (the first six of which will be car parks and the next two a health club), on a 4,532 sq m plot, over 170m tall, and employing 600 staff to run it. I’m going to get into hysterical old bat mode and scream: OBSCENE! OSTENTATIOUS!

The UK’s first transgender mayor was sworn in last week. Lib Dem (thought this sort of stuff only happened to the Tories though?) Jenny Bailey, 45, became the leader of Cambridge City Council – and her partner (and former councillor) is also a trannie. Does that mean you were born gay and turned lesbian? I can’t get my head around this guy-turns-into-girl-likes-girls or vice-versa. It’s quite confusing. And Sex Change Hospital just blows my mind.

Therapists from Cal State and Virginia Tech have “discovered” that the secret to happiness is accepting misery. Researchers Dr Diane Gehart and Dr Eric McCollum say it is a “myth that, with enough effort we can achieve a state without suffering.” Hmmm. The question is, who’s going to tell Buddha...

Book of the Week: Phantoms by Dean Koontz

Got paid today (well, got the payslip yesterday but it was forward-dated today and money only in today) and finally got the three blouses and cheongsam from Malaysia. And wrote my first cool hard news story on an armed robbery (six-inch knife, sweet middle-aged shop proprietor). And I am reading my first Dean Koontz book. (A bit pish, but it was published in 1983.) So, overall, a good week and a good Friday.

Factoids of the Week:
I like the movie/series, but am not a geek. Read in Empire yesterday that Star Wars was originally titled The Star Wars. Sounds rubbish. Like a movie on Jennifer Aniston vs Angelina Jolie.

Three Weeks Later...

Book of the Week: Still deciding on what to read next...

Wow. Can’t believe it’s been three weeks. Feels like it’s been a lot longer than that. Maybe time stretches out like toffee on teeth when you are working in a foreign country, as opposed to holidaying, or studying.

I don’t really know if I am totally enjoying work. It has its ups and downs, and this last week was especially stressful what with a numpty coming in to complain and my being told that sometimes trainees don’t automatically get taken in after the six-month probation period (not like I didn’t know it, but to be told again – despite it being spelled out in the contract – just made it feel like I shouldn’t expect anything). And being in a windowless room can get pretty depressing, especially after my last job, where I was surrounded by light and space (although the air was mostly recycled). We’re well into spring now and the daylight hours means the evenings feel like mid-afternoon, and I feel like I am missing something. Vitamin D, most likely. The first week of work, I would walk out at five and feel like Dracula after a caffeine-fuelled night in the coffin. Arghhh! It burns! It burns!

Still, can’t really complain. The job’s not too bad – I can do it without too much trouble (there’s not been any serious stuff yet, maybe they’re breaking me in gently) – and best of all, my work-life balance has improved tremendously. Instead of coming home and staying up till 2am so I can get some me-time, I now have shitloads of time in the evenings to do the stuff I want to do – mostly read and rot my brain watching some excellent British telly (I despaired when we moved over the water and lost cable, but Gareth’s bought a gorgeous new flat-screen and we get Freeview, oh joy!). But I’ve also started nodding off a lot earlier in the evenings, and just the other night fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of CSI. CSI!!! The scary thing was that I found myself actually thinking, “Oh, fuck it, I don’t care who did it or how, I want to go to sleep.”

And I really love the weekends. Not that I didn’t before, when I was in Malaysia, but they just feel different now that I’m working here. It’s like I’m rediscovering them. It’s been so long since I last had them – maybe because it’s been a long time since I last worked and truly appreciated them. In the last two years, weekends have usually suffered from a case of a) my wanting to do something and not being able to afford it; b) my being able to afford something but Gareth being tired from having to work; c) both of us wanting to do something but being forced to put homework or exams or some crap like that first; or d) the both of us being too tired or lazy to get round to doing anything. I never thought I’d say this but in a way, having to work has made weekends better for the both of us. We both work the same hours, which makes scheduling fun together much easier, especially now that we have a big fat to-do list.

The first weekend after I arrived, we checked out the Barras, Blochairn car boot market (nasty, just nasty) and Falkirk indoor market for a potential business venture; the second weekend, we had an archery session at Cluny Clays, lunch at The Wee Restaurant in North Queensferry and a wee look-around for Gordon Brown’s house (pretty village, amazing food, find it, crap weather). I also met a witch in Aberdour on our drive back from Cluny Clays, and tried out the local pies. And just this weekend Gareth picked me up from work on Friday and we spent the entire evening at his folks’ working up a sweat on their Nintendo Wii (happy 35th anniversary, by the way, you guys). We had planned to spend a birthday weekend zorbing at Dunkeld, but that looks like it’s been held over – Gareth has been in Glasgow the last two days filming.

Speaking of birthdays – my 35th didn’t feel like one. I did get eight cards, and a total of six presents on a food theme from Gareth, but for the most part, the day itself didn’t feel “special” – which I put down to the fact that for the first time in eight years, I went to work on the day. (OK, technically I worked on my birthday in 2004, but that was on a press trip to California, and they don’t count. It felt more like a birthday bonus.) I was kept busy calling schools up and bothering the friendly, accommodating people at the council offices. It only started to feel like a birthday after five, when I came home and got to put on my nice new top (from Tesco, how fashionable) and burnished Netscape colour 990066 wraparound skirt, and stepped out for dinner at the Room With A View at Aberdour, where, for the first 20 minutes, we were the only couple there. The dining experience was pretty special – a steep, deserted, winding path, a Victorian home that made me think of Mr Rochester, and the most exquisite food. Lime, chilli and ginger scallops and monkfish tails wrapped in Parma ham.

The news from back home naffed me off, though. The first time I logged on to a local news channel, the headline was: Parliament House is leaking. (So many jokes, so little time.) Not that that bothers me. It was how the super-patriotic good ol’ BN boys were not able to discuss the matter in a reasonable, sensible way – not that they ever do, anyway, so what am I getting upset about, right? MPs Bung Mokhtar Radin and Mohd Said Yusof said they were only trying to defend the Government against the Opposition’s “unfounded claims” when they said, “Where’s the leak? The Batu Gajah MP also leaks once a month.” (A word to the uninitiated: in Malaysian politics, if the Government says a claim is “unfounded”, it usually isn’t.) The Batu Gajah MP happens to be an Opposition MP, and a woman. The tsunami of public outrage was followed by the usual “we did not intend to insult anyone” defence. Yeah, right. How many times have you BN twats done this? How long do you think you can fool the Malaysian public? Especially you small-town, kampung-mentality political buffoons who think you can get away with denigrating ethnic groups, religions and half the Malaysian population – sometimes all simultaneously? When are you going to start talking facts instead of launching personal attacks every time the Opposition tries to bring up a valid point? The Malaysian public is just as guilty, though – all those years of corruption and cronyism, and they still vote the same jokers in every five years. OK, maybe it’s not fair to say that of the Malaysian public – BN gets a lot of support from a lot of other communities… and from the rumours, it would seem, not all of them are from this planet. Hint, hint. But still, it’s like political amnesia come election time. Space-wasters like Bung Mokhtar and Mohd Said still get in time and again. Every country gets the government it deserves, and that’s why I am writing this down. I want to want to remember as many reasons as possible not to vote for the wrong party (you know who you are). I’m happy to be over here, but after reading stories like this, I give extra thanks. Rubbish politicians are everywhere, but at least over here I won’t have to worry about them insulting my menstrual cycle in the debating chamber.

I’ve also had lots of random thoughts (more so than usual) these last three weeks. I miss my family a lot. I wonder how the dogs are doing. I have my doubts about this job. I really like this job. I wish I didn't have to work. I need more sleep. I’m going to be an aunt in two months. I need more money. I’m going to know what it’s like to have a salary again. I need to make more new friends. I feel stressed. I feel lazy. I wish I were smarter. I wish this place were tidier. I want to do that.

