Fathers with erections

Every few years, I seem to come across some hilarious local instances of the English language being used awkwardly on business signboards. I remember encountering a sign in George Town that said GLASS Museum but from my point of view, the letters had been covered up partially and all I saw was ASS Museum. 

It was in 2002 that the English chess grandmaster, Nigel Short, came to Penang and I was waiting for him at the CitiTel in Penang Road. One of the outlets in the hotel was a florist bearing the name, DE'FLOWER HOUSE. Needless to say, Short and I had a good laugh seeing it. A year later when I happened to be back in this hotel, the shop's proprietor had removed the offending DE' from the sign.

About 10 years ago in Kuala Lumpur's Jalan Sultan, I was amused to see the signboard above a shop there with the name DESPOTIC. Whatever they were selling, I wasn't particularly keen to find out.

Then just last night while walking along Gurney Drive here in George Town, there was this shop that prided itself on being called DAD'S WOODS. Now, I don't know whether the owners were aware of it, maybe they are, but having a WOOD is slang. I had posted this picture on facebook but so far, nobody seemed to have caught onto this shop's unintentional(?) gaffe.

 

Happy 57th, Singapore

To commemorate Singapore's National Day today, I am reproducing an updated poem by Andrew Sia, former journalist from The Star newspaper, all in good fun:

They have 3 K's - Kiasu, Kiasi, Kiabo

We have 3 R's - Race, Religion, Royalty

Their dollar is bigger, our houses are cheaper 

Our food is better, their food branding is better 

We go there to work, bargher...they come here to enjoy

Our politics is sex videos, their politics is LKY's house

They talk of uniting one nation, we talk of uniting one race

We argue about religion, they argue about being diligent

We fight over Jawi-khat, they jump & cut ahead

We have the natural wealth, but why the hell are they richer?

They value know-how, we worship know-WHO

They shake leaders' hands, we kiss leaders' hands

They go by meritocracy

We cari jalan with cable-tocracy

Their clean means less corrupt

Our clean means more "holy" 😅 

They have LKY & LHL, we have Razak & Najib 

Both Father and Son, but different spirit

So don't complain, when SGD & MYR are 3 to 1 

We wanna charge them more for water, they say nevermind, can drink toilet water

We call it Batu Putih, they call it Pedra Branca 

They want to expand, we say no give sand (but curi-curi maybe can)

We have comedy king Harith, they have comedy queen Kumar

Our squash queen Nicol reigned long

Their swim king Schooling reigned damp 

Majulah Singapura is original, Negaraku was copied

Both in Malay language, but they don't understand what they're singing

We had MCO, EMCO, CMCO & RMCO

They had CB, CCB & KNNBCCB 😅

We both claim chicken rice, but hello, it's actually from Hainan

Our country is bigger, their country is safer

They nourish city trees, we butcher city trees

They promote cycling, we promote highways

We have cheaper cars, they have better transport

We were one country, now we're different worlds, First and Third

-- By Andrew Sia, Malaysian, 9 August, 2022

Blonde joke

 Read a joke today. Can't resist not repeating it here or else it will be forgotten tomorrow....

Two sisters, one blonde and one brunette, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble..

In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to purchase a bull so that they can breed their own stock.

The brunette leaves to purchase the bull from a ranch some distance away.  Upon leaving, the brunette tells her sister, 'When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I'll contact you to drive out after me and haul it home.'

The brunette arrives at the man's ranch, inspects the bull, and decides she wants to buy it and buys it.  After paying him, she drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news..

She walks into the telegraph office, and says, 'I want to send a telegram to my sister telling her that I've bought a bull for our ranch.  I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.'

The telegraph operator explains that he'll be glad to help her, then adds, it will cost 99 cents a word.  The brunette realizes that, after paying for the bull, she'll only be able to send her sister one word. After a few minutes of thinking, she nods and says, 'I want you to send her the word 'Comfortable.'

The operator shakes his head. "How is she ever going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her just the word 'comfortable'?"

The brunette explains, 'My sister's blonde. The word is big.

She'll read it very slowly... 'com-for-da-bull.'

