Drinks and the terror level "Bert".

I flew back from Japan on Tuesday and they weighed my bottle of water before allowing me through check in at Narita airport. The bottle of water wasn't full however so it would have taken someone very clever indeed to work out the density of its contents in less than the 3 seconds it took to check it.

Even Sesame street is not absent of association from today's breaking news story in the UK.

Anyway I notice that Ryanair don't offer any reimbursement due to matters beyond their control, which means of course they'll make a packet by grounding their fleet. Easyjet do offer such compensation. Watch out when you're booking!

Name cards

I went into Johor Bahru (JB) this morning to get some business cards, or "name cards" as they more accurately call them out here as everyone seems to have them, not just those with businesses.



I spent about 45 minutes recreating a design I did about 4 years ago back when we lived in Bath and did one for Candida and myself. Unfortunately I just noticed that I got the phone number wrong. Bloody hell. Luckily I only had 100 made instead of the 200 hundred the lady in the shop was suggesting.

Roxy's Birthday

Saturday 1st July, Singapore

Charlie and myself spent all day in Singapore shopping. We started off by getting monumentally lost. This seems to be a theme of ours. We have maps. We have the sun to navigate by. We have a car. It shouldn't be that difficult. I wanted to collect my plane tickets to Tokyo, why I'd bought them in Singapore still eludes me.

Anyway Charlie drove and dropped me off at Chan Brothers and I jokingly said "See you in an hour!" Thinking I'd be out within 10 minutes. Anyway I get a call about 35 minutes later;

"Heeeellloo." I say in a really over friendly, smarmy, lovey dovey drone because I had been expecting him to call for the last 10 minutes.

"Jono. Where are you?"

"Another 10 minutes, I'll be down."

The very helpful lady in the travel agent had tried to charge me another $80and had issued the plane tickets, but luckily I noticed and said that I'd been quoted $620 so she had to do everything twice, seemingly typing everything into 5 different systems on her computer.

Anyway, many of you will remember that Saturday 1st July 2006 was the night of the England vs. Portugal Football World Cup quarter final. Dominic had kindly invited us over to his place in Singapore mentioning that we might perhaps be able to watch said match on his new 42" plasma. Then, the day before the event he mentioned "Oh yeah, its Roxy's Birthday." Roxy being his girlfriend.

Charlie and myself being the kind sensitive types, well kind anyway though it appropriate to get her something. Unfortunately having only met her once, in the back of a wakeboarding boat shortly before Dom booed off with a massive migraine we weren't too sure about what to get.

"Wakeboarding stuff?"

"Wakeboarding DVD?"

"Booze?"

"Fags?"

"Music? What kind?"

"Food?"

"Booze?"

And so on. We were temporarily distracted by the Apple store where I repeatedly tried to force Charlie to part with $2000 for a new Macbook. Mainly because of my frustration that Apple released the computers approximately 1 month after I paid the same amount for my...Acer. Obviously there is no comparison between the two. Even though they probably share 99% of their innards, the Acer is quite obviously designed by someone, either with a block of wood and sandpaper for their styling tools or a degree in needlecraft (if there is such a thing). Everything feels so flimsy.

We stopped for lunch in a restaurant on Orchard Road that was 100% populated with non-Singaporeans. This is the realisation as soon as you sit down and the waiter hands you the menu, you have a quick glance around and notice that everyone is white and European. But then if you look around the streets of Singapore approximately 15% of all people are non-Singaporean so you don't feel so bad for having chosen such an obvious lunch stop.

Actually just across the street was the "House of Condom." Charlie and I both looked each other and smiled, then decided that we didn't even know what kind of music she liked let alone whether a gift from a sex shop would go down like a lead balloon.

Next stop Ikea. The absoulte undisputed mecca of indecision. Even though nearly everyone knows what Ikea sell it is still impossible to go in there and get exactly want you want, pay and leave. I discovered it is even worse if you know roughly what you want. This seemed to be Charlie's achilles heel. He knew he wanted bedding, kitchen stuff and some lounge stuff. Uh oh, he had decisions to make. I had already resigned myself to the fact that this might take 2 hours. And, of course, it did.

In the end it was an amusing 2 hours, I was in charge of the trolley and had the opportunity to watch the never ending stream of ambling, dawdling, oblivious 20 and 30 somethings making their pigeon like way through the massive warehouse of beige pine house paraphernalia. There was this one guy who had obviously spent at least 1 hour shopping for various kitchen and lounge items and accumulated quite a stock in his trolley. He was about halfway through the meandering path on the ground floor when I noticed the unattended trolley. It could only have been there for about 2 or 3 minutes because I had been standing exactly where it was only a short time before. Anyway this Ikea guy started to take things out of the trolley. He was carefully inspecting each item and putting them back in their places on the shelves. He was pretty quick at this and when he'd almost finished the guy whose trolley it was came back and started to have a right go at the Ikea bloke. Imaginge that! Its like writing a page long e-mail only to discover that your webmail account has logged you out 10 minutes ago because it assumed you'd walked off and left the computer unattended. Imagine trying to remember everything you'd picked out and put in the trolley. All the decisions you'd made. That must have been so infuriating. Anyway Ikea guy started to try to undo his mistaken actions and put the things back in the trolley but the guy just stormed off in a massive huff. Well, at least he stormed off as quickly as you can when there are a thousand people in your way.

We stopped off on the way to Dom's at Cold Storage to buy meat and beer. We eventually decided to get some flowers for Roxy. The party was ace especially with the addition of a cat and some betting which turned out to be pointless because not a single goal was scored. The barbecue was cracking except that it kept filling the sitting room with smoke, but Roxy and Dom's friends proved entertaining company when we weren't stuffing our faces with lumps of beef.

Afterwards, because Chris had come in a taxi he came back with us and insisted that we needed to, lets say, "rearrange" the items purchased from Ikea. So we spent the next 30 minutes by the side of the road (bearing in mind this is at 4 o'clock in the morning) making up Charlie's bedding to look like its totally normal to have pillows and duvets on the back seat. All of the cooking equipment was hidden under the seats, pillows and various other concealment tactics. The glovebox also help stash a few glasses and cheese graters. Very amusing and satisfying when we reached the border and the guy was desparate to charge us for something but ultimately he had to let us go, SUCKERS!!!

Rawa

Last weekend I managed to make it to Rawa, a little island off the east coast of Malaysia. I decided to go alone partly on reconaissance but also to get a bit of peace and quiet. Rawa turned out to be the perfect place.

I booked to stay at Rawa Safarai a few days before. I asked for all the information I would probably need. Cost, where to go, what do I get etc. Friday night I packed my bag ready for leaving on Saturday. I thought, oh I'll get up late and catch the late ferry around 3pm. Chris reckoned about 3 hours to get to the port from JB. I set off around 11 and stopped to fetch some petrol and cash. Just as I was leaving the petrol station the phone rings.

• "Hi."


• "Hello, Mr. Jonathan?"


• "Speaking."


• "Sir, you have reservation tonight?"


• "Yes, 1 night."


• "Ahhh, you still coming Mr. Jonathan?"


• "Yes, I'm on my way now."


• "Ahhh, Mr. Jonathan. Where are you?"


• "On my way to Mersing."


• "Ahhh, Mr. Jonathan, the ferry leaves at 12 lah."


• "MIDDAY?!!."


• "Ah yes is 12 o'clock."


• "What?!?! I'm in Johor Bahru!" doing all I can to not cuss at this point.


• "Yes, I'm on my way now."


• "Ahhh, how you going to Rawa?"


• "Errr, is there another ferry?"


• "Ahh, is last ferry, 12 o'clock."


• "Right, no-one told me that. How do I get to Rawa?"


• "Ahhh, you come to Mersing now and I help you."

I thought I had all the information...of course not. I proceeded to Mersing at high speed and made it there by 12.45. From there I was informed I would have to charter my own boat as the last ferry did indeed leave at 12 noon. Fuck.

• "Last ferry at 12?"


• "Last ferry already gone sir."


• "How much?"


• "Ahhh, 200 ringgit."

Needless to say I paid. But less than 1 hour after I arrived at Rawa another bloody boat turns up at the jetty. The bastards had fleeced me for 35 quid.

Anyway, I had a cracking weekend drinking, smoking and reading this top book called "How to be idle." Absolute pure pleasure. Everyone else on the island was French, or German so there was no-one to talk to except the friendly staff, friends of the Royal Family of course. The whole island is owned by the Royals. Le Club Rawa (to the right of the jetty as you land) couldn't have got things more right. There is a beach and approximately 20 metres from the sea is a bar with some big speakers and tables. Time passed slowly and I managed to get most of the way through my book before returning to the mainland on Sunday afternoon. All in all a thoroughly brilliant, relaxing and empty experience which will have to be repeated at some point.

Of course the interaction with mainland civilisation again turned out to be, lets say, frustrating. I stepped onto the boat and put my bag down on the seat. I was the first passenger on. There were a couple of guys at the front, the driver and his mate chatting. I sat down. First thing I noticed was how hot the cabin was (this boat is small, maximum 12 paassengers). So I stood up and paced up and down to try and cool off. After a few minutes I went to sit down again and drink some water. Some more passengers turn up, French. Then this guy comes dashing up the jetty and leaps into the boat.

• "WET PAINT!! WET PAINT!!"

And there ended my weekend bliss. I managed to recoup 100 ringgit of the 200 outlayed the previous day for chartering the boat, ostensibly to pay for my brand new shorts that had been ruined by the wet paint on the seats. Of course I had gone and bought brand new shorts on Friday which were now covered in paint. I politely informed them that I'd be staying at Le Club Rawa and not Rawa Safari, they smiled at me as they handed me the money.

Desaru

Well, we thought it was about time we went to the beach. We should leave plenty of time to get there, because we've never been before. Our destination would be Desaru on the east coast. Some people reckon its alright, others obviously think its a crap hole. We'll go anyway. So line astern, we set off at about 9.20am out of JB. North East. I was in the second car, we had a fairly good map with JB and the environs on it and it went all the way up to Mersing, the ferry port used for some of the islands off the east coast. We could also see Desaru. We were happy.

The leading car had a map. It had JB and the environs on it and it went all the way up to the edge of JB. In the second car, we didn't know this until approximately 3 hours later. This was after we'd been past all the sights. World war 2 pillboxes, random towns springing up in the middle of palm plantations, crazy drivers overtaking left and right on a single lane road.


Anyway we carried on. A few turnings later we ended up at a dead end, admittedly on a promontory. Oh nice, a viewpoint. Thats when we actually realised for certain the lead car did not have a map. They came to a very, very gradual stop on someone's driveway. We immediately engaged reverse gear realising the mistake. The others casually started to follow. Then these 2 guys came out of the house and shouted "Come here!" By this time we had all climbed out and had the maps on the boot of the car. We thought it would be a good point to jump back in and make tracks.

A bit futher down the road we took another turning. All the while we could almost smell the South China Sea and on occaision I swore I saw what looked like a sea. Hence we persevered. The road was becoming less and less made. An army truck passed us in the opposite direction, every 200 metres we swerved to avoid another substantial gap in the tarmac. This was becoming almost comic. I glanced down at my cellphone, it was beckoning me to "Select operator..."

A long straight stretch and a few cars in the distance bouyed our hopes of finding the beach. Then all of a sudden we were upon a small gang in the road, a couple of cones and a digger. One of the chaps had had the sense to bring a red flag to wave in case we'd missed the 10 foot wide crevasse in the asphalt. We went over another brow and stopped in our tracks. The tarmac ended here, but promisingly there were signs of road building beyond. So what the hell, we've come 3 hours this far.


We drove on over ash and mud kicking up dust. We were becoming bored of the lack of interest after a couple of miles but spotted something up ahead. What could it be? Of course, one person in the middle of nowhere, building an entire 4 lane highway with a standard cement mixer and wheelbarrow which one might consider inadequate for building a 2 bedroom bungalow.

Slightly beyond we spotted a bridge, which presumably the same chap had slaved over for the past 16 years. Although, not all was as it seemed. Perhaps we had met our match. A large mound of sand partially blocked the way but not quite, so we circumnavigated and started traversing the bridge, but another red flag equipped bloke quickly stopped us in our tracks. The journey must end here. "The bridge. Its not ready yet." We pointed at the map, but he won. He pointed at the end of the bridge which sadly didn't meet up with the land. The map was wrong and we would have to find another way round.



Anyway, at about 1pm we finally arrived at the beach and lazed around getting burned until about 5.30 when we went home.

Movies

Today I spent far too much time here. If you're having a spot of bother understanding us Brits read this.

Record shopping

Valentine Music Centre is the best record shop I have ever been to. The first great thing about it was that it was difficult to find. First we went to the Park Lane Mall, where Chris had shown us. We stumbled about for about 20 minutes before we realised we were in the right place but the shop had picked up sticks and moved. We jumped in a taxi and the driver helped us find the new location which looked like an unassuming apartment building but we pressed the bell and went up to the top floor into a treasure trove of quality music.

I spent the next hour listening to some top tracks and whilst I was listening I was still picking more 12" out from the bulging racks. Seconds after we had walked the chap offered us drinks. I ended up buying all the tunes I listened to and needless to say I cleaned out my wallet but I've rarely felt happier about it!

There's something about specialist shops that cannot be beaten. Going into a store and meeting people who are so passionate about the same thing you are and they want to make you happy. There's also something amusing about someone old enough to be my mum getting down to some funky house music on the wheels of steel! Valentine music centre have got it just right.

Wakeboarding, Ponggol

Its a totally amazing feeling, being pulled along behind a boat in Singapore heat, teetering on a little fibreglass plank. Of all the places to start wakeboarding I wouldn't pick a gravel pit next to the M4 in the UK as top of my list but Singapore is definately near the top. As you can see I'm going to need a bit of practice to perfect my stance. The only problem with Ponggol is the water. It is fairly rancid so care must be taken to keep one's mouth firmly shut especially when attempting the manoeuvre shown. Afterwards we follow the standard practice of downing a can of Coke to kill any nasties.

Luckily you seem to be able to hire a boat with a driver, without even asking for a lesson the guy will give you plenty of tips. Firstly how to actually stand up, then how to stay standing up, where to look when crossing the wake and other helpful comments. Basically a polite version of Harry Enfield's "you didn't want to do that!" This usually happens following a large and embarassing tumble into the stinky, pissy water (pissy not only from the outfall from nearby residential development :).

Selamat Datang!

Jono here in Malaysia, I will probably be here until October 2006.