Two Suns hoax!

Why are there so many gullible people around? I do believe that this is the product of the education system that people do not know how to distinguish between what's true and what's false.

This dreaded email message finally landed in my inbox. It's all about a star with the name of Aderoid (sounds more like Haemoroid to me) that's started putting in an appearance in our sky on 10 June. The email message claims that this star "will look as large as the sun from naked eye. This will culminate on 21 June when the star comes within 34.65M miles of the earth." And then it calls on people to watch the sky on that day at 12:30pm because it will look like the earth has two suns!!

What absolute balderdash. What utter nonsense! If there's anyone who's going to believe this absurdity, then Bob's my uncle!

This is just a hoax along the same line as the tiresome email messages circulating the globe around August every year that Mars will be just as bright at the moon.

It's all nonsense and I'll tell you why. First, there is no such star in the Universe. This can be easily confirmed from the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database (NStED). Second, considering the vastness of space, an astronomical object as large as a star would not suddenly appear in the sky at any particular hour of a given day and then, poof, be gone as quickly as it had appeared. It would creep up on us over an extended period of time.

Third, we should consider the relative distances between the planets in our own Solar system. Our Earth is about 93 million miles from our Sun; Mercury, the closest planet to our Sun is 36 million miles from the Sun's surface. If a star comparable to our Sun were to travel within "34.65 million miles" of the Earth, our planet would quickly become like Mercury: an arid, lifeless, deep-fried hunk of rock. I can assure you that we wouldn't be around to marvel at the sight.

So don't believe this silly hoax. It will just makes an ass out of you.

Stupidity runs the full gamut in the federal government

In the past few days, I was watching two events unfolding here with some disbelief. To say that they were two separate and unconnected events would be wrong. Somehow, they were inter-connected events and the common thread running through them must be the mishandled bureaucracy of government. I'm referring, of course, to the heavy-handed attempt by the federal government to impose censorship on the Internet and the sheer wastage of funds in the name of tourism.

There's a lot already being mentioned in the Internet about the blocking of the 10 websites and the award of a RM1.8 million contract to an advertising agency to promote some facebook pages, so what I'm going to say here isn't new. They are just my observations of developments.

And the first is, and I've mentioned it before, spending the RM1.8 million on the facebook pages is irresponsible and scandalous. According to James Dawos Mamit who is the deputy minister in the Ministry of Tourism, RM1,758,432 was spent on developing six facebook pages to promote Malaysia’s tourism. To people who uses social media websites, this is complete nonsense and to prove a point, someone set up a free Curi Curi Wang Malaysia facebook page to challenge the ministry's contention that it cost them RM293,072 to have set up their Cuti-Cuti 1 Malaysia facebook page in May.

A race then started between the two facebook pages to see which one could garner more "likes". The Cuti Cuti page had a 20,000 headstart but within 24 hours of Curi Curi Wang Malaysia's launch, the number of "likes" had already reached the 20,000 number. As I write, Curi Curi Wang Malaysia has attained more than 92,500 "likes" compared to Cuti Cuti 1 Malaysia's 35,900 "likes". (And as at 11pm, the number of "likes" has exceeded 100,000.)

Personally, I do not know how to interpret these numbers. On the surface, it indicates a wide dissatisfaction out there among Internet users to perceived sillyness and abuses of government funds. But I suspect many of the facebook users who had clicked on their "like" buttons were just jumping on the government-bashing bandwagon. Were they actually concerned over the issue or were they just simply clicking "like" because their friends on facebook were doing it? And how many of these people who clicked "like" are actually registered voters who will go out to vote in the next general elections? I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of them turn out to be ineligible to cast their votes!

So the question is, should the federal government be concerned over this facebook debacle? Of course, it made the Tourism Ministry looked like a complete dunce now. There are noises at the federal level but I believe they will just look back at this episode and say to hell with us, the actual people who showed concern over the continuing abuse of public money.

