Kissing the Blarney Stone for Eloquence

According to wikipedia, eloquence (from Latin eloquentia) is fluent, forcible, elegant or persuasive speaking. It is the ability to express strong emotions appropriately and it is being able to write fluently as well. This is the magic that politicians seek after, debaters battle over and orators die for.

We have seen impeccably groomed people who when they open their mouths, sound very common. In contrast, there are those who will sweep you off the feet the moment they say something. The trick it seems is to talk slowly and deliberately. When a speech is rushed, there is poor control of what is said, resulting in what some call ‘verbal diarrhoea’. For speakers of English as a second language, added problems are first language interference, incorrect pronunciation of words, inaccurate intonation and wrong placement of stresses. Most times students are not taught phonetics nor are they exposed to native speakers.

Having been to a number of one-act plays, I marvel at the eloquence the actors possess on stage. It is amazing how there can only be one person on stage delivering a monologue and yet the audience is not bored. It is the strength and clarity of the voice that say it all.

Some say eloquence is one-third content and two-thirds presentation. Others say it is a craft that can be developed through practice, apprenticeship and coaching.

One fine example was J.F. Kennedy in his series of televised debates with Nixon. His style was eclectic: it was skeptical, laconic, careless and purposeful. Peppered with wit and aptly chosen words, he became the youngest man in American history to win the presidency.

Yet, there are always short cuts for those who do not have the time to practise, Irish folklore says ‘there is a stone that whoever kisses never misses to grow eloquent, he may clamber to a lady’s chamber or become a Member of Parliament.’

That is none other than the infamous Blarney Stone.

The Blarney Stone is a block of bluestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle, Blarney, about 8 kilometres from Cork, Ireland.
One of the stories associated with this stone is associated with the Lord of Blarney, Cormac McCarthy who saved an old woman from drowning sometime in the 14th century. In gratitude the old woman cast a spell on the stone so that the Lord would never again be at a loss for words.
It is not surprising therefore that visitors from near and far make a pilgrimage to lock lips with the stone. This includes statesmen like Winston Churchill, hollywood actors, famous novelists and playwrights. In the episode entitled ‘In the Name of the Grandfather, Homer and grandpa Abe Simpson visited the Blarney Castle. Even singers kiss the stone, Mick Jagger included.
So deciding to follow the footsteps of the famous who must have benefited from this swift puckering of lips, I made a beeline to seek out this enchanted stone once and for all. Besides promising myself that it would be great fun, my line of reasoning was if these people are still the icons of the day, then the Blarney Stone could have contributed to it.
Now, kissing the Blarney Stone is no mean feat and the trick is to kiss the stone in a certain way in order to tap its full power.
First you have to pay a fee to enter the Blarney Castle and then ascend to the top. The stone dramatically is set on the top storey. Then you will need to lie down away from the stone and grasp the railing firmly with your hands above your head. There will be people who will help you lean backward so that your head is even with the stone in order for you to kiss it. Once the kiss is rendered, viola, your photo is professionally taken. For those who suffer from acrophobia, there is a virtual Blarney Stone. (http://www.irelandseye.com/blarney/blarn....) but I cannot promise that the effect will be the same.
Was it worth the effort climbing to the top of the castle in the Irish drizzle so I can be part of the 200,000 hopefuls who perform the sacred act annually? Could the cold arrest the multiplication of germs on that particular part of the stone that has been kissed? Have I received the ‘gift of the gab’ to welcome 2012?
Shortly after my return from the castle, I complimented someone with some well-meaning remarks of admiration.
He said, ‘I don’t think you have kissed the Blarney Stone. You must have swallowed the whole stone even.’
Talk about an instant eloquence enhancer.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Read more: www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/kissing-the-blarney-stone-for-eloquence-1.26159

THE WAITING GAME BUILDS OUR CHARACTER

JOANNA Lumley spent her childhood in hot and humid Malaysia and read a book called Ponny the Penguin. The northern lights was the most beautiful scene Ponny had ever seen in her life. After reading that, former Bond girl Joanna knew she had to experience what Ponny saw: the northern lights, or aurora borealis, which are natural light displays in the sky, usually observed at night, particularly in the polar regions.

Joanna, who never played with snow in her childhood, finally travelled to the North Pole with a camera crew and survived the harsh terrain and icy snow. She was padded up like the Michelin Man, slept in three sleeping bags on a block of ice in Igloo Hotel and rode on snowmobiles. But the greatest challenge was in the waiting. Waiting for the northern lights that would only appear when there is a right recipe of natural ingredients: cloudless skies, soft moonlight and intense solar activity.
The waiting game is a tedious process and the worst thing is we can never know what the outcome may be. There are things that we can plan and work towards. But there are countless others that we cannot do anything about in our own strength. The only thing we can do is to wait it out. In fact, there is even a 1998 television movie called the Waiting Game and a song by The Cooper Temple Clause bearing the same title.
We have waited sometime or another in our lives.

With Christmas round the corner, children over here wait for Santa to arrive on his sleigh laden with gifts. Apparently, Canada Post offers a service where children can send their letters to: Santa Claus, North Pole, HOH OHO, OHO, Canada. Each letter gets a reply from Santa himself. All for a bit of fun really. Tell a child that Santa does not exist and he will burst into tears. It is a pity though that the true meaning of Christmas is masked by consumerism.
The waiting game can be both exhilarating and frustrating.
Exhilarating when the next day brings forth the results that we wish to see. Frustrating when what we hope for crumbles before our eyes.
After an exam, we wait for the results to be released. Then, we wait to attend scholarship interviews. Next, we wait for the results of scholarship interviews. Then we apply for jobs and wait for the outcome of job interviews. When we have made a small bundle, we wait for the soul mate to appear. We wait to tie the knot and have children. When the children have become independent, we wait for that round-the-world trip. We wait to enjoy our retirement years. The long and the short of it, we spend our childhood waiting to grow up, and then we spend our senior years waiting for others to grow up.

I was at the passing-out ceremony of the Gardai (police) once. I could see the pride in the eyes of the graduating officers as they performed the march past and pattern formations.
The bugles blared and the drum roll was electrifying. Families, dressed in their best, came in droves and stood in the bitter cold in the open square to witness their loved ones receive commendation from the chief commissioner of police. No one complained. The waiting was worth it.
Yet, sometimes waiting does not seem to pay off. Take the apple tree in our backyard for example. We waited for the tree to bear fruit. It was terribly exciting when the green apples showed up. Then we had to wait some time longer to see the apples turn red. That was exciting, too. The day came and we took out the basket to harvest the red apples only to discover that the birds had got to them first. That was definitely not exciting.
My better half once told me, whenever we are anxious over a certain matter, just remind ourselves that if nobody died as a result of it, then the situation could not be all that bad. I also find that in most cases, a problem does not look so bad after we have had a good night's sleep. Somehow, a clear head in the morning helps dispel the misery of the night before.
If anything, waiting builds character. Sounds cliché but it is true. The journey of waiting yields many corresponding lessons that help us navigate life's journey better. We become more mellow and less quick tempered. We learn to be more accommodating of other people's shortcomings as we are reminded that there are things beyond our control.
We learn to know our place in the cosmic universe.
Joanna waited and waited. When she finally lay on her back on the icy bed of snow and watched the spectacular curtain of the northern lights dance before her, she said: "For an hour-and-a-half, everything you can imagine began to happen. There were long, thin strings which went like snakes across the sky. Over our heads, there was this light that burst out in a great flower of strings, like an anemone. I felt like Ponny the Penguin. I was moved to tears... It has all come from the sun and our little tiny planet that we're trying to save... You see how majestic it is, and that it's part of the massive universe, and you begin to feel very humble."
Wishing all Christians a very Blessed Christmas.

Read more: The waiting game builds our character - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/the-waiting-game-builds-our-character-1.20868#ixzz1gtzx8BEA

THE BEST OF THE BOG

IN winter when the days are short and the nights are long, the best thing to do would be to curl up in front of the fireplace, sip cocoa, indulge in chocolates and watch television programmes.
Every time I want to go out, there will be a mental debate whether it is worth all the trouble to leave the blazing hearth and to put on the scarf, the gloves, the hat, the coat to face the chilly winds and to make sure that the windscreen has defrosted or the roads are not too slippery for my trusty Peugeot to meander through.

Most of the green surroundings that Ireland is synonymous with are in dormant state during this season. So, some time back, I thought it might be interesting to see the hard and soggy side of nature, the bog to be precise and I had never seen a bog.

For most people, contact with bogs comes via large sacks packed with turf sods for the fire or plastic bags filled with gardening peat. I had read that the bogs were the last wilderness to form in the Irish landscape in the wake of the Ice Age.
Stories abound that in the past, men used to bury butter, to take short cuts or to hide murdered bodies in the bog. In medieval times, those who inhabited monasteries, manor-estates as well as cottages burned turf to keep warm. The tenants of the land had to cut, store and transport turf. This was part of the customary duties levied by the owners of the land upon their tenants. It was not surprising then that an extensive and specialised Irish vocabulary evolved around the cutting of turf, and different parts of Ireland had their own variants or “turf dialects”.

The opportunity very soon presented itself. As I picked myself gingerly into a pick-up truck and headed for the bog, my heart palpitated. I had never sat on a pick-up truck before, much less one that saw three people on the front seat because the back part of the truck was filled with indescribable things which exuded unfamiliar smells. It was a roller coaster ride as we rocked upwards and sideways in unison, like trapped sardines in a can. Through it all, I was sandwiched between two burly men: John and my better half, Michael.
The journey seemed perilous and the road allowed only one vehicle to pass at any one time. I feared the worst should there be an oncoming vehicle but Michael pointed out to me that there were sporadic enclaves where the oncoming vehicle could wait, should the situation arise.
Actually, I had nothing to fear because John negotiated the road bends with great agility. Indeed, I would not have been surprised if he would do the very same, had he been blindfolded. I later learnt that the bog had been his childhood playground.
John asked me whether I would like to see bog one or bog two. My pragmatic brain settled for bog one which was nearer although John argued that the second bog would be more spectacular “bog-wise”.
Finally, we reached our destination. The ground was soggy and I was grateful to the creator of wellingtons. The biting cold made my hands freeze. It was 5pm and the air was laden with dank heaviness.

I took great care to tread the ground gently, lest I stepped on murdered victims of centuries past. We even had to cross a makeshift bridge in single file which reminded me of Captain Hook asking Peter Pan and the lost boys to walk the plank.
As my eyes spanned the bog, I saw the most beautiful sight ever. Neatly stacked in mounds, all covered with plastic sheets were stacks and stacks of turf.
All around the mounds stood heavy duty rubble sacks filled with turf and more turf, not unlike the rocks of Stonehenge, dark and ominous in the quiet of the evening. It was no aurora borealis but it was the beauty of a man’s hard work.
Signalling to Michael that there was work to be done, the two men started to fill more rubble sacks with turf. This, they did, not once but several times as I cheered them on. Watching the whole process, I had nothing but admiration for the brave attempt to harness the harshness of the land. There was no complaining but only sweat and dedication. All this for turf that would sell for E3.5 (RM14.80) per bag.

Sophocles said, “Without labour, nothing prospers”. How true. It is that manual competence that gives us a sense of autonomy and a feeling of responsibility. At the end of the day, we begin to appreciate something of the pleasing exhaustion that is characteristic of the work done.


SOURCE: The best of the bog - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/the-best-of-the-bog-1.14699#ixzz1fYO4x0QJ

FINDING THE PERFECT SHAPE

Standing on a basalt column of the Giant’s Causeway (known in Irish as Clochán an Aifir or Clochán na bhFómharach) the jewel in the crown of the fabulous coast of County Antrim, I cannot help but marvel at the 60 million year old volcanic wonder.
I was drawn to the site by the folklore that goes with it whereby Finn McCool, an Irish warrior tore away large pieces from the cliffs to make a sturdy causeway to Scotland so that he could fight his adversary, a Scottish giant called Benandoneer.

I was also intrigued by the hexagonal shape of the basalt columns which together resemble a beehive’s honeycomb or the scutes of a turtle’s carapace. However, there is a purpose for the shape and size of the columns. The hexagonal pattern is known for structural rigidity, density and optimal economy.

Everything that we see around us comes in all shapes and sizes. Yet, appreciation of shapes and sizes is relative: it differs from civilisation to civilisation and from age group to age group.
I am referring especially to the human shape and size.
While some societies think that big is beautiful there are others that worship the wasp-shape femme fatales or six-pack hunks.
I overheard a beautiful teenager complaining of having ‘bat wings’(The hanging flap under the arm seen on older women) and a ‘muffin top’. ( overhanging flesh (fat) that spills over the waistline of pants or skirts).

All I could see in front of me was a well-toned body that anyone could die for.
In this case, what does that say about the human perspective of oneself?
Perceived imperfection and low self esteem.
Whether we like it or not, the environment around us screams ‘you are not good enough’. With every feeling of imperfection, there seems to be a solution. So we try to become thinner or fatter, shorter or taller. We enrol for workout classes, we go on crash course diets, we go for special protein diets and we wait for the miracle to happen.
If we are food lovers or if we live in a society where eating is a national joy, we end up promising ourselves that we will start our diet tomorrow. Anyone from 15 to 50 years of age who likes to look good has gone through this rigmarole of going on a diet, promising to keep to the diet, breaking the diet and then going on a new diet.
Unfortunately, this becomes a struggle as age catches up and metabolism slows down and it is much more difficult to shed those extra kilos that you piled on during winter and promised yourself that you would shed them when summer came. Except that summer had gone and it is now autumn and approaching winter again and those extra kilos are still there.
Unless we are sitting on a time-bomb of high cholesterol and fats, it is good just to take stock of ourselves. Is it real or perceived imperfection? Are we who are healthy beings and structurally a size that is different from the mannequin feeling poorly because we cannot be a size 0? Can we walk into a department store, pick out a comfortable dress that gorgeously goes with the flow of our bodies or are we longing for that tiny, whimsical dress that promises the charm that we think we lack?
To be honest, it is very difficult.
Even so when we are surrounded by others who perceive themselves to be imperfect and have low self esteem and somehow want to include you into that very same sisterhood. We just have to grit our teeth and listen to the same old unsolicited comments like ‘You’ve lost weight’ or ‘You’ve put on weight’ never mind if a great catastrophe has struck a neighbouring country or the economy has crashed. Sometimes it is as irritating as a single person going to the annual family function only to be asked the same question, ‘You are not so young, when are you going to get married?’
Hopefully like most things age has a way to help us become more confident in the way we think or in the way we look. I have seen ladies, (definitely not a size 0) looking regal and charming in attractive dresses, sensible shoes and matching accessories.

I have seen men with flat caps and tweed jackets (definitely with no abs) looking classic and smart. A plus point is when they converse and they reveal a wealth of knowledge and experiences.
What they have is not show but character.

Source: The New Straits Times 20 Nov 2011 http://www.nst.com.my/top-news/finding-the-perfect-shape-1.8364?localLinksEnabled=false

OF NAMES AND TITLES

As a child I used to go to the cinema to watch Chinese martial arts films. There were usually rival martial arts schools with each school trying to be the best in the region. It was not uncommon for students of rival schools to crash into their competitors’ courtyards to try to disrupt kungfu lessons. When things got ugly and fights broke out, the first thing the rivals would do was to literally bring down the name of the school, usually engraved on a wooden board and hung up high, and break it into two. This amounted to the greatest humiliation a school could face.
In Asian cultures generally, names and titles are important. The name that a person has is usually chosen with great care by his parents to depict the best qualities ever that a child could have. Titles on the other hand symbolise respect and we address our aunts and uncles by their respective titles in accordance to their seniority and level of kinship. As a child, I dreaded going to my relatives’ houses because I had to address them by their titles according to which side of the family they were from. I would get an earful from my mother if I had used the wrong titles.
Acquired titles whether academic or bestowed upon for great achievements are also greatly guarded and carried with pride. I know of many who would feel offended if they are not ‘properly’ addressed.

Living in a land of strangers in Ireland, the first thing that I learn is that laughter is the best medicine and if I am not offended when no one knows my name or who I am or what I have been, then I am alright. Winston Churchill once said that ‘attitude is everything.’

Walking down the street one day with a bag of groceries, I laughed when a friendly Irish called out to me, ‘Fine day! Are you the latest kitchen help at the Chinese takeaway down the street?’

In another instance, I was at a poetry recitation gathering at a café nearby. A group of poetry lovers and academics had gathered for tete-a-tete. They were discussing the latest conferences and seminars which they assumed I would probably not have understood as I might have been a foreign house-help to one of the lecturers there.

Then there is this great difficulty of pronouncing Chinese names and recognising a Chinese face. To them apparently all Chinese look alike and all surnames must follow the first names. It is a great revelation to many that we do look different and our surnames come before our first names even though China has the largest population in the world and it has been one of the earliest civilizations.

I have been called by so many other names each time an acquaintances tries to remember my two syllabic name. So to make things easier I settled for ‘Soo’ which I thought was simple enough until a helpful acquaintance in a gardening class decided to label my rose cutting pot for me. She wrote ‘Susan’ beautifully and I asked, ‘Who’s Susan?’ and we all had a good laugh when the truth was revealed.
Then when I gave a dentist my name over the phone, he double confirmed it by saying ‘Sierra Oscar Oscar’? (A phonetic alphabet used to identify letters in a message transmitted by radio or the telephone)

I said, ‘Yes’.
He then realised that I must be non-Irish and probably didn’t speak much English, so he very kindly said again, ‘Sugar Orange Orange’?
When I related the incident to my family members we almost died laughing.

If names are difficult to deal with, titles in most cases are almost non-existent.
I made the acquaintance of a nice lady at the local mini market and the first problem that I faced was how to address her. Should I call her Mrs or Ma’am? With a weather beaten face that once saw better days, she whispered gently, just call me Evelyn.
That I found both strange and difficult to do. Disrespectful even since she is much older than I am. Back in Malaysia it is common to address an older person as Uncle Lim or Pak Cik Awang although he may not be related at all. We even have ‘Uncle Lim’s Kopitiam” and that café is certainly not run by our uncle. Likewise the senior woman who sells tau-foo-fah by the roadside could very well be Aunty Mary to all and sundry.

Children can call their caregivers kakak if they come from Indonesia and the Malay boy who sells noodles at the canteen is also known as Abang.

All said and done, the Irish are lovely people and people who can laugh at themselves. When an Irish acquaintance asked me what I am doing in Ireland, I said I married an Irish.

He replied, ‘You’ve married the worst kind’.

SOURCE: THE NEW STRAITS TIMES http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-199653308.html
6 NOVEMBER 2011

WHAT CHARLIE BROWN FOUND OUT ON HALLOWEEN

On Halloween night, I anticipate scores of children dressed up as ghosts or witches going door to door with bags in their hands hoping for candy. I wonder about bad teeth and obesity. Although I do not celebrate Halloween I am puzzled why adults do not give the children fruit or muesli bars instead. Well, the answer is that the children would probably throw the fruit or muesli bars back into your face or worst still throw toilet rolls up to the roof of your house so that the paper would roll down the sides of the roof making it a daunting job for you to climb up to the roof to remove them, especially if they got stuck to the tiles after the endless Irish drizzle.
Halloween is an annual holiday observed on October 31 in Ireland and though secular in nature, it has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain , whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in). The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". This festival celebrates the end of the festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half ”.
In the past, people believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to cross over. Ancestral spirits were honoured while harmful spirits were warded off by wearing costumes and masks. In the effort to avoid harm, children disguised themselves as ghosts or witches and go trick-or-treating. Other activities included carving jack-o’-lanterns, joining ghost tours, and setting bonfires.
My earliest introduction to Halloween was when I saw It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown a 1966 American prime time animated television special based on the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

Two characters stood out:
Linus (the one with the security blanket) and Charlie Brown (the round headed child). Linus had great faith that ‘The Great Pumpkin’ (a benevolent figure) would emerge at the pumpkin patch and so he waited until he fell asleep at the pumpkin patch while other children were out trick-or-treating.

The Great Pumpkin never showed up and Linus’ sister Lucy took him home and put him to bed. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIWh_YIRQuM)
Charlie Brown on the other hand went trick-or-treating and while everyone else got assorted candy, apples, gum, cookies, money, and popcorn balls, he got a rock from every house he visited. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIhwITwhSg)

For both these characters, it was a night of disappointments.
But in reality disappointment is no respecter of age. At some point of our lives, we would have suffered disappointment , great or small. It hurts when things do not go the way you have planned and hoped. I remember I tried seven times, year after year, to apply for a full doctoral scholarship. To say I was not sorely disappointed would be an understatement.
We would play the event over and over again in our minds, trying to make sense of it and trying to come to terms with it. We might recover quickly or we might wallow in the mire of frustration or blame.
However on a positive note, the very presence of disappointment suggests that this is something you care about so much that you would feel bad over it. But the more we deal with disappointment and learn from it, the closer we will get towards our goals and dreams. It has been said that disappointments leave us with the unpleasant task of crushing life’s lemons to extract anything to transform into lemonade.

I find that very true. We build up our strength, our character and our tenacity. We learn not to put all our eggs in one basket and formulate contingency plans. We alone know our true worth when we overcome setbacks to achieve greater things in life.
So back to Charlie Brown and Linus.
They were disappointed on Halloween but they were not defeated. Linus vowed he would wait again for the Great Pumpkin the next year. Viewers of the show were moved by Charlie Brown's repeated line of "I got a rock" and in the retrospective TV special "Happy Birthday, Charlie Brown", Charles Schulz said that when the programme was first aired, viewers all over the world sent bags and boxes of candy "just for Charlie Brown."

Source: The New Straits Times 23/10/2011 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-199139531.html

HUMBLE BOSSES WILL ALWAYS BE CHERISHED

October 16 being National Boss’s Day reminds me of ‘Working Girl’ starring Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford filmed in the 1980s. I like the film so I watched it not once but twice.

‘Working Girl’ is about a young girl starting out in the big bad working world and bosses.
Melanie wore sneakers as she took the train to her office. She then exchanged those sneakers for smart looking shoes once she reached her office.

Like Melanie, I was just starting out in my career path in the 80s and had to depend on the public transport for years. Since the university was situated on a hill, the bus stopped at a point on the highway opposite a pedestrian entrance.

I too wore sneakers for easy walking, dashed across the busy highway and climbed up 123 steps carved against the hill slope, pregnant and carrying an umbrella to shield me from the sun and rain. I knew the number of steps because it was more fun to count the steps then to climb moanfully. I also carried a non-designer bag which contained lecture notes and a pair of court shoes which replaced the sneakers before I stepped into the classroom and started to teach.

Russel H. Ewing (1885-1976) a British journalist said that while there are bosses who create fear, who think they know all and who blame others but never themselves there are also good bosses who recognise the individual’s worth, who make work interesting and who show concern. Insecure and mean bosses tear down their staff in private and in public and even misuse their positions to attain their own desires. I choose to remember only those bosses who showed me mutual respect and knew the meaning of a good boss-staff relationship.

I have worked under many bosses but only three stood out from my 27 years of service.

Boss No. 1 recognised the hard work of her staff. To me she was both a boss and a friend. Even when she was no longer the boss, she never failed to send me a Chinese New Year or a Christmas card. In between cards, she would send me occasional text messages – full of bite and charm- just to keep in touch.

Boss No. 2 was amiable and I knew I could walk into his office before 8 a.m. just to catch up with him on all things that mattered. His personality was such that one would feel as comfortable as talking to a good friend that could be respected and trusted. Whenever I return to Malaysia we still meet up for a cup of teh tarik.

