HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, April 4, 2012

Off With the Pixels

Australia Network, the officially funded Asia-Pacific TV satellite channel run by the ABC, is always strapped for cash. It gets its money from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and is tasked with presenting an Australian image to the near abroad, so to speak.

     It does a lot of good things with the modest stipend it gets from the government in Canberra (note to Bob Carr, new Foreign Minister: do something really useful and get it some more money so it doesn’t have to show us ancient examples of blinding self-abuse such as of The Gruen Transfer circa 2008) but its total annual budget would barely fund one of those awful reality TV shows everyone seems to like to watch nowadays.

     (It is difficult to think why they do, except from madness or possibly ennui. Oscar Wilde once described foxhunting as the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable, and of course he was dead right, as he so often was.  A similarly fatal rapier thrust is urgently required to dismiss the relevance and taste of the disreputable modern sport of figjamming, especially as seen on reality shows.)

     Australia Network is not targeted at Aussies who live beyond the boundaries of the Special Biosphere, even if they do tend to watch it for news from home and, occasionally, TV drama shows in a language they can understand (this rules out most Kiwi programmes).  We know this, having once asked that precise question. So given that the Diary is in that underclass – of Australia Network viewers about whom the operators affect a Rhett Butler air, frankly not giving a damn – the following complaint may well fall on deaf ears.

      A new drama on air is Rake, starring the insouciant Richard Roxburgh playing yet another reprehensible but occasionally insightful roué, this time a barrister. It’s a good show, but it’s made for audiences accustomed to naked butts and bosoms on screen and these are pixellated out on Australia Network. Since the ubiquitous naughty words are bleeped out as well, watching the drama itself is difficult. You tend to watch for the pixels and listen for the bleeps and lose the plot completely, even in the brief interludes during which it is remotely visible.

      The thought occurs that if nudity and foul language are judged unacceptable for Australia Network’s target audiences – and the censorious proclivities of their governments – the programming is wrong.

      Of course, how you then effectively reflect popular Australian culture – given its preference for bad language, near-nakedness and self-centred disrespect for almost everything – is another matter.

Welcome to Purgatory

Legian resident Vyt Karazija – a good friend and eminently readable blogger – recently posted a cri de coeur that really should be read by anyone who still thinks Bali is a paradise populated exclusively by caring, sensitive, sentient souls in touch with their inner Muse. And then they should weep. It concerns a young Balinese woman whose life is being ruined by her grasping family, who wrench from her all the money she makes an enormous effort to earn.

      It would not be an unusual story either; which makes it worse. You can – and you should – read it here. Look for the post headlined Suffering in Silence Behind the Smile.

     

Hello, Kitty

Villa Kitty, the cat refuge at Ubud that is celebrating its first birthday, had a fundraising night at Indus restaurant on March 27. We’re sure it all went well. Villa Kitty founder and Chief Meow, Elizabeth Grant Suttie, who in her other hat is personal assistant to Ubud identity Janet DeNeefe, is a fine organiser and a dedicated animal lover.

     She tells us the fundraiser was brought forward from its original planning date due to the generosity of Edwina Blush, the sexy, sassy Australian jazz vocalist, songwriter, poet and (as Blush’s website self-describes) provocateuse. Someone once wrote of Blush that “she must have a tail under that gown”; and maybe that’s why she’s singing for the kitties, as it were. Or perhaps it is just that some people are cat people (the Diary is such) and it’s all in a good cause.

     Villa Kitty needs to expand, we’re told, because it’s proving such a popular place with felines seeking accommodation.  We wish the establishment the very best of good fortune and we’ll keep up to date with its developing story.

Time Goes By

The delightful publicist Hellen Sjuhada, who among other things helps keep that haven of Catalan cuisine, El Kabron at Bingin Beach, in the public eye, tweeted the other day that she was old enough to remember when MTV played music videos. We sent a little tweet in response, noting that we were old enough to remember when there was no MTV. She replied in turn, saying she took her hat off to us. We said we were trying to age gracefully and that perhaps her hat might help.

      But that’s the trick, when at the more mature end of whatever is one’s unknown allotment of Essential Vivacity: to age gracefully, which among other things surely means keeping abreast of technology. Well OK, disgracefully is all right too, and it’s a lot more fun.  But the real time-saver is to keep up with the pack. That’s why here at The Cage we’re right into gizmos. They cannot be allowed to bamboozle and must be conquered. We’re working on that.

      It might be all downhill from here ... but hey, as any former snow-skier can attest, it can all go so well until, finally, that unavoidable magnetic tree collects you.

Silly Clod

Why anyone would seek to break out of their villa at Nyepi defies belief. Why anyone would seek to do so merely to go in search of milk elevates the level of stupidity to stratospheric height. Yet this is apparently what an American villa owner in Seririt, Buleleng, chose to do on Friday, March 23, in an area where Nyepi rules are strictly enforced and where as a result his villa was blockaded by angry villagers.

     His name, according to reports, is Claude. Perhaps he should be known as Clod. Nyepi might be an onerous imposition to people in Bali who are not Hindu, but there are ways round that. If it’s all too much, decamp to a designated tourism entity, where by convenient fiat some services continue and the lights remain more or less on. Or if you really want to make a noise, go to the Gilis off Lombok.

     Or you could do what we did here at The Cage. We stayed home (having made sure we had sufficient milk for the duration) and stayed quiet. We didn’t observe the full requirements of Nyepi.  But we kept lighting to an absolute minimum and made sure none escaped our villa; that no noise got past the gate; and that the holy customs and practices of our Hindu neighbours were entirely undisturbed. That’s not only common sense; it’s also good manners.

     Mea Culpa: In the Diary of March 21 we wrote that since Muslims would be allowed to go to mosque on Silent Day, it being a Friday, the authorities should provide the same privilege to Christians when Nyepi fell on a Sunday. An Indonesian friend who is a practising Christian tells us this is already the case.

   

True to Herself

Some of us live on Facebook – not literally you understand, it’s more of a virtual vitality – and some of us pay a price for this devotion. Some of us, for example, have Dear Spouses who wouldn’t touch Facebook with the grottier end of a used toe-rag, and say so quite often. But there you go.

     Those among us who do use Facebook for rational reasons – those in other words who do not use it as their personal diary or for marginal notes on their day – generally get good results. Hector’s helper, for example, has many virtual friends, some of whom are actual people known to him. He says it’s great to be able to keep in contact in real time rather than waiting for the time-worn stuff that used to be stuffed into real mailboxes.

      Then there are the others, collected as Friends rather in the manner that one might acquire buddies at a bar. These come and go. Hec’s helper recently lost a Dear Friend who rejoiced in the name of Ivana Logov.