And regarding the blocking of the 10 Internet sites, I still hold the opinion that blocking them is tantamount to Internet censorship. Someone asked me whether it was wrong to block sites and I had answered: "Yes, it is wrong because it just shows that the MCMC, and by extension it also means the federal government, is taking the easy and lazy way out by penalising the legitimate users of these services. Instead, they should be taking action against the illegal violators. Should be easy to identify the violators since MCMC have all the resources at hand, unless they are so stupid that they don't understand ABC from XYZ." For good measure, I also want to say that there is no such concept as "violation of privacy" in this country. Our privacy has already been violated. Long time ago.

Anyhow, arising from this blocking - or censoring - of the 10 Internet sites from usage by Malaysians, a group of international vigilantes calling themselves Anonymous brought it upon themselves to hack into the Malaysian government's official websites, claiming that they wanted to teach the government a clear lesson. "We fear that if you make further decisions to take away human freedom, we are obligated to act fast and have no mercy," they announced. And what did "no mercy" mean to them? Bringing down at least 41 government and government-linked websites on Thursday (16 June) morning. That's all. They might just as well go tell it to my daddy!

But I'd just like to ask them one question: what good do they think that they have achieved by targetting the government websites? Do they really believe that the federal government would repent and lift the censorship on these 10 websites? Anonymous would be thoroughly naive if they believed that they had swayed the government's thinking. If at all, the only result from this sheer waste of their resources is to expose the Malaysian government websites' woeful lack of Internet security. The government wouldn't tell Anonymous in public but I'm sure privately, they are saying "thank you very much for teaching us where to close our computer loopholes." 


I would tell Anonymous "bah, go get a real life." There must be more destructive things they can do than just hacking into websites. No wonder that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) just shrugged it away, claiming there was "little impact."

Nevertheless, I'm delighted that this episode has put the Information Minister up for public ridicule. I can't imagine anyone could be so confident that their computer systems were so secure. The day before the attack, he was quoted widely as saying that the government was taking the necessary cyber security measures to prevent hacking of the government's official website. Local cyber security officials, Rais Yatim said, referring to the MCMC, "were on the case." Yes, I'm sure he was also on the case.

Pocket's burnt

So finally, I've had the time to take my disabled Nokia C6 for repair. Went to the Pacific Megamall in Jalan Baru, Prai and spent well over an hour searching for the Nokia Care Centre. Turned out that I had arrrived too early at the Megamall when most of the shops were still not opened. Even those ubiquitous mobile phone stalls were unopened.

Might as well walk around and search for the Nokia centre, I thought to myself. It's been ages since I stepped into this huge building. However, time hasn't improved its outlook. The whole of the Pacific Megamall is still pathetic. As far as I am concerned, the place is a failure. All the businesses and activities are on the lower floors: the basement, ground, first and second floors. The upper floors - the third floor and above - remained empty. All the shoplots there were vacant and shuttered.

So I really wandered from the second floor down to the first floor and finally saw someone who could direct me to the Nokia care centre. It's on the ground floor, past the McDonald's and Maxis centre. Ta, I told him, and went downstairs. His direction was perfect. Nobody could miss the Nokia shop front. I walked in, told the front staff about my spoilt phone but before I could whip out the warranty card, he told me the bad news. Sorry but the LED screen is not covered by any warranty. I was aghast. Not covered by a warranty to get the screen replaced? That's right, he confirmed.

It happens all the time, he said. Many people tend to put their phones in their bags or their pockets with their keys and it is normally the keys that press on the screen and spoilt it. So it was with mixed feelings that I surrendered my phone to him. This was going to set me back by RM114. But the bright side was that at least I don't have to buy a new handset if this Nokia C6 can be repaired.

How long before I can get the phone back, I asked. He went to check. Good news, he chirped, come back in two hours and the phone should be ready by then.

