What
a Stinker
Sir Stamford Raffles is a footnote in
history for having identified a swampy and malarial island at the bottom of the
Malay Peninsula as the site of the future New Serenissima (Venice) nowadays
known as Singapore. He is due that credit. He’s also a footnote in the
bibliography of flora, having had his name attached to perhaps the most
unpleasantly pungent plant on earth, the Rafflesia, characterised by Swedish
scientist Eric Mjoberg in 1928 as possessing “a penetrating smell more
repulsive than any buffalo carcass in an advanced stage of decomposition.” It’s also known as the corpse flower, and is
thus nicely emblematic of a dead empire.
There was a bit of a stink about Raffles at the recent Singapore
Literary Festival, where British authors Tim Hannigan (Raffles and the Invasion
of Java) and Victoria Glendinning (Raffles and the Golden Opportunity) faced
off in a firmly feisty manner.
Hannigan was in Bali this month to promote his new book, which had its
official Indonesian launch earlier in Jakarta – the Big Durian, a competitor
for pungency perhaps – and then its Bali introduction at Periplus at Mal Bali
Galeria, Kuta, on Dec. 1. Apparently the Periplus function was conducted
entirely in Indonesian and Hannigan’s fine Java-accented Bahasa attracted good
reviews.
He conducted later speaking engagements, first at Biku in Kerobokan’s
well-heeled Jl Petitinget and then at Bar Luna in Ubud, in a mix of languages.
We were at Biku – no one should miss an opportunity for afternoon tea at Asri
Kerthyasa’s bijou establishment – on Dec. 4 to catch up. Hannigan and your
diarist formerly laboured together on Another Publication hereabouts, on a proprietor’s
promise of possibly being favoured with a quick smell of a notionally oily rag.
Hannigan’s secular hagiographies are worth reading. We enjoyed his first
book (George Hayward and the Great Game). Hayward came a cropper while the
Brits and the Russians were chest-thumping in Central Asia in the 19th century.
Raffles, whose origins were relatively humble in the snooty (not to say snotty)
Britain of his day, ended up ruined financially, perhaps because he was from
the wrong side of the tracks.
Check out Monsoon Books for Hannigan’s work. It’s worth it.
Pull
the Other Plug
PLN, which makes congenital dysfunction
seem like a desirable improvement to aim for, has hit new heights with its unannounced
introduction of an innovative Bule Billing Plan. Last month’s bill – which
failed to take account, as they always do, of serial blackouts and frequent
delivery of 80V instead of the standard 220V – was away being paid, by your
diarist, two days after it reached The Cage.
Not long after the chariot had departed on this happy mission, two chirpy
little chaps from the world’s worst public utility turned up at the gate to
disconnect the power for non-payment. Fortunately our redoubtable pembantu was
on the ball and sent them on their way with whatever is the local equivalent of
a flea in the ear. That might be “sebuah loak di telinga,” but we’re not really
sure.
But it is good news, in a way, we suppose. It does seem that PLN has stumbled
upon an accounting system that actually tells them whose bill is whose. Maybe,
though, they should rework the bit about cutting people off before they’ve had
a chance to pay.
And
while they’re at it, they might look at methods of delivering secure power,
consistently, at the right voltage. Repeatedly
stubbing your toe while blundering around in the half-dark, courtesy of PLN’s
brown-out policy, is not a desirable thing. It prompts intemperate thought and
it’s not something that will be fixed by changing the wallpaper. On that score, proposals to set up a Bali
“subsidiary” of PLN on the Batam model should be viewed with caution.
Apple
of Her Eye
The intriguing Marie Bee, who writes for
the French monthly journal La Gazette de Bali (avec brio) from the deep
recesses of the Ubud environment, was much excited in her latest published
dispatch at having seen a reticulated python with two penises. She clearly didn’t
major in ophiology at her university in Aix en Provence. These curious tandem
arrangements are not altogether unusual among the descendants of the poor
creature divinely sentenced to slither on his belly forever for getting Eve to
bite that apple.
