HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for July 31]

WHAT? NO CARS?

THE Bintang Supermarket in Jl Legian at Seminyak is a curious place. It is often strangely empty of that essential ingredient of a successful business – customers – yet its car park, in an area where parking is a little difficult, is often packed. Or it was until recently.
Last Sunday, generally a very good day for the car park (car parks have feelings too, you know: they like to be popular), it too was strangely devoid of custom.
Perhaps it had something to do with the new sign that has been erected saying it will cost you Rp50,000 (US$5) to park there if you’re not in the store.


A Date to Remember if We’re Really Serious

WORLD Rabies Day is on September 28. The annual event, led by the Alliance for Rabies Control and supported by many human and animal health organisations worldwide, would ordinarily be of only passing interest. But this year, given the recent outbreak of rabies in Bali which killed a number of people in the Bukit-Jimbaran area, it takes on added importance.
Local authorities made commendable efforts in the months after the disease became apparent here, culling street and bush dogs – a regrettable necessity in the circumstances – and launching a vaccination and public awareness campaign.
Rabies is 100 percent preventable. Once symptoms appear however – except for one case in Wisconsin in the USA in 2004 where a previously unvaccinated girl of 15 recovered from the clinical symptoms of rabies – it is invariable fatal.
Prevention is difficult in a place like Bali where registration – of anything – is a moveable feast and where shortage of money has a negative impact on ongoing preventive health measures.
Local communities are the best place to service these needs. Balinese society – and indeed Indonesian society as a whole – is commendably communal. Nothing much goes unnoticed and (at least in Bali) you can count on banjars (community organisations) and the Pecalang (local security) to know everything.
The key is awareness. The number of free-living dogs, unfortunately, must be kept down. There’s a role there for organisations such as BAWA, the Ubud-based animal refuge, but the fact is controlling wild canine populations is largely a matter of culling. This is best organised and executed at the local level. Money (and the interest and commitment) must be found to fund and administer human preventive health measures and domestic animal vaccination programmes.
It looks as if the 2008-09 outbreak has been controlled. Bali had been “rabies free” for 10 years before last year’s mini-epidemic. But local communities – and the provincial government – must stay on the job: otherwise, inevitably, this horrible disease will return.
Worldwide, it kills 55,000 people a year, half of them children under 15.

Hot Stuff

WHAT would life be like without chili? Or for that matter, cuisine? Which not without coincidence seems to be a theme of this week’s Diary. Well, you’ve got to eat.
The Chili Festival, a whole month of tongue-tingling and digestive disturbance, is upon us. It offers the authentic taste of Bali from the traditions of the royal family of Karangasem, whose territories once included not only much of magic East Bali but also West Lombok, which the kingdom of Karangasem invaded in the 18th century, taking Hinduism with it.
The festival, from August 1, is at the Bali Safari and Marine Park in Gianyar.

Playing the Goat

WE came across a lovely little story the other day, about the beauty of Indian goats. Apparently they are a hit with farmers in the country around Bojonegoro, East Java, not only because they are beautiful but because their meat is much prized by consumers. It’s said to be better than Indonesian goat.
One naturally places a premium of quality. If you see kambing (goat) on a menu, and your fancy turns towards such gourmet fare, it’s generally best not to think too long about its provenance but just to hope it has had the stringiness cooked out of it.
Hec’s mum was a master of that: she was a true aficionada of the venerable Ah Sou’tah School of cuisine, where you cook and cook and ... well, you get the picture.
It’s a style, by the way, that lends itself to the traditional method of preparing Australian bush turkey for the table: You cook the turkey in a large pot with a big rock. When the rock is soft, you throw away the turkey and eat the rock.
But seriously, it’s good to read that Indian influences continue to have an impact on the archipelago (there’s such a long history to that!) and that the goat farmers of East Java are making premium income from providing beautiful goats.

Veteran Takes the Long View

THERE’S a certain insouciance to which one is entitled, having reached the venerable age of 108. We should not be surprised therefore that Britain’s last surviving World War I veteran Claude Choules takes his new status with understandable sang-froid.
Choules, who has actually lived in Australia since 1926 when he was seconded from the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy, now lodges at a nursing home in Perth, the West Australian capital.
Of his new status, acquired on the death of Harry Patch, 111, who died last weekend just a week after fellow veteran Henry Allingham, at 113 the world’s oldest man, Choules said: “Everything comes to those who wait and wait.”
He heard the news from his 80-year-old daughter, Anne Pow. He was married to his wife Ethel for 80 years. She died at 98.
The long twilight of the old world, encapsulated in survivors like Choules and the only other World War I veterans still alive – American Frank Buckles, 108, and Canadian John Babcock, 109, who both live in the United States – is moving inexorably towards its end.

Useful Feedback

LAST week’s front-page report on post-Jakarta bombings security measures (Tougher Checks on Traffic, Chemicals in Post-Bomb Clampdown) brought a riposte from reader James, who commented on our website feedback:
“All well and good but in my experience over the years the guards and the police tend to check tourists and expats but wave through Indonesians especially workers. Last week, after the bombs, I watched a truck loaded to the top, waved thru the check point at the Discovery Mall, whereas I was subject to a vehicle check. I've seen the same many times at Ku De Ta and elsewhere.”
Reader James has a point. There has always been a strong element of PR about security checks. They seem designed to say: Look, We’re Serious and We’re Doing Something. And on balance, it is probably safe to say that if there is mad terrorist out there with a bomb, it’s most likely not some inoffensive expat trying to do the shopping.

Fame at last!

HEC was a little bit pleased with himself last week. Nutty News Wire, an Australian based laugh-along that operates in much the same way as The Onion in the USA, has suggested its readers follow him @Scratchings on Twitter.
He is not entertaining suggestions that they did so because they’re nutty.

The Bali Times Diary appears in the print edition of the newspaper, out Fridays, and on the newspaper's website at www.thebalitimes.com where the current edition is posted every Monday.

HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for July 24]

AIRPORT SECURITY IMPROVED: We spotted these ancient cannons guarding the air approaches to Ngurah Rai Airport the other day.

How to Deal With Rabid Dogs: Shoot Them on Sight

WHATEVER motives drove the Jakarta bombers – and aside from an insane desire to kill themselves and other people, it is hard to fathom what these could possibly be – one fact is clear: their deadly work will have been in vain.

If they were dissatisfied with the outcome of the July 8 presidential election (one possibility), then they failed completely to understand the basic democratic principles that underpin Indonesian life. If this was the motivation, then they are also sore losers – although, come to think of it, there was actually no one they could vote for: none of the parties contesting any of the elections this year (or ever) advocated anarchy and terrorism as a way of life.