     Apparently, she finally worked out how to do that.

Bitter Glitter

We love a pun, as countless people have come to learn, some of them, poor things, believing this to be at their cost. And we’ve just been reminded of this little gem:

     King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. So, desperate, he went to Croesus the pawnbroker to ask for a loan. 

     Croesus said: “I’ll give you 100,000 dinars for it.” The king protested: “But I paid a million dinars for it. Don't you know who I am? I am the king!”
     Said Croesus: “When you wish to pawn a star, it makes no difference who you are.”

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and at www.baliadvertiser.biz. It is also posted here. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).   

HECTOR;S DIARY in the Bali Advertiser, March 21, 2012

Banking on it

Janet DeNeefe, doyenne of dinners and instigator of that annual Ubud fixture, the writers’ and readers’ festival, has been busy lately. That was in Melbourne, where she did a stint demonstrating the cuisine of Bali to residents of that alternatively cold, hot, wet, dry city at the southern extremity of continental Australia. (Only Tasmania, where the Southern Ocean winds truly find an edge and evoke the ambiance of Europe, is closer to Antarctica. It’s a lovely island; really. The Diary spent two years there long ago.)

      But we digress. DeNeefe’s culinary exemplars teased taste buds in suburban Hawthorn – not the Diary’s preferred footy suburb: we barrack for St Kilda – over a series of evenings this month, in aid of promoting Bali and DeNeefe’s latest cookbook.  That’s all to the good. It will have had its spinoff in favour of this year’s UWRF, the eighth, from October 3-7.

      DeNeefe said of her Melbourne culinary enterprise: “I want to highlight the majesty of Indonesian food in all its glory. I will be featuring dishes from all over the archipelago, spotlighting elegant curries, golden seafood broths, wok-tossed greens, banana-leaf specials, sambals and an array of traditional and contemporary desserts.”

      Her food nights were staged at Wantilan Balinese Restaurant. Hopefully DeNeefe found some elegant curry-eaters to sample her elegant curries.
      This year’s festival theme, announced with a flourish this month, is This Earth of Mankind: Bumi Manusia, from the title of a work by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, regarded as one of Indonesia’s greatest contemporary writers. It was the first book in Pramoedya's historical fiction trilogy, The Buru Quartet, first published in 1980. Pramoedya died in 2005.

      The story is set at the end of the Dutch colonial rule and was written while Pramoedya was a political prisoner on the island prison of Buru in eastern Indonesia. His life there was one of deprivation, hard labour and physical cruelty. Denied even the most rudimentary writing implements, he got around this obstacle by narrating the work to his fellow prisoners, who shared it around the prison. The work was maintained and kept until eventually Pramoedya was allowed to write.

      The narrator in the book, Minke, wishes to be a writer. He is told: “Write always about humanity, humanity’s life, not humanity’s death. Yes, whether it’s animals, ogres, gods, or ghosts that you present, there’s nothing more difficult to understand than humanity. That’s why there is no end to the telling of stories on this earth.”

      That’s sound advice. Here’s some more, from another Pramoedya work:

      “It is really surprising sometimes how a prohibition seems to exist solely in order to be violated. And when I disobeyed I felt that what I did was pleasurable. For children such as I at that time – oh, how many prohibitions and restrictions were heaped on our heads! Yes, it was as though the whole world was watching us, bent on forbidding whatever we did and whatever we wanted. Inevitably we children felt that this world was really intended only for adults.”

      Pramoedya is referring to children. But the prohibition on prohibition that he implies should be mandatory is no less valid more widely, and should be insisted on for governments whose grasp of democracy extends only to acceptance of their own official truth.

      Last year’s UWRF was sponsored by leading Australian bank ANZ, which owns Panin Bank locally.  Hopefully the 2012 festival will benefit from that sponsorship, renewed.

Nyepi Non-Silence

Silent Day, the annual 6am-6am Balinese Hindu seclusion that shuts the island down, falls on a Friday this year (it’s on March 23). Because Friday is the Muslim day of prayer, the authorities have agreed that Muslims may leave their houses to walk to prayers at the nearest mosque. This is a fair concession and should be applauded for several reasons.

      The first and most important reason is that it recognises that Bali is not exclusively Hindu. It has never been so, of course, but in the distant past the numbers who followed other religions were tiny. Not so nowadays.

      The importance of the day to practising Hindus (and to local communities who traditionally mark the day in significantly varied ways) cannot be gainsaid, should never be, and must be protected by law.  But it is time symbolic restrictions were confined to traditional practices: there is no reason to black-out broadcasting for example.

      And there’s a further issue, given the precedent set for Friday prayers: If Nyepi falls on a Sunday, Christians should be granted the same concession.

Not so Mobil

Once, as they say, is a misfortune. Twice looks likely to set a trend. And thrice definitively establishes this. Diary and Distaff have now three times tried to buy a car – a mobil in these parts – from the Suzuki distributor here, PT Indo Bali. On each occasion, deal done except for the final signature, these fine sellers of motor vehicles have dealt themselves out of the game by failing to provide a test-drive vehicle, finding an eleventh-hour reason to demand more money, or refusing to hold the nominated vehicle pending final payment.

     We had been unwilling this time to venture into the premises on Imam Bonjol in Denpasar where these reluctant salespeople are to be found. But our attempt to acquire our chosen vehicle from a new dealer on the by-pass at Jimbaran failed when that was too hard for them too and they flick-passed us onto PT Indo Bali.

     It’s a shame, because Suzukis are fine vehicles. But we’ve had it. We’ll buy another make from some outfit that actually closes deals.

Open Arms

We hear that a new watering hole has opened in Banjar Anyar, on the northern extremity of the KLS traffic snarl. It’s the Plumbers Arms, which is trading without benefit of the singular or plural possessive in the ungrammatical way of the modern world. It is billed as an English pub and is the latest venture by that peripatetic Anglo-Australian couple, Nigel and Jacky Ames, who do all sorts of other things around Bali and in the Gilis off Lombok.

     We wish them good fortune with the new enterprise. Presumably they’re chilling that awful English beer. We would have inquired about that, except we did ask about the opening and heard nothing back. Perhaps all that hot froth got in the way.

Mangoland Rules!

There’s an election in the Australian state of Queensland on Saturday (March 24). This is a matter of decidedly finite importance to anyone outside Queensland – the north-eastern third of the Australian continent – unless they are former residents; or perhaps for readers of lately published satirical novels.

     Ross Fitzgerald, a professorial type well known to Hector – he’s also a frequent Bali sojourner and will be here again in June – has written a book, Fools’ Paradise: Life in an Altered State, which is about an election in the fictional state of Mangoland. For those who do not know, Queensland produces a lot of mangoes.

