THE BALI TIMES DIARY Jan. 14, 2011

Thanks a
Million!
Like a Dog's
Breakfast?

It’s tough being not quite in charge of vaccinating dogs against rabies. You go to all the trouble of alerting the worldwide be-nice-to-doggies lobby and – even more difficult – waking up the Bali and Indonesian governments, and then the bureaucrats and politicians get under foot and it all ends up being like a dog’s breakfast.

    This is not, to be fair, wholly or far less exclusively an Indonesian issue. Governments everywhere get under foot, closely followed by stumbling politicians. Witness the successions of close-but-no-cigar outcomes in other democracies. But at the same time the let’s not mention it, perhaps they won’t notice policy option is particularly popular here, helped along by the top-down nature of leadership.

    The significant failure of the Bali and national governments to address the rabies crisis here in any substantive way, unless you count rhetoric, in which case everyone’s a champion, is a case in point. The money arrived, from overseas of course; and then the flat-foot bureaucracy stood on it. There’d be a decent PhD or two in a study of Indonesia’s astonishing capacity to deliver non-outcomes, if anyone were game to do them.

     Meanwhile, up at Ubud, in the Wudbees where such people thrive, Janice Girardi and the Bali Animal Welfare Association battle on, against the odds, continuing to cite international benchmarks that plainly mean nothing here.

     We hear that Girardi said the other day – it may have been a quip, or a nice rounding of the numbers, of course – that she could use a million dollars for her charity of choice. Looking after dogs that the Balinese, by undeserved reputation dog lovers themselves, won’t bother with is a great cause and should be supported. BAWA’s sterilisation-immunisation-find them homes programme is great. It may need a million dollars (the people who reported that accounting to The Diary were donating a rather more modest sum) but in itself that won’t cure rabies.

     Sadly, 118 Balinese are no longer around to make a comment on that. If the government, and BAWA, are looking for a bottom line – that’s it. 

Conrad Jaunt

We were at The Conrad at Tanjung Benoa on Tuesday night for a decorous little bash that enabled GM Michael Burchett to introduce his new sales team at the plush property, serve some very fine canapés and other delights along with a very palatable cabernet merlot among other products of the vine, and say farewell to long-standing media flack Ruth Zuckerman.

    It’s sad to see Ruth go (after eight years she has a redecorating date with her Sydney apartment, we hear, and some very worthwhile charitable PR to do in Sin City) but there’s a silver lining: the lovely Alicia Budihardja steps up to the plate to hit some home runs for the place. We look forward to keeping score.

    The usual crowd was about, some of it looking for updates. We chatted with Sophie Digby, whose latest little mid-term Yak is freshly on the electronic newsstands (the MinYak always has the good oil), about, among other things, the bad-word fund at her house. We shan’t be going there, then. An evening chez Sophie could be very expensive, especially since Canggu can be several hours driving time from Ungasan up the Manic Motorway.

    And we met a very flamboyant fellow called Ray, who said he was trying to stay out of the limelight. Ray, it didn’t work; you were brighter than the fireworks, mate.

    It was a special night in another way. We were able to see our good friend Wayan, who works for Conrad and who set up the venue for Tuesday’s function. We missed seeing another favourite person. Ayu works in the Lobby Bar but had gone home by the time Michael Burchett allowed us to leave.

Show-Stopper

A little while back Reinhold Johann, GM at the Banyan Tree at Ungasan, put on a very svelte soiree for the media at his resort’s fine cliff-top dining experience, Ju-Ma-Na. It was a lovely evening, even though the weather wasn’t kind at all.

    Ju-Ma-Na's chef de cuisine Mandif Warokka has introduced a revitalised French-Japanese menu that fully complements the stunning cliff-top and ocean views the restaurant provides (excusing the quarry the neighbouring village has gouged out of the nearby crag, proving yet again that the bulk of Balinese care not a jot for the environment).

    The Banyan Tree has been open for a year. It will have its official grand opening soon.  

Grate Idea

Way back in 1952, at the beginning of the frightful fifties – goodness, that’s 59 years ago; doesn’t time fly when you take a historical perspective – one of the those dreadful quasi-musicals that in those days were Hollywood’s de rigueur fare came out to entertain children and (in those days) probably also their parents.

     It was an excrescence called Hans Christian Andersen and starred Danny Kaye, among others. Truly there are some childhood memories that deserve to remain repressed. It featured a dreadful ditty, Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen, rendered with long “aah” instead of the Danish short “a” either to ease the minstrels on their way or to help Hollywood, fresh from arrogantly and ignorantly inventing the Wild West, redesign ancient Nordic languages.

     None of this would matter, and should indeed have remained repressed, if it were not for the fact that some clown collective has decided that Indonesia – a place of wondrous eclecticism and superb ethnic and cultural variety – should promote itself as Wonderful Indonesia. It’s such a shame Danny and his crew aren’t still around to make a movie about it.

    It would be invidious, perhaps, to suggest some rather more workable alternatives, since the clowns have done their work. So heck, we in The World’s Archipelago will just have to make do as always.

Cultural Moment

The Diary can’t be there of course (that Wallace Line thingy is a real nuisance sometimes) but this Friday Asmara Restaurant in Senggigi on Lombok has a bit of a treat for lovers of monologues. It should certainly appeal to politicians, budding or retired, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it attracted representatives of each class. One of the latter was certainly on the acceptance list, according to Asmara’s Facebook. Enjoy the evening, Peter!

