Raisa came back on Tuesday which completed the picture. You could say we’re ready for C-day. 

We humans need a little reassurance from time to time. Life’s hard enough as it is. At best, it’s a gamble with terrible odds: no one gets out alive. And, just when you think it’s safe to get back on the road and you’re finally on the right track, wham, you’re hit by a truck. 

But there’s hope. The Good Lord never gives you more than you can handle and, occasionally, He throws in a sweetener. 

This is it. 

It’s that season of the year, the time you feel optimistic, even hopeful, for no reason at all. OK, I lied: there’s basis. It’s the most wonderful time for a beer. 

The origins of this particular belief is grounded in basic Newtonian logic. There’s a day coming and it engenders a particular response ergo we have Claus and Effect. 

It has that  effect on people. We went to Pavilion in downtown Kay-El the other day and those guys can put on a show. 

You entered an extravaganza of excess, of Christmastide run amuck. Gaily decorated Christmas trees were ascending the stairs while crystal ropes reflecting a thousand points of light streamed down from the ceiling. 

Draped in electric candles, baubles and crepe, the scene was a riot in silver and gold and red and green. A mistle-toast to the holiday season. Yule be in my heart and then some.

It was so over the top, I found myself grinning.  People were taking selfies against the backdrop and there were pop-up shops doing a brisk trade. 

OK, it’s crass commercialism of the highest order but, boy, does it know how to put on wings! The shops are decked out in ruby red and evergreen hues which gives it warmth and makes it inviting.   

I didn’t know much about Christmas until I met Rebecca in university 48 years ago. 

What I realised immediately was that the whole thing – the season, its essence– gave her great joy.

Very much later, I saw the same joy in my daughter’s eyes when she woke up on Christmas mornings. It was quite a sight to behold and enough to make your heart swell. 

I only converted to Catholicism 29 years after marriage but have participated enthusiastically in all Christmases since we tied the knot. 

It isn’t unusual: I know many non-Christian families who put up trees and give and receive presents among themselves. That’s the Christmas spirit right there. 

As they say during Christmas dinners: “It’s your presents that’s important.” 

OK, that was a joke but you don’t have to be Christian to grasp that Christmas is an occasion where love and family are at its centerpiece.  Or as Charles Schultz, the creator of Peanuts put it, “It’s not what’s under the Christmas tree that matters, it’s who’s around it.” 

At its core, it’s a state of mind: of peace and goodwill to all and to see the best in everyone. 

And then the season will weave its magic spell over the world and cast everything in a softer and more beautiful light.

Merry Christmas everyone. 

ENDS

When he was 24, Paul Simon wrote Old Friends, a hauntingly beautiful song, a line of which went: how terribly strange to be 70. 

When you’re so young, seventy is a light-year away. Simon’s 84: it must be surreal listening to the song now. 

Age brings perspective. 

I think looking 60 is great – only because I’m rubbing shoulders with 70.

I’m just thankful I only have to grow old once: I don’t think I could do it twice.

The problem with the process is that it’s been sanitised to make it more palatable, as if ironing out its wrinkles would magically make the slow disintegration of body and, sometimes, mind wholesome and natural. 

It’s why we have thinkers like Oliver Wendell Holmes rhapsodising about being “70 years young.” Then there’s this moron who warbled about youth being “the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” 

Maybe to Picasso, sketching an elderly fisherman bronzed by the sun and too much wine. Bah, humbug to the rest of us. 

I think the poet Yeats knew where it was at: “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” 

Joan Rivers was more succinct: “Age sucks!” It’s just a step away from loose skin, dribbling and senility. 

To be sure, it can be a state of mind. I mean, if you are reasonably healthy, then it only matters if you are cheese. In Dr Mahathir’s case, he only realised he was geriatric when the candles on his cake resembled a prairie fire. 

There are certain things about getting old that the young will never grasp…until they get there. 

Example: there was this Netflix series The Kaminsky Method. Starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, it was a portrait of ageing masculinity and friendship between two men.

My friends all loved it but it left the younger generation – my daughter, my nephews and nieces – cold. Apparently, there’s an unending generation gap. 

I suppose that’s why they call the younger generation a group that’s alike in many disrespects. 