     Fitzgerald, who wrote the book with Trevor Jordan, is a historian and Mangoland aka Queensland is a rich field for anyone interested in examining the venalities of politics. It’s a readable yarn, except that – irritatingly – it uses discrete (meaning severally) for discreet (which among other things means don’t get caught).  Never mind; this is after all the post-literate age.

     The book – dedicated thus, “For all the fools we have known, including ourselves” – is published by Arcadia, an imprint of Melbourne publisher Australian Scholarly Books. Fitzgerald has written several books, including Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia.

Corked Out

A kind friend, possibly mindful of the conditions endured by drinkers of alcohol in these parts – it is Haram to the majority of Indonesians after all – sent Hector this little thought the other day: “Nobody has ever come up with a great idea after a second bottle of water.”

     Quite so; it’s no wonder all those earnest seminars and conferences, locally and globally, seem to have difficulty fixing anything other than the date of their next gabfest.  But our problem in Bali is of a different kind. Given the price of the fermented product of the grape hereabouts, few people can come up with a second bottle of wine.

The Bali Advertiser is published fortnightly, on Wednesdays. Hector's Diary appears in the print edition and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Follow Hec on Twitter (@scratchings) or join him on Facebook (Hector McSquawky)

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, March 7, 2012

Dolts Rule

It’s always fun visiting the Odd Zone; it’s the very best of your diarist’s former domiciles, for all sorts of reasons, most of them a cause for wry smiles or irritated grimaces. There’s the traffic, for one thing. It largely obeys the road rules and even stays in lane; what’s more, at traffic lights if there are, say, three lanes of traffic marked, none of the vehicles present attempts to create eight lanes. It’s very confusing for drivers accustomed to Bali’s road system (sic) and driver behaviour.

     But the very worst of the Australian experience, for those citizens of the Odd Zone who have exchanged You’re Being Watched resident status for the significantly better benefits of Frequent Visitor, is the bureaucracy in general and the customs and quarantine and airport security you encounter in particular.

     On our way back to Bali from Perth the weekend before last, for example, the Diary and Distaff lost some valuable soft cheeses – the finest products of Western Australia no less – on the risible grounds that they were “gels” and thus suspected of being potentially explosive.

     We all value airport security and agree that mad shoe bombers and others of incomprehensibly suicidal intent should be detected and diverted from their proposed criminal acts. But a little common sense wouldn’t go astray among those whose daily duties arm them with bureaucratic instructions that an imbecile would instantly recognise as stupid.

     If the two Aussie border control heroes who fished around in our cooler bag had exercised common sense when they detected brie and haloumi (we had to insist they dropped it down the disposal chute while we watched – we’re not in the business of providing free gourmet foods to anyone) they’d also have confiscated the prime soft Tasmanian blue with which we were also armed.

     But they didn’t.  For that oversight they and their over-prescriptive masters should be shoe-ins for a Dumbo award.

     There’s a serious side to this.  Frequent visitors have plenty of other places they can choose to go instead, where you’re much less likely to get cheesed off by doltish buffoons on food patrol.

Bit of a Stumble

It’s not always as much fun as it should be returning to Bali. This time The Diary stepped on a hidden road-level metal guardrail on alighting from the bus from the plane to the terminal and overstretched a hamstring.  Perhaps it is there to deter bus drivers from motoring up the terminal steps. But the embarrassing limp that resulted has not been a Favourite Moment.

     In the terminal, we ran into some nattily dressed customs and excise officers who, while presumably present to clamp down on the informal system of paying under the counter for extra alcohol above the one-litre limit attempted to extort even more. Unfortunately for them they had to deal with the Distaff, who was not in the best of moods. We paid, but not on the basis of their aberrant and singularly profitable mathematical concept.

Flagging

By happenstance, the day after our return from the Odd Zone (Western Division) the Perth online newspaper WA Today ran an article headlined “Where the bloody hell are all the tourists?” Coarse language (along with bad grammar) is only one irritating element of life as it is lived in the continent of kangaroos.

     We tweeted that, suggesting that perhaps all the tourists were in Bali. They’re not, of course – for some strange reason Aussies are also travelling elsewhere overseas on cheap holidays – but one of the reasons they’re not packing Western Australia’s many attractions is the cost of doing so. We sympathise with WA’s tourism marketers and agree there are a great many reasons to be a tourist on their patch, among them the beaches and the wineries. And beaches might be a mass market chance, except that most Australians already live within reach of perfectly adequate alternatives to flying 3000 kilometres to sit on one in WA.

     Other tourism options are largely for niche markets. It’s a tough business, as Bali itself is finding out.  Pursuing quantum figures in tourism is fine if you’re only looking – in the Australian context and here – for the Yeh ‘n’ Neh crowd and big sales of “I Drink Beer and Have the Belly to Prove It” vests.

     The Diary looks forward to regular trips to WA where, in the south-west particularly, there are many establishments offering prime potable products. On our recent visit to home territory we dined and drank at both Voyager (whose Girt by Sea pinot noir is fabulous and not only for its name, which comes from a memorably ridiculous line in the Australian national anthem) and Wise, a personal favourite because it looks over an expanse of generally calm north-facing ocean and has a Provencal air. Voyager affects a Cape Dutch architectural style (quite well) and has lovely roses – and perhaps the biggest flag in Australia apart from the double-decker bus-sized flutterer atop Parliament House in Canberra.

Quality Counts

On the question of looking for quality rather than quantity (and the higher per visitor spend that results) it’s cheering to hear that Bali proposes to shift its focus that way. We’re under siege here, after all, though not solely from foreign tourists: all those chaps who bring their cars with them on holiday from Jakarta and Bandung and Surabaya, and their road manners and driving skills too, are a nuisance.

    It’s long overdue, even if we’re pitching for three million foreign tourists to write another record. Bali’s infrastructure – not just the roads and the pathetic power system – is literally cracking under the strain of the tourist load. Provincial second assistant secretary Ketut Wija recently pronounced upon this at a planning meeting on economic development held appropriately enough in Lombok (which should be taking a larger portion of the tourist load, except that Bali keeps putting rocks in the road of that endeavour) when he said: “We no longer will prioritise the quantity of tourist arrivals, but will now place the emphasis on quality of those visitors.”

    Wija said Bali – an island of only 5632 square kilometres, 0.2 percent of Indonesian national territory – has between five and six million visitors annually. It is also a magnet for Indonesians from other islands seeking work, with about 400,000 arriving to settle each year.

Skippy’s a Winner

The Diary’s side trip on the Australian tour – mentioned in the Diary last issue – was by Qantas flying Perth-Canberra-Perth.  We’re now a mere bronze QFlyer (the halcyon days of pointy-end platinum status are long gone) but a happy confluence of an accommodating friend at head office and unoccupied seats in business class resulted in upgrades both ways. It was delightful to have space to stretch the legs, food to match the ambiance and actual metal cutlery to eat it with, and an unobstructed view out of the window.

