Is the real 'Liverpool' back?

A bit groggy from following this early morning’s crunch game against 4^th place challengers, Spurs. Thot it was a good game by the 2^nd stringers, where Greek, Skrtle, Degen, Riera, Kuyt, Aqui all filling in for the injured, or in Babel’s case, frozen out. Finally I saw a performance, and a corresponding result, so it was a great effort from everyone. Lyon away was a similar performance, except for that lousy last minute goal that was conceded, and though there were threats of a repeat, it was sufficiently repealed and nullified. Some would attribute it to Redknapp’s introduction of Keane which caused them to lose shape, but Modric was well marshaled and Defoe / Crouch strikeforce handled quite easily. With the return of confidence, a little bit more of last-year’s barnstorming performances wouldn’t go amiss.

What are my views on this years farce? Defensive nervousness. CL exit was due to the last minute goals conceded to Lyon in both legs, as well as in the dead Fiorentina game. Similarly in the FA Cup. In all those cases, midfield and strikers did their jobs, there was some cohesion and effort, but the defense let them down. Is Alonso being missed. Definitely. With Alonso, my most favourite cerebral player, we can always have hope to find ways to overcome the handicap of a goal against when he’s in charge of the tempo and the angle of attacks. But without him and with the whole team just hanging on to slender leads, the nervous amplifies, and thereafter sure enough we concede at the end.

In the League though, is where we suffered from the collective loss of confidence. Damaging defeats to Pompey, Sunderland, Chelsea, Arsenal, Fulham, following the early season losses to Spurs and Villa means there was never any momentum to regain that confidence. Athletes in a finely-tuned team game understand this condition. It is hoped this big win over a direct rivals can regain some of that confidence while the cavalry arrives in the shape of Torres, Gerrard, Johsnson, Agger and Benayoun.

Can we nick 4^th? This I’m not too sure. City will be our direct competitors, it seems, and will require the whole team to be surgical cutting-edge in attack and blatant mean reinforced defence for the rest of the season? No one can answer that it seems, but I can certainly hope so, if for nothing else but the catastrophic implications of missing 4^th place for Liverpool FC’s future.

Invictus!

The Man in the Arena.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat

Source: RAWK!

Initium est dimidium facti.

(Beginning is one half of the deed)

Source: http://www.thebookmarkshop.com/latin/latinpronunciation.htm

Losing my way, and trying to find my way back

Just finished reading Dreams From My Father by a certain Mr Barack Obama. The story began with his Origins, detailing out his families’ genealogy and life and what caused him to begin questioning the role of his race in the world. In part 2, upon his graduation, with a confused state of mind to his racial identity and belonging and his worth to the world, he left a well-paying job to become a social activist in Chicago. He found his true purpose helping the downtrodden and needy, yet the questions he had from childhood never really answered. He found his answer in the 3^rd part, in Kenya, with something I felt was an overtly exaggerated dramatization of his epiphany about his true calling.

Regardless of whether some parts were fictionalized or not, it was a wonderful narrative, and the context and the framework for the questions playing out in his mind anout his identity very frankly admitting the fragile self-esteem of those used to be at the behest of those used to become conquerors. Today’s Guardian had a nice review on Avatar which pointed out the metaphorical nature of the movie to the violent genocide done by the European conquerors of America. There are many parallels also to Malaysia’s situation – a fragile “ruling” majority living in worry of being superseded by other more agile, dynamic races here in Malaysia.

On a personal level, I find it imperative I find my peace and overcome the bitterness and enmity which characterized Obama’s life. The calling to the cause took place after that was settled – to find our way, to find the right thing to do, the right level to act, the right interactions to cultivate….

This to be continued.

Travelogue- Singapore trip

Our sojourn down South had a convenient excuse for its ‘unplanned’ nature due to Naeem being hospitalised on Sunday and being discharged the next day for what seems to be fever caused by mysterious unknown elements. His muallim made a comment about the ‘keras’ nature of Ulu Yam, site for Naeem’s camping adventure a few days before, and though I’d have my doubts on this, I cannot argue on the features of what seems to be a strange fever rising up to 40C before receding just as strangely. Anyway, it was this excuse that we unashamedly plonked to Nik and Hamidah for gatecrashing Simei that rainy Tuesday evening, despite almost 2 months of missed opportunity to lockin hotel accommodation.

Tuesday night saw us have dinner at Tangs in Bedok, a short 10 min drive away from Block 102 Simei, which is a nice Chinese restaurant certified halal by MUIS. Nik seemed to enjoy his dinner, and we spent that night catching up since when we last met. The kids were pretty well behaved and warmed up to Nik and Hamidah very quickly. After dinner, Nik turned babysitter for the non-babies who were already exhausted, whilst Hamidah turned tourguide to bring us- the adults- to Mustafa. It was a fascinating place, a gargantuan mamak retail shop the size of a whole block (or 2 or 3) of 4 storey shophouses along Little India selling everything that you can think of under the sun at cheap cheap streetware prices. (well, relative to the bloated Singaporean retail shops anyway) I was unimpressed by their toilets though, which seemed to reinforce the stereotypes of old despite Singapore’s best efforts to maintain its hygienic standards. After securing 6 1kg basmati rice packs, we got home after midnight via the AYE interconnection, a scenic “coastal” (inverted commas as the boundaries are redrawn all the time as Singapore continues its expanding reclamation works in its quest for more landmass) road, and Hamidah pointing out the old redlight areas and pointing out that Batam is the place old men get their kicks and have some boogieing fun away from the straitjacketed Singapore culture.

Next day was a further demonstration of our indecisiveness in travel planning. We set out about 10 to Singapore Zoo, again our generous hosts deciding to show the way and patiently waited until we secured tickets and were ready to move in. We had Sentosa in our mind later in the afternoon and thought we could meet up later, but after 5 hours in the Zoo, and after seeing the animals and viewing the shows, I thought that it was just a larger and perhaps a more organised version, though not by much of the A Famosa resort. We were hungry by then, and decided against having lunch at the fast food joints (they had Ben and Jerry) in the Zoo and wanted to try out the famed food of Arab Street. Through the GPS, at last we managed to locate Arab Street after some difficulty and had high tea of nasi campur just as the azan for Asar was proclaimed from the nearby Masjid Sultan. Hafiz was beginning to get accustomed to Singapore by now, after sleeping in the Zoo’s explorer trolley for almost 3 hours, and was getting acquainted with pavement stuff. As a show of the Singaporean culture, as I was leaving, a number of the restaurant visitors called me to point out that I had left my bag containing the cameras and passports under the chair – kudos to Singaporean powers of observation and kindness. We had Asar in the Masjid after a visit to an Islamic bookshop – which had a lot of Sufi-style books, but had interesting musical CDs. We went to Golden Landmark Hotel to ask for accommodation and as expected they were full apart from a suite, which we can sagfely conclude will be inferior to Nik and Hamidah’s anyway! Dian managed to find time to go shopping for clothes, and I must agree that the quality of textiles there were pretty good and attractively priced, though that is without being able to compare to the Jakels of Jalan TAR. Lesson learnt - information asymmetry is fine when you’ve got dosh to spend on things that you like.

By now, we had already communicated with our (hopefully not reluctant) hosts that the Sentosa plans were off and we were making up our plans as we go along – and we drove to the Esplanade via the commercial side of Singapore. These guys are impressive town builders. The level of urban planning detail and the execution to achieve their stated objectives were impressive. There’s a lesson there somewhere for DBKL in urban city management. This part is built for people, those who work here, those who play here, those who LIVE here. Walking, or cycling, or just hanging out- they have thought of it and everything’s a cinch. Try walking in KL, and I have as per a previous entry, and the feeling of suffocation abounds. We here are really in need of a regeneration, whilst those folks down south, their challenge is to fill their impressive structures with “life”, outside of their utterly dominating presence of capitalism.

I digress. We spent about 2 hours in Esplanade not really doing anything other than walking around aimlessly. Hafiz has now fully recharged his batteries and we spent most of the 2 hours trying to get him to follow our general direction, and not wherever his feet take him. After one month of learning how to walk, his new-found skill is being used most enthusiastically, resulting in fatigue for his minders. We had dinner in Geylang, again after I announced that I have had enough of eating places at convention centres given my working premises is next to one here in KL. Little did I know there are interesting night-life activities in Geylang, and it didn’t seem that way when we were there. The verdict on the food? Well, Malaysia is still a foodie’s heaven! The GPS gave up on us that night but we made it safely to Simei about 11pm and Nik already in dreamland.

Next morning, we had a good chat over breakfast on the differences I observed between our countries, so close in proximity but so far in outlook. We talked about regulatory enforcement and fines being such a major part of life in Singapore, and lo and behold, as I went down to check on my car there’s this white slip sticking out under the wiper of the Odyssey. Let’s omit discussions on what was done next from this blog however. We made our way to Sentosa that morning, again our most beneficient hosts showed us the way up to the Bridge leading to the small isle. There were a few places we went to – Imbiah lookout, we saw the luge, the cable car, the nature observation centre, the history gallery (didn’t go in though), but the highlight for the kids were the 4D Pirates show, and the virtual reality Log ride. We had snacks at Coffeebean (I think!?), then made a short tour of the islet before heading back to the main island. (it’s just wrong to call it the mainland!) Again GPS-free, but we made it to Jurong Science Centre around 5pm after I made a spontaneous detour to Biopolis and Fusionopolis via the NUS exit. From what I can see, the facilties are fully utilized, though I could be wrong, again, an abject lesson for our policymakers who designed Cyberjaya, and maybe Biovalley, the object of a recent misguided and wrong Economist article. SILC and BioXCell are recent developments, so I will save the abuse for now.

The Science Centre had a Plastination exhibition, which closed as we walked in, being as it were already New Year’s Eve. So that counted as a missed opportunity for me, to be counted together with Songs of the Sea for Ummi. We made our way to the IMAX theatre instead, which had this absolutely ginormous circular 3D screen and a full auditorium of people – Singaporeans must really be into science! Hafiz’s eyes were so wide as he looked at the 3D projected images life of sea creatures, it must be so real to him. At the close, we again made our way to Arab Street, this time to try out the murtabak. The City Centre was surprisingly relatively quiet and we found our parking quite easily, again illegal, but I’m beyond caring at this juncture. Nik called to say he had an appointment with his friend, so it was up to us to amend our impulsive “itinerary” and it was back to Mustafa for last-minute shopping. We were back in Simei and chatted to close to 2am.

It was then Friday, and it was time to pack up. After breakfast at a food court, we bade our goodbyes. Nik and Hamidah were the perfect hosts, we were the unashamed guests barging in onto people’s homes but again we’d pray for their well-being and hopes to be met. It was a quick trip, rather packed in its spur of the moment itinerary, but hopefully provided for memories to cherish and thoughts to ponder on the fates and destiny for these two neighbours, both intent to go their separate ways, and still maintain a semblance of cordiality.