Archive for the 'UK' Category

DSC00063.JPG, originally uploaded by MacOoi.

We passed Haymarket this morning on our way to the Mac shop in Regent Street and I took this photo with my cameraphone. The ranks of cameras and journalists were clustered at the edge of the police cordon, shooting footage of Haymarket - which was cleared of traffic and strangely silent and still. There were lots of tourists milling around with the reporters shooting the empty street, too, with their digital cameras and handycams.

As you may know, Haymarket was the site where the unexploded car bomb was found early this morning and a potential bomb attack in Central London was foiled.

We were approached by a Canadian reporter, Trista Kelly, who writes for Bloomberg News (online) wanting our reaction to this event. My response was that this was bound to happen at some time - we are always being warned that London is a target for attack that sooner or later, it is not so surprising that something will happen. London has always been a target for attack for as long as I’ve been in the UK - since the 1970s. At that time, it was the IRA and now it’s Al-Qaeda.

Fortunately, this time, the attack was stopped in time and no one was hurt. In this light, the incident became another one of those inconveniences that Londoners always have to put up with - like tube strikes and road works. For me, it felt like something annoying that I had to work around in the busy day that I had planned.

It seemed that most Londoners had a similar approach, judging from the traffic chaos. Everyone was trying to get to work or wherever they had to get to. No-one was staying home because of fear or anxiety.

And as if to prove this, just round the corner - literally - in Trafalgar Square, the Canada Day celebrations were in full swing a bit later on today. There were maple leaf flags and balloons, Canadians playing hockey, marquees with stalls promoting all things Canadian. People were strolling along, laughing, taking photos. Wandering around, you would not know that just a few streets away there had been a car packed with explosives.

We were all getting on with our business. London always does.

PS. To all my Canadian readers: Happy Canada Day!

The following series of three posts is taken from an essay I wrote for a collection of essays by various Malaysian-connected writers coming out in Malaysia sometime soon to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Malaysian Independence from British rule.

Part 1 - The meal that made me cry

I stared down at my plate. There was one soggy piece of toast on it, drowned in a pool of orangey-brown baked beans. I looked around me at the crowded dining hall. The girls were all taller and bigger and heavier and stronger than me, all tucking in to their lunch of baked beans on toast, all laughing and chatting. There were a few black faces but otherwise, they were all Caucasian, pale skinned and robust. I was the only South East Asian, skinny and small and caramel-toned. It was my first day at boarding school in the UK. It was 1975 and I was twelve.

The morning had been a tumble of classes and new friends as I trailed behind my new classmates to change rooms for each new lesson. In Malaysia, we had the same teacher for most subjects and any specialist teacher who taught us came to our classroom while we stayed put. This new pattern of packing up my pencils and books after each class and fighting my way through the chaotic corridors to find the next lesson confused me. Several times, I got lost, like a new recruit left behind by her platoon, and stood bewildered as girls hurried past me.

By lunchtime, I was exhausted and disorientated. My legs felt cold in the navy school kilt and my arms felt tightly constrained in a long-sleeved sweater. My knee-high socks prickled my shins. Lunch would help me feel better, I thought. I always liked break-time at school in Kuala Lumpur. My friends and I bought curry laksa at the canteen, the spicy soup ladled out of huge steaming vats into a bowl of noodles, beansprouts, soya and chicken. Sometimes, I brought in fried rice and would eat it lukewarm from the tupperware. Friends would bring in soy sauce noodles and vegetables. But here in this rowdy English place, lunch had not turned out how I had expected. I stared down at the baked beans and toast on my plate.

I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was just after 1pm. I looked at the strange, noisy, pale girls around me. It struck me that I had five years here. Five long years of baked beans on toast. Five years without curry laksa. Or stir-fried vegetables. Or soy sauce chicken or grilled satay or beef rendang or nasi lemak. Or anything that I knew as food. Real food. I burst into tears. The girls sitting at my table fell silent, staring at me uncomfortably. A sixth-former said, “She’s just homesick. She’ll be all right.” And they left me alone to sob despairingly over my baked beans.

