Boston building

A recently surfaced picture from 1956 by one Brian Lord. This was the junction of Penang Road and Prangin Road with a well-known curved Boston building as the landmark feature. The view was still unhindered save for the overhead electrical lines to power the electric trams that roamed the town. This building still exists but sadly, the view is now completely obliterated by an unsightly pedestrian bridge. 

The ground floor was occupied by several retail shoplots selling fabric and shoes, and it included a photo studio. On the upper two floors were the Boston Café and the Boston Bar. The top floor must be the Café and it was an open-air café with chic blinds that were lowered to cut off the sunlight. Was the Bar on the middle floor air-conditioned? Most probably not but it is hard to say from the picture! Unfortunately they were out of bounds to youngsters like myself and I have no idea what sort of patrons these places attracted. There were two entrances into the building. At the far left was a staircase leading to the Café while at the other end was another staircase going up to the Bar. 

Of interest are the advertisements on the building itself. The most prominent was that of the Labour Soap which lit up the junction with neon lights in the evenings and featured an animated blacksmith hammering on an anvil. The Labour Soap was not a facial or body soap but used for laundry and washing pots and pans. When the anvil was struck, yellow sparks ⚡⚡ radiated out. Below it was a Tiger Beer advertisement with the immortal tagline, Time for a Tiger. 

Below the Boston Bar name could be seen the advertisements for films screened at the nearby Cathay and Odeon, both cinemas belonging to the Cathay Organisation. The former was proclaiming The Ten Commandments while the latter was showing The Last Paradise. It must have been towards the end of 1956 when this picture was taken because one of the shops was displaying an "Xmas Sale" banner. Behind the Labour Soap advertisement was another smaller shared signboard for both the Cathay and Odeon cinemas. There was also an Ovaltine advertisement on the side wall of a shop along Penang Road.

I've several more pictures to show of the same junction:

This second picture showed another view of the same busy junction. No idea who the photographer was but I suspect the year could be 1961 or 1962. In those days, films were incredibly notorious to reach this part of the world, maybe at least a year or two after its initial release in their home countries, unless they were really exceptional. So at about this time in the picture, Cathay was screening Holiday for Lovers (released in 1959) while at Odeon, it was the 1960 film, The Loves of Hercules. I also spotted an India Tyres hoarding board further down Penang Road. More pictures below.

These two black-and-white pictures should be about the same period as the above colour picture. Circle of Deception was released in 1959 and should have reached our shores one or two years later. Unfortunately, there's no knowing what Odeon was screening. By the way, trishaws are still around in Penang although they are no longer the kings of the road.

A third colour picture of the junction. I would believe that it could have been taken at a slightly later period in the 1960s. The overhead electrical lines are still there and it needs some further poking around to find out when the electric trolleybuses were taken off the roads. I can't see clearly whether the advertisements for the two cinemas were still there below the Boston Bar's windows but the India Tyres signboard further down the road had disappeared. {Update: The trolleybuses were removed from service on 31 July 1961.]

And this is the fourth colour picture of the Boston building that I was able to retrieve. The credit is given to a Ronnie Lee and it could have been the later part of the 1980s. Unfortunately, only part of the building could be seen but it was clear that the façade had already underwent extensive renovation. The windows of the Café and Bar have been glass-paned and the establishments likely fully air-conditioned. It seemed to me too that the Labour Soap advertisement had been dismantled. The textile shop could be called Ai Wah but it needs confirmation. The pink building further up Penang Road was the Chowrasta Market.

Today, this is the fate of the Boston building; the image retrieved from Google Maps. It's sad, forgotten and abandoned. Devoid of even a roof. A victim of the Penang Island City Council's decision - and by extension the Penang Government's - to build an overhead pedestrian crossing at where Penang Road, Burmah Road and Prangin Road meet. This concrete mess is not even well utilised despite an attempt in some recent years to improve on it by attaching lifts beside the staircases to make it friendlier to the disabled community. So you have one end of the pedestrian crossing with its two staircases ending right up against the Boston building. It is no wonder that the small businesses here have all closed up and moved away. For an iconic building right in the midst of the city, this has become its sad ending. 

[NOTE: There is also a Part 2 to this story. Chick here to read Part 2.}

English

I came across this image recently which listed some differences between British English and American English. Of course, such a list is never complete and I know of many other differences as well. 

The English taught in Malaysian schools historically follows British English standards but in everyday use, due to the influence from American television programmes, much Americanism has crept into Malaysian English and the people here tend to mix the usage. Thankfully, there has been no adverse effect on understanding.

