HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, June 27, 2012

Raking it In

The lively Beat Daily, the online news update produced by the chaps behind the bi-weekly entertainment glossy, had an interesting item recently, sourced from the local Bahasa press, though not – read on – the Bali Post: the 2012 Top 10 corporate rich kids on the block, those earning between Rp100 billion and Rp1 trillion. It bears noting that this is corporate, not personal, wealth, lest anyone starts to get jealous, or overly socialistic, or is tempted to formulate invidious comparisons.

     In any case, there is nothing wrong with having a lot of money, provided it has been acquired lawfully and is made fully available to comply with whatever tax law applies in the jurisdiction in which it is enjoyed. Though one might add that therein lies the rub.

     It is no surprise that Kadek Wiranatha and his brother Gede Wiratha, the local success story writ large, again top the list. They own the Bounty Group and a diverse portfolio of companies operating taxis, food exports and property (and the newspaper in which this diary appears).

     Also no surprise to the Diary is that the Ramayana group, headed by Putu Gde John Poets and owner among other things of Pepito supermarkets and the Mini Mart chain, comes in at No. 2. Given the mark-up on Nescafé Classic instant coffee at Pepito outlets – nearly 27 percent on the price of the product at other retailers and even more than that at, for example, Hypermarket – it’s no surprise they rake in the local shekels by the shovel-load. It’s a bit rich because Nescafé Classic, while modestly aromatic and fully satisfying, is hardly a premium brand; it’s just your regular kitchen jar of instant partial nirvana.

      Wayan Kari’s Waka group was third; Ida Bagus Putra’s Santrian group fourth; and then in descending order Hadi Wirawan’s Suzuki empire, Ubud royal Cokde Tjok Oka Artha (Tjampuhan), Tomy Raka,  Kelompok Usaha Keluarga,  the Bali Post group, and Anak Agung Sukadhana (his AAA Kusemas group operates mines, petrol stations and a laundry business).    

Such a Shame

Serambi Arts Antida, the great alternative art space in Denpasar, has closed its doors. Apparently the two joint owners of the premises had different ideas about how to capitalise on it. One wanted to sell the property and no compromise could be found.

     It opened in 2010 and among other things hosted this year’s Bali Emerging Writers Festival – in late May – which is a spin-off from the annual Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Organiser Antida Darsana used Facebook to tell everyone who’s going to miss the space created for artists, musicians and students how much he regretted “that a valuable space for creativity, art, and culture cannot be maintained in Denpasar.”
     He added: “We will surely rise again to continue our idealism to develop arts and culture in Bali. We may, for the moment, be homeless, but we have not lost our spirit.”

     Alternative arts need far-seeing sponsors. Are there any local fat-wallets around – the recent Rich List might point to a name or two – whose skill in acquiring billions of rupiah for their businesses could be turned (in a very minor way after all) to useful philanthropic effect?  

Onya, Sonya

The excellent Strewth diary in The Australian – both it and the newspaper, which (disclosure) we should note is run by Hector’s former colleague Chris Mitchell, are required reading for those with an Aussie bent, albeit online if you live outside the Odd Zone – had a lovely little item the other day. It was headed Transporting Type and is worth reproducing unabridged, without further comment:

     At an inner Sydney gig on Sunday night, musician Kim Sanders – a practitioner of world music, if you'll allow the term – had just finished wowing the audience with a piece of Sufi music on his ney, a type of Turkish flute. It was beautiful, bordering on the ethereal, and when he stopped, there was a sense the audience was still suspended in mid-air, held by the coils of the ney's voice. Careful not to break the mood, Sanders introduced the next piece in almost a whisper. One of his own compositions he explained, inspired by a poem whose intensity, longing and passion had moved his heart and his imagination profoundly. He'd read it only once, he explained, as it was written on the back of a passing bus – the 473, no less. He proceeded to recite it in its entirety: "Sonya, Sonya, let me onya." Which makes haiku look long-winded in comparison. Sanders got a great tune out of it.

Old Friends

We had old friend Ross Fitzgerald to lunch at The Cage recently. He was staying in Ubud – he and his wife Lyndal Moor have been Bali visitors for 20 years or more and always stay in the attractively royal ambiance of the Pura Saraswati hotel right in the middle of town – and drove all the way down to the Bukit (and back) for a bite and chat. It takes a true friend to do that, given today’s traffic conditions.

     Fitzgerald is a professor of history and author or co-author of 35 books, the most recent being Fool’s Paradise, a fictional rendition of political events in the Australian state of Queensland that was long in the making because when first written it was met with horror by publishers who didn’t want to be sued by the non-fictional moulds from which Fitzgerald formed his characters.

     Among the several tales told over lunch – they mainly concerned mutual colleagues and friends – was one lovely little story. He had to get back to Ubud early because he was giving a talk to a group of Indonesians (only men and from Bali and Java chiefly) who had recognised that they were addicted to alcohol.

      One of Fitzgerald’s books is My Name is Ross, the story of how he beat potentially lethal alcoholism. He hasn’t touched a drop in more than 40 years and still attends meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous regularly.

      He was giving his talk, he said, because Indonesians here don’t attend AA meetings, or not in significant numbers, and the chap who organised the meeting got the idea from reading a review of Fitzgerald’s book written some time ago by none other than your diarist. It was in Another Newspaper.

      We’re sure the talk went well. Fitzgerald is an amusing raconteur.      

All A-buzz

Marie Bee, who writes for the French-language monthly journal La Gazette de Bali and continuously demonstrates that she made very good use of her university days in Aix-en-Provence, is not a person on whom it would be wise to waste a fallacy.

