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

Literary Moments

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

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 England is now run by Mildred Rodgers’s.  Wastrels like Philip Carey have disappeared and have been replaced by a “good-thinking” class of very dubious provenance.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

Bank on it (Again)

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

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

Good Works

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

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

Set for a Scrum

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

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

Diary Date

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

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

He Said It

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

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

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

CELEBRATING MY FRIEND JAN FLETCHER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Put Budapest on Your Liszt

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

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

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

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

Hussars and Horse’s Doovers

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

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

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

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

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

Home Base

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

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

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

Eat, Drink and...

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

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

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

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

Side Trip

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

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

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

Take a Bath

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

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

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

Transports of Delight

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

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

Prodigal’s Return

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

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

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

Welcome Home

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

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

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

     The exhibition is on until October 3.

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

HECTOR'S DIARY The Bali Advertiser (August 24, 2011)

A Temporary Sea Change

The Cage at Ungasan, from where the Diary is generally contributed, has a delightful sea view. It’s a panorama that is always missed when we are absent and gratefully enjoyed upon return. But this Diary is being written against the soothing backdrop of a very different sea view, equally delightful even though the water is frigid. It is Hector’s childhood summer holiday view, from the little bit of the Scottish borders that is as well the ancestral home. As we write, on a chill summer afternoon, the Fife coast 60 kilometres away across the Firth of Forth is clearly visible and beyond that, distantly blue, are the hills of Angus. And but for the beautiful folds of the Lammermuir Hills, we fancy, we might even have chanced a glimpse of the faraway Grampians.
     All this is of course peripheral to the Bali scene, to which – after a forthcoming sojourn in Budapest – we shall soon return refreshed, rested, made robust by a renewed stock of memories, and anxious to get back into the joys of living in Bali, our chosen home.
     It is 24 years since we were last here, 40 since we departed for a new life in Australia, and half a century since the last of the regular summer holidays spent fossicking about the stones and boulders of little windswept beaches, freezing in the North Sea breakers, mucking about in boats at our little harbour, and drinking in the rustling, rushing spirituality of the forested ravines of our local stream (a burn hereabouts, and utterly unpolluted) wherein lie occasional trout and the chance of an otter sighting. 
    It is peaceful, this little corner, and warms the heart. Lives long ago made new by emigration are generally better than those that might have been lived at home, but the migrant always feels some sense of loss in the leaving – it would be dull and wrong not to – and a rare return, while a joy, is also perversely, a renewal of sadness. You get on with life, of course, and are forever grateful for the opportunities presented by an adopted homeland. But it’s never the same and in gaining much you know in your heart that you have lost a lot.

Lives Celebrated

This visit to the old country was prompted by a family occasion, to which people – siblings and their spouses – came from places scattered around the globe to join their cousins and others in celebrating, with a surviving brother, the lives of another son of the Borders and his wife, our father and mother.
    There was a little ceremony, informal of course and not specifically religious but one with which a Balinese might find particular empathy, to scatter the ashes of father and mother in the sea. A cousin played a lovely lament among the rocks and a toast was drunk – in whisky for the father, champagne for the mother – and some little speeches made.
    Prior to this, a plaque was dedicated to their memory in the local kirk. Later that day a spirited cèilidh was held at which much food and drink was consumed and plenty of loud music played.
     The weekend by chance was that of the annual village flower show. The flowers were nice but the scones were even better. There was a full moon that night and a clear sky rewarded us with a silver pathway across the water from the headland far off to the east right into the wavelets rippling in to the shore beneath the cliff at the bottom of the garden. Nature came to the party too.

A Long Lunch

The celebratory weekend wound up with a long, late lunch at The Creel, a justifiably renowned restaurant in neighbouring Dunbar. It’s down near the harbour, set away in a sunny little side street, and is itself blessed by association with celebrity chef Rick Stein. That’s not why we were there. We went for the assiette of Inverlochy smoked salmon, local dressed white crab meat and prawns served with dressed baby potato salad, spicy tomato and red onion salad.
    Well, that wasn’t all. The main course offered braised belly of pork, iron skillet seared Gigot steak of Borders lamb and roasted breast of chicken served with creamy crushed potatoes, mélange of fresh vegetables, salsa verde and cranberry jus.
    If you had room afterwards (we did) you could choose between classic vanilla bean panna cotta with macerated raspberries and Creel marble slate duo of cheeses with homemade stem ginger and garden vegetable preserve.  Coffee and homemade chocolates followed. Yum!