I didn't have to wait two hours. In slightly more than an hour, I went to try my luck. Yes, the LED screen's been replaced and my phone is as good as new. So here I am, RM114 poorer but RM114 wiser. Ah, maybe I should add that I am poorer by an extra RM65. Spent that amount in the one hour at the Pacific Hyperstore within the Megamall....

Unnecessary and utterly irresponsible spendings

I fear for the future of this country. This is where I was born and in all probability, where I'll die too. Why I'm voicing my fear is that the politicians in the federal government are hell-bent on bankrupting this country. Precious funds are being used or wasted on unnecessary projects. The beneficiaries? As laymen, I wouldn't know who are there but it doesn't take a moron to deduce that they are going into the pockets of people or corporations who are close to the people in power at Putrajaya.

And what may be these unnecessary - and, may I add, irresponsibile and scandalous - projects and spendings? Well, my memory's not so good nowadays but here are a few recent ones that comes to my mind:

A RM5 billion 100-storey mega-tower project that was proposed by Najib Razak in his 2011 budget. Wht would he want to build this tower is beyond me, when the money could be better spent on providing better education, health care and transportation for the people.

Then there is that stupid, highly publicised 1Malaysia email account that's supposed to improve on digital security and aid in communication between the government and the masses. But get this: the project is going to cost RM50 million to implement. But mind you, insisted the federal government, it is now a private sector initiative. But what was it before the backtracking began? And why do the government departments have to use this delivery channel subsequently and pay 50 sen per transaction to this private sector company? Waste of money to sustain what many believe to be a crony-related company!

And recently, the federal government held a party for "one million" youth in Putrajaya with the bill coming round to RM27 million. One million? I've been hearing that the number was closer to 20,000 youth. Then they said the funding came from private sector sponsorship. Who cares? If this is not an open, blatant attempt to fish their votes in the next general election, I don't know what is. Again, this is wasted money. Can we get the federal government to convince the private sector to spend their helping the coomon people in so many other concrete ways?

Finally, just two days ago, we learnt that the Ministry of Tourism spent RM1.8 million to create six facebook pages. Gosh, golly wow! I didn't know that it costs so much to create a facebook page. I thought it was free! Funny, despite having spent so much - and I wonder who helped the Ministry on this project - I am still in the dark about what has been achieved so far, apart from people's indignation.

[An update: From what I've read, the advertising agency behind the facebook pages is Impact Creations (M) Sdn Bhd which was established on 22 Apr 2011. Within a month, it bidded and was awarded this RM1.8 million project from the Ministry of Tourism.]

All these are the recent news stories that have come to light. Projects here, projects there; money flowing out here, money flowing out there; but who are the beneficiaries? Certainly not me. I don't need a 100-storey building anymore than I need a 1Malaysia email account or a RM27 million party. I don't need all these projects while I remain grappling with an increasing daily cost of living. RON95 petrol prices may not have gone up yet but I detest the fact that the federal government allowed the cost of electricity to increase. Stupid if they expect us to believe that this will have no impact on the common folks. Already, the cost of foodstuff has gone up. It's affecting my bottom line and I only wish all these show of extravagant spendings can be stopped and the money channelled to proper use, that is, to benefit we common folks!

Shitty MAXIS service, shitty Nokia phone too

My Nokia C6, which was purchased in September last year, was working fine until last Friday evening when it suddenly developed a serious technical problem. No amount of switching it off and on repeatedly, or removing the battery, could restore it back to working condition. It looked dead to me.

On Saturday, I phoned the MAXIS customer careline at 123, told them that my phone was on the blink and asked them for their recommendation. They suggested taking it to any of their MAXIS centres and said that their centre at the Northam Suite Hotel in Northam Road, Penang was still open until 1.30pm. Just bring your warranty card along, chirped the chap at the other end of the line.

Great, I thought to myself. I was just about to go out to the island anyway. Had an appointment at one o'clock and if I were to go out earlier I could kill two birds with one stone. So in high spirits, I made myself to the MAXIS centre only to be told, with nary a look at my poor phone, that I had to go to the Nokia service centre to get it repaired.