    Performer Adam Cranfield scheduled four contemporary monologues: Cornelius from The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder; David from Ortenga by Oscar Birbeck; Andrew Gomez from The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman; and Boesman from Boesman & Lena by Athol Fugard.

    The evening features some music as well, and Sakinah Nauderer’s fine cuisine.

Kev’s Fault

The very engaging Strewth column in The Australian newspaper reminded us on Wednesday that there are nutcases everywhere who are convinced by the strange voices they hear in their heads that disasters (of any magnitude or provenance) are some sort of divine retribution and concoct suitably theological rhetoric to prove it.

    It reported the view of one such self-illuminated prophet of doom, Pastor Danny Nalliah of Catch the Fire Ministries – he’s from Queensland, naturally, where they do Doh! so well – who apparently believes his flood-hit state is being punished for local lad Kevin Rudd, once prime minister, now foreign minister, speaking out against Israel.

    Wonder if Pastor Danny is available on Twitter like so many other farcical seers are today? That could be fun. Someone really should organise a global Twit-Off competition to keep them all amused. First prize: an all expenses paid trip to the retribution of your choice.

Flood Trauma

It has been so sad in recent days to watch television reporting the terrifying and devastating floods that have hit Queensland, wrecking places and taking lives in an area that was The Diary’s home for so many years. Apart from that, it brought back memories of the devastating 1974 Brisbane flood, a direct reference that brings additional poignancy to today’s vision and reporting of the events.

    It’s important to keep things in perspective, of course. Australia is a well serviced nation that, however difficult the situation, quickly rolls out public funded support measures for people affected. But while speaking of perspective, people accustomed to Indonesian population numbers might like to reflect that 12 Australian dead (the running death toll on Wednesday) equates to 120 here; that 20,000 homes inundated and effectively destroyed equates to 200,000; and that around 5,000 people in emergency shelters (not counting the thousands who have taken refuge with family or friends) equates to 50,000.

    There is a huge economic cost too: the virtual closure of the Queensland mining industry, which supplies half the world’s coking coal, and the destruction of food crops, could bring the cost above US$10 billion and depress Australia’s $924.84 billion economy by at least 0.3 percent this year (about $2.7 billion). Try those numbers in rupiah.

diary@thebalitimes.com

Hector's Blog appears as The Diary in the weekly print edition of The Bali Times, out Fridays, and on the newspaper's website www.thebalitimes.com. The Bali Times is available as a print product worldwide through NewspaperDirect.

THE BALI TIMES DIARY Jan. 7, 2011

*** HAPPY NEW YEAR ***

All Aboard the

Pipedream

Express for

Your Trip of

a Lifetime

Unless something was lost in the translation – like evidence of an appreciation of the engineering involved, the planning and community consultation that will have to be done, and a few other commonsense agenda items – Governor I Made Mangku Pastika has now promised Bali a train that will chug all round the island, following the roads and depositing locals and tourists alike at their destinations of choice, in 2015.

    It seems he’s done this on the basis of having signed a memorandum of understanding (the magic MoU without which any thoroughly modern major leader cannot even eat his breakfast) with the state railway company. Earlier, of course, the Japanese had signalled their interest in participating in the Bali Choo-Choo Project.

    Governor Pastika is a sensible fellow. He saw off the taxi rabble the other week by telling them he’d be happy to chat whenever they came up with a reasonable argument. Since he meant one that did not involve shutting down Bali’s only worthwhile taxi company so that all the other dysfunctional ones could have free rein and shut down competition which might otherwise mean having to improve services and train their drivers, we can assume they won’t be back any time soon.

    Logic would indicate therefore that he might know a timeframe of five years to get a 500-kilometre railway up and running in crowded and adat-ruled Bali – even his preferred “slow train” around the littoral limits of the island – is (not to be unkind) ever so slightly on the heroic side of wondrously optimistic. It would – or should – also indicate that his public belief that such a railway could defray land acquisition costs and argument by following the road system and all its ridiculous little kinks and defiles (no wonder he’s thinking of a slow train) is also heroic.

    What gauge of track is it proposed to run on? It would need to be a very narrow gauge indeed to manage right-angle turns. How are the trains to be powered? If the railway line is located within the COCOOTZ (that’s the Careering Out-of-Control Overturning Overloaded Truck Zone) on or near any road, what about public liability? Not to mention safety.

    The Diary did a double-take when the story emerged in the hiatus between Christmas and New Year. Perhaps the Governor’s office had put it aside for April 1 and inadvertently released it early.

Seeing Stars

The Diary is a Capricorn, one of that class of person whose childhoods were made a misery by the proximity of their birthdays to Christmas and thus being with depressing frequency the recipients of seasonal gifts “for your birthday as well.” It marks you, you know, that kind of thing. It almost makes it possible to envy a Leo.

    In later stages of life’s cycle one tends to overlook birthdays, or laugh them off as inconsequential things. Or you start counting backwards. But this season was a little more fraught than most and the reason for this became plain when – via the estimable Jonathan Cainer, who contributes the weekly horoscopes interested readers may find on Page 15 – it was discovered that Mars and Saturn were about to create a right-angle smack bang in the middle of Capricorn’s little bit of the heavens.

    Goodness, no wonder things have been a bit iffy lately. It makes you want to retire to the bedchamber and cover your head with the can’t-see-me blanket until it’s all over. But that wouldn’t work. Capricorns are never pessimists (we’re positive people, people) but we are realists. Someone or something would be sure to spot the big lump in the bed and then it would all be over anyway.

