SS Quah's Anything Goes

Rail memories

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sun, 03 May 2026 22:47:00 +0000

I came across two old photographs of the Butterworth railway station platform that were taken before the railway service was upgraded and electrified. They had that slightly lazy, unhurried look and I found myself lingering over them longer than I expected. It brought back some vivid memories of the nights when I used to catch the train from that very platform.

In the 1970s when I was still living on the island and needed to travel to-and-from Kuala Lumpur, this was part of the routine. I would buy my ticket earlier from Howe Cheang Dispensary along Penang Road, then made my way across by ferry to Butterworth. From the terminal, it was a short walk to the station, perhaps a hundred metres or so, where rail passengers would wait for the collapsible grille gate to open. A railway staff member would check the tickets and let us through.

Train services were sparse in those days. From what I remember, there were maybe two, at most three, a day: a morning train, a night train and occasionally a railbus service in the afternoon. Because there were so few services, the morning and night trains were long, easily 15 or 20 carriages by my estimation, and pulled by a diesel engine. Walking from one end to the other could feel like a journey in itself.

Travel was not quite as convenient as it is now. Luggage didn’t come with wheels, so every bag was carried by hand, often over quite a distance just to find the coach. The night mail offered second-class sleeping berths, but third-class passengers had to make do with upright seats. These were unnumbered, taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets were often oversold, and during the run-up to national holidays, it could turn into a scramble. Those who were late, or simply unlucky, ended up sitting or trying to sleep along the passageways, or at the space, called vestibules, I believe, at either end of the carriage, right by the open exits.

Between 1973 and 1976, when I was studying in Kuala Lumpur, these journeys became a regular part of life. I still remember one trip just before Chinese New Year when I had no choice but to settle into the vestibule. As it turned out, I was sharing that cramped space with a woman who, to my surprise, was also an Old Free but a year my junior. We struck up a conversation, and what could have been a long, uncomfortable 10-hour ride passed rather more easily than expected.

Every now and then, I would opt for something different: the newspaper vans. In those days, freshly printed newspapers from Kuala Lumpur were sent north and south overnight in vans, and for a small fee, anyone could hitch a ride. We would gather at a designated spot in the city, usually around two o'clock in the morning and waited for the vans to arrive. There would be a few others like me, and we would climb into the back, settling ourselves on stacks of newspapers.

The vans would head north, stopping along the way to drop off bundles, each stop briefly interrupting whatever sleep we managed. Looking back, it sounded rather precarious, but at the time, none of that mattered or even crossed our minds. There were no worries about accidents, no thoughts about insurance or safety. It was simply a cheaper way to travel, and more than that, it felt like an adventure. Those, indeed, were the days....

ADDENDUM: How can I leave these rail memories without mentioning one other thing that shaped those journeys? The single track. Before electrification, there was only one line running north to south, shared by everything, passenger trains and goods trains alike. It meant that timing was never entirely in our own hands.

The Ipoh railway station was the key point. That was where the northbound and southbound trains had to meet and pass. Although Ipoh sat roughly halfway between Butterworth and Kuala Lumpur, the stretch southwards was actually longer, so the train from Butterworth would almost always be the one waiting. And waiting it did. Delays were part of the system, and it wasn’t unusual to be at the Ipoh station for an hour or more while everyone waited for the other train to arrive.

On a journey that already took close to nine hours, that stop could feel longer than it really was, especially at night if sleep didn’t come easily. You lay there in the second-class berth, half-aware of the stillness, wondering what time you would finally reach Kuala Lumpur, or back in Butterworth. If it was the return journey, there was always that worry at the back of the mind whether I’d make it home at a reasonable hour, perhaps even catch the family by surprise. There was a certain kind of boredom in that semi-darkness. And just when the mind had drifted far enough for sleep to take over, there would sometimes be that sudden, unmistakable jerk of the carriage, the whistle unheard, as the train eased back into motion. But more often, it was quiet and smooth, the movement returning almost unnoticed, and it was the unsteady rhythm of the carriage, the soft clacking of wheels on the rails, that told me the journey had resumed.

It was a long chain of small uncertainties, and yet that was simply how travel was in those days. Looking back now, what I remember most is that mixture of anxiety and anticipation, the slow approach towards home after being away for weeks or months, and the sense that every delay, every pause along the way, only made the arrival feel that much more satisfying.

Story of a tyrant

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sun, 03 May 2026 03:40:00 +0000

I’ve noticed over the years that films critics dismiss can sometimes be received quite differently by ordinary audiences. That thought came to mind after I finished Michael, the latest biopic that’s been drawing audiences worldwide. It hasn't exactly been warmly received by critics who think they know best, but I found the film engaging, not least because of the music. At the same time, what lingered most wasn’t just the songs or the spectacle, but the shadow of a father hanging over the entire story.

A big part of why the film worked was Jaafar Jackson. Playing his uncle, Michael Jackson, couldn’t have been easy, but he carried it off with real conviction. It was not just the look or the voice, it was the movement. The moonwalk, the toe balancing, the whole physical language was there. But what made it more than imitation was the way he showed Michael reacting to pressure, especially from his father.