If their desire was to destabilise the economy by sparking a flight of foreign capital and overseas interest from Indonesia, they will also fail. They fail to understand the basics of economy: people will go where they can do business.

If they wished to help introduce a radically politicised, murderous and perverted version of Islam to Indonesia, they failed to understand that Indonesians, while devout Muslims, desire to be part of the modern world and are at root among the most humane of the peoples of the earth. You might think the West sucks, but that doesn’t mean you are compelled to murder people.

There will of course be damage from this latest outrage, aside from the human tragedy of deaths and injuries brought about by poisoned minds. Tourism – vital to Bali – may be adversely affected, and our island’s economy depressed, and the economies of our neighbouring islands too. More broadly, investment could be depressed, however temporarily, a sorry result (if it eventuates) at a time of global financial turmoil. There is some tough work ahead for Indonesia now in clawing back a clement foreign assessment of security risks here.

However, to use an analogy, we need to note that if you live near the forest where the wolves are, sooner or later one of them is going to come by and try to kill your chickens. That’s why farmers in such places build fences to protect their livestock and have a shoot-to-kill policy as an essential backup: it’s a lot better to be prepared than to spend your time crying wolf.

Terrorists, however, are not wolves; they are not instinctively behaving as they do because it is their place in the universe to do so. They are sick – dangerously sick – individuals who for our own collective safety we must treat as beyond mercy, whatever the shape of their argument. They are deaf to reason and bereft of humanity. They are the equivalent of a rabid dog.

Indonesia has received immediate promises of support and assistance from the US and Australia in the pursuit of the people who organised the Jakarta murders. Not just Indonesians but everyone, everywhere, will cheer when (and it must be when) they are eliminated as a further risk.

One final note: the Australian travel advisory for Indonesia – a topic of considerable comment over a lengthy period, because of its repeated advice to “reconsider” travel here, a qualification that has not been “upgraded” since the Jakarta attacks as some have mistakenly assumed – has been vindicated by events. We are in that sense back to square one.

On To Brighter Things

THE Diary’s firm policy in times of trouble is to whistle a happy tune (OK, you also make sure you have the brown cords and a change of undies handy) and get on with life. Thus we are happy to bring you the latest dispatch from our bling and bolly correspondent, Stella Kloster.

Stella was undercover – well, nearly; party wear these days is more of your barely-cover variety – at this year’s Pushmipulyu Awards, the annual fiesta of self-congratulation organised for the locally luminous by The Yak magazine.

Sadly, she reports that few of the stellar clusters present had followed orders and dressed themselves in psychedelic chic as their invitations required. Perhaps they were psyched out.

No Surprises

BALI has won the title of World’s Best Island yet again. This should surprise no one. But it is good to know that Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2009 list returned our island to premier position as a result of its annual survey. Readers are asked to name their favourite cities, islands, hotels, resorts, airlines, cruise ships and even car rental companies. Gosh, that’s such a long list of boxes to tick that it Hertz.

Incidentally, only one Bali hotel got a gong from Travel + Leisure’s lovely readership this year: the Ayana Resort and Spa (the former Ritz Carlton at Jimbaran) which ranked 13th out of 100. Bali has consistently ranked as world’s best island in the Travel + Leisure Magazine survey. It was demoted to number two spot in 2008, for reasons that should be seriously investigated because clearly they have nothing to do with evolution.

The 2008 winner was the Galapagos, where the mysteries of genetic modification so intrigued Charles Darwin. It was the swimming and diving iguanas that did it for Chaz. How they got to thinking they were actually otters was at first beyond his comprehension.

Write On ... Read On

THIS year’s Ubud Writers’ and Readers’ Festival is getting ever closer. It’s on from October 7-11. So it is good to hear – though we did so via the excellent Indonesian news agency Antara – that it will be attended by several of Indonesia’s most celebrated authors, including the award-winning short story writer and essayist Seno Gumira Ajidarma.

According to Wayan Juniartha, the festival’s Indonesian programme coordinator, Ajidarma will help workshop deliberations on the nature of violence and compassion. Other authors down to put in an appearance this year are JM Coetzee, Kate Grenville and Hari Kunzu.

The festival website – it’s at http://www.ubudwritersfestival.com/ – has a news page. When we checked this week there was none. Still, as they say, sometimes no news is good news.

My Part in the Moon Landing, By Hec

THE past week has been full of people remembering what they were doing when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface on July 21, 1969, and said his famous words.

Hec recalls his own moment. As a then young scribbler, his job was to sit riveted in front of the little black-and-white TV set in the newsroom at the Press Association news agency in London and record – in his very best Pitman’s, yet another skill sadly given the finger in the digital age – the first words man uttered on the moon.
Being an anarchist at heart – Hec has had a lifelong fight with this condition – he was bitterly disappointed that Armstrong did not stumble on the lunar lander’s silly little stepladder and say something posterity would really remember.

THE DIARY is in the print edition of The Bali Times each week, out Fridays, and on the newspaper's website at www.thebaltimes.com where the current edition is posted each Monday.

HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for July 17]

A NEW LOCAL HERO: The Rp2,000 note introduced by Bank Indonesia. See the Diary item below.

So, Now Can We Try To Get It Together?

THE latest late-save by the Bali Tourism Development Corporation (with national government help) of the huge Dubai-funded development of a tourism enclave in southern Lombok is, predictably, being used to encourage people (again) to believe the project actually will go ahead.
We hope it does. But what has been agreed to (again) is merely a further six-month extension of the joint venture, the latest in a string of such extensions made necessary by the inclement fact that the facts keep getting in the way of the preferred fiction.
That fiction is that everything has been bolted together and oiled and is ready to spring into action. It’s a familiar refrain in Indonesia, where the winner’s flag is often waved before the race has even begun. But to be fair it’s far from unique to Indonesia. Frenzied promotion of ground-breaking projects gets way ahead of the game in many places.
There is, of course, no substitute for actually doing the hard yards. For one thing it helps to manage complex relationships with business partners who, oddly perhaps, like to be sure they will make money and do so as easily as possible. Preferably the work should be done before holding any Roman-style Triumphs to celebrate your success.
Secure title to land is a prerequisite, for without it no sensible investor would shift a cent. It is especially important to clear these thickets in Indonesia, where land title has not been codified, where multiple claimants (often legitimate in the communal society that is a feature of Indonesian cultures) can appear years after “clear title” has been granted, and where local opinions about the monetary and social value of land – and its continued “ownership” after sale – make it a very tangled jungle indeed.
The BDTC is seeking to build new business for itself by capitalising on its record as developer of the Nusa Dua complex and is the Indonesian portion of the joint venture with Emaar of Dubai. It clearly needs to work on that. It could usefully do so in this instance by recognising that Emaar (and Dubai) are in a bit of economic strife at present and aren’t in the mood to waste time or money.
Lombok deserves its place in the tourism-development sunshine. It certainly doesn’t need another Bali-inspired roadblock in its way.

