GOING GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

I am about to take my final voyage, a great leap in the dark. – Philosopher Thomas Hobbes

The military has sought to glorify it, poets and lovers have romanticised it, and science has attempted to explain it. 

But it’s out there, the unmentionable that remains forever inexplicable. It’s the ultimate final frontier, a debt we are all owed. And it is an enduring irony that its cause is birth itself. 

We are, of course, talking of death. 

It has been described in myriad fashion, the best of which must surely belong to the French. They described an orgasm as la petite mort (the little death). The expression describes the weakening or loss of consciousness following climax. 

If that’s how it goes, methinks everyone will be for it. 

Woody Allen thought the same way. “Sex is like death,” agreed the American film-maker, “only after death, you don’t feel like a pizza.”

You could tell US actor George Gobel took his hard luck stories to the limit: “I’m the kind of guy who’ll have nothing all my life and then they’ll discover oil while they’re digging my grave.” 

Malaysian politicians should take note of Benjamin Franklin’s advice: “Death takes no bribes.” Actor Frank Dane must have seriously disliked politicians because he  thought the death of any politician should be listed under ‘Public Improvements.”

Ruminating on people who’d passed away, actor Bill Murray mused: “A few decades ago, we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Hope, no Cash and no Jobs; please don’t let Kevin Bacon die!” 

The strangest final words by anyone have to belong to Australian pilot Frederick Valentich. In 1978, he reported to Air Traffic Control he was “being pursued” by a purported Unidentified Flying Object. His last words sounded scared: “It is hovering, and it is not an aircraft.”

Neither Valentich nor his plane were ever found.

The American author William Saroyan was quizzical on his deathbed: “Everybody has to die but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.”  

Terry Keith, the founding member of the band Chicago didn’t know it was to be his last words when he reassured his girlfriend about the gun he was cleaning; “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” 

Apparently, you should also never say never. Consider the English statesman Lord Palmerston who felt outraged after his doctor said his heart was so weak he could go anytime: “Die? My dear Doctor, that’s the last thing I shall do.” 

It was the last thing he did. 

Scriptwriter Stan Laurel’s bark could never be effected: “If anyone cries at my funeral, I’ll never speak to him again.”  

I’m not sure who said this, but it sure conveys a whole host of emotions. “I want to die like my grandfather, peacefully in his sleep, not like the other screaming and panicked passengers in his car.” 

Oscar Wilde was witty right to the end. His last words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either they go or I do.” 

Surprisingly, so was convicted murderer James French, albeit in macabre fashion. While being led to the electric chair, the convict yelled out to the assembled press: “Hey fellas. I’ve got a headline for your paper tomorrow. “French Fries!”

Peter Pan called it the “next, great adventure.” But what has fascinated mankind throughout the ages is its ineffable mystery: the knowledge that must lie out there. 

Why would Steve Jobs have muttered what he did when he was about to pass? Ministering to him as he lay on his deathbed, Jobs’ sister distinctly heard her brother breathe: “Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow.”

I wonder what he realised.

ENDS

TRUST BUT VERIFY

Going to war over religion is basically just killing people over who has the better imaginary friend – comedian Richard Jeri 

I studied history in high school and took the story of the Malacca Sultanate for granted. That included the Sultan’s four brave hulubalang (warriors) led by the redoubtable Hang Tuah. 

In my adulthood, all sorts of new theories have emerged. For starters, it was posited the four were Chinese sent by the then-Emperor to protect the Princess: then it was said they were eunuchs, the better not to be tempted by the fair Princess during the long voyage to Malacca. Finally, Khoo Kay Kim, an Emeritus Professor of History no less, dismissed all these theories as bunk and stated the four were myths, nothing more and nothing less.

That is to say they only exist in the minds of wishful-thinking, kris-wielding, slogan chanting, right-to-discriminate-believing, and card-carrying members of the United Malays National Organisation. 

That’s belief for you. One day, you’re brought up to trust George Washington never told a lie; the next you’re grown up, exposed to Donald Trump and the belief gets finessed to Farmer George never lied, stole or cheated unnecessarily.

Richard Dawkins is a militant atheist. The author of The God Delusion gets annoyed or impatient with the “deluded” people who believe in an omnipotent,  omnipresent and omniscient Power, a Creator, if you like. He thinks that’s moronic and, what’s more, believes it with the certitude of a Flat Earther. 

To say Mr Dawkins is dogmatic is to understate things considerably. To him, an absurdity would be a belief or a finding that is manifestly at odds with his opinion. He’s more in the mould of Sam Goldwyn: “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

When interviewed by Piers Morgan on British television and asked what he thought was waiting for us post-death, he replied famously: “Blind, pitiless indifference.”

In short, nothing. 

He was talking about the unknowable so he secretly must have hoped, when his time came, that the Lord would do nothing to disturb his disbelief.  

He should have been prudent like Bob Hope’s reason for doing benefits for all religions: “I’d hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.” 

When it comes to the crunch, however, God is alive and well. So long as there are wars anyway. Why do you think there are sayings like, “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

When it comes down to it, the debate could be much ado about nothing. Or, as Woody Allen put it: “To you, I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.” 

Donald Trump hated any opposition, but he especially hated the liberals. They sometimes felt unworthy of their possessions, but he firmly believed he deserved everything he’d stolen. 

He also thought Thomas Carlyle – “A lie cannot live” – was a wimp: he clearly didn’t know how to lie with aplomb. 

Finally, like Dorothy Parker, he didn’t care what was written about him as long as it wasn’t true.   

If he’s not careful, the Donald’s economic use of the truth could follow him to posterity.

It actually happened to one lawyer: his wife must have wanted the world to know his true nature because his tombstone gave it away.

Sleep Master John Gill; By lies when alive, this attorney did thrive, And now that he’s dead, he lies still.

ENDS

ALWAYS TAKE THE WEATHER WITH YOU 

The world is full of strange phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of science or logic. Hadi Awang is only one example

It’s cool this morning. In fact, the Kiara hills outside our apartment are cloaked in mist. 

OK, Siri says it’s a 28-degree morning and accounting for winds, a person accustomed to daily 32-degree swelters might consider it a chilly day.  

On mornings like this back when I was working, I used to wish it was a holiday. It’s grounded in science too: bodies in motion tend to remain in motion while bodies at rest – on a cool morning no less – tend to remain in bed. 

OK, I digress but if you think I’m exaggerating about the chill, three days of this weather in Singapore is, officially, “sweater weather,” ergo  the prudent make a beeline towards Uniqlo where long lines of palm-blowing shoppers have already gathered.

My daughter, Raisa, wishes Malaysia was cooler. 

Although born and bred here, she’s been living in Europe for over a decade, and it shows. Beads of sweat pop out on her forehead the minute she steps outside KL’s airport. It necessitates a mighty effort from the car’s air conditioning to reach a sufficiently Artic equilibrium to satisfy her. 

But she snaps back quickly and is acclimatised in no time at all. I suppose we all possess it to some degree. 

Example: Singapore is far more humid than Malaysia on account of it being an island, but we rarely sweat even when we walk. That’s unlike most tourists who sweat profusely and very obviously. 

In fairness, they might enjoy it. They would if they were, say, from Alaska where, because of climate change, the winters have become so cold even the polar bears are holding out for fur coats.

It’s interesting to observe things from another perspective. The English husband of my cousin visited our place the first time he visited Malaysia. A downpour ensued and he seemed fascinated by its severity. 

Then he walked into the deluge, and I was surprised to see him grinning, “It’s warm,” he said, delighted. He had the same reaction when he plunged into the sea off Langkawi. 

An American friend who’s been in Malaysia for over forty years once told me that he could no longer abide the cold, and he couldn’t think of living anywhere else. I knew exactly what he meant, and I share his sentiments.

I was in my 30s when I first went abroad for higher studies. It can get very frigid in New York, but it wasn’t so much the cold that bothered me.  It was the limited light.

Trudging to classes in the cold and dark at 4 in the afternoon is a grim prospect at the best of times. One suspects that man, like all life about him, not only needs the sun, he craves the sun. 

And yet, he is admirable because he has a tremendous ability to adapt. Consider the person who lives happily in Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun, but where entire months go by in darkness.   

My daughter says she prefers the cold of Amsterdam.  So does my brother who lives in an even colder place, Connecticut. After Hurricane Sandy lashed America’s northeast, he sent me photos of his backyard. The snow had piled up to the top of his garage. 

Shiver Me Timbers! 

Now we might say we don’t want that but I remember most of my US classmates either gave me pitying looks or looked aghast when I said we had no seasons in Malaysia.  

They need the changes. “If (the weather) didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation here,” noted journalist Frank ‘Kim’ Hubbard by way of explanation.

It’s as good a reason as any.

ENDS

GOING BY THE BOOK 

For those of you who don’t know, Jeffrey Dahmer was the complete psychopath. Like Hannibal Lecter, he often dined on his victims. 

He was finally murdered by a fellow inmate in a US prison, which you might say was his just desserts. But if he ever wrote a book, it would probably be titled The Body Shop. 

OK, I made that up, but the following books are the real thing.  

David Benatar must have been a real misanthrope because he sounds like he really dreads life. His book is titled Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Avery Monson seems equally miserable because his is titled All My Friends Are Dead.

Meanwhile, Yoga Pants, Minivans and Selfies might give Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance a run for its money where book titles coming out of left field are concerned. 

And what would the Vatican have made of Christopher’s Moore’s Lamb?

According to the book’s sub-title, it’s the Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. It’s a wry, often moving, take on Jesus’s lost years. It went on to become a serious best seller. 

The American Association of Patriots has actually come out with How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety, while Judy Sheindlin seems embittered about something: Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever. 

673126 – presumably his inmate number – is recruiting with How to Be a Drug Dealer, while Robert Rankin has the interestingly-titled Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls. Rankin has also got the killer Nostradamus Ate My Hamster and the sinisterly-named The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse.

Meanwhile, Paul Photenhauer seems to have a fixation with sperm. His two books are, respectively, Natural Harvest (a collection of semen-based recipes) and Semenology: A Semen Bartender’s Handbook. 

It may be best to avoid his parties. 

Ann Druffel has some practical advice – How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction – while Marilyn Schwartz stresses the importance of a girl’s choice of sorority – A Southern Belle Primer: Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa. Kappa, Gamma.  

Dr Stephen Larkin PhD has some surprisingly risqué advice: Beat Your Way to the Top – Masturbation as a Technique for Business Success.  

David Sedaris must have had Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind when he wrote Me Talk Pretty One Day. 

And no, it wasn’t Donald Trump who wrote Anyone Can Be Cool…But Awesome Takes Practice. It was Lorraine Peterson.

Apparently, anyone can do it. Goblin-proofing One’s Chicken Coop and Gnome-proofing Your Garden are both books by Reginald Berkeley. 

B Koz has a thing about being masculine. His books include The Manly Art of Knitting and 50 Ways to Use Feminine Hygiene Products in a Manly Manner. 

Theo Lorenz clearly has issues. Consider his Unicorns Are Jerks. 

Two women seem to have a thing about balls. One, Melissa Haynes, also has a death wish – Learning to Play With a Lion’s Testicles. The other, Mary Pierce thinks castration is the way forward – Goodbye Testicles.

Matthew Inman has some tips for pet owners in How To Tell If Your Cat is Plotting To Kill You, while psychiatrist Michael Bennett claims to have the answer to all problems – F@ck Feelings: One Shrink’s Practical Advice for Managing All Life’s Impossible Problems. 

And there you have it. 

ENDS

SCHOOLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUNDS 

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance – Bok’s Law, a spin-off of Murphy’s. 

“What would you like Normie?”

Norm Peterson: “A reason to live. Give me another beer.”

As the wise- cracking, multi-chinned character in the 1980s American situation- comedy Cheers, Norman Peterson had few peers when it came to beer. 

One man’s beer is, alas, another man’s fear. And in the case of the Islamic Party of Malaysia, or Pas in Malay, it’s more like downright revulsion. Talk of a gale over ale. Now, even fund-raising for a Chinese school has become an issue!  

OK, it has to be conceded that it wasn’t presented in the best light. PAS got hot and bothered over a picture of a deputy minister accepting a RM3 million mock cheque displaying a beer logo at a fund-raising event for a Chinese school.  

So it wasn’t Time for a Tiger. But a donation is a donation. And education is an expensive business. That’s why there are sayings like “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” 

Vernacular schools in Malaysia – Mandarin and Tamil language schools – aren’t wholly funded by the government but receive grants that match the money they raise by themselves. 

In addition, there are, at least, 82 “independent” Chinese secondary schools that must raise funds wholly by themselves. 

That they have done so, since independence in 1957, is a testament to the importance the Chinese community places on education. 

Nor are these schools short on basic infrastructure. Indeed, many of them are cleaner and better equipped than their government counterparts. 

Which is why Chinese vernacular schools have developed a reputation for scholastic excellence, especially in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. It’s also why almost 20% of its present-day students aren’t Chinese. 

All these presupposes a pipeline of serious funding that isn’t allowed to run dry. And all donations are welcome, apparently. 

Over 10 years ago, I did a story about one such pipeline that assembled guilds and some of the country’s biggest tycoons. The money it raised would go into a trust that would flow in perpetuity towards vernacular education. 

I was invited to the dinner to celebrate its successful launch. The guests included some of the biggest magnates in the country including people from the gaming and entertainment industry. 

And why not? Education is increasingly getting expensive. The Islamic Party should note that 15% of national sports – from facilities and coaches to athletes and training – is funded by betting company Sports Toto, a legacy from its deal with the government after it was privatised in 1984.

Will Pas, or anyone else, make a song and dance about that?  It’s for a good cause and it’s not that different from a church where all donations are gratefully accepted without question. In fact, there is a Hebrew proverb that goes “a rich man has no need of character.” 

All this questioning over a brewery’s donation is a waste of time, a fuss over nothing, and a tempest in a tankard. It’s like Norman wandering into Cheers and being confronted by the bartender’s question. 

Woody: Can I pour you a beer Mr Peterson?

Norm: A little early isn’t it, Woody?

Woody: “For a beer?”  

Norm: “No, for stupid questions.” 

ENDS

WHAT’S IN A WORD?

The English language throws up occasional oddities that can be vastly entertaining.

There is, for example, the malaprop which takes its name from a character (Mrs. Malaprop) in an 18th Century play by Richard Sheridan. The lady frequently misspeaks (to great comic effect) by using words that do not have the meaning she intends, but which sound similar to words that do.  

It’s since been taken up to an art-form by Archie Bunker’s character in the 1970s sitcom All In The Family. 

It wasn’t always Archie though. There was this witness who swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth as “Bob is my witless.” 

Even so, you might say Archie didn’t often make sense: “If my dead father was alive to hear that, it would kill him.” 

He certainly didn’t like feminists: “Most of ‘em  have more hismones than hermones.”  

Or theology: “You’d think I was Lazarus rising from the bed. And he was firmly against Eyetalian food because “it causes garlic stones.”

Then there are misspokements, an American word to describe an amusing, unintended verbal gaffe – as in “I remember your name perfectly but I just can’t think of your  face.” This was from US academic Herbert Spooner, thereby creating the first Spoonerism. He also said “a well-boiled icicle” when he meant “a well-oiled bicycle.” Many have followed in its wake since: “Talk of the black calling the kettle pot.” 

US Presidents were often guilty of slipping up. “Status quo, you know, that is Latin for the mess we’re in” (Ronald Reagan). Or, “I’m surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust in this town, and I’m sorry it’s the case, and I’ll work hard to try to elevate it.”  (George W Bush who had a special category – Bushisms – created just for him.)

Perhaps there would not have been an Iraq problem had the President only listened to where his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thought the weapons of mass destruction were. “We know where they are: they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south, and north somewhat.”  

Mr. Rumsfeld took pride in being as clear as the Mississippi in flood. 

The film producer Sam Goldwyn was a legendary artist at  misspoken sentences. “Coffee isn’t my cup of tea,” ranks right up there with the best of them.  Or his view on the frugality:  “Spare no expense to make everything as economical as possible.” 

The undisputed giant among all these names was Yogi Berra, a baseball player and manager whose malaprops, non-sequiturs and nonsense sentences, said in all seriousness, made him a press favorite. 

“I guess that’s the earliest I’ve ever been late” – on punctuality

“The towels were so thick there, I could hardly close my suitcase” – on his hotel room.

“Yeah, what paper you write for, Ernie?” – after being introduced to Ernest Hemingway   

“How long have you known me, Jack?…And you still don’t know how to spell my name?” – on receiving a cheque made out to Bearer.

“And they give you cash which is just as good as money” – after doing a commercial. 

“Shut up and talk” – ? 

ENDS

MAN OF THE EAR 

The world has been having an earful of Donald Trump lately.

Ever since an  assassination attempt against the man failed last week, the Democrats are beginning to resign themselves to Trump 2.0 next year. It’s tied to a growing realisation that the man has the luck of the Devil. 

Apparently, the Donald turned his head ever so slightly at the exact time the shooter – the late, if unlamented, Thomas Crooks – pressed the trigger. It caused the bullet to pierce an ear instead of the head ergo the body had the luck of the devil. 

Trump himself had no such illusions although he often brooded on the luck of some people.  They were deep questions that often kept him awake at night like, how else can you explain the success of a loser like Obama?

Skill was another thing altogether. Take golf, for instance. It was clearly a question of his ability against his opponent’s luck.

President Biden’s luck, unfortunately, may be running out faster than a New York minute. At 81, he has the dubious distinction of being the oldest US President ever and there are concerns about his physical and mental ability. 

On the plus side, he’s learning new things continually. Example: he recently found out what people meant when they mentioned Sinai: he’d always assumed it was the plural of sinus.

Even so, the concerns over his health have snowballed to the extent that Democratic party stalwarts have been pressuring Mr Biden to throw in the towel.  At the time of writing, there are, in fact,  rumours that he will step aside over the weekend. 

Whether this will improve the Democrats’ chances is a moot point at this stage. It increasingly looks like the next President of the US will be a greenhouse-gassing, oil- drilling, Bible-thumping, right-to-life’ing Republican whose model of a good leader is Vladimir Putin and whose idea of Public Enemy Number One is China. 

When growing up, according to writer Richard Kay, “Donald Trump wanted a bicycle more than anything else so he prayed for one every night and nothing happened. Finally, he figured out the Plain Truth, which was stealing one and praying for forgiveness afterwards.”

That was the prelude. But the Donald of today may have been best described by Josh Billings, a long-dead humorist who characterised an acquaintance as “so prone to exaggerations that he could not tell the truth without lying.” Or, as American satirist Pat Paulsen remarked: “I must choose my words carefully in order to avoid any negative interpretation: among politicians, this is a tactic known as lying.” 

During his debate with President Biden, the Donald’s statements were peppered with falsehoods, some of which had been repeated so often that he considered them Gospel. Even so, the confidence and authority with which he delivered the lies won the audience. Who’d have thought: Goebbels was the man. 

Donald Trump could not comprehend the animus against him because he really thought he was the better man. And he knew he was right because his   critics were just a bunch of America-bashing, pot-smoking, flag-burning, yoga-posing, incense-burning, tree-hugging, dolphin-saving, salmon-eating hypocrites. 

He was going to show them: he would be the best President the US ever had, even better than Jesus. 

ENDS

A CONTEST FOR THE AGES

Retirement at 65 is ridiculous: when I was 65, I still had pimples – Comedian George Burns

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory – Physician and theologian Albert Schweitzer

Anyone can get old. It was easy, noted comedian Groucho Marx, “all you have to do is live long enough.”

Unfortunately, it’s being held against US President Joe Biden, 81.  Compared to him, apparently, Malaysia’s 99-year-old Mahathir Mohamad comes across as the German who discovered relativity and we all know our Albert is no Einstein.

The President’s re-election bid against a resurgent Donald Trump isn’t looking good, especially after a recent televised debate with his opponent ignited concerns about his age, health and mental ability: the President often appeared shaky and confused.

So far, however, the Democrats who have urged him to abandon his 2024 election bid have been few. That could change in a heartbeat: on Wednesday, Hollywood actor and Democratic supporter George Clooney called on Biden not to stand, and party grandee Nancy Pelosi stopped short of backing him.

A new poll released Thursday showed more than half of Democrats say Biden should end his bid for a second term, and two thirds of Americans believe he should quit the race. But the debate did not seem to have moved the overall battle with Trump, with the former president and the incumbent remaining in a dead heat on 46 per cent, according to the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos survey.

It’s not hard to understand why.

The President is suspected of showing his age, of forgetting what he’s already forgotten and, by the Republicans, of being “in the prime of his senility.”

The White House has denied all these allegations but some of his staffers are beginning to wonder. He likes giving advice, one staffer recalls, “one day he took me aside and left me there.”

Mr Trump, 78, also has a bad memory which the Republicans extol as a sure sign of a clear conscience. For his part, the Donald has boasted that his memory is as good as an elephant. So good in fact, that “they often consult me.”

You can see why the American voter might feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or, phrased more elegantly, torn between a forgetful old coot and a lying sack of potatoes.

Mr Biden has given fewer news conferences than his predecessors, and recent ones have only been with foreign leaders, restricted to two questions each.

Coupled with a lack of interviews, it has led critics to accuse the White House of shielding the effects of age on America’s oldest president.

Mr Biden has called his debate meltdown a “bad night,” blaming it on a cold and jet lag.

Mr Clooney tried to torpedo the narrative that it was a one-off, saying it was “devastating” to admit but the signs were also clear at a June 15 fundraiser in Los Angeles he hosted

Sleepy Joe thought it was better to be forgetful because he suspected everything looked bad if you remembered it. But he knew he was a better man than the Putin-praising, greenhouse gas-emitting, ozone-depleting, seal-clubbing, trash-talking, lie-spraying hellhound that was the Donald.

The trick was to remember it. 

ENDS

THE BUCKET LIST 

Virus – a Latin term in medicine meaning, “your guess is as good as mine.” 

In 1988, President George Bush – the father, not the son – campaigned on a “things are looking up” plank. In fact, his theme song was Bobby McFerin’s   Don’t Worry, Be Happy. 

All that cheerful warbling is, of course, easier said than done when it comes to health. There is Murphy’s Law, for one thing. 

Then, there are statistics. They can be devilishly tricky. Or as Steve Martin put ii, “Somewhere out there is…the world’s worst doctor… and he could be yours.”

It’s best not to take chances.  Example: Take one apple every eight hours: it’ll keep three doctors away. 

More seriously, and going completely by anecdotal evidence, one gets the impression cancer cases are rising. Indeed, this was a casual observation by a friend the other day and it got me thinking. 

He’s right. 

And it’s a disturbing worldwide trend where new cancer cases among young people have been increasing sharply.

According to a 2024 study, early-onset cancers, defined as cancer cases diagnosed in people under 50, increased globally by a staggering 79%. 

Even so, the vast majority of cases are in older people. Standout gloomy fact: one in two people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime.

On a more cheery note, Malaysia is not on the list of the 50 most cancer-prone countries in the world. This ranking is based on nations with the highest number of cases per 100,000. 

The bulk of these countries are, for want of a better word, Caucasian. This is, most likely, traceable to skin cancers from sunlight. Not surprisingly, Australia comes in at the top of the list. 

Incidentally, skin cancers generally have the least fatal outcomes. Or, to quote a doctor friend of mine: “If you had to have cancer, you’d be best served with skin.” OK, a bit Hannibal Lecter-esque but there you are. 

But I digress. We were talking high risk countries weren’t we?   

The first Asian country on the list is South Korea (14) followed, surprisingly, by Singapore (42). We should not leap to any conclusions, of course, but it’s not looking good for kim-chi.

As for countries with the lowest cancer rates, the top five are, in order, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway.

Scientists think the Japanese diet, which is high in vegetables, salmon and green tea, explains this finding.  Meanwhile, the low levels of sunlight and the diets – fish – in the other, mainly-Caucasian, countries help explain their relatively low rates.

The good news is that Asian and Pacific islanders have the lowest risk of cancer in the world. The bad news is that they are more susceptible to liver and bowel tumours.   

The best defence against the scourge is, apparently, regular exercise, non-obesity and a good diet – green tea and Omega-3-rich foods like salmon. 

Regular  check-ups don’t hurt: the prognosis, after early detection, is almost always excellent. 

Cancer is so dreaded the world over that it took Woody Allen to put it in perspective: “The most beautiful words in the English language are not “I love you” but … “benign.”

But to avoid cancer altogether, one must not age. And for that to happen, regular naps are counselled, especially while driving. 

ENDS

GROWING OLD, HIS WAY 

He is so old, when he asks for a three-minute egg, they ask for the money up-front. – Comedian George Burns

In two weeks, Dr Mahathir Mohamad will be 99. 

Imagine that!

It was Woody Allen who proffered this advice: “You can live to a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to a hundred.” 

But one doubts it when it comes to the old man. He doesn’t look as if he’s given up anything he likes. The man continues to give interviews, he still rides horses, and, deep down, he probably still hankers to be premier if only because he knows there’s no one better. 

Don’t forget we’re talking about a man who went through his teenage years when the Dead Sea only had a minor cold. 

Dr Mahathir himself ascribes it to good genes albeit by way of a cryptic one liner: “You have to choose your parents carefully.” 

In the process, he’s junked most of the beliefs he once seemed to hold dear. 

In 1994, I attended a closed-door dialogue with the leadership, then Dr M and Anwar Ibrahim. The audience were all non-Malays from all over the country and we were encouraged to ask anything we liked. 

I asked Dr M this question which, on hindsight, appears dreadfully ironic, given the circumstances of the last thirty years. 

At the time, Dr M was famed for his so-called Vision 2020 which aimed for “a single race, free and equal under the Malaysian sun”. It seemed to imply that by 2020, there would be no more discrimination for or against anyone, that all Malaysians would be “equal”.  

So, I asked the question. “What guarantees do we, the non-Malays, have that your successor, whoever he is, will have the same allegiance to 2020 as you do? I ask this only because it’s likely you won’t be around when that time comes.” 

Now you know what Henry Ford meant when he scoffed at history being mostly “bunk.” 

At the time, however, Mahathir agreed that there were no guarantees but went on to extol Anwar Ibrahim, asserting that he was his successor who would push 2020 through. Indeed, the then-premier said Anwar reminded him of “my younger self.” 

Talk of “tempting fate.” 

Less than five years later, Anwar would be sacked and, later, jailed. Dr M, himself, would step down as premier in 2004 when he was 77. 

Incredibly, he came back as PM in 2018 when he was in his early 90s. He returned, however promising to hand over power to a now-pardoned Anwar. 

He also admitted that he’d never believed in Vision 2020 but never thought he’d live to see the day either. 

No one talks about Vision 2020 anymore and Anwar Ibrahim never succeeded Dr M. 

But he did become premier much to the old man’s chagrin. And he still is, despite the best efforts of many quarters including guess-who. 

It’s been a surreal turn of events, where the reality has turned out to be stranger than fiction. 

But the grand old man of politics continues to make statements, mostly about how everyone who’s succeeded him has always been found wanting.

In fact, the older he gets, the better Dr M realises he was. 

ENDS