     Both flights were into the gloaming and then the night, affording the Diary an opportunity also long forgone to feast the eyes on the amazing light-hues off to the south in the stratospheric distance and to imagine all that ice-waste far away beyond the Southern Ocean. It stirs the Muse, that sort of thing.

     Another stirring element of the flight was a dangerous confection, the work not of the Devil but of Maggie Beer, who may be one of his culinary agents but is certainly an Australian icon. Her burnt fig and honey ice cream is to die for, though one naturally hopes not immediately.

     The Purser on the flight agreed, when we beckoned him over and said: “Maggie Beer is a bad, bad woman.” A big smile lit up his face and he replied: “Oh I know, I know. But I’m lucky. I live only 30 minutes up the road from her shop.”

It’s a Riot

It is the lot of the unlucky diarist to be elsewhere when something happens. We had to watch the unfolding drama of the Kerobokan prison riot through the imperfect prism of Australian television.  Matt Brown was measured – and by far the best – on ABC. The commercial stations were their usual breathlessly uniformed selves.  And that’s such a shame because most Australians get what passes for their news from tabloid TV.

     The Kerobokan insurrection was hardly unexpected. It beggars belief that the custodial authorities are not provided with sufficient funds to properly house all those that their companions in crime, the police and the judicial system, insist on jailing.

      A solution is more prison space so that at least the basics of human existence can be practised in clink. There are some useful human rights rules the government could read up on, in that regard, too.

Oh All Right Then

Last issue’s guarded reference to Titian and ladders – it was in the context of the Renaissance exhibition at the Australian National Gallery – brought a rash of requests to expand upon it. So OK, we were wrong to attempt to be decorous. Here’s the limerick in question:

While Titian was mixing Rose Madder

His model reclined on a ladder.
The position to Titian
Suggested coition,
So he ran up the ladder an' 'ad 'er.

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

The diary is also posted at this blog: http://8degreesoflatitude.wordpress.com

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Feb. 22, 2012

A Fine Weekend

Brad and Siska Little’s Bali Life Foundation is getting a giant helping hand from Karma Kandara Resort at Ungasan on the Bukit.  On the weekend of February 24-26 the resort is hosting its first Bali Life Foundation Weekend in support of a children’s home – founded by Australian surfer Brad and his Indonesian wife Siska – that provides a nurturing environment for 20 children guided by the founders’ pledge to give hope, dignity and purpose to those under their care.

     Karma has designed what it calls a unique weekend stay experience February 24-26, 2012, including cuisine prepared by celebrity chef Luke Mangan, from which 100 percent of the weekend-stay package revenue will go to the Bali Life Foundation. Mangan will be in Bali for the occasion. Details are available from Karma Kandara resort at http://www.karmakandara.com/ or phone 0361 84 82200.
     You can find out more about the Bali Life Foundation and its work at http://www.balilife.org.

Capital Capers

A visit to Canberra is an unusual treat for your diarist. The Australian capital is an interesting city that is wholly artificial – the only imperatives that created it being the petty rivalries of Sydney and Melbourne over which was the country’s leading city and the fractious competition between the sovereign states that make up the Commonwealth of Australia – but is also a wonderful parable of Australia’s development. Its original design was American; its central purpose is bureaucracy; and its people are almost all individuals whose original homes were elsewhere.

    This visit, the first in six years, had a very special purpose. Three-day residence of the capital was also taken up by your diarist’s four-year-old granddaughter, a thoroughly delightful little Canadian who was visiting down under with her dad to meet her Australian family.
    Canberra’s a lovely place (no really – some people love it) but it’s very small. On a brief visit to the Qantas Club lounge there your diarist saw four people he knew.
     The visit also allowed time to renew acquaintance with several favourite Renaissance painters whose works are on show at the Australian National Gallery. Much of the work, a product of its time half a millennium ago, is of a devotional nature. But none of it is to be missed. It is all magnificent. There’s a Titian on show. But lovers of limericks will be disappointed to hear it is not the one with the ladder in it.

Business as Usual

Local travel agents have a good point when they complain, as they have recently done, that Bali airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I is apparently in the business of gouging its customers. The surprise is that they have bothered to lodge a complaint, since the official Indonesian practice is to charge people an extortionate fee for products and services of very little value and limited utility.

     Two things in particular are exercising their minds. First, that there is no means of driving into and out of the airport to pick up or drop off visitors without paying for the dubious privilege of joining the chaotic traffic within. And second, that PT Angkasa Pura I – again in the fine tradition of feather-bedded public corporations everywhere – has done another monopoly deal, this time with a florist, PT Penata Sarana, and now charges a substantial fee for VIP welcome leis along with another hefty impost for welcome banners.
     Al Purwa, head of the Indonesian Association of Travel Agents (ASITA) in Bali, complains that the airport operator is unprofessional and arbitrary in its business practices. Few would argue with that assessment. He is a man whose optimism is boundless, however. He says he hopes that once the airport makeover is completed PT Angkasa Pura I will truly operate the air gateway to Bali to an international standard.
     Unfortunately, a contrary view seems less likely to disappoint: that nothing will change beyond an opportunistic grab for higher and higher charges for traffic access and parking among much else. Continuing porter problems and the taxi monopoly are among many issues the airport operator needs to address.

Island Hopping

New Zealanders who can spare the money for all the get-out-of-the-airport extras on arrival will soon be able to hop right over the Big Island – the one with all those kangaroos and koalas on it – and fly direct to Bali, for the first time since the 1990s. Air New Zealand is finalising arrangements for twice-weekly flights between Auckland and Bali between June and October with 228-seat Boeing 767s. Flight time is eight and a half hours compared with the 14 to 24 hours available on other carriers that fly services via Australia.

      The service is awaiting government and regulatory approval.