Two Hectors

The family memorial weekend and several days following were spent at a cousin’s house (though we lodged for the week next door in a weekender rented at mate’s rates for the occasion) and were slightly confusing for two of those present – Hector the diarist and Hector the cat.
    Hector the cat is a fine tabby of considerable vintage. In cat years, senior even to superannuated diarists who hide behind sulphur crested cockatoo masks. An accommodation was attained, however.  Hector the diarist agreed not to spend his day dashing in and out of the cat doors. And Hector the cat (eventually) conceded there was little point in acting the scaredy-cat since Hector the diarist is a lifelong cat softie. 
    There remained a few confusions, however. It can get ugly when cat and cockatoo respond in synch to food calls and the like.

What a Pest

It is often said that every cloud has a silver lining. Unfortunately the reverse is also true. We made our way from Bali to Scotland via an overnight stop in Budapest, Hungary – to which we returned afterwards – but, clearly in error, chose to do so via Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. These are the people who hold world ranking as specialists in losing people’s luggage.
    One of our two cases managed to join us in Budapest. The other, at time of writing, was still AWOL. Fortunately none of the items on our Scottish schedule – which included a day in Edinburgh where the International Festival is in full swing and the book festival that runs with it was our primary interest – required anything like a full dress-up.
    Edinburgh’s annual festival is a fixture on the global calendar. It is tempting to consider making it such in our own. This year, aside from a programme of classical music performances that make you weep with delight just from thinking about them, Ravi Shankar was performing.  The book festival speaks for itself. And the concurrent Festival of Spirituality and Peace features two performance events it would have been good to see:

    Tenchi Shinmei: The Ocean, by Ensemble Rivelta, Japanese masters of the Shakuhachi (bamboo vertical flute) and Koto (Japanese lyre), which presented melodies from ancient Japanese to modern Spanish tango. Tenchi Shinmei: The Mountain featured Tokara, one of the most versatile taiko drumming groups to emerge from the mountains of Nagano, which presented powerful and jazzy rhythms and was headed by Art Lee, the only non-Japanese ever to win Grand Champion at the Tokyo International Okaido Championships.
    Still, back on the prosaic front, it would have been nice to have a change of shoes to hand, so to speak. Not to mention a wider selection of socks and underwear, or even a shirt. And we won’t even mention the matter of access to the minor compendium of medicines with which most modern post-middle-agers attempt to regulate, or at least to ward off, the ravages of time.

Shame to Miss It

Well, it is the Rock Bar, so it’s not surprising that music of that nowadays broad genre is frequently heard at that cliff-side location in Jimbaran along with the exquisite (and other) tweeting of the establishment’s well-heeled clientele.
     Nonetheless, and despite the fact that your diarist was enjoying badly behaved music long before punks were born, let alone imagined that they had invented musical invective, the soft punk performances of Superman is Dead are a favourite.

    It is therefore a pity that the only Indonesian band on American Billboard chose to have both its sixteenth birthday and a magical unplugged performance at the Rock Bar at Ayana in our absence.  Their scheduled ticket-only gig was on August 18, the day after Independence Day.

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

HECTOR'S DIARY The Bali Advertiser (August 10, 2011)

Life’s a Breeze in Ubud

We like to drop in on Ubud now and again – it’s such fun to be in a place where nearly everyone else seems to be dropping out – and we were there one weekend recently, staying at Bali Breezes, an establishment not previously experienced but, under the watchful eye of Pak Ketut helped out by Pak Nyoman and Ni Nyoman, is a delightful pension-style accommodation that offers stand-alone villas, some with swimming pools, at very reasonable rates. It was the first time we’d stayed at the Pengosetan end of town and we were pleasantly surprised to find Jl Pengosetan itself a resort for those seeking both retail therapy and comfortable digs.