Thus, there is a preference for apartment, chips, corn, eraser, highway, movie and stove. But we more or less still stick to using lift, tap, rubbish, petrol, number plate, queue, football, lorry, taxi and garden. We don't say subway or underground here though. It has always been LRT, the short-form for light rail transit. And instead of Scotch tape or Sellotape, I believe many of us still say cellophane tape.

Oh yah, I do have a list of my own on my computer. It is slightly more extensive that what is seen here. Perhaps one day, I'll remember to share it here on my blog. 

Kasparov on Ukraine

Gary Kasparov, the former world chess champion who now lives in New York, has made his views very clear on Twitter about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

 

Putin's Achilles heel is that he and his mafia keep their money, assets, and families in the free world they say they despise. This helped them spread corruption, but it also gives tremendous leverage--if we're finally willing to use it. https://t.co/Cu6fPJdCEK

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 24, 2022

 

Ok, after years of warnings were ignored and hearing "Garry, you were right!" all damn day today, I'll repeat what I said in 2014: Stop telling me I was right and listen to what I'm saying now. My recommendations follow: 1/5

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) February 24, 2022

Beauty of two

I'm not unaware of the term palindrome. I've known of this word since schooldays. Kids nowadays don't read a lot but back in my days, we did. My dictionary defines it as a word or phrase "that is the same whether you read it backwards or forwards," but I suppose it can refer to a string of numbers too. But ambigram? Now, that's a new word to me! Until today, I did not even know that such a word existed, let alone know what it meant. It's so rare that it does not even appear in my dictionary! But the Internet comes to the rescue, telling me that it means something that reads the same even if you turn it upside down. Thus, we come to today's date, which if written as shown above, is both a palindrome and an ambigram. 

But there's more to today. Another string of numbers to consider for today is 22222222222 which consists of 11 consecutive twos. This specific string really won't happen again for another hundred years by which time I can safely say all of us will no longer be around. This number can be translated as the 22nd of February 2022 at 22:22.22(pm). What's more, it occurs on a Tuesday, it being the second day of a week. So we have 22222222222 as a palindrome and ambigram occurring on the second day of the week in the second month of the year. 

PS. Somehow I feel all this discussion is somewhat frivolous because we are showing a font typically used in old LED displays. If we were to type in Arial or Times New Roman, for example, there's nothing to suggest that these numbers are an ambigram. 

Funk #49

I first heard The James Gang's Funk #49 in 1970 or 1971. Sixteen or 17 years old at that time. Music was played over Radio RAAF Butterworth (1445 kHz medium wave band). Great local radio station run by Aussies. As I couldn't find the vinyl record, my next best alternative was to buy The James Gang: 15 Greatest Hits on compact disc at some time in the last decade. 

I uncovered this music video when going through YouTube recently. A bunch of seasoned old guys jamming for 10 minutes on Funk #49. Their jamming does not get any better. Joe Walsh (b 1947) and Robert "Waddy" Wachtel (b 1947) on guitar, Leland "Lee" Sklar (b 1947) on bass and Ben "Benmont" Tench (b 1953) on keyboards. Impressive synchronisation between Ringo Starr and Russ Kunkel (b 1948) on drums, You'd never believe that Ringo Starr (b 1940) was the oldest among the sextet. Collectively, their ages added up to about 450 years. Whew! 

If you like this video, you are asked to donate to http://www.vetsaid.org/joe-walsh 

A nightmare?

Another Ed Sullivan moment. The Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan Show on 09 Feb 1964. Immediately, the United States was transformed into two groups. The youths of America were solidly behind this British invasion but typically, the adults were horrified. 

Newsweek, for example, reviewed the performance in less-than-glowing terms. 

"Visually, they are a nightmare: tight, dandified, Edwardian/Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair," they wrote. "Musically, they are a near-disaster: guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony, and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of “yeah, yeah, yeah!”) are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments. The odds are they will fade away, as most adults confidently predict.”

And then, there was this typical opinion piece that appeared in an American newspaper two days later. It is completely laughable when read today because like the rest of the mainstream and conservative media there, how wrong could they be?

If Ed Sullivan can find no better use for the time allotted him on Sunday night than to devote it to such exhibitions as he presented last Sunday night I suggest that CBS-TV find something else to put in this hour of prime time...

Why Sullivan found it necessary to aid in the phony promotion of four rock 'n' roll exponents, all of whom resemble Moe of the Three Stooges, is beyond comprehension. And why he felt it necessary to "load" the theater with screaming teen-age girls when he normally restricts his audience to grownups, is also a mystery. 

