Capt Yoshimoto:
Guthlac:
I wonder if they could be related. Should I hire a private detective?
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Lookalikes
Have any other readers of this blog noticed the uncanny similarity of my boy Guthlac and Captain Yoshimoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy's air arm?
Capt Yoshimoto:
Guthlac:
I wonder if they could be related. Should I hire a private detective?
Capt Yoshimoto:
Guthlac:
I wonder if they could be related. Should I hire a private detective?
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
The Great Indonesian Novel - 2
Continuing the ongoing series with This Earth of Badly-Raised Twilight. Chapter 2 - September 1906
Ho Li Kow put a Dutch record on his Dutch gramophone and took a sip of his Dutch beer.
How perfect life could have been had he but married a Dutch woman, he thought; but here he was - running his family's successful rice-lending business and already in the contention for the "Mr Exploitative Bastard" contest of the Dutch East Indies, to be sure - but married to a native woman.
As if on cue, his beautiful but cruelly mistreated and ignored native wife Raden Roro Royabot tottered painfully into the room.
"You sent for me, husband?" she asked, in the demure tones of one resigned to her terrible fate.
"No I didn't, but the plot exposition clearly demands your presence. And why are you tottering?"
"It is these clogs, lord. I cannot walk properly in them. Please stop making me dress like a Dutch woman."
"And you are bare-headed. I explicitly told you to wear a Dutch cap. And why haven't you borne me a child yet?"
Royabot looked at her clog-shod feet in dismay and confusion.
"I am sorry lord. I did not know the difference, lord. And in any case lord, that gag doesn't work in Javanese. And why would you want children who, after all, will be half-native and therefore disgust you?"
"It is necessary that we have two sons for the sake of contrast - an older evil one who will take after his father and be obsessed with European culture, and a younger, sensitive one who will side with you and through whose eyes we will see the events of the next few decades. And if we don't hurry up, he will be too young to attend the 1928 Youth Congress in Batavia, as Djakarta is currently called, where he would allow readers to see an epochal event in the history of the independence movement through the eyes of a sympathetic character. Now leave!"
As Royabot turned to leave, tears poured from her beautiful native eyes like chopped chilis into gado-gado sauce, to be ground by the pestel of loveless marriage into the stone mortar of European disregard for the feelings of native royalty, blended with the peanuts of political powerlessness and poured uncaringly over the steamed vegetables of cruelly oppressed indigenous cultures, before being tasted yet almost immediately discarded as being too spicy by an overweight British tourist in an overpriced cafe.
She thought longingly of the only man who had ever spoken kind words to her, Min, the simple village goat-carrier.
-o-o-o-o-
Far away in the village, Min - the simple village goat-carrier who nursed within him a hopeless passion for Royabot - had put down his last goat of the day when he heard the crash of a badly-driven horse-drawn dokar colliding with a carelessly placed house. He sprang up to help, but already the poor, wizzened old dokar driver was looking in despair at the damage.
"Wah - I am but a poor old man whose hunger and sickness are a crude metaphor for the plight of the peasantry labouring under an uncaring colonial government. And look at my horse - if either of us knew anything about bread, it would put us in mind of a toast-rack because I cannot afford food for it!"
"But Pak" said Min soothingly, "I am but a poor village goat-carrier and know nothing about these things, but surely horses eat grass, and if you were to let the horse graze on the grass growing freely at the side of the road, it would be healthier and stronger; then you could take more passengers in a day and have more money for food for yourself."
"Wah, Min - you are so clever. We should swap places - you can be the dokar driver and I will carry goats as much as I am able. For your cleverness, you deserve this."
Ho Li Kow put a Dutch record on his Dutch gramophone and took a sip of his Dutch beer.
How perfect life could have been had he but married a Dutch woman, he thought; but here he was - running his family's successful rice-lending business and already in the contention for the "Mr Exploitative Bastard" contest of the Dutch East Indies, to be sure - but married to a native woman.
As if on cue, his beautiful but cruelly mistreated and ignored native wife Raden Roro Royabot tottered painfully into the room.
"You sent for me, husband?" she asked, in the demure tones of one resigned to her terrible fate.