Boss No.3 handled difficult issues with tact and decorum. He guided his staff when they erred and listened to their side of the argument as well. I enjoyed his leadership because being visionary, creative and artistic, he was not afraid to engage in aggressive branding of the department he was in-charge of. If anything, I saw in him an advisory figure who was sure of himself and who emphathised with his staff. He knew his staff’s assets and gave them opportunities to excel.

What made these bosses different?
The key word I believe is humility. Positions come and go. It is only when we are humble that we learn how to treat others right and to esteem others better than ourselves.

So I watched ‘Working Girl’ again three decades later, thanks to satellite television, and I still like it. Like Melanie, I have had my fair share of experiences of good bosses and bad bosses, of promises kept and promises unkept, of loyalty and of betrayal, of being recognised and of being used.

But like the theme song of the movie, ‘Let the River Run’, through it all, I have learnt to run on the water and go through the fog, to stand on a star and blaze a trail of desire through the darkening dawn.

Only to emerge strong.

SOURCE : THE NEW STRAITS TIMES OCT 9 , 2011 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-198503165.html

CUP OF IPOH COFFEE MADE MY DAY

Life was very much simpler when I could order either black or white coffee usually served in a cup and saucer and sometimes in a glass. If I wanted a takeaway, the coffee would be packed in a plastic bag with a straw tied to it.

Now coffee brands pride themselves on the different varieties of the coffee drink they can offer with prices that match the cost of their ingenuity, so to speak. So we look up at the signboard filled with fancy names for the humble coffee drink and struggle in our minds deciding whether we should order an Americano, a shot in the dark, a café au lait, a café breva, a café macchiato, an expresso or a café latte.

As if the list is not daunting enough, there is the frappe, the hammerhead, the madras filter coffee, the kopi Tubruk, the Melya, the Mocca, the Oliang and the Lungo. And if I wanted a takeaway, the coffee would come in a fancy paper or plastic cup with a lid. Sometimes there is a special holder too, so that the heat will not burn my hand.

I have not tasted most of these exotic drinks, preferring to stick to the familiar and regular cup and therefore will not attempt to expound on the exquisite aroma or how one is defined by the coffee she drinks. Instead, it is the enigmatic circumstances that surround me when I drink my favourite cuppa that leave the best memories.

If Shane West and Mandy Moore have A Walk To Remember, I certainly have A Cup to Remember, two great cups even.

The first great cup of coffee was drunk alfresco in a café around the corner of Thomas Street in Limerick. I was in between shopping for school books for my daughter and shopping for myself as a reward for shopping for school books for my daughter. So, I decided on a coffee and a cream bun as I listened to the maestro belting out classics like "'O sole mio" (the sun) which is a globally known Neapolitan song written in 1898. Although I did not understand a single word of the lyrics penned by Giovanni Capurro, the melody composed by Eduardo di Capua was breathtaking. I was not the only one soaking in the ambience. I could see the appreciative audience sipping their coffee very slowly to make it last as many songs as possible.

As we imagined ourselves somewhere in sunny Italy, we were thrust back into Ireland when the rain came. Like a magician the maestro dished out an umbrella and began his next song, Nessun Dorma (None Shall Sleep), so naturally, as if the weather did not affect him at all. That to me was professionalism. I could have sat there the whole day, but then again I could not drink that many cups of coffee.

The next great cup of coffee was drunk in a Chinese restaurant in Newbridge, County Kildare. We were on the way to Dublin airport to pick my daughter upon her return from Germany and we decided to make a turn off to Newbridge for some steamy hot rice and asian cuisine. There were a good number of restaurants to choose from but somehow we gravitated towards Kings Park Chinese and Thai Restaurant on the Main Street.

Every time we enter an Asian restaurant, we would try to guess where the proprietors come from by looking at their faces and listening to their accents. So far, we have correctly identified Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, Thais, and the list goes on. At Kings Park, I suspected that we were among Malaysians so I asked the young man who waited at our table where he was from.

‘Malaysia, Ipoh to be precise’ he said.

Every time someone mentions Malaysia, the effect would be electric. There was great camaraderie between us as we exchange light conversation about Malaysia and Ireland and I could see how his face lit up when he told me he was going back to Malaysia for a month’s holiday. We had a 3-course meal and coffee was to be served last. So I said, ‘Do you have Ipoh coffee?’ He smiled and said he would concoct something for me.

The next thing I knew was he brought me a tall glass of coffee with milk. I thought he was a true Malaysian at heart, very hospitable and he went out of the way to do something for a fellow Malaysian, both far away from home.

To me that was paradise. It was certainly a taste of Malaysia in Ireland. As we continued our journey to Dublin airport the taste of Ipoh coffee lingered on my lips.


SOURCE: THE NEW STRAITS TIMES 25 SEPT 2011 http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/157461228

SHEER JOY IN PLANTING OWN GREENS

I have just cooked a meal. Nothing out of the ordinary since I enjoy cooking but it is yet another milestone for me to savour the produce of my backyard. I have always thought it a gargantuan task to grow any vegetables lest harvest them since I have spent most of my life living in a city. But now with a humongous backyard, I felt that it would be a shame not to sow some life into it.

So began my adventure into planting seeds and bulbs. Emma O Dwyer, who conducts gardening classes at St Munchin’s Community Centre gave me valuable tips on how to prepare the soil, sow seeds, propagate cuttings and even make fertilizers out of nettles. Apparently the gooey mash is excellent fodder for the ground but the only snag is the rotting weed stinks. She is a great teacher, explaining everything in detail and never failing to answer even the simplest questions. Through all the sessions, I felt wonderful to be a student all over again.

For weeks, I would scout out slugs and snails in the dark of the night with a torchlight and dogged determination. With quite a number of disappointments given the weather and pests, I was blown away when I saw the heads of cabbages forming, the heavy tomatoes bursting out of the delicate stalks , beans appearing among tendrils and potatoes emerging from the soil. Most of all, it is the eating of food that is free from pesticides, plant growth regulators and genetically modified organisms that makes it all so meaningful. It may sound strange but home-grown food actually tastes sweeter than commercially produced ones.

To add protein to the dinner table, my brothers-in-law Martin and Gerard and my step sons Michael and Mark brought home pike and perch caught from the river near my house for the frying pan.

Not knowing what to do with the abundance of berries in the backyard, I immediately signed up for a workshop held at the Irish Seedsavers in Scariff on how to make jams and chutneys out of fruits and vegetables. Hilary Taylor showed us how to boil fruits and vegetables and how to bottle them so they would last. She was a natural and explained to us step-by-step on how it was done. After all the hard work of tilling the ground and minding the plants, I wanted to be sure that nothing was to go to waste. It was a delight to be in the company of like minds: a newbie among veterans.

I like the system here where preserving the environment takes precedence over most things. It is not uncommon to see bird feeders filled with nuts and seeds to attract wild birds. It comes as a surprise to me that most people actually know the names of the birds and the flowers in their vicinity. When I was in Malaysia, the names of wild birds remained in books for bird lovers and the names of flowers were the forte of nursery owners in Sungei Buloh. So lately, I have started to learn the names of the birds that visit the bird feeders and the names of the flowers and the shrubs too.

What I have embarked on is an amateurish route to sustainable living. But over here I have seen some groups of people who are into it full force. There are accountants and lawyers who have left their professions to till the land or to become craftsmen. Organic farming is also the craze and we even have organic salmon.

Another major factor of back-to-basics living involves that which no human can live without, water. We will be installing water butts which are plastic or oak drums for collecting rain water. With rain almost all year round in Ireland, this is a wonderful device. Most things are sold in do-it-yourself kits. The look of having to install anything is daunting but information is readily available here. There are very good regular gardening programmes over the national television station teaching us how to fix a water butt, protect potato plants from blight or build a barbeque pit in the garden.


What I started out as a hobby has also turned into a sense of pride. It is nice to walk down the street and meet neighbours or strangers who tell you that the window boxes of ruby red geraniums are beautiful or the baskets of yellow viola are breathtaking.

And they have not seen what is in my backyard yet.

SOURCE: THE NEW STRAITS TIMES 11 SEPT 2011 http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-197493061.html