This “getting old” business is sneaky too: like a fog, it creeps up on you. There you are, just minding your business and, wham, you’re 40.

I was incredulous and not a little outraged when that happened. OK, the outrage stemmed from the fact that it was my birthday but it was also Lent and I was off the booze.

Once you’re over the forties, you’d be surprised how rapidly everything speeds up. Suddenly everything’s in fast forward mode and you’ve officially hit Life In The Fast Lane.  

This does not mean what it does in the West – partying and living it up. It simply means you’ve entered life’s merry-go-round and it’s up to you to keep it merry. 

At least as merry as a man in his late 60s can shape it. Either way, the alternative isn’t worth dwelling on. 

Don’t get me wrong. There are some benefits. I get discounts on rail and bus tickets. Some girl actually offered me her seat on the Aerotrain the other day. Of course, I took it: you never can tell.

There are other benefits. Have you noticed that the older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for? 

Nor do we have to worry about avoiding temptation. At my age, it avoids me like the plague.  

And there are the occasional fillips. In two weeks, I have to attend the birthday of an old friend. Old is the operative word here: he’s as old as some trees in Taman Negara. And, occasionally, he addresses me as “you young whipper-snapper.”  

It is during those moments when I am in my element. 

ENDS

Smith to witness: “You mean he was as drunk as a judge.”

Judge (interrupting): “You mean as drunk as a lord.”

Smith: “Yes, My Lord.”  

It’s a little known fact that raccoons are partial to their tipple of choice.

This explains why when the American state of Virginia outlawed the sale of alcohol to animals, the enactment was greeted by a resounding chorus of booze from a committee of raccoons set up to study the matter. 

The committee was outraged that they hadn’t been consulted. They were doubly outraged because, unlike humans, they weren’t xenophobic. 

They actually liked humans especially Stephen Stills and his pals, one Crosby and Nash. The trio had a song, Love The Wine You’re With, that especially resonated with the alcoholic bandits. 

Also, humans had a tendency to leave trash around which suited the raccoons just fine. 

It’s time to get on with our story which revolves around a grizzled old raccoon. He was from Virginia and, with a nod to  The Beatles, let’s call him Rocky.

Now Rocky had been part of that outraged committee and he was still brooding over the unfairness of the state legislation. 

In the glory days, he’d sampled all brands of beer. Now he was older Budweiser and his kind was suddenly being cut off from the ambrosia, the wellspring of cheer itself. 

He’d been doing what all raccoons do, which was foraging about for food under the cover of darkness. Rocky had been scrambling around on a roof of something when he became aware of a piercing crack. 

The raccoon froze. It was as if the past, the present and the future had all congregated together in this one spot. In fact, you might say it was tense. 

The next second, the ground was giving way under his feet and the old raccoon was tumbling, turning in turmoil, until he hit the ground. He thought he heard glass breaking, bottles smashing… and all the lights went out. 

When Rocky came to, he was in an unfamiliar place with a  strong smell that he recognised. 

He’d fallen into a liquor store and he was inhaling the aroma emanating from smashed bottles.

He liked what he sniffed.

Alcohol consumption is abundant in the natural world and occurs in nearly every natural ecosystem where animals consume sweet fruit and nectar – stuff that easily ferments into alcohol.  

More to the point, scientists have recently discovered raccoons living in close proximity to humans begin exhibiting signs of domestication – shorter snouts and curlier tails. 

In Rocky’s case, it had also morphed into a taste for the finer things in life like a predilection for Laphroaig 10, a smoky blended single malt whiskey that regularly knocked the socks off (former Health Minister) Ling Liong Sik in times of yore. 

Rocky thought he’d died and gone to Heaven. Everywhere he looked, there was a single malt: a Glenfiddich here, a Glenmorangie there, a Laphroaig everywhere. 

He came, he saw and he conquered. That is to say, he tasted, he imbibed, he got smashed. 

Which brings us to last Saturday, when an employee opening Joe’s Finest Liquors  was startled by smashed liquor bottles and a trail that led to the bathroom where he discovered a drunk, sleeping and spreadeagled raccoon. 