"No I didn't, but the plot exposition clearly demands your presence. And why are you tottering?"
"It is these clogs, lord. I cannot walk properly in them. Please stop making me dress like a Dutch woman."
"And you are bare-headed. I explicitly told you to wear a Dutch cap. And why haven't you borne me a child yet?"
Royabot looked at her clog-shod feet in dismay and confusion.
"I am sorry lord. I did not know the difference, lord. And in any case lord, that gag doesn't work in Javanese. And why would you want children who, after all, will be half-native and therefore disgust you?"
"It is necessary that we have two sons for the sake of contrast - an older evil one who will take after his father and be obsessed with European culture, and a younger, sensitive one who will side with you and through whose eyes we will see the events of the next few decades. And if we don't hurry up, he will be too young to attend the 1928 Youth Congress in Batavia, as Djakarta is currently called, where he would allow readers to see an epochal event in the history of the independence movement through the eyes of a sympathetic character. Now leave!"
As Royabot turned to leave, tears poured from her beautiful native eyes like chopped chilis into gado-gado sauce, to be ground by the pestel of loveless marriage into the stone mortar of European disregard for the feelings of native royalty, blended with the peanuts of political powerlessness and poured uncaringly over the steamed vegetables of cruelly oppressed indigenous cultures, before being tasted yet almost immediately discarded as being too spicy by an overweight British tourist in an overpriced cafe.
She thought longingly of the only man who had ever spoken kind words to her, Min, the simple village goat-carrier.
-o-o-o-o-
Far away in the village, Min - the simple village goat-carrier who nursed within him a hopeless passion for Royabot - had put down his last goat of the day when he heard the crash of a badly-driven horse-drawn dokar colliding with a carelessly placed house. He sprang up to help, but already the poor, wizzened old dokar driver was looking in despair at the damage.
"Wah - I am but a poor old man whose hunger and sickness are a crude metaphor for the plight of the peasantry labouring under an uncaring colonial government. And look at my horse - if either of us knew anything about bread, it would put us in mind of a toast-rack because I cannot afford food for it!"
"But Pak" said Min soothingly, "I am but a poor village goat-carrier and know nothing about these things, but surely horses eat grass, and if you were to let the horse graze on the grass growing freely at the side of the road, it would be healthier and stronger; then you could take more passengers in a day and have more money for food for yourself."
"Wah, Min - you are so clever. We should swap places - you can be the dokar driver and I will carry goats as much as I am able. For your cleverness, you deserve this."
Sunday, 13 September 2009
That Malaysia-Indonesia spat - a bluffer's guide
As Malaysia and Indonesia get into yet another diplomatic spat over cultural identity, many analysts across the region are asking the question "F***ing Malaysians -what are they like, eh?"
So in the ever-helpful spirit regular readers have come to know and roll their eyes at, Last Django is pleased to present an in-depth analysis of the issue:
Malaysia and Indonesia are two countries sharing a common language, and are thus destined to engage in endless low-level nastiness as a matter of course.
Malaysians see Indonesians as a bunch of chippy peasants incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery. Indonesians regard Malaysians as a bunch of stuck-up bastards with no culture of their own. Malaysians frequently employ semi-literate Indonesian peasant girls as housemaids and a small minority mistreat them cruelly. The two countries are also in dispute over the Amabalat sea area and its underlying oilfield. Malaysia has previously claimed the Reog folk dance and the popular song "Rasa Sayang" as Malaysian (both are Indonesian in origin). Every time there is a dispute, EVERY bone of contention gets dragged up and hurled violently at the other side.
This time round, the Discovery Channnel (Asia) - which has no connection with the Malaysian government - put together a cut-n-paste ad for a series called "Enigmatic Malaysia" which featured a Balinese pendet dancer.
Cue angry, stone-throwing mob outside Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta - "OI! YOU MALAYSIAN BASTARDS! CLAIMING OUR CULTURE AS YOUR OWN AGAIN? F*** OFF! AND PISS OFF OUT OF AMBALAT. AND GIVE OUR HOUSEMAIDS A DECENT MINIMUM WAGE! AND DON'T GET US STARTED ON MANOHARA ODELIA PINOT..."