    Better to face your daemons with a whisky in your hand and look them straight in the eye. Pip-Pip!

Cursed Indeed

Hugo Rifkind, a reasonable thinker, noted in The Times (of London) on December 21 that the curse of modern life is the impatience that comes with being within reach of information all the time. The Diary only read an extract of his article – via the New Statesman, our favourite English-language leftwing journal (Le Monde does La Gauche rather better) - because nowadays you have to pay to access the full horror of the former Thunderer. The Diary, having once been a Rupert Murdoch wage slave, sees no reason to return any of the man’s money.

    Rifkind, spinning a tale drawn from the exceptional cold and snow that afflicted his misty little islands off the north-west coast of Europe just before Christmas, wrote that it is not the cold, the hard floors or the prospect of a lost holiday that anybody particularly seems to mind when travel delays occur. It is the waiting born of a lack of information that is exasperating.

    He noted: “People crave information because it gives them the illusion of control. But knowing exactly how long one is going to be stuck at an airport does nothing to change the fact that the individual is stuck there. Yesterday [Dec. 20], Lord Judge allowed the use of Twitter in court - proof that it is becoming almost unthinkable in modern life that people should have to wait for anything. The downside is that people are getting worse at coping on the rare occasions that they have to.”

    Well, we agree; on both counts. There are quite enough twits in courts everywhere without allowing electronic versions in there as well.

Levantine Treat

A friend not long out of Bali spent Christmas at Byblos, in the northern stretch of Lebanon not far from where the Mediterranean’s Levantine coast becomes briefly Syrian before turning into Turkey. He was there, he said, with his IPad, and planned to do some reading.

    It’s a magic spot, and not just because the fabled eastern Mediterranean is at one’s doorstep (though a tad chill for dipping into at this time of the year). The Levant has always fascinated anyone with a sense of history, and Byblos, though now a forgotten corner to most people, more than most. It’s certainly a great place for bibliophiles.

    It was a bastion of the Hellenised Middle East of the Ancient World and – though He is not recorded as ever having been there while he walked upon the Earth; it’s a bit of a trudge from Judea – has an important place in the story of Jesus Christ, known to most Indonesians as Isa al Mahdi. It was a centre of learning with a magnificent set of libraries and it gave its name to the Bible.

    We would have disturbed our friend and his Christmas peace had we been along for the trip. But yes, it would have been a treat to be there among the better lettered spirits.

Deserted

Our newly more accessible neighbour Darwin, capital of Australia’s Northern Territory and just a little under three hours away by AirAsia (nightly) or Jetstar, was apparently all but deserted over Christmas and the New Year. The ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster, screened a lovely little news report just before Christmas that showed what passes for queues at Darwin’s airport (some of them seemed to be about four people long – oh joy) and included the intelligence that no one from the airport or the airlines was available for comment because they’d all disappeared on holidays.

    As Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson told the camera it’s a long Top End tradition to vacate the place over Australia’s long Christmas-New Year-Summer Holiday break. One such evacuee who has been spending some time in Bali is the territory’s health minister, Kon Vatskalis, who as well as relaxing – as he should – was pushing forward an innovative health plan we’ll be hearing more of soon.

    Henderson himself is heading this way. He’s coming to Bali for a week’s break mid-month. Have a good one Paul. We hope Darwin’s traditional Big Wet, another reason for quitting the place in December-January-February, is not still having a holiday in Bali when you get here.

Jack, You’re a Dork

The tragic deaths of a young French couple shortly after they checked into their small (and on the evidence fatally dysfunctional) holiday hotel in Banjar, Buleleng, over Christmas, remind us all of the fragility of life and demonstrate the power of love: the man apparently died when he tried to save his wife who (it appears) had been electrocuted in the shower.

    So we didn’t need the disgustingly inappropriate and demeaning illustration that went out with Jack Daniels’ “report” on the incident in his weekly Bali Update on December 28. A photo of two sets of feet poking out from the end of a blanket is not funny in the circumstances. It is a gross slur for which he should thoroughly ashamed. 

It’s Janet

Just for the record, The Diary’s most mentioned name in 2010 was Ubud culinary delight and literary entrepreneur Janet de Neefe, with 14. Governor I Made Mangku Pastika was second, with 11 mentions. He may do better this year of course, as we keep you up to speed with the Pipedream Express and other luminous examples of government by bright idea.

diary@thebalitimes.com

Hector's Blog appears as The Diary in the weekly print edition of The Bali Times, published on Fridays and available worldwide through NewspaperDirect, and on the newspaper's website at www.thebalitimes.com

THE BALI TIMES DIARY Dec. 24, 2010

It Really is

Time to Get

Rabid About

This Unholy

Shemozzle

It seems appropriate, though we wish it were not, to end the year with a note about rabies. This unnecessary scourge has now been with us for 26 months (officially) and has killed 113 people (officially). The Bali tourism office, ever an entity to miss the point entirely, now seems to be saying that it’s not really a problem and, for another thing, why can’t the Australians in particular just shut up about it. Meanwhile we learn from the animal husbandry department that rabies is now present in 46 villages from which it was apparently absent six months ago. Anywhere else, this might be seen as evidence that the disease is still spreading uncontrollably. Here ... well, who knows? No one’s ever going to say.

    Reportage of the rabies crisis in the newspapers here – the local Indonesian language press and in The Bali Times - since 2008 makes uncomfortable reading. It should make our political and community leaders uncomfortable too, but there’s little evidence to show this. On Bali there are many official carpets and an awful lot that gets swept under them.

