Waltzing Matilda

Just like in Edinburgh, I found the workers in Melbourne showing great dedication in their work (profession), (i.e. if and when they decided to work). In Edinburgh, (whilst gazing out my window between my preparation for my exams), I was particularly impressed to see how the sanitation department employees, i.e. rubbish collectors, actually placed the lid back on after disposing off the garbage and also putting back the bin at its designated place. This is a far cry from what we have in Malaysia, where blue collar workers of crony owned companies originating from third world countries of the lowest rung of the ladder trying to impart their brand of work ethics here. Evidence of the garbage truck having done their round need not be guessed as it and its workers would have left an apparent trail of evidence - bits of trash strewn around, garbage bins and lids all over and 'aroma' from leachete left dripping from the truck to deodorize the Taman!

Over Great Ocean Rd

In that aspect, I was totally taken by the enthusiasm shown by a Greyline tour bus operator, Daryll, who took us on trip along the Great Ocean Road off Melbourne. Carrying a passenger load of 60, he single-handedly swerved along the winding coastal road whilst giving a complete running commentary all along, stopping at selected photo shoot areas, doing a head count after passenger alighted the bus after each stop, and even preparing Aussie tea with eucalyptus leaves for morning tea. And the best part is his commentary was not just for the sake of imparting information. It was laced with clever witty lines with lots of historical and even medical stuff that a Malaysian would not expect his average bus driver to know. He was narrating about the construction of the coastal road (Great Ocean Road). At a time when economy was down just after the first World War, many disillusioned Australian soldiers returned with what would be termed today as post traumatic stress (I did not expect this from a non-medical personnel). To stimulate the economy, this soldiers were sent off to work on the great roads. The evening gathering over the fire and catharsis provided a kind of group therapy to these sufferers. Of course, this story was laced with many funny anecdotes and smart remarks to last over 1hour. In between his story he would interrupt with information of sunken ships and the events that led to its sinking, about somebody's grave, how it was supposed to be relocated but the road went on his grave anyway, about the Twelve apostles and so on and so forth.

Twelve Apostles?

On the way back from the 12 apostles was time for dissemination of Australian culture. Before screening an Australian movie on the bus TV, he gave a 1 hour rendition of his interpretation of the truly Aussie song- Waltzing Matilda. Let me try to recall... (with Daryll's comment beside the lyrics)


Lyrics to Waltzing Matilda :Banjo Paterson

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Banjo Paterson's real name was Andrew Barton Paterson. He decided to change to Banjo Paterson as probably with a name like Andrew Barton it made an easy prey for his mates to bully him off his lunch box! Swagman is a travelling odd job helper in farm, like a rolling stone. He sat by a river (billabong), under a shady coolibah tree (native Aussie tree) singing while waiting for his kettle (billy) to come to boil. That is when he thought of a young maiden who actually cared for him many years when she finally married off to a rich land owner. He would always think of the warm dance (waltz) with his dear Matilda.

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong
Up got the swaggie and grabbed him with glee
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

Along came a sheep (jumbuck) for a drink. Our hero happily pounced on the prey and put in to his knapsack (tucker-bag)
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he stowed that jumbuck in his tucker-bag
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me

In another scene, a landlord come back home after a hard at work. He asked his wife the most common three words uttered by any hot blooded Australian man, "What's for dinner?!". The wife half heartedly replied, "As if you don't already know, we always have baked beef on Thursdays!". The man said, "But, I smell roast lamb! Are you not fooling me?" The landlord then knew the somebody had been feasting on his sheep. He jumped on his majestic horse, called in the local police (3 of them) and located our hero. "What's that in your haversack? You have come with me to jail" said the Sheriff.

Down came the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred
Up came the troopers One Two Three
Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
Who's the jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker-bag?
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me.
Up got the swaggie and jumped into the billabong
You'll never catch me alive said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
In those rowdy early days of Australia, one would be hanged for stealing somebody else's animal. So our hero, in order to escape the police, he jumped into the river and drowned. His ghost, it seems still haunts the river. He can heard heard dancing the waltz with his pretty Matilda.

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me.

That speaks so much about the level of dedication and pride shown by tourist guides in Australia (or at least Daryll of the Grayline). At the end of the journey, he quipped, "I have left some feedback forms for you to fill and my name is Daryll spelt with a double 'L', just like in the word excellent!"
A 10 hour journey well spent...

 

Southern Cross station after dark

Near Etihad Stadium

Overgrowth down under

Rememberance Park St Kilda Rd

Oz contribution in Emergency

@ Spencer St

Over Yarra River

The conquest - E&O Hotel

E & O Hotel

With the euphoric atmosphere of last week's Anniversary party still lingering in the air, let me just jot down a thing or two about the venue while it is still fresh on my mind.

E & O Hotel was officiated in 1885 with the merging of Eastern Hotel and Oriental Hotels, both built by Armenian Sarkies brothers.The brothers were also instrumental in the establishment of many hotels in the region including Raffles Hotel in Singapore. E & O boasts of being host to many notables celebrities like Rudyard Kipling (author of Jungle Book), Douglas Fairbank (silent movie star of the 30s), Charlie Chaplin (needs no introduction), Sun Yat-sen (Founding Father of Modern China) and many more.

In 1893, during a 10year celebratory luncheon, Sir Frank Swettenham (then the Resident General of Malay States) cracked a joke about the Sarkies brothers. ‘A little boy was asked by his teacher in Perak who the Sakais were, and replied that they were people who kept hotels.’ 

(The Sakais are one of the indigenous races of Malaysia.)

Just like the 'Spotted Dogs' in Kuala Lumpur (Royal Selangor Club), E & O was the favourite rendezvous for the ruling elites and their apple polishers (a.k.a. ball carriers) - i.e. locals with unabated zest to rub shoulders and hang out with their colonial masters and probably lived off their crumbs - while the rest of Malaya and the subjects of the Empire were busy living a living hell for self-rule!

When I was about 10 or so, my maternal grandfather was working as a driver in a mansion near this prestigious hotel. I remember my sisters and I were looking from outside the fence like refugee children at the merrymaking hotel guests during one Christmas eve. Funny how after 2 scores of years later, we are all on the inside of the fence in a merrymaking mood ourselves!

The 50th Wedding Anniversary is a symbolic one. It is an announcement that the descendants of maids, labourers and drivers have indeed come a long way since their great ancestors decided to take that tug boat to Malaya in search of better lives...

Arshak, Tigran, Aviet Sarkies (Clockwise from top)
Iranians of Armenian ethnicity

Congratulations & Celebrations!*

Parents’ 50th Wedding anniversary and Amma’s 70th surprise birthday party (Powerpoint presentation)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!

Mr & Mrs Shamuganathan
1960

Just in case you are wondering what this function is all about, we are gathered today to share the joy of celebrating my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, and at the same time to my mother’s surprise 70th birthday party. Firstly, I am so happy that many friends from near and far (as far as Belgium) have obliged to partake in this meaningful event. Thanks to Anneka and David for joining us. Once they heard of this function, they immediately changed their plans to visit Cambodia, paid the fines for changing their ticket and decided to join us in this surprise function. Many words of thanks to Dato M.S. Murthi who was equally if not more excited than all of us in making this function a reality. To hold a surprise function like this is no easy feat, one has to do many things under cover and in this aspect, my two sisters (Sheila and Latha) and her family members have made use of their artistic skill of conman ship to perfection. All the while, until my parents entered the hall, she was under the impression that she was attending a simple dinner at a posh place but did not suspect such a big function. In this process, Latha and Sheila managed to convince my mother to buy a new saree, stitch her blouse, groom herself for the occasion and bring her to the function. The last part would not have been difficult, as Amma likes going out. I sure that with her inquisitive instincts, I am sure my sisters would have bluffed all the way to get her here. If only Amma were given the opportunity, she would have been a lawyer like her brother! This morning we actually thought that our cover had been blown open when Appa's old buddy Mr David Morris actually sent a bouquet of flowers to my parents. Mr Morris is Appa's colleague in Mercantile Bank. They not only shares the same birth date but the same birth year too -22nd June 1938!

On my part, I managed to sneak out some old photographs during my last visit to Penang. And here we are…

Beach St, Penang.

Many years ago when my son was just a toddler, after seeing me enjoy many old Black and White Tamil and English movies in my spare time, he asked me, “Appa, when you were growing up, was everything around was in black and white?” Not understanding his question, I asked him, “What do you mean?” He said, “I see that in those old movies that you watch, the trees, the hill, the peoples’ clothes and all are black and white, did they not colour around you?” Smiling, I told him that they did not have the technology. Probably, if he were to ask the same question today, I would reply, “Things in life are neither black nor white but rather in shades of grey!”

At 18 years

This is how Penang used to look when my parents grew up in the pre-Merdeka days when you could buy things for half a cent, going to Prai then meant a sampan across the channel and politicians were honest. You can why they use to call it a true paradise, with a peaceful esplanade with no hawkers and Batu Ferringhi with no hotels and apartments.

Appa's office (L)
 Son! Look they have colour 

Mr Munusamy’s first born son, Shamuganathan was born on 22nd June 1938 in Butterworth. He grew up in a family of 16 in Sg Pinang, Penang to a fine young man. 16 seem to be a significant number to my father as at the age of 16, due to parental pressure, he started his employment as a peon in then Mercantile Bank in Beach Street, Penang. Day in and day out, he went to work at the same premises till he retired at the age of 56, after 30 years of working in the same place with hardly any medical leave. By the time he retired, the owner of the bank was HSBC.

A 9 year old Amma

Rada Mani Devi was born as the third daughter to Mr and Mrs S.M. Muthu. Just for record, nobody actually knows when my mother’s birthday is. As you know, people those days give very little importance to these things. If you follow their respective I.C. (Identity Card), you will notice that my mother and my maternal uncle (her biological brother) were born just 2 months apart! Somehow through logical deduction, backdating and correlating to somebody’s funeral and probably Christmas, it was finally calculated to 27th December 1940.

Amma & best friend, Malathi

Just like when my cousin Ganesh organised a surprise birthday for his mother (Auntie Indra), no doubt she was surprised with the arrangement, he was equally surprised when his mother said, "But I am 71!"
Amma grew up in many houses around Penang and Ipoh with her 3 other siblings – Saroja, Indra and Murthi. At the age of 16, her supporting pillar, her mother succumbed to breast cancer and she and her siblings had to fend for themselves.

Amma , nephew & nieceA

Appa and friends: Life in a young newly independent nation of Malaya. Notice how simple play things were those days: bare feed children in the background fooling around a broken tricyle! If only some important agreement were signed before this photo shot, this phto would have been a classic!

Unlike the 1970 

Love Story, this one

stood the test of time

Soon after this, I suppose, she must have met this dashing young man from Sungai Pinang and love must blossomed. The person instrumental in their union was their mutual friend, Veeramani has unfortunately passed on.

At Amma's mum's house in B'worth

The love story blossomed to a matrimonial knot on 27th August 1960.

The Big Day 27.8.1960

Just married. Note the picture of Marilyn Munroe 

or Jayne Mansfield in the background.

Soon after marriage, they moved in to a new neighbourhood to bring up their newborn child (that's me!) in Brown Gardens in Gelugor in around 1964. And many fond memories were still linger...like this birthday party celebration in 1967.

In keeping with Penang’s boria spirit, here you can have two children in the same birthday party with the same outfit. Girls, how would you feel if you are the birthday girl and your friend turns up with the very same dress!

Or will you still like him or try to subtly strangle him like seen in this picture?

Rifle Range Flats

                                


The other boy (Gobi) and I went to the same secondary school and later lost touch. Thanks to Facebook, I managed to chat with him.

Between 1970 and 1982, Rifle Range Flats was home to all of us and holds many pleasant childhood memories to me and my sisters. Personally, we hated the place but it helped us to be tough, kiasu and keep our priorities intact.

Latha's 3rd birthday

These are the views that we use to see, day in day out!
In 1972, we celebrated Latha’s 3rd birthday. Seen here in the centre with her colourful cake baked in our new oven! Guess the cake must have looked so pretty that everybody decided to pose in front of it before cutting!

(1974, on a moonlit night?) Since digital photography had not been developed in 70s, each time you wanted immortalize your good looks in print, you run to your friendly photo studio. Kok Wah studio in Jalan Dato Kramat was particularly popular.

Happy families of mid 70s

During long school holidays, like a pilgrimage, Auntie Indra's family (both Shans) would congregate in Rifle Range and they would all sardine pack themselves into this tiny one room bedroom flat. Everyone would be chit-chatting till the wee hours of the morning. The youngsters would be busy their pranks! The end of the visit would be marked with the mandatory crying and the general tone would be sombre for the next few days.

1990

Here Amma is seen posing with her beloved sister, Indra at the compound of their beloved brother's mansion in Klang in the 1990s.In 1990, the first wedding in the family happened. After 3 decades of married life, my parents had a new role to play- Paati (grandma). Here seen with grandchildren... As the clan gets bigger and bigger...

Amma, Divya, Tania.

With Ashvirni and Agshay

Chagani's 16th day ceremony

Now we are left with the next generation of people of the Sham clan. These are the people who would hold the reign of the fort and probably organise surprise parties like these in the future (hint, hint).

In the pre-Independence era when the main mean of transportation was by sea, E&O Hotel, which was an exclusive hotel frequented by ruling aristocrats, played an important role in disseminating information to the community. Once a month when the ship from England had docked at the Penang Pier, its flag would be hoist at full mast announcing that their supplies are stocked to the brim and it is party time at the E&O. In the same vein, we, the children of Mr & Mrs Shamuganathan would like to wish our parents a very happy golden anniversary and a happy 70th birthday wishes to Amma. Thank you for all the things that you have done for us. No one could have done it better.

My brother in law, Chandra, and my sisters have organised an array of musical extravaganza for your listening and visual pleasure. Hope everyone has a good and we return with only fond memories.

Thank you...

History lesson via song

http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html

Arms costing more than an arm and a leg!

When Soong and Anne dropped in at my home back in November 2010, his parting line was, "I am not sure I'll be able to make for your Deepavali function next year, as my book is due to be out and it is going to be explosive (?pun intended). I don't know whether I'll be inside or out!" Listen to this podcast and you will know why.


There are many intelligent people around in Malaysia. Just that they all stay away from the mainstream and are happy doing their own thing, without raising an eyelid or a hand to change the slow evolution of things around them. Others take the easy way out by emigrating. Those who stay will be stirred when their piece of the Malaysian pie shrinks and are restricted from satisfying their ever unquenchable thirst for the Money God!

History or his-story?

Dr Hsu Dar Ren is a medical doctor and blogs 

on socio-economic issues;  believes that a fair

and equitable society  with good governance

is the key to the future of this country

December 22, 2010

DEC 22 — Shih Huang Ti, the emperor of Qin who united the warring factions of China over 2,000 years ago, was a shrewd leader. He wanted to live forever, and thus sent Xu Fu and 100 young boys and 100 young girls in search of the elixir that will give him eternal life.D

Xu Fu was a smart person. He sailed with the boys and girls to a group of Islands then called Tong Yin, which we now know by the name of Japan, and never returned.

Many Chinese believe that the Japanese might be the descendants of these groups of young boys and girls. Of course, I am no expert and I will leave this to archaeologists and anthropologists to argue it out.

What is certain is that Xu Fu’s grave is in Japan, and many of those young boys and girls and their descendents must have cross-married with the locals, and there is definitely a relation in term of genetics between the Chinese people and the Japanese.

Shih Huang Ti’s dream of getting the elixir remained just a dream. We know that everyone dies and there is no exception. So ultimately Shih Huang Ti must have realised this fact of life too.

So instead, he tried to consolidate his family’s hold on power, as he knew that his son and grandsons, like many of the second and third generations of aristocrats before, would not be as good or as “great” as himself.

He also started a project never before seen in human history at that time. He drafted millions of people, young and old, men and women alike to build a wall that stretched thousands of miles across the northern border of his empire.

That wall is reportedly the only man-made structure that is visible from space. We know it by the name of Wan Li Chang Zeng, or simply in English, The Great Wall (of China).

Hundreds of thousands died building this. This wall served to protect China from the barbarians up north, and so he thought it would help to protect his family’s reign.

Another worry was the intelligentsia. These were people who always criticised him. So how to make people obedient and loyal to him absolutely? He thought hard on this question being the clever man that he was.

What better way of trying to perpetuate his dynasty but to make all the people obedient fools? In those days, books were written on bamboo plates, and to gain knowledge was no simple feat.

So there were not many educated people. But even though this group was small, their influence was great. The peasants would look up to these educated people as guiding lights, and their views, through word of mouth carried by these peasants and simple folks, would travel fast throughout the country — even though there were no phone lines and no Internet.

Shih Huang Ti thought that if he could make all these intelligentsia disappear, there would be no more opponents to his rule or his dream of a perpetual dynasty for his descendants.

So began a mammoth task of rounding up these intelligentsia, especially those whose views were considered anti-government. He also ordered that certain books be confiscated and burned. Those books which in his mind would be able to influence people to think and question his authority and his reign.

This is one of the black marks on his reign, even though he was the one who unified China and unified Chinese writing. The latter was a feat that was of utmost importance, because despite the different dialects being spoken all over China, the unified Chinese writing served as a common identification factor for the people of China. It too had helped to nurture a homogenous culture.

The attempt to bury the intelligentsia and burn books was part of an attempt to rewrite history to suit Shih Huang Ti’s interest. We all know that he failed and failed miserably, for not many years after his death, his dynasty came tumbling down, and the Qin Dynasty was one of the shortest dynastic reigns in the history of China (221 BC to 206 BC).

For those who are more philosophical, this is perhaps a case of “Man proposes, God disposes” — and in this simple saying, there is so much wisdom for the present politicians to learn from.

Any attempt to try to hide the truth or any attempt to use unscrupulous methods to perpetuate one’s reign will fail miserably in the end.

In modern times, Adolf Hitler employed similar tactics in trying to consolidate his power. His propaganda machinery totally disregarded facts.

The person in charge of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, famously said that, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Of course, the Third Reich failed and failed miserably, even though the failure had a lot to do with Hitler’s delusion of grandeur. But I suspect even Hitler had started believing the story painted by Goebbels and thus made many military as well as administrative blunders based on the false propaganda, and these blunders cumulatively weakened the resources of Germany so much that Reich’s fate was doomed.

What I am trying to say is that over the period of human history, many attempts had been made to rewrite history or to give out misinformation. Most of these attempts failed.

In Communist China, in the 50s and 60s, the failed Great Leap Forward was initially touted as a great economic success, and the Cultural Revolution a great egalitarian experiment. The Gang of Four, as we call them now, were described as the great compatriots to the Great Leader.

But with the passing of Mao Zedong and the arrest of the Gang of Four, the truth inevitably was uncovered and many victims of that egalitarian experiment, like Deng Xiao Peng, were given back their rightful places in history.

Artificial re-writing of history will not last long. It may last only as long as the ruler who patronised such writings, but as some wise person has so aptly pointed out, without peer review, history is only a story that will be rebutted and rewritten and would not be accepted as the true recording of actual events.

Those who never learn from history and try to write his-story instead are bound to repeat the mistakes!

Movie with a twist!

[First published December 21st, 2010, a full year before the alleged end of the world, Armageddon] 

One Sunday evening, my other half had a sudden urge to watch a Tamil movie. (God knows why!). After browsing the papers, we zeroed on a Tamil movie which sounded interesting. Interesting because it starred Suriya (the current top Tamil actor), Vivek Oberoi (the ever smiling John Denver-hairstyled Hindi actor who was Aishwarya Rai's one time beau) and believe it or not Shatrughan Sinha (the Bihari Hindi actor of the 70s who had carved a career in politics - what was he doing in a Tamil movie anyway?)

In a flash, we got ready, and before long we were at the ticket counter of one of the oldest theatres in Kuala Lumpur (Coliseum) buying ticket. Coliseum was about to be demolished last year before timely interventions by the Heritage societies and the ministry. They struck a deal with the owners, whereby, it will be preserved together with the colonial type restaurant and hotel as a national heritage. In fact, the cinema gives away free tickets once a month on the 4th Friday afternoon of the month to view locally produced films. The restaurant, on the other hand, still serves good old British favourites like 'Shepard's pie' in an ambience set in the pre-colonial interior decorations and even the waiters were probably born before Merdeka.

The ticket counter guy (a foreigner) was telling that the show that we were about to watch was the last screening, and he highly recommended the movie - Ratha Charitharam.
As an afterthought, after seeing the poster of the movie upon paying for the tickets, we thought we had made a bad choice as the poster boasted of violence and revenge, which was definitely not our cup of tea! And wifey said, "Should have bought the tickets for the other movie screened there -'Chikku Bukku'. What the heck, we were there just to pass the time. We can always sleep through the film if it was found to be boring!

So we went in, armed with kuaci (dried melon seeds) and pistachios. After a few trailers, (the trailers were only two Rajnikanth music videos, not a single ad! Business must be bad, the target audience was not the affluent willing-to-part-with-money type!, .they started screening the opening credits of the movie 'Chikku Bukku'. I thought it was the promotion of their next screening, but hey! - the trailer went on and on... They have decided to screen the other movie! My wife's prayer got answered? The usher at theatre could not put forward a sensible reply. And nobody else in the thin crowd of the audience seems to mind, so we just watched.

This is the second time such an incident had happened to me. The first one was in 1988 in Kota Bharu (KB), a small town in the north-eastern state of Peninsular Malaysia of Kelantan. Watching a movie in KB was an experience entirely different to what we are used to. For a start, in the 80s, hit English language movies rarely hit the shores of Kelantan. If ever any English language movies were to creep through, it would usually be a B-grade one and would last no more than a day. So, if we were to catch it in the screening times in the papers, we better watch it on the same day for tomorrow may be too late! So, when TFLG (my weird friend who has no other friends except me) and I saw the newspaper announcement of 'The Untouchables' starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro being screened in KB, we were excited! It was a Friday, around noon when we saw it. Friday, in Kelantan, was the weekend as Thursday is a half-working day and Friday is off-day. After burning the candles at both ends for the term examinations, we decided to reward ourselves by feasting on Arumugam's banana leaf rice with his mouth drooling (even as I type) varuval chicken, followed by a movie later on.

Arumugam's Malindo Indian Curry House in Jalan Pengkalan Chepa was one of the few Indian restaurants in KB. In my opinion, he served the best South Indian food cooked complete with all the necessary spices without taking any shortcuts. Another reason I go there is for his warm hospitality and to support an honest man in his bit to feed his young family. As university students, of course, we got special treatment!
In KB, during the time of Friday prayers (salat Jumaat), all businesses come to a standstill (except non-Moslem ones). Hence, after lunch, we had to wait till 3pm before the screenings commenced.
Now, a few formalities and ground rules have to know before you start watching. For your information, they had sanctioned one half of the hall for men and the other for ladies. You are required to rise and stand at attention at the beginning of the movie when the state anthem is played, and the Sultan of Kelantan's portrait will be screened simultaneously. The hall lights will not be wholly switched off. Dim lights will accompany the audience by the side of the hall throughout the show. And do not be surprised if someone rudely flashes a torchlight at the middle of the show to ask for identifications or wedding certificate, especially if you are sitting with a female companion. It could be the moral police or PM (not Prime Minister but pencegah maksiat!))

So, after seeing the poster, we bought our tickets and went in. Just like what happened 22 years later, the supposed trailer never ended, and we ended up watching an Italian R-rated, butchered by censors, B-grade (maybe C) movie made in the spoof of the Hollywood blockbuster 'Blue Lagoon' called 'Blue Island'. And when we came out, that earlier poster had been changed to 'Blue Island'!


Goodbye, 2010! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Going to hang my running boots, rest my fingers, get away from it all and re-emerge next year from Down Under!