Needless to say, I was cheesed off and I made it known to them that they could have saved me a lot of bother if their staff manning their 123 careline had been trained better to give me the right information and not make me run around without a solution to my problem. That is the prerogative of the lousy civil service, not to be emulated or admired by the private sector corporations.

Today's Sunday. I have still to wait until tomorrow. So right now, I'm reduced to using my wife's old Samsung clam shell mobile phone temporarily. There are no bells or whistles on this phone; it's just a basic unit for making telephone calls and text messages. The worst part is that all my friends' telephone phones are now completely inaccessible. And how I miss the ability to check my emails on the spoilt Nokia C6.

Talking of Nokia, no matter how fast or how slow their service centre is going to repair my phone, or even if it can be repaired at all, I think this will be the last Nokia model that I'll be buying! Nokia's reliability seems to be gone and it's time to move on....

Unfortunate driver

See this trailer hanging precariously over the edge of the road? How this accident happened is anyone's guess. But the sad reality is, it did happen yesterday at the North-South Expressway's flyover in Seberang Jaya, Penang. Needless to say, it created a huge traffic congestion from the north.

In case anyone's curious, no, I wasn't caught in the congestion. It so happened that I had used the slip round outside the Immigration office, so I managed to skirt around all the cars that had slowed down to look. Here's a closer look at the trailer.

Transplanted

Here's the News of the Day: Wayne Rooney, under suspension from the England team for one match of Euro 2012, underwent a STG10,000 hair transplant process at a London hair specialist clinic while his team mates slogged out to a draw with Switzerland at Wembley Stadium. Can we see the results quickly before the hair gel sets?

Paul Scholes retires

"I am not a man of many words but I can honestly say that playing football is all I have ever wanted to do and to have had such a long and successful career at Manchester United has been a real honour. This was not a decision I have taken lightly but I feel now is the right time for me to stop playing. To have been part of the team that helped the Club reach that record 19th title is a great privilege."

Flyover opened, finally!

I happened to use Jalan Berjaya in Bukit Mertajam just about an hour ago and noticed something very different: no cars awaiting at the junction of this road with Jalan Maju. Ordinarily, there would a long queue here as vehicles wait for the traffic lights to turn green at the Jalan Maju-Jalan Song Ban Kheng junction. But no queue this afternoon!

Turned out that the flyover at the Jalan Maju-Jalan Song Ban Kheng junction is finally opened to traffic. Happiness was seeing vehicles travelling up and down the flyover as I passed by. Well, I shall be using it tonight!

Whoa, it's the end of the world!

Appropriately, to my readers who really believe all the crap about today, I'm dedicating this video to everyone of them who reads this blog.

Safeguarding your banana

Trust the Japanese to be inventive about anything: anything important as well as anything trivial. Well, to my mind, here's something trivial ... a banana keeper. It keeps your precious banana from getting bruised, especially if it's a big, long one, that's for sure!

So I saw these banana keepers hanging around at the Daiso outlet at the Queensbay Mall, Penang. In case anyone's still doubtful about the, erm, usefulness of this container, here's another picture of it:

Oneupmanship

Do you know how I have been feeling in the past few days? Feeling rather light-headed. Not confused but only light-headed. Too many things happening around me. Strange thoughts moving in my head. Thinking, observing, thinking, looking, thinking..... So much so that I've to put my irreverent take on the world affairs down on paper.

First, about the royal wedding in London. As we know, the official invitations were sent from Buckingham Palace quite a while ago. While the invitations went out to countries that had a sitting monarchy, all other heads of state were ignored. And that included the heaviest head of all, the president of the United States. Barack Obama did not receive any invitation. So he stayed behind in Washington, presumably to sulk away the missed opportunity.