That brings me to Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson. The film leant into the idea of Joe as a tyrannical figure, someone who governed through fear, control and an unyielding belief that greatness must be forced into existence. Domingo played him with a tight, contained menace, and I can well believe he’ll be in the running for Best Supporting Actor when awards season comes around.

What gave the film its backbone was that relationship. Everything seemed to flow from it. Joe drove the boys relentlessly, convinced he was pulling them out of a life that would otherwise swallow them. And in a way, he was right. But the cost was written all over Michael. The film kept returning to that tension, not in big dramatic bursts but in small moments. A look, a hesitation, a silence. Even at the height of his fame, Michael was still trying to step out from under his father’s grip. When Michael finally began to assert himself, it didn’t feel like triumph so much as release. Even then, his father's shadow did not quite disappear immediately. It was a slow and uneasy separation.

Around that central thread, the film played the hits, and they did their job. The familiar songs lifted the energy whenever they came in, and like that other big biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, this was something that would really benefit from being heard on a big screen. The sound fills the space in a way that a smaller setup just can’t quite match.

But there were gaps. The other Jackson siblings, especially the sisters, felt pushed into the background. And the film noticeably sidestepped the more troubling controversies that followed Michael later in life. I could feel a certain smoothing over, a decision to keep the story within safer boundaries.

Even so, taken on its own terms, I found it more absorbing than I expected. It may not tell the whole story, but it told one part of it clearly enough: the making of a superstar under the hand of a father who believed that love meant control, and that success justified the cost. And by the end, that’s the part that lingered.

Asian chess players

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Fri, 01 May 2026 22:02:00 +0000

I suppose I wasn’t the only one who felt energised when Javokhir Sindarov emerged as the Challenger for this year’s world championship match. It will be one match worth following, once FIDE finally gets around to confirming the dates and venue for Gukesh vs Sindarov.

In the meantime, FIDE has put out its May 2026 rating list. They do this at the start of every month, and I still find myself checking it out of habit just to see how things have shifted. Of course, for the top players, the real movement happens on the live rating list during tournaments, where every game nudges the numbers up or down almost immediately. On the other hand, the monthly list is more like a snapshot, something a bit more static.

Out of curiosity, I pulled out the top 20 and put them into a table. FIDE keeps things pretty bare, just the essentials. But I added an extra column of my own, noting down what I could about each player’s background. Nothing official, just something I thought might be interesting to look at.

What struck me, more than I expected, was the pattern that emerged. Thirteen out of the 20, that's 65 percent, have at least one parent of Asian background. Some represent Asian chess federations, others don’t, but the roots are there. Undeniably there. It’s not something that jumps out when looking at a standard rating list, but once I saw it, I couldn’t quite unsee it.

Maybe it doesn’t change anything in a practical sense. Games are still decided over the board, and playing strength is what matters. But I do find myself looking at the list a little differently now. Not just as a ranking of players, but as a reflection of how wide the game has spread at the top. Europe used to be the centre of chess, but Asia has more or less caught up, and this list seems to say exactly that.

The girl from Ipanema

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 22:45:00 +0000

Every now and then I come across a significant album that I need to talk about. Getz/Gilberto is one of those. I’ve known it for years but coming back to it recently, I found myself wondering about how it came together. Before this album came out, Stan Getz was already circling around the Jazz Samba sound, thanks to Charlie Byrd who had brought back records from Brazil. So when Getz finally got together in the studio with João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim in 1963, it wasn’t just another session. João’s guitar had that soft, almost stuttering pulse that didn’t push. Jobim’s writing held everything together without drawing attention to itself. And Getz was somehow finding a way to fit in.

The whole situation was quite funny in a way. Getz and João didn’t speak the same language and Jobim had to translate, not just words but intentions. João, from what I’ve read, was particular about everything: the phrasing, the space, the balance. Getz came from a different world altogether. And yet when I listen to the album, none of that friction really showed. If anything, it felt as though everyone was holding back just enough to let the music breathe.

Then there’s Astrud Gilberto. I’ve heard The Girl from Ipanema more times than I can count, but it still reverberated every time I hear it again. There’s nothing showy about her voice. It was almost hesitant, as if she was feeling her way through the song. And knowing she wasn’t even meant to be the singer, that she just stepped in because she could handle the English lyrics, made it all the more remarkable. That slightly detached, untrained sound was exactly what the song needed.

I also find myself thinking about the small decisions that shaped the record. The producer trimmed João’s Portuguese vocal for the 45-inch single and pushed Astrud’s lines forward. From a listener’s point of view, it worked. From João’s, probably less so. He wasn’t entirely happy with how things were handled, and in the background, things between him and Astrud weren’t exactly steady either. But that’s the nature of the music industry. What we hear is often the result of compromise.

Sonically, the album still holds up today. It doesn’t sound dated. If anything, it sounds cleaner than a lot of what came after. Very little reverb, everything close and direct. On the early stereo pressings, the separation was wide with sax on one side and guitar and voice on the other. It gave the music space.

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to either the record or the compact disc. There’s this sense of restraint running through the whole album, nobody trying to dominate, nobody in a hurry. The music just unfolding at its own pace. I don’t think the people in that studio fully knew what they had at the time. These things are usually clearer in hindsight. But listening to it now, with all the stories behind it, this was one of those moments where everything lined up just right.