    So it was interesting to read in the June edition of La Gazette, in her Ubud column, that she had been to Anand Krishna’s ashram there and found a lingam in residence. The busy little Bee pointed out immediately, lest Francophone readers get quite the wrong idea, that it is not there in the sexual sense that so fixates people today – lingam massage being billed as the art of penis worship – but in its original meaning: the creative power. 

Cleaning Up

World Ocean Day on June 8 got a welcome boost worth US$10,000 – that’s around Rp90 million give or take an exchange slip or two – from Blue Season Bali’s effort on the day that helped clean up the Sanur beach and raised funds through a fun scheme (though perhaps not entirely novel in Indonesia) under which people could bribe their way out of jail. The jail operated at the evening BBQ and was guarded by a local police officer who played the role of jailer. Guests paid for their “friends” to be thrown into jail and they then had to raise money to “bribe” the jailer to be released.

Captain Who?

We were planning to end this edition’s diary with a little joke, just to give readers a giggle. We had one all set – don’t worry, it won’t date – when the thought occurred that there was a real joke we should tell instead. It concerns Captain Emad, real name Ali al-Abassi, the well known Iraqi people smuggler who when he arrived on one of the boats from Indonesia that he’d organised fooled the gullible Aussies into believing he was an asylum seeker. They gave him a visa (of course) and, not to gild the lily, a measure of public assistance.

      But – shock, horror – the poor dears are now thinking of cancelling his refugee visa after he was outed by the ABC TV current affairs show Four Corners as still, shall we say, somewhat active in the illegal business of putting desperate people on leaky boats to Australia, land of plenty.

      The day after the programme aired he left Australia, the plods conspicuously not in pursuit. Oddly, though, he was already a person of interest. Police had raided his home some time before armed with a drug warrant.

     But we can tell them that well before the Four Corners exposé, he was seen in Senggigi, Lombok, with a group of fawning Iranians who seemed all to be hoping to pin little kangaroo badges on themselves soon, and that this was reported. Our source was not official and the sighting was reported through civilian contractor channels, not direct to the authorities. But we are confident the circumstances were as described. It is also clear no one in authority in Australia bothered to check effectively.  8degreesoflatitude

Hector’s Diary appears in the print edition of the Bali Advertiser, published every second Wednesday, and on this Blog. The Diary also appears at 8degreesoflatitude. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR’S DIARY Bali Advertiser, June 13, 2012

Stir Slowly, Drink at Leisure

The May edition of the 2012 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival newsletter made it out with a week to go before it was June – it popped into the Diary’s in-box on May 26. And since it was leading off with a bit of a blurb about the Bali Emerging Writers Festival (which had been advertised as scheduled for May 25-27) one assumes deadlines in festival-land are as notional as any on this island.

     But never mind. BEWF is beaut, even if acronyms are as prevalent as litter. This year’s was the second and organisers said it presented a more colourful line-up than the inaugural acronym last year. Said UWRF community development manager Kadek Sri Purnami, and we quote verbatim (it’s not our grammar): “We are trying to present as diverse and colourful voices as possible. These young writers, some write with words, some with lights and images, will take the audience into the kaleidoscopic world of contemporary Bali.”

      We’re sure it was a blast – and we’re glad about that too. Perhaps the 2012 UWRF Newsletter for June, which apparently should reach us just before it is July, will give us some idea of how it actually went.

     The festival took place (May 27-29) at Serambi Arts Antida, the hot Denpasar alternative art space.

      Meanwhile, festival founder and fragrant coffee drinker Janet DeNeefe is being as shy as ever about the international programme for this year’s big show, scheduled for October 3-7. A little note in the aforementioned newsletter coyly states: “While the list of international authors for the UWRF 2012 is tightly embargoed, several of the authors on that list were featured at the Sydney Writers Festival, recently concluded.”

      We do know of one author invited to participate: Uli Schmetzer, who lives half the year in Venice and half in Australia and the Philippines. He and his lovely Italian wife Tiziana, who cooks the most marvellous pasta, lent us their pushbikes in Beijing 20 years ago (we gave them back) as well as their driver, a redoubtable fellow called Fang who knew but one word of a language other than Mandarin. Unfortunately this was “nyet,” which did not get us very far. Well, only to the nearest bit of the Great Wall.

      As to other internationals, well, just for fun, we’ll scribble out a list, blindfold ourselves, and play a literary version of pin the tail on the donkey.

Help the Cause: Buzz Off

As noted above, a diarist’s reading must be very wide. Or else you miss all sorts of things that give you a huge laugh. So we propose to share with you some other advice recently to hand – we found it online and it would be amusing to suggest this resulted from a tip-off – that urges women to select a vibrator that is eco-friendly

     It notes – this was a surprise to the Diary – that there are more makes of vibrators on the market than there are models of cars on the roads. Gee, that intelligence hits the spot. It’s a wonder poor old Gaia hasn’t been knocked out of her orbit with all the under-the-counterpane buzzing that must be going on. And it says that choosing a brand, let alone a single product, can be daunting; it kindly offers to help narrow your search.

     It suggests you choose a rechargeable vibrator for maximum sensation with minimum ecological footprint. Apparently a typical user can deplete up to four batteries a week on a battery operated vibrator – that’s more than 200 dead batteries a year. (How many extinct libidos, we wonder?)

     Oh yes – and we’re thinking that would have to be the Big O – it also says that responsible manufacturing is important for your vibrator (they are sentient as well as sensory?) and suggests you seek out companies that share your values. Perhaps you should just look for one that gives you a nice warm buzz.

Or Otherwise...