    Among the nearby pleasures is the ARMA museum and gallery and of course ARMA Café, where the espresso is first class and – on a very cool and blowy afternoon – the potato soup is a must.
    Ubud was buzzing with tourists and (unfortunately) awash with huge buses that would block a German autobahn, never mind an Ubud street. Why such monsters are allowed anywhere near a narrow defile is one of the many mysteries of Balinese public policy.
    But never mind.  The Hectormobile, a venerable Feroza who answers to the name Francesca, or informally Franny, manages to squeeze into – and through – many small spaces that alarm both visiting passengers and Mrs Hector. Having learned to drive in London and honed these skills with exposure to the delights of such European traffic-friendly megacities as Rome and Paris, Hector finds Bali’s traffic problems placed in a very reasonable perspective; we’d  choose Simpang Siur over Trafalgar Square any time and tiny Ubud is a doddle compared with Barcelona on a busy day. Australians who intone “Sheeze!” at our traffic should remember that at home they have the privilege of driving conditions that if they only knew it are the envy of the world.

Oh, Yum!

We dined one Ubud night at Café des Artistes in Jl Bisma. It’s not to be missed, and not only because of its commodious off-street parking. The cheese and fruit platter from the dessert menu as an entree shared by three was a delight, especially since it included Bali’s own sharp little black grapes. The party then went on to delicious steaks (in two cases) and a spicy grilled chicken breast for the third diner. A half-litre carafe of house Shiraz helped out.

     The restaurant was very busy and this was good, because it provided a fine field of view of the eclectic mix of patrons – locally based and visitors – and their habits. The art of surreptitious observation is a fine skill to acquire. It makes dining out, for example, such conversational fun.
     This practice occasionally gets Hector into trouble; though never with those whose astonishing behaviour and manners becomes the subject of comment. Corrective imprecations are sometimes heard from Mrs Hector, but these are generally ignored. This leads to further trouble of course, but sport is, well, sport, and cannot be denied.

Monkey’s Uncle

There was an amusing little incident one lunchtime when Hector, who had elected to remain at home at Bali Breeze with his laptop computer rather than shuffle round the shops, arrived at the designated eating point ahead of the shopping party.

    Advising the attentive waitperson (a decorous and smiling young woman) at the Three Monkeys in Jl Monkey Forest – where else? – that he was joining two ladies for lunch and would look for them among the tables, she propelled him towards one nearby at which sat a delicious young lady and said: “This one?”
    She was Russian, possibly, so may not have understood the smiling “I’m so sorry” offered in apology by your embarrassed scribe. But perhaps the body language told the story.
    The shopping party arrived shortly thereafter, thankfully, meaning that Hector could cease pretending to commune with the Koi in the restaurant’s decorative fishpond and turn his full attention to the business of the moment.   Which turned out to be a nicely minted spinach ravioli.

Eat Up, Help Out

We’ll have to miss two not-to-be-missed events (being off-island is a reasonable excuse but it’s a shame) – a UNICEF fundraiser on August 13 at the Westin at Nusa Dua, of which the Bali Advertiser is a sponsor, and the ROLE dinner at the Ayana on August 11.