 

Money laundering

Money laundering
/ˈmʌni ˈlɔːndərɪŋ/
noun

The process of washing your loose change, comprising the notes and coin in your pockets, during the period of the Movement Control Order (Malaysia) or Circuit Breaker (Singapore) or a country-specific Lockdown caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic by passing it through detergent and water. The overall effect of this process returns the money to a totally clean and disinfected state in the most direct way.

"He was so scared of catching the Covid-19 from the traders that he resorted to money laundering every time he returned from the market."

A wacky SS Quah original definition

Forgotten victims

I saw this joke being circulated through social media. It comes from The Telegraph, one of the national dailies in the United Kingdom. Thought it hilarious enough to reproduce here:

Spare a thought for the forgotten victims of this crisis... burglars

Michael Deacon
Parliamentary Speechwriter
The Telegraph
28 March 2020, 7:00pm 

The crisis has brought disruption to every section of  society. From schoolchildren to the elderly, and from the self-employed to the abruptly furloughed, all of us are facing upheaval in our daily lives and anxiety about our futures.

Amid the clamour of appeal for Government support, however, the plight of one group appears to have been cruelly overlooked: Criminals.

The Prime Minister may only have announced the nationwide lockdown on Monday night, but already families from across the law-breaking community are feeling the pinch. Burglars, for example, have seen their takings collapse.

“It’s a nightmare,” says Barry Knuckles, president of the National Union of Housebreakers. “Now that the entire population is at home 24 hours a day, it’s impossible to burgle anyone. They’re never out.”

Speaking on the Today programme, Mr Knuckles urged the Government to provide financial support for his members during these tough times. He called on the Chancellor to cover 80 per cent of the value of all the laptops, jewellery and flatscreen TVs that Britain’s burglars would normally have stolen and sold on. So far, however, he has yet to receive a response.

“The political class are completely out of touch with the concerns of decent, hard-working criminals,” he says.

But burglars aren’t the only felons struggling to meet the challenges of the coronavirus age.

“It’s all very well for people who can work from home, like phishing scammers and identity thieves,” says Dave Fingers, chairman of the Association of British Muggers and Bag-Snatchers. “But how are you supposed to pick someone’s pocket from two metres away? Some of our lads have tried using those little hooked rods you get in fairground hook-a-duck games, or those funny reacher-grabber tools that old folk use for picking up stuff they’ve dropped on the floor. But it’s hopeless. The Government’s got to think again.”

The spread of the virus has also caused widespread concern among the Jihadi terrorist community. According to recent newspaper reports, Isil has ordered its members to stay away from Europe for fear of catching the disease.

“We’re disgusted by the number of Western infidels refusing to observe official guidance on social distancing,” says an Isil spokesman. “These people are making the streets completely unsafe. Their actions could cost thousands of innocent lives.

“As an employer, our number one concern is the welfare of our employees. The last thing we want is for one of our suicide bombers to get killed.”

SH Tan's sweet young things

I first got to know of the newspaper called The Malay Mail in 1969 or so. My father bought his first copy from the newsstand and told me that there was a weekly word puzzle game in this newspaper. We - or rather, I - had to cut out a piece of the back page for five successive days from Monday to Friday and complete the word game before sending the set of five pieces back to the newspaper for judging.

The word game was something akin to a crossword puzzle. There were questions and there were clues to consider. We had to fill in the blank spaces in the puzzle with letters from the alphabet.

But of course, it was always tricky. Many of the clues led to alternate answers. It was up to us to consider the most appropriate letters that would make sense of the clues. And a fortnight later, we would skim through the Monday editions for the judges' answers. Although we attempted this weekly word game for about five years, we never did win anything. Not even a consolation prize.

Right from the first copy that my father bought, I was taken in by a daily columnist going by the name of SH Tan. Every day, I would be chortling to his stories which were far, far different from the usual news reports. It was as if he was talking directly to me, and he was clearly a master of that art of writing.

Some would say that SH Tan wrote nonsense. Perhaps that was true. But he did keep me entertained every day with his irrelevance. And I would perhaps even say that my interest in journalism probably began with this man. [Note: In one of my earlier stories two years ago, I had already made a mention of The Malay Mail's word puzzle game and SH Tan. Read it here.]