A diarist also needs a quick eye, as well a deep appreciation for delicious double entendres. LinkedIn’s handy People You May Know feature – which as we noted recently unearthed for us poor Angus McCaskill, who is no longer counted among our population – popped up another unknown name the other day. We won’t name the fellow, since he seems to be a Canadian and might therefore respond by saying “Eh?” or else entirely miss the joke.

     But he’s the manager of a mining industry outfit whose name might cause an involuntary appreciative intake of breath among any number of distressed gentlewomen hereabouts: Cougar Drilling Solutions.

Fame à un Prix

Those among us who like to follow the risible side of Australian politics – it’s a broad field of study – have been transfixed of late at the thought of supersized Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer running for parliament, though not for the Whirling Dervish Party, which is such a pity. He’d like to be a Liberal MP instead, which he’d surely find is absolutely no fun at all. Apparently he’s serious about it all but the idea went straight into our Too Silly file, along with some of Palmer’s other titanic ideas.

     As well as desiring to pay no tax on his mines (paying tax is for wimps and non-whirling dervishes) Palmer wants to build an “unsinkable” modern version of the Titanic that some people – Céline Dion, Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio prominently among them, one imagines – will clearly remember was also unsinkable but which nevertheless sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 after running full-pelt into an eminently avoidable iceberg. He also wants to build a Zeppelin, though he promises it wouldn’t be a Hindenburg exploding one.

     It was therefore fun to find in a recent edition of the fine French satirical newspaper Le Canard enchainé – it had been donated to The Cage by some kind French visitors – a little item by Jean-Luc Porquet, who writes a lovely column aptly named “Peouf!” It was headlined “Trésor national vivant” (“Living National Treasure”).

     The piece primarily concerned the discarded Nicolas Sarkozy who was recently unelected as President of the Republic. It was Sarkozy’s titanic political misadventures which principally informed Porquet’s pointed prose. But unfortunately, while Palmer’s Australian national treasure feat may be recognised in France and be of some peripheral utility to satirists having a go at poor M. Sarkozy, his living clay is less well known.

     Porquet called him Clive Barker. Perhaps he was thinking of Ronnie, the Brit comic who was nearly as round. But he could just have been joking. He seems to share the widely held view that Clive Palmer is barking mad.

More Sax Please

The delectable Edwina Blush will soon be back in Bali, which is good news for Villa Kitty at Ubud – of which she is an ambassador – and people, like your diarist, who love saxy jazz and the (unfortunately now largely notional) concept of smoky bars and attractively accommodating company.

     She’ll be playing a six-week gig here with her Balinese sextet at Three Monkeys Sanur after the June 15 launch in Sydney of her latest album, Sea For Cats. We’ll get along to a session or two. The album’s available from various download sites including iTunes, the Diary’s preferred legal provider. Half the proceeds of sales go to Villa Kitty to provide veterinary care and – as Edwina unblushingly puts it – much needed population control measures (she adds: “Frisky little darlings”).

     Villa Kitty is on Facebook, by the way. Founder and Chief Meow Elizabeth Grant Suttie would love to hear from you.

Fiesta Time

El Kabron, the cliff-top watering hole at Bingin on the Bukit where host David Iglesias Megias tempts patrons with all sorts of delights, including Catalan and other Spanish treats, celebrated its first birthday with a great little party on June 10.

     It was a good chance to catch up with old friends – though none of them are old in the literal sense – including our Most Favoured Argentine, artist-architect Leticia Balacek, who has recently been in Shanghai. We buttonholed her at the do and asked if, as a result of her Sino experiences, her word was still her Bund. Sorry.

No Kidding

We hear from the delightful Alicia Budihardja, chief spruiker at Conrad Bali where Frenchman Jean-Sebastien Kling is now general manager that the property is going after the kids in a big way. It has launched a new family package that offers free meals and recreational and cultural activities to youngsters while their parents are enjoying the definitely more relaxing and possibly more cerebral aspects of the place.

      Kling wants to help parents unwind on an ultimate getaway.  That’s a nice thought. They deserve a break. 

Hector's Diary is in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the internet HERE. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, May 30, 2012

Oh Wow! Things Work!

Two weeks in Phuket can work wonders for you. Especially when it’s raining, on and off,  which it is at this time of the year, the reverse (almost exactly) of Bali’s seasons: Phuket is seven degrees 53 minutes North, Bali eight degrees 39 minutes South.

     It is wondrous to shelter, street-side, from a sudden monsoon downpour and watch the efficiently engineered and properly cambered road surface deal with the flood of water; and the drains, unclogged by careless refuse, dispose of the resulting rush of runoff. Among other things the Thais comprehend – and moreover seem to care about – is that water flows downhill. It makes you believe, all over again, that if Bali could only put its mind to it, the same felicity would be within our reach.

    And it fully refreshes the soul to be somewhere thoroughly tropical and to find that the electricity grid delivers a constant 230V – within the international standard plus or minus 6 percent tolerance – and that in consequence one’s rechargeable electric razor actually fully recharges and, moreover, closely shaves the morning bristles.

     There are other things about arriving in Phuket that might amaze (we’ll get to some of those that amuse). These include the airport, which has a car parking, taxi, bus, drop off and pick up system that works. And an arrivals system that does too. Seventeen minutes from stand-up-and-rush-the-plane-exit to kerbside car pick-up was a treat.

     And in case the director-general of official excuses should chance to read this, or more likely have it read out to him, since he’d surely have an official excuse for not bothering to directly inform himself about anything much at all, this was not because the airport wasn’t busy.

Magic Spell

Thai script, drawing its origins from (among others) ancient Aramaic and about as intelligible and dating from 1283 when King Ramkhamhaeng the Great formalised it, and the way of writing for some 65 million people, means that the Roman alphabet that the main European and other languages (such as Bahasa Indonesia) use is functionally beyond most Thais.