Sing Us a Song

Ambassadors generally present a world view that, publicly anyway, is informed by the political directions received from their governments. This doesn’t mean they are dull bods. Quite the reverse: people lucky enough to have working lives that bring them into contact with the servants of other national interests are richly rewarded by their fellowship and by countless opportunities to observe their dextrous diplomatic pirouettes when caught between a rock and a hard place.
     These days, your thoroughly modern major envoy is often to be found in the Blogosphere, and such is the case with the engagingly personable Mark Channing, HM’s ambassador to Indonesia and Timor-Leste. He recently blogged that suspicions that the British economy has been behaving for years in ways one might expect of a dead parrot are unfounded.
     He’s quite right. Bits of it perform like a cuckoo on steroids. No, seriously – Channing cites one of Britain’s more engaging invisible exports. It’s an audible one. The Brits might no longer be ruling anything much (not even Scotland for long, perhaps) far less making widgets or grummets or whatever, but they do make music.
     He blogs:    
     Wherever in the world you go, and no more so than here, one hears British music – some of it new, some old. At the same time, one often also hears people comment that Britain ‘no longer makes things’. Yet, one of the reasons that the UK economy is one of the largest in the world is its success in ‘invisible’ areas like music ... British music remains a staggering money-spinner ... worth around US$6 billion each year, with UK artists accounting for almost 12 percent of global sales in 2010.
     It’s good news week, it seems; though we should note that the singer-songwriter-producer Jonathan King – he is yet another fatally flawed genius on the music scene – who wrote the song of that title in 1965, was being satirical rather than promotional: it then says “someone dropped a bomb somewhere.” At least he was accurate. His other 1965 song, Everyone's Gone to the Moon, sadly proved to be over-optimistic.
     Channing was in Bali last October – it was bomb memorial time – in part as part of Britain’s new push to re-engage fulsomely with Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia.  We had a cuppa and a chat about that. Sometime, somewhere, soon, your diarist must find a forum in which to publish his unauthorised view of this clement – and long overdue – development.

A Lively Little Drop

Sometimes, just when you think all is lost and that ennui has won the final battle, the heavens send you a little pearl to remind you – it’s always at the eleventh hour, dammit – that the forces of risible liberation are not yet quite beaten.

     One such occasion enlivened opportunistic affogatos for two recently taken at Grocer and Grind’s Jimbaran Corner premises (it’s where you turn off Jl Uluwatu to go to the fish cafés and – if you’re lucky enough to scrape through the defile – on to Karma, the Four Seasons, the Ayana and other plush places).
     Idling while awaiting our espresso and vanilla ice cream – that being what the totally decadent and irredeemably orgasmic affogato actually is – we perused the wine list. The prices always stun you, but that’s Bali. On this occasion, however, something else piqued the senses.
    The little pearl in question hid coyly among the red wines. It was a Naked Range product (that name itself prompts illicit thought) from Victoria, Australia. It was a pinot noir – something else the Diary regards as orgasmic – and the chaps at Grocer and Grind evidently agree.  A lovely word transposition had listed it as Naked Duet Range pinot noir.
     They say a picture paints a thousand words. In this case, if we are to believe the Kama Sutra, five words paint 64 pictures. Only a handful of these depict activity that is not athletically difficult or downright dangerous.

Trying Hard

We’re not sure whether this is actually real, since Australian bureaucrats like any others are not widely known for their public humour. But we’re not going to check, either, because this is too good to miss.

     A list of questions and answers on the Australian Tourism Commission website recently made it our way and included this little beauty from someone in the USA. Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia?  A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.
    And we can’t resist this one either (unfortunately also from an American): Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's webiste www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hector tweets @Scratchings and is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Feb. 8, 2012

Give Me Some Lava

Big Apple expat, Nagacia jewellery designer and FOH (Friend of Hector) Tricia Kim has added an enterprising string to her bow. She has designed some specially branded logo charms for a new snip, clip and stick salon in Johannesburg, South Africa.  We’ve seen photographs of them and they’re beautiful.

     The new establishment is SoHo Salon – SoHo as in “South of Houston [street]” in Manhattan, New York, not central London’s Soho, which generations of British mothers warned their sons was dangerous (they never said it was also fun) – and according to its American operators it brings the first New York-style full-service salon to South Africa. It opened in January. We hear there are plans for a dozen more such places, which one assumes would translate into many more charms for the delightful Kim.
      She tells us the charm she designed for SoHo is of white wood beads dyed red and lava stones. Lava has shamanistic power. It was used by First American nations, known as Indians or Red Indians in the days before the Sioux discovered they were homonyms for profitable litigation, to give warriors strength and clarity when entering battle. It has similarly shamanistic qualities in many other cultures. 
      Kim has also designed lava stone totems for upmarket Bali spa retreat Desa Seni. Lava’s fiery origin is said to be good for people who might suffer from indecision. That could be useful in yoga class.

The Good Oil

When the latest lovely little MinYak trotted into our inbox in mid-January, our inner spelling policeman woke up – he should have done so earlier, but we won’t develop that line of criticism – to the fact that its content is rendered in the American fashion. You know, with the twenty-first letter of the alphabet prominent by its absence.

     We asked the friendly chaps at The Yak and The Bud, which are run with thoroughly British aplomb, whether this apparent addiction to Eng (US) was by design or by default. In other words, had the mellifluous benefits of Eng (UK) ceded the field to the shorter-form forces of the Non-U push? One of them got back to us – like the MinYak and the print magazines it supports they are timely and generally pertinent, which in Bali is truly a blessing – and said this: “The man who does the MinYak is American. And so is my spellchecker.”
     So that would be a “yes,” then.
     There is a serious side to this. At last report, Indonesia officially uses Eng (UK) and it is this form that is supposed to be taught in schools, yet increasingly the English-language media – particularly and spectacularly the electronic media, which can’t spell anyway and wouldn’t know a past participle if it bit them on the bum – opts for American English.
     It’s not something for which one would choose to die in a ditch and indeed the American preference might be the better way for Indonesia. But it does pose questions. There’s an interesting – and very valuable – English language teaching programme getting under way here that’s being jointly run by the Australians and the Americans. The Aussies (those who can spell; a dwindling number) use British-derived English. Like the Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indians, Canadians, South Africans, New Zealanders and sundry others, they are “U” people. The Americans, of course, as we know, are defiantly Non-U. The programme’s internal correspondence might make interesting comparative reading.  
     Moreover, American English is terse and truncated – some may define it as crisper, and that’s by no means an unwinnable argument – and does away with much of the colourful flourish that makes British English such a delight.

But Not From Canggu

We found a little internet gem the other day, an online newspaper that calls itself The Hibernia Times – it does so in a delightfully unreadable ancient script, by the way, which oddly seems both apt and ironic – and claims it is Ireland’s web-connected newspaper. This singularity will surprise long-established journals such as The Irish Times (and others) that cover local, national and global news and events on the web as well as in print.

     Its web-blurb says the HT (do not confuse this with the Hindustan Times, which is an eminently readable journal) has an editorial policy that is to always be fair, impartial and balanced in news coverage. It says it would “love to hear your thoughts and views on this newspaper” and to email these, should such inspiration occur, to editor@thehiberniatimes.com.
     Its editor, like that of the near-comatose C151 Bali Times hereabouts, is unnamed; but we believe we know him well.  We dropped him a line. It wasn’t just for old time’s sake. We’d still like to know (even if this is the age of instant communication, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc: see the HT website for the full dissertation) how William Furney – who Houdini-like departed Canggu for unknown locations in the Emerald Isle 15 months ago – finds it possible to seriously edit a Bali newspaper from half a world and eight time zones away; especially if you’re apparently also rattling out an allegedly round-the-clock e-sheet there. Still, a man’s got to earn a quiet crust, we suppose.