One day when I was still studying in Petaling Jaya in 1974, my cousin and I decided to visit SH Tan at his workplace, which was the office of The Malay Mail in Jalan Travers. I had with me a copy of possibly his very first book, SYT, which stood for Saya Yang Tau, but is the acronym for his much more well known Sweet Young Things as well. He autographed it when I pushed it in front of him. I've also one or two of his other books but none, in my opinion, were as interesting as his first effort.

SH Tan died on 29 Oct 2001 and Bernama, the national news agency, felt the death significant enough to report it.

Subsequently, the obituary below appeared in the New Sunday Times as a tribute to SH Tan's contributions to the literary world.

November 4, 2001
Obituary
S.H. Tan - Last of a breed
By Philip Mathews

TAN Siong Hoon, known as S.H. Tan to his readers, and simply as S.H. to friends, died last week at 81. But we shall hear from him yet, through his last book now ready for publication.

His publisher, Datuk Ng Tieh Chuan of Pelandok, was among a small group of relatives, friends and former colleagues who bade farewell to this inveterate journalist who practised his craft for 50 years, earning for himself a pride of place in the annals of Malaysian journalism.

The book, to be called Ramblings, follows in the steps of his previous eight publications. It covers similar ground in terms of content, and is written in his usual earthy style. He is as blunt as ever, and - as he would have said - calls a spoon a spoon, not "an implement to transport morsels of food from platter to portal".

As a prolific writer, S.H. Tan had no equal. Everyday for 11 years, he kept up his column in The Malay Mail, a feat no other Malaysian columnist writing in English, before or since, has matched.

He has also regaled his readers who followed him from newspaper to newspaper on both sides of the Causeway and beyond - from Malaya Tribune and The Straits Times in Singapore, to the New Sunday Times, The Star, National Echo and Malaysian Post in Peninsular Malaysia, and to People's Mirror in Sarawak.

He would write about the foibles and idiosyncrasies of young men and women. About language howlers, food, and sex and the single girl. Dogs, horses, and sex and the single male. Mahjong, the war years, and sex and everybody else.

But while his readers loved him, S.H. was something of a loner in the Malay Mail. Like the sans serif typeface he avoided, he was sans friends. Forever morose and moody. Sullen and silent. Grumpier than Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. The reason was not difficult to understand.

It needed superhuman effort for anyone to be bright and cheerful if his working day started everyday, for years on end, at 3am and consisted of making sense of rough copy of reporters who had difficulty separating fact from fiction, supervising subeditors working headlines that did not fit, and keeping a close watch on typesetters setting type backwards. And if the paper missed its deadline, it was as good as a dog's breakfast.

S.H. Tan would leave for home everyday at noon. From 1pm till 3 pm, he would open up and talk to his trusted friend Royale. He would let his fingers do the talking, for Royale was his trusty typewriter.

S.H. was one of the last who fought a rearguard action against the march of technology. He never traded in his manual typewriter for MS Word. On his faithful machine he pounded away, day after day, producing gems of wit and wisdom.

Since he was a man of few words, when he wrote, he wrote like he would have spoken. To himself. In a conversational style, with scant regard for rules of language, structure or elegance. Words were mere tools for communication, not adornments.

Words, words, words. S.H. was, unlike Eliza Doolittle, never sick of them. Over the years, nearly three million words flowed from his typewriter into the pages of his newspapers.

To his critics - and there were many - his writing was pedantic and lacked literary merit. But to his fans - and there were more, many more - he was comic to the core. His earthy jokes, interspersed in his columns in bazaar Malay, sidewalk Hokkien or street English, went down well with readers of all ages and both sexes.

His sense of humour served him well, especially when he faced grave situations. In Ramblings recently, he recounted the days when he incurred the wrath of the editorial chief of the paper. As Malay Mail editor, S.H. had let slip into print a libellous statement about a race horse owner. His paper had carried a letter which alleged that the horse owner, to use S.H. Tan's words "would sometimes scratch a horse, not because it was itchy, but to fix a race".

Alleging that the horse owner would deliberately throw a race was indeed actionable. The error was caused by one of his staff, but S.H. took full responsibility and resigned. Company chairman (the late) Tan Sri Sheikh Abdullah Sheikh Abu Bakar then summoned SH over "for coffee and a biscuit".