     This leads to understandable confusion, most obvious to the casual passer-by from street-side signage. One little spot we passed often on the first part of our Phuket holiday (in Kata where we stayed at the delightful – and delightfully named – Lae Lay Suites) had a sign outside that proclaimed “No Panking.” A little further on, past a few more interestingly disreputable bars containing small collectives of bored, chattering girls of an evidently willing nature but unknown character, to say nothing of provenance, another sign said “No Paeking.”

     Hanky-panky is impolitic and peeking impolite; besides, we were not driving and had no need of parking. We managed thereby to avoid total confusion.

There’s the Rub

Massage, as in Bali, is the ubiquitous offering made to passing tourists. Some of it is legit. A Thai massage, for example – the Thai style of massage, we mean, which we also sampled later in plush comfort at the Twin Palms resort at Surin – is a great way to discover that you actually can, if gently encouraged by your masseuse, just about get your right big toe into your left ear. This feat – no, we’re not just crassly attempting a poor pun – is much the better for being performed with clothes on and without the sometimes dubious benefits of sticky oil.

     Others are, or may be, not quite as legit. Phuket’s tourist areas, after all, like Bali’s, are places of sexual resort for male tourists whose brains are defective or damaged, or anatomically misplaced. But even if legit, sometimes the names of massage establishments raise an eyebrow. There was one we spotted, into which the Diary dared not enter, that proclaimed itself to be the Tum Rub Massage.

Not So Petit Dejeuner

It is a Sunday at the exclusive beach club. Guests – regrettably some appear to be rather poor jests – are at play. Or maybe they are at lunch, since it must be at least an hour since they vacated their breakfast table.  It’s an eclectic crowd, as befits exclusivity, beaches and clubs, in Phuket as much as in any island playground. Many of its members are French, adding zest and joie de vivre to proceedings and some amusement – not necessarily of the cruel variety – to the day of the watching diarist.

    Overheard on this particular day, they seemed to be saying “donc” to each other with implausible frequency. In its conjunctive form, it means “therefore,” and we surmised that they were explaining things to each other, or possibly explaining themselves. One party in particular prompted us to think that France, having just elected a socialist president who offered a series of spectacularly speculative promissory notes, had now convinced itself it is fully insulated from both the global and Euro crises.

     Since we had not been introduced and such a social opportunity was unlikely to eventuate, we gave them names: Floppette, Flippette, Crevette and Asperge. As far as we could tell Flippette was with Crevette and Floppette with Asperge.  It was interesting that Floppette and Flippette displayed complete disinterest – such sangfroid! – while Crevette and Asperge disported themselves in the hefty little monsoon waves of the Andaman Sea equipped with body boards and fins.

     Lest it be felt we are being unnecessarily unkind in singling out persons of the French persuasion, we note that at the same time some jests from Oz were on the beach. Tosser and Wozza were accompanied by their squeezes, Screecher and Mona, or so it seemed. It takes all sorts.

It’s Not Kuta

Or Patong, Phuket’s equivalent; and thank goodness for that. Surin is a quiet little spot – very quiet in the low season – and the better for that beneficence. There’s a surprising variety of good little restaurants (if you like real pizza, you’re certainly in the right place) including some nice locally run beach eateries that, unlike those at Jimbaran, for example, allow you some light to eat by and forbear to incinerate the fish.

     We found one particular little place off the beach, a short stroll up a gentle hill from the Twin Palms resort. It’s called CC’s and is accessed by some stairs at a building next to a pharmacy. It’s locally owned – by a surfer-biker-philanthropist-entrepreneur from nearby Kamala – and run by another nice Thai surf fan, known as Jay. There’s a very well stocked bar and the massaman curry was the best we’d had in a long while.

Just in Time

Fortunately we were back in Bali well ahead of the next Ganesha art opening. We always try to get along to these little soirees since gallery manager Luh Resiki is such a dear and John O’Sullivan’s Four Seasons operation generally presents some decent wine.

     And on June 7 it will be more of a pleasure than ever, since the artist whose works are going on show is Dutch-born Marijke Lambregtse, who has achieved the impossible dream: she lives half the year in Bali and half in Queensland, Australia.  There but for a Lotto win go I, as a superannuated cockatoo might say, if lightly pressed.

     Lambregtse began her artistic career in Holland as a dancer, choreographer and teacher and then moved to Australia in 1987, where she lectured in ballet in Melbourne and Brisbane.  In the mid-1990s she studied art, painting and design, and her talent won her prizes, exhibitions and commissions.

      Her Ganesha exhibition, from June 7-July 30, shows a collection of canvasses representing the broad theme of Lost and Found, from which the exhibition takes its title. These explore two themes: awareness and protection of the environment, and the crucial role woman can play in
bringing positive change by active participation.

Get Along There

Lloyd Perry’s Chillout Lounge at Ubud is making its mark. A recent “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” night raised Rp2.2 million for a very worthwhile charity, the Sacred Childhoods Foundation. Another fund-raising night took place on May 25 and they will be run monthly.

     Chillout now also features a live music and art night every Saturday from 7pm.  Perry tells us a great Jam band plays and any musicians present are welcome to join in. Twelve took part in one recent event, several of them from Ubud. And if you’re feeling musical but can’t play (the Diary studied piano and the clarinet several eons ago, to no lasting effect; shame it wasn’t the sax, we’d surely have remembered that) then you could try painting to music instead. Watercolours and canvas are available for anyone who wants to have a go.