Food Police in Action

THERE was an interesting front page colour photo and article in the Indonesian language newspaper Radar Bali last Saturday. It was all about a raid by the food police on the Bali Deli where – horrors! – some foreign condiments were suspected of nestling on the shelves without benefit of a nice little sticker saying that the Indonesian authorities had worked out what they were.
It seems the offending articles were ones for which there is no recognised Indonesian distributor. According to Radar Bali, a similar search-and-seize operation was performed at Carrefour, that French-owned hypermarket a little further down Sunset Road.
The newspaper reported that the foreign country stock of interest to the food police came from Italy, China and London. We always thought Bonking Boris Johnson, now Lord Mayor of London but formerly captain of the British parliamentary nookie team, had special plans for his city.
Perhaps he declared it a country while poor Gordon Brown’s attention was focused on the political wreckage at Westminster.

On a New Note

BANK Indonesia has introduced a Rp2,000 note to replace the dog-eared Rp1,000 as the lowest denomination paper money in circulation. It features a new local hero – Pangeran Antasari, Sultan of Banjarmasin in the 1800s – on one side of the note and Dayak dancers on the back. It was launched last week, appropriately in Banjarmasin. See the images here. It’s a sort of blue colour, for ease of confusion with the Rp5,000 note, in the way that the similar red colours of the Rp10,000 and Rp100,000 were apparently designed to assist money-changing scams.
But as the central bank notes, not even parking costs only Rp1,000 a pop nowadays, so the utility of the old Rp1,000 note – worth around 10 cents US – is ever more marginal. It wants to repopularise coins for smaller denominations, it says, though in a country where hot-weather clothing limits pocket space that’s a tough call.
It would make more sense, ultimately, to knock off some zeroes and have a “new rupiah” that doesn’t make you a millionaire every time you draw cash out of an ATM, but that solution seems to be some way off.
They could, though, provide a Rp500,000 or even Rp1 million note. They could perhaps choose the images for these from Indonesia’s rich-list. It would be one way Jusuf Kalla could get his face right around the country.
And it would save a lot of wallets from a shortened lifespan due to over-stuffing.

Don’t Get In a Paddy

WISH we could have been there! We hear a large four-wheel-drive with Outrigger Panorama logos on its sides and a foreigner in the driving seat ended up in a paddy last Saturday morning (bet the driver did too!) on the formerly quiet country back road from Seminyak to Canggu.
Since this snaking country lane was turned into a paved road over the past couple of years, it has increasingly been used as a shortcut to Canggu by people driving to and from Seminyak and other places to the south. Road rage is becoming commonplace during increasing gridlock.
The road is not wide enough to accommodate side-by-side two of the plush and plainly ridiculous super-SUVs of the variety favoured by plutocratic Javanese and upwardly mobile foreigners with access to company funds to make the usurious lease payments. As a result there are frequent spills into the “nice ricefield views” that people pay big bucks to get a look at from their villas.
Once rural and pastoral, and quintessentially Balinese, Canggu is rapidly becoming yet another expat enclave. It is now home to an international school, a dreams-of-empire country club, and a deli. There are plans – by the Spanish football club Real Madrid – to open a soccer academy in the area, though these are yet to be visually realised.
But with new houses and villa complexes sprouting up on an almost weekly basis – and Tantric-tranquil Desa Seni’s village resort countryside vistas now being eclipsed by concrete walls on all sides – it seems the paddies most likely to be seen are the noisy ones resulting from tantrums and not those dedicated to the peaceful production of Bali’s staple food.

Servis Compris

BALI may be buying itself a lot of trouble attracting increasing numbers of French tourists – new figures show they have discovered us in droves – if a study of the global tourism industry is to be believed. Apparently they are the worst travellers of all: penny-pinching, rude and terrible at foreign languages.
The study by the global hotel industry in 27 countries, conducted last month and part of an annual series, says the Japanese are the best tourists. Oddly, if penny-pinching, rudeness and lack of foreign language skills are benchmarks, it ranks Australians sixth out of 27.
In the study, 40,000 hotels worldwide were asked to rank tourists on nine criteria, from their politeness to their willingness to tip. The Japanese, assessed as clean, polite, quiet and uncomplaining, came top for the third year running.
The French, whether travelling on holiday or for business, were the least open to new languages, ranked last for generosity and readiness to tip, and next-to-last for their overall attitude and politeness. They made up for it with elegance, discretion and cleanliness.

Camel Lights Out

THERE’S a line in an old Australian TV advertisement – for something or other; can’t remember what – that says “Those Aussies are weird.” That’s not a statement that would be at all controversial anywhere else in the world, or for that matter among many Aussies, even if it were advanced as a serious proposition rather than just as a joke.
After all, they keep demonstrating weirdness and actually seem to like being odd. Thus we were not surprised to read during the week that the organisers of Camel Cup in Alice Springs, held last weekend, and unsurprisingly won by a camel, spent a little time on the hunt for their most prized dromedary, whose name is Charlie and who was apparently stolen.
It’s not clear why anyone would want a dromedary. They spit for one thing, a criminal offence in The Diary’s view. But Charlie is a special case. He’s a life-sized steel camel and is the mascot of the desert charity races, sponsored by the Lions service club.
Weirdly, he disappeared first on the Friday night before the races, returned for mascot duties, and then did a runner again. He was later found, it seems, after being spotted in several Alice Springs nightclubs. “I think he's probably been led astray by a few people through a few different nightclubs in town and parties and everything else,” a spokesman for the camel race organisers told The Diary. “He's probably feeling very sorry for himself.”
This year the Camel Cup drew a crowd of more than 5,000 to the central Australian town celebrated at one remove by the British writer Nevil Shute in his post-war novel A Town Like Alice.

Freudian Slip

FROM a Paradise Property website blurb about a place at Canggu on the market for $900,000:
“A pretentious Roman-style property located in the quiet neighbourhood of Kuwum surrounded by lush vegetation and naturally limited by a romantic river. The property still leaves plenty of opportunities for personalisation.”
Says it all, really.

