Looking for Eric...Cantona

Had the pleasure of watching the much awaited movie(for me,anyway) "Looking for Eric" on my DVD at home last weekend.

Am i disappointed with the movie? Not a bit really, enjoyed to a hilt because it was indeed a story of an ordinary person, a Manchunian postman whose life has taken a real dip to its lowest ebb and looking out to his hero,Eric Cantona in some form of imaginary conversation to seek out his own happiness and meaning to his seemingly mundane life.

Cantona(the man..) as usual oozes an aura that can only come from such a person of supreme confidence but even then he also relates his own frailties which makes Eric the postman realised that every man has his issues and problems and only by taking life by the scruff of its neck and caring honestly for the people that matters in your life (your family,close friends..) will enable one to endure all the challenges one would endure.

The movie has its magic moments..as Cantona famously quipped.."I am not a man", and Eric the postman asked, "What are you then?"... The reply? "I am Cantona"!! Great great man.

As a self confessed Manchester United fan who had suffered enough in the 70s and 80s , the coming of Cantona and the successes that he brought to the club was akin to the coming of the Messiah to Salford(of all places you may wonder).

Cantona is king, period for "old" fans like me, not Ronaldo, Rooney or Ferdinand(ugh).

Long live the King ..love your acting ,such presence as you also showed in your messianic duties on the pitch at old trafford.

GBAT family day

We had our annual GBAT family day at Damai beach resort during the weekend which also to coincide with a farewell dinner for Tuan hj Halidi, the assistant consulate general who will be transferred back to Brunei after a 3 years great(in his own words..) stint in Kuching.

Actually GBAT stands for ..Geng badminton", ha that's how this group of friends started off, playing badminton together at the KGS badminton courts, a routine that has been going on for at least now 6 years. Admittedly i had not been such a regular player in recent years but still kept company with this group of friends.

The weekend besides the dinners for the two nights , also had beach games during the day.

The night shows were certainly eclipsed by the impromptu performances by the kids who showed no public shyness as they belted out song after song and even a shuffle show as well by the incomparable Haziq! That's what being in the GBAT means..friendship based on mutual respect and having happy times together irrespective of your standings in the society. The kids have shown and continued this trait by their uncaring ways performing in the public with no qualms whether they made fools of themselves.

My twins ,Faizul and Sabrina sang a Widuri song! Amirul the youngest joined his friends in belting out a Michael Jackson's song(i think from all the din!!).

I wished again to all my Gbat friends good blessings in health and may we all continued this great friendship till our grandchildren, InsyaAllah.

Friendship..warts and all

One of the most enduring theme of one's life as we charted our course in this wonderful universe is the experience of the joys and pains of having friends.

An undeniable fact of a person's existence from the day he or she entered this world is an "addicted" need to have friends besides own family members.

You first experienced this wonderful bonding with other human beings besides the safe haven of your own cocoon at home when you entered primary school.

Even now i still can recalled my childhood friends at primary school and at the confinements of your own kampong....at school i remembered we called ourselves the "secret seven" ha taking up that Enid Blyton's fictions group of young sleuths trying to solve endless mysteries and "whodunnit" ventures, such imagination by us all and we even took a task ourselves trying to solve a case of stolen pencil or eraser!!!

Move on..at secondary school somehow you would end up with different set of friends not that you had totally abandoned your earlier friends!! I have learnt the joy of having real and close friends of people of other races!! Who bother if he or she eats pork while you didn't as long as we can fro lick around at waterfalls, seasides during school picnics! those close friends i picked up when i was very much involved in the Red Crescent activities.

We even went on a historic trip representing Sarawak to signify the event when the Red Cross is changed to Red Crescent...Hari Raya, Chinese New Year,Gawai were times for us to visit each other and a close chinese friend of mine even slept and spent Raya with my family.

Also besides school friends i was also part of few of us Malay boys calling ourselves the "Keehak boys" immersed in the joy of those 70s music(Blak dog bone, carefree...) and when i met again my 'Keehak buddies" we reminiscent of those great days as teenagers

In the UK doing my A levels,i made great friends besides with some locals but also with my West Malaysian brothers . I played badminton for my college and we had great times competing in the local Halifax league and i still kept contact with my chemistry tutor and on a recent trip to Manchester , i drop by at Halifax and met with her, besides her white hair nothing has changed as we talked about those days!!

I also learnt more of my identity and the struggles that we must cherish and as my Trengganu flatmate always reminded me, "dah sembahyang?"

At university while keeping friends with my own Sarawakian and Malaysian friends i did keep tab with some Brits and one particular guy i remembered i am always his minder on football trips to Wembley. He Will ended up stone drunk ..wonder indeed he watched the football game for without fail i had to carry him back (being me the only sober person !!!) as we trudged back to the university bus back to Birmingham.

Why did i write this article on friendship? Reason being the exhilaration's and joys of having great friends did not end once you got married, had a decent job and raised 5 kids....now i am part of a group of friends which we called ourselves the GBAT gang..the group started as a socialising activity playing badminton once or twice a week. It had blossomed into a real close unit of friends that included the wives! This weekend we would be celebrating our GBAT family day...

Friendship i believed endures because we do not make too much judgements of each other and also ever willing to give n take as necessary without a sense of selfishness and material rewards.

Throughout my life i was really blessed knowing good and great people who i can call my friends, it is not the position , wealth or societal status that matters with real friends. What matters is that you have the time for them, you have the time when they are celebrating something joyous eg their son's birthday, you have the time when they experienced something tragic or sad eg the passing of one of their loved ones .

To all my friends , thank you for giving me your time and to GBAT let us have a wonderful time this weekend!!!

train ride to midvalley

I was in KL over the weekend attending our association OSFAM annual dinner at KL Central Hilton .

Decided to stay at this posh hotel as well for convenience, indeed a 5 star, the services excellent and personalised, the room immaculate and reflect the trappings of a modern luxurious abode.

The one night stay and the function was certainly enjoyable, as you met up with some old friends in the same industry , catch up on the latest business happenings within the sector as well, and as always the dinner would have an invited singer to serenade the crowd. The singer, Noryn Aziz(seriously before this don't know who she is..) also not bad with her powerful voice crooning old Sinatra songs .

Breakfast at the hotel was also enjoyable, the waitresses all with smiling faces making you felt being the most important person in the world.

With time to spare in the morning before catching my flight back to Kuching i decided to go over to the Midvalley Mall not far away from KL Central.

I asked the hotel reception how's the best way to go there,"Sir, take a taxi " However i opted for my own initial judgement of using the KTM train service that plied Rawang -Seremban and with mid valley as one of its stops.

Phew...what a bad decision, the 5 minutes journey became one long wait at the platform station as the train( normal i was later told) delayed for 30 minutes, and as one scrambled onto the overcrowded train, the sign board for the mid valley station was obscure and cant be seen clearly in view of its small signage board!! why cant the most important display on a train platform(as i saw on other platforms in other countries) be the biggest sign on that platform? beat me the logic of it.

Rushing around mid valley , the expected routine took place again on the train ride back to KL central, 40 minutes delay .

Will i use that service again? surely i will because am proud as a Malaysian that we had such wonderful, well maintained public service and the only improvement we need is a "Hilton approach" towards the customer service, can be done only a wee bit of mentality change!!

Ride on KTM

Lynn Truss..eats, shooots and leaves

Perusing through the WH Smith store at Euston station London on my recent trip, i noticed a new book by Lynn Truss, "Get her off the pitch".

I bought it without any hesitation for am an ardent fan of her style of writing and wit as greatly expounded in her best seller book, "Eat,shoots and leave" . Imagine a person can write a whole book about commas, punctuations and a proper use of them and the book becoming a run away best seller.

Back to her recent book,"Get her off the pitch"...basically it chronicled her times as a sports writer for the National daily, The Times.

A literary and art critic being asked to do sports journalism? That's what make the book an interesting read, her conversion from someone who doesn't even knew a wee bit about football to an obsessed nut who cried when England lost to Germany in a Euro qualifier... i just cant put the book down, who said that football nuts are not intellectually endowed and has a taste for the Arts and Culture besides their continuous childlike ranting about their team( incl Man U!!).

Just to relate a piece of this masterpiece of a book at the end chapter when she finally ended her sojourn as a sports writer and back to attending theatres and writing arts critic..

"..i can be quite sharp with anyone who is snobby about sports...i suspect intellectual insecurity lies behind this narrow mindedness.."

Ha one can still practice the habit of reading the newspapers from the back..hmmm more interested to know what has Fergie to say for the reduced stoppage time and thus preventing his team to score again a spectacular winner against Sunderland than the news on the front page of possibly again another by election is coming forth..ya one can still be a CEO of a successful multi million dollar revenue engineering based company , navigating gamely(ha ..) the intricacies of the business that range from understanding the limits of empiricism in the decision making framework to the challenges of balancing the demands of the business complex environment, ya nothwistanding can still be very childlike when Rooney scored and hated with no unfounded parallel that team down the Lancashire Road.

Yes,Lynn i can be emphatic with you, no wonder your book is such a delightful read!!!