When asked what he intended to do after his resignation, S.H. replied: "Oh, I dunno. I have no family commitments, so I was toying with the idea of making my way to Vladivostok, board the Trans-Siberian Railway, and then rough it out till I reached that editorial mansion in the sky." Fortunately, Sheikh Abdullah appreciated his integrity and courage as much as he did his complete absence of rancour over the affair. He had the resignation withdrawn and S.H. re-designated as editorial manager.

S.H. often chuckled at himself, to himself. His ability to poke fun at himself was uncharacteristic of his media colleagues, some of whom had egos that were larger than life itself.

In one Ramblings this year, he said he checked his horoscope on his birthday. According to his zodiac sign, he was "very sociable, with a special need for companionship and contact with the public. Possessing a natural attraction for beauty, has elegant tastes and enjoys the best money can buy, always striving for peace and balance and is warm-hearted, pleasant and romantic".

"But I am anything but sociable," he protested in his column. "I prefer my own thing ... my only special need is for the companionship of my eight-year-old daughter." He had no need for contact with the public. But if it was for cakes and fellowship, he would be at anybody's beck and call. However, in view of his retirement and his "reduced circumstances", the becks were few and the calls far between. As for his alleged elegant tastes, he admitted he had them, but alas, lacked the means to indulge.

Where language and its use were concerned, S.H. Tan would get away with oxymoronic, hyperbolical, or malapropismic words and expressions. He had a nose for useless trivia, and a matching ability to render them interesting for their own sake. For example: Question: How do you describe the movement of groups of animals? Answer: Lions move in prides, quails in a covey, squirrels in a dray, bears in a sloth, elk in a gang, crows in murder, herring in armies, hogs in droves, foxes in skulks, kangaroos in troops, cats in clowders, peacocks in ostentation, larks in exultation, locusts in hosts, pheasants in nye, sheep in hurtle, whales in a herd, trout in hover, swallows in flight and goats in trip.

A former reporter and now a senior officer in the United Nations system, David Lazarus, was a cub reporter in 1969. He says: "S.H. was perhaps the first person to encourage my travel writing in the days when Malaysians did not travel that much. He approved a series of articles in the Malay Mail on the travails of a young man's journeys through Hungary, Yugoslavia, Russia and Britain. Alas, I was never paid although they were written on my own time. 'I was just encouraging you', said S.H., and that was that." S.H. Tan spoke very little of his childhood, but of what he has written about his youth, it would appear he was the original Born Loser and - as he often said tonguein-cheek in his columns - he continued to be so in later life.

He did not complete his Senior Cambridge, which used to be the basic entrypoint qualification for any decent job. He had no special skills. He began training to be a fitter, a sort of technical assistant, but before he could qualify, the war put paid to his plans.

He was drafted into the British Army, but before he could see military action, was captured by the invading Japanese soldiers and sent to war camps in Indonesia. The end of the war saw him no closer to the dream he never had. With no recognisable qualification, no marketable skills and no money, he was, quite definitely, without hope.

But an impetuous decision made while a prisoner-of-war turned out to be the proverbial pie in the sky. He traded his rations for cash and used the money to buy an English language dictionary which he read from cover to cover.

He applied unsuccessfully for a job at the Straits Times in Singapore and then turned to the Malaya Tribune with a proposition. He told the editor he would work for six months without pay. He was hired, and within a year, promoted to the post of editor.

A few years later, he was in Kuala Lumpur, sitting in the office of the Malay Mail in Jalan Pudu as its first Asiatic editor. The rest, as he once said of a friend, was destiny.

The Malay Mail had started as an independent newspaper, serving expatriates and colonialists interested mainly in matters relating to rubber, tin and other commodities. It also carried the occasional crime story but nothing much else.

To add some colour to this rather mundane daily diet, S.H. started his personal column. The column gave the Malay Mail a reputation of sorts, which some later tried to shed, luckily without success. Sometimes his words would be lewd. He was, therefore, mistaken by many to be a DOM, whom the SYTs, a term of his own creation, were advised by an insensitive colleague, to assiduously avoid. But he was, in fact, harmless.

And luckless, too. They say 'lucky at cards, unlucky at love'. But S.H. was unlucky at both for most part of his life. But his luck changed, quite dramatically, when he was 68. He met and married Wang Swee Tiang, who doted on him. A few years later, a daughter Tze Chi was born, who was doted on by both.

S.H. Tan loosened up after marriage and became quite the social animal, revelling in the company of former colleagues and friends. At a recent gathering of old friends at the Royal Selangor Club, former NST chief news editor and now managing partner of Prestige Communications, Felix Abisheganaden, said of him: "In the office, we hardly exchanged two words. But now he is such a chatty person. S.H. was an efficient editor. He could be depended upon to deliver and deliver he did. Every time." As a newsman, SH was not a crusader or media evangelist. He was simply a man with heart, which he wore on his shirt sleeves.

Academic and literary critic Edward Dorall wrote of Tan five years ago: "He is the typical Malaysian Chinese success story - the youngster from the ulu (of academia) who succeeded in the big world on his own merits." And stood, and through his works still stands, on its summit.

He was probably the last of a breed of newsmen who making it to the top with nothing but sheer gumption and grit. And a large dose of home-grown humour.

S.H. is finally in that great editorial mansion in the sky. And probably having a quiet chuckle. At us.

Podah

The former Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in an election rally at Putrajaya last night, used the Tamil word Podah on the caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Razak.

In his campaign speech, Mahathir had said: “A so-called 'religious warrior'? Podah! I picked him but now that he has become the PM, he wants to have me arrested instead. It seems I had accused him of being involved in the alleged sabotage of the plane I was on last Friday. How does he know that I was wrong, when he didn't look at what happened? Even the civil aviation authority (DCA) did not come to see me or check the plane,"

But what exactly does podah mean? I tried asking my Indian friends but none has come back with a response. I had to search for the term on the Internet before finding it as well as other colourful Tamil words. This list below, will be interesting reading:

1. Dei - The verbal response to someone who does or says something stupid, idiotic or asinine. For example, "Lee turns to walk out the door to my office, but instead runs into the wall." Dei!!
2. Podah / Podeh – Podah means to "get lost, man" and Podeh means to "get lost, girl". For example, "I don't want to see you around here anymore. Podah! or Podeh!"
3. Elek – This is a verbal response to mean “don’t have”. For example, "Hey, man, have you seen my iPhone?" Elek.
4. Sapade – Directly translates to mean "eat". For example, "Aneh, sapade order here!
5. Aneh/Anah – This is the Tamil word for “Bro”. For example, "Aneh, teh tarik satu!"
6. Kunji – Directly translates to mean "penis" in Tamil.
7. Thani – It means "water" in Tamil. But here in Malaysia, we use it for drinking alcohol. For example, "Eh, bro, tonight thani ah?"
8. Pundek – A Malaysian Tamil word for "vagina".
9. Thangachi – This is a polite word for "younger sister". But here in Malaysia, we use it to call both of our guy and girl friends. For example, "Hey, thangachi, apa buat!"
10. Macha – Literally, this is a term for "brother-in-law". It is commonly used to address our friends. For example, "Macha, we’re going to the club tonight. Wanna join?"

Wimbledon underwear

I read this commentary in the online version of the UK's The Guardian newspaper. It was about the Wimbledon dress code whereby all players were required to wear white on the courts:

Of all the rules at Wimbledon – and there are many – surely none is more outdated than one referring to players’ clothing. Not the part that insists they should wear “almost entirely white” attire, something players do not mind. But rather the one that refers to the colour of their underwear and how visible it is during play. First Venus Williams was asked to change her pink bra in a first-round match, which drew a suitably clipped response to a media inquiry: “I don’t like talking about bras in press conferences. It’s weird.” On Wednesday, four junior doubles players were asked to change their underwear because it could be seen under their white shorts, and on Thursday the 18‑year‑old Austrian Jurij Rodionov was asked by a supervisor to show her his underwear. “Yesterday I wore black pants and nobody said anything and today I wore blue and suddenly it’s a problem,” he said. “It was a big surprise for me.” Rodionov said Wimbledon provided him with two white pairs. “One was a little bit too big but these ones were OK,” he said. Asked if the rule was outdated, he said: “Wimbledon is always special. Maybe it’s a little bit too much but I like that the players only have to wear white. It’s tradition.”

There seemed to be an interesting thread about this dress code thingy, especially when it concerned Wimbledon officials demanding players to show them the top of their underwear in order to verify the colour, like in this story:

Junior player told to change underwear after falling foul of rules
A junior player at Wimbledon was made to lower part of his shorts to reveal the colour of his underwear on Thursday as part of a crackdown on non-regulation clothing. Play was delayed for at least 10 minutes when Austrian junior Jurij Rodionov was ordered off court to change his non-white underwear because it contravened Wimbledon’s strict dress code. In a bizarre scene, the 18-year-old had to pull down his shorts a little at the request of a female official so a call could be made. After the game, he said it was a “big surprise” as he had worn the same dark underwear in his first game and they had gone unnoticed. 

Of course, this news report did not go unnoticed and it prompted a reader to make a little wisecrack (sic) of his own in the newspaper itself:

Women are a special sort of a man

MEP David Coburn of the UK's UKIP party is a bit of a controversial loony, in my opinion. During an interview which he once gave last year, a Labour MSP, Hanzala Malik, had chastised Coburn for referring to businessmen when women work in business too. His response was that “women are a special sort of a man”.

In trying to set the record straight, he explained: “One of them asked me, after a faultless performance, about why I didn’t say ‘businesswomen’. I told them the genus is a man, as in mankind, and so women are a special sort of a man. What’s wrong with that?

“It is madam chairman. It is not madam chairwoman. When we talk about the ascent of man, it’s not the ascent of a bunch of hairy blokes with male genitalia, it’s about man as in women, men, the whole lot of us. Look at the word. The long and short of it is that a woman is a man with a womb.

“I said a woman is a special sort of a man. They are. They are a man that can produce children… But I am a feminist to my bootstraps, I believe in equal rights for women and I always have done, but I also believe women should have the same responsibilities as men."

The full story here.

Donald Trump

Despite what it may look like, Donald Trump is NOT an Old Free. And we didn't give him a Free School tie.  :-)

God bless the willy-nilly

It's true; there is a building in Dixon, Illinois that looks like a penis when viewed from heaven, and it belongs to the Christian Science Church.

Robin Williams is dead

Farewell, Robin Williams (1951-2014), we shall miss your humour very much.

Orson: The report, Mork.
Mork: This week I discovered a terrible disease called loneliness.
Orson: Do many people on Earth suffer from this disease?
Mork: Oh yes sir, and how they suffer. One man I know suffers so much he has to take a medication called bourbon, even that doesn’t help very much because then he can hear paint dry.
Orson: Does bed rest help?
Mork: No, because I’ve heard that sleeping alone is part of the problem. You see, Orson, loneliness is a disease of the spirit. People who have it think that no one cares about them.
Orson: Do you have any idea why?
Mork: Yes sir, you can count on me. You see, when children are young, they’re told not to talk to strangers. When they go to school, they’re told not to talk to the person next to them. Finally when they’re very old, they’re told not to talk to themselves, who’s left?
Orson: Are you saying Earthlings make each other lonely?
Mork: No sir, I’m saying just the opposite. They make themselves lonely, they’re so busy looking out for number one that there’s not enough room for two.
Orson: It’s too bad everybody down there can’t get together and find a cure.
Mork: Here’s the paradox, sir. Because if they did get together, they wouldn’t need one. Isn’t that zen-like?

(From Season One, Episode 21 of the television series Mork and Mindy (1979), starring Robin Williams as the alien Mork in his first successful television show.)

The pastor's ass

I've heard this joke before and I know, I know, it is a bit off colour. But it's only a joke, okay, and it's best that I post it here before I forget again.

The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the Race again, and it won again. The local paper read: PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race. The next day, the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The next day the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. The next day the headlines read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The bishop was buried the next day. 

The moral of the story: being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery, even shorten your life. Be yourself and enjoy life. Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer!

The Journey

If there was anything that surprised me over the past weekend, it was to discover that when politics do not interfere with film-making, The Journey was indeed a very good film. 

My wife and I took time out to watch this movie with my daughter and found the cineplex almost fully packed with people even though more than a month had passed since it first started screening nation-wide on 30 Jan 2014. That's the eve of Chinese New Year.

Yes, it is still pulling in the crowds and as I understand it, The Journey has become the biggest box-office movie for a local Malaysian production, grossing RM15 million to date, and still collecting.

There are already way too many reviews of this movie on the Internet and I really wouldn't want to add my own opinion to all the accolades, but I think that I must still comment somewhat about it.

But first, to my friends in Singapore, I would like to urge you to catch the screening of The Journey in your local cinemas from the 20th of March.

The Journey is a story of many themes that I'm told are all so familiar to us: family, heritage, culture, traditions, expectations, forgiveness and acceptance. To which I would like to add nostalgia, sentimentality, life's impermanence, the ability to look hard at oneself and heart-warming old friendships that cannot be severed with the passing of time.

The film was shot in many locations around the country but it thrilled me to no end when the Penang Bridge loomed up on the big screen, followed by sequences at the Chew Jetty and one of the ferries in George Town. But my delight was somewhat dampened when the characters opened their mouths to speak and what came out was not Penang Hokkien but some other variation of the southern Hokkien language. For goodness' sake, why can't the movie's producer make the show more realistic by adopting authentic Penang Hokkien especially for the sequence filmed here? That was my main beef about the movie.

And another beef was that I couldn't understand half of the show because there weren't any English sub-titles. Besides, the Malay sub-titles flashed by way too fast for me. I finally gave up trying to read the Malay sub-titles, because it interfered with the developments on the screen, and decided to simply sit back and just enjoy the film.

Yes, I did laugh as the show progressed, demonstrating that you don't really need to understand the language when all unfolding before you are the daily, familiar aspects of our daily lives. (Actually, no, the hot-air balloon of recycled plastic bags doesn't occur naturally in our daily lives at all but what the heck, that was the director's creative licence if you know what I mean....)

P.S. Even if you don't understand the storyline at first, you will definitely enjoy the brilliant cinematography. And maybe, pine for your old hometown.

Thank you, BBC :-)

Year-end joke

Okay okay, I have heard this joke before but I've also forgotten about it. However, my memory has just been jolted by someone posting this same very joke on facebook. So before I forget about it again, here is the joke which I'm dedicating to all my chess friends around the globe. Merry Christmas, if you are celebrating. Happy holidays, if you are not.

The big chess tournament was taking place at the Plaza in New York. After the first day's competition, many of the winners were sitting around in the foyer of the hotel talking about their matches and bragging about their wonderful play. After a few drinks they started getting louder and louder until finally, the desk clerk couldn't take any more and kicked them out. The next morning the Manager called the clerk into his office and told him there had been many complaints about his being so rude to the hotel guests....instead of kicking them out, he should have just asked them to be less noisy. The clerk responded, "I'm sorry, but if there's one thing I can't stand, it's chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

The psychiatrist and the proctologist

Not often that I am tickled pink long enough to reproduce a joke on my blog, but this one did! Do enjoy it:

The Psychiatrist and the Proctologist

Best friends graduating from medical school at the same time decided that in spite of their different specialties, they would open a practice together to share office space and personnel.

Dr Smith was the psychiatrist and Dr Jones was the proctologist. They put up a sign reading: Dr Smith and Dr Jones: Hysterias and Posteriors.

The town council was livid and insisted they change it. The docs changed it to read: Schizoids and Hemorrhoids.

This was also not acceptable so they again changed the sign to read Catatonics and High Colonics - no go.

Next they tried Manic Depressives and Anal Retentives thumbs down again.

Then came Minds and Behinds - still no good.

Another attempt resulted in Lost Souls and Butt Holes - unacceptable again!

So they tried Nuts and Butts - no way.

Freaks and Cheeks - still no good.

Loons and Moons - forget it.

Almost at their wits' end, the docs finally came up with: Dr Smith and Dr Jones - Specialising in Odds and Ends.

Now everybody loved it!

Breakdown: the Tengku and his car

I came across this picture from facebook. The man on the right should be a familiar sight to most of all. I can't imagine this situation happening again in this time and age, can you?

Bird bird, why you no wake up??

When words are best left unexpressed, when expressions are best left unworded....

New year resolution

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook
I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook
I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook
I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook
I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2012 oops, I mean 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook

I must remember to write 2013 in my chequebook