On the day of the wedding, a huge crowd of about 500,000 people - an equivalent number, if I may say, to the hippies that attended the original Woodstock festival in 1969 - surged through the streets and parks of London to have their peak at all the pomp and pageantry. All these cheering and whooping were brought into our living rooms courtesy of the live satellite broadcast. Nobody could have missed that, especially the Heavy Head in Washington.

How can, the Heavy Head might have said to himself. How can we be upstaged by this nation of shopkeepers? I can't be sitting here twiddling my thumbs all day long; I cannot be upstaged by the Pommies. I must find a way to show the world that we, the Amercan people, can celebrate just as wildly.

So he decided to take a chance. Since his spooks and intelligence people have more or less determined with some 60 to 80 percent probability that his favourite enemy was in town, why not send in a crack team of well-wishers to greet him? In an operation that lasted no longer than a typical TV episode without the commercials, Obama's Navy SEAL Team Six landed in a Pakistani town with an unlikely name of Abbottabad (named not after Abbott and Costello, but after an obscure James Abbott who was an army major in the 19th century) and took out Osama bin Laden. Nothing personal, of course, get it?

Naturally, the United States erupted with joy. They whooped with joy. They ran around with joy. They climbed flagpoles with joy. They climbed trees with joy. They waved their flags with joy. They marched to the White House with joy. In short, they enjoyed with joy. :-P

You think only the British pommies can enjoy, meh? Aiyah, the American people can also thump their chests with pride too, you know.

Amidst all the joy, glee and fun on both sides of the Atlantic, nobody knew who could shout better or louder. Practically a stalemate. Probably not good for this good humoured rivalry to continue indefinitely between Big Brother and Small Brother. Got other bigger fish to fry around the world actually. So how to resolve this issue of "my events are bigger than your events, my celebrations are wilder than your celebrations"? No problem, send in the troops! Uh, sorry, I mean an old soldier in the guise of Prince Charles. Hey, he did serve in the British Navy and Air Force, you know.

So Charles flew to Washington to have a friendly chit-chat with Obama. Something like soothing his feathers after the wedding snub. I think enough is enough, we've both had our fun, let's drop all this display of oneupmanship thingy, he proposed. And Obama, having already gotten in the Last Word, agreed. End of story and hence, the end of my irreverent contribution to world affairs too. See you!

Web design?

I can't understand why information about some websites hosted by an Internet service provider located in Penang should be superimposed erroneously on a background map of Sarawak. Maybe, someone else can provide me with an answer!

Bao Sheng's durian season 2011

Here's just a very short reminder to afficionados that the durian season is just about to take off at the Bao Sheng durian farm and villa. The expected dates for the various varieties on offer:

604 (minimum 3+ rating) 1-28 June 2011;
Lipan (centipede) (minimum 4+ rating) 5 June - 4 July 2011;
Kunpoh angbak (red meat) (minimum 4 rating) 8 June - 4 July 2011;
Little red (minimum 3+ rating) 10 June - 6 July 2011;
Green skin angbak (red meat) (minimum 3+ rating) 10 June - 6 July 2011;
D600 (minimum 3+ rating) 10 June - 6 July 2011;
Kapri (minimum 4+ rating) 12 June - 10 July 2011;
D11 (minimum 4 rating) 12 June - 10 July 2011;
Horlor (minimum 5 rating) 18 June - 22 July 2011; 
Red prawn (minimum 5 rating) 20 June - 25 July 2011;
Green skin D15 (minimum 4+ rating) 25 June - 30 July 2011;
D99 (minimum 3+ rating) 25 June - 30 July 2011;
D15 (minimum 3+ rating) 25 June - 30 July 2011.

Here's where you can learn more about the Bao Sheng Durian Farm and its owner, TS Chang, who can be contacted at +60124110600 or ts@e.net.my

What brain drain? Use Google Translate to arrest this problem, lah!

A significant statement by the World Bank a few days ago said that more than a million Malaysians live abroad and that policies favouring Malays are holding back the economy, thus causing a brain drain that is limiting foreign investments into the country.

