Sydney Airport, Dec 2006

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!

Every half-yearly, I check Krispy Kreme’s website to see if they are opening stores near me. NEAR me, as in maybe an hour away. Well, in June 2008, it will be better than near. Krispy Kreme is comming to Leeds.

Original glazed…come to mommy!!!!

However, seeing that bacon’s off to the Big City today and will only be home around 9, we’ll probably make do with traditional chinese takeaway later tonight. Hopefully he will bring me some Krispy Kreme to make up for it. …yumm.I wonder whether they have a thanksgiving edition made out of pumpkin. I believe they did, but that was in my other life.

In other news, the dream is over for England. Outrageously they have not qualified for the Euro 2008, and neither have any of the other countries that makes up Great Britian. As bacon was in one of his stiff upper lip business dinners in the Big City yesterday, I got smses every 5 minutes asking for update, thus ruining my Ugly Betty night - the one where Posh is featured and Betty gets the sack. I actually had to bear watching England basically shooting themselves in the foot by playing outrageously shit - good thing is Steve McLaren their shit manager is now sacked and I don’t need to pen Euro 2008 in my diary next year.

Yesterday was rather exciting for some working in the Leeds city centre. Around lunch time, we were actually not allowed to leave our office, and all we could see from the windows were that the roads were cordorned off empty of pedestrians and vehicles. As there is an overhead bridge right next to where I work, I initially thought that someone had jumped off the bridge; there are bouquets of dried dead flowers by the sides of the bridge presumably for previous victims. This quarantine lasted a good couple of hours.Apparently around 10.40am, an unattended package was found in the Merrion Centre, which is a shopping centre that I walk past everyday on my way to work. A robot was sent in for a ‘controlled explosion’ - and I think the result was this was a false alarm

Do you remember the time before 9-11, where unattended packages were disposed off instead of blown off? This reminds me of Manila, the hotbed of explosions and bomb scares, where armed guards check your bags when you leave or enter any shops, even a 7-11 had armed guards. And as bacon was living literally opposite Glorietta (where a bomb, incidentally, went off a few weeks ago), this was becoming quite concerning. I remmeber the second week he was there, and around 8pm (he was still at work) his friends from the UK and me in KL started ringing him asking if he was ok. A bomb had just gone off in a bus not a mile from where his hotel was. And apparently news like this are not groundbreaking enough for everyone to stop working and head home. He did not even realized it had happened, and actually went to the window and hey presto, he could actually see the remainder of the bus , smoke and all. That was how close it was.

People get used to things happening around them, and over time, fear turns into complacency. I, for one, live about 2-3 miles away from the infamous area in Leeds where most of the London bombers were born and bred, and their family and friends still lives here. I go pass it everyday on my way to work. On my first trip to Leeds, I actually requested bacon that we do NOT go past that area - this was two weeks after the London bombings. Now, not only it does no bother me, I actually find that area fascinating for its blend of middle eastern, polish & asian groceries and takeaways. People always say its shit around here and its dangerous bla bla bla, but honestly, it never bothered me after my first couple of months here.

Does routine really breeds complacency, or does it actually cancels out irrational fear ?

What percentage of ethnic minorities live in london?
A: 49%,making up to 29% of total population of Greater London

What sports is played in the FA Cup?
A: Doh. Football

What exams does 16 year olds take
A: GCSE, equivalent to O Levels,or SPM

What is the speed limit on normal roads?
A: 30 miles p/hr

Where is the Met Police’s headquarters?
A: Scotland Yard

PHEW. At last.

I got to the test centre at 9.30am for a 10am test. Early enough isn’t it? You would think that from 9.30am they would start registering people in for the test, making sure your name’s correct ect….

10.05am: Assign seats
10.30am: Request for payment. Facilitator went from one person to another.You gotta go to another building if you want to pay by debit or credit card.No change available as well.
10.45am: Mini lecture on Do’s and Don’t of test
11.00am: Register everyone on the main PC,one by one, checking passport for details
11.20am: Facilitator types in password in PC for your practice question. One pc at a time, checking passport for details
11.30am: Facilitator types in password in PC for real exam. One PC at a time, checking passport for details.
11.35am: I finished my test
11.37am: Got results.

You’d think that since they’ve been doing this for more than a year their process would be more streamlined and less bureaucratic!!! OMG! Test itself only took a few minutes, and what’s more, my initial PC had porn and ringtone adverts everytime I clicked on an answer! I had to switch PC, and the new PC was lagging so much it took at least 10 seconds for it to recognize that you’ve clicked on an answer.

At least its over now…so all I have to worry about is my £1,000 to pay for the piece of paper to stick to my passport announcing that I can stay and work here forever. Woo!

1) My tax code have not been sorted out yet even though this is my THIRD month with the new company; resulting in a much lower end of month paycheck from the 30% *gulp* that I have been taxed. It’s outrageous bureaucracy I tell you.

2) Tomorrow’s team day out is forecasted to be fun, fun, fun, with the weather forecast at 5-0 degrees celcius and an outlook of FOG

3) I had not been studying for my test as I am supposed to. Uh-oh

4) It is official. No amount of resusication will revive my poor Nikon. I am actually really depressed over its death, my loyal blogging tool.

5) To top it up, I fell down the damned stairs yesterday, resulting in a bruised bum and aches in muscles I did not even know existed. I just hope I had not sprained my back again

However, I have actually bought tickets for my trip in February! At last! At £500 per person, this is not a bad price, really. So I’m really chuffed. Should be getting in around midnight on 3rd Feb and leaving again at midnight of 23rd Feb. Now, all I need to do when I get back to msia is to buy bacon a sun lounger so he can bring it everywhere with him to suntan. Can you imagine bacon with his top off, sun tanning on my front lawn? Or laid on his sun lounger, among the wild chickens in my grandmother’s village? Hehehe..funnee! Fortunately, my grandmother has now moved to an apartment block with a pool, so it wouldnt look so weird. With a pool that the residents swim in fully clothed..yeah, that sort of pool.

I feel the need to apologize for the lack of updates here. And of course, lack of pictures

reason 1:
We had now officially said goodbye to my trusty Nikon S3, who had been with me precisely 2 years in October. I bought it just before moving to the UK,my Canon kaput-ed sometime in September 2005. Heck, this was the first trip that the Nikon went on.Not very long shelf life isn’t it? My Canon lasted around two years as well, and both cameras, I think, suffer from cracked lenses.

Nikon has been to the beaches of Tioman, the sea (literally) in Bondi, the sunny Ibiza…..always strong and steady even when I happily dropped it in sea water.And now it has died. My love to snapping photos seemed to have died with it literally. I have been abandoning my new Canon the past few weeks/months because I am really quite upset with the death of Nikon,all food pictures have been snapped with my Cybershot off the Sony Ericsson.

I don’t know, I might try to revive it again one last time. I don’t know how. I guess remove batteries,SD card, charge, reboot? Sigh. This is about as pathetic as someone stealing my purse or cutting my my little pinkie. I still stupidly bring it in my handbag everyday,and it’s so pathetic when I turn it on that nothing shows on the viewer.How did I get so attached to a CAMERA?????

reason 2:
I have been literally hibernating at home with temps dipping to a few degrees with the wind factor. I really really hate this…been persuading bacon to move to more temperate climates (HONG KONG!!!) with no avail. With any luck we might move to an even colder climate. BLEAH. And of course, dayfarkinglight saving is not helping; it gets dark at 4pm.

It also does not add to my cheer that this comming thursday some smart alec at work had decided that the whole department should go away for a team day out..in an ADVENTURE COURSE. We will be doing arrows and bows, clay piegon shooting and propelling down some rock or something. At bone-chilling 1 celcius weather. AAARGH! And we leave at 7.30am as well….why can’t we do this in summer when it’s nice to be out!?

reason 3:
I have, of course, been trying to study. hah. with not much luck. So I would need to cross my fingers for this saturday.There is a whole chapter about working in the UK ect, so that one is quite easy as I spent such a long time job hunting.

It’s been so long since I’ve studied….as in pouring over books, burning the midnight oil, highlighter, notebook in hand and all that jazz. Well, at the moment I don’t seem to have a choice really. To renew my visa to an indefinate leave to remain status ( PR without restrictions on residency periods); I have to take a lovely ‘introductory’ test, entittled Life in the UK. Alternatively, I would need to take ESOL classes.Which I would not be allowed in anyway. Bah. And if you’re wondering, even if you’re born in Australia or US, you would still be required to take this test to prove your language skills.

So today, I booked a slot and will be taking it on 17th Nov. At a cost of £34 per pop, I don’t plan to fail. However, I still think the whole thing is completely ridicullious, as not even born and bred British cannot get the questions right!! The worst is that the third chapter ( there is altogether 5 chapters to study) is a whole chapter about politics - I never get to the last two chapter because I always tend to nod off at this stage. It does not help that when I was in college I took the required US Politics subject, followed by a one-credit Californian Politics subject, and am now throughly confused between my franks with my bangers(both sausages for the unintiated) .

I answer all the politically-related question as I would in a test taken in CALIFORNIA, and that does not help seeing that CA is now run by I’ll BE BACK and UK is run by I LIKE TO TAX. And not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but I had no idea how does the political system in Malaysia work. Yes, I know the party with the most vote will form the government, in Malaysia’s case, it almost seemed like the Government is only BN. But how many members, how many houses ect…no idea. Don’t taunt me, like a good little citizen, I am actually registered to vote in Malaysia AND in the UK - and I DO vote.Every time. Even though I know I might not make a difference and even though the last time I voted in the UK I had no idea for what I am voting for. Local councillor position, apparently, and I voted for a pound sign.

I always seems to get distracted don’t I??

The Life in the UK test is, in my humble opinon, designed to fool. For easy reference, the Malaysians would probably associate this with the Moral classes and exams that we were forced to go through every single painful year in school. There is only one answer, and that is whatever the BOOK says. They have extremely easy questions designed to fool, and extremely hard and ridicullious questions designed to stump

Example question:
What is the most important thing to do when hiring a laywer?
a) Ask if he is qualified to help you in your area of need
b) Ask how much does he plan to charge
c) Ask how can he help you

Did you get it?

Answer is B. Personally, I would check A and then ask C, and then ONLY ask B - no point hiring an unqualified lawyer who is unable to help you even if he takes minimum wage, is there?

Example question 2:
If you spill beer on someone’s shirt, what would you do?
A: You would offer to buy the person another pint
B: You would offer to dry their wet shirt with your own
C: You may need to prepare for a fight in the car park

My answer would be C, irregardless. But of COURSE it is A. Seriously, if I spill someone’s drink in Japan,India or Russia, I would do the same

Ok, one last question:

What is the minimum time you must be married before you are divorced?

a) Six months
b) One year
c) Two years

I don’t see why would anyone know this unless they are wanting a divorce, and in that case, this answer can be easily procured by ringing up the council when trying to file for separation.

Most of it are in this similar line of questioning, with political ones throwing me off and also when they request for specific stats, like how many % of the Scottish population are chinese as per the last census. And what are the overall population of muslim in the UK (2%!). Largest immigrant group are from India.I know all the information is there, but seriously, I do not have a photographic memory and even if I do, what would this information serve me unless I am trying to set up a chinese takeaway!?And then you questions like what are the dates of the Patron Saints of the different countries - I’m sorry, unless it is St Patrick’s or a public holiday, I really can’t be bothered.They even ask you when Mother’s Day is, the commecialized monster - and it really does not help that I get it confused with the American and the Australian ones. Hey, who even remember when Mother’s day is until you see the Hallmark card adverts?

The answer, by the way, is that you need to be married at least a year before file for divorce.

Ok, back to studying

Oh shocking!!! NO PUMPKIN?!? We’re taking a break from kabocha due to bacon’s now extreme dislike of the jack-o-lantern for this lost British dish.

Kedgeree is one of those unique bastardized food that the british brought back from their worldly conquests. Originally kitchiri in its native India, this dish was de-spiced by the british rajahs,leaving the spices, delicious fish and rice but removing the chillies. This was a traditional British breakfast dish about 100 years or so ago, but nowadays it is very hard, if not utterly impossible,to find this dish anywhere in either Indian or British restaurants. I think this is a damn shame, as bacon and eggs gets pretty boring after a while.

This dish was orginally eaten during breakfast as the fishing vessels came in. Of course, in the pre-refridgerator days, fish were eaten freshly caught. When Scottish/English soilders serving the British Raj returned from South Asia, they brought this dish with them, subsituting the tropical waters fishes with smoked cod, haddock ect. Traditionally cooked with knobs of butter and a final swirling of double cream into it, I had modified this to using a rice cooker & yoghurt.

Kedgeree

2 cups of brown rice (basmati preferred)
2 slab of smoked fish, or any white fish
1 bombay onion sliced
1 egg per person, medium boil
1 cup semi-skimmed milk
1 tbs yoghurt per serving

spice mix:
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika & chilli powder
strands of saffron if you’re feeling posh
3 star anise

additions:
chopped fresh coriander
1/2 cup frozen peas
double cream to swirl

Wash rice as usual
Sautee onions, leave aside
Arrange fish on shallow pan, poach with semi-skimmed milk
When fish is cooked, remove from pan and keep warm
use the milk (now flavoured with the fish smokiness) and another cup of water to cook the rice in the rice cooker
Mix spice mix well into the uncooked rice with milk & water. Peas go in now
Stir in sauteed onions
Start rice cooker
Immediately mix in the precooked fish into rice, and let it keep warm
slice the eggs to serve. yolk should be soft, not hard boiled
Plate up, serve with eggs on the side, chopped coriander and a dollop of yoghurt. Mix well.

I know it doesn’t look like oh-wow great, but it actually tastes alot like fish briyani, minus the cream and egg which its quite unlike briyani. Apparently the old-school British eats this dish cold, but I so prefer it warm,just like my briyani. Not bad for a first try, I have a good idea of other additions for my second try, maybe some fish curry powder to give it a kick up the ass :).