When interviewed in a corner of SOAS bar, Indonesia expert Dr Terry McCassey said "You have to remember them Malaysians is thieving gits, bor. National Flag? British East India Company ensign with an extra bit sewn on. National Anthem? Indonesian popular song with the words changed. Language? Indonesian as spoken by someone going over a cattle grid in a sled. Top entertainer Mr P. Ramlee? Indonesian, from Sumatra. Largest city? Declared 'F*** this for a game of skittles, we're declaring independence!' in 1965 and hasn't looked back since. Manages to annoy all its neighbours and exports terrorists. Tastiest birds? Chinese - look at that Michelle Yeoh, eh? Eh? And now they're claiming the Balinese pendet dance as Malaysian."
In response, Malaysian cultural attache Mr Muhammad "Muhammad" Muhammad struck Dr McCassey forcibly on the head with a carved Iban rice-mortar. Dr McCassey was heard to murmur "That's Indonesian too, bangsat!" before passing out in pool of Filipino beer.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
A once-in-a-lifetime experience!
When we announced to Djangolina that this year's holiday would be in Indonesia (again), we offered her by way of consolation the chance to propose one holiday visit or activity of her own choosing. She had been hinting for ages that she really wanted to swim with dolphins, so we were unsurprised to hear that as her choice. And so we duly booked a long weekend in Bali (the next island over from where we were going anyway) at a hotel and wildlife park which has its own dolphin pools and, indeed, offers swimming with dolphins as its main draw.
For some reason, swimming with dolphins is one of those things that keeps cropping up on various lists of "things to do before you die". It is, as they say, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When you think about it, the phrase "a once-in-a-lifetime experience" implies something that you wouldn't want to do for a second time. And this is pretty much what swimming with dolphins is.
The hotel's brochure chooses its words carefully, always referring to "the dolphins playing with you". And within seconds of entering the pool, it became clear why. The dolphins do play with you. They use you as the ball. Furthermore, the two dolphins involved are young male rescue dolphins previously abused by a cruel circus owner (allegedly). An honest description would be "swimming with psychologically disturbed teenaged boy dolphins", but for PR reasons they keep these facts as part of the small print.
The nearest I can get to describing it in words is this: Imagine donning a lifejacket, climbing into a swimming-pool full of salt water and then being batted about with giant rubbery sausages the size of pillar-boxes. That's what swimming with dolphins is like. Glad I did it once, wouldn't want to go there again.
And that set me to thinking of a few things I've done once in my life which I wouldn't want to repeat ever:
1) Having bacillary dysentery
2) Having a full-blown unmedicated asthma attack
3) Spraining my finger
4) Waiting on Sheffield station for 4 hours
5) Being hit from behind while stationary by a Ford Sierra driven by a total plonker who failed to notice the red light because they were on a mobile phone at the time
6) Sitting an O-level German exam
7) Being trapped in a corner of a pub by an obsessive New-Age nutter who "recognised me" as a fellow Atlantean
8) Going down the 'Boa Constrictor' waterslide at Coral Reef pool the wrong way up
9) Falling off a cliff
10) Watching a really piss-poor B movie called "Drug Smugglers" on video at full volume on an Indonesian overnight bus
In the interests of starting another blogosphere meme, I hereby tag Boyo, Gadjo, Scarlet, Inkspot and Daphne to produce their own similar lists.
For some reason, swimming with dolphins is one of those things that keeps cropping up on various lists of "things to do before you die". It is, as they say, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When you think about it, the phrase "a once-in-a-lifetime experience" implies something that you wouldn't want to do for a second time. And this is pretty much what swimming with dolphins is.
The hotel's brochure chooses its words carefully, always referring to "the dolphins playing with you". And within seconds of entering the pool, it became clear why. The dolphins do play with you. They use you as the ball. Furthermore, the two dolphins involved are young male rescue dolphins previously abused by a cruel circus owner (allegedly). An honest description would be "swimming with psychologically disturbed teenaged boy dolphins", but for PR reasons they keep these facts as part of the small print.
The nearest I can get to describing it in words is this: Imagine donning a lifejacket, climbing into a swimming-pool full of salt water and then being batted about with giant rubbery sausages the size of pillar-boxes. That's what swimming with dolphins is like. Glad I did it once, wouldn't want to go there again.
