C'mon United!

After United's shocking loss to Pompey today, things suddenly look a bit unsettled for us both in the Premiership and UEFA Champions League.

United still has Chelsea to play. Boro, an on form Everton and Hammers which have shocked us earlier on this season can potentially be banana skins to us. The only consolation is that Chelsea has tougher fixtures ahead, with the likes of Arsenal, Bolton, Everton, West Ham and Blackburn. The desperate West Ham may be the king maker as they have been winning the last few matches (including Arsenal at Emirates) in their despearation to survive. Chelsea rarely has bad luck, always managing 1 - 0 win despite playing terribly. It's hard to see Cech conceding goals in league games, with most of Chelsea's dropped points during his absence. In the past we have always managed to excel in the second half of the season, hope this time around we will do it again.

As for Champions League, the historical statistics below indicate that we've been having bad dreams at the Theatre of Dreams. Hopefully this time we'll be able to defy the odds and secure a home win in return leg finally.

It has been a fantastic season for us so far. We've been scoring a lot of goals. But the amount of goals won't matter if we lose games that matter like what we've done in the past few seasons, e.g. beating Liverpool in league game (not winning the league in the end) and lost in FA Cup final to them one or two weeks later. I'll rather win games 1 - 0 like Chelsea than winning 4 - 1 on most games but lose by one goal margin in few others.

Really hope this will be our season. It does not have to be a treble, but at least the Premiership!

Previous Champions League encounters which we lost at home on aggregate in return legs.
2003-04 (Round of 16) 1st leg: Porto 2 Man Utd 1. 2nd leg: Man Utd 1 Porto 1 At Old Trafford, a Paul Scholes first-half goal looked to be enough for Sir Alex Ferguson’s men – until Costinha’s 90th-minute equaliser

1999-2000 (QF) 1st leg: R Madrid 0 Man Utd 0. 2nd leg: Man Utd 2 R Madrid 3 Roy Keane’s own goal and two Raul strikes put Madrid 3-0 up before replies from Paul Scholes and David Beckham. Too little, too late

1997-98 (QF) 1st leg: Monaco 0 Man Utd 0. 2nd leg: Man Utd 1 Monaco 1 David Trezeguet’s sixth-minute goal rocked lacklustre United, who went out on away goals

1996-97 (SF) 1st leg: B Dortmund 1 Man Utd 0. 2nd leg: Man Utd 0 B Dortmund 1 United were confident, but Lars Ricken scored at Old Trafford and United missed a hatful of chances. Eric Cantona told Ferguson the next day he would retire at the end of the season

Jonathan & Nancy

It has been more than half a year since Jo and I arrived in London. Finally, we've managed to get Johanna's cousin - Jonathan, and girlfriend Nancy to visit us at our flat. Both are musicians playing for reputable orchestras.

F1 in Singapore

F1 may be in our 'little red dot' neighbour Singapore soon, Monaco-style.

Our Sports Minister pities Singapore for trying to bid as one of the new hosts (possibly from 2010 onwards), along with other cities such as New Delhi and Moscow.

Lest she forgets there is such thing called "competition". Already bigger and better casinos are being built in Singapore to challenge ours. I don't think Singapore will pity us if Bernie decided that our grid girls (pictured on the left with this year's costume) are not hot enough.

Years of protective policies must have eroded our ability to compete (read the latest sad tale on our local universities). We may have one of the best track now, but what is stopping Singapore from having a better one? Especially if it is a Monaco-styled race track with the race running at night.

Few competitive advantages possessed by Singapore: -

• The little red dot could be small, but it's many times more popular than Sepang, Kuala Lumpur or Malaysia. As Malaysians we always have to tell foreigners our country is next to Singapore before they know exactly where we are.
  
• Sepang is far away from KL. There is no public transport to the circuit. There are no/insufficient hotels around the circuit (correct me if I'm wrong). Who wants to stay in Sepang anyway, there's nothing much around. Singapore is a small island city well connected by SMRT and other form of public transport.
  
• Singapore may be more attractive than KL as a metropolitan city and a tourist attraction. SMRT is many times more efficient than our rojak system - KTM Komuter + Putra LRT + Star LRT + Monorail. Besides, Singapore has well established and better managed tourist attractions such as Sentosa Island and the upcoming casinos.
  
• A Monaco-style circuit will be very popular among F1 fans. Monaco is F1's jewel in the crown. To have a similar track in Asia seems quite tempting. Monaco is also well known for its casinos. This will make Singapore a sister track.
  
• Singapore should be more capable in managing international events. Or I should say Malaysia has proven over time that we are good in building first world infrastructure but are extremely poor in managing them.
  
• Singapore will definitely have hotter grid girls. You can't deny that the grid girls are part of the F1's attraction. Our grid girls may be wearing very different costumes from most circuits, but in a way that brings differentiation disadvantage.
  