    Bali’s plush international hotels are seen by some at the “radical” end of the observer market as somehow being blots on the landscape. This is of course rubbish. They all run very good social and community development programmes (and employ many Balinese who mightn’t otherwise have jobs) and deserve public acknowledgement for this.
    The Westin event, Spirit of a Champion, features a performance of Wushu, Barongsai (the Chinese Lion Dance), Pencak Silat as well as Capoeira. It’s at the Nusa Indah Hall at the Bali International Convention Centre. An introduction class to Wushu will be available on the afternoon before the show.
     This event is in conjunction with the UNICEF Check Out for Children fundraising programme that the Westin and other Starwood hotels and resorts are supporting. Starwood has been working for 16 years to raise funds for the world’s most vulnerable children – Titin Rohayati at the Westin Nusa Dua tells us more than $7 million Australian (approaching US$8 million at today’s exchange rates) has been raised since the programme began.
    The money is garnered through a staff fundraising competition between Starwood Hotels in the Asia Pacific region which began in 2003. Last year Starwood staff in the Asia Pacific region raised more than US$132,000 in the UNICEF Check out for Children Challenge. Under the programme the money to date has been used to immunise thousands of children against the major childhood diseases: diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, measles, childhood tuberculosis and hepatitis B.
    Now the programme is focusing on helping UNICEF education projects throughout the Asia Pacific. The impact of a child’s education is long-lasting because children of educated mothers are 50 percent more likely to survive beyond their fifth birthdays than those whose mothers didn’t get a chance to go to school. Money raised will help UNICEF build and improve school facilities; provide quality teacher training in impoverished areas and essential school supplies;  help children return to schools after emergencies with “School-in-a-box” kits; provide teaching programmes for ethnic minority areas; and communicate awareness of gender and health issues in schools.
     Tickets for the show cost Rp50.000 and the introduction to Wushu class plus the show costs Rp75,000. They are available through the Westin (call 08113802975 or 0361 77 1906 ext 6420 or email destination.westinbali@westin.com.
     The Ayana event on August 11 is a charity dinner – it’s dubbed ROLE Models – that follows a 10-week hospitality training course in partnership with the ROLE Foundation undertaken by seven disadvantaged students who have no formal schooling and most of whom were illiterate before they joined ROLE's vocational training programme.
    They are now learning basic serving skills from AYANA's senior managers and trainers, with the aim of eventually securing long-term employment in the hotel industry. Their training includes setting tables, pouring drinks, serving meals, taking orders and clearing plates.
    At the August 11 event they will serve “real” guests for the first time, supported by AYANA's trainers. The menu at the Rp500,000 a head dinner sounds inviting: Muara fish salad with pickled roots sour sauce; Keluwak beef soup with ginger and chilli; grilled chicken with red curry sauce, vegetables and pandan rice; and crispy banana fritter with mungbean Javanese ice cream.
    All proceeds from the dinner go to the ROLE Foundation. Check out their website at www.rolefoundation.org.

Ah So

News that All Nippon Airlines (ANA) and AirAsia have signed up to a cooperative deal that next year will bring AirAsia Japan into regional skies is good to hear. The new airline proposes to fly both internally in Japan and to regional destinations and might, in the fullness of time, produce a lift in the number of Japanese travellers to our shores.

    They’ve been scarcer of late than they should be, for all sorts of reasons, not all of them connected with the withdrawal of Japan Air Lines from the Bali route. But they’re fun, as well as well mannered, and they add a lot of value to the dining experience at Japanese restaurants here. 

National Flag Day

We’ll miss Independence Day this year, which is a pity, because we like to be here for Indonesia’s official birthday and also to win the informal competition in our street to see who gets the flag up first. We’ve won two years running, with a bright and clean Merah Putih (it only comes out once a year) firmly tied to a nice straight bit of bamboo pole that resides for the period in a custom-made cradle, a length of grey PVC piping that was probably souvenired from somewhere by our handyman, known to us from his sterling performance on our behalf as Mr Maybe.

    On August 17 we’ll be in Scotland where, in these devolved pre-Disunited Kingdom days, the fine white saltire of the St Andrew’s Cross is everywhere seen fluttering proudly on its field of dark blue.

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

HECTOR'S DIARY The Bali Advertiser (July 27, 2011)

Doing Without the Wicked Witch Bank

We hear from the organisers of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival – it’s on October 5-9 this year – that everything’s going ahead even though Citibank is no longer the major cash sponsor. (It seems Citibank may have overspent on their own credit card; let’s hope they have a convincing repayment plan to put to their outsourced delinquent accounts collectors.) That’s good, as we’ve noted before. The litfest should be supported by everyone; it’s a really great idea.

    So, according to a statement UWRF put out recently, the 2011 bash will be better than ever, with even more Indonesian writer participation. Last year founder and chief eminence Janet DeNeefe announced with a flourish that Citibank was the festival’s three-year naming sponsor (apparently on the basis of an unsigned email from someone at the bank). This year she’s been banging on some fairly deaf doors as a result of Citibank’s little accident on the way to a collection.
    More than 110 writers from more than 20 countries are on the books for a starting place this year, on the theme Cultivate the Land Within. Confirmed authors include Alexander McCall Smith, Alice Sebold, Alberto Manquel, DBC Pierre, Junot Diaz, Paul Kelly, Tim Flannery, Alex Miller, Izzeldin Abuelaish, Andrea Hirata, Tariq Ali, Glen David Gold, Benjamin Law, Putu Wijaya, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Corinne Grant, Peta Mathias, the Cambodian Space Project – and the Diary’s personal favourite, Trinity the naked traveller.
     Programme director Melissa Delaney says the full list of writers will be announced in August. These and other details are available, or will be, on the festival website at www.ubudwritersfestival.com, and via Facebook and Twitter.
     DeNeefe says that despite Citibank’s withdrawal UWRF will present yet another world‐class dynamic event and that “overwhelming support from readers and writers alike” has given a huge surge of optimism to the festival team. That’s good. But it’s no substitute for a business plan you can actually bank on.

Spirited Effort

While on the subject of Ubud and festivals, make a note in your diaries: Next year’s BaliSpirit Festival — billed by the spirited Meghan Pappenheim and others as South East Asia’s premier

yoga, dance, and live music event – will be held from March 28-April 1.
    The five-day-and-night event, now entering its fifth year, offers more than 100 workshops, convenes dozens of top international yoga and dance instructors and world class musicians, and attracts several hundred guests from all over the world.
     Among those presenters scheduled to appear at the 2012 BaliSpirit Festival are renowned figures
in their fields such as Danny Paradise (Ashtanga Yoga and Shamanism); Vinn Marti (Soul Motion Dance); Mark Whitwell (Heart of Yoga); and Carlos Pomeda (Meditation/Tantra Yoga).
     “We offer something for everybody, and every year the festival atmosphere only gets better,” says Pappenheim, the festival’s co-founder and producer. “I believe it’s the magic and beauty of Bali that enhances the festival experience.”
     When we spoke to Pappenheim last week she was in Singapore – the Diary loves the New Serenissima: all the traffic stays in its clearly marked lanes and stops at red lights – where no doubt there are opportunities to promote the festival. She says the 2012 festival will feature Indonesian and Balinese culture and art; world music concerts and collaborations; workshops for many interests – and a new bamboo reforestation project among other programmes for the socially aware.

Happy Appointment

In yet another sign of the indelibly beneficial links between Indonesia and Australia, Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, has just appointed Indonesia’s ambassador in Canberra, Primo Alui Joelianto, as an honorary professor. The appointment recognises the ambassador’s personal commitment to Indonesia-Australia relations and support’s Murdoch’s mission in Indonesian studies, Bahasa Indonesia, and a strong research capacity.

    Joelianto gave a lecture at the university on July 21 to mark his appointment. His topic was Indonesia’s Foreign Policy and Australia-Indonesia Bilateral Relations. He certainly brought some formidable intellect and knowledge to that task – before his Canberra appointment, in 2009, he was director general Asia Pacific and Africa in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was previously director of East Asia and Pacific Affairs.
    Murdoch University’s professor of South East Asian studies, Professor David T Hill, heads the university’s Centre for Asian Studies and is on the board of the Australia-Indonesia Institute. Earlier this year the university hosted a workshop on the future of Indonesian studies in Australian universities.

It’s B(ad)

The Diary has a lovely young friend who lives in Jakarta and keeps us up to speed with events in the Big Durian that actually affect real people rather than just the elite. You know, the sort of stuff that generally fails to rate a mention from the politically rich and religiously powerful whose views are sought on a whole lot of things and which are reported ad nauseam. We met on Facebook and now commune regularly via instant message but – other than on webcam – have yet to meet face to face.

    All of which is by the way, except that she recently travelled home to Lampung in Sumatra for her brother’s wedding and tried – as we had agreed – to make contact from there.  Her first go was hardly a success. Her text said:  “Service here is b”.
    The full but regrettably truncated word was “bad” and the veracity of her report completely self-explanatory.

Alila Delight

Alila Villas Soori on the Tabanan coast, the plush boutique resort which benefits from the public relations skills of the delightful Devina Hindom, had a wine dinner on July 23 which it would have been lovely to attend. The Diary, however, is determinedly self-drive (we prefer to have our own accidents) and while a round trip might have been feasible with just OJ in the middle, it would be suicidal to attempt it accompanied by the inevitable results of exposure to real wine. So we didn’t go.

    Should we come into a more than modest inheritance and have the sort of cash required, we might try it sometime, though. Chef Ashton Hall’s ingredient-driven cuisine, a prime al fresco dining ambience at Cotta restaurant, and a decorous real wine or three would really be rather nice.
    Alila has another treat available. Its current artist in residence, Gregory Burns, has an exhibition of paintings at the resort until August 3 and is also offering classes for anyone who fancies adding gifted amateur to their CV.

Just a Thought

We’re in the middle of some enervating annual bureaucracy here at The Cage, a chore that sometimes detracts from enjoyment of the Bukit views and ocean seascape that are among the many delightful features of our des res. It so happened that this coincided with the unsought arrival in the in-box of some promotional puffery from a property developer in Malaysia.

    It was spruiking expatriate housing – apparently in Kuching, Sarawak, which would not be our primary choice as a place in which to while away a genteel retirement – but was interesting for its enumeration of the benefits of the MM2H programme run by the government of Malaysia. It stands for Malaysia My Second Home.
    Hey, those guys actually want expatriates to go to live there! You can buy freehold property in your own name. You automatically get multiple exit re-entry permits with your annual visa (and automatic permanent residence after five years). You don’t need a nominee. You can take your household goods and chattels with you free of import duty. And a quality global standard internet connection costs you about a third of what you pay here for a service that drops out at will and otherwise runs like a dead donkey. 
    Still, it’s not Bali.

Europe Calls

By the time you’re reading the next Hector’s Diary we’ll be in Europe. We’re going to Scotland on family business (the clan’s got to get it together sometime) and then on to Budapest to check on the summer flow level in the Danube. (That is, as it relates to the by-product of the fermented grape juice available in the city’s many wine bars.)

     But don’t be alarmed. We’re not doing a runner and we do know, unlike others lately scratched from our address book, that you have to be here to write about Bali. It’s not a permanent relocation. And we’ll be looking forward to getting home.

Holy Month

The Diary is blessed to have many Muslim friends. With Ramadan starting on August 1, we say to them all: Kul ’am wa enta bi-khair (May every year find you in good health).

The Diary appears in the Bali Advertiser in print and in the e-paper. Visit www.baliadvertiser.biz.id.  Hector blogs here and is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky) and Twitter (@Scratchings).

HECTOR’S SCRATCHINGS

From the Scribe’s desk, for the week ending Saturday, July 23, 2011

A Shocking Event

If the indolent avian who is supposed to scratch together this weekly blog had been doing his job, and had done it yesterday when he was supposed to instead of idling away the hours on all sorts of other eruditions, we would not be leading the column with an item on the Norwegian outrage. But he didn’t, and so we are.

    The events in Oslo and nearby on Friday prove yet again – tragically – that lone madmen, or small groups of the same homicidally dysfunctional people, are a great and potent danger to us all. This one, apparently a Norwegian, seemingly has links to the mad anti-immigration, anti-Muslim fringe of the Norwegian (and pan-European) far right.  A so-called jihadist group elsewhere claimed responsibility for the bombing of central Oslo, but madmen of that provenance customarily claim to have done things they haven’t, in order to boost their visibility and to fool themselves that they are relevant rather than pointless.

    It defies belief that anyone could perpetrate an outrage of the sort just visited on Oslo and the poor young people attending a political party youth camp on an island near the Norwegian capital, many of whom are now dead. The shame of it is that the perpetrator is not in the morgue or lying bloodied under a blanket in a paddock in the cruel pornography of violent death with which, via modern communications, we are these days constantly assailed. Instead, the man has been arrested and we shall now have to endure months – possibly years – of legal process and argument presented for and against him.

    He has no argument he can reasonably advance in his own defence.  There is nothing that can excuse, explain or justify homicidal mayhem. There is no social or political cause that justifies meting out vile, shocking, terrifying death to anyone, whether by terrorist bomb or by multiple gunshots. That is the only lesson we can try to draw from these events. It is a message those who advocate or perpetrate terrorist violence – everywhere, of every stripe and including in Indonesia – must learn if they wish to be regarded as members of the human race.

    It is said that to meet their actions with a reaction in kind is to be descend to their level. Rubbish. It is they who have put themselves beyond the Pale. We are not a deadly threat to our communities; they are.

Be a Dhal, Dear

On to happier things: there’s an active and very useful Facebook-based group here in Bali that promotes “Bali Clean and Green,” which is the mantra adopted by Governor Made Mangku Pastika in his quest to clean up the island.