In a Bloomberg news service report, World Bank senior economist Philip Schellekens was also quoted as saying that foreign investment could be five times the current levels if the country had Singapore’s talent base. “Migration is very much an ethnic phenomenon in Malaysia, mostly Chinese but also Indian,” Schellekens told Bloomberg. Governance issues and lack of meritocracy are “fundamental constraints” to Malaysia’s expansion because “competition is what drives innovation.”

Schellekens painted a gloomy picture by saying that the Malaysian brain drain situation is likely to intensify and it would further erode the country’s already narrow skills base.The number of skilled Malaysians living abroad tripled in the last 20 years with two out of every 10 Malaysians with tertiary education opting to leave for either OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries or Singapore. “Brain drain from Malaysia," he said in a World Bank report titled “Malaysia Economic Monitor: Brain Drain”, "is likely to intensify in the absence of mitigating actions.” The report defined brain drain as the outflow of those with tertiary-level education.

Naturally, the prime minister made a swift denial. The brain drain did not lead to a fall in foreign investments, he said. Actually, he limply pointed out, capital inflows increased from RM1.4 billion in 2009 to RM9 billion in 2010. That's six-fold, he claimed. But he did acknowledge that the exodus of skilled Malaysians to Singapore and other advanced countries was a problem that “must be resolved.”

Of course, we then have the mother of all racists remarked that the World Bank was “useless” as it was politically motivated for wanting to put their good friend to become prime minister.” Yes, instead of giving facts and figures to counter the report, Mahathir Mohamad in his very predictable way chose to play up personal attacks. He's totally deviod of ideas!

 

(Pic by Goh Seng Chong, my former colleague at The Straits Echo in the 1970s)

But all these defensive statements made me think. If there's no really brain drain, then who was the numbskull that came up with this, I am told, superbly nonsensical translation?

正式欢迎仪式，与他一起温家宝阁下的正式访问马来西亚

 
I've been hearing derisive howls that the translation from Bahasa Malaysia into Mandarin came out directly from Google Translate as no one in the Prime Minister's Department bothered or was competent enough to check up on whether the Chinese translation was correct. It was an official visit by the Chinese prime minister and I sure he noticed it too, but I think he was too diplomatic to comment anything when he was here. Leave it to the locals to point this out. This stupid mistake would not have occurred if there had been no contributory brain drain, isn't it?

With this lack of competency, with this brain drain, is it any wonder that Teoh Beng Hock's little piece of scrap paper to his employer Ean Yong was mistranslated and gladly suggested as a suicide note? That's all the competency that the federal government needs, really!

Weddings are a bore

I'm sure the estimated worldwide audience of two billion people were concentrating on This Moment rather than on the little bridesmaid's look of utter boredom. I'm not amused, Grace van Cutsem was probably thinking to herself. Totally adorable, this god-daughter of William. But give her a break: she's only three years old.

They take us for fools

Either the Federal government think we are stupid or they themselves are stupid. Either they think we are gullible or they themselves are gullible. What is this that I've been reading in the news media in the last few days? A free 1Malaysia email address for every person above 18 years old? Heavens forbid!

Common, what sort of nonsense is the Federal government trying to push? As if there are no free email addresses anywhere in the world. I've been using Yahoo mail and Gmail for goodness knows how long and I haven't any problem with them. My son and daughter use Hotmail and they don't have any issue either. So why try to reinvent the wheel?

And then the government said that this email service will be secure. Any email transaction, especially with government departments, should be secure, they say. But it puzzles me. Whatever for do I need any extra security for my emails. I would expect that my present email service providers are already responsible and they ensure that all messages and attachments that are sent through them have sufficient security measures and the packages that go through the Internet are encrypted with the latest technology. So again, why try to reinvent the wheel?

