Oh! To Broaden the Mind (Straits Times)

Misplaced in the crowded Al Wadi seating beneath the single skin canvas, heat pounding. Silent scream at the newspaper was not helping any. Oh! for the intelligent critique of the Jak Post left behind in Jogja. Foul and horrid fare here as usual & forever. The appalling fixing and manipulation in neighbouring Malaysia in this election season was infuriating. No surprise the soft pedal of course—people in glass houses; &etc. A Prof. from Penang was given a couple hundred words for the sketched summary of the gerrymander in the dribbling language of the academy. (Redeliniation, malapportionment, arbitrary...) More and more still PR malarkey on the jockeys in the running to receive the torch from the tired incumbent PM scion. (4G leaders: Forging a team by collaboration... Don’t worry anybody.) Running how many months now? The local neighbourhood madrasah here—Wak Tanjong Al-Islamiah—to get $7.5m to extend their lease could perhaps be counted good news. (The same incidentally was made famous by the author in his piece published by the Canadian Antigonish Review, titled “Ibrahim and Ismail.”) The Hot Bods column in the Sports pages puke as usual. Attempted gleaming of the Robo-adviser leaning with both stubby hands on his adviser’s table exuding geniality, sorry, doesn’t cut it, Charlie O’Flaherty, don’t care how much of the ol’ blarney you can deliver. (Invest.) Above, beyond and top-most of all else was the feature on the enviously well-traveled Singaporean trio wielding the world’s most powerful passport & documenting with their pics their journeyings: — beaches, mountains, ex-disaster & war zones, caves and desserts. A “cabby-bodyguard” was hired by one venturesome chap in order to get to the hottest hot-spots. 116, 151 and 183 countries covered, respectively, and now presumably on the list for the Musk option further afield.

                                                                                                      The Sunday Times, 29 April 2018