Be that as it may, the Bee piece is a nice buzz, especially since it
prompts agreeable speculation that a snake might possibly be able to comply with
a pejorative suggestion that it go away and perform what would otherwise be an
anatomical impracticality.
Scrummy
Once upon a time, your diarist played
rugby. That’s the original Rugby Union version, not Rugby League which was
invented to keep English labourers out of the ale houses of a weekend and then
migrated to that working class haven, Australia. We played fly-half (No 10) until
one too many “forget the scrum-half, get the next bloke” tactical plays by
opposing sides encouraged the view that squash might be a safer sport.
But love of the game lingers (you never really lose it) so we browse a
number of rugby sites – the Wallabies, the Queensland Reds and Scotland are
favourites, along with an historical affinity with the Springboks – including a
Facebook page maintained by the Bali Rugby Club.
There, the other day, we noticed a post by BRC president Nick Mesritz,
who shapes surfboards for a living and is from the land of the magical Haka. It
quoted All Black prop Owen Franks on his upcoming pre-season training: “The
training programmes are brutal and lonely – the onus is on the individual to be
responsible for their fitness and follow an aerobic and strength programme that
will include sprint repeats, hill work, gym work and agility sessions.”
We could suggest that’s not unlike the daily fitness regime here at The
Cage. But we’d be straying a little too far from the literal truth.
All
Abuzz
Brisbane in Queensland is a fine place to
formerly call home. It’s Australia’s third largest capital city (population 2
million-plus) so it comes with all mod cons, and since it sits happily on 27 S
its winters, while locally remarkable, barely pass even the fringe chill test.
It’s a great place for Garuda to fly to from Bali – again, after its five-year
bottom-line disappearing act – and those additional services from later next
year will widen opportunities to stage brief returns, something The Diary has
missed.
But we’ve kept in touch, among other things by way of the vibrant
Brisbane Institute, a body that commenced operations some years ago under the
benevolent editorial gaze of your diarist. Thus we learned recently that with
the appointment of its first Chief Digital Officer, the city joined New York as
one of the few conurbations in the world to have its own local government digital
champion. It’s part of the Brisbane City Council’s ambition to position
Brisbane as Australia’s new world city.
The Queensland capital, while still the butt of jealous jokes from
effete southerners, has always been in the lead on technology. It had the first
computer in the southern hemisphere, in 1962. In those pre-nano days, the
monster had to arrive by ship.
Ties
That Bind
Hector’s helper – the chap who’s not just a
virtual cockatoo – spends a little time on Facebook, as some of his closer acquaintances
have been known to note, on occasion testily. One of these, the Distaff, was
recently further underwhelmed at finding herself newly in his profile picture.
She won’t have a bar of Facebook, Herself.
It’s a nice photo, one from the files from 1994, and it was placed there
because while Facebook allows one to proclaim a marital state, it won’t allow any
visual or verbal reference to the name of that propinquity unless they are also
an FB user. When dealing with the many unknowns of cyberspace, there are
sensible reasons to provide concrete evidence of the presence of a Significant
Other.
What’s really interesting, however, is that while selecting files for a
series of down the years photos for possible profile use, the eye fell upon another,
from 1996, only two years later. The Distaff had completely changed: she’d been
to the gym or something, was clad in an outfit of a very outré hue, and had changed
her hairstyle. But Hector’s helper, non-fashion statement that he remains, was
still carrying the same old kilos and wearing the same blazer and tie.
Feasting
Note
On Dec. 25, as every year, we mark the Christian
anniversary of the birth of one of Islam’s important prophets, Isa al Mahdi,
the Messiah. The birthday is notional, naturally, since the early Christians
merely co-opted existing pagan feasts. Easter (from the Greek pagan god Oestre)
was the old Northern Hemisphere Spring fertility celebration. The midwinter stave-off-starvation feast became
Christmas, marking the birth of Jesus. But myths and the complex liturgies that
religious scholars spin from them are what make the world and its belief
systems go round, after all.
So Merry Christmas! We’ll save the “Happy New Year!” for the next
edition.
Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hector tweets @scratchings and is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky). The lovely people at the brilliant Yak Magazine have a link to this blog at www.yakmag.com.
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