SCRATCHINGS FROM THE CAGE FLOOR, Hector's Bali Times Diary, appears in the print edition of the newspaper, out every Friday, and online at http://www.thebalitimes.com/ where the current edition is posted every Monday.

HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for July 10]

IT’S A SET-UP: Neighbours actress Carol Bonner with props and a pal in a November 2008 episode of the long-running Australian TV soap opera. She’s on the right. The actress was in Ubud last weekend where, as well as lunching at Janet DeNeefe's well-publicised eatery Indus, she dropped in the homeless pussies and puppies at BAWA. See our Diary item below for further essential information.

Ah, Candi, You’re Food
for the Soul

AS the old saying puts it, little fleas have littler fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em, and so ad infinitum. In the same way, expat sybarites who have fled their increasingly onerous homelands to seek refuge in Bali need a little local R&R sometimes, especially if they are domiciled in crowded South Bali and consequently need to deal with the usual determinants of life in urban Indonesia. This is surely the reason lovely places like East Bali’s Candi Dasa exist, to provide a bolt-hole for the jaded of whatever provenance.
It was for these reasons that Hec and Mrs Hec sought out the peace and quiet of their favourite camping spot at Candi Dasa (Pondok Bambu) and its fine sea breezes last weekend. That and the Haloumi (with the rocket and blue cheese salad as a starter) at Vincent’s restaurant; and the nice little secondhand bookshop in town that is always worth a browsing visit. Invariably one emerges from the latter with “a find.”
This trip, a new chum emerged in the eating line: Le Quarante Huit at the new Zen Rezort, next to the lagoon. The “z” is intentional. The owners are French – well you’d sort of guess that from the fact that the restaurant is named as it is and is not just “48” (or even Empat Puluh Delapan) – and fortunately so is the cuisine, avec les sensations de l‘Asie.
The night Hec and Mrs Hec dined there, there was an unfortunate outbreak of Aussies of the gauche variety, but that can never be helped. Hec and the Missus just moved tables to avoid the embarrassment. The food was divine. Merci beaucoup, Pierre et Alex, et bon chance.
One disturbing sign: A significant number of foreign-owned villas in Candi Dasa are for sale. Is the Euro recession really beginning to bite?

A Monograph on Social Collapse
AS one ages, one’s personal life experience tends to resurface as an issue of interest, if not of conscience. Was I really that bad, you ask yourself? Of course, if you’re a kindly soul, you answer “No.”
Thus, a recent reading of the novel Past Imperfect, a 2008 effort by Julian Fellowes, producer, screenwriter (he got an Oscar for Gosford Park), scribbler and actor – he was the incorrigible Lord Kilwillie in the British TV series Monarch of the Glen – was not only entertaining but also disturbingly pointed.
Fellowes and your diarist are contemporaries. The difference between them lies chiefly in the fact that your diarist saw the writing clearly on the wall in 1969 and left the old country for good – barring the odd visit, chiefly for family reasons – in search of a better environment and a surer moral compass than would be provided by the wreckage of empire (all that redundant statuary!) and the triumph of the uncouth.
Reading the book is cathartic. Even if the old order had to go along with the aristocracy with the demise of its reason for being – and surely no one could argue with that – it’s a shame that what replaced it is apparently being run on the money of the few doled out to the loud, greedy, ignorant, slothful and increasingly criminal.

Flying High Again
THE news last week that the European Union will lift its two-year ban on Indonesian carriers flying within the EU is a useful fillip. Presumably it will chiefly benefit Garuda, the national carrier, which has the fleet (and, importantly, the direct access to government money) to make staging such a return feasible.
Garuda and three other airlines – Mandala, Airfast and Premi Air – got the green light. Garuda says it will definitely recommence Jakarta-Amsterdam services, probably next year.
The big domestic carrier Lion Air wasn’t given the nod, though it publicly welcomed the news. It has some regional routes and is planning to commence services to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. But perhaps if it demonstrated commitment to rulekeeping it might have more luck. It could, for example, ground its MD-90 fleet as the government has ordered it to, instead of just using the planes on non-Jakarta routes so no one important sees them.
The widely unpublicised incident involving a Lion MD-90 at Mataram in Lombok recentlyhighlights the airline’s cavalier attitude to regulation.

Think Ahead on Visas, Aussies Say

THE Australian embassy in Jakarta has suggested Indonesians planning to travel to Australia for holidays over the next few months should lodge their visa applications as soon as possible to avert delays.
The embassy processes more than 62,000 visitor visas a year for Indonesians planning a holiday or short stay in Australia. During the school holidays and Idul Fitri (Eid-al-Fitr) particularly there is a strong rise in the number of visa applications received by the embassy, which incidentally approves one of the largest amounts of tourist visas of any Australian embassy in the world.
In a statement recently, Ambassador Bill Farmer said that while the embassy tries to finalise visa applications in less than five days, during the holiday season this timeframe can stretch. The Jakarta embassy is also issuing more long-duration multiple-entry visas these days, allowing holders to travel as often as they like for a longer period.
From July 1, by the way, the charge for a visitor (tourist) visa rose to Rp880,000 (it was Rp790,000). Visas are also issued by the Australian Visa Application Centre in Bali, which operates separately from the Consulate-General here.

Blackberry Pie
LAST week’s Once column by William Furney – who as everyone knows doubles as Editor of this august journal – canvassed the idiocies of the Blackberry age. It got an instant response. Well, you’d expect that, at least.
It came from James Watling (who signs himself off thus: Hello Bali The Island Key Powered by Matrix BlackBerryR) and is remarkable for having been written – on his Blackberry, natch – while supposedly at a dinner.
James disagrees with William. On Blackberries and other associated gizmo-gear. He says he would find it hard to live in Bali without his, since he can email and browse and even post to Twitter upon the little object, and that this is good because Indonesia’s cyberworld infrastructure is less than perfect.
Among much else, he tells us (well, William) that in “a fit of peak boredom during this dinner function” – was this boredom at its height, we wonder, or was he just piqued? – he found himself scanning the latest edition of The Bali Times (it’s a sterling read he says; we agree) and chanced upon the “Mobile Moan” article, to which, he further advises, “I must put finger-to-button in response.”
So he did. As one apparently does these days. It’s obviously part of the wholesale western collapse in taste and good manners. Or perhaps we should put it down to short-sightedness, another post-modern pandemic. He said his soufflé was going cold while he texted.

