Mapping Union Jack (part 3)

It was suffocating. People were swarming at every nook and cranny. It was as if one-tenth population of every country cramped into one city. Space, which I’m desperate for, is a luxury I can’t afford in London. (Am I claustrophobic or just that I can’t stand too many people? Do they have phobia for that. Crowdphobia? I don’t know). Perhaps I was more attuned to cities like Christchurch, New Zealand, where I spent my 3 years cursing and been cursed by neighbors for walking on their football-pitch-size lawn. They could even afford to keep lawn-mowing tractors in the porch. Or perhaps it could be the culture. NZ has more outdoor-oriented society and ski-fields, mountains, beaches are just stone-throw away. Unlike London which is smacked in the middle of nowhere.

Ever heard of subliminal messages? How messages are relayed with utmost subtlety into your mind without you noticing it. It’s like watching porn and remembering which nipple of Britney69 is pierced - after gotten high on Jack Daniel's. Anyway, Londoners suffer from this (now I made it sounds like a disease). Ask any lady, they’d be able to spell out all the shops along Queen St and Bond St – in alphabetical and “affordability” order. Amazing. Yet, they still guide you to the wrong London Bridge. Honestly, too many shophaholic zombies make me dizzy.

England is as boring as its cricket, played in slow motion, over a span of 3 days. They should thank the Scots and the Welch for their kilts and their amazing God-given landscape. At least, they could offer the world a bit of culture and tongue-twisted slangs. Jeremy Clarkson once, had his kid asked him,”What makes us English?”. He was speechless. The Concorde was French, Harrods are Arabs and now, the Range Rover has gone Indian. It could be a matter of time before they lose the Queen to the Arabs. Diana almost did. Who knows.

Mapping Union Jack (part 2)

People actually live in London, unlike KL, where most stays outskirts of the city. But both cities share the same problems i.e. parking, traffic congestion and immigrants. In KL, I still can tell which are locals and which are not, but in London, I found that rather impossible. They could look like a black Jamaican-Indian, but in fact, a British-born parking attendant with a Chinese father and a blond English mother (not sure how’s that genetically possible). And somehow, most blacks came from Arsenal, I was told. Perhaps that explains the ratio of black Arsenal supporters against others at the Emirates as high as 27 to 1.

Football, understandably, is a big thing in England. But strangely, I didn’t feel that it is. Perhaps there wasn’t in sight, any hysterical fan in full football-kit, cursing everyone including stray cats, by roadside stalls (or mamak) with 7-storey high screen TV like in KL. In England, football is localized, like beers and pasties (Cornwall pasties my favourite). Londoners alone are divided into at least 4 big clubs. English don’t fancy freezing their nuts out in the cold, so most of those football bashing is done indoor i.e. pubs and sports bars. Intensity of bragging and name-calling correlate directly with beer consumption, and so did the perceived level of beauty of the ladies. This explains why most fights broke out in pub surprisingly were not football related, but due to stupid drunks mistaken the old barrister for Kylie Minogue.

British are paranoids. Well, after the London bombing incident, who can blame them. Although they haven’t got to the extent of raking through your hair and beard for any weapon-of-mass destruction but as I look closely, I noticed a few things. Not even a single area in its “underground” not covered by CCTV. If they could pass a law to make it illegal to pick your nose in public, they could have been very well equipped for it. Leaving your baggage unattended, even more than 2 meters away, is a serious offence. And in “underground”, feel free to be litterbug. No rubbish bin in sight, or in train, but they have cleaners with amazing long-arm device designed to pick up rubbish even in between your crotch. During the last bombing, bombs were dumped in rubbish bin, I was told. Hence, why they all went missing. (to be continued)

Mapping Union Jack (part 1)

First time in London and I must say that it takes more to convince to be a place of choice for me to work and play. Even after spending 2 weeks of my break in UK, there is something missing – just that I don’t know what it is. Heathrow wasn’t as I’d imagined. Known as one of the busiest airport in Europe, I expected it to be crowded and infested with Indian migrants trying to make a living in UK. Instead, it was empty, so empty that even the floor cleaners had so much space racing against each other on their cleaning machines. The British must have vacated England for Austria for the Euro 2008, sadly as spectators since they didn’t even qualify. What is wrong with British football? They have so much talent from every corners of the world cramped into a single league. Yet, they can’t even produce a winning-eleven and win against Faroe Island.

Took the train from Heathrow to London, changing 3 times between trains (or tube, although I don’t know the difference), before reaching the hostel at Great Portland Street. I don’t know whether it’s my imagination or not, but the whole train ride was as if I was crawling in a huge elaborate labyrinth, snaking through the underground of London. The smell of gasoline/grease was strong and fortunately, they had electrified the whole railway system. I’m sure the mayor wouldn’t want to take the blame for suffocating half of the Londoners underground. He has enough problems dealing with anti-Iraq-war protestors camping outside the Parliament House – amazingly since the first day the British government sent their troopers to Iraq. I wonder if protestor is a profession. It could be, since someone somewhere must have fed and even pay people to protest. Remembered that I met someone in New Zealand, who was even sponsored a flight ticket by some agency to organize protest as far as Nepal. Maybe I should take up that job. I’m sure a loudhailer and a rain-coat won’t cost too much.

First day in London was confusing. Sense of direction was really put to the test as I stared clueless at the complex train map. Can’t even stand still at one place without being knocked down by the rushing crowd. Maybe I should attach hazard lights to my head so that I won’t be obstructing traffic. There was always someone running somewhere, late for work, hurrying for the next show, or rushing their dog to the loo (do they have urinals for dogs? I wonder). Steps to remember – get to the right station, get to the right platform, get into the right train. If follow these simple steps, maneuvering your way in the underground would be a walk in the park, according to my brother, although I wasn’t convinced. (to be continued)

The Greasy Debate

Healthy and entertaining – that’s how the debate went on last night. Kudos to Shabery who had been able to explain the rationale for the fuel price hike, much better than Pak Lah himself, whom I could imagine would have fall flat on the floor gagging if he took the stage. He has done well, at least for an Information Minister, given his non-economist background, came in prepared with facts and figures. Despite some silly efforts having to resort to personal attacks on Anwar, he wisely opted for a bit of history lesson, telling how the Government had tackle this issue in the past. Some good points were thrown i.e. how subsidy given would have benefited other foreign oil companies too i.e. Shell, Exxon etc; the need to restructure the subsidy scheme etc. Unfortunately, he wasn’t listening, kept defending Petronas, when Petronas wasn’t the one under attack. The Government is.

Anwar, on the other hand, was more focused and made some easy rebuttals i.e. skewed comparison with Venezuela, Iran regarding inflation; and Norway and Sweden regarding subsidy. Frankly, it is forgivable not to expect Shabery to counter-argue and baffle the audience with his sudden knowledge on inflation and macroeconomics. That topic is way over his head, although he did made a blunder questioning the relevance of IPP with the petroleum industry. Some critiques expects Anwar to explain the detailed mechanics, but is there much that can be explained in less than an hour? After all, why would he unveil his “trade secrets” to the Government? But his idea is worth pondering – reduce the buffer in Independent Power Producer (IPP) power capacity from 40% to 20%. As it is now, the Government had simply ran out of idea of how to extract money from the IPP. Hence, they introduce the windfall tax, which was imposed on the earnings before interest & tax, for those IPP with Return on Asset (ROA) of more the 9%. IPP may choose to run “inefficiently” to achieve lower ROA so as to avoid the tax. Senseless. Anwar’s idea, in a nutshell, is to use excess capacity of energy to weather impact of oil price. As usual, most mainstream press fail to highlight this.

But the after-event analysis which took place on Astro-Awani last night was more interesting. The panelist, amongst others, was Saleh Majid –ex Bursa Chairman. He said, why can’t we sell oil in Euro, Yen or etc. We are oil-supplier, now why can’t we decide how we can sell our oil? Of which he proposed, Malaysia alongside with other oil-producing nations in this region, should create an exchange for us to have more power to dictate the market. On the point of IPP, he said IPP shouldn’t be making profit, but should run at break-even instead. Hence, Government need to review IPP agreements. This is much in line with what used to have in the 90s where GLCs should be run with optimum capacity. If they are profit-driven, cost tend to be passed down to consumers. Commenting on the inflation, Saleh said CPI in Malaysia is artificial, measured based on UN guidelines, which is not reflective of the real situation on the ground. Government’s control on essential items has kept the inflation low all this while. Hence, there’s also a need to revise CPI. Then, he simplified what inflation means to an average Joe. Inflation takes away your buying power. This means that if you have inflation at 8%, the value of RM1 in your hand is worth 8% less. Meanwhile, the idea to compare Petronas with big oil firms is unreasonable, he thought. Petronas operates more offshore drilling and operation cost is much higher than onshore drilling. Plus he asked to stop whacking Petronas. Petronas is not run by clowns, otherwise they won’t be in Fortune 500 companies.

Now let’s hope this kind of debate continues, although we would rather have our Finance Minister on the stand instead of another government public relation officer.