Christmas Greetings

To my family, friends at home and all over the world,

Blessed be your Christmas and peace be with you every day of the New Year

Fiona

Shortest Day, Longest Night

Yesterday at the office, Hamish mentioned about yesterday being the shortest day and the night before being the longest night (whatever that means).


After quizzing Ben and Andy about it, they mentioned that it was the winter solstice and a time to hug stones at Stonehenge which boggled me more (though they disputed H's date in that it happened two days ago i.e. December 20th) I muttered something like:

Me:' The English: quirky weird'
Ben:'What was that?'
Me:'Nothing!', (walking away)



Sifting around in the bubbling pot of memories, the winter solstice in Malaysia (being a hot, tropical mass) was usually celebrated by going to Mama's place for the 'guo dong' dinner. She knew I loved tang yuen and would never fail to make it. I loved that she loved me eating those coloured balls in sugary syrup as that's how a grandmother would show her care and concern for her grandchildren. No matter how full up I was from eating (and eating) I'd never say no to a bowl of coloured balls.


Fast forward to a year ago, in Sweden, it was the mark of the long, dark days in Stockholm/Umea. The sun would not show - only faint light on gray, clouded skies at 12 noon and by 3.30 it would be pitch dark. The snow was already on the ground in Umea. Whilst walking to school from Alidhem, I used to gaze up at the birch trees along the path and there'd be one or two magpies (large, black ones) in the tree. I'd wonder how these creatures could ever stand the cold..somebody must look after them. By then, I would have left for Stockholm with a peaceful mind.

Christmas in London

Christmas is drawing near and I swear, I've celebrated it this year in London more than I did my Chinese New Years in Malaysia (CNY being the biggest celebration for Chinese). Company dinner parties, cards, drinks, holidays, eating, drinking - it's more than I can bear. New term learnt last week: 'Bah humbug' -Context: Used when you're telling people 'I don't like celebrating Christmas'

The 'Quality Street' Christmas Tree
Put up a Christmas tree in the flat after Frank Caruso, the landlord, discovered it by chance in the loft when I moved in. Mirko and I put it up for the fun of it a few weeks ago but couldn't find any decorations with it. So we hung 'Quality Street' sweets all over it, which works pretty well I must say. Mirko bought lights at the 99p shop in Camden but predictably enough, they were duds.

Corporate Christmas Dinners
In keeping up with the recession in the UK, the project team cancelled the company dinner. Two of my friends' company dinners also got cancelled or were self-financed. Fortunately T&T's Christmas dinner and the PCon Team Christmas Bowling carried on (my first Christmas socials in London) After agonizing over the perfect dress search, I finally returned the ones I bought at Jane Norman and went with my 8-year old black number. It was a loose at first but the flat drier fixed it: Nothing like a good old shrink from the trusty monster (it shrank my socks and pants)

Christmas Goodies
Received 2 presents this year: a box of chocolates from Penny and a fantastic keyboard from Geoff(ok the latter was a loaner, but it's still great anyway) Never expected to get anything much less do anything over Christmas. Transport is at a standstill on Christmas day - not even the buses are moving. Penny gave me her family's Christmas Cake recipe (her mum bakes cakes professionally)and it turned out alright I guess. We'll have this for the Christmas eve dinner (eat) and Christmas day will be spent at church and an open house (eat again!). Expected weight gain: 1/2 a stone

Speaking 'English' English

'Cheers'

Context: When someone's done something for you, you say 'Cheers' as in 'thank you'. Or when you sign off from an email you write ' Cheers' at the end

'Mate'

Context: A name to call someone you want to be on buddy-buddy terms with. 'Thanks mate' 'How're you doing mate?'

'You're a star'

Context: When you want to praise someone for doing a good job or when they've done something for you. 'Thanks Jo, you're a star!'

Lovely/Excellent

Context: What you say when something was done well - or as a praise for someone (but not as high a praise as 'you're a star') ' That's lovely' 'That will be excellent'

Love

Context: Used when addressing a younger person like 'Thanks love', 'It's ok love'

Are you alright?