    A lot of it concerns the plastic and other waste that overburdens Bali and, unlike banana leaves, won’t quietly and harmlessly biodegrade in the watercourses and the undergrowth, as in the old days. There is of course a raft of national laws that proscribes polluters, corporate and private citizen alike, and the practice of selfishly and illegally discarding pollutant products. These are not enforced because Indonesia – and Bali as part of it – is adept at passing laws and equally so at ignoring them afterwards.  Acquiring the energy and interest to actually implement and enforce laws, and to stamp out the venal low-level corruption that prevents this, is the real imperative.

    But life is always better when attended regularly by risibility. And so it is that we can advise – courtesy of our good friend Tricia Kim, jeweller of renown, party girl of fine repute and, like Hector, a member of the Facebook group – that we can all help save the planet by eating lentils instead of cows.

    Apparently lentils selflessly die to feed us at far less an impact on global warming than beef cattle. So there you go – be a dhal and save the planet.

Wuffled Feathers

The Empire must be dead! This week the British Prime Minister, a chap who was educated at Eton and Oxford and who, despite the politically driven desire to be viewed as untoffy by the common man, could never manage the swallowed vowels or glottal stops now favoured by the Pommy herd, stood up in the House of Commons and pronounced furore (fuh-rorh) as few-roar-ray.

    Still, poor David Cameron was under a bit of pressure, in the fallout from the Murdoch shambles and his astonishing decision when opposition leader to appoint former News of the World tabloid fixer  Andy Coulson as his spokesman and to take him with him when he moved into No 10. The News of the World is now defunct, as it should be. Rupert Murdoch has been revealed to be an 80-year-old man (surprise!). A grubby newspaper and its grubby practices have created a political crisis.

   Cameron is certainly at the centre of a furore. Political cupidity always – eventually – catches up with people. So it is no surprise that he has been discomfited. But few-roar-ray? Never!

Des Res Designs

Here at The Cage we are in the early stages of working up our next Des Res Acquisition Programme (DRAP). Well, we’ve been where we are for four years and we’re out of paperclips or something. Plus the present digs have a lot of steps. These are no problem at present but, with the passing of an unknown though implacably finite number of years to come, may be in the future. As well, apparently, we need one more room. The Distaff has explained why this particular specification is essential and Hector’s happy with this – anything for a quiet life. He’d settle for twin basins in the bathrooms, but he has always been accused of lacking domestic ambition.

     As part of the extensive “pre-decision to proceed” process – everything’s so codified nowadays – we have commenced examination of stock on the market. We have all but ruled out building a new place, since neither of us is sure our blood vessels could stand the strain. Thus we are seeking something with a view, in a quiet area, with proper plumbing and reasonable construction, at an affordable price.

    Early research indicates that the property we really need does not exist. Unless we're living in it. Just a thought. However, as with shoes in your size and preferred colour and design (“I really like these shoes. They’d be great in a different colour with smaller heels, an open toe and a thinner strap”) the search will go on.

    Phase II of DRAP involves selling the existing des res – which really is desirable and, after much work on our part, also a residence – to someone who wants something with a view, in a quiet area, with proper plumbing and reasonable construction, at a price we will feel disposed to accept.

    For Phase II we are staying out of the hands of realtors, some of whom seem only to be interested in stinging you for Rp2 million a month – OK, that’s only $227 Australian, but it’s still dosh down the gurgler – for “marketing” that may, or more likely may not, be visible.

Layer, Layer

Winter is upon us on the Bukit. Yes, we know this will surprise those of you who live in places where actual winter exists, or if in Australia, a pale facsimile of same, but our bit of Bali juts out into the Indian Ocean at the southern extremity of the island proper – we’re only joined by a mangrove sandbar for goodness sake – and in July and August the breezes can strike you as a tad on the cool side.

    We were out for dinner last night – just locally, at our favourite little spot, Gorgonzola on Jalan Raya Uluwatu, a mere 10-minute fright away, where the pizzas are so good that they attract taste sensationalists from Seminyak – and we had to put on something under the something we were wearing to keep out the night chills.

    It has nothing whatever to do with advancing years. Anyone who suggests it has will be sentenced to an indefinite term of helping us up our steps (see above).

Hector is on Facebook (Hector McSquawky) and Twitter (@Scratchings). He writes a diary in the fortnightly Bali Advertiser www.baliadvertiser.biz and the lovely people at The Yak magazine link this blog to their online site http://theyakmag.com/