    There are simply too many dogs and too many, as well, left to roam freely by their Balinese informal owners. Some steps are allegedly being taken to rectify this – the new schools-based programme in which teachers will instruct children about rabies and the need to take proper care of your animals is a decent start and is praiseworthy – but the authorities have had more than two years to do something and are only now switching on. This delay is appalling.

    It’s a bit early for New Year resolutions, which properly should follow the Christmas jeer, but a commitment (then met) from all the authorities concerned to make a workable plan and stick to it would be really good news for the Balinese people.

   

All Hail

The Diary’s Australian friends – well the pacific sort, at least, those who live on the eastern seaboard, where they greet the day rather than wave it goodbye as they do in the west – are amused by reports of hail in Bali where, as keen weather observer Susi Johnston told us the other day, the little lumps of ice get a Warhol moment: around 15 minutes of fame as fake snow until nature takes its course and they just become a series of wicked little leaks.

    It’s less because hail here is remarkable through of its absence except as a rare phenomenon than that, in eastern Australia, it is a regular menace. In Australia’s climate gigantic hailstorms are caused by the same sort of severe weather effect as that which creates huge and deadly tornadoes in the United States.

    Hail storms can sweep through wide areas rapidly, often building up destructive power very quickly, and cause millions of local dollars – at present converting very roughly at near parity with the tornado greenback – in damage. Brisbane, from where well-heeled hail refugees will soon be able to flee non-stop in business class to a safer place (Bali) on Strategic Airlines, has been having some hefty ones lately.

    Such events are not confined to the eastern parts of Australia. There was a huge hailstorm in Perth last March that did much more than just put a dent in some poor plutocrat’s Porsche.

Snowflake’s Chance

The weather might lately have brought us a meteorological moment – that hail – but we should spare a thought for all those poor souls in Europe who have already had two bouts of Arctic weather this winter ... though it wasn’t really the northern hemisphere winter until the solstice, on Tuesday ... and at last report were still afflicted by bitter cold and heavy snow. It also snowed in Australia this week, just ahead of the southern summer solstice and, granted, only at high altitude.

    Global warming is certainly coming on fast, folks.

   

Tugu Times

Hotel Tugu Bali at Canggu, one of the comely stable of boutique presences headed by 2010 Yak Magazine Woman of the Year Lucienne Anhar, is playing a big part in the renaissance of classicism in Bali, No, not ancient Greek, though The Diary recommends this for its character-forming and mind-broadening benefits, but classical music.

    There’s a classical piano performance there on the evening of December 29 by world renowned pianist Boris Kraljevic and three of his students, Nguyen Tien Khai from Vietnam, Adita Permana from Indonesia and Neil Franks from the United Kingdom.

    They’ll perform works by Chopin (The Diary’s absolute stand-out must-listen favourite), Schumann and Brahms, Debussy and Ravel (will their Bolero be a perfect 10?) and Balinese music written by Colin McPhee.

    The hotel and other places are taking bookings and all proceeds of the event will go to The Green School Bali Scholarship fund to benefit Balinese and other Indonesian students. So not only do you get good music (and dinner if you wish to pay extra) but it’s all in a good cause.

    Speaking of good causes, the Rotary Club Bali Canggu had a benefit dinner at Tugu Bali on Tuesday – at the hotel’s pleasant Warung Tugu – which regretfully The Diary had to miss. We’re sure the occasion, the Holiday Lamplight Dinner, went well and achieved its objective; both outcomes are things for which Rotary is justly renowned.

Devout Wish

Amid the clamour of the pre-Christmas season, especially in the retail sector which The Diary tries very hard to avoid at this (or any) time of year, the dulcet tones of the Austrian carol Silent Night are sometimes detected. It’s more relevant, and truer to the real meaning of the Christian festival, than White Christmas or Santa Claus is Coming to Town, or ’Tis the Season to be Jolly (tra la la la la, la la la la ... don’t sit on the bloody holly, oo oo oo oo oooooo, ow ow ow, Ow!).

    Silent Night (it’s better in the original German, as Stille Nacht) is now 194 years old and has just topped the list as Britain’s most recorded Christmas song of all time. Among those to have offered silent nights with a post-Age of Sentience twist are punk band The Dickies and Sinead O’Connor. The original devotion was penned in 1816 by a Catholic priest, Father Joseph Mohr.

    The Diary historically views the song, when heard above the cacophony, as a seasonal wish that sadly will forever remain unfulfilled.

Hit the Road

Australia’s transport minister, Anthony Albanese, dropped by last week to hand over some more money for essential works, such as transport security and road safety and so on, and that’s great.

    He made a speech – no politician goes anywhere without doing that, it’s in the job description – about several topics, including Australia’s key role in building Indonesia’s national road network into something resembling a thoroughfare.

    It’s a shame he only went to Jakarta. If he’d come to Bali he could have had a nice chat with local legislators (who have just noted that not a lot that should by now be on the ticked-off list is actually on it) and seen at first hand the progress being made on his country’s flagship road development project here – the duplication of the Denpasar-Kusamba highway.

    Of course, armed with the loud and über-pushy police escort of the sort hereabouts defined as de rigueur for visiting VIPs, he’d have cut right through the interminable holdups.

It’s Nearly Gone

The year, that is. It’s odd, really; it seems to happen every 12 months. It can’t have anything to do with global warming, can it; or WikiLeaks?