Moreover, I should think that if I want to transact anything online, whether it be a financial or non-financial transaction, whether it's commercial or non-commercial website, whether it is with the government or non-government, the responsibility should be on the website to provide the necessary security. Amazon.com's website is pretty secure; our local banks' websites are very secure too; and I buy my airline tickets from Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia with full confidence that my financial data is safe when it goes through their servers. So what's the big deal about security unless by inference, Najib is suggesting that right now, his government department websites lack even the most basic of security. That all this while, we have been filing our online income tax returns on an unsecured server? Makes me wonder whether I should demand to go back to paper filing of my returns from next year!

So if they are trying to scare us by saying security is a concern, I think it is no issue at all. To me, it is incomprehensible that we should be forced to own this so-called 1Malaysia email address to maintain communication with government channels. It will be a real waste of tax-payer's money.

And then I hear that this is no longer a government initiative but instead a privately-led initiate. The government claims that they would not be spending any money on the 1Malaysia email addresses. It would all be borne by a relatively little-known company called Tricubes. Tricubes will bear the cost of the system and we citizens will not be arm-twisted into signing up for their email account. It will be on our own free will if we want their email account, etc, etc, etc...

But wait a second. You really want to own this fantastic email address? Then you need to have a USB dongle from them, purchased exclusively from them, of course! But wait another second. There's news that the government departments will be required to send out emails to us common plebians through Tricubes, and that's where the government departments pay and that's where our tax money goes to. For every transaction that Tricubes will deliver, the company stands to earn 50 cents. So that's where their income is coming from: from our pockets indirectly. Income that will finance the company's very own survivorship. Isn't it all so very devious? IMO, YES!

I'm sure that 10 million email messages that Najib sent over the Chinese New Year period was only the initial testing ground. I still don't know how those buggers in Najib's department managed to get their hands on my email address, and I'm still pretty sore over the episode. But I'm sure the government baulked at the amount they had to pay to the external commercial email service providers in order to send those damn messages. So I'm sure they have seen all that and then decided that instead of paying all those sums of money to people they don't know, why not set up their own email system and then transfer the money from the public right pocket to the private left pocket instead? I greatly suspect that's what they are trying to do, all at the expense of us people whom they think are gullible enough to swallow all their propaganda.

The old Westlands gang from 1965

I find that as we grow older, we tend to look forward to the reunion of old school friends. My last secondary school reunion in February brought together only about 40 of us. We felt that it was an accomplishment to even get this number together. Well, if secondary school reunions are already that difficult, just imagine how much more difficult it is to have a reunion of primary school friends.

Recently, I just happened to catch up with four old friends from my Westlands Primary School days. It wasn't even planned as a reunion. We were just five folks who happened to be at the right place at the right time. (Or at least, I was.)

So here we here, a picture taken at the 1926 Heritage Hotel in Burmah Road. That's Johnson on the far left and beside him is Oon Hup, just recently returned from England. Ch'ien Cheng is in the centre and next to me is Seng Oo.

After our lunch at the hotel's Hainanese Delights Restaurant, we went on a tour of the premises. Before 1999, the whole place was actually old government quarters. There were two rows, one facing Burmah Road and the other facing Immigration Road. The Penang Development Corporation converted these old quarters into a heritage hotel and tried to run it. As was to be expected when people are placed into unfamiliar roles, the hotel didn't have much of a success. I heard that the management changed hands a few times.

Anyway, it turned out that Johnson had actually lived in one of the old quarters along Immigration Road. So the short inspection of the hotel brought back a lot of nostalgia for him.

Serious audit

So there I was, this morning, at the 84th annual general meeting of the Old Frees' Association in Penang. And right on time too. I walked right smack into a secret ballot. The contest for the position of the association's president was just starting and the ballot slips were being distributed. Apparently, there would be only one position contested because the rest of the positions had closed with only one nomination each. Boy, judging from the furious debates that had happened earlier at the meeting and also later, I would want to wish the new president well.