Context: Asked to show concern...like when you're doing work and trying to concentrate there'll be someone asking you 'Are you alright?' every half hour so you can stop doing your work, start chatting and forget about it.

Did you have a good weekend?

Context: Asked usually on a Monday, in replacement of the usual 'How are you' and 'How's it going' e.g. you see your colleague in the pantry on Monday morning, instead of 'How are you?' it's more appropriate and timely to say 'Did you have a good weekend?'

Let's have a chat/Would you like a chat...?

Context: Same meaning as 'would you like to discuss this?' e.g. 'The issue has cropped up again. Let's have a chat about this over tea?'

Give me a shout

Context: Not to be confused with a cheerleading cry - it means, 'Call me' or ' Notify me' as in 'Give me a shout when you're ready'

Book Clubs and Oedipus

Had a very good Sunday today. First I leapt out of bed at 10.40am and realized I was late for the book club meet. Hurriedly dressed and ran out the door. It was raining, naturally. Fortunately Southbank isn't so far and providence provided a bus 172 just as I crossed the street to the bus stop. Played hide and seek looking for the Giraffe in the South bank centre - finally found it after walking round the Royal Festival Hall twice.

The meeting had already kicked off amid the cafe-bustle, brazilian music and coffee blending machines. Reminded me of the time I had mine in La Bodega in Bangsar - can't believe it was 3 years ago. It was a little hard to hear what the group was saying while being interrupted by the 'Vegetarian salad? Large Cappucino? English Breakfast??' yelled out insistently on occasion. Otherwise, the discussion was interesting covering culture, India, politics and ethics - heavy stuff on a Sunday afternoon but the company was great too.

There were a couple of keen theatre-goers amongst us and one of them wanted to check out 'Oedipus', currently playing a hop and skip away *literally next door* in the National Theatre. The plus was that Ralph Fiennes was in the title role. I invited myself to come along and we tried our luck for the standby tickets for about half an hour when finally we had three very good seats - smack in the centre of the hall, right up front.


The play was superb - Ralph Fiennes was larger than life. He appeared through the large bronze door right in the centre of the stage - stared at the audience and uttered 'You come here weeping and crying. You, you old man get up and speak!' lifted a finger and slowly stared accusingly. It was scary. The cast was no less brilliant ....all of them terribly accomplished in their role. And I liked the stage layout - a circular conference with the large ominous bronze door in the centre almost signifying the wheel of fate with the doorway of tragedy like a gaping hole on the stage.

OK I have to be an ignoramus now and say this: there is a lot of spit emitted in plays. I saw actors spitting when talking, spitting when singing, or spit while standing and putting fingers in their mouths (look at Ralph's picture) I'm sure there's a criteria that one must be able to spit while acting to become truly an actor. I could almost spot which ones were the 'wannabe-spitters' - it had to be the guy at the end of the play - the filler delivering the bad news while Ralph had time to put on some bloody make up. The sanitary team must disinfect the stage every day I'll bet - nice job. Collect some famous spit and sell em.

All in all, a nice Sunday well spent.

Stay in My Memory

Here's a good example of what you may call 'ambient music' by British group BIM with striking animation by Katy Davis

Foux De Fa Fa

Ha Ha Ha hA .......Kiwis Rule!

Inner City Pressure

I'm moving into the City....Just saw an episode of Flight of the Conchords which sheds a hilarious perspective to my situation.


