HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser November 16, 2011

Mum-in-Law Says

Domestic order has been disturbed at The Cage, domicile of Diary and Distaff, by the departure of our prized pembantu. She was apparently prised from our grip by the iron grasp of her mother-in-law, who seemingly saw benefit in depriving her household of one of the two regular incomes it received.

     We think she didn’t want to go. She’d been with us as our housekeeper for four years; we all enjoyed a joke and a laugh together; we gave her extra money for additional tasks, and her husband too, for providing overnight security (and messing around with our TV) during any of our absences from home; her work schedule was regularly (or rather, irregularly) amended to meet her need to attend ceremonies and to the other, many, demands of local life; and there were other benefits, including a regular supply of clothing for herself and her child brought to our house by visitors from overseas who had heard about, and often met, our Wayan.

     It’s a shame. It points up the impossibility of applying here employment rules such as might exist in more formal economies (notice? what is notice?). It reinforces with stark clarity the single most significant fact of life in Bali for foreigners living here: that they are ATMs, nothing more, and rate only the label of Public Convenience.

     But worse than that, it demonstrates that those who promote the concept of women’s equality (or even basic rights) in Indonesia have a long and very hard row to hoe. In Indonesia generally, and in Bali’s iconoclastic and restrictive society particularly, a woman’s place is in her home. Doing what her husband and her mother-in-law tell her to do.

Just So You Know

We dined some little time ago at Dava, the signature restaurant at The Ayana Resort and Spa, the guests of Ayana’s chief spruiker Marian Hinchliffe, who couldn’t be with us on the night but had nonetheless arranged a complimentary glass of nice Chilean red.

     The occasion was to sample the degustation menu of Singapore chef Jusman So, over which Dava divas and other paying guests have been swooning. And so they should – it’s top tucker. We opted for a five-course sampling (the Distaff, who lately has been breaking out, chose two desserts) and added our own purchase of a bottle of said Chilean red (the Lapostalle merlot) to help the medicine go down. That cost a pembantu’s monthly salary plus extras, which is why Dava doesn’t see us all that often.

     For those with the readies, however, the degustation menu is just So ...  fabulous. Should a lottery win eventuate, the Diary might dine at Dava very regularly indeed. There was no lavosh among the complimentary breads, unfortunately, but Ottmar Leibert seemed to be providing the tunes to chomp to, which almost made up for its absence.

    The Diary had the gorgonzola, duck foie gras, purple potatoes, wagyu beef and fondant. The Distaff made it through a salad and fish (grouper) and beef dishes before hoeing into her two desserts.

     So is also now presenting his full a la carte menu, by the way.  We might come back to that. But you shouldn’t miss it, if your plastic stretches far enough.

 New Look:  Aussie colour in the air

Go Green and Gold

Strategic Airlines, the Brisbane-based carrier that serves Bali from the Queensland capital, changed its name and its livery on November 15. It became Air Australia and went green and gold – the country’s sporting colours – instead of red, white and blue.

     As well as this, it went low-cost, dispensing with cabin service included in ticket costs in favour of the buy-on-board option. It has big plans to become Australia’s true low-cost carrier – Virgin Australia long ago having junked that idea, preferring instead to reinvent the airline duopoly that served Australia in the past – and plans to expand its Bali services among many other developments.

     It will be retaining business class on its aircraft, however.

Rovers’ Return

Many years ago the Diary gave up on both the UK and southern Africa and moved to Australia, shortly thereafter adopting Brisbane – appropriately the city is named after a Scotsman – as his place of domicile. It served admirably in this capacity for some 35 years before the Distaff, herself from another extremity on the Australian continent, sold the house and contents, packed the remnants in her dilly-bag, and moved us to Bali.

     That was six years ago and was (and is) a move in no way regretted. It’s warmer here, for one thing. And Australia’s vast and uncontrollably growing regulatory environment wouldn’t thrive in Bali either. Since we prefer to live freely by our own (reasonable and lawful) rules, and hate the very thought of a nanny state, let alone Big Brother and all the other meddlers, Bali’s where we have to be.

      Nonetheless, thoughts of home drift into consciousness now and then, and we flew down to Brisbane on November 11 – on Strategic (Air Australia) as it happens – for a two-week fix, our first since the big move though we regularly go to Perth.  It’s only a short visit, and a busy one at that – so much to do, so little time – but it’s great to see old friends and old haunts, to smell the eucalyptus, to enjoy long, smog-free vistas of distant gum-blue mountains, and visit favourite places.

      These include the Queensland Museum of Modern Art (in Brisbane) where there is a photographic exhibition on that the Diary is going to see come hell or high water, and the thoroughly seductive Byron Bay, scene of many past delights.     

In the Pink: Organisers of the Bali Pink Ribbon Walk at this year’s event

In the Money

Gaye Warren, originator of the Bali Pink Ribbon Walk, tells us this year’s event – it was on October 22 – was highly successful. She didn’t mean that this was because Hector wore pink and wowed the crowd. She meant – and this is really good news – that fundraising here and in Jakarta, and in Australia and Britain, looked likely to bring on purchase of a mammogram machine in 2012.

     Breast screening is an essential element in detecting breast cancer early enough to make remedial treatment a viable option. At present most women in Bali who are found to have breast cancer have gone to the doctor only very late in the progress of the disease. Having a mobile mammogram unit will help the Bali International Women’s Association (BIWA), which supports the Bali Care Cancer Foundation set up by doctors at leading hospital Prima Medika, to ensure that more women receive treatment early.

     The Bali walk alone raised Rp200 million, bolstered by similar amounts raised in Britain and Australia and a quilt made by Jakarta quilters was auctioned, raising further funds. One woman in a wheelchair travelled from Jakarta and wheeled her way around the course. That’s dedication.
     Another breast cancer fundraising event, a charity lunch organised by the Rotary Club Bali Seminyak  at Metis in Seminyak on October 28 and attended by nearly 200, raised close to Rp110 million.