It’s Just a Snip
IF you’ve got a lazy US$5,000 to splash out, we know just the place. There’s a refurbished Jivana villa at the Intercon, at Jimbaran, where for just that little sum you can enjoy a night of luxury surrounded by saltwater aquariums in your living room and lots of water bordering the floor. The latter could be a significant risk to frocks and high-heels, ladies (and one or two gents these days, no doubt).
Intercon PR director Dewi Anggraini and Club InterContinental director Ryan South, an Australian, hosted a tour of the villa, refurbished to the desires of the property’s Jakarta-based owner, at which cameras (and doubtless Blackberries or whatever) flashed and guests, the usual who’s who in the zoo list, were required to float candles with their names on an attached leaf, and make a wish while doing so.
How very New Age. We’re sure many of the wishes were for the clocks to go back to pre-GFC days.

Bow-Wow for BAWA
THE good folk at BAWA who look after stray dogs and cats from their Ubud base had a treat last weekend.
Neighbours actress Carol Bonner was in town and did a photo-shoot there.
We thought it might be nice to get a photo from this happy event and asked Liz Henzell, who writes our Instinct column and is the Big BAWA, if she would ask for one on our behalf.
Sadly, it seems, such pictorial treats are only for the chosen few. So we found a photo of the said actress
anyway, lest any reader unaccountably not know the lady from a bar of soap.

Hector's Diary appears in the print edition of The Bali Times every week (out Fridays) and on the newspaper's website at www.thebalitimes.com every Monday.

HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for July 3]

MARKETING OPPORTUNITY: Matahari at Kuta has this great idea – customers can relax at the doctor’s. The fish in the tank are doctor fish. The toes being nibbled belong to people who apparently like to have their toes nibbled by strangers, or at least, by strange fish. But here’s an idea: Why not set up a chip stall close by? Then they could have fish ’n chips.

Watch Out for the Flu Bomb, Aussies Told

IT’S good to see the Aussies are right up to the mark with their travel warnings. And we find it especially pleasing – in an amused way: they’re all now supposed to run around shouting “Don’t Panic! Don’t Panic!” about swine flu – to see that at long last the threat of annihilation at the hands of bomb-crazed terrorists has taken second place.
The latest warning, posted on the Australian Foreign Affairs Department website on Monday and in the in-boxes of all the online registered worrywarts that same day, alerts travelling Aussies to the fact that H1N1 flu is abroad. Well, it’s actually at home – for Aussies – in rather larger quantity than in many places, Indonesia included, but never mind.
People who now read the advisories and despite this still decide to travel are advised that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed cases of H1N1 Influenza 09 in a number of countries throughout the world, including Indonesia, and are told: “For further information and advice to Australians, including on possible quarantine measures overseas, see our travel bulletin on H1N1 Influenza 09.”
Because Aussies hold the lame belief that if they get into strife overseas it’s the government’s job to rescue them, it also suggests that intending travellers first obtain comprehensive travel insurance that will cover any overseas medical costs, including medical evacuation, confirm that their insurance covers them for the whole time they will be outside the Protected Biosphere and check what circumstances and activities are not included in their policy.
It notes that the Australian government will not pay for a traveller’s medical expenses overseas or medical evacuation costs (and quite right too) and includes this really sensible advice: “Remember, regardless of how healthy and fit you are, if you can't afford travel insurance, you can't afford to travel.”
The bit about possible quarantine measures is apt. Last week the bunch of dysfunctional funsters who apparently run health matters here decided they would make all arriving international travellers have blood tests on arrival. By Sunday someone sentient had managed to work out that this was (1) unworkable and (2) ridiculous. Plus it would kill Bali’s tourist industry overnight. That plan down the drain, Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari came up with another lulu: giving new arrivals a face mask and telling them to wear them for three days.
Some cogitative reflection is called for on swine flu. On all the evidence it is a mild disease, exotic only for its origins and unlikely to be fatal unless in someone with unrelated health problems. Naturally its spread should be limited as far as possible by preventive health measures. Electing to wear a mask is one thing. Being told to by a pack of panic merchants is quite another.
The air of officially (and we suspect politically) inspired panic here over foreigners bringing in the disease is a bit rich, anyway, given that Indonesia is the world capital of H5N1 avian influenza, a far greater risk to human life.

You’re So Behind the Times, Jack

IT was good to see, in this week’s breathless Bali Update – well, editor Jack Daniels had been at the triathlon over the weekend (see below) – that the row over the future of the Sari Club site has finally rung a bell on Planet JD.
It was reported in The Australian, he says. So it was. But Jack, it was in The Bali Times two weeks running before that. Please tell us you’re not really missing out on the best news you’ll get all week.
As so often in Bali, where the actuality of any given issue is difficult to determine, due to the principals’ preference for obfuscation or hanging up on inquirers, the Sari situation is up in the air. We’ll get to the bottom of it one day. Bali Update might too, especially if it’s back on the ball instead of doodling on the sidelines.
For the record, Kadek Wiranatha denies he is building a restaurant, bar and club on the site, in Jl. Legian opposite the bomb memorial.
We expect he has other things on his mind at the moment, seeing that his moribund enterprise Air Paradise has lost its operating licence, making any phoenix attempts even more unlikely.

America’s Big Day

IT’S an annual event, of course, so it shouldn’t surprise us – but it’s suddenly the Fourth of July again, the day when Uncle Sam celebrates from sea to shining sea. This is his 233rd birthday.
In an age when it is fashionable to decry history and spit on achievement, this is a good time to make the point that the world’s oldest continuous democracy has a proud record of global citizenship.
Bali will very soon be welcoming a new US Consular Agent, we hear, to replace incumbent Joshua Finch.

Long Weekend at Bernie’s

CHEERS could be heard all round the world this week, when beastly Bernie Madoff, the man who really put the Big P in the Ponzi, was sentenced to 150 years in jail for his massive, globe-shattering Wall Street fraud.
He won’t be able to serve all his term of course. That’s one of the curiosities of the American justice system – it keeps sentencing people to prison for longer than nature will allow.
But we afford a little smile at the thought that Bernie, who lived so high off the hog for so long on money stolen from other people, started his thoroughly deserved incarceration with possibly the longest and most boring weekend of his life.

It Was a Riot

TRIATHLONS are trying; there’s no doubt about that. The 326 athletes from 26 countries who swam, cycled and ran in Bali last Sunday, in the third MRA Bali International Triathlon, would attest to that.
First-place honours again went to professional triathlete Luke McKenzie, who covered the 1,500m swim, 750m beach run, 40km bike ride and 10km run in 2hr, 10min, 15sec. Since he spends his professional life taking part in triathlons and winning them, it was probably a doddle. The top Indonesian time was produced by Kadri Regar: he came in eighth at 2hr, 29min, 31sec.
Hector had a minor part in the big race. He and Mrs Hec were on the TBA2 (Trans Bukit Arterial/To Be Arranged) behind a police car which appeared to be sounding its lovely little siren to help a cycle-stage straggler make it up the hill to Ungasan.