Anyway, I just want to quote here an extract from the honorary auditor's report. As far as I know, the honorary auditor has remained unchanged for many, many years. Year in and year out, he is reappointed. And apparently, as any self-respecting auditor will do, he takes his role very seriously.

In this year's report, he found himself questioning the annual durian party that the OFA organises for the members. I found his comments a bit incredulous, if not hilarious. Just take a read:

"The members who attended the Durian Party enjoyed themselves tremendously. However for the purpose of audit, a record must be made upon arrival at the durian farm the total number of durians OFA members will receive, if possible the number according to the variety e.g. how many Ganja, Hor Lor etc. Once the figures are verified, the durians can be open for members to enjoy. The verification process will I am sure take not more than 5 minutes with the presence of so many members. The OFA needs to know how many durians we are paying for and the variety so as to ascertain the money spent for the durian party is value for money."

Gosh, you mean we have to COUNT the durians before we eat?? Serious?? Duh.....

The Syed Kechik "400 million ringgit" problem....

There are not many people who can accummulate RM400 million in their lifetime. I think any person with this much amount of money in their pockets would have been placed on the list of the top 50 or top 100 richest people in the country.

So when news emerged that a very prominent retired politician and businessman had died two years ago and had left this much behind, it pricked up my ears. After all, busybody that I am, I'm always interested to know how people distribute their estate to the next-of-kin. In fact, I was more than doubly interested here because the deceased was a Muslim and according to the Syariah law, the Faraid would determine the proportions that his heirs should receive. The problem is, just as most non-Muslims do not bother about writing their Wills, Muslims also have a tendency to ignore their Wasiat. Muslims would normally say, "Ahh, we are governed by the Syariah, so let the Faraid determine the distribution for us." Unfortunately, they fail to realise that the Faraid only identifies the heirs and determines the proportion of distribution to them. They would still need an Executor or an Administrator to carry out the process of distribution properly. Leaving it to the heirs to sort it out among themselves is no solution at all. So writing a Will or a Wasiat is most helpful, if only to appoint someone as the personal representative when the person dies.

I do have a basic idea of the Syariah estate distribution process. In fact, I take pride that I understand much more than the next non-Muslim Man-In-the-Street. The subject can be quite fascinating. But to me as a non-Muslim, the Faraid is fraught with the most complex of calculations, full of equations and fractions, with classifications like Quranic heirs and non-Quranic heirs, and with the rule that male heirs getting twice as much as female heirs. Get the idea how complicated it is? It is no wonder then that many Muslims are also unsure of how the Faraid works for them in the distribution process.

Okay, that's all the lesson you will get from me this morning regarding the Muslim estate distribution process. What I really wanted to say that I was scanning today's print copy of The Star newspaper - the northern edition, that is - and was puzzled to find missing the story of the conclusion of the legal battle surrounding Syed Kechik Syed Mohamed Al-Bukhary's RM400 million estate. This wasn't even a legal tussle to determine distribution; it was just a court case to decide who could be appointed as the administrators to the estate.

For you see, Syed Kechik, for all his financial acumen and worldly outlook on life, had overlooked that his family could get embroiled in a murky legal battle once he was gone. He had a son from a first marriage that had ended in a divorce. He married a second time and was blessed with two daughters. It was of no surprise that the son could not get along with his step-mother and half-sisters, and that was where the battle line was drawn. The ladies wanted to be the only co-administrators of Syed Kechik's estate so as to continue with the father's big family business without interruption but the son wanted in as well to protect his own self-interest. The case went from the High Court right up till the Federal Court. And that's just to affirm that the four of them, Syed Kechik's heirs, would be equal co-administrators.

If anyone is interested, I have a summary of the long and complicated legal saga written here, with links to various news reports over the past two years.

It's not the end of the story though. The real test begins when the four of them - or rather, the lawyers for the four of them - sit down to work out the details of responsibility and distribution. There's already so much bad blood between the two sides. Can they ever agree to anything across the negotiation table?