On Your Bike

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Nyoman Minta, the Bali Tourism Development Corporation gardener who made monkeys of the presidential security corps in Nusa Dua a couple of weeks ago. Minta pedalled his pushbike right through the middle of the select throng chosen to hear the latest presidential pronouncement on the occasion of some international conference or other. He did so because, as he later told police, he always rode through there.

     Medals are in order. For Minta, we suggest the Medal of Freedom (from thought and everything else). For the commander of the presidential security corps, who said everyone else was to blame, we recommend the Grand Star of the Order of My Friend Did It (with Inventive Excuse clasp), even if he doesn’t also get the JDS (Jangan Datang Senin, known in the English-speaking world as the DCM – Don’t Come Monday).  And clearly the three cordons of security goons through which Minta insouciantly perambulated while they were watching, rapt, as the Indonesian Air Force put on an aerial display, collectively and individually deserve conferment of the Dereliction of Duty Medal with Nincompoop clasp.

     Perhaps the president himself should get a gong. He is reported to have ordered police to treat Minta humanely. The change of policy – a welcome shift from beating every miscreant in sight with batons – is to be commended.

That’s the Spirit

You’ve got to hand it to Tom Hufnagel at JP’s Warungclub in Seminyak ... he gets all the big acts. Star of their Halloween Monday Night Special on October 31 was Amy Winehouse, who they said would dance again for you all. Well, she might have been there in spirit. The non-ethereal sound effects were by Sound Rebel. Revellers who wore a Halloween costume got a free drink. The late Amy would have liked that.

The Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website at www.baliadvertiser.biz.id

HECTOR'S DIARY The Bali Advertiser, November 2, 2011

Island Interlude

A week in Lombok is not a long time, especially if most of it is spent on Gili Trawangan, aka the Party Island.  It’s always been an eclectic little community so far as expats go, strongly focused on accommodation and recreational diving.

    On a recent trip across the Wallace Line we stayed first in Senggigi, at the usefully central Puri Bunga, just across from the Art Market, where the tariff’s not a killer and waitress Novi, by now an old friend, remains as helpful as ever at breakfast.

    On Trawangan, we stayed at Gili Villas, the Manta Dive-linked operation just up the street from the Gili Deli next to the night market.  They are pleasant little villas and the cleaning, cooking and security staff members are enthusiastic, at least for the most part. And the limit-of-two-users free Wi-Fi was just manageable for a household of three heavy users.

New Experience

Flying into the new Lombok International Airport for the first time was an interesting experience. The tourism-oriented locals up Senggigi way call it Bandara Hutan (Forest Airport) since it is 47 kilometres and at least an hour and fifteen minutes away from where most tourists want to be. They’ll probably get over this angst if the airport begins to pick up additional international services.

    We flew Garuda (we have to keep adding a few unusable frequent flier points to the piggy-bank) and landed at Bandara Internasional Lombok, near Praya in the middle of the island, in the swiftly gathering gloom of post-sunset. By this time, 11 days after it had finally opened, its lighted signage was proclaiming “ANDARA IN-ERNASIONAL LOMBOK” and the “K” was looking as if it wouldn’t be around for long. Still, the runway lights seemed to be in place and working.

    The new highway that is supposed to speed honoured guests to the booming cash points in Senggigi and the boats to the Gilis so they can begin parting with their money to the greater glory of the island’s economy is, after the fashion of things in Indonesia, a cross between half-completed and notional work-in-progress.

    Our taxi driver skilfully negotiated his way through the narrow gap between two large signs clearly warning (in Indonesian) “road closed ahead” before he worked out he was on one of the work-in-progress bits and nearly drove us into the cavernous ditch at the end of this enterprise.

Fine Dining

A great highlight of our Trawangan visit was dinner with the delightful Diane Somerton, who markets The Beach House and the neighbouring Kokomo resort. Kokomo’s restaurant serves very fine fare indeed and the wine, chosen by Somerton, was a real prize.

    We saw her too at The Beach House for two of the Rugby World Cup finals series matches, including the one in which the All Blacks knocked the Wallabies out of their way while charging towards their first cup win in 24 years.

     This was hard for Hector, who’s been wobbly for years; especially since his travelling party on the trip included a Kiwi. Still, never mind; they do say rugby’s only a game.

Rock of Ages

Dream Divers, old friends from our own days in Lombok, took us to Gili Trawangan from Senggigi. The coastal road up to Teluk Nara/Kode and beyond must be Indonesia’s finest highway. It is really very good and some of the tighter bends have actually been engineered properly.

    While we were waiting at Dream Divers’ landside facility for our boat to Trawangan we went to pay our respects at Gerd’s Rock, the memorial stone placed there by Dream Divers staff after the death last year of founder Gerd Bunte.

    One of the workers on hand told us Gerd had chosen the rock himself. It seems that after his death last year they had been unsuccessfully looking for a suitable rock and, empty handed, were driving back to Senggigi, when the fine specimen now residing at Teluk Kode plunged down the hillside directly in front of their vehicle.

Taman Tales

Peter Duncan, Lombok resident, tells us the disputed ownership of Senggigi’s Taman restaurant has now been finally resolved. It was sold in a court ordered auction in mid-October; the buyer was Wiwik Pusparini, who is his wife.

    Taman, once a leading light along Senggigi’s restaurant row and former place of beneficial Duncan management, has been far from gleaming for a long time, after one of those interminable ownership rows that so afflict business in Lombok and elsewhere.  We’ll leave those details alone but it’s good to hear that the Duncan connection has triumphed and that Taman is likely soon to be spruced up and gleaming (and trading) profitably again.   

In the Pink

The Bali Pink Ribbon Walk on October 22 raised sums unspecified at diary deadline time to support breast cancer prevention programmes for local women, helped along by a wide range of generous commercial sponsors. Hector now has a pink T-shirt for his own effort in walking the allegedly five kilometre course around the manicured gardens and streets of Nusa Dua’s star hotels precinct (most of the walkers opted for their own shortened course) and also gained an insight into modern forms of entertainment.