Inner city life, inner city pressure
The concrete world is starting to get ya
The city is alive, the city is expanding,
Living in the city can be demanding,
You've pawned everything, everything you own,
Your toothbrush, jar, and a camera phone
You don't know where you're going
You cross the street
You don't know why you did,
You walk back across the street.
Standing in the sitting room, totally skint
And your favorite jersey is covered in lint
You want to sit down, but you sold your chair
So you just stand there
You just stand there
You just stand there
Inner
Inner city
Inner city pressure
Inner city pressure
Counting coins on the counter of the 7-11,
From a quarter past six 'til a quarter to seven,
The manager Bevan starts to abuse me
Hey man, I just want some Muesli,
Neon signs, hidden messages,
Questions, answers, fetishes,
You know you're not in high finance,
Considering getting second hand underpants,
Check your mind, how'd it get so bad?
What happened to those other underpants you had,
Look in your pockets, haven't found a cent yet,
Landlords on your balls, have you paid your rent yet?
Inner
Inner city
Inner city pressure
Inner city pressure
So you think maybe you'll be a prostitute,
Just to pay for your lessons, you're learning the flute,
The ladies won't pay you very much for this,
Looks like you'll never be a concert flautist,
You don't measure up to the expectation
When you're unemployed there's no vacation
No one cares, no one sympathizes
You just stay home and play synthesizers.
Inner
Inner city
Inner city pressure
Inner city pressure
Inner
Inner city
Inner city pressure
Inner city pressure

www.oneword.com

Word of the day: Brick

He picked up the brick like it was any old thing he'd usually stoop to include in his collection of variables. A compulsive hoarder; this would go very well with the slats of plywood which he took from the construction site down the road the other day.

Underground Reads: Graphic Novels

Have been trying to keep up some reading but it's going slow. The times that I get to snatch a few reads are either on the underground or on the weekends but somehow I never seem to get further than 5 pages at each length of time. I seem to suffer either from attention deficit disorder or a heavy workload (Can't be the latter cos I'm not earning tons)

Determined to get my bibliojo going; I picked up some graphic novels from the Southwark council library just down the road from my office. Surprisingly it works pretty well as it's light enough reading for the tube i.e. you can snatch-read while shuffling around in the tube and wallah, you've done 5 pages.

These are my reads so far:



Spiral: A horror manga mag which has an interesting concept of the 'spiral'. It appears in the spiraled-spine of a haunted jack in the box, the mosquitoes flight, snails, tornadoes -Talk about 'light' reading...it was quite ridiculous really.











Road to Perdition: I loved this one! Beautifully drawn with powerful character studies. I'm glad I read this instead of watching Tom Hanks spoil it.













The Goon: Oooo I liked this one too. At first it didn't get me but the more I read it the funnier it became. It was the zombies that led me to pick up this one















Mort: I got this as it had Terry Pratchett on it. I've never read any of his novels but this one was so-so. I didn't get parts of it though - maybe I'll get the book...hmmmm....not













Deogratias: Award-winning Belgian comic - I've just borrowed this one today and looking forward.

Oh !

There was an old re-run of friends in the first season on SKY.

In the closing scene, Monica knocks on Ross' ex-fling's (who has a hygiene problem) door and says:

"HI I'm Ross sister and he told me about your apartment and I can't sleep - can I clean your apartment?"

I AM Monica!!

www.oneword.com

Word of the day: Mantle

man tai!....screamed the chinese aunty. The literal translation of 'Problem'! Who doesn't have problems these days? Especially with the petrol price hikes and notwithstanding increasing prices on the noodles. Old chinese aunty isn't too fogey to fathom it

Wicked

Just watched 'Wicked' yesterday night. After being in London for almost 2 months and coming here so many times, I never had the opportunity to catch a single musical. Well it was worth it - fantastic music, backdrop and costumes. It's a clever story based on Gregory Maguire's book Wicked:The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West


Thanks to Alden though for being a good 'teman' and listening to my tirade before - sorry ah

I wonder how many hours of work the cast has to go through for each scene and little movement - it must take such amount of stamina. And they have to perform it for 8 days a week for months(years?)- nothing short of amazing. Alisha Khadime was the star in this show I think - I prefer the quality of her voice compared to the other female performers in the show.

I didn't even realize that the music was live - thought it was a recording until I saw the conductor waving about in the middle. Oh well, it's really years before Malaysia can get to this level of entertainment.

Anyway if Wicked does ever come to your shore, I'd highly recommend it.

Growing Sweet William

Watched The Wonder Years today - it was hilarious. Not that i really watch the telly but there's one with Sky in my room but I haven't touched it since moving in plus its a Sunday morning after all.

Amy thinks I should write in my blog more - though have been lazy at it since no one reads it in the first place. (if you are say 'aye'....exactly my point)

In between settling down in London, my weekends have been pretty sporadic and so is my weekday schedule. I did decide on a low-maintenance hobby which I gathered would not take too much time and effort i.e. growing plants. Put in a garden plus a dash of botanical inspiration (most of the houses around East Acton have gorgeous blossoms), I popped down the local Pound stretcher and found a box of ready-potted gloxinia seeds. I watered them and waited for almost 2 weeks and realized they were duds - it cost only 20p no wonder.

So I went down to the nearby Home Base and paid a little more for a pack of Sweet William (Dianthus Barbatus - 1.75GBP for 800 seeds). I chose seeds which were supposed to be sown between July- September; apparently I'm a little late for the gardening season. Oh well I'll try anyways.

I planted the little black seeds, doubtful of their worth.



And with much surprise they started sprouting after a week.


It will take a whole year before they turn into these(see below)

But it would be interesting to see how far William will grow under my green thumb.

East of the Sun and West of the Moon

Once upon a time, my father and mother bought the 'World's Best Fairy Tales' from the Reader's Digest magazine subscription. It was already old when I started to read it at the age of 7. It was beige in colour (not sky blue like the picture here) and had spots on the cover and dust from the silverfishes hiding in its spine. I read the book from cover to cover and looked at the beautiful watercolour illustrations for each story again and again.

One day my aunt asked me, "Which story is your favourite?"

I had thought long and hard about it and I decided that the story I liked best was 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon'.

I liked it because

a. The long title sounded sophisticated
b. The heroine in the picture was the prettiest of all
c. I empathised with the girl in the story who couldn't get what she wanted

My aunt asked me 'why' and so I told her.


A long, long time passed. I grew up, my parents and my aunt grew wrinkles and spots and the story from the book became another buried childhood memory. The book itself mysteriously disappears - either magicked itself away or thrown out by my mother and father or buried in the dust somewhere in the many piles of stuff in my house.

One day, another book came into my hands and told me "Read this fairy tale again: East of the Sun and West of the Moon!". Compelled to obey, I go on the internet and Google.

Lo! and behold! Knowledge and memory comes back to me like a trumpet blast. I like the story now because:

a. East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a Scandinavian fairy tale. It is Norwegian: collected by Peter Christensen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. The Swedish version is called Prince Hat under the Ground. It is about the search for a lost husband - Aarne-Thompson type 425A - similar to the Beauty and the Beast
b.The heroine was the bravest of all - she looked beyond appearances and accepted a monster (a white bear) as her husband
d. I sympathised with the girl in the story

With that, so ends my fairy tale.

Snip, snap, snout, this tale's told out.

You can read the story in Surlalune Fairytales here

The Origin of Love (Hedwig and The Angry Inch)

-by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask

One of the greatest movie songs of all time....



When the earth was still flat,
And the clouds made of fire,
And mountains stretched up to the sky,
Sometimes higher,
Folks roamed the earth
Like big rolling kegs.
They had two sets of arms.
They had two sets of legs.
They had two faces peering
Out of one giant head
So they could watch all around them
As they talked; while they read.
And they never knew nothing of love.
It was before the origin of love.

The origin of love

And there were three sexes then,
One that looked like two men
Glued up back to back,
Called the children of the sun.
And similar in shape and girth
Were the children of the earth.
They looked like two girls
Rolled up in one.
And the children of the moon
Were like a fork shoved on a spoon.
They were part sun, part earth
Part daughter, part son.

The origin of love

Now the gods grew quite scared
Of our strength and defiance
And Thor said,
"I'm gonna kill them all
With my hammer,
Like I killed the giants."
And Zeus said, "No,
You better let me
Use my lightening, like scissors,
Like I cut the legs off the whales
And dinosaurs into lizards."
Then he grabbed up some bolts
And he let out a laugh,
Said, "I'll split them right down the middle.
Gonna cut them right up in half."
And then storm clouds gathered above
Into great balls of fire

And then fire shot down
From the sky in bolts
Like shining blades
Of a knife.
And it ripped
Right through the flesh
Of the children of the sun
And the moon
And the earth.
And some Indian god
Sewed the wound up into a hole,
Pulled it round to our belly
To remind us of the price we pay.
And Osiris and the gods of the Nile
Gathered up a big storm
To blow a hurricane,
To scatter us away,
In a flood of wind and rain,
And a sea of tidal waves,
To wash us all away,
And if we don't behave
They'll cut us down again
And we'll be hopping round on one foot
And looking through one eye.

Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

The Bud of Umea

Day 1: Just getting started...



Day 10: Gaining confidence...


Day 18: All dressed and ready to go!

The Year of B Movies and Horror

I'd say this year was the year of Horror and B Movies which was an interesting watch. Threw in a few mainstream and animation to balance out all the B-ness of it all. Nevertheless I appreciate the different viewpoint i.e. campiness is fun.

2008 Viewings in No Particular Order:

Finishing the Game: The Search for the New Bruce Lee (2007)
Enchanted (2007)
Braindead (1992)
Eumranseosaeng - Forbidden Quest (2006)
Muoi (2007)
Chakushin ari - One Missed Call (2003)
Gwoemul- The Host (2006)
Black Sheep (2006)
Eagle vs Shark (2007)
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007)
Bee Movie(2007)
Meet the Robinsons (2007)
[Rec] (2007)
Fido (2006)
Cube (1997)
Into the Wild (2007)
Saw (2004)
Creepshow (1982)
Creepshow 2 (1987)
The Blob (1988)
The Stuff (1985)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Martin (1977)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Day of the Dead (1985)
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Dellamore Dellamorte (1994)
Bride of Reanimator (2003)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
The Changeling (1980)
The Birds (1963)
Citizen Kane (1941)
They Wait (2007)
The Mist (2007)
Silent Hill (2006)
Gedo Senki:Tales from Earthsea (2006)
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
The Wicker Man (1973)
House of Sand and Fog (2003)
Juno (2007)
Little Children (2006)
Fragile (2005)
Bride and Prejudice (2004)
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004)
Dreamgirls (2006)

Tiger in a Cage

The tiger you see madly pacing its cage is nevertheless preoccupied by something that a human would certainly recognize as a thought. And this thought is a question: Why

'Why, why, why, why, why, why,' the tiger asks itself hour after hour, day after day, year after year. It cannot analyze the questions or elaborate on it. If you were somehow able to ask the creature, "Why what?" It would be unable to answer you.

Nevertheless this question burns like an unquenchable flame in its mind, inflicting a searing pain that does not diminish until the creature lapses into a final lethargy that zookeepers recognize as an irreversible rejection of life.

And of course this questioning is something that no tiger does in its normal habitat.

- in 'Ishmael' by Daniel Quinn

Spring Days

Winter died in Umea on April 15th, 2008. I remembered it exactly as last Tuesday cos I woke up and the snow mysteriously evaporated overnight and the sun was shining and the sky and endless blue. The sun continued to shine till today thus I'd expect spring was here for good. This change was sudden as it was snowy and grey not a few days ago; and strange for me being from a tropical country with its eternal steamy summers.

Suddenly people started to act strange; they'd begin to sit outside and bask in the sun despite the still chilly weather. Everyone wanted to go outside, like worms being unearthed waving their bodies about. Then there'd be a million runners about in the evening walks.

Suddenly the birds were everywhere; seagulls, terns, crows, finches. You'd hear them bursting into song when it was silent among the trees none too long ago. A flock of birds sail through the air, not a cloud in the sky.

Suddenly there'd be the smell of shit in the air. Serious smells, like the kind you get in stables and farms..maybe it's earth but I don't know the difference. Then you feel like burning something for a bbq.

Yes, goodbye Cold, Enter sun...