There’s a lot of me, me, me stuff in there, and not a lot of that’s new. I really need to spend more time working on the items on our big to-do list so I actually have something cool to write about, and build more memories in preparation for the time when I am senile and decrepit. But overall, it’s not been a bad first three weeks, I think. Another 101 to go. I just hope I fill up the weekends well.

Factoids of the Week:
The Helvetica font is 50! Don’t mind it, even if I’m a Verdana girl myself. But what surprised me was that there are people out there who actually pay attention to fonts and have feelings about them (thought I was the only one who hated Comic Sans!).

The following are from an article on Falconry in the Spring 2007 issue of the Historic Scotland magazine:
The word “mantelpiece” – the shelf covering a fireplace – comes from “mantling”, which describes a bird of prey’s distinctive habit of covering its prey with outstretched wings. A “cadge” was a wooden frame that was used to carry birds of prey to and from a hunt. The cadge was usually carried by old retired falconers who were called cadgers or codgers. Hence, “old codger”. The word for birds drinking was “bowsing”, and a bird that drank a lot was called a “boozer”.

On a personal note – we live a mile and a half from the next Prime Minister. And Gordon Brown is blind in one eye. Not that the two are related, of course.

Happy Birthday To Me

Book of the Week: Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett

Just sitting here enjoying the last hour of my first day of being officially halfway to 70. (Though I wonder if it even counts because it’s already tomorrow in Malaysia – all that recalculating makes my head hurt.)

Just sitting here thinking. New milestone, new home, new job, new life. New mindset, new habit: it’s the first time I’ve ever written down my birthday thoughts online. I must be more of an extrovert / emotional exhibitionist than I thought.

Factoids of the Week:
In addition to sharing my birthday with at least four other people I know, and recently discovering that it was also World Telecommunications Day (in honour of the founding of the International Telecommunications Union in 1865), I learnt, in the course of covering a story today, that it was also the fifth birthday of Superfast Ferries’ Rosyth-Zeebrugge route. Man. May 17 feels like a really, really common day for things to happen now.

Hypochondria?

Book of the Week: Turning Angel by Greg Iles

Woke up this morning with an image of Dirty Harry in my head, but for the life of me could not remember the name of the actor who played him. Clive? Hence the need to get online so early in the morning. I had to know. It’s been happening for a while now – my synapses are no longer firing connections I could once make in mere nano-seconds. Can’t name a tune, recall the last three books I’ve read, play put a name to a face, or even spell words correctly. I am not in denial that I’m getting older; I am simply absolutely terrified that my memory is going, or that a tumour is growing in my medula oblongata somewhere. I need to get my brain scanned or work it out more.

Factoids of the Week:
You expect me to remember?

Fear And (Self-) Loathing In New Zealand

Book of the Week: Not reading at the moment

Either I’m getting old, jaded and cynical, or travel just doesn’t cut it for me any more. I’m flying off to New Zealand in a couple of hours, so why am I not bouncing off the walls in excitement and anticipation of my three weeks there? I still love travelling and all the experiences it entails, that much I know. I still think anywhere I haven’t been to is a good place to go. So why do I no longer quiver on the inside like the Energizer Bunny on speed at the prospect of exploring the terra vel mare incognitum on my very own Mappa Mundi?

It used to be so different. London, June 1996: It was in the British Museum that I first understood what a mental orgasm was. My eyes greedily devoured the Tower, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace. You name it, my jaw dropped on it. Greece, October 2002: I twitched like a nervous tic the entire train journey down from Bulgaria, all 14 hours of it – all I could think of as the countryside rolled past was that this was the land that gave life to the legends of Heracles, Perseus and Zeus. I couldn’t wait to see the Acropolis, the temples, all those glorious ruins. And let’s not forget Paris, Turkey (oh my God, Turkey), China, Australia... even the USA.

But something’s happened since. I can’t put my finger on it, but it worries me. Rome, June 2006 – a city I’ve been dying to see all my life, and when we get to the Colosseum – the COLOSSEUM, dammit – I go, “Hmmmuh.” (It was not exactly my best cow impersonation either.) It was awful, like there was this black hole inside me. I was just so relieved to feel amazement and awe when we saw the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, I almost cried.

I don’t doubt New Zealand will be spectacular. But I don’t understand this lack of eagerness, this overwhelming insensateness. What’s wrong with me?! Why don’t I celebrate that little bit more or life lived now when I finally see something I’ve dreamed of seeing all my life? It’s like something inside me suddenly died. Do you get to a certain age, and then just stop caring? How do you keep alive a sense of wide-eyed wonderment?

Einstein said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” I used to think that if I’d seen the Sphinx, Macchu Picchu, the world’s great pyramids, Uluru, I would die happy. But if I could visit Mexico, Peru, Egypt, or my wet dream, i.e. every UNESCO World Heritage Site there is, tomorrow, would I feel this deadweight of near-apathy? I am afraid to know the answer.

Factoids of the Week:
No time for this just now.

Happiness is a well-rounded guinea pig

Book of the Week: Ancient Angkor by Michael Freeman & Claude Jacques

The first video of Coconut is online!

It is just so cute. What strikes me most is how he doesn’t seem to be afraid or running away from her. He looks like he’s being his usual confuzzled but inquisitive self. And that’s just brilliant. Bethany’s been teaching him the alphabet, to read the world map and how to kick a small ball as well! Bonus. He’s not just with a loving new family, he’s also getting a good education!

Minni has been fantastic. She really understands how I feel about Coconut (“You really put a lot of pressure on your friends, you know!”) and has been doing little things like this to help. Two days ago I received photos of Bethany and Coconut at play. He was looking up at the camera like he was asking, “Forget Tajikistan, where’s the cucumber?!”

As for Robert – he was caught kneeling by the enclosure making little squeaking noises. He’s a softie! Apparently, he’s been talking about getting Coconut a friend, too. That really would be the best thing ever for him (Coconut that is, not Robert!). Guinea pigs are social animals, and I’d always worried about Coconut being an only guinea pig...

I miss Coconut a lot, but this is wonderful. For the first time since he’s gone away, my mind is at peace. And I’m happy. So very, very happy.

Factoids of the Week:
None. Coconut’s well, well-fed, well-watered, well-loved and well-rounded. That’s all that matters.

A Week Of Partings

Book of the Week: Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride

Coconut went to his new home yesterday. I was acutely aware that Friday was my last full day with him, and one of the last things I did yesterday was give him a bath and trim his nails. I was so relieved when I got the e-mail from Kin last Sunday informing me that Minni wanted a guinea pig for her daughter, but now that he’s gone I miss him so much. I started welling up when I gave him his goodbye cuddle, cried all the way home in the car, cried again when I saw the empty space in the kitchen where his enclosure used to be, and then some more when I went to put something in the bin and, almost by reflex, looked sideways, expecting to see him peeking up at me, but heard no paper rustling. It’s really amazing how a little creature can become so much a part of your life in just three months. As I told a very sleepy Gareth (in Adelaide) on the phone later that night when missing Coconut became too much, I really don’t know how people cope with giving their kids up for adoption.

But I’m trying to convince myself that it’s all for the best. I can’t take him with me, and should be happy that someone wants him. I can also see him any time I want. He wasn’t mine to have in the first place – I was only ever to be guardian angel for a little while until he found a permanent home. Still, although here I am trying to reason it all out through my writing and talk myself into believing the logic, all I really want is to have him back. I have my fears and misgivings (which stem from the fact that I think I am Coconut’s best mummy – I know I am) and have this awful nightmare in which I get a call two days after giving him away and am told that he’s broken his back and died due to mishandling. That would just kill me – I’d feel like I had sent him to his death. I don’t think I will go away with complete peace of mind, but I guess I have no choice but to have faith in my friends to take good care of him. I just pray Bethany will be gentle with Coconut, and Robert won’t decide to use the stair landing for floor time. And that he’ll get plenty of (good) attention, his nails clipped and perhaps even a friend.

After two wonderful weeks together (a disproportionate amount of which was spent exploring temples, eating and meeting my relatives), I saw Gareth off on Thursday night. I knew I’d get him to the airport on time, but there were split-seconds when I had my doubts. We both had farty jobbies and actually had to come up back to the flat again for a second round of creating Jackson Pollock-esque artwork on the toilet bowls. (And yet, for all our trouble battling dodgy tums and almost literally holding it all in, he still didn’t make it to Adelaide as planned.) We’ll meet up again a week on Tuesday, which is perhaps why I don’t miss him nearly as much as I miss Coconut. I don’t have nightmares about Gareth breaking his back because he’s big enough – in more ways than one – to take care of himself. Coconut isn’t, and that’s what breaks my heart.

I think, in a way, the three days I spent back home with Gareth earlier this week were also a parting of sorts with my family. I won’t see them for almost a year, two if I don’t come home next Chinese New Year. The meals we had together were a series of slow goodbyes. I’ll miss the dogs the most. I can always call home and talk to my folks and relatives, and vice-versa, but it’s not like Dusty and Lucky can just pick up the phone or learn how to use Skype. Dusty is already 13, and just like for Coconut, I have this terrible fear that I will get a phone call telling me that she is no longer with us. She’s looking healthy though, but I pray that day is a long way off. I really don’t know how I’d handle grieving for a loved one so far away from home. I’m the sort who needs, who wants to be there. I wouldn’t feel like I’d said my goodbyes properly otherwise and I think I’d carry a sense of not having closure for the rest of my life if I didn’t.

Cold Granite reminds me of Scotland so much. (But that’s really a stupid thing to say, because it’s a Scottish book, for feck’s sake. Set in Aberdeen and written by a guy who lives in the area.) And it also reminds me that I still have a lot of packing and writing to do. I should be panicking, but I’m not, for some (probably very scary) reason. Gareth says we can have another guinea pig when I go back. It won’t be Coconut, but it’s a start.

Factoids of the Week:
The average annual income in Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world, hovers around the US$300 mark. Over three and a half days ferrying us about the sights of Siem Reap, our tuk-tuk driver, Kim Soryar, earned just under 25% of what his less fortunate countrymen did in a year.

Dogs wag their tails in different directions depending on their moods. Vigorous wags to the right if they want to play; ditto, but milder, if they see a cat or human they like; to the left if they are upset or see a rival.

Just because someone mentioned it and I didn’t know anything about it, I looked up bipolar disorder. Untreated patients with Bipolar I Disorder usually have eight to 10 episodes of mania and depression in their lifetime, and an approximately 15% risk of death by suicide. It is the third leading cause of death among people aged 15-24 years, and is the sixth leading cause of disability (lost years of healthy life) for people aged 15-44 years in the developed world. Women with Bipolar I Disorder lose, on average, nine years in life expectancy, 14 years of lost productivity and 12 years of normal health.

Minni said last night she feels very strongly I am gifted. Ummm. I very much doubt it, but Googled “genius” anyway. Discovered that Thomas Jefferson invented everyday, take-for-granted objects like the swivel chair and pedometer, among several others, but never patented any of them because he wanted people to have free use of them.

Touchdown!

Book of the Week: Lonely Planet Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei and Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a Shoestring (just a wee bit of revision before His Nibs gets here!)

Had difficulty sleeping last night – in part due to the amount of coffee I consumed at tea-time, and also the mini adrenaline rush I got counting down the hours until Gareth arrives. (“18 hours to go… oooh, 17 hours 53 minutes now…”) Didn’t fall asleep till about 4.30am but felt OK this morning, though. Must be an adrenaline hangover.

But anyway. Kitchen mopped. Floor cleaned. Toilets scrubbed. Clothes washed. Bedsheets changed. Guinea pig fed. Sleeping arrangements not totally fine-tuned yet but we’ll sort something out, nae bova.

Oooh… just one more hour before the flight touches down. That’s my cue to go!

Factoids of the Week:
Who cares! Though I’ve realized Coconut talks back to me if I squeak at him. And that I’ve just doubled my monthly post count!

Random Thoughts: One Day To Go...

Book of the Week: This is getting repetitive…

THANK YOU, BAYERN!!!!!!!

Stayed up late – second night in a row – to watch footie. Just as well I’m still in between jobs. Can’t imagine what it’d have been like had I not moved to Scotland and watched the number of World Cup games I did last year in this time zone. Getting too old for this. Man Utd v Lille, 1-0, Man Utd 2-0 on aggregate. Boring match with occasional heart-in-mouth moments, but it’s undeniable: Henrik Larsson is a bloody genius. Will be sorry to see him go at the end of the week.
Flicked in between channels when I couldn’t bear to watch the Utd match, and found the overall tone of play of the night’s four matches for the most part kinda cacat, not least for the local commentary. (Come on, you twats, it’s the last 16 Champions League, do you think we want to hear that pretentious moron Zainal whatshisface struggling with the names and trying to make sense of the offside rule???)

But a big thank-you to Bayern Munich for sending Real Madrid out of the Champions League! Brilliant first-minute goal by Roy Makaay. Fastest ever goal in the history of the competition, there’s a sporting factoid for ya. Loved how it seemed more like a game of pinball than football at times, the way the ball was bouncing off feet all over the pitch. So that’s the two cockiest, smuggest teams out of the competition. Bye-bye Real! Bye-bye Barca! Bye-bye Beckham!

Like the football, it turned out to be another up-and-down day. Got loads done (though it wasn’t like I had a to-do list the length of the Queen’s Birthday Honours). After flumping about most of the day trying to get hold of Priya for my doxycycline tablets, I met Kaynis – my very favourite insurance agent – at tea-time, and, over glasses of Milo and iced coffee and double portions of kaya toast, bought the insurance for my Cambodia and NZ trips. Very pleased with the excellent price quoted as well.

Then I wandered over to Ikano Power Centre and spent the next three hours looking at bed storage boxes (at Ikea) and pet cages (at Pet Station). Need to be ready just in case some angel of providence turns up and decides he/she wants Coconut. Not everybody is going to let a guinea pig go free-range, so he’ll need something reasonably big enough to run around in.

What annoyed me, though, was that the pet cages (“Create a fun, natural home for your rabbit / guinea pig / dwarf hamster!”) seem to have been designed by people who had no idea of the minimum amount of space needed by a small animal. Guinea pigs are supposed to have at least 6 sq ft of space, and the very largest cage available measured only 4.825 sq ft. Guinea pigs are supposed to be social animals – the best thing you can do for your guinea pig is get it a friend – so how the hell are you supposed to even keep them in that space? Huh? Huh??? The design for the water bottle was also ridiculous: a tiny little opening for the nozzle, a flimsy plastic strap and a huge bottle. I just couldn’t see it balancing. (Yes, I experimented. The shop assistants didn’t look too pleased.)

I was pretty damn depressed for a good hour afterwards – the only other option was to find some Coroplast and make a customized box for Coconut, but there didn’t seem to be any boards of any decent size on sale. Maybe I could poke around electrical goods shops and see if they have any fridge boxes they could spare.

Went to see Ah Giek to collect my spanking new pair of glasses. They are très chic, even if I do have some trouble fitting them new-fangled bendy rimless frames into the case. Ah Giek also gave me a couple of apples (“for Coconut”) and, despite my annoyed protestations, pressed some money into my hand (“for your trips – you haven’t started working yet!”). She is one fantastic aunt. If I ever win the lottery, she’s definitely getting a healthy percentage. Though a more realistic goal would be for me to pay for a trip over to Scotland sometime.

I’ve just realized that when I publish this, I’ll have gone one post more than I have in any other month since I started blogging. Score! Milestone! Oooh... and that it’s been 20 years since the release of U2’s Joshua Tree. Wow. Has it been that long. I remember that album only too well. Never bought the CD because I figured the tape was always lying about somewhere, but I can’t remember where now...

The best part of today was knowing that Gareth will be arriving tomorrow. Yay! In about 21 hours’ time we’ll probably either be tucking into some quality Malaysian street food (i.e. comes with enough E. coli to knock out a herd of elephants – if elephants can indeed be affected by E. coli, that is), or – considering that it’s going to be a long day for the both of us tomorrow – fast asleep. Though that’s no bad thing as we have loads planned for the weekend – taking him for a quick refresher course tour of KL on Saturday, visiting Malacca (his first time) on Sunday, and going to Kuala Gandah to see the elephants (a first for both of us) on Monday. But I get the feeling that during his time here he’ll more likely be tired out from eating than anything… when in Rome and all that. It is Malaysia, after all!

Oooh! Oooh! 20 hours 55 minutes now… can you tell I’m excited…

Factoids of the Week:
Almost said “Still nothing”, but then remembered a story (from The Sun – where else!) about an extremely overweight Russian boy. Dzambulat Khatokov, trumpeted as “the world’s biggest boy”, is seven years old, weighs 16 stone, and has been weightlifting since he was three. Gotta wonder what he’s been eating – or being fed – seeing as his mother is the one who seems dead set on him becoming a professional sumo wrestler (“Our hope is that Jambik will provide a secure future for our family – all we have is because of Jambik”) and insists that he loves taking centre-stage. Funnily enough, Dzambulat sounds like jam bulat, which means “round clock” in Malay...

Captain America has been killed off! AUUUUGH! Shot by a sniper while walking out of court! AUUUUGH!

This is scary – don’t know if this woman is insecure, suffering from body dysmorphia or simply a glutton for punishment. Sheyla de Almeida, 27, a model, had 14 operations and a total of 2.4 litres of silicone pimped in to have the biggest boobs (current size 34FF) in Brazil. She has now decided she wants another 8 litres of gloop so she can beat the current world record of 42XXX. Crikey. That’s eye-watering. And I thought Lea’s 40M footballs were creepy.

Random Thoughts: Two Days To Go

Book of the Week: See yesterday’s post...

It’s been a Scottish weather kind of day. Started off all doom and gloom, but brightened considerably towards the evening. Or does that usually work in reverse. Usually it’s a case of waiting five minutes if you don’t like the weather…

Anyway – I know I’m never going to be a domestic goddess but last night (or rather, very early this morning) confirmed it. OK, so my housekeeping skills need work, so to get hear from Miks that my efforts at scrubbing the bathrooms weren’t too bad was a compliment. But then he went in for a shower, and there was a very long, pissed-off, “What-lahhhh…” – Oops. He’d found one of my hairs draped over the toilet roll. Ah well. I guess I should know better than to leave even a fleck of kerastase anywhere within a 10km radius. Never going to pass Kim and Aggie’s clean tests this way. Now that I look back on it, it was actually quite funny (though it didn’t feel so at the time). Ended up arguing like two five-year-olds (YOU do it! No, YOU do it!), and wound up in the living room together, both of us in extremely bad moods and very huffy, not talking to each other, but with me watching the first half of the Liverpool v Barcelona return leg at Anfield.

(Lapsing into stream of consciousness here – a.k.a car-crash change of topic – although I can’t stand Liverpool, I’m glad they won. Lesser of the two evils! Man Utd v Lille tonight at 3.45am, hope the Reds bang three past the Frenchies. That’ll shut them up, whinging about Giggs’ quickie free-kick goal. And I hope UEFA comes down hard on them for trying to walk off the pitch too. Muppets.)

And then, when I woke up, terrified at the prospect of not having all my stuff boxed and ready in time for The Big Move next month, I did more than the usual today – and now, after cramming as many books as I could into another four boxes, I am not sure if actually finishing packing isn’t the scarier option.

My books already take up something like seven boxes, and I still have another two bookcases to go. And that’s not including the one-and-a-half tonnes of tomes I’m leaving behind, which have been squeezed into every corner of my folks’ house, in boxes under the bed, in crevices between cupboards and corners of wardrobes (before I left for university, my Dad suggested that I donate my books to the library... any damn library). I’m sure there are plenty of people out there with shedloads (literally) more books than I have, but I’m beginning to realize that it’s really rather frightening the number of books one can amass in a lifetime. Perhaps, instead of saving up to buy my own little flat, I should instead be looking at warehouses and/or storage space for rent.

On the upside, I worked up the courage to e-mail a total stranger today. Actually, that isn’t really a first because I did it all the time (still do) in my line of work, but it was usually a request for an interview, clarification or press stills. I e-mailed this person for a personal favour, and as I have problems asking that of people I don’t know, I just had to tell myself face wasn’t as important as Coconut’s well-being. This person might be able to help me find a home for Coconut – fingers crossed. She seems to network quite a lot – if she puts the word out that there’s a guinea pig for adoption, she’ll be able to reach a lot more people. It’d be like Coconut’s very own PR campaign. I hope something good comes out of it because Coconut deserves a good home.

Norlin e-mailed to inform the rest of the YABC (that’s Yogi’s Angels & Bitches Club – of which I am a proud member – it sounds kinky, but alas, it’s not!) of the barbecue on Saturday. It was a very sweet e-mail – “we’re having a barbecue for May and Gareth”. Awww! It’s like a hello/goodbye party. I secretly hope they all come because they’ll miss me and don’t know when we’ll have another YABC Bitch Fit at Fasta Pasta again, but I’m sure they’ll attend because they all want to see the ang moh and give him the third degree… I do love barbecues at Norlin’s – they are extremely fun, feel-good events. (We’ll have to do the washing up this time, though, as her maid ran off with the boyfriend a couple of days ago.) Can’t wait.

Ken’s also added me as a contributor to his New Zealand blog, no idea why, but in all probability in anticipation of the experiences (and travel tips!) Gareth and I will very likely have after our trip next month. We’ve both never been so far south of the equator before, but anywhere I haven’t been to is a good place to go. Like I said a couple of lines ago: can’t wait.

Factoids of the Week:
I haven’t read anything today, so nothing. Yes, I’m slacking. Sue me.

Random Thoughts: Three Days To Go

Book of the Week: I ain’t really reading – most of the books are in boxes now and the Pending Shelf is empty!

Earthquake in Padang today. Ah Giek called Dad to say people in buildings downtown KL had felt the tremors. Dad got me on Skype to ask me about it. Of course I hadn’t felt anything. Immediately checked it out on BBC and in turn got Dad freaked out – kid sister is on assignment in Singapore just now and apparently the earthquake had caused a few skyscrapers in the CBD there to sway. So of course he was worried. It’s all right, don’t bother asking about me, I’m only on the 10th floor of an apartment block!

Letter came today from the university – graduation’s in June, mind you mortgage the house now or you won’t see the back of your scroll! Write Stuff people sound like they’re getting kinda worried as well. They probably think I have no intention of returning the trophy now that I’m back in Malaysia.

Lunar eclipse on Sunday. Saw bugger all. Always seem to be on wrong side of world at right time. Judging from comments on BBC, it was pretty damn clear over the UK.

Can’t wait to see Mukhsin. Opens this Thursday and it looks good. Very Malaysian. Might even take Gareth to see it. Special Mention at the 2007 Berlinale. That should impress him.

Got a fair amount of stuff done today. After numerous phone calls this week (will see the total cost of damage when this month’s bill comes) to Emirates, I finally heard a human voice and managed to sort out my frequent flyer miles. I’m still a long way off from qualifying for a free flight or upgrading to business class but hey! At least now I can fly for free within the Middle East or from Peru to Central America on United, go on a day safari or stay at a Marriott (Cairo, Maida Vale or Frankfurt).

After lunch, I cleaned the flat, mopped the floor and scrubbed both bathrooms (the amount of dirt we’ve let accumulate is really appalling!) in preparation for Gareth’s arrival on Friday. Man, I’m a slob. It’s probably the most exercise I’ve done in ages and I’m absolutely knackered. Bathrooms aren’t as pristine as I’d like them to be, but at least now I know we won’t find the cure for a headache on the grouting. Can’t wait to see Miks’ eyes pop out when he gets home from work today! Especially as my housekeeping skills could be considered the bat signal for Kim and Aggie.

I really should do more packing if I want to alleviate these panic attacks. I’m so sick of seeing my books lying about like shattered glass, but at the same time I get exhausted after doing just two boxes. At this rate I’m never going to sort everything out in time for the big move to Scotland. It’ll be really amazing if they do get sorted in time. I also think I’m going to do something that I’ve never done with any of my books before: I might actually give a few of them away. There are a few titles I think Sue Anne might find interesting. The kid doesn’t appear to read enough anyway. Or at least, I haven’t really seen her with anything that has impressed me.

Thumbed through the NZ guidebooks again and beginning to wonder if Maori and Malay (the languages) belong to the same language family, or have the same proto-language stem. “Death” is mate in Maori; mati in Malay. “Fish” is ika in Maori; ikan in Malay. “Cloud” is ao in Maori; awan in Malay. “Land” or “country” is whenua in Maori; the world – lots of land! – is benua in Malay. “Water” is wai in Maori; air in Malay. I bet if I could speak Iban or Dayak I would find this exercise even more interesting. I don’t have a background in linguistics, but I love comparing and contrasting different words and/in different languages.

Phek Kin and I are in touch again. She rang me yesterday – asked if I wanted to come over for dinner and sleep over – but because the mobile has been on the blink for the last one week (I can’t even switch the damn thing on now – stupid battery!), I had no idea she called. She suggested that I give Coconut to the National Science Centre if I can’t find him a home. That’s not a bad idea… except that I don’t know a) if they have labs there and if their rabbit and guinea pig enclosure supplies them their test subjects (EEK!); b ) if the rabbits and guinea pigs are kept separately; c) even if they weren’t, if I’d want Coconut to be subjected to a lifetime of being prodded and squeezed by tots who wouldn’t know the first thing about handling guinea pigs; d) what the living conditions are like for the animals there. It’s a government facility. Not any government facility, but a Malaysian government facility. Would you trust them?

Factoids of the Week:
The Taupo volcanic zone on the North Island of New Zealand has the two most productive caldera (or crater) volcanoes in the world (Taupo and Tarawera). For the geologically disinclined, a caldera volcano occurs when a volcanic eruption is so immense that the ground surface collapses into the hole left behind.

This next factoid is from the BBC – gotta love them. Characters in Shaun the Sheep move 25 times per second, which means animators have to reset scenes 1,500 times for just one minute of footage. They capture an average of seven seconds of footage a day. And that’s considered breakneck speed, compared to Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit (three seconds of footage a day) and Chicken Run (two seconds was considered a good day’s work).

OK, I did my homework. Maori and Malay belong to the Austronesian language family, which encompasses 1,246 languages and 311,740,132 speakers across 38 countries. In comparison, the Indo-European language family has only 430 languages but has the largest number of speakers: 2,562,896,428 in 59 countries. The largest of the language families is the Niger-Congo, which has 1,514 languages and 358,091,103 speakers in 40 countries.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Book of the Week: The Rough Guide to New Zealand and DK Eyewitness Travel: New Zealand (wahey, not one but two books!)

Happy Chinese New Year! We’re 11 days into the Year of the Golden Pig now, and, being the glass-half-empty person that I am, I am only too aware that I have fewer than 350 days left before I reach the end of my third cycle of the Chinese zodiac. Such thoughts usually get me all depressed, but dammit, my life will be heading in a completely new direction this year (or so I hope!), so I really should be less of a grump and look forward to all that promises, instead of moaning about how old I’m getting and how I haven’t done half the stuff I had planned to do by 35. (Come to think of it, I still haven’t done half the stuff I had planned to do by the time I was 30...)

This year’s Chinese New Year was rather Dickensian – by that I mean it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was brilliant in that in the one week I was home, I managed to see most of my relatives again (and a few I hadn’t met before – like my quarter-Chinese cousin and his family) after a long year away in Scotland. We also saw a lion dance performance in the house next to my uncle’s (it’s been ages since I’ve seen one) and I had decent ang pau takings. There was plenty of merriment and camaraderie, the sort you get when families who haven’t got together for a while do so and there’s plenty of free-flowing food and drink at hand.

And I’m not just saying that. Chinese New Year is a time to pig out. Eating is Malaysia’s all-time favourite pastime (perhaps “obsession” is a better word), and nobody does it better than the Chinese. My relatives, whilst lacking the funds to throw 300-course dinners of Dionysian proportions, usually put on a pretty good show with at least 10 different dishes on the table every night for the first week of the New Year, and this year was no different. We had our traditional annual Chinese New Year’s Eve reunion dinner (we broke with tradition and had a “steamboat” hotpot this year) and Auntie Liang treated all of 21 of us to a family (or is that more like clan?) lunch at a posh restaurant on the third day of the New Year. Auntie Chai threw a dinner at her place that same night, followed by another hotpot dinner three nights later – during the course of which I promptly broke my lovely, absolute-best titanium specs. The frame just broke into two, just like that (I usually have to sit on it first), and dangled off the bridge of my nose. This, of course, annoyed me no end: firstly, it meant my ang pau money would be going into some optician’s pocket, rather than to New Zealand; and secondly, what the hell happened? It’s titanium, dammit! TITANIUM! One of the coolest materials available to man, corrosion-resistant and having the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal, and they can’t make a decent spec frame out of it?! Typical. Spend a quarter of your salary on specs which turn out to have the shortest lifespan (18 months) of all the specs you’ve ever worn. Huh. Not very reassuring. What freaks me out is that I have a not insubstantial amount of titanium bolted to my fibula and tibia... crikey, maybe my ankle’s supposed to go all bendy any day now...!

The best part was the announcement at the reunion dinner: my cousin is pregnant. I’m going to be an aunt. The baby’s due at the end of June and whilst it won’t be the first of the next generation, it will be the first “Lee” baby, i.e. the first one born to a cousin bearing the family name. As there are only four of us Lees in this generation, and all of us are girls, the baby itself won’t bear the family name, but the fact that my uncles and aunts will be get to be called Ah Pek Kong, Sar Chek Kong and Kor Poh, instead of Ku Kong and Ee Poh, means a lot to everyone. It’s all very exciting, and I think I could make some money playing bookie and taking bets on the sprog’s sex.

But the New Year was also awful, in a quiet, “we know what’s happening but we’re not really going to talk about it” sort of way. Not very healthy emotionally, but I don’t think anyone wanted to say anything to dampen the gaiety. Uncle Leong’s absence was felt and noted, especially at the dinner at Auntie Chai’s. My aunt – his widow – was cheerful, but tears welled up in her eyes every few minutes. No doubt she was missing him and thinking of the last New Year we were all together (with me propped up with a broken ankle). All of us felt the same way, but nobody broached the subject. But then again, I don’t suppose words were needed. I just kept quiet and raised a glass of wine to his memory. (I also watched Kung Fu Hustle two nights in a row because the skinny mustachioed good guy reminded me of him.)

There was also a wee personal crisis for me. At times – actually, a lot of the time – I felt rather unwelcome and unwanted, like the extra cog duct-taped to the side of a machine already chugging along perfectly. Paranoia? Perhaps. Self-absorption? It’s likely. There were times when I simply felt desperately down, and all I could do was cry. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it lest I looked like I was oversensitive, depressed and whinging over nothing. The best I could do in those moments was text Gareth, who was incredibly supportive and encouraging. Funny how problems so close to home can sometimes be solved – or at least made better – by someone halfway around the world.

Speaking of Gareth, he’ll be here in just over a week, and when he comes through arrivals at KLIA, the first thing I’m going to do is give him a big thank-you hug. It’s been a little over two months since we last saw each other, but time has really flown – when we last said toodle-pips, it was exactly 80 days to our meeting up again, and as of today there are just nine (or closer to eight by the time I post this). I’ve missed him absolutely hunners and hunners, so I think it will be a pretty long hug. (And while I’m at it – suggestions on how to best be an SPG will also be much appreciated. He is an ang moh, after all!)

I must admit that excited as I am, I await March 9 with some trepidation: there’s so much I still need to do, and Gareth’s arrival only heightens the urgency with which I must do them. I still haven’t finished packing my crap – and even if I had, I still haven’t decided how I’m going to send it to Scotland. (“Packing” makes the process sound so Martha Stewart; in my case it is more like sorting through 15 years of accumulated rubbish, mostly objects of sentimental significance and paperwork I never really bothered to file away, and now I’m paying the price for my lack of organization. If there was ever an argument to be tidy, this is it.) Also, I still haven’t got my malaria tablets (for Cambodia), a thorough health check-up (people I know seem to be keeling over from high cholesterol and blood pressure), and flight ticket (to Glasgow). And most importantly, I still haven’t found a home for Coconut. That’s especially worrying because I really don’t want to abandon him, and I don’t want to give him to someone who won’t give him every opportunity to be a fat (the little bugger is really putting on weight), happy, free-range guinea pig. (I like to think that I’m the best thing that ever happened to Coconut, even if Dusty did get into the house and into his enclosure last week, and would have made piggy pie of him if he hadn’t been blissfully snuggled inside his favourite paper bag.)

What I have done, though, is get a major hurdle out of the way: on Monday afternoon, I picked up my passport from VFS. Inside it, on page 11, was the newly minted Fresh Talent visa, a page-sized sticker signifying the culmination of a long, exhausting journey (and that’s just the application process) that has taken the better part of the last four years. I can finally work in Scotland. I am going to work in Scotland. When I ran my fingers over the embossed lion and unicorn, I didn’t know whether to shout “YES!!!!!!!” or cry – all I knew was it felt like a little bit more of life lived, and that I had achieved something I had dreamt of and worked so hard at for so long. (OK, OK, fine, I admit it – I was really more pre-occupied with checking that all my official documents had been returned with the passport…)

However, I’m beginning to wonder if moving to Scotland is what I really want, now that I’ve read two New Zealand guidebooks as part of my preparation for my trip there in April. (Hey, I’m hard to please! And fickle!) I usually devour guidebooks like potato scones before a trip, but I’ve broken that rule this time. I’ve been looking at the gorgeous photos instead – the ones in the DK guide are especially jaw-dropping. (That reminds me, I really need to catch up on my reading in general. I’m woefully behind in my resolution to read a book a week this year.) Another travel rule I’ve broken is the one about the Lonely Planet guidebook. It doesn’t even feature on this trip. Instead, we’ve opted for a balance: the Rough Guide (info-heavy, crap on visuals) and DK (crap/inadequate info, lush visuals). Unfortunately, this particular DK does not have the exquisitely detailed city maps we know and love, so, obviously, we’ll need to get a mini road atlas or something. (The typos in the DK are also quite appalling - “new zealanders” in lower-case? – I mean, who proofreads these things???) The third rule I’ve thrown out the window is the to-do list. I usually have a list of must-sees, but for New Zealand I say the hell with it, I’m there for the rush and just want to take in everything. There’s just so much in New Zealand I’m looking forward to, I don’t think two weeks will be enough. If the photos are anything to go by, I can totally see myself returning time and again. It’s a good jump-off point for Micronesia too… not been there yet…

Other stuff I want to remember from this week: I saw a documentary which featured capybaras, and damned if they don’t look like gigantic guinea pigs. And I watched the entire first season of Prison Break. Can’t wait to see the second. I’m also losing handfuls of hair. The thought that I might be forced to abandon my Sadako impersonations is rather depressing. Got new specs (bye-bye ang pau, sob!) – I collect them this weekend and am trying out rimless frames for the first time (and no, they are not titanium). Will be interesting to see if I end up looking even more geeky (or is that geek-ier?) than usual.

But enough observations. Let’s see what I learnt this week.

Factoids of the Week:
Not sure if this is apocryphal, but it’s a great story nevertheless. The two-finger “V”-sign supposedly dates from the Hundred Years War. English longbowmen who were captured by the French in battle would have their index and middle fingers cut off, to prevent them from ever firing an arrow again. (Large numbers of French knights were killed by the arrows of English longbowmen at Crécy and Agincourt.) Hence, when the English won, the bowmen, in buoyant nerrr-nerrr mood, used the “V”-sign to show defiance to the French in battle.

I love this factoid for its cuteness. One of the first settlers of Milford Sound in New Zealand’s South Island was Donald Sutherland, who arrived with his dog – named John O’Groats.

With a population of about 40 million sheep, New Zealand has 10 meh-mehs to every person, down from the 1980s, when there were 20 meh-mehs to every person. Despite the decline, New Zealand still corners 50% of international trade in sheep meat.

Auckland is purported to have the greatest number of pleasure boats per capita of any city in the world.

New Zealand was the last major landmass to be populated, with Polynesian settlers arriving over 800 years ago. Until 80 million years ago, it was part of the supercontinent Gondwanaland, and was still attached to Australia. Even today, as the continents continue to drift apart, New Zealand is still moving northwards towards the equator at a rate of 30mm a year.

Like Australia, New Zealand’s flora and fauna evolved in isolation, into forms unseen on other continents. Due to the lack of predators, New Zealand birds somehow thought, right, we don’t need wings no more – and became flightless. They also developed into monsters like the giant moa (now extinct), which stood over 2m (or seven feet) tall.

(I read lots of cool factoids in the two guidebooks but I can’t remember many – more may be posted here as I thumb through them again.)

Of Captain Marvel, Coconut and Copernicus

Book of the Week: Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel

This is the blog that should have been, in more ways than one. It should have been posted over a month ago, but wasn’t – in the saddest and most unfortunate way possible, I found a much, much worthier subject. It should have been posted three weeks ago, but wasn’t – I couldn’t think of anything to write about, or make myself think of anything to write about. And when I finally roused myself out of my mental sluggishness, I couldn’t log onto Blogger – either my Mozilla Firefox or TMNet Malaysia’s broadband service was/is screwed. (And incidentally, is it log-on to, logon to, or log onto? Hello, Grammar Gestapo?)

If a day is a long time in politics, a week is like two months in the blogosphere. (Though that would sound about right to dogs, given the 1:7 human-canine lifespan ratio.) So many things change, so much more fodder for posts. Although I (and I’m sure a fair number of my friends) think that I sometimes run on a 286 processor in a wi-fi world, something I’ve become acutely aware of since I started this blog (particularly in the first week afterwards) is just how much actually happens in a week that I notice, take in and react to.

Perhaps it could just be me looking for interesting subjects for my posts. Or that the period Jan 4-11 2007 – before I got lost in my memories of Uncle Leong – was particularly interesting news-wise. But I’ve noticed that, for me at least, time seems goes a little slower when you bother to pay attention, be absorbed, and, most importantly, remember. (Admittedly, I don’t remember as much as I used to, but that may be due to the onset of Alzheimer’s... or my synapses being busted by that brain tumour I’m always so worried about...) Because, most importantly, this blog serves as a pseudo-journal – a snapshot of a period of time in my life, for what it’s worth.

And happily, I have remembered a lot from the past month, especially the last couple of weeks. It might be too early on in the year (and blog) to say this, but in the future maybe I’ll think a little more carefully before answering, “Oh, the usual” when asked how my week was. My first post feels like such a long time ago now, when it used to be that weeks became months in the blink of an eye. I won’t go as far as to say having a blog is a paradigm shift, but it does seem to be achieving what I had hoped it would when I started it: forcing me to think, and then write about it.

Before Uncle Leong, my post was going to be about Bryan Robson, ex-Manchester United and England captain, turning 50. FEEF-TEE. Good grief, haven’t the last 25 years just flown by. Like I needed another reason to be depressed. This year I will be the same age Bryan Robson was when my dehydration as a loss of oral fluids every time I saw him started to peak. My classmates had Rob Lowe and Simon Le Bon; I had Captain Marvel. He was, so to speak, my first older man, and I adored him for the better part of 12 years. At the height of my obsession, I could spout Bryan Robson trivia like the Trevi fountain gushes water. I’m not going to repeat them here, but there’s a pretty good selection on Wikipedia. Crikey, he’s an OBE now, too.

I loved Manchester United way back then, but Robbo gave me more reason to do so, and as a result – deep dark secret coming out – supported England for a bit. But, mind you, this was in the era of maestros like Gary Lineker and hard men like Terry Butcher, long before pretty-boy poseurs like Beckham came along. Robbo was the reason I crawled out of bed at 2am on a school night to turn on the TV, once a year in May when RTM magnanimously decided to telecast FA Cup semis and finals. I’d yelp, cheer, groan, heart thumping all the way (Manchester United v Oldham, 1990, comes to mind), then crawl back under the covers for another 90 minutes before getting up for school. It’s probably just as well that Astro only arrived in Malaysia in the mid-90s, as a) I’d have driven up my folks up the wall begging them to subscribe, and, had they relented (not on your life), would have led to b) my exam results being even more rubbish.

He was the reason I yearned to go to the UK – but alas, watching him play was not to be. And whilst my reasons for going to the UK are a little more mundane now, it still feels like it is not to be, no thanks to the good folk in charge of visas in Malaysia (I shan’t name them). The application process for my Fresh Talent visa is driving me nuts. I understand if you are being very thorough with my application because there has been an alarming rise in the number of forgeries, but what drives me crazy is being asked jobsworth questions like, “How do we know this offer of work is genuine?” (Um, it’s official company stationery with a phone number and address – maybe you could call the undersigned?), “How do we know you lived at this address?” (Er, my bank statements, university correspondence, and even my pap smear results carry that address – what do you mean, that’s not proof?), and “How do we know you were actually in Scotland and attended this university?” (Oh, I don’t know, I guess those two letters from my supervisors and official formal recognition from the university don’t count – I suppose you think I skived off home to Malaysia every weekend...) I swear, sitting there with the interviewer feels like a practical session in the cognitive theories of deduction at times. And another thing – why they couldn’t have told me about their 89-day policy on any one of the half dozen times I called them to check if I could forward-date my visa is beyond me. Nett result: a whole month wasted. Bureaucratic efficiency at its best.

But the good news on the UK front is that, firstly, I now know I AM HOT. The editor of the local rival newspaper sent me an e-mail on Friday offering me a job. Had to turn him down, not least because I’ve already signed the contract with my employers, but also because my employers were so keen they were willing to wait six months for me. But still, at least now I know what it must be like to be wooed and fought over. Sigh. Life is so difficult when everybody wants you.

Secondly, my cheapo regional budget airline of choice has gone international. Air Asia X will launch its KL-London/Manchester service in the middle of the year (at least, that’s what everyone hopes), and for a good little tight-fisted Hokkien girl who will start work in ang moh land in May (if her @#$%!!! visa comes through, that is), that news is akin to the satisfying clink of coins in the piggy bank. If I book quickly and far enough in advance, I might only need to pay £210 return to KL, in comparison to at least £500 on Emirates (more on MAS and SIA, the pirates). Entertainment and food aren’t included, but that’s what books are for, right? Feed the brain... and, if really hungry, maybe the tum... But seriously, with prices starting at £9, it’s tempting not to care what the green campaigners say. I might even cut up my Emirates frequent flyer card (they still owe me 12,050 miles anyway).

And speaking of books, the one I have just finished reading would be exactly the sort I would bring on board an Air Asia X flight. To read about daily life in 17th-century Italy when Copernicus’ idea of a heliocentric planetary system was heresy, whilst circumnavigating eight time zones, would be just too delicious. What I loved about Galileo’s Daughter, was how, whilst hammering home how stifling and repressive religion can be, it was also a gentle reminder how faith and science need not necessarily be mutually exclusive. Sobel weaves the contradictions and cohesion of the arguments beautifully and seamlessly. What bugged me was realizing that the attitude and spirit of the Catholic church towards Galileo’s discoveries is still alive and kicking in the 21st century. Sobel wrote that Galileo’s trail was one on so many levels: “the suppression of science by religion, the defence of individualism against authority, the clash between revolutionary and establishment, the challenge of radical new discoveries to ancient beliefs, the struggle against intolerance for freedom of thought and freedom of speech.” What’s tragic is that ideas don’t even have to be “religious” or “heretical” to be accorded the same treatment. To some, even the notions of democracy and sexual equality are abhorrent and alien. When new, exciting scientific discoveries are made some people actually scoff at them, because they are “breakthroughs”, are “too new and still need to be tested”, or simply because they go against the conventions and ideas they are familiar with. And that is what I don’t understand. You’d think people would be excited about the possibilities of discovering worlds, things, facts yet unknown.

Actually, that’s probably how my Mum felt last week. I finally got around to teaching her how to use a computer and get on the internet, from plugging in cables into ports and switching off the PC (“Click on the green square labelled ‘Start’ in the bottom left hand corner of the screen...”). Mum’s nearly 63 and, while not exactly technophobic, has always been worried about using the PC – but only because she doesn’t know what to do. It was really quite challenging trying to compile a very detailed step-by-step guide in a register she would understand. The entire exercise made me realize how much we actually take our PC knowledge for granted: “double-click” became “click twice in quick succession on the left mouse button”. It was a learning experience for the both of us, but a very satisfying one, and I’m so happy that Mum is gaining confidence daily – I’ll probably teach her how to Google and log onto (log-on to?) websites over Chinese New Year.

I love Chinese New Year, and this year I have an extra-special reason to look forward to it: just five days after the full celebrations are over, Gareth will be here for two weeks, and two weeks after he leaves, we’ll meet up in New Zealand. I bought my ticket to Auckland on February 1 at the MAS travel fair, and booked my domestic flight (Auckland-Christchurch) online on February 9. The travel fair was crazy. It started at midnight on February 1, and you could only book online, by calling the MAS call centre, or at MAS travel agents. I couldn’t get onto the website, or a free line, despite waking up and trying four times during the night (1am, 2.30am, 4am, 5.30am). No chance. In the morning, I rushed to the MAS office – only 15 minutes from my folks’ place, but it felt like it took forever getting through traffic – only to find that it had closed down. Managed to find a travel agent with a very competitive fare (RM2662, or about £380) and picked up my ticket later that afternoon. Gareth has booked all our transport and accommodation in New Zealand, which means I only need to get my dorm room in Auckland for April 2 and we’re all sorted! I can’t wait!

It’s really just too bad Gareth won’t be here for Chinese New Year – I think he’d enjoy it. But ah well, 2008 might be better. It’ll be the Year of the Rat – a new cycle marking the end of my third full one. I’ve already convinced him to come back with me next February – that is, if the family doesn’t scare him too much on this trip. He’ll be here in exactly 25 days (cannae wait!), and to help me make sure that the Malaysia is the best leg of his round-the-world trip, Miks and I went out on January 7 for a little drive. It didn’t really start out that way – I wanted to go to The Curve to exchange a Christmas present of bedlinen (wrong duvet size) – but the traffic at the turn-off was backed up a mile, so we wound up at Batu Caves instead, gaping at the world’s tallest Lord Murugan statue (140ft). It makes for a pretty cool photo, and Gareth does love stuff like that. Miks and I also debated the merits of our favourite eateries, as we plan to pump Gareth full of local food – the last time he was in this part of the world, he was your typical frightened ang moh who survived on Oliver’s Super Sandwiches and fish and chips.

And if I’m lucky, Gareth also won’t get to meet Coconut, a cute little (but not for long the way he’s eating) guinea pig. I met him at my cousin Sue Anne’s, when we congregated there after Uncle Leong’s funeral, and have had him since January 14. The poor darling had already been dumped by two owners – one allegedly only after a week, because the family didn’t like cleaning up the poo. That’s your average Malaysian pet owner for you: Shock! Horror! It pees! It shits! It comes with an asshole! (And no, I’m not referring to the previous owners...) So poor Coconut was “given away” to Sue Anne (what really makes me mad is that the family made it look as if by giving Coconut to her, they were doing her a favour). But my aunt objected – and so Coconut ended up with me. Coconut is just the name Sue Anne and I gave him – if he had a name before, his owners didn’t think it was important enough to pass on. They didn’t know his sex either, but then, neither do we. I’m not exactly an expert at sexing guinea pigs – I’m just going on the two not-too-pendulous protuberances between his legs. There’s no willy immediately visible neither...

Coconut is just so funny and friendly, I really don’t know how anyone could just have chucked him out. He’s still not used to being carried and fussed over, but he is used to both Miks and me now, and comes up to sniff us when we approach instead of scampering back into a hidey-hole. I like to think that he’s having the time of his life with me – I’ve made him a GPAC (guinea pig activity centre) out of shoe boxes, paper bags and tins, so he has plenty of places to hide, explore and rest in. I read up loads on guinea pigs but Coconut has only displayed atypical cavy behaviour: he hasn’t yet “popcorned”, or stayed awake during the day. He just sleeps, plays and eats when he’s bored.

And he never stops munching! Dad noticed it when I went home last week – he watched Coconut and said, “That’s all you do. Eat! Eat! Eat!” Dogs are so much easier to take care of, but guinea pigs are fun in their own way, too. Coconut’s arrival has made me so much more aware of what new parents must go through: x number of feedings at regular intervals throughout the day, changing soiled newspapers (even his droppings are cute – they look like uniform little sausages!), and coaxing the stubborn mite to eat something that’s good for him. (Guinea pigs, like humans, cannot manufacture or store vitamin C, and so need an adequate daily supply of it.) He went through a “junk food phase”, refusing to consume anything but cucumber, but now also eats cabbage, carrots, coriander and apples, which he absolutely loves. Mum hit upon the brilliant idea of giving him sugar cane to gnaw on, and he chewed it all up in no time. Went to sleep lying on one, if I remember correctly.

I just hope I can find a good Mummy or Daddy for Coconut before I leave for ang moh land. I don’t want someone who will just chuck him in his cage and never play with him or just feed him pellets. Coconut’s a free-range guinea pig right now, and gets lots of veg and fruit and fresh water – the last owner obviously didn’t change his water for ages, and as a result the water bottle was choked with moss. Coconut needs someone who understands that he gets grumpy too, and will nip you if you don’t respect his space. I would bring him to the UK if I could, but I can’t. If anyone out there knows of someone who can give Coconut a good home, please do get in touch.

And thanks to Coconut, I now have my very first photo on the blog:

Isn’t he just adorable??? He’s a lot fatter now, though...

More new-look blog stuff: I’ve also decided to change Factoid of the Day to Factoids of the Week, just because I a) can; b) love trivia; c) don’t post on a daily basis; and d) think just the one fact is simply not enough. (Though Factoids for This Particular Blog would be more accurate, as I hardly post on a weekly basis... but we shall see...) There are just way too many cool factoids to be found in the daily newspapers, or floating about in cyberspace, to ignore (the BBC and The Sun Online come to mind – although sometimes the latter might have to be taken with a pinch of salt and a little more substantiation).

But back to Chinese New Year. It won’t be the same without Uncle Leong around. I shall miss him; it still doesn’t feel like he’s gone forever. I still expect to hear him pick up the phone when I call, and sometimes I dream about him. I guess that goes to show how much a part of my life he was. I didn’t have to write all that down but I felt I should, because I might read this post again in the future, and I want to remember how I felt about things that were important to me at this point in my life.

That said, on to the new-look bookend.

Factoids of the Week:
Thanks to fare hikes last month, the 0.26km Piccadilly Line journey from Covent Garden to Leicester Square – the shortest on the Tube – is now the most expensive train ride in the world. At £4, the one stop works out to be 1.5p per metre, more than 12 times more expensive than the London-Venice Orient Express (0.13p). In comparison, a subway ride costs £1.50 on the Tokyo metro (the second most expensive train ride in the world) and £1.07 in New York.

This is a bit stale, but oh, the delicious irony. In a survey published in May last year, Google found that of the top 10 countries searching for sex-related sites, six were Muslim, with Pakistan topping the list. The other Muslim countries were Egypt (2), Iran (4), Morocco (5), Saudi Arabia (7) and Turkey (8). The other (non-Muslim) countries on the list were Vietnam (3), India at (6), Philippines (9) and Poland (10). (From the Daily Times of Pakistan, May 17 2006)

The world’s first scientific society, the Lyncean Academy, was founded in Rome by 18-year-old Federico Cesi, the marquis of Monticelli. They sure don’t make teenagers like they used to.

Instant noodles were invented in 1958 by Momofuku (what a name!) Ando, founder of Nissin Food Products. He was inspired to develop the product after coming across a long line of people waiting to buy fresh ramen noodles from a black market stall during the food shortages after WW2. He died January 5 aged 96... which makes me wonder if instant noodles really are all that bad for health. I need to know because I am addicted to them.

Suor Maria Celeste Galilei (Galileo’s daughter) is buried with him in his tomb in the church of Santa Croce in Florence.

This one’s for those of you with problems controlling the thunder from down under. A US underwear company has given a whole new meaning to “farty pants”. Under-Tec have created undies, called Under-Ease, “a new generation of protective underwear for flatulence”, which they say eliminate pooey pongs. The undies are machine-washable, and can be worn anytime, anywhere, although they are not recommended for use in a hot tub or swimming pool. “Gas Eaters” and plus-sizes also available. It doesn’t say anything about the sound though – guess they’re working on the bum muffler next. I wish there were more photos on the website, too – will the Under-Ease, like adult diapers, make you look like you’ve had a shit in your pants?

I’m committing this one to memory just for all the guys I know. (Evil cackle.) There’s a vampire piscean called the candiru, or toothpick fish, which is small enough to get into teeny orifices... more specifically, the male pisshole. Once inside, it erects a spine and feeds off blood and tissue. (From, where else but the BBC – “10 Things We Didn’t Know” in the Magazine Monitor is fantastic!) Just the sort of mental image you wanna have to get you in the mood for Valentine’s Day.