Not My Problem...

I don’t want to hear about the difficulties faced by booksellers in Malaysia.

I don’t want to hear about how little profit they make whenever they stock a book that doesn’t have the name Harry Potter on it because nobody reads books in Malaysia.

I don’t care a hoot whether the big booksellers are upset because some hypermarkets undercut them by selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at a reasonable price, instead of the rip-off profiteering prices demanded by the Big Boys.

It's just not my problem.

I’ll tell you what I DO care about. I care about the youngsters in this country not developing a reading habit. I am an English language educator in a country which, by some accounts, lacks a vibrant reading culture, compared to some "advanced" countries like the UK. Not enough Malaysian kids read for pleasure in this country, and I care about this very much.

I care that university students often lack basic general knowledge and understanding of current events, arts, literature, history and philosophy, making it difficult for them to excel in such activities as debating and public speaking, both of which I teach.

I care that the brains of the young (and the old!) are being slowly starved not because they are stupid, not because they don't have access to books and newspapers, but because for a number of reasons, they just don't read very much.

Now don't get me wrong, gentle readers, I believe books like the Harry Potter series have done a great deal to show children, and their parents, that reading is something to be enjoyed and admired, not just something to do to pass examinations. But as a regular doyen of the Kuching bookshop scene, I can see one major reason why so many people don't read as much as they should.

And it's the price tag. Especially when books like Potter are marked up to ridiculous prices such as RM 109.90 - more than twice the average price for a book of its class.

We should not forget that, despite the fact that many people ride around in Mercedes and BMWs and Landcruisers in this town, not many people are prepared to spend more than is reasonable on books for pleasure. That's a fact. Even Prof. Madder, a reasonably well-paid university associate professor, finds it hard sometimes to buy a good clutch of his favourite history books and novels every month, despite the fact that books are tax deductible in Malaysia.

And we haven't even mentioned the silent majority of people who live in the kampungs (rural villages) who can just about afford to ride a motorcycle and whose children probably only see books when they go to school.

In yesterday's New Sunday Times, there was a superb article entitled "No quick-fix spells on book prices" by Elizabeth John and Nurris Ishak. This article gave an account of the difficulties faced by the Malaysian book trade in making a profit in a small market. It seems the book sellers and distributors don't make much money because not enough people read books. And people don't read books because the books are too expensive. Talk about a vicious cycle!

But there is one solution to this problem, albeit not a panacea for all ills. In the article, Raman Krishnan, who runs independent bookstore Silverfish Books, advises the large booksellers:

“Stop complaining about a small circulation for English language books. If the current market size is too small –– a maximum of 3,000 units are sold per book –– then do more to increase it and drive prices down".

The booksellers will of course argue that people should be encouraged to read more, by education or other measures by the Government. But Prof. Madder argues that yes, this may work, but it will take too long. And we don't have too long.

By reducing the prices for books such as novels, history books, business books, biographies etc. NOW, surely this will encourage more people from different social backgrounds to fork out for books. The resulting critical mass of readers will build steadily until it becomes normal to see people reading books. More people will buy books, the booksellers' profits will go up, and so on and so on.

So I don't shed any tears when the free market bites the big booksellers in the face. The hypermarkets have shown that if you sell the books at a lower price (RM 69.90), readers will come. In droves. If the big boys can't handle the free market, they should get out of the business and make room for people who can cater for their customers' needs, and their customers need CHEAPER BOOKS.

Datuk Tony Fernandes did it for the airline industry when he started the budget airline Airasia, making air travel in Malaysia and Asia much less expensive in a crowded and highly regulated market. Surely, books are smaller and much easier to handle than jet aeroplanes!?!?

Visual Aids....

As promised, here are some photos I took with my phone during and after Annie's stay in hospital. Above Top: Annie just after she was admitted to the hospital the day before her operation. Note the funky green hospital clothes!! Above Bottom: Annie (left) with Nurse Hajjijah (right), just before Annie went in for her operation.

Above Top: Annie and another patient being wheeled into the operating room. Annie's bed is on the right. Above Bottom: Annie at home the day after being discharged.

These pictures have been published to reassure those of you who may be about to have cancer surgery for the first time. You can see how happy Annie is and how quickly she recovered. It's not as horrible as it appears and the hospital was a great place. If you want to see photos of Annie's operation scar and the post-operative drainage pouch she wears, which is not at all shocking I can assure you, please apply privately by sending a comment to this blog posting along with your email address. Genuine requests will be entertained only.

Gallows Humour

As anyone who has never been through a traumatic event will tell you, laughter is the best therapy.

So, my wife was strongly advised to keep her spirits up with a few laughs to take away some of the fear and anxiety of her recent mastectomy. And being married to me, a Jedi Master of Dark Humour, she doesn't have much choice...

On the face of it, having a mastectomy to treat breast cancer is about as funny, to borrow an image from fantasy writer Stephen Donaldson, as a sack full of severed limbs. But Nurse Hajjijah, the marvellous cancer counsellor at the SGH, advised us to make a few jokes about Annie's condition. So here is a compilation of a few funnies that I have made use of to cheer Annie up over the last few days and weeks.

Firstly, I must mention one of the oldest medical jokes which, I am sure, was told in Hippocrates' day and must be part of the established folklore of the medical profession all over the world. There are many versions of this joke, yet it never fails to make me shake my gut vigorously in hysterics.

It goes like this. A young man goes to hospital to have his left arm amputated. After the operation, he asks the doctor whether he will be able to play the violin. The doctor replies positively that, with special equipment, practice and patience he should be able to use his remaining arm to play the violin. "That's fantastic"! the young man beams, "because I couldn't play the violin before!"

And the joke doesn't seem to lose its humourous flavour much with repetition in a different guise. Consider this one: last week I had one of my front teeth extracted at the dentists. After the operation, I asked the dentist if I could still play the mouth organ. The dentist replied that I should have no problem, so I replied "thank God for that! I couldn't play the mouth organ before!".

And so it goes on... Annie was in stitches (oops, sorry darling!) when I told that joke to her and I even managed to make a medical student who came to see Annie laugh (though she probably knew about 20,000 versions of that joke!).

Thunder storm. Better log off!!

That's better. So, there's another way I have of cheering up Annie, especially when she was about to go into the operating theatre. I just say to her "don't worry sweetie, you'll be back playing football again before long" (even though she doesn't know how to play football......)

I just want to finally share with you one bit of really dark humour related to serious illness - but I haven't yet told this one to Annie. It goes like this. An old man goes to the doctor. The doctor tells him that he has terminal cancer and Alzheimer's Disease. "Thank God for that" the old man replies, "at least I don't have cancer...."

Better get out of here before they start to throw things at me. Then, I really will need my pills....

A Humbling Week, Part Two

Today is Annie's first full day back from the hospital, and the living room has been converted to a mini-bedroom. She is happy, and receiving lots of visitors, like the queen that she is.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. So back in the Sarawak General, the doctors were young, the old men were fruity, and everything was busy and overcrowded. But somehow, the place didn't exude the fear and anxiety that I always remember from trips to hospital as a child - the reek of disinfectant and human vomit was completely absent from the Female Surgical Ward. At least it was when I was there anyway...

On Wednesday, after a seemingly interminable wait for the call to go for the operation, the nurse came to give Annie her sedative, and another two nurses came along with a bed which Annie climbed nervously onto, with her saline drip attached carefully to a hook above the bed. We all followed this procession slowly out of the ward to the lifts and, eventually, to the operation suite on level one.

This place had a glass sliding door leading to a vestibule with further sliding doors opening onto a mini-ward where the patients to be operated on were presumably given their anaesthetics and readied for the knife.

It all reminded me somehow of an airport departure area. Watching Annie's bed, alongside that of Pak Cik Tongkat Ali's wife, being wheeled through the doors into the brightly lit surgical area, to be checked and fussed over by a coterie of doctors and nurses was so much like watching the one you love go through the security checks, the immigration checks and finally through to the departure lounge to board the aircraft.

You never know if you will ever see them again because when they go through those doors, whether to the aircraft or to the operating theatre, you know that your loved ones are in the hands of highly skilled professionals and, of course, in the hands of the Almighty. You no longer have any control.

So when Annie finally passed out of view, a few tears did well up in my eyes, but in the end I knew she was a strong girl. So I prepared for the three hour wait for her operation to be over. Taking the kids for a well-deserved breakfast, then returning to the family waiting area, I endured the long wait - regularly punctuated by Pak Tongkat Ali constantly getting up to ask the nurse for news about his wife, and him regaling me and all and sundry (especially the female all and sundry!). Myself, I just sat down on the seat, reading my Qur'an and occasionally getting up to walk around and talk to the other members of Annie's family who were with me.

Finally, after about four hours - 1. 30 pm local time - a bed appeared in the vestibule and it was Annie, obviously out of it. She had had a long operation. We followed her bed back up to the ward, and she was installed in a new bed near the window and hooked up to the saline and morphine supply. She looked serene and sleepy, sometimes opening her eyes a bit and saying something to me. I told her I loved her. She had a small drainage pouch attached to her wound by a red and blue pipe. Her hospital greens hid the wound that had been given to her, to save her life. I guess that wound will remain hidden, for a while at least.

To cut a long story short, Annie was fine - I knew that because she was snoring in her sleep! Later in the evening, she woke up and lucidly talked to us, the only bad symptom being the post-anaesthetic nausea which made her sick for a while. I stayed with her till late at night, when I took the kids to pick up her sister Anita from the airport, and took Anita to stay the night by Annie's bedside with her other sister Doris.

And the next day, Annie was pronounced free to go. She was up, smiling, joking, eating chicken rice porridge and walking around gingerly, holding onto her blood-filled drainage pouch. The doctors and nurses were amazed by how quickly she had recovered from such a major operation. She was not suffering any pain, and had been un-hooked from the morphine supply the previous day. She didn't even need Panadol!

Annie said that her prayers, her faith in Allah Almighty and the herbal medicines she had been taking before the operation were a factor in her swift, relatively painless recovery. And I totally agree with her. I would also add that she is a damn tough cookie!

So she was discharged at 7 pm yesterday (Thursday) and, after a training session from the nurses in how to change and monitor the drainage pouch, we all packed up Annie's things and left for home. I daresay there was someone else more needy of the vacant bed.

To finish off this long posting, I must say a few things about the nurses, the little angels in stiff white uniforms with those little lace doily hats. They worked so tirelessly, going from bed to bed changing dressings, checking things, writing things down on clipboards, checking blood pressure and temperature. They were efficient, un-rushed and seemed to be very happy despite their constant state of activity. No sweat, no complaints that I heard anyway. Wonderful people doing a sometimes galling job in what I suspect is an environment where not all of the equipment or infrastructure is of the best quality. I salute every one of them, as I do whenever I enter a hospital.

If I ever have to go into the SGH, or any other hospital for that matter as a patient, I want to be looked after by the likes of them. I see no need to spend thousands of dollars to stay in a medical hotel (private hospital), to be treated like a lord just because I have the money. If I want that, I'll go and stay in the Hilton.

Gentle readers, never look down on nurses, or nursing attendants, or hospital doctors, or any of the quiet army of miracle workers who make hospitals work for our health. These people do a dirty job for far below the top dollar, and often get short shrift from the public, working long hours and having to deal with the most unpleasant side of human existence and suffering, day after day.

So I thank those medical staff and assistants, of whatever grade or qualification, who helped make my wife's brief stay a positive and comfortable one. I wish to single out one particularly wonderful lady - Nurse Hajjijah, the hospital's cancer counselor, who is also a breast cancer survivor and has done so much to help Annie to face her ordeal with courage and positivity. Nurse Hajjijah came to see Annie several times during her stay and hugged her and even phoned her up this morning after Annie had left the hospital.

Hajjijah was there right at the start when Annie was told she had cancer - she shared her experiences and told Annie that she was not suffering alone and that everything will be alright. Thank you and may God's blessings be showered on you forever!

And finally, a message of thanks to the surgeons who operated on Annie - I praise you all from the bottom of my heart for doing such a clean, professional and effective job. I hope and pray now that Annie's recovery will be short, and permanent. A profound and humble Thank You from Prof. Madder.

And now for the rest of our lives......

A Humbling Week, Part One

Prof. Madder is delighted to report that his dear wife Annie was discharged from the Sarawak General Hospital this evening, after a two night stay. Oh and by the way, she had had a mastectomy....

Annie was admitted on Tuesday morning and it was a cold, rainy morning (yes, it does get relatively cold in the tropics!!). Mornings like this don't exactly instill a positive mindset for any activity, least of all going into hospital for a cancer operation.

But we soldiers supported our queen through the hospital admissions procedures, through the labyrinthine and crowded hospital complex to the Female Surgical Ward on level 3 of the main building. On arrival, Annie was given a load of paperwork to complete, and a set of hospital greens to change into. Furthermore, as the place was overcrowded, she had to spend the first night of her stay in a temporary bed in the corridor! OK for her, but rather cramped for her retinue of visitors!

The hospital was as clean as it was possible to make such an old place as this, and the equipment in the ward was quite up to date. A lot of people in Malaysia say disparaging things about Government hospitals, sneering that they are not as modern as the spanking new (hideously expensive) private hospitals such as the Normah and Timberland with their private wards and high-tech beeping hospital equipment.

But what these people don't realise is that in many cases, the Government hospital and the private hospital share the same surgeons. This is especially the case with cancer specialisations. And the Government hospital, at least the Sarawak General, is perfectly safe, clean and comfortable - if a little overcrowded. It is also a highly respected cancer hospital in Malaysia, where a lot of cancer research work is carried out. So you actually get better value for money (which isn't an issue anyway because we work for the Government).

And, the Sarawak General Hospital is a great place to visit if, like Prof. Madder, you are a keen observer of life. And life there is. As well as the other patients, all ladies of many different ages with all kinds of serious complaints, there are the visitors. One particular visitor sticks in my memory vividly - let us call him Pak Tongkat Ali.

For the non-Malaysianists among you, Tongkat Ali is the name of a ginseng-like root taken in a drink by Malay men for the purpose of, ahem, enhancing their libido. One of the newspaper advertisements for Tongkat Ali coffee consists of a picture of a broken bed, with no wording required. Nudge-nudge, wink wink, say no more!!

For the less dirty-minded of us, Tongkat also means walking stick. And Pak is a generic title often given to elderly Malay men as a mark of respect.

Now, Pak Tongkat Ali was an elderly Malay gentleman alright, but he had a bushy Hagrid-like beard, spiky hair and a big thick walking stick like something they sell in craft shops. He was always stumping around the ward on his stick, regaling everyone, especially me, with friendly but slightly incoherent chatter. He had a somewhat Tolkienesque aspect to him, with a bit of Santa Claus thrown in. A laughing gnome with a huge, drooping belt pouch which looked like it might carry magic charms but probably carried money and a day's supply of Tongkat Ali.

Basically, the old man was harmless, but on the verge of being a little bit irritating at times, as we will see later. His wife was in for major surgery on her stomach and kidneys, and she went into the operation room together with Annie.

As well as Pak Tongkat Ali, I have to make some comments about the doctors. THEY WERE NO MORE THAN KIDS!!! Maybe it's because I'm getting old but come on - I swear blind that the doctors who came on their ward rounds were on average no older than 16! They looked like undergraduates with stethoscopes poking out of their pockets! But they all had the title 'Dr.' on their name tags in front of their names and seemed to know what they were doing.

Maybe it was my over-inflated ego, but the doctorlings seemed to show me some respect too - probably because they knew that I also had a doctor title, but I must have forgotten to tell them whether or not I was a medical doctor!

Fortunately, they didn't ask me to assist them with a cardiac arrest. That would have been a bit of a hoot - imagine them crying desperately: "Please, we need you to help us perform a defibrillation on this patient, Doctor" and me replying, "sorry, can't help you there, but I can produce an accurate phonetic transcription of his death agonies!"

Getting tired now. Part Two coming soon.....

The Co-operative Principle

As if life weren't fine and dandy enough at the moment, this morning I experienced a practical lesson in what some linguists and communication experts call "the Co-operative Principle". This basically states that, all things being equal, human communication, and by extension all human intercourse, is predicated on co-operation between the people involved. In other words, there is no point in my talking to you if I don't think you might say something back to me or do something for me, and vice versa.

But today, I saw what happens when this principle is mis-applied to the movement of motor vehicles along busy streets in Kuching, Sarawak.

My wife and I were trying to get some banking business done before she goes into hospital, so we ploughed our way through the morning traffic to one of the local banks. Now picture this. The bank is situated in a commercial building lot which does not have anywhere near enough car parking spaces. And of course, all of the spaces I could see were taken. So I did what many of us do in situations like this - I dropped my wife off so that she could go to the bank and I could drive round the block to find a parking space, or kill time until she came out of the bank.

That was my big mistake.

I slowly wound my way through the traffic, past some building work which had blocked off a significant portion of empty car parking spaces, and attempted to find a passage round the back of the building, so that I could come round the other side again and meet up with my wife who was undoubtedly waiting for me outside the bank.

But, the narrow two-lane road at the back of the building was blocked on one lane by parked cars, including one amazingly stupid piece of parking whereby a car was actually planted on the corner of the street, with just about enough space for me to pass with my paintwork intact. I mean if this was art, it would win the Turner prize for creatively bloody minded parking.

And of course, two large cars came round the corner towards me in the opposite direction, and could not pass me because of the creatively parked car. And I could not reverse because there was half of Kuching's car population queueing up behind me. The word 'trapped' comes to mind.

So I did what anyone who is in a hurry to pick up his ill wife who does not like to be out in the hot sun would do in this situation. I swore, waved my hands like a gorilla and signalled to the other drivers to reverse back. But being bastards, of course, they did nothing of the kind.

Good thing I have the micro-manoeuvring skills of Houdini when it comes to driving a car in confined spaces. And thank God for power steering. Therefore, after some really hairy reverse-forward-reverse surgical manoeuvres (in which I did actually make microscopic contact with the bumper of a parked van but don't tell the wife!!), I managed to make room for the two cars to pass me. I waved apologetically to the drivers as they raced past ....

But my troubles were not at an end. Oh no....

When I rounded the corner, I came face to face with my next obstacle - a gold Proton Wira driven by an elderly lady. If she is reading this blog, I sincerely hope she accepts my apologies for what I did next. I waved at her to go back in my impatient white bastard fashion, but she could not go back because she couldn't see what was behind her and could not reverse into the only empty parking space.

Malaysians are so polite, it makes me cry with embarrassment sometimes - the lady simply got out of her car and came towards me. I thumbed down my window in anticipation of an earful of abuse or scolding, but instead the lady simply asked me to help her to reverse into the space behind her, so I could get past.

So I got out, turned off my engine and locked the car door (you never know - could be a car-jacking trick). Then I eased my bulk into her car and, with several very scary reverses, managed to ease her car into a safe place so that the traffic could move again. She thanked me, I thanked her, and headed back to my car which was still holding up the cars behind.

So the day was saved by a simple act of co-operation. Although I was angry, impatient and frankly in need of my pills, I saw that all it took was for one car to move to the side in order to remove the bottleneck. It was simple - I just helped the lady, because she was not as experienced in close manoeuvring as I was.

But you should have seen some cars - even after I had moved the lady over to the side, cars were still trying to get into the gap left by her car, until they saw my Matrix coming towards them, and they moved back. As the road was wider at this point, I could pass through and get to my wife.

Now the interesting thing about this episode is that everyone in that car-jam was acting in their own self-interest, without the slightest sense of the consequences for other people. The road was clearly marked as a two-way road yet some cars had taken up one lane and blocked it off, making it impossible to pass unless of course you were driving a tank or flying a helicopter.

This is what happens when you don't co-operate and think of the consequences of where you are parking. This is what happens when you think only of yourself, and damn everyone else to hell.

You get chaos, anger and misery. I was angry too, and in a hurry, but I didn't let that stop me from co-operation. I managed to overcome my impatience, and do something positive.

So next time you are in this type of situation, you have three choices:

Avoid - of course if you can, don't get in this situation in the first place. Go somewhere else or do your banking at less busy times. Easier said than done most of the time, though.

Analyse - think of what is happening in front of you and behind you. What will happen if I do this, and he does this.... Treat every situation as a system, made up of parts that interact. Ask yourself how to solve problems that arise when these parts don't interact properly. Then act.

Empathise - think of others - they are also trying to get past just like you. If you can help them, do so. You are not the only creature on the surface of this planet...

We don't have much time on this world, so we might as well try our best to help each other, and make our lives just that little bit more bearable. By applying the Co-Operative Principle.

The morning after the blog before...

Ah, that's better!

After my little rantette about the Harry Potter phenomenon I feel myself utterly drained and unable to say anything really meaningful today. So, this post will be made up as I go along, instead of being painstakingly crafted for hours on my sweat-stained word processor.

Yeh right, I hear you all doubt and sneer. Well, you can sneer and doubt all you want, because I am today drained and empty of ideas for my blog. So, anybody have any ideas for me to write about? Anybody?

Ah well, looks like I need to have another cup of 3-in-1 coffee and see if that helps me to trawl up anything.......

Of course, I'm just kidding you, gentle readers. I have one very important topic to blog about today, but I'm just trying to put it off with the linguistic equivalent of what psychologists call 'displacement activity'. I am of course referring to my dear wife's impending cancer operation.

In a previous post I told you that she had been diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer - not immediately life-threatening, but with the obvious unpleasant consequences of breast removal, chemotherapy and probably radiotherapy thrown in. She is not going to be a well girl for a while...

She is going into hospital this coming Tuesday and will be operated on on Wednesday. Today, there is a minor gathering of the Razak Clan (my wife's family) who are flying over to Kuching from Sabah (the other Malaysian Borneo state which is my wife's home state) and my son is taking time off from his studies to come over from KL. Even Prof. Madder, workaholic that I am, will be taking compassionate leave for two weeks, to offer what little support I can.

I know most of you reading this do not know me personally, and probably don't give a damn, but I would like to use this blog to express my thanks to all those colleagues, friends and students who have shown their support to me and to my wife during this harrowing time.

So, in no particular order:

To my dear Debate Club members, thanks so much for the lovely flowers and chocolates and get well soon card. Good luck in Monday's Yayasan Sarawak Debate Tournament. I know you can do it!

To my bosses and senior colleagues in my university, who have put up with my foreign nonsense and have allowed me the privilege of serving this wonderful country for the last five years or so, terima kasih banyak (thanks very much) for allowing me some time off to be with my wife. I will never forget this, and will forever be in your debt...

To my colleagues who will be sitting in for some of my classes for the next few weeks, you are bright stars that will shine on forever. I will shine for you any day...

To my students, who struggle to understand my brilliant classes (!), don't get too comfortable - I'll be back soon!!!! Keep practising your English and read your Harry Potter!!!!!

To my wife's colleagues and students at school who have sent so many lovely messages and presents, you are blessed, wonderful people. Thank you so much!

To anyone else I have forgotten - sorry! You are also stars, but I cannot count all of you...

And of course, to my parents in Europe who have been praying for us, and sending messages of encouragement, you are always in my heart, and I am deeply sorry for all the pain that my self-imposed exile has caused you...

And to my dear wife, and all of her family, I will stand by and support you through this difficult few weeks. Annie is my queen, my life and my light.

Take care, gentle readers. I will keep you updated with more rantings from Borneo as soon as I can. I just want to finish with a little verse from the Holy Quran, extolling us to have faith, and not to give in to fear and evil:

"Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn.
From the mischief of created things;
From the mischief of Darkness as it overspreads;
From the mischief of those who practise Secret Arts;
And from the mischief of the envious one as he practises envy"

Surah Al-Falaq (the Dawn)

I'm alright - it's the others!

This is one of my dad's favourite sayings, always uttered in response to that peculiarly phatic and English question "how are you today?" "I'm alright - it's the others!"

This saying can have many different meanings, but I always gloss it as: "I'm OK - but I'm not sure about everyone else!!!" This begs the question of how we can be so arrogant to believe that we are doing fine and having SUCH A HOOT when everyone else is not. For all we know, we might think everything is fine and dandy, think we are in the PINK OF HEALTH, but instead we are slowly being eaten up by the worms of cancer, or blinded by the smoke and mirrors of madness.

So for this reason, I treat my dad's phrase with the respect it deserves, and use it only at arm's length, and sparingly at that. So, thinking of this phrase leads me to discuss the cultural phenomenon known as Harry Potter.

The latest and last of the Harry Potter novels has been finally released to worldwide clamour and acclaim. All over the world, kids and parents are lining up outside bookshops, dressed as witches and monsters and other fantastic creatures, so that they can buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before everyone else. Cute little AVID READERS from Kuching to Catford will be staying up all night to finish the book before going back to school on Monday. Malicious bloggers will post up the ending of the book and reveal who gets killed before all those little kids get to find out.

And this has happened every couple of years or so ever since the first Potter book was published sixty five million years ago.

But don't get me wrong, gentle readers. I am not against Harry Potter. I love the books, and have read every one of them, although I did think the Half-Blood Prince was a little half-hearted, but there you are. And I am DEFINITELY not against large numbers of young people and their parents snapping up and devouring well-written children's literature and making a certain Scottish lady a millionaire.

But what does not quite CRUMBLE MY COOKIE is the way that books like Harry Potter are marketed and priced and turned into carefully stage-managed media products. Words like HYPE and FEEDING FRENZY, despite being hopeless clichés, really do seem to accurately describe what goes on whenever JK brings out a new Potter.

And, because I'm alright and not the others, I am having none of it.

Let me tell you why. Firstly, I don't see why I should pay through the nose for a novel, unless of course it is a first edition personally signed by the author, or it is written on gold-embossed paper or has the word TOLKIEN on it.

Here in Kuching, most bookshops on average sell Potter books for at least twice as much as other novels. For instance, when the Half Blood Prince came out a couple of years ago, the book was sold for around RM 99. And the latest book I understand is going for around RM 120.

And these rip-off prices seem to stay FOREVER, and only seem to drop off glacially slowly. In fact, the other day I noticed that one shop was selling the Half-Blood Prince for RM 36. That was two years after it was released!

So it pays to be patient, especially with Potter. Don't buy the book when it comes out! You'll be ripped off!! Wait for the price to go down, even if it takes two years!!!

Another thing about the Potter books is that they are almost invariably released in hard cover editions. Now call me weird, off my box or a couple of stalks short of a complete bushel, but I don't see why anyone should buy novels in hard cover. Hard cover is for dictionaries, reference books, and other books that you don't read in bed or on the plane or on the toilet. Novels should be paperback - light, flexible, easy to put in a travel bag and above all, CHEAPER.

So why waste your money, and suffer all that arm and shoulder pain by forking out billions for a big, heavy brick which you read once then put on the shelf to gather dust. That is, if the shelf doesn't collapse under the weight of all those Harry Potter Hard-cover editions!

It really gets on my nerves when books that are supposed to bring fun and pleasure to people's lives are sold in such ridiculously expensive and awkward formats. But you can beat them if you are prepared to wait until the prices go down, and they bring out the paperback edition!

Like the Green Mile by Stephen King. That book was originally released as six short novelettes, over the space of a couple of years. But I wasn't stupid, Oh no. I waited till they bought out the complete edition, in one cheap volume.

That taught 'em to try to rip me off!! YES!!! I beat the system!!! I'm alright, it's the others!! Neh neh neh neh neh!!! HahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHah !!!!!

God I need my pills. Where are my pills?

Dream of the Dead...

When I was a little boy, my dear old grandmother used to have a saying which she would often repeat to me. She would say: "dream of the dead, and you'll hear of the living".

Until I came to live in Malaysia, I never really understood or believed in that saying. It was just another bit of folk wisdom my Nan probably got from her own grandmother. But recently, something happened to me that made me think perhaps my dear old Nan's folk wisdom might have had some value after all.

Sometime back in May or June last year, I had one of my lucid dreams. In these dreams, I experience things as if I am in real life, like mental television. I remember everything - words, sounds, colours, smells, the way someone's hair waves in the breeze - everything.

In this particular dream, I came home from work one day and my wife announced a surprise: my grandmother had come all the way from England to visit us here in Malaysia!

Now I must point out here that my dear old Nan passed away back in 1999 at the age of 91. So you can imagine my shock! But in the dream, there she was, very much alive and in our house, lying down on the couch recovering from the jet lag, and talking on my wife's mobile phone to my Mum back in England, just like that.

For my part, I was understandably shocked and stunned to think that an old lady like her had come on such a long journey to see us. Would she survive the tropical climate, I was thinking, in the dream. Why did she come over to Malaysia in the first place? Why was she still alive?

The logic of this dream, as in all dreams, was totally illogical. But that's not the point. The point is that I had dreamed of the dead. I had dreamed very powerfully of the dead. And to reinforce this power, my wife also had a dream about the dead around the same time as me. In her dream, she told me, her father, who passed away in 2000, was trying to talk to her.

My wife interpreted her dream as a reminder to pray for his soul, as the anniversary of his death was approaching. This is an aspect of Islamic culture that I have come to appreciate and understand. But why was my grandmother suddenly appearing in my dreams when she was not a Muslim?

A couple of weeks later, the answer came, as answers often do these days, via the Internet. I happened to be checking our email one day, and after I had removed all the hundreds of accumulated spam adverts, one particular message shouted out to me loud and clear like a clarion bell.

This message was from my wife's sister, Ohara. Ohara had lost touch with my wife's family after she split up with her Australian husband many years ago. All we knew about her was a vague address in Sydney, Australia and some enigmatic photos on the Internet. My wife and her other sister Anita had been trying unsuccessfully for months to contact Ohara by email and we even considered contacting the Australian police to see if they could trace her.

But the email in my mailbox told us that Ohara had at last come out of the cold. She had decided to contact us and let us know she was still alive and well. When I called my wife to the computer to read the message, she cried and she sobbed, and hugged me, and said syukur alhamdullilah (thank God). At that moment, of course, we both suddenly realised that my grandmother's old saying - dream of the dead and you'll hear of the living - had come true, big time.

So next time you have strange dreams about people who are no longer with us, don't dismiss them. Take hope from them. Cherish them. They might contain important messages. And you never know, you might just be in for a pleasant surprise about someone you love but thought you had lost.

Sweet dreams….

Mad Dogs and Englishmen....

"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun". Especially if they have to get their new car parking stickers.

Purchasing these vital pieces of coloured cellophane is an annual ritual at my place of work, and can involve a considerable amount of patience as well as sweat.

Unless you come to work via teleporter, you cannot get into our campus without displaying your parking sticker on your windscreen. It's the equivalent of trying to get into the Pentagon without a security pass. It just isn't possible.

I need to purchase two of these valuable stickers, one for each car. Normally, it's a simple procedure - you go to the security office, give them your car details and some money, and they present you with spanking new, shiny coloured parking stickers. You simply peel 'em, stick 'em on your windscreen, and you're legal.

But today, it didn't work out quite as planned. After receiving a notice from the security staff to renew our stickers, I thought I would simply breeze over and get my stickers, surely a five-minute job at most. But then I forgot Parkinson's divine law, which states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

So, my five minute sojourn turned into a half-hour sweatfest under the merciless mid-day Sarawak sun!

It all started to go pear-shaped when I went down to the security office where I was informed that the office no longer sells the stickers! I have to go over to the campus traffic police post, situated at the other end of the front car park. This was completely new to me of course, but there you are...

Now I don't know about you, but I'm a bit wary of people in uniform, especially traffic cops. I always think they are going to give me a ticket or clamp my car, just for the hell of it. I'm also a bit reluctant to carry my considerable bulk across a car park in the blistering sun, unless it's absolutely necessary.

So, by the time I arrived at the tiny traffic police post, I was huffing and sweating like a knackered horse, wondering if the policeman was going to come out towards me with a big stick in one hand, and a long list of traffic summonses in the other!

But I wasn't to worry, because he was right behind me, carrying his lunch in a plastic bag and muttering and complaining in Sarawak Malay to one of my colleagues who had got there before me. So I had disturbed the officer's lunchtime as well. This wasn't looking good....

To make things worse, not only had I stopped the traffic policeman from eating his lunch, I had apparently neglected to bring the right piece of paper with me. And I'm not talking about money paper. Apparently, under the heroic new system, I was supposed to go to the finance office (situated on the other side of the planet), buy my stickers there, then present the receipt to the traffic officer, who would then grant me my prizes. But this was easier said than done...

So, steeling myself, back I went, huffing and puffing and leaking and silently cursing everyone and everything to damnation, across the blistering car park, up two flights of stairs to the finance office, where I paid for the stickers, got my lovely little purple receipt, then trudged down the stairs again, out into Hell's Car Park, and across to the policeman's little office once again.

Luckily for me, the policeman had eaten his lunch in the time I had been away, and after some minor linguistic fumblings (another future post topic), I finally got my stickers (they are red this year)! Thank you Mr. Policeman Sir!!

I felt that all this tropical adventure deserved an ice-cream, which I duly purchased, before returning to the sweet, sweet sublimeness of my air-conditioned room.

God, I need to lose weight.......

Holiday? What Holiday?!

This is the time of the year when lecturers in our university return from leave and go back to the trenches to continue the long, hard struggle for the hearts and minds of the youth of Malaysia. In other words, it's the start of a new semester.

I've just had a nice long two month break during which I've been doing the work which I enjoy most - research. Nice quiet days in my lovely air-conditioned office writing articles, sipping 3-in-one coffee and feeling the swivel-chair beneath me groan ominously every time I change my seating position.

And not a student in sight!!

As well as the chance to catch up on scholarship, semester breaks in Malaysia offer numerous educational opportunities for those unfortunate (or workaholic) lecturers who haven't taken their holidays. During this recent break, I have attended workshops on a wide plethora of topics including Photoshop, Bloom's Taxonomy and How to be a Consultant. Better than sitting around in my office doing nothing anyway!! And I may have even learned something!!

And, apart from research and workshops, there are other delights to keep us hard-nosed academics busy. Firstly, meetings. Lots and lots of them. And in Malaysia, they are always accompanied by food (as are the workshops!). So the tummy starts to take on the aspect of a fair-sized hill!

As well as meetings there are other activities. For instance, the other day I was the judge in a public speaking competition among the lecturers. Being one of two native English speakers in our university, judging speaking competitions or debates is a regular gig for me. I don't mind, actually, because it is nice to be useful….

As well as all this, I'm in the Toastmasters (I think I'll say something about this in a future post) and I also look after the Debate Club, as well as editing our campus academic journal. Oh, and I sometimes go to conferences too!

So I'm not exactly making bum-prints on the sands of time during the semester breaks!!

All this inactivity gives me ample time to reflect on the culture of my host country, especially with regard to language. Malaysians, just like everyone else on this planet, like to greet each other with fixed, culture-bound expressions that don't carry much meaning, but are intended merely to maintain human relations. Linguists call this 'phatic communion' and examples might be the English obsession with talking about the weather.

Well here in Malaysia, I have encountered three common phatic expressions used by university lecturers.

The first one is used around 4 o'clock to 4.30 in the afternoon or thereafter. 4.30 pm is the traditional Malaysian Civil Service clocking-out time. It works like this - you're walking along the corridor and one of your colleagues greets you in passing with the question "going back?"

"Going back" means "are you going home?" or perhaps "aren't you going home yet"? Well, I used to interpret this as something of an insult, as my working day finishes at 6 - a throwback to my life-long Protestant Work Ethic. The Malaysian Civil Service may finish at 4.30, but this particular workaholic expatriate officer still has things to do!!

But, of course, as I have been slowly acculturated, I have learned to take this not as an insult, or as an entreaty to clock off early, but as a simple piece of phatic camaraderie. Maybe my colleagues are concerned that I'm not spending enough time with my family!

The second phatic example always occurs around lunchtime. When I don't bring sandwiches to work, I run down to the Kedai Koperasi (co-operative store) on campus to buy myself something. Usually, it's something naughty or fattening as there isn't very much nutritious stuff on offer. So I don't want to let anybody see what I'm carrying, and I scurry guiltily back to my office as quickly as I can so that I can devour my sinful prize in peace.

But inevitably, I run into one of my dear colleagues who will almost always say something like "is that your lunch?" To a Malaysian, anything short of a humongous bowl of fried rice or noodles and chicken or laksa (a local fiery prawn curry) is just not lunch.

So seeing this poor starving (overweight and sweating) orang puteh (white man) carrying a pathetic plastic bag containing one little burger and a can of sprite is just not right. So my colleagues let me know how utterly wrong this is by asking me "is that your lunch?"

At least, that's my side of the story, anyway.

Finally, then, there is one more piece of phatic frolicking which only occurs during semester breaks. And it happens anywhere, any time, whenever I bump into one of my local colleagues.

And it is this: almost everyone, without fail, will invariably ask me if I am taking leave! This has become something of a pantomime, which runs something like this:

Colleague: Not taking your leave yet?
Me: Not yet. I'm saving it up for the Hari Raya (end-of-Ramadan festival)

Or:

Colleague: Not taking your leave?
Me: No, I've got so many things to do…

So I feel like I need to explain to them why I am not on holiday, and if I do so, I might appear arrogant or showy.

But, it's OK - because one of the great things about Malaysians, no matter what race they are, is that they are very family-oriented. So there is probably a hidden, but good-natured rebuke in the above exchanges, which implies "come on, relax, spend some time with your family!"

So now the students are pouring back and classes are starting, I will probably wish I had taken some leave, or gone home at 4.30, or taken a good hearty lunch. After all, what's more important: working like a horse till you drop dead, or being with your family?

Given recent events, I think I know which one I will choose….

Three (not so) Little Words

Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.

For those of you with medical training, these three words bristle with meaning like a boxing glove full of broken glass.

Carcinoma I'm sure you know, right? Means cancer. Oooooh, scary, don't say that word!!!

Invasive, not so easy if you're not a doctor. It means scattered, among other things.

Ductal - yes, ladies, you may have already guessed it by now: it refers to the internal structures of a woman's breasts.

So without being too subtle about it:


MY WIFE HAS JUST BEEN DIAGNOSED

WITH BREAST CANCER!!!!!


There. That was quite a shock, wasn't it? I bet you were beginning to think that the Prof Madder Chronicles was a funny blog full of witty jokes, weren't you?

Well, reality bites and it bites hard. Just last week, my wife Annie decided to pluck up the courage, with my strong urging, to have a check-up on a lump in her breast. This is a familiar story to many of you reading this, I am sure.

You think it's OK, it doesn't hurt, it's only a little lump, some days it seems to get smaller, it really doesn't hurt, sweetie, lots of people have lumps on their breasts don't they?

So, Annie submitted herself to a painful mammogram, and a biopsy was performed on a sample taken from the lump in her left breast. It was all very fast and efficient.

A few days later, we went to the Sarawak General Hospital for the verdict. I knew there would be some sort of problem, and those three little words on the lab report did suggest that there might be some sort of operation in store.

But we didn't quite expect the doctors to tell us that not only was the lump indeed cancerous, but that Annie would have to have her breast removed. And in two weeks' time.

Luckily, to absorb some of the shock, the cancer is at stage 1, meaning it's not very serious, and can be treated easily with a good chance of long-term survival.

But, with all my considerable powers of imagination, and they are considerable, I still can't imagine what having a breast taken away would mean to a woman. Breasts are a fundamental part of a woman's identity, expressions of her beauty and self-worth. They are in many ways the Holy of Holies, never to be touched except by loving hands.

I tell you this: I will not allow my wife to suffer too much psychological damage from this. The physical scars will be bad enough, and she is a gentle soul already. To me, she will still be beautiful and worthy after her operation. I don't care whether she is physically whole or not. She is my angel, and my queen. I will stand by her, and keep her safe, no matter what scars she has.

Over the next weeks and months, I will be updating you, gentle readers, on my wife's progress from time to time, along with a few posts on other topics just to provide some light relief. But I hope this rather screwed-up and emotive post will serve as advice and warning to everyone, especially women, who detect irregularities or lumps on their breasts (or indeed, anywhere else!).

Please, don't leave it too long before you go to the clinic for a check-up. You owe it to yourselves and your loved ones to have it seen by an expert now. Just because it doesn't hurt, it doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. In fact, the cancerous lumps usually don't hurt, but lurk beneath the layers of the breast like submarines ….

I'm not trying to scare you, gentle readers. I'm trying to save your lives. Thankfully, because we have detected the cancer early, things are looking hopeful for my wife.

Let me finish by quoting the Litany Against Fear, from Frank Herbert's series of Dune novels. Maybe some of you will take heart from this, and learn not to be fearful about breast cancer:

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

The Pursuit of Healthyness

It was a 19th Century reformer named Edwin Chadwick who said that "liberty consists in the right to health". Oh, how true.

In my last few postings, I extolled the virtues of a morning walk in one of Kuching's nicest gardens of culture, the Malaysia-China Friendship Garden in Jalan Song, Kuching. I hope you enjoyed the photos - I even had one comment from one of my local friends who told me that she had never been to the Friendship Garden, despite being born in Kuching.

That was a pertinent comment because, ever since I have lived over here, I myself have been searching for the ideal place for regular exercise. And it's been a long hard slog punctuated by pitfalls and constant disappointments, until now.

The reason is that, as I see it, Kuching doesn't seem to offer enough safe, cheap and convenient places to work off those excess love handles (of which I have enough for a whole Robbie Williams concert!).

I don't know why this is - maybe the tropical heat is supposed to be enough to help you sweat off the problematic pounds - but so far, this is the extent of my foiled plans to do regular exercise:

1. Cycling.

When I came over here I considered buying a mountain bike and riding to work every day, as I used to do this when I lived back in the UK. But the following problems presented themselves pretty quickly:

• The state of the roads and the drivers who use them makes it virtual suicide to ride a bike in Kuching - see my previous James Bond post!
• There is a serious social taboo about riding a bike in Malaysian society. It's just not something that a professional office worker does. Especially, as my first job was as a manager in a private college, and I am now an associate professor in a prestigious university!
• No changing facilities in most offices makes it a very sweaty and smelly experience to ride a bike to work. It has to be a car, or a bus or nothing

2. Going to the gym.

Back home, I used to do this a lot, so that I could toughen up my limbs and flatten my chest a bit. However, most gymnasiums in Kuching are run as businesses. You might want to go there just for an hour's cycling or weights, but the people in the gym will INSIST that you need Pilates this and SuperPowerBoosterBouncyBall that and your muscles will expand, but your bank balance will contract!

Luckily, our university recently opened a gym for staff and students so there is hope there. But, there lies the next challenge to be faced in selecting suitable exercise options:

3. Appropriate attire.

Back home, you can wear almost anything to the gym, as long as it's safe and comfortable. Over here, clothing and attire are things that people are very particular about indeed. What this means in practice is that I can't just put on a pair of shorts (assuming I could find any to fit me!) and a tatty old t-shirt to go to the gym. There are dress-codes. You have to cover your flesh - preferably with a flashy designer tracksuit (I do in fact own one, but the trousers don't fit me!). And the issue of approriate attire brings me to the final exercise adventure I have experienced in this place:

4. Going for a nice swim.

I love swimming - I learned to swim back in England fairly late in life - about 27 years old. I was quite good at it and I got to be very confident. When I moved into our present house in 2002, I discovered to my delight that there is a big public swimming pool almost on my doorstep. So I started to go there every week for a plunge, with a view to making it a regular gig.

Things went swimmingly for a while. Even though the pool was frequently crowded with indisciplined kids bombing and splashing around everywhere (James Bonding?) and the pool was not quite spotlessly clean, I did manage to do regular laps and work off a bit of my tummy.

Then disaster struck. One fateful Sunday, one of the pool attendants told me that I wasn't wearing the correct swimwear. Even though I had been wearing my long baggy swimming pants for years with no problem. When I complained, the attendant showed me some photographs at the entrance showing the "correct" swimwear and the "incorrect" swimwear. My style of swimwear was to be found in both categories and I definitely spotted some other swimmers wearing similar trunks to me, and I pointed this out. But shouting and bawling gets you precisely nowhere in Malaysia. That's a rule that many of my fellow expatriates would do well to remember.

So, for a long time I didn't go swimming, because I didn't have the right trunks. Apparently, I had to purchase the skimpy, skin-tight lycra type trunks that make someone like me look like a badly made sausage. Or Mr. Incredible from the cartoon.

However, I eventually swallowed my pride and bought some of these ridiculous little kinky spandex trunks and went back to the pool again, legal once more. But it wasn't the same. There were too many rules and regulations. One queue to pay for my ticket, one queue to get a locker key, then you had to get everything checked by the security guards and you had to sign in and sign out and the changing room was filthy and the bloody doors were falling apart and people gave you stares like you had just landed from the Planet of the Fat Bloody Monsters and, oh forget it!

Where are my pills? I need my pills.....