The masked miscreant shook off his stupor after a few hours of sleep. For his part, Rocky seemed none the worse for wear and even tried to purloin a few whiskey bottles to take home. The attempt was firmly rebuffed by Joe himself who felt he’d lost enough.

It just showed that the raccoon had never been drunk at all because he fitted Ogden Nash’s definition of not being soused. 

“He is not drunk, who from the floor, can rise and stand and shout for more.” 

ENDS

Crime does not pay…..as well as politics.

It appears that justice has been served. 

Or has it?

On Tuesday, Kuala Lumpur’s High Court ordered the sister of fugitive businessman Jho “Felonious” Low and his shyster sidekick Eric Tan to pay US$2.8 billion (RM11.6 billion) to 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) over “tainted proceeds” that belonged to the sovereign wealth fund.

“The evidence before this court indicates an elaborate fraud,”  Justice Mahajan Mohd Taib said. 

Apparently, the prosecution had very credible evidence. “Their evidence stands unchallenged,” said the Judge. 

That’s because it wasn’t. Nor did the duo even show because everyone knew they were guilty as sin.   

That included both of them which was why they hadn’t shown up in the first place. 

In short, it was meaningless where justice was concerned. 

Jho Low et al had a good laugh over the entire proceedings going on in Malaysia. The fat fraud had already been convicted in absentia by the Malaysian courts. Now it was only proper that his sister and his sidekick should follow suit. 

Justice should prevail, he reflected soberly. And he thought the whole “in absentia” stuff was swell. 

It affirmed his guilt but he remained free to do whatever he pleased.  

It included, but wasn’t limited to, fraud. Strictly speaking, though, Felonious’ crime wasn’t fraud. Given its scale, it was more like Grand Theft National if you really thought about it. 

Jibsworth aka former Premier Najib Razak and Fatso had stolen over US$4.5 billion (RM18.63 billion) from 1MDB, a sovereign wealth fund that they had set up to expressly defraud.   

Malaysian taxpayers are still paying off its debt. 

Let’s face it. Jibsworth has gotten off lightly so far. Despite his crime and his standing at the time of said theft, his original sentence of 12 years has been halved which means he may be released as early as 2026. 

Not only that. He’s applied for house arrest – unprecedented in this country – and that case is being heard as early as December 22.

It appears that when you’ve been a former premier, all sorts of new precedents appear. 

It does not seem to apply to former deputy premiers though: witness Anwar Ibrahim’s treatment during the tenures of both Dr Mahathir and Jibsworth.

There’s one fly in the ointment. That’s the MAIN verdict Jibsworth must be bracing himself for which is set for December 26. 

This is the result of the case against Najib regarding the entire 1MDB  scheme: the trial dragged on for almost two years. 

The previous 12-year sentence revolved around the theft of over  RM40 million from a 1MDB subsidiary. 

You could  say Jibsworth’s troubles aren’t over yet. Not by a long sentence…I mean, chalk.  

Digesting all this as thoughtfully as he might caviar, Felonious came to the same conclusion he’d  arrived at every time he thought of his former mentor: better him than me!

Felonious knew he had most things covered. He had no fear of hell and he thanked God he was an atheist.  

Better still, he was Rich with Other People’s Money and he could still look himself in the mirror. 

And if he occasionally stumbled over the truth, he was still able to pick himself up and continue. 

So long as he wasn’t anywhere near Malaysia. 

ENDS

Erica Jong is an American novelist whose 1974 bestseller Fear of Flying vividly captured the challenges faced by a Jewish poet living alone in New York City during the 1970s. 

Mirelle E is less well known. Even so, her book detailing the  challenges faced by an aspiring French chef struggling with a morbid fear of hot oil won plaudits. Fear of Frying went on to become a literary  smash.

Literary, yes. Culinary, not so much: an  irrational fear of hot oil can thwart the best intentions for boeuf bourguignon.

Most people have some minor phobias. The most common is social phobia or a fear of social interaction. 

Other common fears are those associated with snakes, heights, spiders and public speaking. 

I found out I had a phobia of using bridges over busy highways. I have no problem with bridges over water but for some inexplicable reason, the thought of having traffic moving under my feet gives me the heebie-jeebies. 

Solution: I avoid them like the plague and cross the street at the traffic lights instead. 

In China, this can be a challenge as an intersection can have as much as 10 lanes. Walking mighty fast is the prescribed way to go.

But some fears are really way out there, as weird as Al Yankovich.

There is Anatidaephobia which is an irrational fear of being watched by a duck.

Say you are an inordinate fancier of duck, preferably roasted in Peking. And then say you were walking in Central Park and become aware you are the subject of an intense, malevolent scrutiny: it usually comes from the duck pond. 

This is when strong men afflicted with Anatidaephobia head for the hills. 

There is a particular phobia that’s only associated with the leaders of Singapore. It’s called chidephobia and is characterised by an irrational,  obsessive, and deeply suspicious fear of chewing gum. The mere sight of someone chewing gum or it Just-Being-There can trigger consequences like a blanket ban.

Then there’s Cenosillicaphobia which is a fear of an empty beer glass. This is an honest-to-goodness anxiety, a vox-populi fear if you like, especially if said  “people” are patrons of a nearby pub.

An absolutely ridiculous fear is aibohphobia which is a fear of palindromes. A palindrome is, of course, a word or phrase that reads the same forwards or backwards. Examples would be “racecar”; “Dammit, I’m mad” or, “Able was I ere I saw Elba.”

Ironically, “aibohphobia” is also a palindrome. This revelation is generally sufficient to send said sufferer screaming into the night. 

Arachibutyrophobia has those afflicted fearful of having peanut butter stuck to the roof of their mouths. They should be given a public flogging and banned from eating the stuff. 

I’m convinced my wife has some sort of nomophobia which is a fear of being without a mobile phone. People with pogonophobia should never, ever travel to Afghanistan. The condition describes a fear of beards.  

Meanwhile, the Trumpinator has a fear of bad hair days followed by funerals.

It came to light after the recent passing of former US Vice-President Dick Cheney. The President wasn’t invited to the former Republican’s  funeral. Since he feared funerals anyway, it was no skin of the presidential nose but he couldn’t help himself. 

“Dick Cheney who was a loser and a terrible person will be lucky to get a thousand people at his funeral,” the Donald posted on Truth Social. “My funeral will draw MILLIONS.” 

Insisting that his demise would attract a record turnout, the President concluded: “Every day, people say to me, “Sir, I can’t wait for that day to come.” 

ENDS

A little stupidity can go a long way 

I’ve mixed feelings about artificial intelligence. 

It’s a tad too succinct for my taste. 

Example: a friend asked ChatGPT: Who is Dr Rebecca Sta Maria’s husband? Its reply was terse: “A Malaysian Indian.” No bells, no whistles.  I mean, really!

Not the best answer, I don’t think. 

Anyway, I asked it today: “Did the Romans really  learn shipbuilding from the Malays? 

Its reply was swift: No.  

And it paused meaningfully as if it wanted to add, “Duh!” 

I think artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. And, as if to prove my point, there’s  Islamic University Professor Dr Solehah Yaacob who, in an academic treatise, claimed the ancient Romans learnt shipbuilding from the Malays. “We taught them everything they knew,” quoth the nutty professor. 

History indicates that Rome already had a formidable navy 264 years before Jesus. Meanwhile, there is no mention of a Malay Navy let alone a shipbuilding industry. 

There doesn’t seem to have been one 1,800  years later either: old Alfonso sailed up the Malacca River to claim its port in the name of Portugal’s King Manuel against little  opposition. 

Indeed, Solehah’s original premise attracted criticism from her peers who wished she would concentrate on more important matters like the position of bomohs in Malaysian society. 

Did Solehah balk?

Not by the hairs on her chinny-chin-chin. 

In a Facebook post that all but spluttered, the angry academic and self-styled  thought expert stood by her theory, which she said was “developed through extensive study of classical Arabic sources.”

“My hypothesis concerning the achievements of the Malays and the borrowings of the Romans may be right or wrong. However, in both our academic and Islamic traditions, we are taught to respect differing opinions,” she wrote.

It was a crafty dig at her detractors. The thought-expert was pointing out that her critics were wrong, if not unkind, to criticise her research if it was flawed because  she stood ready to  accept all “differing” views. 