Long Story

Marian Carroll, chief spruiker at The Ayana Resort at Jimbaran – home of the famed sunset spot the Rock Bar – is now sporting a longer title. She is now Director of Public Relations & Marketing Communications (Resort & Residences). We do hope that comes with enhanced rummaging rights at the cookie jar.

     The resort has just completed a large-scale refurbishment.

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser's fortnightly print edition, out every second Wednesday. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, May 16, 2012

What Rubbish!

When we heard that “the authorities” – the quotation marks are possibly essential – had suddenly demolished a number of rather well known and heavily patronised watering holes favoured by the Bling-and-Bolly and Boys-and-Girls-Behaving-Badly sets on the beach at Batu Belig, a wreck and rampage event held on May 7, an unkind thought crossed our mind. It was that “They” (the quote marks and capital T are definitely essential) had mistaken the real task upon which a modicum of concentration is required.

      It occurred to us that a far-sighted official – Find that man! Give him a medal! – must somehow have become aware of the real problem on Bali’s beaches and directed the troops to clean up the rubbish, but that a critical wire or two had got crossed while the order was being passed down the line. There is a precedent for this, though sadly it too is a joke. An order “Pass the word forward, we’re going to advance,” given to British infantry on the Western Front in World War I was duly passed forward but got lost on the way. It became “Pass three-and-four-pence, we’re going to a dance.”

      It is asserted that Karma Kandara, La Barca and other outré establishments were operating without the necessary permissions and permits. They may have been.  We don’t know. But that’s not unusual hereabouts, particularly when if you do pay up you’ve often no idea who is actually going to pocket the dosh.

Oh, THAT Target

Meanwhile – surely to no one’s surprise – environmental specialists are at loggerheads over how the Bali government’s commitment to a plastic free Bali in 2013 can be achieved. The short answer is it can’t be. The real political game is finding some smoke and mirrors with which to claim it has been, or very nearly so.  This little shadow play has now produced a statement – from provincial environment agency chief AA Gede Alit – to the effect that 2013 is just the target for the initial commitment.

     Dr Wayan Arthana – of the Centre for Environmental Research (PPLH), which is hardly an impartial player but never mind in this instance – says there is no clear plan to achieve this. He is apparently shocked to learn this, which in turn is shocking. We’re on Planet Bali, where clear plans are never part of the picture. It’s true that Bali has a big waste problem. But even 10,000 cubic metres of waste a day is not insuperable. At the moment more than half is left untreated and scattered around the island. The 10 to 12 percent of it that is plastic could certainly be managed under the right programmes.

      Arthana is pessimistic about the target date. “I think it will not be achieved,” he says. Gosh, if betting were legal here he’d make a brilliantly successful bookie.  It’s hard not to be pessimistic about the entire project, frankly. A study by graduates from Reading University in Britain found various impediments in the way, including the behaviour of people who it seems – in the comfortable do-nothing fictions that govern life here – “do not realise” that plastic is harmful to the environment.

Ooh, Yummy

Alila Villas Soori, on the Tabanan coast and somewhere we really must get one day, has a culinary treat in store for guests in June. Michelin chef Tom Kerridge, whose Hand and Flower public house, at Marlow on a picturesque Wind in the Willows-style stretch of the River Thames in England is Britain’s only two-star Michelin-rated pub, will be creating haute cuisine – some of it hot too, no doubt – in-house on his first ever Asian tour.

      He is said by some to be the finest chef in Britain today. As far as we know, he’s not one of the rude ones, which is truly a blessing. Kerridge had a hard childhood, a time upon which he reminisced in February in the London Daily Telegraph newspaper. He recalled they were so poor – his divorced mum worked nine to five and then after hours on the till in a pub to make ends meet – that their usual Sunday Roast (a British tradition) was cheap sausage meat from a supermarket rather than prime beef or chicken from the butcher.

      He said: “I look back on that meal with really fond memories because it shows my mum didn't give up. She worked hard to help me get where I am. Now she comes to visit me at the pub, where we've just won our second Michelin star, and I get to treat her instead.”

      What a lovely fellow.

      And that’s not all that Alila Villas Soori has on its schedule next month. Its latest Artist in Residence is Raymond Wiger, a master sculptor in the art of wire mesh, who will show a collection there in June including some pieces inspired by and resulting from his residence at the resort.

Scat, Cat

We heard this story from Villa Kitty, the rapidly overcrowding refuge for deprived felines in Ubud. Apparently at Champlung Sari, a resort property in Monkey Forest Road, unwanted or nuisance kittens – the product of breeding age cats left unsterilized by unthinking owners or the ubiquitous stray animals – are cleared from the property by the cheapest method possible. Someone tosses them over the wall into a dirty little watercourse that fights its way through the garbage to get where gravity would otherwise like it to go.

      Villa Kitty tells us a couple staying at the resort recently were upset at seeing a kitten thrown over the wall in this manner and one phoned them up in high distress. Further inquiry elicited the information from the management that the guests had evidently failed to see the kitten then climb back over the wall.

       Is this a joke? Sadly it is not. But animal lovers and anyone with an elementary sense of decency might like to get their essential Ubud experience at some other accommodation.

A Ra’re Treat

Hector’s ghost-writer was browsing through his LinkedIn site recently when the ever-helpful People You Might Know feature popped out the name of Angus McCaskill. Well, we don’t know Angus and neither did we know his alter ego, the faux-Maori Willie Ra’re, when he was hanging around the party scene snorting cocaine. That is, we didn’t know him except vicariously as a result of the public notoriety he acquired on being arrested, charged, tried and sentenced to jail on a drug charge. We shared this condition – though ours was legitimate lack of knowledge – with a great many people who, after his sad denouement in a supermarket, suddenly seemed not to know him either.

     McCaskill went home to Australia last August after serving a year in Kerobokan jail. He had originally been sentenced to seven years in one of those over-reactive challenges to common sense that the courts here seem to like so much.

     He said at the time he was a changed man and that he had used his year in the slammer to reconnect with the non-narcotics-enhanced side of life. We wish him well.

     LinkedIn tells us he is now business development manager at a Melbourne-based leisure, travel and tourism outfit called DealsOnDeals and also lists him as owner at the Wall Street Group of Companies. Now that might give us the Willies; not to mention the Gekkos.

Eat Up

Ubud, as befits its status as the centre of myriad universes, many of them very strange places indeed, has plenty of spots where, your head filled with pipedreams, you can also stuff your face. That’s as it should be, even if it’s only a mungbean you’re after. So one more won’t matter and it’s no surprise that Kuta fixture Dijon has wandered up the road to open a café. It’s in tastefully eclectic Jalan Raya Sanggingan, just across the road from a favourite Diary spot, the Beji resort.

     Dijon Café officially commenced business on April 29, with all the pomp and circumstance people seem to view as de rigueur when opening a new emporium (of whatever variety) here. It was open – perhaps this was unofficially, or maybe it was just softly – when we were staying in the area last December.

     It’s not very far from Mozaic, which keeps getting noticed – the Diary chiefly notices it for its prices – and Naughty Nuri’s, which being extremely tiny is always overflowing with the I-Must-Be-Seen crowd. So it will be good if Dijon cuts the mustard.

Vacant Lot

The April issue of the Bali Peace Park Association’s e-newsletter popped into our in-box right on deadline – ours, not theirs, it now being May – with some fascinating thoughts on fundraising, land acquisition, and building completion. It records that Man-With-the-Udeng Made Wijaya, whose landscaping firm did the drawings for the Sari site development, told them building the park facilities would take six months. Then it says they’re on schedule for October, the tenth anniversary of the first bombings. It’s May, so they now have five months. But they haven’t acquired the site – and there’s not a brick in sight.

     We’ll read more. Watch this vacant space.

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser's print edition, out every second Wednesday. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, May 2, 2012

Building for No Future

Among the many wondrous things that fix one’s attention in Bali is the question of building permits. It has been raised – again – as a matter of public interest by people who are objecting to the construction of yet another lodging place, allegedly without benefit of permit, in Jl Drupadi at Seminyak, which not many years ago was a quietly meandering little street where residents had rice fields to gaze upon. It is still a meandering little street, but concrete view-blockers have replaced the rice fields and silence is a notional, relative thing. This, of course, is progress.

     It is not necessary to completely oppose development to be outraged by the cavalier attitude of many developers to dangerous impediments to their own wealth-garnering, such as building regulations. “I should get a permit? Well, I asked for one and you said no, so I’m building my nightmare project anyway. I’ve called it Excrescence, by the way; somehow it seemed apt.”  This statement is of course fictional. The actual statement, were one ever to be made, would probably be unprintable.

       We have hotel developers – and other entrepreneurial types – who build what they like, where they like and how they like without bothering with building standards, licences, permits, or even drainage plans. (We know too that getting building permits is often a process fraught with costly problems but that’s not the point.) Few are effectively countered. It’s not just in Bali, of course. Indonesian law insists (well, suggests is more accurate in actuality) that you consult your neighbours before building, but hardly anyone ever bothers with that nonsense either.

      If Bali is to escape eventual tourism ruin and have any chance of protecting its heritage, architectural and other, something needs to be done urgently. Reform could start with amendments to the devolution law so there is no longer room for argument over whether the provincial or district administrations have legislative power over building regulations. It could usefully then continue with cast-iron rules enforcing those regulations.

     Bali has benefited hugely from tourism and related developments since the mid-1980s. Thousands of people have jobs they once could only dream about. Money has flowed – and is flowing – to local people like never before. All that is good, yet we face a dreadful problem, one that relates to virtually unfettered development and to the Balinese (and national) habit of ignoring both regulations and common sense.

And a Further Thought

Here in Bali we have by-passes that aren’t anything of the sort – because the instant someone builds a traffic thoroughfare it is built out and traffic-jammed by an epidemic of retail and other premises. We have intersections choked by vehicles and motorbikes whose drivers and riders simply ignore the rules.

     We have traffic police who sit – for example in the little sponsored box at the McDonald’s lights at Jimbaran – sipping their coffees and Cokes and ignoring the tailbacks caused by people intending to turn right but sitting in the left-hand (through) lane because they’re so selfish or ignorant that they’re not prepared to queue.

     There’s little money in it for the cops, of course. No “tourists” (even those who’ve lived here for years) do that. It’s home-grown idiocy and if it were penalised at all it would only be at concessional local rates.

In the Pink

Last October your Diarist – along with a chum who was visiting from Queensland, Australia – donned pretty pink to take part in the annual Bali Pink Ribbon Walk. It was a fun show, once the masculine genes had got over being paired with pink, and in a very good cause. We even did the full five kilometres, something that was apparently beyond many of the other walkers who, without benefit of marshals, cut a few corners.

     The 2012 event is on May 26, retimed to take advantage of the less humid conditions and slightly lower temperatures of the season. Sadly, we can’t make it; we’ll be flying back from an overseas trip on the day and won’t be back on Bali soil until after walk time. But everyone else should, so put it in your diaries.

      Gaye Warren, who initiated the Walk in 2009 and who as a breast cancer survivor is a leading light in the UK events, tells us that this year they’re providing optional design pink tees for chaps, with a black collar and the chest-legend “Real Men Wear Pink.” Nice try girls; only on special occasions, we fancy.

      The Walk starts at 4.30pm on May 26, from the grounds of the BTDC headquarters at Nusa Dua with registration from 3pm. There will be the usual tasty morsels available from international food stalls and this year’s entertainment programme is being provided by a wedding planner. That’ll go without a hitch, surely?

      Funds raised this year are going towards the building of Bali's first Breast Cancer Support Centre in Denpasar. Bali Pink Ribbon works with leading hospital Prima Medika in a joint endeavour to identify breast cancer in Balinese women who otherwise might not notice the symptoms until the disease is far advanced. Around 200 women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer in Bali.

      Details are at www.balipinkribbon.com.

Conrad Calling

There was a lovely soiree at Tanjung Benoa on April 11 when the Conrad Bali turned eight, said cheerio to inaugural GM Michael Burchett and bonjour to new GM Jean-Sébastien Kling, a native of France who joins us here on our island from the Hilton Maldives Iru Fushi. Kling joined the Hilton group in 1996.

     We’re not losing Burchett, though, which is good news because he’s a good bloke. He’s staying in Bali to run his own consultancy business.

Non! Cela ne peut pas être vrai!

No! That can’t be right! A poll conducted by international travel search site is said to have revealed the French as the rudest people on earth. Apparently they were thus rated by 19 percent of those polled. It’s true that the French are historically known by their European neighbours for an abrupt and curt nature, especially when dealing with foreign tourists – those who don’t speak classic French, for example, such as Quebecois from Canada, or (even worse) don’t speak French at all. It is further alleged that this is often taken by visitors as rudeness.

      Paris is a difficult city. But the people there are nearly in Seine, so that’s no surprise. In other parts of France your diarist, among thousands or more likely millions of visitors, Francophone or otherwise, has experienced no trouble at all getting along with the locals.

Scratch Him

Here’s a thought for the graspers among us, courtesy of Villa Kitty Ubud founder Elizabeth Grant Suttie. She recently asked (on Facebook) this reasonable question:  “How can an expat living in Ubud in a comfortable home with his own graphics business think to bring in three tiny kittens and not offer a donation?”

     We’d say the answer is obvious.

That’s the Spirit

It was Anzac Day on April 25 – the Australian and New Zealand day to honour all those who have served their countries in the armed forces – and as usual there was a traditional Dawn Service organised by the Australian Consulate-General.

      The Diary was there (as always); and this year was wearing his Australian Army tie for the occasion. It rained, rather heavily. But as Consul-General Brett Farmer reminded the large crowd present, given the occasion marks the bloody Gallipoli landing in World War I, we could put up with a little inconvenience.

Smile, Genius

The Diary’s current MFA (Most Favoured Argentine) Leticia Balacek, architect and artist – she had a lovely ink-wash sketch called Yellow Dog in her exhibition at El Kabron at Bingin Beach late last year which the Diary would covet for a wall were space available – has been spreading her wings. She had an exhibition of 47 mix-media works, Crossing Borders, at the Cemara 6 gallery in Jakarta from March 28-April 12.

     Now, five of her manual colour screen prints are to go on show at the Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design ICAD by Artura, also in Jakarta, from May 5-June 15. Balacek, who has the sort of effervescent personality that makes you want to hug her, will also present a short animation stop motion film.

     This year’s Design ICAD theme is Genius. Buenos Aires native Balacek tells us it’s about the genius we all have inside. Well, some among us do.

Unrevealing

The Bali Times, which has been published weekly since 2005, failed to appear on Friday, April 20. There was no announcement that publication had been suspended, but you expect that here.  It is bad news – any descent into a catatonic state preceding death by any newspaper is – but is unsurprising given the difficulties the paper has had, particularly since November 2010 when the editor decamped to Ireland.

      Revealing the real Bali – the paper’s masthead boast – was probably always going to be a little difficult from as far away as one of the Euro zone’s least effective economies. 

Hector's Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday. Hector is on Twitter (@Scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky). The Diary is also posted at 8degreesoflatitude.wordpress.com.

HECTOR'S DIARY Bali Advertiser, April 18, 2012

That’s the Spirit

Meghan Pappenheim, who will now be enjoying some well-earned downtime after the 2012 BaliSpirit Festival held at Ubud – where else? – from March 28 to April 1, tells us her moment of pure joy at this year’s event was taking part in Indra Widjanarko’s yoga class for kids. “Pure happiness for a split second,” she reports. There’s a photo on the festival site that might give a clue as to why the happiness was for a split second. Meghan’s a good sport. Oh, and a good sort.

      She tells us too that the other amazing thing she took away from the festival was how international it was. She says that in the night concert area she found herself surrounded by full-pass holders who had flown to Bali for the event from 13 countries – one of them Germany, from where the man in question had visited Bali for every festival since its inception.

     The global reach of BaliSpirit is certainly remarkable. One of Meghan’s night concert companions had come from Iran. The others were from India, Mexico, Slovakia, Brazil, Spain, the USA, Canada, Australia, China, the Philippines and France.

     BaliSpirit is not just the five-day event itself. It has a strong outreach and community building aspect as well, which every year is augmented incrementally. Says Meghan: "Aside from the thousands we raised with our partners for local initiatives, I don't believe we've ever had this kind of backing and programming input from local community organisations before."

     Way to go!

Get Real 1

If anyone wants a take on the unreality that drives Bali’s Wayan Mitty real estate sector, they need look no further than the chairman of the Real Estate Indonesia (REI) Bali branch, Dewa Putu Selawa, who said in late March that property prices had already increased by 15 percent since earlier in the month because of the government’s announcement of rising fuel prices.  He meant, of course, asking prices.

     For good measure, he added that many property owners had withdrawn their properties from sale. Doubtless, as the unfortunate (and entirely blameless, naturally) victims of the twin epidemics of unreal expectation and rampant greed that afflict our island, they did so in pursuit of further excuse to ask for an astronomical price in the hope that some mug would pay it.

     The fuel price rise did not eventuate, even though ending a US$14 billion a year subsidy on highly pollutant low-grade petrol is clearly a good idea on budgetary and environmental grounds. This was absolutely no surprise, given that the national government – unless energised by antediluvian misogynists into pursuing mini-skirted women in the astonishing belief that female knees are pornographic – has all the courage of a craven. And little grip on reality, except in relation to who might still be persuaded to vote for it in 2014.

     A recent study by Knight Frank and Elite Havens showed that Bali has the highest rate of land price increases in Indonesia (up by an average 34 percent last year against 8-16 percent in other parts of Indonesia). Selawa explains it this way: “The property business is very sensitive to rumours and discourse. Many businessmen cancelled the sale of their properties because the prices would again increase when the fuel price is hiked. They were waiting to get the highest profit.”

    A fuel price rise of 33 percent would increase costs, naturally, by some quantum. That would be after the price rise took effect and impacted on transportation costs, not before. We're talking about profiteering here.

Get Real 2

It’s not only the big end of town that needs to take a reality check. We heard an amusing little tale the other day – well, it’s irritating really, but you’ve got to laugh – that hits one of the nails of Bali’s development dilemma squarely on the head. We won’t name names, because that would be invidious and in any case the problem is so widespread as to be unremarkable.

     There’s a nice little restaurant we go to where the land upon which it stands has been leased for 20 years from the local – Balinese – owner. The land has been leased by an Indonesian, so the usual fleece-the-filthy-foreigner rule hardly applies. But in the nature of things here, and of course elsewhere in the county, such arrangements come along with unrelated, unscheduled and entirely promiscuous calls upon the pocket: the landowner needs money, for this, that, or some other purpose; the fridge is on the blink; the beer has run out; someone is ill perhaps; or maybe that remarkable aunt in Jauh Sekali (it is nearly always far enough away to discourage direct inquiry) has experienced a further bout of repeated death and there’s yet another funeral to be paid for. If you live here, you’ll know the score.

     Anyway, on this occasion, we hear, the landowner was after some money (a not insubstantial sum apparently) and was culturally distressed when the readies were not ready to be handed over; that of course means the cash was not available immediately. He then visited the establishment and engaged in that other customary local practice – looking miffed, shouting loudly, and banging any available flat surface.

     Apprised of the fact (again) that the casual, unbudgeted and off-contract sum he demanded was indeed not yet to hand, he said he would never lease his land again and would not be renewing the current 20-year lease (it has about 19 years to run). Fine, replied our restaurant proprietor, a lovely chap from Sumatra. That was his privilege. But in the meantime, for the rest of the lease period, he didn’t want to see the other fellow’s ugly mug anywhere near the place. Got that?

Here’s to Your Health

The new BIMC Hospital at Nusa Dua opens its doors on May 5, an event that will certainly please anyone on the Bukit who needs international-standard medical care and doesn’t want to risk a potential two-hour road trip to BIMC’s other facility at Simpang Siur. It will be especially useful for those whose blood pressure is apt to rise to crisis level if stuck in traffic on what would normally be a 25-minute, 12-kilometre trip if everyone stayed in lane and obeyed the other road rules, or gave a tinker’s cuss about anyone else on the road.

      That’s far from the only benefit of the new hospital, of course. It includes a 24-hour accident and emergency centre, a 24-hour medical centre, cosmetic medicine and dental centres, and – good news indeed – a dialysis centre which should make it possible for tourists who require regular dialysis to consider holidaying at Nusa Dua or nearby.

      BIMC Nusa Dua plans an open day on May 5 to introduce residents and visitors to the new facility, housed in purpose-built accommodation in the BTCD enclave just across the road from Bali Collection. The complex was built by a Perth-based Australian firm that specialises in hospital construction and fitted out with state of the art interiors and infrastructure by a South African company.

Best Endeavours

Applications have been invited for the Endeavour Awards for 2013. This Australian government scholarship programme provides opportunities for Indonesians to undertake study, research and professional development in Australia.

      Announcing the awards on April 2, Australian ambassador Greg Moriarty said: “Twenty-six Indonesians were awarded Endeavour scholarships in 2011 and we look forward to receiving more Indonesian applications to participate in this internationally competitive, merit based scholarship programme.”

     Applications close on June 30. Details are available here.

Why, Thank You

Diarists and other scribblers generally only hear from readers who have a gripe. This is not necessarily a problem. Often it gives you a good laugh, as for example not so long ago when a self-elected lunar luminary of long standing in these parts told Hector’s helper – it was in response to a polite inquiry – “Eat shit and die you twerp.”

     How much more pleasant it was to receive feedback recently from reader Nurul J. Darmawan, who posted this note on Hector’s Facebook wall in response to the item in last edition’s Diary headed True to Herself:

     “Hi Hector ... reading your article really impressed me. What you said about Facebook is true in our lives. You’re right: we need late in life more real than virtual life. Facebook is where I find friends to add insight in my life. Your articles are very insightful and give an input to many people such as me. Bravo Hector’s Diary!”

And Again

Hector also tweets (some people say he twitters, but cockatoos don’t do that) and was recently followed – you do that on Twitter – by one Frank Seth, from Idaho, who advised: “I’m an undiscovered American watercolour artist. Have been painting over 53-plus years. Maybe this will be my year? I want to keep on painting as long as I can do it.”

     Good on you, Frank.

Hector's Diary appears in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday and online on the newspaper's website. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).

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).