Friendly Aussie Eyes on Indonesia

AMONG the several Australian think-tanks, the Lowy Institute stands tall as an enterprise that precisely and professional dissects issues of importance to Australia and the region.
It has been led for six years by the energetic senior seeker after truth, Alan Gyngell, whose analytical skills are second to none. It is no surprise then he has left to head the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in Canberra – lovely city: it had a maximum temperature of 4C the other day, and thick fog – where he can apply his skills again in government service.
Equally of interest is that he has been replaced at Lowy as executive director by Dr Michael Wesley, who has been professor of international relations at Griffith University in Queensland and director of the equally up-front Griffith Asia Institute. His pedigree includes the ONA – which reports directly to the prime minister, incidentally – so he and ONA’s new director-general should find lots to talk about. Both Lowy and the Griffith Asia Institute give great weight to Indonesia’s crucial role in regional affairs.
The Lowy Institute was established and seed-funded by Frank Lowy – boss of the giant Westfield property and shopping centre group and as a European migrant a huge fan of football (the one with the round ball) – as a service to his adopted nation.
Its philanthropic partners today include The Myer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – and the MacArthur Foundation, the organisation named for the American general who led the allied effort against the Japanese in the south-west Pacific in World War II.

Lunch? You Want Lunch?

IF the idea of lunch on a quiet Saturday appeals, you can forget about trying to find a bite on Jl. Laksmana (the otherwise legendary Jl. Oberoi) at Seminyak. Pickings are few since most places only seem to open for dinner.
One place that does do lunch is Chandi. Thus it attracted recent attempted custom because of this and its rather lovely menu, but was last Saturday displaying a sign reading “due to renovations we are not open for lunch.” Pity they didn’t think to place the same notice on their website. Our diners could have skipped the no hors d’ouevres and gone straight to Breeze at the Samaya...

Not So Good, That’s the Rumah

THE Ubud premiere of A House in Bali – The Opera, last Saturday, was a mixed bag, according to The Diary’s part-time opera buff, who attended. The setting was beautiful. The Balinese part was graceful and engaging, with wonderful dancers, especially the lead Balinese boy.
The “western” part was a very literal interpretation of the book, including an extraordinarily abrupt ending.
Our spy reports that the lead role of Colin McPhee was played in perspiration. Perhaps this was because it was hot, or perhaps the poor actor found it difficult to compete against the horribly drunk and voluble woman at the back and the fact that 99 percent of the audience seemed to be more interested in taking flash photos than watching the performance.

Born to Bellow

VETERAN American rocker Bruce Springsteen caused Britain's Glastonbury music festival to fork out more than Rp60 million as a fine for playing past curfew time at the annual bash in south-western England. But the organisers are happy: The Boss, whose iconic anthem Born to Run is still running, wowed the crowd; as did Neil Young.
Apparently the untimely demise of the freaky Michael Jackson might otherwise have lowered the tempo somewhat. Springsteen's 2hr, 40min set went nine minutes past the 12:30am curfew the noise police set for the giant music festival, a fixture since 1970.

The Diary appears in the the print edition of The Bali Times out every Friday and at www.thebalitimes.com where editions are posted every Monday.

HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for June 26]

CHOCS AWAY: We’re not quite sure how this spa, on the By-Pass between Kuta and Sanur, manages its treatment menu. Do they roll you in chocolate and throw you in a bath full red wine? Um ... could work!


On Having a Good Yak and
a Nice Round of Applause

THE Yak is found both in a wild and domesticated state in Tibet and the neighbouring mountains and plateaux, from the snow-line up to 6,000 metres. It is greatly prized by the inhabitants of the country in which it is found. Yaks do not low, or moo, as other cattle do; their voice is a kind of grunt. The animal is grotesque in appearance, but is not particularly savage in disposition.
Readers will quickly see that the animal above, a beast of burden and provider of ready-rancid dairy products, is quite distinct from the variety we know in Bali. Clearly, ours is related to Dr Doolittle’s famous Push-Me-Pull-You. In front it’s a Yak; at the back, it’s a Bud. But it too is a beast of burden – it can carry prodigious amounts of bling and other baggage – and interestingly, while exhibiting the herd mentality and stampede tendency common to cattle, is apt to jostle fiercely for individual primacy once in the collectively selected vantage point.
Of course, we jest. Some readers, especially those who frequent the American Dollar Menu Precincts of Seminyak and Ubud, will know immediately that it’s actually a glossy quarterly journal full of interesting and informative material.
It is of interest to The Diary at this time because it is in the middle of having its annual festival of mutual back-slapping, The Yak Awards. This curious rite involves lists. Apparently previous winners nominate new contenders. It’s one of those nicely circular self-congratulatory sequences, requiring only compliantly affirmative friends. The voting is simple, too. It’s online on The Yak’s website – the site’s a good one by the way – and anyone can tick their preferences in any of the many categories.
Among the Presences on this year’s list is Monte Monfore, the Californian swimathon fellow, whose website informs us he proposes to make a splash again next year, in Japan apparently, which he says is to raise money for Unicef’s anti-polio campaign in Indonesia.
Hector won’t be voting in The Yak Awards. He only votes for the best mie goreng murah. But he’s sure his special bling and bolly correspondent, Stella Kloster, will tick the boxes, if she can remember how to log in and overcomes the horrid shock of not actually being on the list herself. The dress code for the back-slapping awards party at Sentosa on July 18 has ameliorated her displeasure somewhat. It’s psychedelic chic. She says she’s a shoo-in for a door prize, being a psychedelic chick herself.

MW2 Has an Adventure
WE thought it had been a little quiet lately. And now we know why. MW2 – it saves so much ink when you don’t have to write Michael Made White Wijaya every time doesn’t it? – has been away in India. It’s lovely there in the hot weather just before the monsoon and they’ve really got the goods on landscaping too. Been doing it for years, it seems.
We checked with his blog this week – well, it is the absolute gospel for all things MW2, after all – and discovered that on June 15-16 he was in Ahmadabad where, among other things, he had a waspishly tongue-in-cheek run-in with the local monkeys.
He tells it thus: “This afternoon I was almost gang-banged by a tribe of militant gay languor monkeys against the art brut wall of a 1940s Le Corbusier mansion.”
Oh dear. Not a good look, MW2! It’s a good thing Bali’s macaques are much better behaved.