    Anyway, as you do at this time of the year, Hec’s had a browse through his 2010 archive and picked out 12 of the highs, lows and bellows of the past year.

    His assessment of 2010: You won’t see that again. It’s in LIFE, on Page 11.

Cheers!

The end of the year brings a holiday break for many, including newspaper diarists. The Diary won’t appear next week – because there’s no paper, silly – but look for us on January 7 when we start the run round that little wheel again for 2011.

    In the meantime, have a good one.

diary@thebalitimes.com

Hector's Blog appears as The Diary in the weekly print edition of The Bali Times and on the newspaper's website www.thebalitimes.com. Print editions of The Bali Times are available worldwide through NewspaperDirect. 

THE BALI TIMES DIARY Dec. 17, 2010

Beware of

Those Who

Say They’ll

Save You

the Bother

of Voting

How Indonesia chooses to govern itself is wholly a matter for Indonesians to decide. Those of us who live here without benefit of citizenship may merely observe the processes, form views about these and their utility or function, or more often the lack thereof; and if we can break through the all but impenetrable thickets of local culture, custom and language to make a point to our friends, and they choose to listen, offer our thoughts.

   So it with that caveat in mind that non-national observers should demur at proposals to snatch back from the people a significant democratic advance but lately granted, by removing direct election of provincial governors and returning appointment of these people to the hands of the provincial legislatures.

   This is not the way to go, if Indonesia is to construct a genuinely democratic polity (it hasn’t yet). It is the absence of a properly codified and constitutionally enforceable set of rules that is to blame: the simple matter of devising a compact to divide up power and allocate responsibility. It isn’t the governors and the expense they allegedly cause by being directly elected that is the problem. It is the absence of constitutional rules that govern the practice of politics and administration.

   It’s clear enough that the present half-baked policy of regionalism isn’t working. But that’s not because it can’t work. It’s because the placemen in the apparatus of central power won’t let it. They want all the money: witness the departure from Bali of all of the visa income this island earns. It’s because provincial legislatures, like their national counterpart, are talking shops whose members aren’t interested in policy, preferring to waste their time bickering about politics and placement. And it’s because the incomplete and imperfect methodology of present regionalism policy has allowed regents (bupatis) – who in reality are merely local council administrators – to run their regencies as if they are fully autonomous states within some loose federation.

   The present system isn’t working and needs revision. But the answer to pernicious and rampant national, provincial and district sloth and official theft is to agree on a workable system consistent with the regional differences in culture and ethnicity that so enrich Indonesia. Governors should be the real leaders of their provinces, not the creatures either of the president or their provincial legislatures. To achieve this they must be directly elected and have the constitutional authority to pull lower-level miscreants into line. To save costs all provincial and district elections should be held on the same date nationally, under uniform legislation that sets the electoral rules in concrete and which is rigidly enforced, no exceptions permitted.

    How a new deal on regionalism should be achieved is a matter for national debate. It might start from the premise that at present nothing much works as it should. It must define financial and administrative responsibilities (it could start by making regents legally as well as politically responsible for ensuring that national and provincial planning and environment laws are enforced). And it should ensure that regional government is adequately and effectively funded.

    Any system of devolved government is complex and will forever create argument over who pays for what. But central control, the only other workable alternative, is in the end vastly more costly in social disadvantage and potential conflict.

Flame Wars

It will surprise no one that Michael Made White Wijaya, MW2 for short, has no time for Hector or his doppelganger, a chap we know well who operates a Facebook from which MW2 long ago withdrew friendship. We think it was the references in The Diary to his formerly phosphorescent status that upset the self-proclaimed Sage of Sanur.

    However, there are Facebook pages around where Hec’s mate and MW2 occasionally cross paths, though rarely swords. One instance of the latter variety did occur last weekend, however, when a mutual friend posted a list of countries that had failed to front their ambassadors at this year’s Nobel Peace Prize presentation in Oslo, at which jailed Chinese dissent Liu Xiaobo was honoured in absentia, and commented in passing that a number of African states, those for whom the yuan is a powerful persuader, were on the absentee list.

    With his customary back-of-the-bike-sheds humour, MW2 advised in response that Chinese had a significant hair deficiency upon a part of the body about which he is apparently fixated but which diarists would not mention in print and that he therefore preferred Africans. Hec’s friend, having nothing better to do at the time and being in a playful mood, posted back: SCOOP! Made Wijaya HATES Brazilians.

    It went downhill from there. The poor (and thoroughly nice) Facebook owner felt it necessary to post a warning that flaming – personal attacks on others – would be deleted. Wijaya nonetheless flamed back: “Do us a favour and unfriend the Heckler: he is a traitor to the cause of hacks without borders.”

    Now we know that’s not true. Hec, who has been a hack since well before Wijaya first sprayed himself with Day-Glo, has crossed many borders in his time. It’s just that he finds uncouth and in-your-face blowhards tedious.

Thirsty Work

Rio Helmi, who has spent more than 30 years taking great photographs of Bali, had a big date at the Amandari at Ubud this week. He gave a talk about his latest book, Memories of the Sacred, at the resort’s regular Thirsty Tiger Thursday.

   The book is a personal photographic record of Balinese ritual, trance and communal ceremonies; like all Helmi’s work it is a collector’s item. It would have been great to be there for the event but, schedules being what they are, Thursday afternoons just aren’t in the race.

   That’s a shame. Amandari’s Thirsty Thursday includes canapés and laid-back tunes. Now there’s a recipe for decadence.