And that set me to thinking of a few things I've done once in my life which I wouldn't want to repeat ever:
1) Having bacillary dysentery
2) Having a full-blown unmedicated asthma attack
3) Spraining my finger
4) Waiting on Sheffield station for 4 hours
5) Being hit from behind while stationary by a Ford Sierra driven by a total plonker who failed to notice the red light because they were on a mobile phone at the time
6) Sitting an O-level German exam
7) Being trapped in a corner of a pub by an obsessive New-Age nutter who "recognised me" as a fellow Atlantean
8) Going down the 'Boa Constrictor' waterslide at Coral Reef pool the wrong way up
9) Falling off a cliff
10) Watching a really piss-poor B movie called "Drug Smugglers" on video at full volume on an Indonesian overnight bus
In the interests of starting another blogosphere meme, I hereby tag Boyo, Gadjo, Scarlet, Inkspot and Daphne to produce their own similar lists.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
The Great Indonesian Novel
For the few of you out there who haven't, at some point in your past, been compelled to read the Great Indonesian Novels of Abdoel Moeis, Mochtar Lubis and Pramoedya Anantar Toer, I now offer you the chance to read one single, compact Great Indonesian Novel as a series of easy to follow (or indeed easy to ignore) blog postings. This work - to be entitled "This Earth of Badly-Raised Twilight" - will encapsulate the entirety of modern Indonesian literature, and add some sorely needed gags.
Chapter 1 - May 1905
Ho Li Kow lit his Dutch pipe with a Dutch match, shook the match out, and blew out a cloud of Dutch tobacco smoke. He didn't want to be here at home; he would far rather have been back at the Dutch school, learning Dutch like a modern, civilised man should.
And now his parents were compelling him to marry a native woman. The shame of it! He had always dreamed of marrying one of the Dutch women whose pictures he'd seen in his Dutch magazines. His ideal wife would be one of them, not brown-skinned with splayed feet thrust into peasant sandals, no; she would wear proper European leather boots - also fishnet stockings, latex corset, fluffy handcuffs...
His reverie was interrupted rudely as his mother stormed into the room. He pulled himself together and placed his hat before his groin to conceal his thoughts.
"She is here, Number One Son. You will do the right thing by your family and marry her!"
"But mother - she is a native."
"She is minor royalty. Her family have fallen on hard times. By marrying her we will gain the privileges of royalty."
"And what privileges do native royalty have, mother?"
"Not having their houses burnt down every time there is a riot, idiot boy. Your father may be the second-biggest rice lender in the province, but people still hate us because we are Chinese. You will marry the girl, and you will like it."
Before he could answer, the bride that had been chosen for him walked demurely into the room and knelt before him, trembling slightly. Raden Roro Royabot was but 15 years old, and beautiful as only a native woman could be in this literary genre. In contrast to the pretentious Dutch furniture and European-style clothes of her prospective husband's rich Chinese family , she wore a simple kain panjang and kebaya, her hair arranged in a plain bun and a frangipane behind her ear.
Ho Li Kow looked her up and down dispassionately for what seemed like an age.
"Why do you have a cake behind your ear?"
"I beg your pardon, Lord?"
"You have a frangipane behind your ear. Shouldn't that be a frangipani?"
She lowered her beautiful, dark eyes to the floor in dismay and confusion.
"I am sorry Lord. I did not know the difference Lord. I have only had 10 minutes education, and that mostly at the hands of dyslexic Japanese biker nuns. And in case Lord, that joke doesn't work in Javanese."
"TEN MINUTES?" Li Kow's mother's screech startled them both. "SO SHE IS AN EDUCATED WOMAN! SHE WILL BRING NOTHING BUT TROUBLE!"
Tears began to well up in Royabot's eyes. She bit her lip, determined not to cry. She remembered what her father had told her: "As number 14 daughter, your role in the plot is to be sold to an uncaring husband to pay off our debts in a crude and obvious allegory of colonial economic exploitation. And above all don't cry - if you shed a tear in the rice-lender's house we will be liable for tear-tax which we cannot pay, and we'll have to offer another of your young brothers to Mr Piedovijl in the Provincial Administration in lieu. And we need all your brothers to hold up the roof because we can't afford walls!"
Li Kow put his hands on his hips, looked off to one side and laughed harshly in a way that suggested a cameo role for a superannuated Hong Kong action star in the film adaptation.
"Very well mother - the path of duty is clear. I will marry her, but then mistreat and ignore her in an ironic parallel to the Dutch colonial government's treatment of native people."
Royabot thought longingly of the only man who had ever been kind to her - Min, the simple village goat-carrier. Her tears fell thick and fast now, unheedingly, like chocolate sprinkles onto a kue bandung; only to be smothered in the condensed milk of Chinese pretention, hidden by the chopped nuts of economic necessity and finally folded into the pancake of historical oblivion and scoffed uncaringly by an overweight British tourist on the rain-soaked, night-time streets of Kota Baru. It was all so hideously unfair, just like Dutch rule...
[to be continued]
Chapter 1 - May 1905
Ho Li Kow lit his Dutch pipe with a Dutch match, shook the match out, and blew out a cloud of Dutch tobacco smoke. He didn't want to be here at home; he would far rather have been back at the Dutch school, learning Dutch like a modern, civilised man should.
And now his parents were compelling him to marry a native woman. The shame of it! He had always dreamed of marrying one of the Dutch women whose pictures he'd seen in his Dutch magazines. His ideal wife would be one of them, not brown-skinned with splayed feet thrust into peasant sandals, no; she would wear proper European leather boots - also fishnet stockings, latex corset, fluffy handcuffs...
His reverie was interrupted rudely as his mother stormed into the room. He pulled himself together and placed his hat before his groin to conceal his thoughts.
"She is here, Number One Son. You will do the right thing by your family and marry her!"
"But mother - she is a native."
"She is minor royalty. Her family have fallen on hard times. By marrying her we will gain the privileges of royalty."
"And what privileges do native royalty have, mother?"
"Not having their houses burnt down every time there is a riot, idiot boy. Your father may be the second-biggest rice lender in the province, but people still hate us because we are Chinese. You will marry the girl, and you will like it."
Before he could answer, the bride that had been chosen for him walked demurely into the room and knelt before him, trembling slightly. Raden Roro Royabot was but 15 years old, and beautiful as only a native woman could be in this literary genre. In contrast to the pretentious Dutch furniture and European-style clothes of her prospective husband's rich Chinese family , she wore a simple kain panjang and kebaya, her hair arranged in a plain bun and a frangipane behind her ear.
Ho Li Kow looked her up and down dispassionately for what seemed like an age.
"Why do you have a cake behind your ear?"
"I beg your pardon, Lord?"
"You have a frangipane behind your ear. Shouldn't that be a frangipani?"
She lowered her beautiful, dark eyes to the floor in dismay and confusion.
"I am sorry Lord. I did not know the difference Lord. I have only had 10 minutes education, and that mostly at the hands of dyslexic Japanese biker nuns. And in case Lord, that joke doesn't work in Javanese."
"TEN MINUTES?" Li Kow's mother's screech startled them both. "SO SHE IS AN EDUCATED WOMAN! SHE WILL BRING NOTHING BUT TROUBLE!"
Tears began to well up in Royabot's eyes. She bit her lip, determined not to cry. She remembered what her father had told her: "As number 14 daughter, your role in the plot is to be sold to an uncaring husband to pay off our debts in a crude and obvious allegory of colonial economic exploitation. And above all don't cry - if you shed a tear in the rice-lender's house we will be liable for tear-tax which we cannot pay, and we'll have to offer another of your young brothers to Mr Piedovijl in the Provincial Administration in lieu. And we need all your brothers to hold up the roof because we can't afford walls!"
Li Kow put his hands on his hips, looked off to one side and laughed harshly in a way that suggested a cameo role for a superannuated Hong Kong action star in the film adaptation.
"Very well mother - the path of duty is clear. I will marry her, but then mistreat and ignore her in an ironic parallel to the Dutch colonial government's treatment of native people."
Royabot thought longingly of the only man who had ever been kind to her - Min, the simple village goat-carrier. Her tears fell thick and fast now, unheedingly, like chocolate sprinkles onto a kue bandung; only to be smothered in the condensed milk of Chinese pretention, hidden by the chopped nuts of economic necessity and finally folded into the pancake of historical oblivion and scoffed uncaringly by an overweight British tourist on the rain-soaked, night-time streets of Kota Baru. It was all so hideously unfair, just like Dutch rule...
[to be continued]
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Back from my little jaunt
Well, I'm back. Anything interesting happened while I was away?
We've been on the once-every-two-or-three-years trip to Indonesia to pay respects to Mrs Byard's extensive family. Young Guthlac met his relatives for the first time and is now going through attention withdrawal at only having his parents, big sister, neighbours, child-minder and grandparents cooing over him. Djangolina has acquired a Chinese name and had her ears pierced, and we got to do some apparently quite desirable holiday things, of which more anon in future blog postings. So much to blog, such rubbish internet connections...
The soundtrack to the holiday was Indonesian pop phenomenon Mbah Surip, the reggae-singing tramp. Sadly, after decades as a street busker - often living rough - Surip achieved belated stardom this year and then died suddenly at the age of 60.
We've been on the once-every-two-or-three-years trip to Indonesia to pay respects to Mrs Byard's extensive family. Young Guthlac met his relatives for the first time and is now going through attention withdrawal at only having his parents, big sister, neighbours, child-minder and grandparents cooing over him. Djangolina has acquired a Chinese name and had her ears pierced, and we got to do some apparently quite desirable holiday things, of which more anon in future blog postings. So much to blog, such rubbish internet connections...
The soundtrack to the holiday was Indonesian pop phenomenon Mbah Surip, the reggae-singing tramp. Sadly, after decades as a street busker - often living rough - Surip achieved belated stardom this year and then died suddenly at the age of 60.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Swine flu. Have I had it?
This may sound like an appallingly stupid question, but it's absolutely genuine. I have just had three days of lethargy, a sore throat, mild diarrhoea, a high temperature and feeling generally "bleeeeeeeeeeeeeugh", but having been advised by the NHS phone types not to see a doctor or indeed go out at all, I have no professional diagnosis.
It could have been "ordinary" flu (although I've never had flu in August before). Then again, it could have been swine flu - but can you recover from a deadly global pandemic disease within 72 hours? That strikes me as an unreasonably short time to get over something that is potentially so serious. Was I just panicking and had three days of psychosomatic man-flu because my work colleagues were going down with similar symptomns left, right and centre? Is there a different, less serious viral infection going unnoticed because swine flu is getting all the attention?
If I'm lucky, I've had swine flu, and will therefore now be immune for a relatively small amount of trouble and discomfort. If I'm unlucky, I'm still ill and they'll prevent me from flying tomorrow (I'm supposed to be off to Indonesia to be reunited with my family, who've been there for three weeks already).
On a lighter note - a neutron goes into a pub, and says to the barman "How much for a pint of bitter?" and the barman says "For you, no charge."
The late, great Jimmy Edwards always recommended wearing squeaky shoes for doing stand-up comedy, so that you don't have to walk offstage in absolute silence...
It could have been "ordinary" flu (although I've never had flu in August before). Then again, it could have been swine flu - but can you recover from a deadly global pandemic disease within 72 hours? That strikes me as an unreasonably short time to get over something that is potentially so serious. Was I just panicking and had three days of psychosomatic man-flu because my work colleagues were going down with similar symptomns left, right and centre? Is there a different, less serious viral infection going unnoticed because swine flu is getting all the attention?
If I'm lucky, I've had swine flu, and will therefore now be immune for a relatively small amount of trouble and discomfort. If I'm unlucky, I'm still ill and they'll prevent me from flying tomorrow (I'm supposed to be off to Indonesia to be reunited with my family, who've been there for three weeks already).
On a lighter note - a neutron goes into a pub, and says to the barman "How much for a pint of bitter?" and the barman says "For you, no charge."
The late, great Jimmy Edwards always recommended wearing squeaky shoes for doing stand-up comedy, so that you don't have to walk offstage in absolute silence...
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