Meghan’s Moment

It’s nearly Bali Spirit Festival time again – it’s from March 28-April 1, safely after Nyepi on March 23, if you’d like to diarise the opportunity for yet another spirited Ubud opportunity – so it was no surprise to see the ubiquitous Meghan Pappenheim popping up in the previously mentioned MinYak. She’s a good sort, so it’s always a pleasure to see her.

     Pappenheim appeared as January’s colourful character, gave her standard responses to who-what-why-when and a nice little promo for the event she founded as a cathartic comeback – like that other Ubud love-in, Janet DeNeefe’s annual writers’ and readers’ festival – after the first Bali bombings in 2002, and then told us what we all wanted to know: What’s she’s listening to on her iPod.
      It turned out to be Lady Gaga. That would be a point of difference between us. The Diary long ago formed the view that only the Gaga bit accurately describes that particular unchained melody. But one should not be churlish. Perhaps Pappenheim doesn’t like to listen to Warren Zevon being prescient about his future at high volume, as he often is on the iPod at The Cage. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is rollicking rock, but it’s not for everyone.
      The Bali Spirit Festival does great work in the environmental and health fields, and particularly in countering the threat of HIV/AIDS. It also entertains mightily well, so good luck with this year’s, Meghan.
     There’s a free Spirit Festival-backed outdoor concert in Ubud on February 18, by the way. Details are at http://balispiritfestival.com/ayobicarahivaids.html. For more information about the Bali Spirit Festival itself, visit www.balispiritfestival.com.

Up For It

We’ll be looking in on Jade Richardson’s writing course on erotica being held in Ubud in March. It should be fun as well as instructional. Too many people in these dumb days of post-literacy mistakenly conflate eroticism and pornography and assume you need continuous – goodness, we almost wrote “rolling” – pictorial assistance, when in fact all you need is a brain.

     It’s the fourth element of a quartet of courses the Ubud-resident Richardson has on the go. The first is Unlocking Creativity (Feb. 22, 23 and 25); next up is Travel Writing (Feb. 28, 29); then comes Advanced Creative Writing (Mar. 1, 2, 4; we’ll look in on that one as well); and then Erotica (Mar. 8, 9, 11). Email her at passionfruitcowgirl@rocketmail.com or call 0958 5727 0858 if you’d like to Write Like an Angel too.      
           
Still Trying

Here at The Cage we’ve been customers of Telkomsel’s Kartu Halo mobile phone system since 2006. Until last October, it worked well enough. There were one or two of the little stumbles that one becomes accustomed to in Indonesian public bureaucracy, but it more or less functioned.

     Since October, however, it has been impossible to pay. Telkomsel’s successive monthly bills have not been accessible, because they are not ready. The wonderful term here is “in process,” which of course means nothing of the sort.
     In November we were in Australia, where using an Indonesian mobile phone can be quite expensive. So we’d dearly like to pay the outstanding accounts, especially as another Australia trip is looming. But the “all calls” function on our phones continues to be unhelpful. On January 26, for example, unhelpfulness came with a new message:  “Mohon maaf, system sedang sibuk. Silahkan ulangi berberapa saat lagi.” ( “We're sorry, the system is busy. Please try a couple of times again.”)
     Gosh! It must be all those irritated customers trying to find out how much they have to pay before they get cut off that’s gummed up the works.  There’s a simple solution. Telkomsel could employ some people who can keep accounts.

Carp a Diem

Among the thickets of inspirational sites that now litter the internet is one that calls itself Brainy Quotes. It recently featured this thought from Christopher Fry – he died in 2005 – whose thoughts are considered worthy since he was one of the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th century: “I want to look at life – at the commonplaces of existence – as if we had just turned a corner and run into it for the first time.”

     Goldfish have it made then. They habitually do that.

Hector's Diary appears in the print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every Wednesday, and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. He tweets @ Scratchings on Twitter and is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, Jan. 25, 2012

Something in the Air

They’re always at it at Ubud, or so it seems; thinking about navel engagements, that is. A delightful piece by Marie Bee in the latest edition of La Gazette de Bali – the great French language monthly journal for the Francophone community – discusses what one can do when it is the saison des pluies and going out invariably involves getting wet.

     Bee, who is La Gazette’s Ubud scribbler, suggests that the answer is to study the Indonesian language rather than get out your poncho and rubber boots. And that seems fair enough to a dilettante like your diarist. Mlle Bee’s busy little voyage of discovery this time relates to the invisibility of the penis in the Indonesian-French dictionary of 1980 and its discovery (as an item of lexicographical interest at least) by 2001.

     These days, of course, they are ubiquitous in Bali. You can even open bottles with them, though why you’d want to is quite another thing.

     Anyone who reads French should definitely catch up with Mlle Bee’s engaging discourse in La Gazette.  It piques several of the senses. Among other observations, she notes that elements of the search for the lost penis would certainly have interested Proust. It’s on page 30 of the current edition and is headed En Quête du Pénis Perdu (it sounds much better in French, doesn’t it?).

     These are literary matters. And on that topic there’s a couple of interesting writers’ workshops on the books in Ubud. The first is a course, Write for Your Life, being held from February 5-11 with the participation of American penman Jeremiah Abrams. Details are available at www.writeforyourlife.posterous.com.

     The second is the work of Australian Jade Richardson, who should by now be well known to Diary readers, since she keeps popping up with revealing ideas.

     She’s offering four short courses for aspiring scribblers in February and March, under the broad subject heading Write Like an Angel: Creative Turbo-Boost is designed to inspire and energise beginners, blocked writers, stuck novelists, lazy poets and cathartic free-writers who want to learn finesse; Advanced Creative Writing in which participants will explore their own work for signs of genius; Travel Writing, for people who want to turn their notes, insights and adventures into travel stories fit for publication; and Erotica, where we assume the cerebral side of sex will get an outing.

     If you’re interested, contact Jade at passionfruitcowgirl@rocketmail.com or by phone on 0958 5727 0858. 

Surf’s Up

A friendly wave is certainly a long-standing part of Bali’s culture – along with the odd unfriendly one – and no more so than on the surfing scene, an invention (like so much else) of the faraway 1960s when the first waves of young riders appeared, appropriately from overseas.

     A whole industry has grown up from the first sprouts of mass foreign interest in the island and its culture planted by young people – like Hector, these pioneers were young in the 1960s – who flocked here to ride waves on bits of wood (they are now mostly artificial material).

     So the next exhibition at Ganesha Gallery (Four Seasons Jimbaran) is of particular interest. It features the work of Olli Fraenkel, the German aficionado of all things Bali. Like many others, he was attracted here by the surf and kept here by his fascination with the Balinese culture that he found when he wasn’t at the beach.

     His exhibition, entitled The 3-Dimensions of Asie.one, demonstrates his power as an artist of graffiti –Asie.one is his tag – and reminds us all, old fogeys and others, that art is a very broad church indeed and that the Renaissance painters, for example, were often the rebels of their  era.

     Fraenkel’s exhibition opens on February 9. It’s not to be missed.

     By happenstance Hector will be able a day or so later also to see the Bergamo collection (of originally outré and subversive Renaissance art) at the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. It is an opportunity not to be missed on a rare visit to the Australian capital.

Hey, Sucker!

A friend got a really interesting email the other day, from something called the Thailand Internet Lottery Organization of 88C Phetchamnork Avenue, Bangkok, Thailand. Director General Shompoo Prachapor sent his fonds regards – no, that’s not a misprint – and advised that the email address in question had drawn a prize of US$1,068,000.00 as one of two winners of the jackpot in the fifth category.

     Our friend was advised to contact lottery coordinator Prawatt Wensat, providing personal details etc (surprise!), to claim the money. Mr Wensat was expecting this response by the 30th of next month. Oh dear. February usually ends on the 28th though this year – apparently it’s supposed to be a Leap of Faith year – it stretches to the 29th. What a shame that’s still one day short of the notional deadline for the notional funds.

      Incidentally, shortly after this our friend got a much more interesting email. It came, it said, from the second wife – surely that should now be second widow – of the late and unlamented Libyan leader Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi. It offered to send US$40 million for investment and safekeeping because otherwise those who think unkindly of her hubby might seize the funds.

     This pitch was no surprise. What was a little surprising was the claim by Safia Farkash al-Baraasi, the said second widow, that she had found our friend’s contact details in Colonel Gaddafi’s email address list.

There You Go

One joy of the modern age – there are a few: digital music and books among them – is that you can keep abreast of your interests, of whatever provenance and in a timely way, and of the people who provide this essential life-preserving service. The Diary is a great fan of Sarah Crompton at the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK, for example. She writes a weekly email – you have to be on the DT’s list to get it – that is just as eclectic as she. In the fine newspaper for which she scribbles, Crompton writes about art, film and other cerebral matters; and she writes a sports column too.

     In  one recent weekly email – apart from reminding the Diary that leaving was a mixed blessing, by reference to all manner of things that could be enjoyed were it not for the fact that London got a goodbye wave in 1969 – Crompton noted that she loved an odd fact (don’t we all?) and mentioned a couple.

     Did you know that carrots – which as wortel are an important element of Indonesian cuisine – were originally purple and were turned orange by genetically manipulative Dutch growers to secretly show their support for William of Orange, the Protestant princeling who was instrumental in chucking the Papist Spaniards out of the Low Countries? Neither did Crompton; nor your diarist.

     But her favourite fact for that particular week was that the Alsatian film star Rin Tin Tin – a dog, not a Deutsch-Lautsprecher from the west bank of the middle Rhine  – died in the arms of the Hollywood star Jean Harlow.

     It surely cannot have been after this sad event that she famously said, “When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.” But Harlow – who as we say in today’s tediously socially aware language was “sexually active” – was certainly no dummy, blonde or not. She also noted: “No one ever expects a great lay to pay all the bills.”

Keep Jogging

Lombok Hash, the fun running group of which Walter Jamieson of Windy Beach Resort – and originally from the Shetlands, magic islands off the north of Scotland whose inhabitants are more Norse than kilted caber-tossers – is a leading light of very long standing, celebrated a milestone on January 20. Its regular run that day was on the 27th anniversary of its first ever event and was held in the same area – scenic Batu Layar just south of Senggigi.

Holey Cake

We are indebted to something called WhatsNewBali.com, which alleges it has “The Most Complete Events and Listings in Bali!” – the initial capitals and the exclamation mark are apparently important – for a delicious little heads-up on the plush afternoon tea for those with fat wallets who fancy dropping in at the St Regis in Nusa Dua.

     It says, of this extravagance, that the Classic Afternoon Tea on offer at that establishment is born of a distinctive legacy, since afternoon tea was a hollowed tradition at the original St. Regis New York.

Pun Run

Hector has an old and dear friend, a former Australian senator who now lives in what passes for retirement (Stan is an active chap) in the delightful hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.  In idle moments, he – like Hector – loves a pun. And the other day, being a fine fellow, he sent along a small compendium of them.

     Several had instant appeal. But this one, for some reason, struck your diarist as being particularly apt in present circumstances hereabouts.

     Here it is:

     An anthropologist was recording folk remedies with the assistance of an Amazonian tribal elder who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed doubts about this – apparently in South America it is important to be quizzical rather than gullible – the elder looked him in the eye and said:

    “Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas.”

Hector's Diary is in the print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the newspaper's website  http://www.baliadvertiser.biz/ . Hector is on Twitter (@ Scratchings) and Facebook: Hector McSquawky at http://facebook.com/wotthehec.

HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser January 11, 2012

Super Idea

Proposals for a redenomination of the rupiah which have resurfaced from Bank Indonesia are essentially sensible and should be welcomed. There is however one difficulty with the proposal – insofar as the details are known – to knock three zeroes off the currency under which Rp1000, Rp2000, Rp5000, Rp10,000, Rp20,000, Rp50,000 and Rp100,000 would become Rp1, Rp2, Rp5, Rp10, Rp20, Rp50 and Rp100.

     This is because by reducing Rp1000 to Rp1 you lose the capacity to divide below the primary number. Rp1 would therefore become the minimum available currency value. It would mean no one could mark up prices by Rp500, for example. Or reduce a price by the same sub-unit amount (assuming there was ever a blue moon).

      The central bank could reintroduce the sen (cent) of course. But we have heard of no plans to do so. And in any case, it would then be better to strike four zeroes off the face value – converting the current Rp10,000 into the new Rp1, divisible into 100 sen.

      That’s complicated. There is another way to simplify things and reduce the confusion wrought by zero-overload. That is to superscript the zeroes on banknotes and the Rp1000 coin. Like this:  Rp1⁰⁰⁰; Rp2⁰⁰⁰ ;Rp5⁰⁰⁰; Rp10⁰⁰⁰; Rp20⁰⁰⁰ ; Rp50⁰⁰⁰; Rp100⁰⁰⁰. Leading retailers already do this in stock display signage. It would also need only a minor redesign of banknotes and existing lower denomination coins could remain in use.