     

Wikied Ways

Last week’s Diary item on the WikiLeaks saga seems to have stirred the pot. All sorts of people apparently must have believed that The Diary is as taken in as them by the pernicious effects of modern instant celebrity, which creates heroes out of huff-and-puffs and mounts crusades from positions of one-eyed ignorance (that much holds true to historical practice).

   So we’ll say it again: the benefits of hacking willy-nilly into national computer systems and spraying confidential information about like confetti are in fact rather less than crystal clear. Broadcasting masses of private conversations doesn’t help make things more transparent – even though transparency is an essential element of democratic government and must be sought and sustained everywhere – because all it does is fill the air with chaff that is then consumed by many who, while convincing themselves they are now informed, are and will remain ignorant of both the context and the full facts.

    It also risks unintended consequences that Assange and his growing army of cheerleaders either don’t comprehend, or which they think should now be immaterial because confidentially has been rendered redundant by new technology.

   Julian Assange is not a martyr. He is not Our Cyber Saviour. He is a meddlesome – and evidently mendacious – activist. He either doesn’t understand, or chooses to ignore, his responsibility (if he is a high practitioner of the arcane arts of “new journalism,” as he claims) to act responsibly and assess material objectively.

    He has an agenda that has been deployed in his own interest. He asserts that this coincides with the public interest. In fact it is very far from clear that this is so.

   

City Slickers

It’s great to hear that Yemen, which is not exactly a haven of democracy, has committed to advance the cause within its own borders. We hear this from the Yemeni news agency SABA, which reported that the country’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Muthana Hassan, had made an important speech emphasising the importance of strengthening the democratic process by states and its impacts on economic and social development.

    Apparently the minister was speaking at a forum on democracy held in the Indonesian city of Bali last week; or so SABA reported.

Going Cheap

Deborah Cassrels, the fun girl-about-town Sydneysider who like so many Aussies, adoptive or otherwise, now calls Bali home, gave Seminyak’s JP’s Warung Club a nice little plug in The Australian newspaper on Monday. She related how a venture into popular classics by its German operator, Diary friend Tom Hufnagel, had gone so well that classical music is now regularly on the repertoire in Jl Dyana Pura.

    It all started with former busker and now lyric tenor Tarik Akman – he grew up in Germany but like all the millions of Turks in that country cannot be a German because, well, you have to be a German to be a German – wowing a packed audience from around the globe.

    Seats at JP’s for that performance would have sold like hot cakes (or possibly Apfel Knödel) though. The Australian (we’re sure it wasn’t Cassrels, who’s a dab hand at counting the shekels) reported they cost 50 rupiah. Ahem.

diary@thebalitimes.com

Hector is on Twitter @hector

Hector’s Blog appears as The Diary in weekly print edition of The Bali Times, Bali’s only English-language newspaper, out Fridays, and on the newspaper’s website www.thebalitimes.com. Print editions are available worldwide through NewspaperDirect.

THE BALI TIMES DIARY Dec. 10, 2010

WikiLeaks are

Wearisome;

They Are Not

a Casus Belli

We assume (well, we hope) there is no risk that Julian Assange’s regrettable WikiLeaks organisation will cause us to learn that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – he’s been in Bali all week, by the way, opening prawn hatcheries and democracy forums – really does plan to become a dangdut star when he leaves office at the end of his current term.

    Though such intelligence would, in The Diary’s mind at least, place Assange’s efforts in the correct perspective. It’s all a bit of a joke really. Leaked diplomatic and other confidential material purports to show that former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd – he’s now his country’s foreign minister - thinks force may have to be used if China won’t enter the world economic community in a responsible way. (He doesn’t, of course: that’s just another misinterpretation placed by the untutored on material that Assange’s silly little outfit has pricked with its leaf-stick. Though since Rudd speaks Mandarin, it’s a wonder his official note was not rendered in the finest calligraphy, or at least in Romanised Pinyin.)

    There seems to be a belief that WikiLeaks, by using computer technology and internet facilities now widely available, has reinvented journalism. It’s done nothing of the sort. Professional journalism when practised with judgment – including “with Google” nowadays – does not simply acquire raw material and put it out unchecked and untested. Assange and WikiLeaks are not offering journalism. They are offering wheelie-bin loads of decaying chicken innards that don’t even qualify as augurs.

    There’s nothing wrong with that, either, as long as those who read the stuff neither persuade themselves that what they’re seeing is “new journalism” nor that what they’re reading necessarily has any value beyond titillation.

    There is a place for data-dump disclosure. WikiLeaks did everyone a favour by exposing the full horror of Abu Ghraib abuse and the Apache gunship murders (that’s what they were). These two execrable incidents underline the sad fact that the Americans have never lost their dreadful tendency to run amok and remain besotted by their Hollywood legend-style Frontier proclivities in which, for example, George Armstrong Custer is a hero instead of a thick-headed fool.

    It might not suit the so-called global information community (comprising largely people who clearly would be much better employed getting on with their day) to even try to comprehend this, but there really are things that should be confidential. Among these - except when later analysed by historians able to view things from a distant perspective - are the marginal musings of a great many people.

    Aggrieved national governments might be better drawing a line under the WikiLeaks business. Assange is a public nuisance, that’s all. Charge him with that. He should get off with a good behaviour bond.  

