Chelsea to win it

That was a very-very good result at Upton Park. I did not expect Chelsea to drop points at the weekend but with Arsenal (the team I support) drawing at Turf Moor (Burnley) at mid-week but winning at home against tricky Hull City, I can proudly say that the English Premier League is now the most exciting league in the world!

Of course, it's not that I have high-hopes for the Gunners. I am always skeptical these days with Arsenal since they have yet to claim a major trophy in 4 years. However, deep inside my heart, I know that Arsene is Mr. Arsenal. He's building a proper football club, concentrating on the development of the youth and who knows, in the years to come, these creme de la creme will be the most feared team in the world, winning back to back titles.

Saying that though, Mr. Wenger has a problem. He's too stubborn. When the media said this, he will quickly brush off their opinions just to prove that he's got his own stand. It is true that football is a physical game. Thats why you have a gym at your training ground. I know this since my younger days, failing to get into the school team simply because I was too small.

Maybe I should marry a Swedish girl so that my children won't suffer the same fate!

So, Arsenal really need lanky players on the field. Abou Diaby should play more regularly as long as he can put behind his niggling injuries. He could provide more aerial prowess and win the ball from the middle of the park. We also need a towering striker because it would be a waste to have Bakary Sagna supplying the crosses but with a Crouch-like bean-pole unavailable up front. I am not sure if Bendtner is ready for the job though.

As for our two center backs, Gallas and Vermaelen, well, they might be fast, but we still need to improve on defending setpieces because we do struggle with them a lot of times. I have no proposals on who we should sign to replace Gallas next season but I do hope tall players from other positions will come back and defend well for the shorties.

Note that I use 'we' because I feel like I am a part of Arsenal FC. It's a 'religious' thing if you ask the English.

As for this season, I really think is going to be tight. I do not think Chelsea will have a difficult January due to the African Nations Cup because, if you look at the fixtures, they will have some easy opponents. Manchester United meanwhile is having a torrid time solving their defensive crisis with the likes of Rio and Nemanja struggling to be fit. Aston Villa can mount a serious title challenge this season if they can get atleast a point from the Boxing Day game against the Gunners. Even Tottenham is not far behind.

Liverpool is already out of the race strictly speaking.

It is going to be an exciting season. With Arsenal giving hopes to the faithfuls, my verdict is that Chelsea will grab the title from holders Manchester United.

What? Of course I'm an avid Arsenal supporter, but I'm just being realistic and impartial here. We will finish second this season if we are lucky enough.

Man Utd and their City rivals will complete the Big Four.

West Ham, Hull and Portsmouth will be relegated.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone.

Jeg Hui

Know your rights

Yesterday I had a quarrel with a lady on the phone regarding a Paypal scam. Yes, yes I know you guys might think how lame I am that I could fall for the trap but in my defence, the scammer had 59 100% positive feedbacks and it didn't cross a novice user like me that eBay accounts might be hacked into.

The lady requested for a further 3-day investigation period instead of the informed-on-the-screen only 10 days were given to the seller to supply them with information to resolve the issue. I argued that Paypal didn't put the 3-day lag anywhere in the Terms and Conditions and it was so clear that Mohamad Hossain (a suspect terrorists-mother-funder *&%^&) had cheated more than 2 people after my case was opened.

15 minutes and £6 pounds later, the lady still insisted that she would look into the matter again, and I suspected PayPal has actually forgotten about the case and only revisited the matter after I gave a nasty call.

Guess what happened 2 minutes after I slammed the phone? (not literally - you simply ended the call with the touch of a button these days, if you're from Mars). The amount immediately appeared on my PayPal account balance as £442.00 instead of £0.00.

"Now you know who's the boss!" I muttered.

Well it's somehow reaffirming that customers are always right. We are like Kings and bosses when come to business deals. These people just want your money, and so, they must earn it. I remember each time I went out with me Ma for lunch or dinner in Kelana Jaya and each time if she's unhappy with her food, I will ask the waiter/waitress to taste the food/drink and ask him/her if they were any good.

In the end, it's either I ask for a refund or replace the drink (the lesser punishment always applies).

The week before, Ginnan Sushi offered me free soft-shell crab Maki and Sushi and Sashimi Set worth £18 pounds after they failed to deliver fresh sashimi in the previous order. They only did that because I demanded of my right as they stated in their advert the foods are all fresh, guaranteed in a straight-forward email.

People always forget about this kinda things. Don't call me aggressive just because I am exercising my rights. Some people are just too shy, if not too scared to ask even though they know they should get what is rightfully theirs.

However, I don't know if it works in Malaysia though. When dealing with repairs services, people seldom forget that a shoddy work by the repairman must always be complained with their service unpaid. It happened to be before when I sent my old bike for repairs in PJ when the rude Uncle nastily and hastily repaired my bike right in front of me and I simply paid him the money without no fuss.

Returning from home, I thought, what the hell? I paid RM20 for that shit service?

Atleast I have learnt from that mistake. Some people however, just don't get it. They send their cars for repairs at Ah Cheong's place, more than 10 times just to get the wiper done while the rest of the parts would came loose later.

Yes, Ah Cheong is a real guy who has a car service center next to BSN/711 in Kelana Jaya.

So KJ mates, avoid the place at all cost!

I dunno if it's a tragic blunder by some companies asking us to leave customer feedbacks. So make sure you do it sincerely, honestly and BLUNTLY (if you may).

It works for me.

Zambry’s Q&A Session

As usual every weekend I will always look for an opportunity to fill up the day in boring London. I received an invitation to attend a session called “The new Perak: Emerging from the Crisis” by Perak Menteri Besar Dato Seri Zambry Abdul Kader so I guess I wanted to give it a go.

As I didn’t want to be late, after a quick lunch at Thai Square, Strand (being served by a pretty bespectacled Siamese lady – worth notifying here) I dashed to the Kings College’s Edmund J Safra Lecture Theatre only to find out the guests of honour were late, as expected.

This time, we had a better proportion of Malaysians from the floor. We had more Malays than UKEC Homecoming for Nik Nazmi, although these so called people who claimed to be multiracial still sit with their own ‘kind’. The Malays with the Malays, the Non-Malays with Non-Malays although the sight of a Datuk with his Caucasian wife of about 40 years from Ipoh somehow added some balance to it.

A good Chinese friend of mine had saved me a good spot and here we go, here we go. I noticed the man of the moment from a group of smartly dressed men taking their seats. Zambry was all smiling (northen slang - ghenyeh) like a ‘kerang busuk’ in the eyes of Pakatan supporters but like a friendly leader for the neutrals and the BN supporters.

MC: Salam 1Malaysia.

What? A new way to greet Malaysians?

It was my first time listening to Zambry and my take on him is he is indeed a friendly leader. The man got some humour in him as well. A bit about himself during his younger days, he claimed to be very active in football and was dubbed the ‘Pangkor Pele’. I couldn’t hold my laughter any longer when I started imagining Pele and Zambry side by side playing for Team Pangkor in a friendly match.

Man, don’t they look like brothers? Or shall I say father and his 40s son?

Zambry had the State Secretary Dr. Abdul Rahman Hashim and his laywer Feirouz (who looks like Nazir Razak) by his side seated on the stage together with the MC. He promised not to be too political during his speech and would rather have a no-holds barred session with the members of the floor. He also commented a bit on how he will do about improving the economy of Perak. He even repeatedly urged the Perakians (and also non-perakians) to return to Perak and develop the state.

At first sight, Dr. Abdul Rahman didn’t look friendly with his long face. Feirouz’s tie was too long. And Zambry couldn’t stop smiling. The hardcore Pakatan fans were not impressed with Zambry’s smile and it clearly showed when they bombarded the questions. One was even seen to be so emotionally engulfed, asking questions while struggling to breathe.

Feirouz was there to read out the Perak Constitution when needed to. There were the same old Q and A you can find these days so I will not elaborate more here. Generally I am satisfied with Zambry’s and Feirouz’s answers to the questions although I could not be bothered as I knew the answer even before the session.

However there’s something new that I haven’t heard of that is under the Perak Constitution, a pact must work officially as a team in order to be recognised as having the immediate majority. During the March 2008 election, Barisan was only short of two seats in order to take the majority. PAS, PKR and DAP however, did not officially work under an umbrella during the election and even by saying that, “WITH THE DISCREATION OF THE SULTAN”, PAS-PKR-DAP was still accepted to be the new lawmakers of Perak.

To be fair, let me remind you that Pakatan Rakyat was not in existent during the last election.

Feirouz then said under the Perak Constitution, if a party has lost its majority, the MB must immediately resign from his post. But Nizar did not even the Sultan has advised him to. Then, I quote Zambry saying “the Divajee Sivakumar” who claimed to be the rightful Speaker suspended Zambry and 8 other BN ADUNs and passed one motion.

“You call this democracy?” Zambry asked the audience and smiled.

I have to agree that Sivakumar made that mistake because he was overwhelmed by emotion. How can you suspend half of the Opposition Team to vote? It’s like having the referee red carding 10 players from the same team right after the kickoff and let the goalie play all alone?

I may sound like a BN supporter now but for the case of Perak, I believe that Pakatan is calling the kettle black and is fighting the losing battle. Be a man. You lose the numbers, you bow out gracefully.

Sept 16, if you had the numbers, are you saying you will dissolve the Parliament?

Well at least according to one smart ass law student (dressed up like a lawyer just to convince the audience that he knows EVERYTHING about the law and Anwar Ibrahim.)

The boy, arrogantly asked Feirouz to read out the Perak Constitution regarding the power of Sultan declaring BN as the rightful lawmakers because he couldn’t find it anywhere and Feirouz read it out word by word quite handsomely.

“WITH THE DISCREATION OF SULTAN this… WITH THE DISCREATION OF SULTAN that...”

The boy could not say anything. He then, out of anger boldly made a statement “I believe if Sept 16 was to materialised, ANWAR WILL DISSOLVE THE PARLIAMENT”

Zambry quickly replied (with a smile, again), “Brother… trust me, I know Anwar better than you do.”

Then the crowd was laughing at the boy. Clearly a hardcore Pakatan fan here, blinded by the charm words of his idols. Even a neutral like me felt he was ‘too clever’ to say that. Red-faced, he was just speechless.

I always reminded my now defunct rock band to simply have fun when performing in front of a big crowd, as long as you don’t make a fool of yourself.

When the long 3 hour session came to almost an end, the microphone was passed to Abdul Rahman and he suddenly said, with a school-teacher tone, “Based on the questions given by you, it is clear that some if not all of you did not read the case fully, comprehensively and fairly. I am shocked that you are supposed to be talented Malaysians and you should do more investigation not just read and absorb everything you read in the blogs.” (Note: not his real quote, but something like that lah).

To be honest, what Rahman said is true, but maybe not the right manner. We are not schoolchildredn!

One bespectacled M. Nasir look-alike from Swansea immediately rose up and asked Abdul Rahman to take back his words, because he, self-claiming to be representing the members of the floor, felt offended with Abdul Rahman’s remark as if the audience were that stupid.

“TARIK BALIK! TARIK BALIK!”

Haha! What do you think this is? Circus? Malaysian Parliament?

Again Zambry had to save the day. “Dia dah tarik balik la tu…”

The crowd just laughed off the incident and I still smile each time I remember that incident.

“TARIK BALIK!!”

To wrap up the session, Zambry kept reminding himself and the people to do less with politics and work hard for the State of Perak. He told us he just got back from the USA to find investors to develop Perak, helping the state to regain the title the richest state in Malaysia.

“PERAK MAJU DAN AMAN.” – Perak – Peace and Prosperity.

Well, best of luck for that mate. I miss the old peaceful Perak, Taiping especially, the town I grew up in.

After checking the goodies (including a Daulat Tuanku badge, Criminalise War badge, Nasi Goreng and currypuffs), I headed home smiling… just like Zambry.

Ghenyeh ghenyeh…

Adab berdoa

Adab berdoa.

Masih aku ingat ketika aku masih kecil. Susuk badan yang memang kecil membuatkan aku menjadi bahan bulian seorang rakan di sekolah agama di Assam Kumbang, Taiping. Sepulangan aku ke rumah, diadukan kisah itu kepada ibuku… tetapi aduan itu hanyalah terpendam di dalam hati. Aku yang pernah menyandang gelaran ‘Si Leleh’ oleh kerana suka menangis, sentiasa mengingatkan diri sendiri supaya menjadi lebih tabah dan kuat seperti abang-abangku.

Namun pada suatu hari, kemarahan aku tidak dapat lagi dibendung. Kerana sangat marahnya aku kepada Hafiz, aku mengeluarkan tangan aku lalu berdoa supaya Allah datangkan bala kepadanya dan gagal dalam peperiksaan akan datang.

Aku pada ketika itu berumur 7 atau 8 tahun. Tidak pasti.

Beberapa hari kemudiannya, aku diajarkan adab-adab berdoa oleh Ustaz Baharum. Seingatku, ada diajarkan tentang doa yang tidak akan diterima Allah dan doa-doa di waktu yang mustajab.

Antara doa-doa yang ditolak oleh Islam termasuklah doa meminta supaya diri sendiri dicabutkan nyawa oleh Allah ketika berada dalam keadaan yang sangat malang dan susah. Peringatan yang diajarkan ustaz ini masih segar di kotak fikiranku.

Aku seraya bertanyakan Ustaz Baharum jika dimakbulkan doa memintakan musibah atau bala diturunkan kepada orang yang jahat yang melakukan perkara-perkara yang menyakiti kepada kawan-kawan, sambil mencebik muka ke arah Hafiz. Aku begitu mengharap Ustaz akan ‘menyokong’ adab berdoa sebegini kerana apa yang aku mahukan hanyalah keadilan dari Allah. Namun aku ternyata salah apabila ustaz menjawab,

“Tidak akan diterima doa yang meminta Allah menurunkan keburukan ke atas orang lain. Sebaik-baiknya, kita doakan supaya dia insaf dan kembali ke pangkal jalan. Jika tak boleh nak tegur pakai tangan, tegurlah pakai mulut dengan kata-kata. Jika tak mampu juga, tegurlah dengan hati dengan mendoakan dia supaya kembali kepada Allah.”

Tersentak hati aku pada ketika itu dan selalu menanyakan kenapa Allah tidak terus membalas si Hafiz yang nakal ini. Ustaz menambah yang dalam berdoa, kita harus bersabar dan nescaya Allah akan perkenan doa kita.

Sehingga kini aku amalkan nasihat yang Ustaz Baharum berikan. Apabila dewasa kini, aku sentiasa kaitkan nasihat-nasihat yang cikgu-cikgu serta ustaz berikan dengan ayat-ayat suci Al-Quraan untuk mendapatkan pengesahannya. Maka tergerak lah hati aku pada hari ini untuk mencari dalil yang menyatakan jika elok atau tidak kita mendoakan keburukan orang lain.

Antaranya adalah seperti berikut.

Nabi s.a.w bersabda :

" Tidaklah seorang muslim di atas bumi ini berdoa kepada Allah dengan suatu doa melainkan doanya tersebut akan dikabulkanNya atau dihindarkan orang itu dari bahaya sebanding dengan apa yang dimintanya selama doa itu tidak mengandungi dosa atau bermaksud hendak memutuskan silaturrahim "

-Hadis Riwayat At-Tirmidzi-

Dan satu lagi,

" Janganlah kamu berdoa buruk terhadap dirimu , begitupun terhadap
anak-anakmu dan terhadap harta bendamu , Jangan sampai nanti doamu itu bertepatan dengan suatu saat dimana Allah sedang memenuhi permohonan , hingga doa burukmu itu benar-benar terkabul "

-Hadis Riwayat Muslim-

Aku sewaktu kecil yang masih naïf itu tidak pernah merasakan dirinya begitu besar sehinggakan boleh melakukan sesuatu perkara yang Allah larang.

Aku pada ketika itu mempunyai semangat inkuiri yang sangat tinggi dan suka bertanyakan soalan kepada ibu bapaku, guru-guru, ustaz dan ustazah.

Bagi aku mereka inilah pendidik, mereka inilah yang aku harapkan supaya tidak sesat dalam arus kemewahan dan kekuasaan duniawi.

Aku pada ketika itu, hanyalah 7 atau 8 tahun, menyesal dengan tindakan mendoakan keburukan saudara seagama.

Sekelumit pun aku tidak berubah, jika diri ini dilihat kebudak-budakan hanya kerana bertanyakan soalan, meminta diajarkan agama yang sebetul-betulnya.

Kerana aku takut azab Allah…

Masih aku ingat, 7 atau 8 tahun umur aku ketika itu.

Yang berumur 78 tahun, bagaimanalah agaknya?

Jeg Hui

The Truth about BTN

Since Biro Tatanegara has been a hot issue of the late, thanks to an ADUN friend who brought out that matter at the Selangor State level, I will try to write of my personal experience and be as impartial as possible. To date, I’ve already gone to TWO BTNs as part of the pre-departure course under PNB and MARA. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about it.

I will talk about the food things first. Did I just say food? That was not a blatant typo but the food at BTNs is just AMAZING! I do not know if it has got to do with the hectic of jungle trekking or the marching practices but the food is simply fantastic. They may be simple Malaysian dishes like ‘ikan kembung goreng’ or ‘sayur campur’ but somehow even the steamed rice has some magic in it.

The ‘Pakcik Komandos’, I must say, are the unsung heroes in BTN programmes. They may look like they can eat you alive, but they are the nicest people around. They are very helpful, polite and really funny too. Their spontaneous jokes might have some repeated ones (just like other stand-up comedies anyway) but they can really make me laugh my flatulence off.

The programme itself, when done together for the whole group, is actually really good. It promotes unity, indoctrinating participants of the history of Malaysia, nationalism and patriotism (I do not know if they are of any different). During my second BTN in Negeri Sembilan, Namawee was the star of the show.

Note: Namawee, you can rap all you want mate, but rapping out of our National Anthem is somewhat disgraceful. Use Rasa Sayang or Anak Ayam if you may. They worked for Too Phat.

The difference between the two BTNs I attended is actually the age group. The first BTN was attended by pre-U students while the second one was mostly comprised of post-grad students. The level of maturity by the participants between the two was obvious but still I could find a ‘gila kuasa’ Penghulu making an idiot of himself. (I will not elaborate more).

The second BTN gave us some real life stories in which I found really helpful in terms of finding the truth out of it. This includes the Negarakuku as said above, Kampong Baru incident, corruption statistics (with the then ACA being the most corrupt) and others. Then we were separated into smaller groups of 10 to 15 I think. Now comes the bad part.

It was really weird when the groups were distributed, the Non-Malays (including Sabah Sarawak Bumiputras) are grouped together as one or two groups. I was quite angry not to be part of the Non-Malay group so that I could mingle with them more. (And of course, the fit girl I fancied went to the group as well :P). Later, I realised why the distribution was like so.

From my two visits to BTN, both facilitators that I got were downright RACISTS! The first BTN in Balik Pulau, there were two Chinese girls in my group but that didn’t stop the fascist facilitator from bashing the Chinese and Indians as ‘bangsa pendatang’ and making racist comments. Since I had enough of him, I planned on questioning his motives but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the group and so, I asked him one plain question right after the scheduled brainwashing class.

He was commenting on the way how DAP-Cina would administer the federal government. DAP was labelled as a Communist Party that would only anger the Malays because of their principles. And so, I asked him, “Kita sekarang ni, di Balik Pulau. Kenapa saya lihat kawasan di Balik Pulau ni seakan tidak maju? Dan rata-rata penduduknya Orang Melayu. Kenapa UMNO biarkan Gerakan ‘tindas’ orang Melayu dan orang Kampung di Balik Pulau dari segi pembangunan?”

Do you know what he answered?

“Kita sedang pantau mereka. UMNO sedang pantau mereka…”

What is that supposed to mean? Pantau? Is that the best you can do? Just now you were talking your wrinkly-racist-balls out like the world is yours and now, you are telling me the best you can do to these Chinese Penang government is to monitor their progress? Just because they are part of BN?

Why cudn’t you say the same to them just like you said about DAP?

I think he’s got himself the taste of his own medicine. He wanted to be Ultra-UMNO, Ultra-Malay but deep in his heart, he knows that he, being a big-headed veteran, we are all Malaysians after all and he shouldn’t play the racist card as he will end up answering tough questions like that with stupid answers like so.

I did nothing but shook my head with a bit of a smirk on my face. BTN is such a good way to promote unity and to remind us of the sacrifices our fore-fathers had made in order for us to enjoy peace and harmony in Malaysia. However, because of this kind of fascists roaming around freely trying to ‘convert’ the participants into anti-Non-Malays Group has somewhat tainted the BTN image. They shouldn’t be allowed to even step foot on the Malaysian soil at all!

Then, there was one question that the group had to answer, the one big fat question that all participants will be talking about after the course. I knew right from the start that the answer was going to be:

“C: Give the project to the Government-friendly consortium although it has poor knowledge and expertise about the project.”

It is because I know A and B had the keyword “Opposition” and “Foreign Company” respectively, and after all we only had the so-called ‘healthy’ one-way discussion with The Fascist so I urged the group to just pick C so that we could have an early lunch!

Away from my own experience, I was told by my friend that her Muslim friend was asked one question that goes “If you have to choose one, would you pick the country first or your religion first?”

Being a boss for some time in a Multinational Company, she answered, “Islam first”.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I will pick religion over country.”

“Why? Without our country, there will be no Islam!”

“No, I will choose Islam over country at all cost. I am a Muslimah”

Muslimah indeed, not your Dina Zaman-like ‘Muslimah’.

And then the Fascist started sobbing and crying. When I heard that I was like?

“What? This is new! Now they are rejecting Islam over BN? Ya Allah! Crying some more?”

So yeah, I’m not saying that all facilitators are like that. I would say most of them are like that. Depends on which group you are in. I bet the facilitator in the Non-Malay group would be more 1Malaysia.

It’s sad… because I want to see more of the Komandos and the great people among the participants. Hey, I made many friends from BTN (and many annoying ones too). The fact of the matter is, BTN is great when racial cards are not played. I am not sure if we are provided booklets to hate the Opposition nowadays as reported by some, (there wasn’t any during my time) but if he BN people think BTN is their greatest weapon, they are just plain wrong.

We may look like kids. But we are not. People grow up, you know?

And so are Malaysians.