     For some reason, the organisers thought a bunch of cross-dressing trans-gender boys acting the goat (well, the jenny perhaps) and pretending to (a) sing and (b) be Beyonce was just the thing. It’s certainly the nearest Hector has been to a raunchy nightclub performance in quite a while; probably since the days long ago when he might, unwisely perhaps, once or twice have worn a pink shirt.

     October is Breast Cancer Month globally. But the 2012 Bali Pink Ribbon Walk, organised by the Bali International Women’s Association (BIWA), will revert to May when the weather’s less likely to be humid. It’s on Saturday, May 26.

Growing better: The Sole Men collect a welcome donation from Banyan Tree Ungasan General Manager Reinhold Johann at the plush resort’s infant banyan tree.

Great Feat

Robert Epstone, originator of the barefoot Bukit Walk for a Sustainable Future which took place from September 22-25, tells us it raised around US$2,000 for the ROLE Foundation with more money still coming in. The walk promoted support for Homeless children in Indonesia, women’s and children's literacy and vocational skills training and environmental restoration projects in South Bali.

    Epstone, Rotarian Sole Man UK; Rotarian Sole Man French Daniel Chieppa; and Swiss Sole Man Beat Schmid de Gruneck presented to money to Mike O’Leary, ROLE Foundation’s founder; and the president of both charities, Mangku Ariawan, Hindu priest, politician, humanitarian and owner of Bali Island Home, who said: “It is great to have two important organisations combine their efforts and ‘go that extra mile’ to do good together. “

    Epstone tells us the walk presented a wonderful opportunity to share their story as well as hear the stories from people living on the Bukit. “Along our way we made many new friends, meeting with the local Balinese, hotels, owners of businesses, villas and restaurants; and the Uluwatu surf community,” he says. “We also discovered some inspirational 'silent heroes' actively trying to make our planet a better place.”

    Mike O’Leary adds this: “The Bukit peninsula and Badung regency is experiencing huge tourism development with new luxury resorts and world class waves attracting a global surf industry. Expansion is a given with progress but must also be sensitive to culture, social needs and the environment. When the coastline and land is being redeveloped we need to make sure simple communities such as seaweed farmers aren’t marginalised and people, women in particular, are given new opportunities to make a basic living.”

Yum!

A little while ago the Diary dined at The Ayana’s great Dava restaurant, where Jusman So, Singapore culinary sensation, was presenting a six-course degustation menu. We’ll talk about that in the next edition.

Post Script

The Hong Kong Journal, an online effort that over 22 issues has sought to bring important issues into the public domain, is no longer being published.  A statement from editor Robert Keatley tells us the Smith Richardson Foundation, whose generosity brought the Journal into existence six years ago and has been its main funder ever since, is not renewing the grant that made its publication possible and that it has not been possible to find sufficient alternative funding. Although the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will maintain the Hong Kong Journal’s archives on line for some time, there will be no future issues.

    Issue 22, posted some weeks ago at www.hkjournal.org, includes an analysis by Anthony Cheung, President of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, explaining why so many Hong Kong residents are unhappy with their government and current social trends. It also has a report by Louis Pauly of the University of Toronto that outlines the reasons why he believes the administration needs more aggressive economic policies if Hong Kong is to remain an affluent, global financial centre in the coming years.

    The demise of the Hong Kong Journal is a shame. We need to see free thought from China’s only really free city.


Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz

HECTOR'S DIARY in the Bali Advertiser, October 19, 2011

Lights on the Hill Again

Ubud, known to Hector as Guruburg and to his friend, the blogger Vyt Karazija, as Literati Downs, has been agog this month, celebrating the annual writers’ and readers’ festival which threatens to conjoin the two entities with possibly far-reaching, not to say astonishing, results.

    Some people – among them the Bali-resident Australian QC Colin McDonald, whom we ran into at the airport recently while both on visitor pick-up missions – assert that Janet DeNeefe’s eclectic shindig has become too commercial. That’s easy to say, of course, but even navel-gazers have to eat, and ones from distant parts of the Lintosphere have to get here as well and are unlikely to pay for that travel themselves.
    So, as with much else in the modern world, sponsorship is a must. The UWRF was fortunate to have gained the assistance this year of the big Australian bank ANZ, through its local Panin subsidiary, to boost the substantial official Australian support it already gets. The festival’s overtly commercial pitch (as McDonald himself noted) was less intrusive than with last year’s no longer lamented naming sponsor Citibank. And ANZ had some lovely customer relations staff on hand at the festival to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. That can’t be bad, can it?
    A success: We look forward to UWRF 2012.

Bali revealed: Yellow Dog, one of the Leticia Balacek works on show at El Kabron this month

From the Art

Leticia Balacek’s art that’s been on show at El Kabron, the new chill-space on the Bukit above Bingin Beach that sybarites serious about cocina español and value for money should definitely check out, has both an attractive naivety and cerebral clout. It has élan. Some could even suggest chutzpah. Balacek, who is also an architect, might prefer to say energencia, since she comes from Buenos Aires; the Argentine capital is surely the New World’s classiest and most energised urban collective outside Manhattan and, anyway, in the Big Apple they too often forget about the essential first two letters of the word class.

    It was nice to see a lengthy Q and A with her in the latest Yak – Bali’s best glossy magazine by, oh, a Tibetan plateau or two, we’d suggest – though it was a shame they didn’t make her the subject of an interrogative and interpretive piece. It would be fun to draw her out.
    The Diary’s favourite work from the collection on show at El Kabron – for the SOLEMEN charity: deadlines beat us on this edition but we’ll get back to the outcome of the auction on October 15 and other action later – is Yellow Dog, reproduced here. Balacek tells us it’s her favourite too.    

Con Brio

The desirable Jade Richardson – who rates a major 7 on the Hector Modified Scent of a Woman Scale (that’s the one that measures brain power) – has recently penned a delightful polemic that describes, from a Jade’s eye view as it were, the pitfalls of seeking good karma through yoga courses and their not infrequent consequential outcomes, often sexual, among the guruhood in Ubud.