Later, when I was older, I realised that this was probably not an uncommon experience for Malaysians going to study abroad - especially back in the ’70s and ’80s. These days, in the 21st century, even the remotest part of the UK will probably have a Malaysian restaurant or at least an eatery that can do a decent curry. Back then, England was still emerging uncomfortably from its post-war troubles and coming to grips with the loss of its empire. It had been used to exporting its culture and habits and food across the world and it would be some decades yet before a new generation would return from the hippy trail with bottles of fish sauce and chilli belacan and recipes for Thai green curry and satay. Back then, curry was a strange concoction involving a plain curry sauce, pineapple and raisins. To my horror, they also mixed curry powder with sweet salad cream to make a weird cold dish called Coronation Chicken.

For five years, I learnt to eat potatoes with everything. Roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, buttered potatoes, jacket potatoes, sauteed potatoes, chips, mash, potato salad. The were lots of interesting things you could do with potatoes. But none of them turned the spud into rice. Every now and then, though, we would have rice. Aaah, rice. Those were my favourite meals. Except that the rice would come with that pineapply-raisiny curry and I’d have to spend ages picking out the bits of fruit. Or with chicken fricassee, a mix of shredded chicken in what tasted like Campbell’s cream of chicken condensed soup - which was marginally better than pineapply curry in that I could pretend it was chicken a la king.

When I went to university, it was like a liberation after prison….

To be continued next Friday (06 July 2007)…

Photo: thanks to Johnnie Shannon on flickr.com

lffd

My interview with Rob Mackenzie has been picked up by poet Andrew Philip on his blog TongueFire in a post called “What is Scottish Poetry?”. There is a lively discussion in the comments to that post about Scottish identity, which I’ve added to, asking what would the identity of a Chinese poet writing in Scotland be.

Andrew has responded with some interesting points:

There’s a poem called “Young, Chinese and Scottish” written in the voice of a young, Chinese-Scottish woman by Kevin Macneil, an obviously male Gaelic and English-language writer. How’s that for complex identity politics!

Googling the poem (which I can’t find online), I’ve just come across an online essay “Infinite Diversity in New Scottish Writing”, by the Scottish-Pakistani writer Suhayl Saadi, who was born in Yorkshire. I’ve not read it, but it might well be enlightening.

Thanks to Andrew, we have some really juicy diversity writing to go and explore!

I am reminded of the early days when I first came to the UK. Back then, I clumped all white people from the UK together as “the English”. When speaking to an Irish/ Scottish/ Welsh person, I sometimes referred to them as “English” - imagine their outrage! It was then that I started to see the differences between the various tribes that make up the UK. It still fascinates me and I feel I have a lot to learn.

While in Slovenia, I was chatting to one of the other IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) delegates who was from Doncaster. She has a mild but noticeable northern accent. She recounted a rather disturbing story that shows the boundaries that exist even between the tribes of England, let alone between the English and Welsh/ Scottish etc.

At Uni, she heard about a party that a group of friends was going to. “Great,” she said to the host, “Where is it?” He replied in stiff, Southern tones, “You don’t have the right accent to come.”

Wow.

But to end on a lighter note, my colleague told another more amusing story of the North-South divide. She was setting up a meeting room in her company’s sleek offices in Soho recently. The technical assistant was an East End bloke who asked her if she wanted “sand” for the meeting.

“Sand?” She couldn’t work out why she’d need sand in the room.

“Yeah, d’you want me to set up the sand system?”

“Ah, sound!” She cried, understanding at last….

Photo: thanks to Hamed Sabir from flickr.com

Wellbeing of Women is a UK charity dedicated to solving health problems solely affecting women. They are about to launch a campaign to find the most inspirational woman in the UK (in association with the UK newspaper The Daily Mail). The Inspirational Women of the Year Awards will be launched this coming Tuesday 15 May and are sponsored by Marks & Spencer.

You’re hearing about this first here on Fusion View because I met the Director of Wellbeing of Women, Liz Campbell, last week as we sipped cocktails at a City Women’s Network event in London. She told us about the campaign and asked us to tell as many people as we could. Wellbeing of Women are keen to receive nominations for ordinary women that you and I might know, rather than celebrities, so we can celebrate the outstanding and special achievements of real women who are getting on with their lives every day away from the limelight.

Anyone can make a nomination (you don’t have to be a woman to nominate!). The woman you nominate, however, needs to be resident in the UK (ie not necessarily a UK citizen but resident in the UK) as this is a UK-based award.

To make your nomination you can email them at wellbeingofwomen [at] rcog.org.uk or write to them at their mailing address:

Wellbeing of Women
27 Sussex Place
Regents Park
London NW1 4SP

You need to name your nominated inspirational woman, describe in your own words their inspiring story and why you think they deserve to win. The closing deadline is 5.30pm on Friday 1st June.

You can find out more by going to the Wellbeing of Women website and clicking through to their page on The Inspirational Women of the Year.

I can think of a number of women who have been inspiring to me in different ways. There’s my friend Alex, who changed her life dramatically and went on to help many people in her work as psychotherapist, and along the way helped me as a friend through a difficult period in my life. There’s Angie, my partner, who gave me the courage to give up my job and write my novels all those years ago and who continues to inspire me every day. There’s Silvia, a talented business communicator, who is championing all the myriad of blogging and social media activities that I am involved in, while building a brilliant career of her own. There’s Lucy who is juggling her meteoric academic career with her creative talent as a photographer and always takes the time to be a great friend. There’s the other Alex who has always been a dear friend to me, a supportive pal to everyone who knows her, a great mum to her delightful children, a terrific wife to her talented husband and a lawyer to be reckoned with. The list goes on!

My problem is going to be trying to choose only one of them! Or maybe I can nominate all of them…?

Photo: thanks to womenshealthsolutions.co.uk

OK, it looks like we’re having an extreme sports season here on Fusion View. First, it was the ski-ing ostrich, then it was the guys base-jumping off the KL Tower. Today on Film Monday, I bring you Extreme Unicycling from the Lake District….

To misquote Asterix the Gaul: “Les anglais, ils sont fous”.

I was talking to a friend last week about the etiquette of an English dinner party. In the old days there used to be fairly rigid rules about how to behave but in the 21st century, where we’re all much less formal, you’d think that when someone invited you to dinner, it was just dinner and you would turn up and eat and that was all there was to it. But the more we explored it, the more there still seemed to be unwritten rules and rituals around the English dinner party. Here’s a list of things my friend and I came up with as essential etiquette when you’re invited to or giving a modern English dinner party:

1. These days you’re usually invited by email or telephone. Gone are the days of hand-written letters by fountain pen for your run-of-the-mill dinner parties. And with that, much of the over-formal formalities.

2. Most people ask what they should bring and are usually told: nothing, just yourselves or red or white wine. A Chinese young man newly arrived in England brought a bottle of sherry to a dinner we were both invited to although I specifically warned him ahead to bring wine (”Oh, I like sherry,” he said) and then spent the whole evening beating himself up that he’d brought the wrong thing when he handed over the bottle and the host had looked bewildered.

Even if you are told to bring nothing, you should always bring something - the best bet being a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates. At the more casual end among good friends, you might be asked to bring dessert - we reckon that anything gooey and indulgent from Marks & Spencers should do the trick.

3. At dinner, the host usually has an idea in their mind of a seating arrangement even if there are no name cards for the table. The idea is to get a good mix round the table of people who don’t know each other but who might get on well, splitting up couples so they don’t end up next to each other or opposite each other while being not too far away from each other (diagonal seems to work best, we decided). In the old days, the host would also have to worry about seating boy-girl-boy alternately but in these modern times of girl-girl and boy-boy couples, that rule is by necessity much less rigid.

4. The old adage “no sex, religion or politics” still applies. The most painful dinner parties I’ve been to have usually been the result of someone unaccustomed to dinner parties ranting on about one or other of those topics. Everyone ends up feeling bruised and exhausted.

5. The idea is to be amusing, witty and entertaining, keeping business talk to a minimum. The objective is to end the evening with a warm glow from the food, wine and company. The rest of the world can be out there battling it out over sex, religion and politics and you’ve got the grind of making a living and whatever difficulties may be challenging you at that point. But for a few hours one evening, the world is that convivial dinner table and you can laugh with some friends and delight in a good meal and feel that life is good.

Pic: thanks to allposters.com

This Twitter thing is exploding. I turn away from the computer for a second and someone’s invented this living, moving map that shows you where in the world someone is twittering from:

Go to: http://twittermap.com/twittervision

You’ll be hypnotised - and also probably get a bit queasy as the map zooms around the world showing you thought balloons whenever anyone texts a thought, a gripe, a moment from their lives up onto to Twitter. It gives “stream of consciousness” writing a whole new meaning.

What’s the point of it all? I think people are still trying to figure it out. Key blogging commentators like Robert Scoble (Microsoft) and Steve Rubel (Edelmans) are on Twitter engaging in a conversation with other key figures plus anyone who wants to add their tuppence worth - about twittering, blogging and the impact of all this on global ideas. Other people are just texting what they’ve been doing, sharing their lives with friends and hundreds and thousands of strangers around the world - and I guess that’s part of the aura of it: that as a visitor, you can glimpse into the lives of so many strangers and as a participant you can share what you’re thinking or doing at any given moment. It’s an act of defiance - or desperation? - against existential angst and the aloneness of the human condition.

PS. Thanks to Andrew Eglinton for telling me about the link.

Pic: thanks to academic.evergreen.edu

My invitation to submit pics of your gardens prompted Lucy in South London to send in this photo. She explains that the pic was not taken during January this year but is from the summer of last year. No matter. It’s a great view through the open door, hinting of the warmth that awaits us in the UK, come spring and summer later this year – and her little doggy Claude is just too cute to ignore. (Maybe someone will be inspired to knit a woolly version of him….?)

You can also compare this with pics of Di’s South African garden, here.

In some ways, I suppose it was just as well that we were offline last weekend, which was the 13th anniversary of Angie and me getting it together. Being cut off from the virtual world meant that we could spend time with each other in the real world without being distracted by emails etc.

We went for a walk along the Thames from London Bridge eastwards to Rotherhithe, taking in views towards London across the river that we had never seen before. It was a gloriously sunny day, and deliciously warm for early February. The warehouses and docks along the south bank of the river had now been transformed into lovely apartments and housing right up against historic pubs and important archaeological sites.

We came across the Mayflower pub right on the river, where 400 years ago, the Mayflower taking the Pilgrim Fathers to America was berthed. The Rotherhithe Tunnel that now features on daily traffic reports was built by the Brunels, father and son, its location marked by a giant red iron machine that looked like iconic modern art.

For foodies, I really recommend Borough market by London Bridge station on a Saturday. We headed there for lunch after our walk and it was thronging with trendy crowds, buying organic foodstuffs from the stalls and chomping on freshly made roast meat baguettes and spicy oriental barbecued dishes as they strolled along the streets. We had lunch at Fish! Restaurant with superb views of Southwark cathedral through its glass ceiling – I had yummy grilled swordfish and Angie had fish pie, followed by sticky toffee pudding: perfect for a winter’s day.

It was good to be reminded of these things that we’ve always loved doing together (apart from being netheads) – exploring hidden corners of London, taking long walks and indulging in good food!

We woke up this morning to more snow. I was the third person to walk along the pavement outside our house - I could tell from the other two trails of footprints across the snow as I crunched along. Snowflakes blew into my eyes and the whole landscape looked orange and blue as the sun tried to bring us the dawn.

I wrapped up in thermal underwear and several layers of clothing with my woolly hat and gloves and two scarves to stay warm. I felt very brave - like Omar Sharif in Dr Zhivago, trudging through the snow.

And then I find this pic by Chris Caig on the BBC London website of robust Londoners taking a dip in Hampstead Ponds this morning….!

Sigh. I now feel very much less brave - a weedy native of the tropics, shivering in an alien icy landscape.