Ready, Marathon Man?
JACK Daniels, of balidiscovery.com and the online weekly Bali Update, will surely be getting into gear for the 2009 Bali Triathlon being held this weekend (it’s on Sunday, June 28). It’s a lovely social occasion, we hear, and ends in a few stiff drinks. This year, too, it costs only Rp 100,000 to enter, instead of the Rp 200,000 charged to people who wished to torture themselves last year. We’re sure Jack won’t want to miss any of it.
The organisers of the shindig, officially the MRA Bali International Triathlon 2009 – and try saying that after swimming, cycling and running for far too long – say it promises competitors a chance to be absorbed by the beauty and friendliness of Bali.
Competitors – set to exceed last year’s numbers according to the organisers, who aren’t being any more specific than that – will start with a swim, a 1,500m stretch from the Four Seasons Resorts to the Bali Intercontinental beach. Then the field switches to cycling, over a 40km course through Jimbaran and Nusa Dua, and Ungasan and Pecatu on the Bukit. The race ends with a 10km run through Jimbaran and back to the Four Seasons.
In case of emergency, BIMC Hospital will have medical and ambulance support on hand and Jari Menari Massage is offering free massages.
There’s a 5-kilometre fun run over part of the 10-kilometre triathlon course around Jimbaran for the fainter of heart and less limber of limb. And for anyone wanting to kill time during the event, the Coconut Grove at Four Seasons, local headquarters of the pink dollar, will again be Race Central.
All sorts of drinkable and chewable goodies will be available for purchase from stalls there; there’s some organised fun for the kids; and loud noise – de rigueur these days, it seems – will be offered by Ardo and Delights with their “Smart Pop” songs.
Coconut Grove is also the venue for the pre-event dinner the night before.

Alila Ubud Branches Out
BALI’S natural beauty is a big draw (developers please note) and, of course, essential to the maintenance of the island’s rich and unique culture. It should always be protected and extended – where possible – and enhanced if practicable.
So it’s good news to hear that Alila Ubud is an active and firm supporter of local programmes that aim to raise awareness of environmental issues, and that together with Garuda Orient Holidays, it has recently contributed 140 tree saplings to the Seeds for Bali programme, a non-profit enterprise initiated by PT. Bank Danamon and co-sponsored by Bali Tourism Development Corporation (BTDC). It was launched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007.
Of course, as Alila also recognises, ecological outreach is smart marketing too.

Wellness, California Yoga-Style
IF California were an independent nation, it would be the world’s tenth largest economy. Some say it is the world’s leading exporter of nuts. Well, we wouldn’t say that, of course … but we do note that a Los Angeles couple has been appointed to head Desa Seni Village Resort’s wellness and spa programmes.
So take some deep breaths now. The Canggu property tells us that husband-and-wife team Steve and Shirley O’Connor have been named Directors of Yoga & Wellness and that they “arrive from the yoga mecca of Los Angeles, having founded and nurtured a thriving yoga studio there for the past seven years.” Apparently cultural sensitivity isn’t exactly part of the California yoga thing, then, since Mecca is better referred to as the holiest centre of Islam and Bali – though Hindu – is part of the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
Steve, 42, is a Tantric Buddhist and Vinyasa Flow yoga instructor who, we’re told, began practising yoga and exploring spiritual life in his early twenties, while working as a professional actor in Los Angeles. Shirley, 41, is a Vinyasa Flow yoga instructor who spent her twenties as a radio show producer and then on-air celebrity (who told her that, we wonder) in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Then, having found themselves and each other, they set up and ran Black Dog Yoga in Los Angeles.
We hear the O’Connors bring “entrepreneurial, managerial, and teaching experience to their new charge of enhancing the yoga and fitness offerings at Desa Seni’s Trimurti Studio, developing the art and wellness programmes, and heightening the resort’s spa identity.” That will be fun.

Corby Kooks at It Again
THE Free Schapelle Lobby, that worldwide dream collective that won’t believe she did it, is out there again, spruiking a new song by New York indie-pop artist Tara Hack that quite unfairly tries to ping Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for – apparently – not sending a SWAT team to invade Indonesia and rescue the fair lady from her cell at Kerobokan immediately after he won office in 2007.
The ditty, titled The Wizard Down Under, reminds Rudd that when he was opposition foreign affairs spokesman in 2005 he called for substantive support to bring about the release of Corby (the spruikers refer to her as the “imprisoned human rights abuse victim”) and of the fact that since he became Australia’s leader in 2007 she has quite unaccountably remained locked up in Bali.
Unfortunately for dreamers and other dysfunctional characters, the world doesn’t actually work in the way they would like. If it did, there would be anarchy. They might want that. It’s seriously doubtful than anyone sensible would.
The facts are these: Corby was convicted of a serious drug offence under the sovereign law of Indonesia, and sentenced under that law. She continues to proclaim her innocence – which is her right, which no one, least of all the Indonesians, would seek to remove from her – and up to now has not acceded to suggestions that she could seek a pardon, because to do so you need to admit guilt. A prisoner exchange treaty is being negotiated between Indonesia and Australia. Corby might be eligible under such a treaty to serve the rest of her sentence at home. But these things take time. They are not documents you scribble on post-it notes or incorporate in your latest indie warble.
Corby’s sentence seems excessive, yes, especially when viewed against penalties meted out to high-profile Indonesians found guilty of vastly lucrative graft and corruption. But, sadly for Corby and never-explain, always-exclaim indie singers, the law is the law.

Plus a Bit on the Side
WE note with interest that the MUSRO music and karaoke lounge at Discovery Mall, beachside in Kuta, offers special services. In May it was advertising Rp 2 million packages to (male) guests inclusive of guest hostesses – along with a “buy two, get one free” promotion that had our eyes popping until we saw it was for Chivas – but has now come right out of the closet.
No price is quoted, but its latest pitch says baldly: Escort Service is Available.

The Diary appears in the print edition of The Bali Times each Friday and on the newspaper's website www.thebalitimes.com.

HECTOR'S BALI TIMES DIARY [for June 19]

SIGNS OF OUR TIMES: So that’s why the traffic’s snarled.

On Being Alert But Not
(Necessarily) Alarmed

IT can have escaped few regular readers of The Diary that we are from time to time a tad antsy – such a lovely word, and it sounds so much more polite than “pissed off” – over the rigour with which the Australians insist on insisting that in Bali we live in a danger zone.

(Although of course we do if, as visitors, we don’t have travel insurance or foolishly do things that, if they injure us, are excluded from our cover. Doh!)