Dig it, Dig it

According to Lombok Network, the online site that’s widely regarded as probably the best source of information on the island and its attractions, the forested slopes of 3726-metre Mt Rinjani, Indonesia’s second highest volcano, perform a vital task (hitherto unsuspected: read on).

     The website says that Mt Rinjani is so high it creates its own weather. They mean it rains a lot up there, in other words. This benefit is then multiplied because the well-timbered and therefore un-eroded slopes “act as water-collectors for the hole of Lombok.”

     We think Lombok’s a magic place. It’s not a hole at all.

Mopping Up

This is the time of year for whimsy. Well, Hector enjoys it anyway, even though what has been exercising his mind is more Stephen Donaldson than Tolkien. From the constant cacophony endured at The Cage over several long days (and even longer nights) recently, he speculates that Santa’s latest attempt to annex Bali has been defeated, a cheering thought for everyone who’s utterly over fat little men in silly red suits.

     But judging from the noise around the Bukit that began before Christmas, including what seemed to be a massive fire-fight on the night of December 31-January 1, mopping up the raiding parties of elves and Kris Kringle lookalikes that General Jollygent peppered the place with is proving to be a long and arduous process. It went on at full pelt well into the New Year and may indeed not yet be over by a long chalk.  Perhaps the new Dragon will manage to end it all on January 23.

     We’ve been a bit worried at The Cage, because some of the firing has seemed pretty close. We’ve been sending out our own patrols during lulls in the combat just to make sure the immediate surroundings are clear of elves. They have been so far; and no reindeer have been seen trying unlawfully to befriend the local cattle either.

     We made inquiries, of course, as we do every year, about this annual insurrection. The local Banjar tried to tell us it was only people letting off fireworks.  Yeah! As if anyone would believe that fairytale.

Top That

Being fair-minded, the Diary dropped back into Pepito Express at Bukit Jimbaran after writing an item (Hector’s Diary, Dec. 14) that rather castigated the place for having recently acquired the ambience of a trade store.  We wanted to check whether we’d been unkind.

     We hadn’t.  There was indeed insufficient room in the aisles to swing a tikus (rat), let alone a small cat, although it should be noted that on this occasion the fresh greens – which on the previous visit had been as limp (and as inviting) as dirty wet socks – actually were fresh.

     It was Christmas Eve, however, and our mood, already buoyant, was given an immediate lift when at the check-out we found that a very svelte young creature was present to relieve us of our money. She had managed – doubtless under management direction – to team her invitingly revealing Kebaya and very clingy sarong skirt with a lovely pair of antlers.

     Things looked up even more keenly when she blushed very prettily after we said: “Itulah topi yang indah yang Anda kenakan” (“That’s a lovely hat you’re wearing.”)

     We were being polite in our best dictionary-derived Indonesian, of course.  We could have just said “Phwaar!”

Do Drop In

We love wildlife. There’s so much of it at The Cage, for one thing. But there’s also too much of a good thing sometimes, and so it is with the geckos (big and small) that are quite deaf to suggestions that they should respect the space of the frighteningly huge creatures that also live in the house, play loud music and, even more scarily, seem to run around on two legs.

      These thoughts are currently at the forefront of the collective mind at The Cage, since some of the larger geckos seem to have adopted the habit of defecating from a great height upon the stairs linking the living level and the bedroom suites.  We don’t really mind if that’s their real opinion of us, and indeed might even be persuaded by reasoned argument that this is to be understood.

      But the results are tedious.  Lately Hector, normally a mild-mannered chap to whom an accusation that he was being uncouth would be tantamount to a death sentence, has been heard to mutter as he (again) gets out the brush and dustpan: “These geckos are giving me the shits.”

Chilling

Another good reason to visit Ubud has emerged, traffic permitting. It’s the Chillout Lounge in Jl Sandat off Jl Raya Ubud in the middle of town. Lloyd Perry, chief chill person at the establishment, tells us it’s been open for business for three months. He has some theme nights on the go, including something called Giant Twister, on the first Tuesday of every month, which is for the yoga adherents of Ubud and involves them in trying to outstretch each other.

     This might not suit everyone, especially your diarist. It sounds more like a dead-set way to seriously dislocate oneself. But it suits the ambience of Ubud where – as the Diary’s favourite fun gal, globetrotter-blogger and passionfruit cowgirl Jade Richardson likes to remind us (please don’t stop, Jade) – the guruhood has its fingers firmly on the hot little go-buttons of a great many who are seeking satisfaction of one sort or another.

     There’s also a Who Wants to be a Millionaire night.  What a ridiculous question. And anyway such contests – even if only for a million rupiah – so often provide risible displays of the focused non-functionality of people who should not have got out of bed that day. And that’s fun.

     Thanks for the heads-up, Lloyd. We’ll drop in one day.

Uncorked

The idea of an annual all-expenses-paid tipplers’ trip to distant parts has a certain appeal. Perhaps the wine teams at the St Regis and Laguna resorts at Nusa Dua could find a vacancy for a superannuated cockatoo? No? Shame! But never mind, we can get a vicarious vigneron fix from Jack Daniels. That’s local identity John M., not the old guy from the distilled quietude of scenic Lynchburg, Tennessee – though some wits do say Lynchburg’s not such a great place to hang around – whose product rightly graces bar shelves everywhere.

     We learn from a recent item in Daniels’ Bali Update – which Jack likes to remind people was once dubbed the Pravda of Bali; apparently he has forgotten (or perhaps he’s never known) that while pravda is the Russian word for truth, the infamous Soviet-era newspaper of the same name retailed nothing of the sort – that this year the lads (and lassies we hope) toured some of Western Australia’s finest wine country, having last year plonked themselves down in France.

     The Diary read the latest report from the field with interest and not only because we do devoutly hope St Regis and Laguna understand the critical difference between Vin Ordinaire and Vin Very. Margaret River is an old stamping ground – almost ancestral territory in fact – so it was interesting to see some familiar names.

     A couple struck one as odd, however. We hadn’t heard of Moos Wood winery (perhaps it doubles as a dairy farm) though the products of Moss Wood, which by astonishing coincidence is in the same area, are excellent. And when we’re next down that way – it won’t be long – we’ll try to find Pimberton, even though it’s not on any maps.

     Pemberton is, though. It’s not all that far from Moss Wood, at least at Australian traffic speeds. We like to go there whenever we can, to visit some lovely people we know very well who in their lifetimes never moved from their pleasant little Karri forest timber town and now never will. 

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser and on the newspaper's website www.baliadvertiser.biz. Hec is on Twitter (@Scratchings) and on Facebook (Hector McSquawky)