Cosy Chat

Geoffrey Williams, late of Chamber Made Opera, which is widely viewed among modern operaristas as a legend in Melbourne, a very good place for indoor pursuits, has slipped very easily into Identity role in his new home town of Ubud. This week he was in conversation with Cat Wheeler, the Canadian expatriate who likes it to be known that she is an author, environmentalist, social activist, Reiki master and “remorseless optimist.” Golly, hope she has time for breakfast.

    Their cosy chat was the latest in the Bar Luna Literary Circle series of feel-good events at the joint, one of the culinary colonies with which Janet de Neefe has dotted the map of Ubud and environs. Wheeler wrote something called Rice Cultivation in Bali. That might neatly pair with the fragrant variety, for which fellow writer De Neefe has many recipes.

    It might under other circumstances have been fun to be there, to see at what point socially active opera and rice cultivation achieve confluence, conflate or, perhaps, confuse.

    But Thursday night’s chat was always going to be cosy. In the close confines of Bar Luna, on the equally spatially challenged Jl Gootama, there’s barely room to swing a Cat.

Space for Rant

The Diary’s friend James of Jembrana, who once told us that if he wanders down to the wind-blown beach outside his des res and really squints he can sometimes just see the top of the Bukit, whereon of course is The Cage, Hector’s domain, sent us a lovely little email the other day with what he described as another rant. Well, we all feel like that sometimes. Diarists have it easy: a weekly rant in print is highly therapeutic, especially in Bali, where everything that shouldn’t go wrong always does.

    He tells us – among a lengthy list of things about which we can only say, Sybil Fawlty-like, oh, we know – that the giant billboard cult has now made it to his previously unsullied part of the coast. He says he wonders why these excrescences are always placed precisely where they block the view and make a blind-spot out of a previously safely trafficable corner.

    In fact, of course, he doesn’t wonder about this at all, or even about why doltish ministers in Jakarta sign administrative orders that seem designed to deter tourists from bothering with Bali, since their spectacles and mobile phones alone will rocket them instantly into the top level of the newly invented rip-’em-off customs duties said to be kicking in at an assessed value of US$250 on January 1; or about many other things.

   There’s no point. It’s just the old syndrome so beloved of Indonesian bureaucrats and politicians. You think up a really bad idea and you put it on your “good ideas” list. The ILAND column on page 9 has some thoughts on the issue.

Tripped Up

Jack Daniels, inventor of tourism promotion in Bali and provider to the world of the weekly Bali Update, wherein he promotes his tourism business and excerpts items from the local press, was a bit busy last weekend. He did have time to tweet about why this was so, however, so he can’t have been too pushed, poor fellow. He was off on a five-day business trip, you see, and was rushing to get his update updated in time to catch his plane.

    Perhaps that’s why his judgment slipped so badly on one item he retailed – the sad suicide leap by an Irish expatriate from the cliffs at Uluwatu. “Leaving Bali for the Paradise to Come” sounds more like a poor-taste morticians’ convention one-liner than a sensitive and well-judged news headline.

    There is, of course, nothing wrong with gallows humour, in an appropriate ambiance. Laughter does keep you out of the morticians’ hands for longer than might otherwise be the case. And that can only be good. So, at one remove, we might afford ourselves a little giggle over the fact that a reader on The Bali Times Facebook clicked “Like” on our report of the Uluwatu tragedy. That was headlined “Expat Throws Self off Cliff.” (Disclosure: The Diary propped momentarily at this, because we had no idea that British writer Will Self was even on the island or what he could possibly have done to annoy someone so much. Surely it couldn’t have been his wonderful fantasia Great Apes?)

    Of course, Made Wirawan, of Bali Jeep Adventure Tours, who “liked” the post, and who one assumes must like expats, even if only for business purposes, might only have been relieved that one of his little happy-wagons hadn’t gone over the cliff along with the unhappy Irishman.   

   

Auffressen

Readers will know that The Diary has a very soft spot for Lombok. This is not just because it is the other side of the Wallace Line, on the outer edge of the eucalyptus zone, and therefore carries faint echoes and occasional sweet odours of home. There are other attractions, among them the promise of delicious delights at Asmara restaurant in Senggigi where at Christmas owner Sakinah Nauderer traditionally offers something extra delectable.

    This year you can enjoy a traditional German Christmas Eve dinner which offers Halfte langsam geröstete Ente mit Apfel und Zwiebel gefüllt, mit Rotwein Sosse serviert Rotkohl mit Gewürzen und hausgemachten Kroketten gekocht. Try saying that after a Jaegermeister or three.

    Actually it doesn’t say that at all, even though traditional German occasions of all varieties tend to be conducted in the German language. Asmara’s Christmas menu is in English. You should have no trouble ordering half slow-roasted duck with apple and onion stuffing, served with red wine gravy, red cabbage cooked with spices and home-made potato croquettes. There’s a Christmas Day brunch on the schedule too, complete with guitar music, for anyone who wants to go back for seconds.

    The order of the day is clear: Auffressen (Eat Up). Wish we could be there. Frohe Weihnachten, Sakinah.

diary@thebalitimes.com

Hector's Blog appears as The Diary in the weekly print edition of The Bali Times, out Fridays, and on the newspaper's website www.thebalitimes.com. Print editions are available worldwide through NewspaperDirect.

    

THE BALI TIMES DIARY Dec. 3, 2010

Lulu and Her Papa: Angelo needed a preen, she decided.