But back to Fave Topic No 1: These feelings are not vitiated in any discernible measure by the mellowing over time of the language Canberra’s alert-andalarmists use in their advisories. Actually, to the contrary: changing the tone from mummy knows best to maiden aunt advises is irritating in itself.

Laughter remains the best medicine. As a prophylactic against gloom it is unbeatable. And it is for this reason that this week we break all sorts of confidences and embargoes to reveal the real, top-secret, alarm ratings from around the world:

BRITAIN: The British have recently raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” It may soon be raised yet again, to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” Brits have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940, when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been recategorised from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued an alert at “A Bloody Nuisance” level was during the Great Fire of London in 1666.

FRANCE: Its alert level has been raised from “Run” to “Hide.” There are two higher levels: “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed the national white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.

ITALY: Their alert level has also recently been raised – from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”

GERMANY: Also up – from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”

NEW ZEALAND: The Kiwis have raised their alert level from “baaa” to “BAAAA!” Only one higher level of alert is available: “Shut, I hope Austrulia will come end riscue us.” Because New Zealand’s air force consists of paper planes played with by spotty boys and its navy is a plastic duck or two in the prime minister’s bath, an evacuation plan is also in place. If implemented, New Zealanders will be asked to gather in a strategic defensive position called “Bondi.” (Bondi is a suburb in Sydney, Australia, where according to popular legend more New Zealanders live than in New Zealand itself.)

AUSTRALIA: The Aussies have also raised their alert status. It has gone up from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, mate.” Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!”; “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend”; and “The barbie is cancelled.” There has never yet been a situation that has warranted use of the final escalation level.

Ce N’est Jamais le Bon Moment

BE prepared. It’s not only good scouts who should be. Sunday strollers also need to be alert to the unknown possibilities of fate. Hec (and Mrs Hec) were enjoying a stroll on Nusa Dua Beach last Sunday. It was a magnificently clear morning, with all of Bali’s mountains out to play – and even Lombok’s lofty Rinjani visible, a very unusual bonus – and seated briefly at one of those handy little out-on-the-water bales, for their mid-walk rest break, were approached by a gentleman who inquired: “Parlez-vous Anglais?” Well, yes, was the answer. So off he went – in French.

Hec and the Missus, minds firmly switched off and in both Sunday morning walk and English-language mode, worked out what he was asking: was that a mountain out there that he could see? They managed to transmit – they think – sufficient information (in Anglais and Franglais) to satisfy his curiosity.

It was only later, on the return half of the walk, that Hec muttered “Merde!” and remembered what he should have said, if only he had utilised his schoolboy French:

« Oui. C’est la montagne la plus sacrée au Bali, plus de trois mille mètres, le volcan Agung. »

As the headline notes, it’s never the right time: In any language.

Down Under for a Dekco

THREE young Muslim leaders from Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Kupang are in Australia on a two-week visit to explore its dynamic Islamic community – 400,000 people from more than 120 countries, around 2 percent of the nation’s population – and seek mutual understanding and cooperation among young leaders in both countries. They will be in Australia for about two weeks.

They are travelling under a government-sponsored bilateral exchange programme organised by the Australia-Indonesia Institute. It has run the exchanges (a young Australian Muslim delegation has just been here) every year since 2002. The present Australian visit is the third in this year’s series.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t
WHEN Kantor Kita – the business-advisory outfit whose principal, Esti Yuliani, also known as Julie Edmond, apparently forgot her principles and is now having a spell learning her principals from her principles in police custody pending court proceedings – announced a link-up a little while back with a Luxembourg “bespoke financing” outfit called SFM Group, a nice new sign was erected in honour of this nice little arrangement outside Kantor Kita’s offices on the By-Pass at Sanur.

Being a newspaper (rather than an advertising sheet), we thought we should take a photo of this new accoutrement for the files. You just never know when a photo might come in handy. For occasions, say, such as the principal grabbing the loot and doing a runner.

Alas. The sign appears to have disappeared. So does the office; at least as far as telephoning it is concerned. The phone rings, but no one answers. Are the lights on, we wonder? Is anyone home? Oh dear. Can the new partnership be in some difficulty? It was announced, as we recall, as having taken effect on April 1. Perhaps All Fool’s Day was apposite.

Incidentally, the giggle-a-minute Yahoo Questions website had one begging an answer for several days last week: Where is Julie Edmond of Kantor Kita? It was apparently posted by a plaintive (as opposed to plaintiff) seeker after this fundamental truth, on behalf of a client whose documents are (well, we hope) in Kantor Kita’s hands.

A Good Drop
IT’S not very often the less than excessively well-heeled here get the opportunity to taste some quality wine. That sorry circumstance is a function of the usurious level of duty the government insists is payable on infidel alcohol and – to put it politely – the astonishing level of uncertainty that surrounds the simple matter of supply.

So it was nice one evening this week to sample some lovely wines from Salitage, a vineyard in the Pemberton district of Western Australia (Hector has connections in the area; unfortunately not ones that actually produce wine) that has parlayed global experience and the benefits of microclimate into very drinkable products indeed.

This quality quaffing was provided by Salitage and Indowines – we had a pleasant chat with Juan Diaz of Indowines, assisted by a sampling of the cabernet blend, one of four premium wine styles produced – at a soiree held at the Australian Consulate-General. Consul-General Lex Bartlem, who in another life could surely have been a sommelier, played host. Among the guests were legal eagle Peter Johnson of Austrindo (don’t think his phone rang once during the evening) and Ubud luminary Janet DeNeefe, wearing, we think, her Writers and Readers Festival hat.

There may soon be some good news on the supply side, we hear. Don’t expect any drop in retail prices, however. The government likes the revenue too much to let that drop.

Fame Spreads
READERS who frequent Jl. Raya Uluwatu between GWK and Ungasan Simpang on the Bukit may have noticed a new establishment that has a famous name. It’s on the left as you struggle up the hill behind the undisciplined nose-to-tail convoys of dangerously overloaded yellow trucks that are always trying and invariably failing to make it to the top without stalling.

Hector’s is a Tex-Mex eatery and takeaway. Not tried yet by our Hec. He says he’s highly suspicious of jumping beans (you just never know which way they’ll jump, he points out) and that the worm thingy in tequila is a total turn-off. But we expect it will attract the surfer crowd. They can take a break while all those defective little trucks hold up the traffic.

THE DIARY appears each week in the print edition of The Bali Times (out Fridays) and on the newspaper's website www.thebalitimes.com where editions are posted on Mondays.