   It was such fun to read that Hector nearly spilled his precious sultanas while doing so. The beak and other bits were so much agiggle that keeping a firm grip on small wizened grapes between the claw and the maw was terribly difficult.
    She titled it The Excellent Death of Mr Happy. If you’re on Facebook and have a mind to read it, you can do so on Hector’s FB (friend him at Hector McSquawky). It’s highly recommended.
    Richardson tells us she was flitting around the scribblers’ fest earlier this month. She once had a connection there. Perhaps she was looking up old friends.

Go Pink

Don’t forget the Bali Pink Ribbon Walk at Nusa Dua on Saturday (October 22). It’s to benefit breast cancer prevention and treatment support, which is a very good cause indeed. Plus you’ll get the chance to see Hector in a pink shirt. It hasn’t been his colour – in shirts or anything else – since youthful days now long gone when he occasionally fancied himself a bit of a Beau Brummell.

    BIWA (the Bali International Women’s Association) has all the details. Visit www.biwa-bali.org/ or make them a friend on Facebook.
    It’s not the only breast cancer benefit on the calendar this month (Breast Cancer Month). Seminyak Rotary has a charity lunch at Métis in Seminyak on Friday, October 28. We heard about this from many people but also from old friend Melly St Ange, who now busies herself promoting Rotary. Melly, who is so energised that we believe she must plug herself into a power point daily, used to be president of BIWA.  

Welcome Ideas

The Murdoch University-based Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) – it’s in Perth – has been given nearly A$400,000 by the Australian government to develop an innovative “Indonesia from the ground up!” programme. We’ll forgive the unnecessary exclamation mark in this instance.

    ACICIS founder and director Professor David T. Hill, Chair of South East Asian Studies at Murdoch, says the programme will give teachers a chance to immerse themselves in Indonesian culture on a 12-day study tour.
    “We know that if students are to have the best chance of learning a language, language instruction needs to be supported across all curriculum areas, with the involvement of non-language teaching staff,” Hill says.
     Teachers of history, geography, arts, business, environment, media and citizenship, who would not necessarily have Indonesian language skills, will be invited to participate and to become “Asia advocates” who can incorporate their new knowledge of Indonesia into their teaching and inspire their students. “They will have a dramatic impact on the teaching of Asian studies and make a substantial contribution to supporting language learning,” says Hill.
    Another sign of the increasingly deep relationship between Indonesia and Australia was the inaugural Indonesia-Australia Dialogue held in Jakarta on October 5. The dialogue – the Australians have dubbed its participants “Citizen Diplomats” – is designed to promote people-to-people links.
    The first talks were led by veteran diplomat John McCarthy as Australian co-convenor and Dr Rizal Sukma, executive director of the Indonesian Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Twenty Australians drawn from a wide cross-section of Australian society – from politics, business, academia, and media – visited Indonesia for the discussions.

Yellow Press

The Invisible Times, edited (if that’s the word) from Ireland, had a bit of a scoop at the end of September. We only saw it because we were at a loose end one cloudy afternoon and resorted to web-browsing, the preferred pursuit of those suffering terminal ennui.

     It breathlessly related that former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is seriously rich and doesn’t live in Thailand because, well, some people there think he’s a stinker, dropped in for a three-day stay in Bali. Readers were told “the Bali Times can reveal” Thaksin held a series of meetings during his stay, apparently also with his sister, who is the current Thai PM, after he arrived by private jet preceded by a posse of aides detailed to provide security for the billionaire runaway.
    The paper also reported that Thaksin stayed and held the meetings at the presidential villa of C151 Seminyak, a complex of luxury villas (his private security detail apparently took up five other villas).
     The sting in the tale was a quote from C151 Resorts owner Hanno Soth who said Thaksin felt at home in Bali. “He said he finds the Hindu culture of Bali similar to Thailand and the style of service like in Thailand. He said he plans to return.”
     The Invisible Times did not think it necessary to tell readers that Soth is its proprietor. And it still hasn’t reported that several C151 villa owners are suing him because, they allege, he cost them money.

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz

The item below was not published in Hector's Diary in the Bali Advertiser but followers of his blog might like to read it.

Made to Order

Many friends of Hector still remember, with just as much glee as Hector himself, that in the aforementioned Invisible Times long ago a little spat occurred with the guru of gardens and bad language, Made Wijaya, and that, as a result, Wijaya unfriended Hector’s helper on Facebook.

    Much water has passed under many bridges since that time, along with Hector’s involvement with the offending publication. Thus, recently, because Wijaya claims to possess a certain centrality to events of a peripheral nature in Bali, Hec’s helper sent a friend request with a nice little note suggesting they should try again. He did expect a polite refusal but, you know, one has to try.
    He got the refusal, but it wasn’t polite. It read: “Eat shit and die you twerp.”  He’s all class, Wijaya, and in this instance also disastrously misinformed, as he is so often.  Twerps are expectant goldfish. Neither Hector nor his helper is genetically equipped for pregnancy. And Hector might carp, but he’s a cockatoo.

HECTOR’S DIARY in the Bali Advertiser, October 5, 2011

Great Event, But No Sex Thanks

We like to party, so it seemed like a good idea to bowl on out to El Kabron, which has a prime cliff-top position at Pantai Cemongkak on the Bukit, on October 1 for the first of three extravaganza afternoons – that’s what they said on their Facebook anyway – featuring art, food, dance and music.

    It was the Distaff’s latest 21st birthday next day, indicating a requirement for immodest celebration. And since Hector holds firmly to the belief that he is not a day over 30 – and with the assistance of a wig, a face-mask and a couple of uppers on the way there has occasionally managed to fool adjacent revellers until they have had to call an ambulance – frivolity seemed in order.         Considerable further appeal was added by these parties being well outside the so ho-hum beer-and-footy confines of the local Anglosphere, or even its upmarket offshoot that prefers wine and cheese.
    This one had tapas, as befits a Spanish restaurant, live music and the opening of an exhibition of art by Letitia Balacek on the theme “the dynamic lines and colour of Bali.” Organisers David Iglesias Megias and Hellen Sjuhada promised fun and frivolity. El Kabron apparently also offers something else, called Sex on the Cliff. But your diarist did not try this. He has never had a head for heights.
    Three events were scheduled on successive Saturdays. The October 1 opening, headlined Sunset Chillout, precedes an October 8 limited-seat dinner (yum!) and fundraising event to benefit the SoleMen project – the SoleMen have just completed the inaugural Bukit Walk associated with the ROLE Foundation. Last in the trio is an October 15 bash including an auction of Balacek’s art, also for charity.
    Over the three weekends, Balacek was geared up to adorn El Kabron’s sea-view veranda with her remarkable drawing and live-art. You’re invited to come along and engage, talk, or simply get inspired. Sounds fun! The opener certainly was.

Bank on a Good Show

This year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (October 6-9) got under way this week, bolstered by some very nice funding from ANZ Bank via its local Panin Bank operation and, as always, Janet DeNeefe and her team put together a great programme.

    There’s one book launch on the programme that should attract lovers of poetry, especially if they are familiar with the nuances of Australia’s much misinterpreted working class culture. It’s Bearers of Fruit, by Nancy Inglis, whose CV includes nurse; mother; environmental and social activist; historian; winemaker; poet; and writer.
    The book contains 327 poems, documenting Inglis’s experience from her forties into her eighties. Its artwork is the work of Inglis’s daughter Linda Buller, herself a painter and known in Bali as the heroine for Ubud street dogs. Inglis and daughter put on their road show on October 7.
    On the music front there’s been something of a coup, with the acclaimed Al-Izhar High School Community Choir & Orchestra coming from Jakarta to join creative forces with the gamelan orchestra of SMAN 1 Ubud High School. That’s also on October 7. Festival organisers warn there’s a risk that audience members might catch Goosebumps.
     On a different intellectual plane the festival features two African writers in conversation at the Alila resort:  Nigerian born Chris Abani is a renowned contemporary novelist and poet, a man of huge talent who has been vilified, imprisoned and harmed for his outspoken words. Ugandan born Indian Mohezin Tejani has been roaming the world for four decades since being exiled from his home by that silly old despot Idi Amin. They will be sharing their stories with international journalist Hassan Ansah.  There’s plenty of food for thought in that, and food of the other sort will be provided in the form of a North African feast designed by foodie and mystery woman Peta Mathias.
    We should mention, for anyone feeling jaded by modern existence and apt to reminisce about their disgraceful former lives, that famous bad boy scribbler DBC Pierre is having a leisurely lunch at the Four Seasons Resort (the one near Ubud). He is offering some truths behind the tall tales that made headlines across the globe when he won the Man Booker Prize in 2003 for his acclaimed novel Vernon God Little. The fellow now lives in an isolated rural village in Ireland, a world away from his previous performance envelope. He’ll be chatting (audibly) with his good friend Salena Godden, billed as queen of Britain’s spoken word circuit and herself a literary bombshell.
    You can find full details of the 2011 UWRF programme on their website and Facebook.

Dogged by Rabies

Keen observers would have noted that September 28 was World Rabies Day. That’s something of intense interest in Bali, where upwards of 130 people have died of the disease since it broke out in 2008. The painful saga of the initial response is now history, and it does seem, on the latest carefully doctored reports to be released for public view, that it is on the way to being a controllable emergency.

    Australian consul-general in Bali Brett Farmer said this at the World Rabies Day function in Denpasar:  “Human deaths from rabies have now dropped by 68 percent compared to the same period last year, but we want to see this figure fall to zero.”
    Well, yes, that would be a good plan. There’s no need for anyone to die of rabies – it is untreatable and invariably fatal once symptoms appear – provided adequate human rabies vaccine is available (adequate in quantity and quality) and hugely expensive immunoglobulin can also be provided. Thus far, that hasn’t been the case. People who have had a full preventive vaccination course do not need the immunoglobulin, only the post-exposure vaccinations.
    Since 2008 Australia has provided a total of A$1.1 million towards combating the disease in Bali. Most of this has gone to the dog vaccination campaign.  So let’s all hope we hear even more cheering news next World Rabies Day.

He’s Our Star

We read in the estimable diary column in The Australian newspaper – it’s called Strewth, one of the lesser adjectives commonly heard in newspaper offices – that historian Ross Fitzgerald, a long-time friend of Hector (well, the guy who ghost-writes for the lazy buzzard at least) may soon be immortalising himself on the little screen as well as in print.

    Strewth reported on September 28 that fans of Larry David and Austen Tayshus (they’re Aussie icons; that’s all you need to know) would be pleased to hear of a new project. Fitzgerald, columnist with The Australian and co-author with Rick Murphy of the recent biography on Austen Tayshus (Sandy Gutman to his parents) titled Merchant of Menace, tells Strewth a pilot for a TV series based on the book is in the pipeline, starring the man many call the most controversial performer in Australia.
    “The show will be like Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, partly scripted but much improvised,” Fitzgerald told Strewth. “Five minutes of each episode will involve Sandy seeing a real female therapist who specialises in treating children of Holocaust survivors.” The working title is Standup. Plans are also being made for Gutman to play the character Grafton Everest in a TV series based on Fitzgerald’s novel Fools’ Paradise, co-authored with Trevor Jordan.
    Fitzgerald is a Bali regular. He and his wife Lyndal Moore prefer the sybaritic delights of Ubud to those offered elsewhere on the island.

The Far Queue No Longer

While musing about the products of Australia’s halls of academe, we should record that the government there has just announced it will loosen some visa requirements for international students in an effort to draw more people to Australian universities.

    It released a report that called for a shake-up of immigration requirements and said it would introduce a more streamlined visa process for overseas students who want to complete a tertiary degree in Australia.
    In a stunning reversal of traditional practice, the authorities say they will not now deal with International students planning to attend Australian universities as if they are all potential illegal over-stayers, regardless of which country they come from. The government will also relax some of the onerous financial requirements for student visas and issue a new work visa for foreign students who graduate in Australia.

Yak On

Hector couldn’t make the Yak Awards this year (a previous engagement intervened) but we’re sure it was the usual hoot, as befits affrays organised by super Sophie Digby and her crew. This year’s event was at Tugu Bali. Last year’s was at Cocoon and is remembered by your diarist, who at that time was scribbling for Another Newspaper (The Invisible Times, now edited from Ireland we understand) as the occasion on which he completely missed notable yakker Susie Johnston, who won Yak Woman of the Year 2010. Susie memorably said afterward this must have been because she was wearing the most eye-catching dress of the evening and flashy new specs, and was yakking nineteen to the dozen.

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser's fortnightly print edition and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz 

HECTOR’S DIARY in the Bali Advertiser, September 21, 2011

Literary Moments

On its first reading, 50 years ago, Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage struck your diarist as an immensely clever narrative and its chief character – he is not the hero of the tale by any stretch – Philip Carey as a vaguely annoying young man. At that time your diarist was a vaguely annoying young man himself.

     Now, via the new world of Kindle, a second reading is being attempted.  This is a hard task because in the intervening half century Philip, who is possibly as selfish as Madame Bovary, has turned into an absolute wretch; a crucible of indecision;  a fulcrum of foolishness. Where, before, you could (albeit barely) sympathise with the young man’s obsession with Mildred Rodgers, or at least understand it, now you can’t. The fellow’s an idiot.
    Of course, on that first reading all those years ago, faint echoes remained of the English world of (then) 50 years before that Maugham sought to describe. There was still an essential civility about things in the 1950s. The empire was but newly dead – its corpse barely stiffened, you could say – and there remained some certitude upon which one could fix one’s gaze while hoping for the best.
    This is no longer the case. England is now run by Mildred Rodgers’s.  Wastrels like Philip Carey have disappeared and have been replaced by a “good-thinking” class of very dubious provenance. One supposes Maugham might be rolling in his grave to think of this.
    But never mind, he still tells a good story.

Bank on it (Again)

This year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (October 6-9) was thrown a life-ring on September 1 when PT ANZ Panin Bank – the Indonesian subsidiary of the big Australian bank – fronted up with lots of naming-sponsor money. We can all be glad of that, because the UWRF is now an institution as well as a perennial calendar date and it does a marvellous job of reflecting Indonesian writing to the world as well as bringing international literary interest here.

    ANZ is justly reputed for its support of the cultural and sporting world. It backs Australia’s famed Archibald prize (for portrait art), the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the Australian Open tennis. Its commitment to commensurate levels of sponsorship here, through Panin, is very welcome indeed.
    UWRF director and founder Janet de Neefe said in her September 1 announcement:  “On the eve of launching what we believe is our most enthralling and inspirational programme ever, we take great heart from knowing that ANZ, our newest and most generous sponsor, shares our aim to make a positive difference in people’s lives.”
    Last year’s festival was sponsored by Citibank in a deal promoted as a three-year naming-rights arrangement, though apparently this was on the basis of an unsigned email. Ah well, this is Bali.
    Citibank then ran into a few little difficulties with grand theft within its precincts and revelations that its outsourced credit card debt collection service left rather a lot to be desired, since in one instance it converted a defaulting account into a deceased account.
    Perhaps unsurprisingly, it later pulled the pin on the UWRF. Now that ANZ has filled the breach – in a rather more generous way, we understand – De Neefe and her fellow fiestanistas at Ubud can probably allow themselves two sighs of relief. One for the money and the other for the departure of a sponsor whose public image is perhaps not quite in line with the festival’s preferred position on literature, social responsibility, and several other things.
     De Neefe said:  “This is a happy, happy day for this, our eighth Festival. When our 2010 naming rights sponsor defaulted at almost the eleventh hour, we were devastated, but determined that Indonesia’s premier literary event would go ahead untarnished and proud.”
    ANZ’s local CEO, Joseph Abraham, said of the deal: "We are pleased to support the ANZ Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, rated as one of the world’s top six literary festivals. The festival also enables us to show our support for Bali and the development of Indonesian literature and culture. It is also a great proposition for our customers, especially our retail customers and credit card holders," stated Joseph Abraham, ANZ CEO Indonesia.
    Visit www.ubudwritersfestival.com for full details of UWRF2011’s programme of events.

Good Works

Those among us who do good works in support of the Balinese community are being very active at the moment. On September 23 Christina Iskandar and others are staging Heartstrings, an artistic showcase by the children of the YPAC centre for the handicapped. It’s at newly refurbished Warisan restaurant in Seminyak.

    The event is sure to be fun – especially since we understand that Bali’s dishiest spruiker, Diana Shearin, is emceeing – and those who fork out Rp450K for the set menu dinner will do so in the knowledge that a portion of those proceeds will go to YPAC. There are other entertainments involved, including an hour-long cocktails and canapés session, further fundraising efforts, and entertainment later by special guest stars Ozlem and Andy, Jasmin Suteja and Lisa Soul and Band.
   Fund-raising of a more energetic kind has been set for September 22-25 with a four-day barefoot walk – the first Bukit Walk for a Sustainable Future. The ROLE Foundation and SoleMen have joined forces to support children and women’s education and Bali’s environment.
    SoleMen Robert Epstone, Daniel Chieppa with his Balinese wife Yatna, and Beat Schmid de Gruneck will walk barefoot a circuit that will take them around the Bukit peninsula. During the event they will visit the Bali Life Foundation orphanage on the Bukit and a non-profit waste management project, Eco Surf Rescue Uluwatu.
    During the walk, ROLE Foundation hopes to attract new students. ROLE has invited unskilled women from the Bukit area to sign-up to its free education programme with courses in literacy and vocational skills training.
    The Bukit Walk for a Sustainable Future starts from ROLE’s Town Leaning Centre in Jl Siligita at Nusa Dua on Thursday, September 22, and passes through Ungasan, Pecatu, Uluwatu, Padang Padang, Dreamland and Jimbaran. The final leg includes Tanjung Benoa and Nusa Dua and ends with a children’s fun day at ROLE’s Eco-Learning Park at Sawangan on Sunday, September 25.
     ROLE was founded by Michael O’Leary in 2007. It is a registered charity in Indonesia.

Set for a Scrum

The rugby world cup is in full swing, which we expect will shortly create some difficulties at The Cage since we are to host an old and dear friend visiting from Australia. No problem there, but this fellow has remained a New Zealand citizen, which is also not a problem unless rugby is involved. We expect some interesting exchanges as the competition progresses.

     In Bali, of course, we have our own rugby completion. The 2011 XP Xclusive Property Bali Rugby Fest is on at the Canggu Club over the weekend (September 24-25) organised by the Bali Rugby Club. As before the competition is in three divisions: Open Men's 10's; Indonesian Men's 7's (Incorporating the Indonesian National 7's championship); and Open Women's 7's.
    It might not quite match the shenanigans in New Zealand, but it’s always fun. Details are available from the Bali Rugby Club.

Diary Date

Don’t forget the Bali Pink Ribbon Walk. The annual trot-out is being held on October 23 to raise awareness of breast cancer. There’s a bazaar, music and entertainment, an auction and raffle, children’s activities – and spa cabins and food stalls provided by leading hotels in the Nusa Dua and Tanjung Benoa areas.

     There’s a modest registration fee for the event, which starts from in front of the BTDC office at Nusa Dua. And you get a free T shirt. Hector’s a starter.
     Details are available from the Bali International Women’s Association. They’re on Facebook and the web.

He Said It

Former Australian prime minister John Howard issued a statement after the death in mid-September of former Liberal minister and long-serving federal MP David Jull, who made a name for himself in many worthy ways during his political career but is mostly remembered, by those who keep a tally of demerits, as the minister who had to resign early in the Howard years for not knowing some of his colleagues were rorting entitlements. It was an embarrassment for the then new PM.

     Here’s what Howard said: "He was a widely liked MP who enjoyed friendships across party divides. Janette and I extend our sympathy to his family and many friends, who will miss him greatly."
    Jull, a bon vivant and well known to Hector in his former political years, was 66. He died of cancer.

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser, out in print every fortnight, and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz.

CELEBRATING MY FRIEND JAN FLETCHER

These are some thoughts I contributed for a celebration of the life of Jan Fletcher, my friend, held in Brisbane, Queensland, on September 8, 2011.

Jan and I developed a close working relationship in the Queensland Opposition Office between 1998 and 2002, when I left the building. She was an indispensible part of the operation there, truly the keeper of the keys – and of all sorts of documents including policy documents that we should probably all have memorised minutely and hadn’t. Jan had all the answers and if – and this was rare – she didn’t, she’d say so. She was in every sense the most valuable colleague you could have.

     I didn’t know much about Jan’s personal life. I did come across her husband Ian from time to time. He seemed to be playing the role of corporate spouse on most of those occasions and I sympathised, having had years of experience of the same phenomenon after my wife, Lea Crombie, left daily journalism and joined the arcane world of corporate relations. It can be trying, attempting to look interested and yet not too interested, lest those among whom you are circulating in a sort of tolerated way begin to think you might know more than you should! Emma (Jan's daughter) I knew by repute. She was one subject on which Jan would never be silent.

    All of us have our favourite memories of Jan. Mine flow from a delightful corporate practice that we developed, she and I, which involved visiting a number of wining and dining establishments in Albert Street (in Brisbane's CBD). We would repair to one or other of these from time to time – not too frequently, since you ask! – and set about the business of intensive policy discussion.

    When we left these little soirees we were each convinced that we had solved all the world’s problems, not to mention those of the Queensland opposition. It was always a nasty shock to discover on returning to the office we hadn’t, or that someone, known or – worse – unknown, had in our absence created new ones.

    Those little excursions were a great time of laughter and fun, as well as for serious chatting. They weren’t all beer and skittles. In fact, I don’t think we ever had a beer. As well as a workplace and a political conviction, Jan and I shared a deep love for that nicely matured fermented grape juice you used to find in good quality bottles with corks in them. I think we would have benefited from the modern practice of screw-tops.

    Jan was my friend. No – IS my friend. Times change; people move on; sometimes, sadly, they pass away. But the good ones are never forgotten.

Jan Fletcher died, of cervical cancer, on August 30.

HECTOR'S DIARY in the Bali Advertiser, September 7, 2011

Put Budapest on Your Liszt

Hungary’s capital city, the city of Liszt and Theodore Herzl, is a great place to visit. There’s not a lot of money around, but it’s surprisingly well served by public transport and, give or take a former communist scowl or two from people still employed (in most cases astonishingly) in the oversized state enterprise sector. And it’s peopled largely by citizens who like to smile.

    They have good reason to, even if the week we spent there was hideously hot, as inland south-eastern Europe can be in summer. The coffee houses are full of locals, the restaurants – apart from in the tourist rip-off strip – likewise, and there is a surprising amount of visible history around even if the Russians, Americans and British competed heavily with the retreating Germans during the bloody endgame of World War II to obliterate the former co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

    Portions of the city were rebuilt in period style. Others were given over to communist-era blocks of flats that offend the eye as well as the conscience. But the city centre and the Danube littoral have a pleasant ambience that is very far from the sterility of Vienna, say, or other western European cities. Budapest isn’t a western European city in either geographic placement or mindset. And that’s what makes it such a lovely place to take a break.

    There’s even an Indonesian Trade Promotion Office for anyone with business on their mind.

Hussars and Horse’s Doovers

It was St Stephen’s Day while we were in Budapest, named for the king (Istvan) who formally embraced Christianity in the eleventh century and whose day, August 20, was the Saint’s day until the 17th century. On August 20 Hungary celebrates its national pride with some military overtones – flypasts and the like, and a display of military hardware past and present at Heroes Square where the six Magyar chieftains who brought their people from central Asia to the Hungarian plains in the ninth century look on with the impassive nature of the statues they are. Above them sits the mythical Turun, the huge bird that legend says guided the Magyar people – Huns – to their new home.

     The best bit, from the Diary’s perspective, was when on our morning walk that day, sitting at an Andrassy Street coffee house having a mid-perambulation restorative caffeine shot, a marching band (of comely young ladies twirling sticks and doing little jigs), a band playing Germanic marching music, some veterans in similarly highly Germanic uniforms, and a half troop of Hussars trotted past on their way to Heroes square.

     Despite the historic connotations of the event, it was accompanied by every modern convenience. An ambulance idled along behind the mounted hussars, lest one should fall and injure himself (or herself – there were two lady hussars present).

    And bringing up the rear were two wash-and-wipe appliances of the city sanitation department, tasked with removing any unfortunate equine deposits.

     We drank our coffee quickly and followed them up the avenue. The tail-end sweepers were kept very busy.

Home Base

Budapest has the full range of accommodation options that you’d expect of any major city, but we chose to stay at a lovely up-market (and up five flights of stairs) B&B called the Kapital Inn. It was just off Andrassy Street in the central city area. Paris has a close match for Andrassy. It’s called the Champs Elysees.

    The Kapital was capital for many reasons – including the breakfast omelettes provided by Albert, its excellent host – and was conveniently close to a metro station. The Diary prefers to amble, since this provides much rich street-scene material and access to the frequent coffee houses, but the metro was useful on many occasions when Budapest’s unusual August heat became a tad de trop.

    Albert’s establishment is truly a home away from home for visitors. It rates six Hector stars.

Eat, Drink and...

Well, practically anything, really. Budapest is a city where sybarites of any class and every disposition never need to suffer deprivation syndrome.  The Diary doesn’t do low-life, except in the Jeffrey Bernard sense, but that’s available for those who do.  We do food though, and there’s plenty of that. Nothing much beats a cinnamon ice cream and an espresso as a late-night walk home treat, either.

    We went one day to the Faust Borpince cellars under the Hilton Hotel on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube, for a decorous wine tasting and some little Hungarian savoury scones. It was a perfect substitute for lunch.

    The cellar is a proper wine cave underground in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed remains of the Dominican monastery that once was on the site. Around 80 Hungarian wines are available for tasting along with some 30 Palinkas (distilled spirits).

     We left the spirits alone because we had to walk home to the Pest side afterwards.

Side Trip

We treated ourselves to a long lunch in Vienna one day. It’s a two-hour-fifty-minute train trip each way – though without any border crossing formalities since both Austria and Hungary are Schengen states – which makes it a very long lunch indeed.

    But it was definitely worth it. We found a lovely little Beisl in Stiftgasse in the Museum district which offered both a great menu and wine list and a cool, leafy arbour in which to spend a few hours eating and drinking. And it was only a two-stop trip on the Metro back to Wesbahnhof for the Railjet train back to Budapest afterwards.

    If you’re in Vienna, drop in at Amerlingbeisl. The food was so good we quite forgot to have a strudel.

Take a Bath

It’s a must-do in Budapest, where a tradition of communal bathing on the Turkish model long ago emerged as one of the better gifts of the Ottoman experience. It’s not for everyone – and especially for people whose home is Bali and for whom discreet massage and spa treatment is an established personal tradition – but it is immensely popular with Hungarians and most tourists.

     We visited the Széchenyi baths in the Városliget park at the end of Andrassy, just past Heroes Square. There are others you may visit, but Széchenyi is best for couples since mixed bathing is always available there. At other places there’s a roster most days.

     It was crowded (it was a hot day) but the thermal pool we chose, the 39C cauldron, had plenty of spare water space for newcomers. The recommended 20 minutes maximum was all we wanted, however.

Transports of Delight

Visitors from Indonesia would be amazed at the range of public transport available in Budapest, and at the smooth and on-schedule way it runs. There’s a Metro system – Budapest pioneered this in continental Europe – that is being expanded, an extensive light rail (tram) network, and trolley-buses and buses as well as a suburban railway network. Around 60 percent of people use public transport in Budapest.

     What also caught our eye, as well as our fancy, was the way traffic stops at pedestrian crossings (try that in Bali!) and gives way at intersections.  It stops at red lights and doesn’t go again until the lights are green. And drivers manage to stay in lane. And all this even on narrow side streets. Next time a legislative committee is looking at transport regulations, it could usefully schedule a trip to Budapest to see how it can be done.

Prodigal’s Return

Our remaining lost luggage – one of two suitcases that fell victim to the incompetent vagaries of Paris CDG airport or some other travel demon – finally found a way to be reunited with us on our last day in Scotland by which time, with Budapest the next stop, the warm clothing it contained was rather redundant.

    Well, we say it found us. Actually we found it, since we had to drive to Edinburgh airport to get it. This was irritating because we had provided full address and telephone details for delivery. It was also irritating to find that the case had been opened, though in the absence of an official sticker to this effect we think not by customs. Some items were missing and others were broken because whoever opened it didn’t bother to re-connect the internal straps.

    Two lessons from this: Do not give lost luggage at Budapest airport the access code to get into your case; and, if at all possible, even on a longer trip, travel with carry-on baggage only.

Welcome Home

We like travelling but it’s always good to get home, and it was especially the case this trip because on September 1 Ganesha Gallery at Four Seasons Jimbaran opened a new exhibition of works by Balinese painter Wayan Kun Adnyana, entitled Body Theatre.

     The Bangli-born painter explores the immense capacity for cross-fertilisation of cultures provided by Bali’s unique role as a crucible in which ancient Hindu religious and social precepts blend with imported Western values.

     He’s been on the art scene since 1966 and has published numerous articles and books and organised several major exhibitions. His work displays a deep knowledge of human anatomy.

     The exhibition is on until October 3.

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser's fortnightly print edition and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz