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Last night our group met to celebrate Crystal’s birthday, at Morton’s Steakhouse.

The choice of restaurant was that of Dr Teo’s. This restaurant has been around a long time. I used to frequently visit them. I recall they used to bring a trolley of all their cuts and have you choose what you wanted to order. They have stopped doing that now.

Anyway I think the place is rather expensive, especially their side dishes and was a wrong choice because Allen doesn’t take beef. He ordered fish and he thought it wasn’t that good.

Conversation as always was good. But it was a bit difficult to carry on talking because the restaurant was rather noisy with a very good crowd for a Tuesday night dinner.

Lunch today was with former Minister Khaw Boon Wan and the usual suspects, i.e. Dr Teo, Allen Ang and Peng Hong.

We last met on 7 January 2025 at Kings Copthorne Hotel to have penang food. On that occasion I was late as I had lunch with my mom to celebrate her birthday. Then the bulk of our conversation that day was on the upcoming GE and what were the likely scenarios for the PAP. Of course my worst case scenarios for the outcome then were all well off the mark.

Today’s lunch was at the same venue and one again penang food. We managed to get a private room where we could eat and talk comfortably.

I raised my concerns about about AI and its implications for the job market. I pointed out that quite a number of people I personally know have been retrenched and were having difficulties finding a new job. These are people in their mid 30s. We then talked about the current young people’s aspirations and how they view what a working life means to them and their likely future in this new era. We all agreed that we must prepare our people for what may lie ahead, a high GDP growth situation but low employment scenario in Singapore. The high medical costs in Singapore and property prices were our other discussion topics.

And I voiced my views of the Albatross Files and how I viewed the Malaysian leadership of that era. It was interesting to hear his views on this since he was himself born in Penang.

I like talking to him because he listens and is keenly aware of what might turn out to be future areas of concern if matters are left unchecked.

As an aside, he told us about the comic book he has created with ChatGPT. This comic book is based on his recollections of his childhood and his younger days in Penang.

Glad to see that everyone had a good appetite and are doing well and healthy.

This morning I woke up to news that the legendary South Indian playback singer S Janaki passed away yesterday, aged 88.

She started singing at an early  age in various South Indian languages. Since I only know Tamil songs, I remember listening to her songs such as singara valena deva and her songs from Then Nilavu, which were released in 1961. Then for the longest time she didn’t sing that many Tamil songs, although she was singing in the other languages.

Until Illayaraja came to the scene in 1976. She sang the songs in Annakili. She again rocketed to fame in the Tamil movie industry and after that she sang so many memorable songs with music composed by Illayaraja and the later composers.

Called the Nightingale of South India, she recorded more than 40,000 songs in multiple languages.

Rest in peace. All the artistes of the era when I was growing up are all slowly departing.

Last night I watched the MPO perform 4 suites from Studio Ghibli movies. Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbour Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away. The music for all 4 scores were composed by Joe Hisaishi.

MPO only had one performance scheduled when I booked my ticket 7 months ago, but it was so popular that in the end they had to have 9 performances.

I must confess I haven’t seen a single movie by Studio Ghibli, although I do know they are popular. I liked the music for the first 3. Spirited Away wasn’t that great and the piece I like from that movie, Always With Me, wasn’t preformed as it wasn’t composed by Hisaishi. A pity.

A completely local audience. It’s good that there are enough Malaysians of all races who support live orchestra music.

They were selling music and piano scores for the Studio Ghibli movies as merchandise and surprisingly they were selling out fast. So many musically inclined people there!

My classmate from ACS, Lim King, had invited me to the wedding of his daughter sometime back.

So off I went last night to the Edition hotel. My second time there.

He had asked the guests to be early as he wanted dinner to start at 6pm. That would have been a first for a wedding dinner.

I did arrive early at about 535pm and as I was getting out of my car realised that I had forgotten my jacket. So I had to rush back home and pick it up. Fortunately my place was nearby and so I managed to get back to the hotel by 6pm.

Managed to catch up with quite a number of my school mates there, some of whom I have not seen in a long time. Lim King had seated us at 3 tables next to each other. So people were walking around and chatting. A good occasion; good company, good food, the dinner program was simple and meaningful and good conversation. The food especially was very good. Both in terms of quality and the items that were on the menu. And parking at this hotel has been a breeze on both my visits there.

I managed to pick up this thin volumed essay by Thum Ping Tjin. I have previously read the Albatross Files and found it fascinating. So this was a good companion volume to that book because it provides quite a bit of background information and deals with what the exhibition didn’t cover.

As I suspected after reading the main book, it is clear that Singapore entered into a union with the Federation of Malaya in 1963 on unequal terms, knowing that these terms were not equal, with its eyes open. LKY had agreed to the merger on terms that Malay supremacy in Malaysia would not be questioned and that the PAP would not interfere or participate in Malayan politics. This volume suggests that LKY agreed because of political expediency because he was afraid that PAP would lose the next election in Singapore and at the same time he needed to fix Lim Chin Siong. I find this quite a plausible explanation.

It also becomes understandable why Tunku and the Malaysian politicians didn’t trust or even like LKY and the PAP. To them the PAP wanted the merger to save itself, knew what it was getting itself into and thereafter did its utmost to sabotage it.

An interesting read. Managed to finish it in a day.

Last night was our usual ACS dinner, this time hosted by Jen Howe.

He picked FOC restaurant, a Spanish one, at Keong Saik street. I have never been here and am not really a fan of Spanish food but I was really impressed by the food quality there.

Parking there is always a problem in the evenings and so I arrived there before 630pm. Some of the others who came later had difficulty finding a car park.

The place was packed for a weekday night and was noisy. I found conversation in our private room rather difficult with all the noise.

No deep, meaningful conversation. Just random topics but again just good to catch up. Strangely I noticed that age was catching up with some last night. The oldest there in our group is 78, with 3 others 73 this year. Time is flying by.

I saw Hareyani there at the restaurant and said hello to her. She was with her friends who were celebrating her birthday.

One of my favourite lunch places in KL is Cafe Colombo in TRX. They serve good Sri Lankan food and now they have a great value set lunch for RM19. Choice of rice, 3 vegetables, choice of curries, papadam and appams. You can add on meat dishes, which I did.

They also serve a good masala tea. Went there with Harish. While I was there, I managed to meet their head chef and congratulated him on the good food!

Yesterday when I was in KL, l learnt that K Bhagyaraj had passed away suddenly as a result of a massive heart attack. He was 73.

Again I never knew him personally but he was a massive figure in the Tamil film industry in the late 1970s and 1980s.

He started off as an assistant director in 16 Vayathinilae to Barthiraja, who passed away just 2 weeks. He wrote some of the script for that movie and had a cameo role in that movie. He likewise did that for Sigappu Rogakkal. He then came out on his own and wrote stories, scripts, screen plays and directed and starred in many movies during the 1980s period. Too many to mention.

I always looked forward to watching his movies because of the good storylines, witty dialogues and good acting.

Another passing of an era.

Zooming of to KL for a short trip. Just 3 days but am hoping to see if I can progress with the building of my Anyara Hills. That is the primary focus of this trip. Also Harish will be in KL. Hoping to see if I can catch up with him for a meal.