I also have this compact disc, Getz/Gilberto #2, recorded live at Carnegie Hall on 9 October 1964. This should have been a perfect concert with Stan Getz and João Gilberto riding high after Getz/Gilberto, and appearing together at Carnegie Hall with Astrud Gilberto who was now a star. But the occasion was anything but perfect.

First, Getz came on with his quartet filling the hall confidently with his music. Then João followed, and the whole mood shifted. Just his voice and guitar, sounding soft and almost fragile. A complete contrast. A concert in two acts. It felt like they were not really sharing the same evening. The more I listened, the more I noticed the tension. João’s idea of bossa nova was always about restraint. Getz played with more presence. Side by side, the contrast was sharp.

I’ve read about the arguments over sound during rehearsals, João wanting the drums muffled while Getz wanting something that would carry in a hall that size. Listening now, I can almost hear that disagreement in the music itself. Even when they finally come together at the end, it felt more like an obligation to the audience than a natural meeting between collaborators.

And then there’s Astrud, somewhere in the middle of all this. By then she wasn’t just the accidental singer anymore. She was part of the sound and part of the connection between the two men. Not long after that concert, João and Astrud divorced. Once she was gone, it was hard to imagine how the two men could have kept going in any meaningful way. And when I go back to that Carnegie Hall album now, it felt less like a reunion and more like the last time all the three pieces were still in the same room, even if they were already pulling apart.

Xuanzang's Silk Road journey

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:33:00 +0000

Re-reading Sally Hovey Wriggin's The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang after coming back from Nepal and India last November felt a bit different for me. It just wasn't history anymore. Some of the places mentioned in the book had already been treaded by my feet.

The journey of Xuanzang is usually told as something vast and almost unreal. Sixteen years of deserts, mountains, bandits, kings and monasteries. But when I’ve been to places like Lumbini or walked through the ruins of Nalanda University, the story shrinks a little not in importance, but in distance. I start to see that this wasn’t some abstract pilgrimage. It happened on real ground, the same ground that I’ve just been on.

Wriggins made a good job of making that connection. She took Xuanzang’s old records and lined them up with the modern map, so I could follow him step by step. And when he moved through Kapilavastu into Lumbini, it suddenly felt familiar. When I was there, the place had this quiet serenity about it. Xuanzang saw something similar, though in his time many monasteries were already in decline, half-abandoned and fading.

From Lumbini, he went on to the other key sites, places that now formed the standard Buddhist circuit. Sarnath, Nalanda and eventually Bodh Gaya. When I visited Nalanda, what struck me was the scale of the ruins. I had walked along those long brick foundations and tried to imagine thousands of monks living and studying there. Xuanzang didn’t have to imagine it. He saw it at its peak, with thousands of scholars in residence, studying everything from logic to language to philosophy.

What I also realised after my trip, was how observant he was. He wasn’t just ticking off holy sites. He was noticing details, how many monasteries were active, how many were abandoned, what people believed, how they lived. Even his route through what is now southern Nepal, into northern India, matched quite closely with what we now called the Buddhist pilgrimage trail. He wasn’t following a travel guidebook. In a way, he was writing the first one.

And then there’s Nalanda again, which kept coming back as the centre theme of his story. Not just a stop, but a place where he stayed, studied, argued and learned. We can stand there today among the ruins and still get a faint sense of that intellectual energy. It’s not hard to imagine why he remained there for years, working and going deep into the texts he had come all that way to find.

What I found myself thinking, re-reading Wriggins after the trip, was how much of Xuanzang’s journey was about persistence. The distances were one thing but even at the key sites, he was often arriving at places already in decline, trying to piece together what remained. It was not so different from what we saw today. The stones are still there, the outlines are still there, but I have to do a bit of work to imagine the rest.

By the time he made it back to China with his load of texts, the journey had already done its real work. Not just collecting manuscripts, but connecting places, ideas, traditions. Reading about it after having been to some of those places myself, it no longer felt like a distant legend. Everything felt real and almost within reach.

And that, I think, is what Wriggins got right. She brought Xuanzang down from the pedestal a bit, not to diminish him, but to place him back on the road. The same road that still runs through Lumbini, Nalanda, Bodh Gaya and the rest.

To read about my experience on the Buddhist trail last year, click here.

Long meeting

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:25:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since I sat through a proper long-winded annual general meeting. The last one I can remember was sometime in the 1990s when one of The Old Frees' Association AGMs dragged right through lunch and only wrapped up around 3pm. That one started at 10 in the morning and felt like a marathon back then. Yesterday’s made that look almost brisk.

The OFA AGM started more or less on time, but by the time I got up and left at 4.15pm, it was still going. The main reason, of course, was the elections. This year wasn’t the usual quiet affair. There was a serious, organised challenge for nine of the 11 Management Committee seats. The challengers called themselves the Fidelis Team, and they didn’t just turn up, they came ready to contest.

More than that, they managed to stir something. Members turned up in numbers that were not often seen. The newly renovated multi-purpose hall was packed, 238 voting members, which must be close to a record. Could feel the energy in the room, though it wasn’t always clear which way it was leaning. Questions came thick and fast, some of them quite uncomfortable, and the committee had to work hard for their answers. At certain points, I genuinely couldn’t tell whether the floor was swinging towards the incumbents or the challengers.

Running alongside all this was another flashpoint. The management committee had tabled five resolutions to amend the OFA Constitution or introduce a new project, one of them calling for the establishment of a private English school. They sounded straight-forward on paper, but on the day, it didn’t quite square with the members. Four of the resolutions were either withdrawn by the committee or firmly rejected by the floor. The one that did go to a vote couldn’t clear the two-thirds majority required, so that fell through as well. In the end, all five went nowhere, which probably added to the sense that the meeting was pulling in different directions at once.

When time came to vote for the new management committee, things slowed to a crawl. Ballot papers didn’t just get handed out, either the members' names or membership numbers, or both, were called out one by one. This process took ages. People milled around, chatted, drifted in and out. Lunch came and went, and counting started somewhere else in the building while we waited.

After the break, the hall was noticeably thinner. Maybe a quarter of the members came back, and even then, people gradually slipped away when it became obvious the results weren’t coming anytime soon. Word filtered back that the voting was extremely close; close enough to require recounts to keep both sides satisfied.

By then, I’d had enough. Six hours had passed since the chairman called the meeting to order, and it didn’t feel like the end was anywhere in sight. At 4.15pm, I joined the silent, trickling stream heading for the exit. It was long enough for me. More than long enough, actually.

And now that the election results are finally known, there’s not much point dwelling on who backed which side. It was clearly a close contest, and the turnout showed that members do care about where the OFA is heading. That’s a good thing.

What matters now is what happens next. Both sides need to close ranks and get on with the job. Many of the issues raised during the meeting aren’t going away, and neither are the expectations that came with such a strong turnout. If anything, the pressure is now on the new committee to show they can work together, settle the noise, and make steady, practical progress. No grand gestures needed. Just get the job done properly.

UPDATE: Oops, in my haste I forgot to mention the results. Alex Tan Hee Aik retained his President's position by beating Lim Wee Seong by a healthy margin which means to say that the members weren't totally convinced about the changes he proposed to make to the OFA. Daniel Ho also retained his Vice-President's position ahead of Allen Choong. However, Shannon Ong lost out to Ananth a/l Balakrishnan for the other Vice-President's post. The new Secretary is Low Han Boon who deposed Henry Ooi, Darvind a/l Kalimuthu beat Ivan Teoh to retain the Treasurer's position, Louis Loo is the new Indoor Games Chairman, Sharil bin Abdul Shukor the new Communications Chairman, Jarrod Yeoh the new Social Activities Chairman and Andrew Tan the new Membership* Chairman. Lukkman Hakim and Ezuan Ghazali sailed through unopposed as the Sports Chairman and Library Chairman** respectively.

Now that the dust has settled and I see that the new management committee comprises people from both teams, my wish is for all of them to close ranks and work together for The Old Frees' Association. At the end of the day, we are one family. In this respect, I shall want to borrow the motto of the World Chess Federation to emphasise this: Gens Una Summus.

* Membership, Human Resource Development and Safety & Security
** Library, Archives and OFA Sesquicentenary Education Fund

Second heritage listing

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:54:00 +0000

I came across a bit of news the other day. It was one of those routine-looking reports that one almost scrolls past. And then, I did a bit of a double take when I saw Penang Free School listed among the sites proposed for gazettement as state heritage.

Now, wait a minute. Hasn’t the school already been recognised at the national level? I had it in my head that this had been settled some years ago, and sure enough, it had, in 2018. So for a moment it felt like one of those small bureaucratic curiosities. Why do the same thing twice?

The news report itself was straightforward. Fifteen sites across Penang, on the island and mainland, a mixture of religious buildings, institutions and places with some historical weight behind them. Familiar names cropped up such as Fort Cornwallis, St George’s Church, Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi. These are the usual landmarks that one automatically associates with the island’s past. Seen in that company, Penang Free School didn’t look out of place at all. If anything, the school belongs in that same conversation.

Still, the question needs to be answered. Why look at Penang Free School twice? If it’s already a national heritage site, what’s the point of a second listing?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but I suspect it comes down to control. National recognition marks Penang Free School as something important to the country as a whole. But the day-to-day realities of land, planning and enforcement tend to sit closer to home. By bringing the school under the Penang State Heritage Enactment 2011, I suspect the state government is making sure that if anything needs to be preserved, altered or protected, the school doesn’t have to look too far for the authority to do so.

It’s a bit of a belt and braces approach. The first layer of protection is already there, and this simply adds another. Both layers complementing each other. A place like Penang Free School isn’t a monument in the usual sense. It is a living institution with classrooms, students, repairs to be made and the occasional need to adapt. And that's where, I suspect, the state recognition comes in to provide a faster response where national intervention may take time, if it comes at all. Preservation is one thing; standing still is another.

What I found more interesting, though, was the fact that this wasn’t a one-off move. The school is part of a wider sweep. There are 15 sites in all, stretching from the island to the mainland, which suggests a certain intent to draw a clearer boundary around what Penang considers worth keeping, not just for visitors or for show, but for itself.

In the end, maybe it comes down to instinct. Places like this have been around long enough to outlast fashions and policies, but not necessarily neglect or indifference. If putting an extra layer of protection helps to guard against that, then so be it. And with something like Penang Free School, you can see why no one is inclined to take chances.

The father of modern Indian chess

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 04:57:00 +0000

The brother and sister in this picture are instantly recognisable to most chess players everywhere but not the senior gentleman seated between them. But obviously, Praggnanandhaa and Vaishali both hold him in high esteem. I was surprised to see him in this picture and actually more delighted to know that Manuel Aaron is still living in Madras. For a while, after he had played in the Penang leg of the first Asian grandmaster chess circuit in 1978, we had kept in touch for some years before ultimately losing contact.

Manuel Aaron is India’s first International Master, a nine-time national champion and one of the key figures who turned Indian chess from a scattered mix of local variants into the modern game played today. Born on 30 December 1935 in Toungoo, Burma, to Indian parents, Aaron grew up in Tamil Nadu after his family returned during the Second World War. He was largely self-taught as a kid, at a time when coaching barely existed, and later went on to complete a Science degree at Allahabad University.

By the late 1950s he was already the dominant force in Indian chess. He won the Indian National Championship nine times between 1959 and 1981, including a run of five straight titles from 1969 to 1973. He also took the Tamil Nadu State Championship eleven times between 1957 and 1982, and helped to establish the state as a lasting centre of strength in Indian chess.

His big international breakthrough came in 1961 when he won both the West Asian Zonal and the Asian-Australian Zonal. That earned him the International Master title, making him the first Indian to receive a FIDE title. The same year he became the first chess player to win the Arjuna Award which was India’s top sporting honour.

Qualifying for the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal was a huge moment. He finished last, but still pulled off wins against top grandmasters Lajos Portisch and Wolfgang Uhlmann; these were results that are still talked about as some of the biggest upsets in Indian chess. Aaron represented India in three Chess Olympiads (1960, 1962 and 1964), twice as captain. His win over former World Champion Max Euwe at Leipzig 1960 remained a landmark result.

Outside competition, his impact was just as significant. Until the 1960s, many Indians were still playing regional versions of chess with different rules. Aaron pushed for international standards, encouraged serious study of openings and endgames, and helped build the structure the game needed. He founded the Tal Chess Club in Madras in 1972, which became a focal point for organised chess in the city.

He also worked as a journalist and author. He wrote for The Hindu and launched the magazine Chess Mate in 1982. Teaching was always a big part of his life, and he continued mentoring young players well into his later years. In the end, Aaron’s legacy rests on two things: what he achieved over the board and what he built away from it. He helped give Indian chess a proper foundation that later generations took much further.

#manuelaaron #praggnanandhaa #vaishali

The great composers

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:26:00 +0000

After an old friend passed away last year, I collected a stack of records from his sister, who was looking to give away his things. Among them were 19 classical LPs from The Great Composers and Their Music series. I was mighty pleased. I thought I had stumbled onto something rather special.

But when I finally got round to playing them, that sense of discovery quickly faded. The records looked fine - no obvious scratches or blemishes - yet the sound was poor. Not the usual pops and crackles, but a kind of distortion that crept in whenever the stylus passed over certain sections. And it wasn’t just one record. It was all 19. It took me a while to realise that the problem wasn’t with my turntable, but with the records themselves.

To squeeze half an hour or more onto a single side of a 12-inch LP is no small trick. Under normal circumstances, you would expect about 20 minutes, and perhaps a little more sometimes. Push it to 30, and something has to give. In fact, quite a few things give way at once.

The first casualty is the bass. Low frequencies take up space - real, physical space in the groove - and if you are trying to pack in as many revolutions as possible, the only option is to thin them out. What you are left with is a sound that feels weightless, almost tinny, as if the orchestra has been drained of its lower register.

Then there is the matter of volume. Narrower grooves mean the signal has to be cut at a lower level, otherwise the stylus would simply plough into the neighbouring groove. So you turn up the amplifier, but in doing so you also bring up everything else, such as the faint hiss of the production tape, the soft shush of the stylus moving across plastic.

And towards the end of each side, the problem tightens further. As the stylus moves closer to the centre, the available space shrinks while the record continues spinning at the same speed. Everything is compressed into a smaller circumference. High frequencies begin to strain; strings lose their sheen, and sibilants take on a brittle edge.

There is also a subtler loss. To keep the needle from misbehaving in these cramped conditions, the music is often compressed. The difference between the quietest and loudest passages is reduced. In classical music, where so much depends on contrast - a solitary flute against a sudden orchestral surge - this flattening dulls the emotional shape of the piece. Everything sits at roughly the same level.

Once I understood all this, the behaviour of those 19 records made sense. They were not faulty in the usual way; they were simply over-ambitious. The series itself, The Great Composers and Their Music, was issued by Marshall Cavendish in the early 1980s. It followed the part-work model of weekly or fortnightly instalments, each accompanied by a magazine and a record or cassette tape, inviting the buyer to build a library over time. It looked respectable, even a little scholarly, and for many it must have served as an entry point into classical music.

But the format carried its own compromises. Classical works are not easily contained. A symphony by Beethoven or Brahms does not naturally fit the neat constraints of a single LP side, let alone one already stretched to its limits. Something had to be trimmed, rearranged or split. And so movements ended where it was convenient to turn the record over, not where the composer intended. A musical argument that ought to unfold in a single arc was interrupted midway, resumed a few minutes later and sometimes followed immediately by something else altogether.

The sound itself carried another layer of remove. These were not original recordings but licensed ones drawn from established labels and passed along as production copies. Each step away from the source introduced a small loss such as a touch less clarity or a faint veil over the upper frequencies. On a well-pressed record with generous groove spacing, you might hardly notice. Here, with everything already pared down, it became part of the overall texture.

And then there was the pressing itself. These records were made in large numbers, meant for newsstands and supermarkets rather than specialist shops. One cannot expect too much fussiness under those conditions. Imperfections crept in. A bit of non-fill here, a slight roughness there, the sort of things that might pass unnoticed on a louder, fuller pressing but which became more apparent when the music itself had been cut so quietly.

It also explained something else I had been puzzling over. The sounds I was hearing were not the familiar trio of vinyl artefacts (hiss, pops and crackle) that one learns to accept, even to some extent to enjoy. Those have their own causes: dust caught in the groove, static discharge, the faint imprint of tape hiss from the original recording. What I was hearing was different. It had a pattern to it, a consistency across all the discs, appearing at roughly the same points. It was not dirt, and it was not wear. It was design.

In time, my initial disappointment gave way to something closer to acceptance. These records were never meant to be definitive. They were an introduction, a gateway of sorts, assembled for convenience rather than fidelity. And that, I realised, was a thread that did not end with vinyl.

In the early 1990s, another publisher, Orbis Publishing, brought out The Classical Collection on compact disc. I happen to own the first 45 issues of that series, and in many ways it felt like a continuation of the same idea, only updated for a new format.

By then, of course, the technical battle had been won. The compact disc had none of the physical limitations of the LP. There were no grooves to cram, no inner-edge distortion to contend with, no need to lower the volume just to make everything fit. A full symphony could sit comfortably on a single disc, often with room to spare. The sound was clean, stable and free of the surface noise that had plagued those earlier records. Yet the underlying approach remained familiar.

Like the Marshall Cavendish series, the Orbis collection was built up issue by issue, with each disc accompanied by notes that guided the listener through the repertoire. It, too, drew on licensed recordings rather than producing its own. And while the sound was undeniably better, the programming often reflected the same editorial mindset: a balance between completeness and coverage.

Sometimes there would be a full work. At other times, the disc would move from one piece to another, offering a sampler rather than a sustained listening experience. It was less about presenting a single performance in its full integrity than about giving the listener a workable map of the classical landscape. In that sense, the compromises had shifted rather than disappeared. Where the LPs had been constrained by physics, the CDs were shaped by editorial choice. One strained the medium; the other curated it.

Between the two, I found myself looking at my friend’s records in a slightly different light. They were part of a longer continuum: one that tried, in its own way, to make a vast and sometimes intimidating body of music more accessible to a wider audience. This wasn't perfect, not even especially refined, but purposeful.

I have kept his set. Not because it sounds good but because it tells a story about a time when building a classical collection could be as simple as a weekly visit to the newsagent; about the compromises hidden in the grooves, and later, in the programming; and, perhaps most of all, about the quiet afterlife of things once valued, passed from one pair of hands to another, carrying with them more than just the music they were meant to contain.

ADDENDUM:

Here is the full set of Marshall Cavendish's The Great Composers and Their Music series with the ones I own highlighted in bold:

1 - Beethoven: Symphony No.5 in C minor Opus 67
2 - Brahms: Symphony No.1 in C minor, Opus 68
3 - Chopin: Piano Recital incl. 'Minute' Waltz 'Revolutionary' Study
4 - Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, opus 23 with 'Romeo and Juliet' fantasy overture
5 - Schubert: Symphony No.8 in B minor ('unfinished') D.759 & symphony No.5 in B flat major D.485
6 - Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D, Opus 6
7 - Schumann: Symphony No.1 in B flat major, Opus 38 ('spring') with Piano Concerto in A minor, Opus 54
8 - Brahms: Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major Opus 83
9 - Tchaikovsky: Ballet Music including 'Swan Lake' 'The Sleeping Beauty' & 'The Nutcracker'
10 - Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique Opus 14
11 - Mendelssohn: Overtures incl. 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' Opus 21
12 - Liszt: The Piano Concertos
13 - Schubert: Piano Quintet in A major Opus 114 ('The Trout')
14 - Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major Opus 77
15 - Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 in E flat, Opus 73 ('Emperor')
16 - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 in B minor, opus 74 ('Pathetique')
17 - Mendelssohn: Violin concerto in E minor, Opus 64 with Symphony No.4 in A major, opus 90 ('Italian')
18 - Beethoven: Piano Sonatas 'Moonlight,' 'Pathetique,' 'Appassionato'
19 - Tchaikovsky: Short orchestral works incl. '1812' festival overture, Opus 49
20 - Mahler: Symphonic Excerpts featuring themes from Visconti's film 'Death in Venice'
21 - Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos.21 and 22
22 - Bach J S: Brandenburg concertos Nos.2, 3 and 5
23 - Handel: Messiah (highlights)
24 - Mozart: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K 525, three German Dances, K 605, A Musical Joke, K.522
25 - Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
26 - Bach J S: Selected Organ Works incl. Toccata and Fugue in D minor
27 - Mozart: Symphony No.40 in G minor, K.550 & Symphony No.41 in C, K.551 'Jupiter'
28 - Baroque Festival: Purcell, Albinoni, Telemann, Rameau, Pachelbel, Corelli and Handel
29 - Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks & Water Music Suites in D and F
30 - Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G major ('Surprise') & Symphony No.101 in D major ('Clock')
31 - Bach JS: Orchestral Suites No.2 in B minor, BWV 1067 & No.3 in D, BWV 1068
32 - Mozart: Clarinet concerto in A, K.622 & Flute and Harp Concerto in C, K.299
33 - Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov: Polovtsian Dances; A Night On The Bare Mountain; Russian Easter Overture, Capriccio Espagnol
34 - Sibelius: Symphony No.2 in D, Opus 43 & Finlandia, Opus 26
35 - Dvorak: Symphony No.9 in E minor, OP.95 'From The New World'
36 - Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade Opus 35
37 - Grieg: 'Peer Gynt' suites No.1 and 2 with Piano Concerto in A minor, OP.16
38 - Dvorak and Smetana: Cello Concerto in B minor, OP.104; The Moldau (Vltava)
39 - Ravel: Orchestral Works
40 - Offenbach and Gounod: arr. Rosenthal Gaiete Parisienne; Faust - Ballet Music
41 - Strauss (Johann): Viennese Waltzes
42 - Debussy: La Mer and Nocturnes
43 - Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring and King of the Stars
44 - Strauss (Richard): Till Eulenspiegel OP.28 also, Sprach Zarathustra OP.30, Don Juan OP.20
45 - Elgar: Enigma Variations OP.36 Pomp and Circumstance OP.39
46 - Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra & Dance Suite
47 - Prokofiev, Shostakovitch: Symphony No.1 in D, Opus 25, 'The love of the Three Oranges' suite, Opus 33A; Symphony No.9 in E flat major, Opus 70
48 - Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor Opus18, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Opus 43
49 - Orff: Carmina Burana
50 - Holst: The Planets
51 - Rodrigo: Concierto De Aranjuez and Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre
52 - Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F, Rhapsody in Blue, I Got Rhythm
53 - Bizet: Carmen
54 - Mozart: Magic Flute & Cosi Fan Tutte
55 - Verdi: Aida And Rigoletto (operatic highlights)
56 - Rossini & Donizetti: Barber of Seville & Don Pasquale
57 - Puccini: Madam Butterfly & Turandot
58 - Leoncavallo & Mascagni: I Paggliacci & Cavalleria Rusticana
59 - Gounod: Faust
60 - Mozart: Marriage of Figaro & Don Giovanni
61 - Verdi: La Traviata & Il Trovatore
62 - Puccini: La Boheme & Tosca
63 - Strauss (Richard): Der Rosenkavalier
64 - Wagner: The Ring
65 - Strauss (Johann) & Lehar: Die Fledermaus & The Merry Widow
66 - Bonus LP: A Celebration Of Christmas

Elevated to Federal Court

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 22:29:00 +0000

Our heartiest congratulations to Justice Ravinthran a/l Paramaguru on his appointment to the Federal Court yesterday. Many people don't realise this but he was born in Bukit Mertajam in 1962 and had his education at the Bukit Mertajam High School. After graduating from Law School, he was posted as a Magistrate to Sabah. In 2009, he was appointed as a Judicial Commissioner and then elevated as a High Court judge in 2013. He was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2019. His long judicial service to the nation speaks for itself and we hope that Penang, his home state, will give him due recognition soon.

- Quah Seng Sun & Lee Saw See -

Penang's light rail transit

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 22:24:00 +0000

I’ve just realised that I’ve never written anything at all about the forthcoming Light Rail Transit plans in Penang. Construction is already underway for the Mutiara Line that will connect KOMTAR with the new artificial island in the south of Penang Island. And very soon, possibly by the end of this year, construction will commence on the additional LRT link between the Macallum Street station on the island and Penang Sentral on the mainland. Needless to say, I am terribly excited, and happy, about the project. It’s supposed to be completed by 2030, and I hope this timeline will include all the trial runs and testing, so that the public can use the Light Rail Transit as soon as possible. By then, I shall be 76 years old. Will I be healthy enough to enjoy a ride across the Penang Channel? Time will tell.

Still, for once, this is not just wishful thinking or another plan on paper. The thing is actually moving. Piers have begun appearing along parts of the alignment and that makes a difference. One can argue about policies and projections, but once concrete starts going up, the project feels real in a way that press statements never quite manage.

The Mutiara Line will run close to 30 kilometres, with around 20 stations, stretching from the southern end of the island right up to the heart of George Town, and now across the channel to the mainland. That cross-sea section, about six kilometres in length, is the part that really captures the imagination. A train gliding over the water from Macallum to Butterworth in under ten minutes. For anyone who has spent an hour or more crawling across the bridge in peak traffic, that almost sounds too good to be true.

The response on the ground has been overwhelmingly positive. When the public inspection opened, thousands turned up. Feedback was strong, even enthusiastic. There is a sense that Penang, after talking about rail for so many years, is finally getting something done. But as always, once the excitement settles, the practical questions begin to surface.

One of the first concerns is surprisingly basic: distance. At Penang Sentral, the LRT station will be about 500 metres from the existing KTM station and ferry terminal. On paper, that doesn’t sound like much. In reality, especially with luggage, in the heat, or for older people, it is not insignificant. Anyone who has made that walk will know there is a slight incline as well. It is manageable, but not exactly effortless. While a covered walkway will help, a travelator would help even more. I would even deem an air-conditioned link as essential. These are small things, but they determine whether a journey feels smooth or cumbersome. Public transport is not just about the train itself; it is about everything that happens before and after you board it.

Then there is the question of capacity. Penang Sentral is meant to be a major interchange for rail, bus, ferry, and now LRT all converging in one place. But how much can it actually handle? The current plans mention around 1,000 parking bays. That sounds reasonable until one considers the number of cars crossing the bridge every morning. Even a small shift in commuter habits could overwhelm those facilities.

It raises a larger issue of the supporting infrastructure such as feeder buses and last-mile connections. If not properly thought through, people may simply continue driving. The success of the system will depend not just on the trains running on time, but on whether it is genuinely convenient to use. And yet, despite these concerns, it is difficult not to feel a sense of anticipation.

The cross-sea link, in particular, has a certain symbolic weight. For decades, Penang Island and the mainland have been connected by ferries and bridges, each with its own limitations. The idea of a rail link cutting cleanly across the channel feels like a step into a different phase altogether. The journey time, said to be as little as eight minutes, will change the way people think about distance between the two sides.

I think back to all the earlier proposals - monorails, trams, buses - and this time, something is actually taking shape. The federal government has stepped in, MRT Corp is now running the project, and there seems to be a stronger sense of direction. And there is also the public support. When nearly everyone is in favour of the project, it creates a kind of momentum of its own. People want this to work. They are prepared to overlook imperfections, at least for now, in the hope that the bigger picture will hold.

As for me, I find myself thinking less about policy and more about that first ride. To sit in a train at Macallum, experiencing it pulling away, gathering speed and then moving out over the water past the ships and under the open sky, heading towards Butterworth. Or vice versa from Butterworth to Macallum. It is a small thing in the larger scheme of infrastructure and development. But it is also something entirely new in the Penang experience.

If all goes well, I will be 76 when it opens. That is not so old, I tell myself. But old enough to have seen how long these things can take. But I hope not too old to enjoy the result. And if I do make that journey from mainland to island in a matter of minutes, I suspect I will remember not just the ride itself, but all the years when it seemed it might never happen at all.

Mountain shadows

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 22:01:00 +0000

I wasn’t planning on revisiting Dave Grusin, but one track led to another, and before long I found myself lingering over Mountain Dance, then moving on to Out of the Shadows. Both albums have that easy feel about them. Listening again, it struck me that music like this doesn’t just appear out of thin air. Grusin had already travelled quite a distance before arriving here.

He didn’t start out as a recording artist. Back in the 1960s, he was working as a pianist and arranger on The Andy Williams Show. From there, he eased into film scoring, and by the mid-70s he was already handling major projects like Three Days of the Condor. His collaborations with Sydney Pollack became a defining part of that period.

So while many people came to him through his albums, he had already made his name in Hollywood, working to tight schedules and shaping music to fit the screen. At the same time, he was building a parallel life in jazz. Albums like One of a Kind showed where his instincts lay, blending jazz, funk and orchestral colours into something that didn’t quite fit any neat label. He was also working alongside musicians like Lee Ritenour and Quincy Jones.

Then came the move that really shifted things: the founding of GRP Records in 1978 with Larry Rosen. It wasn’t just about putting out records. GRP was among the early adopters of digital recording, and by the early 80s that clean, polished sound would become one of its defining traits.

By the time Mountain Dance came out in 1980, everything seemed to come together. It wasn’t the only digital jazz recording around, but it was one of the first to really make an impression. The album has that unmistakable clarity of electronic keyboards and synthesisers sitting comfortably alongside acoustic instruments, all of it balanced without fuss. The title track in particular has an easy flow, the sort that sounds simple until one starts paying it closer attention.

Out of the Shadows followed in 1982 and felt less like a change of direction and more like a continuation, only more assured. The sound is tighter, the arrangements more refined, and there’s a quiet confidence running through it. By then, Grusin had found his space and was working comfortably within it.

Looking back, those two albums feel like the natural result of everything that came before. The film work, the early jazz recordings, and the gradual shift into digital production. Nothing rushed, nothing forced. Just a steady coming together of different strands. And that’s probably why they still sound good today.

Home of the world champions

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 06:06:00 +0000

I’ve always liked that phrase the Penang State Sports Council uses: Home of the World Champions. It sounds a bit grand at first, maybe there is even a touch of marketing flourish, but when one thinks about it, there’s actually quite a lot of truth behind those words.

After all, this is the same Penang that produced names like Lee Chong Wei and Nicol Ann David. One carried the nation’s hopes in badminton for over a decade, the other dominated the squash world for 108 straight months as World Number One. That’s not just excellence. That’s sustained greatness.

And they weren’t alone. There were earlier badminton greats. