Month: April 2024

A SPRING IN OUR STEP 

We landed in Geneva during its watch convention, meaning if it wasn’t Patek, it was Phillippe, and all the hotels were full. 

The room we got reminded me of Hong Kong, those rooms where you can’t fling a cat, that is if you were in a mind to fling a feline around, I suppose. 

It also did not have a bed. 

We realised it was up on the wall and had to pull those levers down to assemble a bed that ended inches away from a television screen showing an unshave, gun-toting Clint Eastwood snarling threats, in impeccable French, to a tattooed villain.  

“Mon Dieu,” exclaimed Rebecca and hastened to the front desk where she convinced a sympathetic lady to give us a nicer room. It had 9 channels in English too.  

But it was stifling with no air-conditioning.  The front desk was desolee but the air-con was only available in spring which was, apparently, tomorrow.  

We opened a window. Translation:  we retired at around 21 degrees and woke up, shivering, at 14 degrees. It was 6 degrees outside then.  

Rebecca was in Geneva on Apec-business, and I’d never been. We flew to Switzerland by way of Amsterdam where we caught up with Raisa, our daughter.  

Hannes took us to Keukenhof in Lisse the next day. It’s open once a year for eight weeks. One of the largest spring gardens in the world, it’s home to 7 million flowers (mainly tulips) over 80 acres of lovingly maintained parkland. 

We tip-toed through the tulips, and the hyacinths, daffodils, lilies and sakura. We were told that the larger tulips bloom only in mid- April. 

The Dutch know how to put on a show. The reds ranged from fire engine blazing to almost-burgundy. And I had no idea there were so many shades of pink, all the way from coral pink to cherry blossom – ok, Raisa read the labels.  

There’s something about a sun dappled park in crisp 16-degree weather. There must be because I saw a woman hugging a tree in seeming ecstasy. The tree itself seemed impassive but who knew? 

It all added up. The flowers, its sights and smells, the children, the dogs and a man selling ice-cream: it brings out the best in people. They smile at one another and, for a second, you can almost imagine that better world. 

The Swiss think it begins by the shores of Lake Geneva, one of the largest lakes in Europe and mostly in Switzerland except that 40% juts into France. 

A cold wind blew off its waters as we walked along the shore and marvelled at its beauty – no plastic or trash, only a clear, green blue body of deep water silhouetted against faraway mountains of blue, and framed against a postcard- perfect, snow-capped Mount Blanc. 

Our friends Sulyn and Azmil generously took us to Café de Paris for dinner. It was a legendary place, where Hemingway had supped many times. It was packed, that night and every night for the foreseeable future. 

I don’t know why.  

You are served immediately because everyone, even, presumably, Ernest, gets the same thing. Steak (sadly only tenderloin), salad, and chips. Your only choices are the meat’s “done-ness” and your drink. 

The ambrosial glue holding the meal together is, apparently, the butter sauce. It is, of course, a secret recipe but it is said Ernest swooned in delight and had to lean on the restorative benefits of a bottle of cognac to recover. 

Ordinary mortals need not fear though: the butter is, apparently, sold at a Village Grocer near you. 

ENDS

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE 

According to a poll that I’ve just concluded, the average person’s favourite mythical creature isn’t the phoenix, Tinkerbelle, the unicorn, or Hagrid.

It’s the honest politician. 

In Malaysia, they’re about as common as dragons. In fact, when a neighbouring ex-Minister of Transport was charged with accepting “gifts” like theatre and plane tickets worth almost S$600,000, the incredulous “what was he thinking?” sentiment from our local politicos wasn’tas much about the alleged dishonesty as its alleged scale. 

It was pure disbelief. “So little-ah?” 

That’s why we must be the only country where a former premier who stole more than Midas ever accumulated sees no irony in his appeal to allow him to serve out the rest of his sentence in the luxury of his well-appointed home. 

Now everyone can understand “a sense of entitlement.” 

It was a novel approach though, and it appealed to Donald Trump’s keen sense of justice and fair play. “Fair’s fair,” said The Donald who was a staunch conservative who believed, like Jibby and other staunch conservatives, that he deserved everything he’d stolen. 

You might say both George Bernard Shaw and Napoleon Bonaparte were prescient: they’d predicted the rise of someone like Trump way back when. 

Shaw was blunt. “He knows nothing but thinks he knows everything: that points clearly to a political career.”  Napoleon might just have been a shrewd observer of the human condition. In politics, he noted, “stupidity isn’t a handicap.”  

Forty-six years after his death, Shaw’s description of a future US President seems spot on. Meanwhile, Napoleon’s observation could explain the man’s tremendous popularity among the people. That is why, statistically speaking, half the American populace think the other half’s crazy.

And so, despite a reputation as a woman-assaulting, flag-waving, steak-inhaling, ozone depleting, seal clubbing, greenhouse gas-emitting, non-tax paying, serial lying, narcissistic troglodyte of the best sort, Mr Trump is a cinch to win the Republican nomination for the Presidency. 

And there is a very good chance he will go on to become the US’ next President. 

It might be said that the coming election is the incumbent Joe Biden’s one to lose. His “Sleepy Joe-out-to-lunch” style of governance has won him no plaudits and few favours.

In the context of previous presidential elections, it reminds me of the quip made by comedian Mort Sahl after the 1980 election: “Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed, he would have lost.” 

I suppose I should not comment on another country’s politics but it’s mostly out of fear. The US is the most powerful country on Earth with enough weaponry to destroy the world several times over – so an assessment of the man with his finger on the trigger seems appropriate. 

Then again, what do we Malaysians know? 

We’re the same ones who, in 2013, re-elected the world’s biggest kleptocrat. Some of us publicly deplore racial and religious rhetoric but privately condone, even applaud it. 

To quote Bob Hope, it even gives dirty politics a bad name. 

ENDS