It was obvious to those who saw the Beatles, four young fellows from Great Britain, that they have not attained their present notoriety on the basis of their musical talents, for the sounds emanating from their mouths were anything but melodic.

Shorn of their mop-like hairdos they would look and sound like many other inferior rock 'n' roll groups which are still attempting to keep alive the fad which died when Elvis Presley entered the armed forces.

There is nothing attractive about the looks or the sounds of the Beatles,

UPDATE: Newsweek wasn't the only mass media that refused to accept that The Beatles' music was here to stay, but who could blame them? Several other newspapers in the United States were derisive of the band as well:

“The Beatles’ vocal quality can be described as hoarsely incoherent, with the minimal enunciation necessary to communicate the schematic texts.” - New York Times

 "With their bizarre shrubbery, the Beatles are obviously a press agent’s dream combo. Not even their mothers would claim that they sing well. But the hirsute thickets they affect make them rememberable, and they project a certain kittenish charm which drives the immature, shall we say, ape.” - LA Times 

“The Beatles are not merely awful; I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are god awful. They are so unbelievably horribly, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as “anti-popes.”” - Boston Globe 

"The Beatles must be a huge joke, a wacky gag, a gigantic put-on. And if, as the fellow insisted on What’s My Line?, they’re selling 20,000 Beatle wigs a day in New York at $2.98 a shake — then I guess everyone wants to share the joke. And the profits.” - Chicago Tribune 

“Don’t let the Beatles bother you. If you don’t think about them, they will go away, and in a few more years they will probably be bald….” - Boston Globe

Not the best of friends

I came across this interesting post on the Sunset Blvd Records facebook page. Let me just add that Ed Sullivan can't be the best of friends with many pop groups or singers that had appeared on his television shows, not just Buddy Holly alone. He was an overbearing prick but in all fairness, he could - or his people could - sense the future direction that music would take. His TV shows were the launchpad of many successful entertainers.

The legendary Buddy Holly and TV host Ed Sullivan - obviously not the best of friends - here's the story!

On January 26, 1958, Buddy Holly and the Crickets made their second and final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show—this time earning the well-known wrath of the host. 

They were scheduled to perform their hit “Oh, Boy!,” but Sullivan told them to substitute it because he felt it was too raucous. You can imagine how that went over, though, and Holly told him he’d already told his hometown friends that was the song he was going to be performing. And that was that.

Sullivan summoned the Crickets to a last-minute rehearsal the afternoon of the show, but when he got to their dressing room only Holly was there. When asked where the others were, Holly said, “I don’t know. No telling.” Sullivan said, “Well, I guess The Crickets are not too excited to be on The Ed Sullivan Show,” to which Holly replied, “I hope they’re damn more excited than I am.” By that time Ed was completely steamed.

He cut the Crickets’ act from two songs to one, and he mispronounced Holly’s name when he introduced them as “Buddy Hollet and his Crickets.” In addition, the line feed for Holly’s electric guitar was turned off, and he tried to compensate by singing as loudly as he could and repeatedly trying to turn up the volume on his guitar. He finally let loose with a dramatic solo during the instrumental break so the audience would know the technical fault wasn’t his.

In the end Buddy Holly and the Crickets were so well received that Sullivan invited them back for a third time, but Holly’s response was that Sullivan didn’t have enough money for that.

The first Tiger full moon

Time: 8.57pm on 16 Feb 2022. Camera: Olympus EPL7 with zoom lens set at 150mm focal length, ISO 1000, aperture f5.6 and shutter speed 1/400s. Image digitally sharpened and enhanced for shadows and highlights. 

When I posted this picture of the first fully full moon of the Year of the Tiger on my facebook page a few hours ago this night, I received some comments from friends asking how this could be possible, especially as the 15th day of the first Chinese lunar month, or Chap Goh Meh, was yesterday. Why should the full moon occur on the 16th day and not the 15th day?!

Next year's Chinese New Year will be on 22 Jan 2023

The answer is actually quite simple, in my opinion. The moon's revolution around the earth relative to the sun takes about 29.53 days. If one were to take an overall look at the Chinese lunar calendar, one will notice that a Chinese lunar month will consist of either 29 or 30 full days. 

I've come to realise that when the lunar month contains 30 days, the full moon will generally fall on the 16th day. On very rare occasions, even spilling over into the wee early hours of the 17th morning. Whereas, if there are only 29 days, the full moon will occur on the 15th night itself. There are other variables involved but this is my rule-of-thumb. To me, this layman's logic works well enough. So do get out to enjoy the full moon tonight!

Scaled back offerings

For the second straight year, my clansman Kongsi was unable to celebrate the annual Chap Goh Meh worship on a normal scale. Again, we were forced to cut back on the offerings due to the sudden increase in Omicron variant cases in Penang. But although the worship was scaled back, we were still able to present a decent enough offering at the altars. I hope our resident deities, especially Tai Tay Eah and Tua Pek Kong, will pardon us for this year's spread. 😀

The Seng Lay is a must on such occasions since the Kongsi does not offer vegetarian food for worship. As explained by a friend of Baba-Nyonya background, the Seng Lay is fundamentally meat offerings from land, water and air; which is why we have pork, duck and chicken. But that is being true to its origin. In order to simplify the worship, the duck and chicken are substituted with chicken and duck eggs. But a generous strip of roast pork is usually retained to complete the picture. I'm told that some people do not consider the duck as fully representing meat from the water and hence, they offer fish or cuttlefish at the altar.

Now that Chap Goh Meh has ended, the next Chinese festival to look forward to will be Cheng Beng at the start of April. Will the Omicron numbers go down sufficiently by then to allow us a return to the cemeteries?

Chap Goh Meh

Today is Chap Goh Meh, the 15th day of the Chinese New Year. In the olden days, this was a real festive delight where damsels were allowed out of their houses dressed in their finery and costume. Young eligible bachelors had a field day to admire them from afar. On the night of this full moon day, the damsels would have an excuse to throw oranges into the rivers or sea in the hope of landing a good catch. Well, they must have something to do, don't they, other than just parading around town? Prospective admirers would follow from a respectful distance to see where they stayed. If they were lucky, their households would soon be receiving visits from matchmakers and thus, resulting in fruitful lifelong partnerships. Modern-day girls are more daring. The young women now write their contact numbers on the oranges. What's more, with permanent indelible ink. This removes all the allure and romance from a Chap Goh Meh courtship. Where's the traditional fun when the women are the ones pushing?

Today is also the 80th anniversary of the British surrender in Singapore to the invading Japanese military, thus sparking off three and a half years of Japanese rule and atrocities. This took place on 15 February 1942 and it completed the rout of the British army in the Malayan peninsula which began with the landing of Japanese troops on the shores of Kelantan on 8 December 1941.

  

KN100 surgical particulate respirator

Due to this current surge in the omicron variant, I've turned to using this KN100 surgical face mask (correct term is particulate respirator but I'll simply call it a face mask for short) for protection whenever I'm out to certain crowded places like the morning wet markets and shopping malls. I own two types of this mask: the coloured version has an anti-viral copper oxide coating that is meant to neutralise the virus upon contact with the mask. Otherwise, the other type is simply white without the coating.

Both these Cnitizer-brand KN100 face masks are a marked step higher in quality than the regular KN95 face masks that have flooded the pharmacies and online shopping websites. The mask is locally made but has earned certification and accreditation from this independent laboratory in Malaysia known as My Co2 Sdn Bhd. 

How many mask manufacturers do you know that are unafraid to display their lab test results on their products for public scrutiny? Not this KN100 face mask manufacturer! I see those lab test results on every box of their surgical face masks, and I feel very reassured every time because all the laboratory test results consistently surpass the recommended international standards. 

The three specifications everyone should be aware of are the Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE), Particulate Filtration Efficiency (PFE) and the MPPS (Most Penetrating Particle Size). In these areas the results for this particular KN100 face mask came out better than the specs. The Differential Pressure gauge or breathability is also important to me as I would want to know whether I'd feel comfortable wearing the mask for long periods. I do not feel uncomfortable, although I would still recommend removing it when you are breathing in a safer space, for example, if you are alone in your own car.

Know the difference

This information is gleaned from fortune.com: a breakdown of the typical symptoms for each type of infection, as reported by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), scientific studies, doctors, and experts.

Don't let price compromise your health

The recent surge of the omicron variant of Covid-19 should be a cause of concern for everybody. Although we have the Health Ministry trying to play it down by releasing daily statistics showing that the severity is low - about 99.5 percent of reported cases are categorised in Categories 1 and 2, meaning either asymptomatic or very mild - we have the virus ripping through the community almost unchecked.

It is left to the people to check ourselves whether we are infected or not, because that's the new standard operating procedure for life to return to almost near normal. Employers are now requiring their employees to test themselves maybe once a week or once a fortnight to detect infections and take the necessary action.

But how reliable are the test kits? What we see in the market - the pharmacies especially, but also being sold online on Lazada and Shopee - are the rapid antigen test kits of varying quality and prices. I don't know who are manufacturing most of them except that a big majority of the test kits come from China. It is not that I am doubting their effectiveness but when it comes to health, I do not wholly trust products that are manufactured in that country. Surgical masks is one of them. Rapid antigen test kits is another.

I have encountered test kits of different makes that give different results when used at the same time. One test kit showing a negative result and another showing positive. So which is correct: the one showing negative but which could be a false positive or the one showing positive but which could be a false negative? Both, I'm told, were bought online and made in China. The prices vary. I've seen prices going as low as RM4.90 per test kit but the other day, I saw someone offering to sell one for RM3.40. Would you dare go for it?

My son had a scare a few days ago. The Made-in-China test kit he used showed a probable positive infection. Immediately, he went to get a PCR test at a clinic which cost him RM200. And the next day, the results came back negative! Of course, it was a relief to him but he was poorer by RM200. Not to imagine too the stress of 24 hours wondering whether or not he had Covid-19. Now, if he had used a known and reliable test kit to begin with, he wouldn't have to be stressed and his pockets wouldn't be lighter by RM200.

I know it can be difficult to be certain which test kit is reliable or not in this pandemic environment but I would generally use my rule of thumb that a good test kit is one whose price is steady and little affected by market pressure or abnormalities. If you find a test kit sold cheaply, you should be wary and investigate further. Who knows, the importer may just be trying to flood the market with it. Thin margins but huge profits.

Polk Salad Annie

Over the past day, see, there was this song that kept going on and on in my head. An old song from the early 1970s when I was still schooling. Heard it over Radio RAAF Butterworth (RRB), the voice of the Royal Australian Air Force base in Butterworth, which was by far the best radio station in Malaysia. And then I remembered that I had the compact disc in my collection. No, actually, two compact discs. The singer was Tony Joe White and his song was Polk Salad Annie. 

Tony Joe White was born in Louisiana in 1943 and went successful internationally with this song. His style of music was described as swamp rock and he was even given the nickname Swamp Fox. He had a deep soulful southern drawl and a guitar technique which he referred to as his whomper stomper. 

But White was more than a recording artist. As a composer, many of his songs were covered by other well-known singers like Elvis Presley, Brook Benton, Ray Charles, Kris Kristofferson and others. Even Tina Turner too, if I'm not mistaken. Tony Joe White died from a heart attack in 2018.

So these are the two compact discs in my music collection. The first is called Polk Salad Annie (originally titled Black And White) and the second is The Best Of Tony Joe White.

Below are two videos of Polk Salad Annie that can be found on YouTube. The first is Tony Joe White's appearance on a British television show in 1970 while the second is Elvis' interpretation of the song in one of his concerts. Whose version is better: the original or the cover?

Bonus: Here is a video of Tony Joe White cooking his Polk Salad Annie and Undercover Agent for the Blues at The Basement in Australia (presumably in Sydney) when he was already 65 years old in 2008. A real masterclass performance. He needed only a drummer to accompany him throughout. No other musicians were required.

Carrying a sprain

This Chinese New Year hasn't started particularly well for me. I've gone off on the wrong foot, so to speak. For the past five days, I've been walking around with a lousy limp. 

Early Tuesday morning, I had attempted to climb a stool but had experienced a sharp, searing pain in my left ankle. But I don't remember twisting my foot. Perhaps I should have stopped immediately but I was halfway up the stool and the momentum of my upward push forced me up on my injured left foot. So my whole body weight was pressed down on this painful ankle. 

Anyhow after I had climbed down, the pain persisted and I could barely walk. Limping along was the best I could do. It was only when I wore my pair of slippers which had a soft padded base that I felt more comfortable. In these five days, I've been applying a cold compression to the injured ankle and I must say that it has helped me considerably. But I think it's going to be another week before I am back to normal.

The coming of Spring

Today marks the Coming of Spring according to the Chinese luni-solar calendar and at 5.15am this morning, I filled up my rice bucket following a tradition in my family. I had also pasted a new piece of paper with the chun (春) character on it. This is a great cultural tradition to follow but there is nothing spiritual or religious about it. It is all very symbolic to wish for a bountiful year without any lack of wants in my household. I know that my great-grandparents did this, followed by my grandparents and parents, and now it is left to me to carry on.

Together again

Very thankful that the family is complete again this year after my daughter had to miss last year's Chinese New Year Eve reunion dinner due to the Covid-19 restrictions on travel. So let me make a wish for a Happy and Prosperous New Year. No...let me make that a wish for a Safe and Healthy New Year. KEONG HEE HUAT CHYE.