Saturday 1 July 2006

One legged man's guitar and accessory shop!














Posted by Picasa Click for Bigness

Balancing Act

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A wardrobes work is never done!

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Click for Bigness

Roads with perspective problems

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Anyone want to borrow my book!


















(A likley candidate is shown above) Posted by Picasa

Flight Schedules

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Twinned (Again)

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I’d like to inform you that I was absolutely delighted by England’s sensational extra-time dismissal by Portugal in the World Cup quarter final this morning. (Jakarta Time)

I really wanted England to lose, in a veins-in-the-forehead-bulging "come on Portugal don’t let these Sassenach scumbags win" manner. I’m not proud of it, and I know such small-mindedness diminishes me as a human being.

And the most ridiculous part of this behaviour is that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Scottish nationalist. I find it hard to believe that, almost 300 years on, some people are still questioning the value of the Union - and I have no respect for those who use the language of Bannockburn and Culloden, whether it’s to stoke up fervour for a sports fixture or as a rallying call for independence.

I also like the English. Some of them are friends and one or two are relatives. They’re our nearest neighbours, and together we’ve been the greatest force for civilisation and economic and social development the world has ever seen. So why is it, then, that I know deep in my heart that if the English football team played North Korea - a deplorable nation which tortures its own people and holds a nuclear threat over the rest of us - I’d be rooting on the boys from Pyongyang and chowing down on boiled Shih Tzu?

I’m not alone. When in 2004, the Scottish rugby team, flying back from Australia after their own routine humping in the Rugby World Cup, were invited to wish England well in their semi-final against France the players responded by belting out ‘La Marseillaise’. England manager Clive Woodward complained that he’d received good luck messages from the Welsh and Irish rugby teams, but that the fax seemed to be broken at the Scottish Rugby Union.

Remember Andrew Wilson? He was regarded as the brainiest man in the SNP until he famously called on Scots to back England at Euro 2000. And what happened to him? He was blown out, first by his own party and then by the voters. He was last seen working as a public relations man for a bank, which seems an excessive punishment even for that crime.

Not that it is acceptable to back England’s opponents just because so many other Scots hold exactly the same prejudice. In January 1973 more people bought ‘Long-Haired Lover from Liverpool’ by ‘Little’ Jimmy Osmond than ‘The Jean Genie’, by David Bowie. In sport as in music, comfort in numbers is no excuse for unacceptable behaviour.

Support Eng-er-lund, impossible... many have made passionate requests for me to do so, but, certainly not enough to persuade me to break the habit of a lifetime and root for the English.

I’m not proud of this, as every sensible, politically-correct fibre in my being tells me that I should put such petty prejudices aside. There have been many suggestions as to why I - like thousands of Scots - cannot do that. It’s small nation syndrome, say some, the product of centuries of domination by a bigger neighbour, first on the battlefield, then on the sports field. It’s plain old jealousy, say others. If true, neither theory says much about our self-esteem and world view.

But it would be so much easier to support England if they weren’t so English. They are patronising in victory and bitter in (recently rare) defeat. Centuries of pink bits on maps have left them with an out-of-date impression of their own importance.

Worse, they don’t see their own faults. I heard one of the English squad on the news this week enthusing about how nice it was to be part of a team which was doing jolly well, (SIC).

Here in Jakarta there is always a bright side! The sun shone last night! Thank F**k there will be no more 1966! At least for the rest of the year!

You know that you are getting used to things if:

If your idea of vehicle air bag safety is having your lady sit on the front of your motorbike.

....if your food tastes better when you eat on the floor sitting on newspapers

...if you consider owning a buffalo as a good investment

...if you don't use toilet paper

...if the one and ONLY bottle of medicine you have at home cures every single illness known to man.

...if your whole family sits on the floor eating your meal--when visiting a KFC or MacDonald's in Jakarta.

...if you use two 100-Rupiah coins as tweezers.

...if you can't sleep because that chicken in the next room just won't shut up.

...if your idea of lawn ornaments are the empty black plastic bags blown off the roads.

...if you haven't done the dishes in hot water for the last five years.

...if you can eat any dish consisting of 50% Chilli Paste (Sambal) without heart failure.

...if your idea of a traffic jam is two motorbikes waiting for the buffalo to finish his business in the middle of the dirt road.

...if your only morning alarm clock is the regular 4:30am mosquito attack.

...if you prefer the "Burning Garbage" aroma as your choice of spray can air freshener.

...if the back end and the front end of your pickup truck are held together by scrap wood.

...if your idea of "dining out" is moving from the inside floor to a grass mat outside the front door.

At the third stroke?

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Salmomella Meester!




















Yum Yum Yum Posted by Picasa

Choose your poison

There are at least two amazing medical miracles relating to eating food in Indonesia - the common roadside warung, and the more "upmarket" masakan Padang genre of restaurant. Both are miracles due to the fact that people can eat there on a daily basis without dying from any number of illnesses from e.coli or salmonella.

Many warung diners take precautions by bringing their own bowl, or having their food served on a layer of paper, but that doesn't account for the thrillseekers who happily eat from the warung's crockery, which five minutes earlier was being washed in the same drain running behind the warung that several hundred children and adults have used as a call to nature during the day within a vicinity of 50 metres of the warung.

Seasoned expats claim that the only way to build up resistance to these risks is to take your chances, so that if you survive your first bout of gastrointestinal troubles you'll have enough antibodies in your system that you won't get ill again. I have my doubts, but that strategy certainly appears to work for the local population.

On the other hand, masakan Padang restaurants offer a dim sum style of buffet meal featuring the cuisine of the Minangkabau people from Padang, Sumatra. It's very spicy food served at room temperature, with plates of the actual food you'll be choosing from on display all day in the front window of the non-air conditioned restaurant.

I don't know about you, but I was always told that cooked food left to sit at room temperature is the most efficient way to generate nasty salmonella bacteria, so it beats me why people don't arrive home after eating at a masakan Padang restaurant and immediately drop dead.

Dishes or Paper














Ready for the next customer! Posted by Picasa

Pimp my Ride!
















So thats what happened to Delboy and Rodneys wheels! Posted by Picasa

And the walls went tumbling up!
















Construction at its best! Posted by Picasa

Me thinks they doth protest too much!
















What's it all about? See Below! Posted by Picasa

Did the Government hire rainmen to put damper on labor parade?

There are those who wring their hands and pray for divine intervention, and there are others who are more proactive in dealing with the elements.

The government apparently falls into the latter category, after reportedly hiring 60 so-called "rainmen" -- spiritualists who can create or disperse rain -- to wash out massive labour protests in Jakarta.

"The spiritualists, who mostly come from Greater Jakarta, are paid around Rp 1 million (about US$120) each for their services. They are coordinated by the Jakarta administration," said an official from the Vice President's office who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The spiritualists were reportedly assigned to several points to accumulate clouds and direct them to areas around the Hotel Indonesia circle, the House of Representatives compound, the Presidential Palace and the Vice President's Office, where the demonstrations were centered.

Like an answer to worried officials' prayers, the skies suddenly opened and saturated the protesters after they heard the rousing speeches of labour union leaders.

Several members of the police and the presidential guard also reportedly possess special abilities to cause or prevent rain, although it is not known if they were enlisted to the cause.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, looking out at the hot weather before the rain came, jokingly blamed Jakarta Police Chief Inspector General. Firman Gani.

"Where is the rain? Pak Firman Gani told me that he has the best rainmakers hired to help disperse the protesters. But the weather seems to be friendly to the protesters," said Kalla, who denied later during a press conference the reports the government enlisted the aid of spiritualists

For more on the formidable Vice President, scroll down.

What were the workers protesting against, the answer lies below!

Forget money from the Broo! Move to Indonesia:

A friend of mine told me about his experience a few years ago when he resigned from a job to take another and the human-resources officer asked him to come and collect five months' pay before he left.

It wasn't that my mate’s departure so delighted his employer that the boss decided to open the purse strings and make the divorce a joyous occasion for both parties.

It seems someone had simply forgotten to write into the labour law that employees were to be handsomely rewarded if they're fired, not if they quit of their own accord.

That oversight, of course, makes Indonesia an ideal place for job-hoppers. Except for company directors, everyone else is covered by a ``we-pay-as-you-go'' clause. With luck, one might even get a signing bonus from the new employer, making switching jobs an incredibly rewarding experience.

I don't think I can begin to describe just how bizarrely one-sided the Indonesian labour laws are.

So what happens when someone is really sacked?

The costs for firing a worker who has put in 20 years of service amounts to 145 weeks of wages in Indonesia.

The government is fully aware of the impact of labour costs on the nation's competitiveness. However, this administration's efforts to amend the labour laws have been a disaster. The draft law, which had to be withdrawn amid massive and violent street protests by labour unions in April, was so much in favour of the employers that even the employers were taken by surprise.

And that was its undoing. The draft law, which will now be redrawn with input from labour unions, businessmen, the government and academia, had tried to curtail severance pay to 12 months. It would have allowed employers more latitude in hiring contract workers.

Businessmen had expected much less. They would have been happy with some concession from labour on severance pay. What they wanted the most is the right to fire workers -- without compensation -- for misconduct. That's a reasonable demand if labour can be assured of judicial recourse against wrongful termination.

Indonesia's labour laws are like a leaky tap in a bombed-out hotel where the former employees have nicked all the silverware and pillaged all the crockery: They're just one more thing for the new manager to fix.

Pimping for Indonesia

We have Proof - The Indonesian Vice President is a Pimp.

It appears that Vice President Jusuf Kalla has finally lost his marbles.

Perhaps it could explain his otherwise offensive suggestion Wednesday that tourism campaigns for the Middle East should highlight the availability of attractive women.
"The marketing needs a better campaign based on the visitor's appetite and segment," he said at a seminar on tourism promotion to the Middle East.

"If there are a lot of Middle East tourists traveling to Puncak to seek janda, I think that it's OK," he added, referring to the West Java mountain resort and using the Indonesian term denoting either widows or divorcees.

He said the tourists would bring numerous benefits to the women and their offspring, as well as the country's entertainment community.

"If the janda get modest homes even if the tourists later leave them, then it's OK. The children resulting from these relationships will have good genes. There will be more television actors and actresses from these pretty boys and girls," he said.
Kalla was referring to a common practice in some areas of West Java and Batam island, where local women engage in short-term relationships with foreigners, many of them businesspeople from the Middle East, after taking informal religious vows.
Although many Islamists say the arrangement avoids illicit sexual relations and provides income to poor families, women's rights activists contend it is a form of legalized prostitution, especially when minors are forced into the unions by their parents.

The Vice President said the focus of Middle Eastern tourism campaigns should not stereotype Arabs as devoutly religious people who would only spend their days at the mosque.

After providing a visa-on-arrival facility for several countries in the Middle East, the government expects to attract 300,000 visitors from the wealthy region this year, up from around 40,000 last year. (The answers in the "Reason for Visit" section of the Visa Form should be interesting)

Middle Eastern tourists, feeling unwelcome in Europe and the United States after 9/11, are flocking to Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand and Malaysia. Thailand had almost 290,000 Middle Eastern tourists in 2004, a 42 percent jump from the previous year. Malaysia attracted almost 150,000 last year.

In a nutshell – Pimping for Tourism! I can't wait for the next election campaign banners!