“Unlike the Europeans, who were largely continental, the Malays were a maritime civilisation… I firmly believe that the Malays were among the first peoples in human civilisation to develop the art of shipbuilding.”

Malaysia has never displayed any indigenous shipbuilding capability, certainly not once since independence in 1957. The awkward academic does not consider the point relevant.

Among Asian countries, South Korea and Japan stand out as two countries that make vessels of intelligent design. China, however, is the most prolific. 

The lecturer has had a history of controversy. She once asserted that the Malays could fly: she did not cite any airline. 

She’s also cited The Onion as a research source. It’s anything but: The Onionis a US-based satirical read although its editors must have been delighted by its Solehah-induced elevation. 

The indignant Solehah now says she’s the victim of a “media lynching.”

Even her university has distanced itself from her remarks, saying it regrets her actions, “which have tarnished our reputation.” More ominously, it’s launched an internal investigation into the matter. 

The abrasive academic had the last word though, “I sincerely hope that all forms of slander, insult, disinformation, and ridicule will come to an end,” she concluded.

So do we and there’s a moral here. 

Talking cock can, and sometimes will, come back to haunt you. 

ENDS

If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

It’s not easy being a pig.

On the one hand, you could feel like a leper in Biblical times, pursued by accusatory chants of “Yuck” or “Unclean!” 

And on the other, you might be regarded affectionately, even covetously. This is always perilous with flashing red lights written all over it. Heading for the hills with all possible haste is generally  recommended, as covetous eyes of that sort generally measure pigs as so much bak kut teh (braised pork ribs).

There’s even more swinish stuff in the adjectives associated with the beast. “Pig-like” is uniformly nasty whether in reference to one’s eyes or one’s behaviour.

But our story belongs to Buffalo, a city in the state of New York and close enough to Canada to render refrigerators redundant during winter. 

More importantly, our pig was a native of Buffalo and had been brought up by its owner, one Norman “Norm” Brezinzki, an affable Polish-American policeman who never met a beer he didn’t drink.

Everybody loved Norm because he loved life and lived it to the fullest. In 2016, for example, he gave up alcohol and women. 

He later confessed it was the “worst day” of his life. 

The life-loving cop also adored his food although he believed “you are what you eat” so he avoided fruit and nuts altogether. He thought steaks were as American as the flag and insisted bacon was an essential food group. 

In short, he did not so much eat food as inhale it and thought sacred cows made the best hamburger. 

He was also deeply prejudiced and felt vegetarians were Communist, homosexual, or both.

Even his friends noticed that farm animals like cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry seemed uneasy in his presence. Once, a goldfish in a neighbour’s tank actually suffered cardiac arrest after Norm stared at it. 

You can see which way this story is heading. By the way, did I mention that the pig he’d nurtured, nourished and fattened so lovingly was named Breakfast?

The same realisation did not escape the perspicacious porker either.  

As a sensitive swine of the sort that had seen Babe, Breakfast could read the writing on the wall. He could add up two and two just as well as the President and he’d noticed the signs: the covetous glances, those greedy eyes and, worse, the furtive sharpening of blades when Norm thought he was asleep.

He knew the stakes as well as anyone. A hen might contribute to bacon and eggs but, for the pig, it was a lifetime’s commitment. 

He was a sensitive grunter and so, as sensitive grunters go, he went. 

In short, Brezinski’s Breakfast Bolted. 

You might say the pig hogged the headlines the next day. 

Residents in Victor Place of Buffalo said their neighbourhood erupted into chaos Wednesday afternoon when “a large pig” ran through the area, chased locals and dug up gardens looking for truffles. 

Why truffles, you might ask? Why not, was the porcine perpetrator’s answer. 

He was terrified of Norm and had been planning the breakout for some time. The cop discovered a tunnel that led under his back fence. 

It was Breakfast’s finest hour or, as Hollywood would have it, The Boar Shank Redemption.

ENDS

“A malaprop walks into a bar looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.“

The joke lies in “malaprop,” a mistaken use of a word in place of a similar- sounding one. It made the sentence very funny.  

In truth, many grammatical oddities in English can be amusing, even banalities like collective nouns. 

 A collective noun is a word used to name a group of people, animals, or things so that they might be treated as a single unit. An example would be a “team” of players.

How might we break this down further?  

In Malaysia we have pesky Mat Rempit and far too many Datuks for love or money. 

Maybe they might be grouped like so: a “nuisance of Rempit” or  an “irrelevance of Datuks.” 

It was a diehard Communist Nikita Khrushchev who dismissed politicians as being the same the world over. “They promise to build a bridge even when there is no river,” he grumbled to then US vice-president Richard Nixon. 

A “mendacity of politicians,” perhaps? 

Collective nouns for people are unsurprising as in a “band of musicians,” or a “flock of tourists.” 

But there is also a “bench of magistrates.” And, an “illusion of magicians” and a “coven of witches”.

Lest we forget, there’s  also a “piety of priests,” a “lying of pardoners,” and a “confederacy of dunces.” 

How would we group women of the night, those red-light temptresses? 

A “stable of prostitutes” perhaps,  even a “warren of whores?”

We up our game considerably  with excellent substitutes such as: a “tray of tarts,” a “flourish of strumpets” and, wait for it, “an anthology of pros.”

Collective  nouns for things or inanimate objects are more prosaic as in a “range of mountains” or a “fleet of ships.”

But there are phrases that trip off the tongue more felicitously such as a “giggle of clowns,” a “quiver of arrows” and a “riot of colour.” 

There’s also a “superfluity of nuns,” an ironic reference to the over-abundance of said species during  medieval times.

But the imaginative reach of the collective noun truly flourishes when used to group animals.

Who was the wordsmith who coined a “murder of crows” or a “parliament of owls.”  

Credit the  linguistic stylist who invented a “pandemonium of parrots” and a “shrewdness of apes.” 

There are stranger associations like a “plague of lemmings.” It’s largely associated with the animal’s propensity to  throw themselves en masse off the cliffs of Madagascar into the seas below. 

An Oxford wag used the trait as an argument for mass suicide. He scribbled this opinion on a bathroom wall in the university: “A 100,000 lemmings can’t be wrong.” 

Indeed, group descriptions pile up. There is a “flamboyance of flamingos”, a “crash of rhinos” and, a “business of ferrets.” 

Owing to their tendency to engage in deep and crafty machination, there is a “conspiracy of lemurs.” 

Finally, there’s an “unkindness of ravens,” a “wisdom of wombats” and a “tower of giraffes.” 

OK, this should satisfy even the most pedantic of pundits. 

ENDS

The only  constant, we are told, is change.

My wife can attest to it. In 1986 and still in her 20s, she led a Malaysian trade mission to Japan to promote our contract shoe-makers.

During the first bilateral meeting, the Japanese hosts belatedly twigged that   Rebecca-san was chairing the session. 

Scandalised, the all-male contingent walked out. In high dudgeon no less! 

Today, my wife’s Japanese friends are incredulous that it ever happened. 

As if to underscore the point, Sanae Takaichi, 64,  got sworn in as Japan’s first woman Prime Minister three days ago. 

That’s not the only change. Over the last 13 years, the yen has lost half its value against the US dollar. The upshot: tourism is booming in the Land of the Rising Sun.

We can vouch for it. Kyoto is so clogged with tourists that walking through its streets last week reminded me of trying to navigate Singapore’s Orchard Road on foot on a Sunday morning, 

There’s a difference: Orchard’s wider. Kyoto was relatively spared the heavy bombing the US dished out to other Japanese cities during the 2nd World War. 

Harry Truman thought, as Kyoto was a seat of Japanese culture, it should be preserved. 

Today, cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe have been made over with skyscrapers and wide boulevards. 

In contrast, Kyoto has no skyscrapers to speak of and is fed through a network of narrow lanes that can make even a taxi ride slightly harrowing.

Throw in thousands of camera-toting,  guidebook-clutching tourists and you can see why walking the streets can be tricky. 

The massive influx of tourists isn’t universally adored. According to news reports, many Kyoto locals resent the intrusion and an attendant loss of privacy. 

If I never see a temple again, it will be too soon! Kyoto has 1,600 temples and our guide Tossy-san seemed determined to eradicate our alarming ignorance about all things Zen Buddhist. 

Tossy-san used to be the quintessential salaryman, a former Sharp executive who’d been to Singapore and the US for work-related trips.

Now 76, he relishes what he does, conducting tours of Kyoto’s shrines and tea-gardens, a sort of Zen-style-ramble through-the-bramble.  

Despite their Unesco Heritage status, the temples left me cold. But the gardens were different. Meticulously raked gravel, carefully  placed rocks, ponds with a bridge, carp and surrounding trees. It was, explained Tossy, meant to conjure a contemplative environment, a rest for the senses, if you like.  

You can get dinner at Lawsons, the Japanese 7-11. And their variety in vending machines is unbelievable – anything from pizza to hot noodles. 

The shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto to Tokyo travels at an average 285 km/hour and it’s an instructive ride. 

A crazy quilt of urban life rushes past, almost coming up to the train windows, a jumble of gray: houses, shops, hotels and factories sit cheek by jowl in an unending stream. The scene shifts suddenly,  giving way to fields of rice so green Pas would have cheered.

Then the train hits  Yokohama and it pauses only to begin  zooming out a minute later. Indeed, speed is of the essence: even a minute’s delay can elicit an apology from the service. 

Therefore, a minute before the stop, passengers are advised to get their luggage, the better to leave without delay. 

An almost continuous urban sprawl flashes past now. And it goes all the way to Tokyo.  

That’s why you aren’t surprised to learn Malaysia’s entire population could fit into Greater Tokyo. 

With room to spare too.

ENDS 

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity – Musician Frank Zappa

Scientists now believe that the primary biological function of breasts is to make males stupid – American columnist Dave Barry

They’ve their own Wikipedia page and have now broken into the Oxford English Dictionary as a genuine, if annoying, collective noun. 

It isn’t funny – according to the Star, they are at least 200,000 strong.

They are the Mat Rempit, Malaysia’s very own Heels-on-Wheels, hooligans on motorcycles, who engage in a variety of sociopathic behavior from causing public disturbances to violent crime. 

They only come out at night and they are the lean and hungry type. The bozos ride noisy motorbikes, are uniformly young and generally comprise ethnic Malays who count bike stunts as a 21st Century form of getting the girl. 

Why do they do it?

 “Why not?” would be the response. Tell that to the poor housing-estate resident  trying to get some sleep amid the roar of souped-up motorcycles racing around his neighborhood at 2 in the morning.

And it will get worse because they are Rebels Without A Pause.

They aren’t too smart. Given the risks of their “sport” – it’s against the law and dangerous to say the least. You’d think a fellow with a modicum of common sense would know better than to race in city traffic at terrifying speeds thereby risking liberty, limb, and life itself. 

It just goes to show that you can never underestimate the power of human stupidity in large groups.

The term “Rempit” is thought to come from “ramp (rev) it” or to ramp up the throttle. Mat is general slang for a young Malay male. 

Although their budgets only allow for the cheapest bikes, most of their vehicles have are extensively modified for greater speed. 

As if to complete their outlaw image, most of these Easy Rider-wannabes don’t have valid licenses, nor do they pay any road taxes. Indeed, police checks often show that many of their bikes are stolen.

The sub-culture isn’t peculiarly Malaysian where this region is concerned.  Similar motorcycle-based gangs exist in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, The Philippines and Cambodia. 

Not surprisingly, it does not exist in strictly-regulated Singapore or the rich and thinly populated Brunei. One suspects Laos and Myanmar have bigger problems – poverty and rebellion for starters – than to worry about hormone-crazed idiots suicidally bent on racing one another into the ground. 

The immediate menace of the Mat Rempit  has receded in Kuala Lumpur. This follows constant police crackdowns after violence by the bikers spiked in the early 2000s. Walkways between buildings also cut snatch thieving considerably.

Old Mat Rempit don’t die, they just putter away. Even so, there is a proposition that says everyone’s path to maturity is weathered by some semblance of “Mat Rempitism.”

Its proof is a form of Murphy’s Law and it goes like this:

Good judgment comes from experience and experience can only come from bad judgment. 

You see? There but for the grace of God, go we. 

ENDS.