A Weekend

At Lulu’s

Is Always

Good Fun

The Diary is a Gili Trawangan fan from way back ... well, quite a way back. For one thing the little island haven off north-west Lombok is home to Lulu the world famous swimming monkey. Lulu is a macaque, raised from infanthood by Trawangan identity Angelo Sanfillipo. He acquired Lulu when she was but a six-month-old abandoned by one tourist – shame upon him – and rescued by two others who, having heard of Angelo, arrived on his doorstep at Dream Village and sort of said, um, here’s an abandoned monkey.

    We met Lulu shortly thereafter, when on the scene to enjoy some of Angelo’s home-cooked pasta – he is from Genoa, so you can understand the draw – and (of course) were instantly besotted. And not only with the pasta.

    At that time Angelo was teaching Lulu to swim. She even tried goggles, apparently with some success, though we hear she has now given them up and prefers to dive down to look at the fish aided only by the naked eye.

    Last weekend The Diary called in to see Lulu, who is now rather older and fully mature in the macaque fashion. She spends her days in a big casuarina tree on the beach outside Dream Village. The day we dropped in she heard Angelo’s call and came shinning down the trunk of the tree, then up it again to sort out the tangle she’d got her rope into (she’s tethered on a very long leash that gives her total freedom of movement and the whole tree to play in). Then, that problem solved, she came over for a chat.

    Lulu’s routine is somewhat unusual for a macaque. She has a walk and a swim with Angelo every morning – “Lulu she still look at fish,” Angelo told us at the weekend – and a freshwater shower after her dip. She has a proper shower and shampoo every two or three days, and spends every night at Angelo’s pad. Her favourite food is pasta al pesto. Lulu’s a girl with very good tastes.

Espresso Drought

One difficulty emerged during our Trawangan sojourn. It seemed that every espresso machine on the island had given up the ghost, possibly having heard The Diary was visiting.

    Sunday night, when we dined at Tir na Nog (everyone seeks eternal youth) and went on elsewhere for coffee and dessert, was a sad affair. We finally found a spot that said it had espresso – it was Horizontal, where the waiters, apparently all missionaries, wear T shirts asking you “What’s Your Favourite Position?” – and gratefully sat down at the tables under the trees on the beach. We ordered desserts (they were fab) and then got the bad news. Their espresso machine had gone on strike that very day.

    Hrrmph.

Pussy Galore

No, it’s not what you think. Trawangan is the island of cats. Most appear well fed, though some have obvious ailments that any good vet could sort out in a flash. The Diary stayed at Villa Unggal, in a room that said it had a mini bar (and therefore a fridge) and didn’t and astonishingly in this day and age did not have wifi. Or soap in the bathroom. On inquiry, we learned that the soap was finished and were advised to use the shower gel instead. Ah, well.

    It did, however, have a lovely little marmalade chap whose days were spent snoozing in sunny or shady spots according to taste and whose meows would surely put Garfield to shame.

    He got The Diary’s breakfast bacon on the last morning as a reward for being a pleasant little presence.

Demon Weed

A tip: Never walk alone at night on Trawangan if you’re a diarist of senior years. If you do, people will materialise out of the dark at regular intervals and offer you weed. One pitch heard over the weekend: “Like a smoke? You’ll sleep better.”

    The Diary, being of clean habits and clear conscience, never has trouble sleeping. And on relocation years ago to the jurisdiction of Indonesia’s sternly anti-drug criminal code, resolved never to be tempted to assume, as so many foolish people seem to, that the law cannot possibly apply to you. There are plenty of other places in the world where if you want weed or worse, supply is easy and the legal penalties somewhat less than unremittingly draconian.

    Trawangan is also famous for its allegedly magic mushroom, one among those varieties of macro fungi whose hallucinogenic qualities can really land you in the soup.

Wave Power

We returned to Bali direct from Trawangan on a Blue Water Express boat that packed a total of 1,000 horsepower in its quadruple outboards and made the 60 nautical mile trip from Teluk Kodek (on Lombok’s mainland, where it calls first before the Strait crossing) to Serangan Island (Benoa) in two hours, fifteen minutes. The service is very efficient; the boat, which was not crowded at all on our trip, is fully supplied with life vests and life rafts; and the crew hand out mints to help you while away the time.

    Crossing the big water was a doddle. We felt nary a bump, even when we crossed the Wallace Line. But the middle bit of Badung Strait was a different matter, between Nusa Penida and South Bali. It got very lumpy. But it was over quickly and for an old sea dog like The Diary presented no problems at all. We just love watching those walls of water coming at you.

Simon Says...

We had a note the other day from a reader, who signed off as Simon Says. Naturally we read it with interest, childhood games being remarkably fresh in our memory. Simon says The Diary should be more positive because constant negativity will age us prematurely.

    Well, we don’t run on battery power, so problems associated with mistaking the negative for the positive contact are really rather minimal. It’s also rather difficult identifying the alleged over preponderance of negative elements posited in The Diary.

    Perhaps Simon simply wants us to reflect the shiny Bali that the glossies like to pretend is all there is. Unfortunately (for Simon in this case) there’s rather more to Bali than bling. And some of what there is, that Simon would rather we didn’t refer to, is plainly unpleasant; or embarrassingly stupid. That said, we don’t think a fully objective assessment (or a simple story count) of The Diary would produce the wholly negative impression that Simon says he sees.

diary@thebalitimes.com

Hector's Blog is published as The Diary in the weekly print edition of The Bali Times newspaper, out Fridays. The Bali Times is available worldwide through NewspaperDirect. Keep updated on Bali news at www.thebalitimes.com.