The only competitive advantage Malaysia have is perhaps cost.

As a Malaysian I'm proud that we are one of the F1 hosts. But I fear that we are unable to fight the impending competition, unless we try to differentiate ourselves further. Sounds familiar?

Americans are NOT stupid

Are they? Are they not?

I know Dubya is definitely one of them.

Parody of 'Get a Mac' ads

Good laugh if you have watched the 'Get a Mac' ads... On the other hand I don't know anything about LINUX...

Spring Snow

I've heard about London snowing in spring many years ago. It really happened this year, out of the blue.

I've just taken out my spring jacket, while putting away my winter coats, since summer came early last week, with temperature exceeding 16 celcius at one point. The summer spell lasted for only a while. Out of the blue, the notherly winds started to blow on Sunday evening, bringing with them sleet and snow across the British isle. The temperature plummeted to around 0 celcius again. This weather pattern will last at least until Thursday according to the UK Met Office. Wonder what has happened to all the plants which have bloomed extremely early all around UK this year.

How unpredictable... Global warming? That's what the politicians and activists say in UK. I'm more inclined to say that it's a moving average by mother nature.

Altantuya Shariibuu

I'm sure many are still wondering what really happened to Altantuya Shariibuu that resulted in her tragic death.

Anyway, blogger Susan Loone posted a blog entry with a YouTube video from Altantuya's father on her daughter and her baby. Excerpt from her blog entry...

The only stories we hear about Altantuya Shariibuu were the ones told by the police, by Abdul Razak Baginda in his affidavit, and by the local newspapers.

The only pictures we have seen about the young mother of two, were the passport photos in the local newspapers, always depicted alongside her alleged murderer, whenever her case had news value.

Curious about her, I traced her life back to the exotic land of Mongolia, where she hailed from, and tried to understand the woman behind all the sleazy, unsubstantiated stories. It was not an easy task.

I tried speaking to her father, Mr. Stev Shariibuu, personally, but he speaks very little English. He promised, through friends in Ulanbataar, that he would send some information about his daughter. After several weeks of waiting, her father, finally sent this video clip to me.

In his agony, and to preserve whatever memory he has of his beloved daughter, Shariibuu put together several pictures of Altantuya, followed by a brief narration about her life. There is also a short video clip about her sick, young boy - Atanshagai, 3 years old, whose DNA is being sought now, by experts who want to determine whose child he is.

Read more at her blog entry - “Altantuya sacrificed herself for the sake of others”.

Imperial College Malaysian Night 2007

This post should have been here few weeks ago.

Anyway, Johanna & I attended the annual IC Malaysian Night organised by IC Malaysian Society on 3rd March. According to many, the tickets were snapped up in one day! I was not surprised though, based on the quality of the previous Malaysian Nights, which was exactly why I asked Johanna to buy the tickets. Why ask her to buy and how did she managed to get them? Because her company was one of the many sponsors and she had the privilege of booking the tickets before they went on sale.

This year's theme was A Silent Cacophony. I'll leave you to read the story from their website.

The reason why I've suddenly decided to post this - Johanna & I watched Ugly Betty yesterday and one of the character - Marc reminded Johanna of the gay character - Azam in A Silent Cacophony. She said he had imitated Marc's character really well. Yet another piece of puzzle to whom the characters in A Silent Cacophony was based on. I was very impressed with the acting skills of the main characters, especially the imitation of Captain Jack Sparrow Pipit as the narrator, Ah Boy (Godfather with near perfect Italian accent!), Mohan, a nerd who speaks in rhymes and later in rap (amazing performance but yet to find out whether he was imitating certain popular characters), and Tasha, the female lead.

Anyway, well done to the IC Malaysian Society. It's definitely a tall order to organise a production of this scale and they have managed to deliver time and time over the years.

Oh ya, we bumped into Dilla too.

Relaxing weekend

A weekend with Butterfly, romantic river view, scrumptious dim sum and a relaxing get-together with friends...

Lunch with Ozzy, Shazrul & Teratai

Finally invited Shazrul & Teratai and Ozairi over to our place. Have been planning this ever since moving in to our flat in October last year.

Shazrul and Ozzy brought along their DSLR cameras, including mine we had 3 DSLR cameras in the living room. Shazrul let me test out his new L Lense. It was quite heavy. He offered to lend me his 50mm lense, but I had to turn down the offer as exams are approaching. Will probably look around for new lense after my last paper in May.

Ozzy brought along his Mac Book. He showed us quite a number of tricks, especially with the photography software from Nikon - Nikon Capture NX. Shazrul, Johanna & I were really impressed with it.

A stroll along riverside in Canary Wharf

It has been a while since Johanna & I had a stroll on a weekend. We used to do it a lot back in KL at Bukit Kiara Park. Suddenly reminded me of the tau foo fa at the entrance of the park.

After Shazrul & Teratai left, Ozzy & I watched United snatched a draw at Riverside Stadium in the FA Cup quarter-final. Ozzy left immediately after that. Johanna suggested that we visit Khoon Peng in Poplar and have a stroll since we haven't done it for some time. So off we went on the DLR to Poplar. Approaching Poplar, we were greeted by the great night scenery of Canary Wharf. We spent around half an hour at Khoon Peng's place before I suggested that we find out the location of Westferry branch of Royal China Restaurant. We took the DLR towards Westferry and started walking towards Westferry Circus, where the restaurant is suppose to be based on the map. On the way we went past Four Seasons Hotel with many luxury cars parked outside.

Once we passed the hotel, we could get a clear view of the river. Walking down the steps towards the river bank, we found Royal China Restaurant right at the bottom of the flight of steps! Romantic location indeed. We walked around for a while before making our way back from Canary Wharf station. Relaxing night out indeed.

Dim sum with Matthias & Lisi at Lotus Floating Restaurant

I've promised to treat Matthias & Lisi for a meal as a celebration for Chinese New Year, to reciprocate the dinner treat from them for Christmas.

Johanna & I had a great dim sum lunch with her friend Jia Lynn and boyfriend Martin at Lotus Floating Restaurant near Cross Harbour DLR station last Sunday. So I thought it would be great to introduce this place to Matthias since he loves Chinese food. Once again the dim sum lived up to our high expectations. After a heavy lunch, 4 of us had a stroll along the river bank from Westferry Circus (again! But this time during the day) towards Limehouse. On the way we discovered a lot of nice areas for photography, with peaceful canals and yatchs. We took the DLR from Limehouse to Central London for our next outing of the day...

...and the next outing was catching Madam Butterfly at Royal Albert Hall


Having watched Miss Saigon more than 7 years ago, I have always wanted to watch Madam Butterfly. Miss Saigon is a modern adaption of Madam Butterfly - an opera by Italy's Giacomo Puccini premiered in the famous La Scala Theatre of Milan in 1904. It is a tragic tale of a Japanese lady (Cio-Cio-San) who gave up her religion and being disowned by her uncle for her marriage to Lieutenant Pinkerton of the US Navy. Unfortunately Pinkerton did not take the marriage seriously. The greater tragedy was that Cio-Cio-San had a child. Lieutenant Pinkerton left Cio-Cio-San in Japan for many years before returning with his American wife after learning about his son... I'll save the ending for those who would like to watch this opera.

Johanna managed to book 2 stall tickets on row 2 for the last performance of Madam Butterfly at Royal Albert Hall. Her cousin Jonathan was playing for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which accompanied the opera.

We arrived at Royal Albert Hall just in time due to the congestion in Central London.

The set up for this opera was unique. Instead of performing on stage at one end, the 'stage' was right in the middle of the hall, hence the audience sat all around it. The set up resembled a Japanese house surrounded with water (yes! filled with water) connected by small bridges. There were even ripples in the water.

I was a bit disappointed with Act 1 as I failed to understand what was happening from the acting and singing. Since I had watched Miss Saigon before, I refused to learn the storyline of Madam Butterfly before watching it. I wanted the opera to relate the story to me instead. The part where Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton fell in love was not clear at all, unlike the similar part in Miss Saigon where Kim and Chris expressed their love for each other. It was also not clear how and why Pinkerton left Japan. In Miss Saigon, Chris left when US troops pulled out of Vietnam war. He wanted to bring Kim along but in vain. There was a touching song - Last night of the world and I still remember vividly the scene where Vietnamese were desperately climbing the fence to get into US Embassy in the hope of achieving their 'American Dream'.

Fortunately, the disproportinately longer Act 2 was a lot better. I realised that Madam Butterfly focused a lot more on the sorrows of Cio-Cio-San waiting for Pinkerton compared to the part Kim waited for Chris in Miss Saigon. Despite knowing the tragic ending of the story, I still felt extremely sad for Cio-Cio-San and her son.

All in all, it was quite a good performance, sans Act 1. The vocals were strong and the singing were more classical than musicals. I also love the set up very much. Unlike Phantom where the underground river was simulated using dry ice, having water around the whole 'stage' was refreshing.

What a lovely way to end the weekend.

Ryan Giggs

16 years, 699 games and 140 goals...

8 Premiership titles (9th on the way), 4 FA Cup titles, 1 Champions League title...

At the age of 33, he's hungry for more...

Read BBC's tribute to my favourite footballer since early 1990s.

Watch him and his wizardry at YouTube.

I'm sure the following video is everyone's favourite... FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal, extra time, where he ran past half of Arsenal team. The following month he ended up as one of our Treble heroes.