Losing values.

Fri March 15 2019.

My poor country seems to be getting sold down the drain, in as far as common sense and civil decorum go.

The Judicial arm of the government is supposed to be the bastion of justice, the last course of salvation for those seeking legal retribution in an unjust world.

The burgeoning bureaucracy Mahathir has talked of seems  to enable the harbouring of little napoleons who are always up to their usual mischiefs.

How can you talk about meteing justice to the large general population when you can't do justice to your own tiny department ?

A transfer order is supposed to have considered all angles before the Big Boss puts his stamp on it.  How can the Big Boss be  sabotaged by the small boss who quietly issues his own internal contradicting order ?

Then there is the question of a Sports Club EGM. This is not an instrument to be trifled with.

Seeking an EGM over the rights of members to their legal enjoyment is wasteful.  Good sense should  prevail. 

The Club President is not only new to the Presidency, but is new to the sport. Some naughty insiders must have influenced him. The activity of the Sports Club is around the socialising and sports of its members. Anything detracting from that should be rebuffed, pure and simple.  The sale and consumption of alcohol is subject to specific legal conditions in this country. The Club has been dealing with it from its inception. As long as the laws of the land are not broken, an EGM is not required for that determination. In fact, an EGM might produce the worse effect of  overblowing a cultural quarrel that was never there in the first place.

We are losing values.

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RMC Art Club.

Sat 9 March 2019.

There were not many of us who frequented the Art Club on the 4th.floor of the classroom block of the old Sg. Besi campus on Sundays, our normal activity day. In fact Hank until today didn't know it existed. But I remember Razak Samad. He was the one who would tell us to mix some turpentine in our oil paint to give it a shine, and I'd do that. Not because getting the shine was what I wanted, but because Razak said so ! The other frequenter was a Kelantanese whose name escapes me now. It was Rahman or something. And maybe because he was from the East Coast, he was always painting sail boats.

It was the first time that I dabbled with oil and acrylic, and there was plenty of supply. There was no canvas, though, so it was large drawing paper and hard boards to the rescue. I think there was one easel, but plenty of brushes and some palette knives that I came across for the first time. I also saw my first bottle of fixative. 

I think Michael Loh was the teacher-in-charge, though no lessons were conducted. We just brought with us what we knew of "art", and a lot of enthusiasm. We didn't learn about technique, medium and painting styles, like "Chinese". We just painted.

The Club was one-classroom size, with an adjoining store fitted with broad shallow drawers the boys could store their work in. The Art Club  was one place I could "escape" to on Sundays.

I'd been keen on drawing since SMC 1 & 11 at Methodist English School Tg. Malim back in 1954-55. I even got one drawing printed in the School magazine. The Art teacher even asked me to join the school art club, which held sessions on Sundays. I was staying in the S.I.TC. residential compound just across the road (the original trunk road from KL to the north) from school. I could have easily attended the class, but unfortunately never did. One year later we moved back to Kuala Pilah. So that was that.

In Tuanku Muhammad School, Kuala Pilah, my Std. 6 teacher, Mr. D'Cruz, asked me to submit a painting for some inter-school competition. I did, but never heard of the fate of the painting.

Now painting is described as a therapy for "senior citizens" against Alzheimer's. Winston Churchill is famously known to paint a lot in his retirement years. Hank and I in our retirement years and have been talking about taking lessons and painting. So far action hasn't followed words.

When I was in Damansara Utama in the 80's I met OP Zainuddin who had been a Military Attache somewhere. He said one of my oil pantings had hung in the College dining room, and the outgoing Commandant had wanted it. If indeed the College gave it to him, my oil painting of a jeweller at work now hangs in England, somewhere. The painting was oil and palette knife on hard board, copied from a magazine I found lying in the Art Club. That's one OP's contribution from Sg. Besi across the waves to the English.

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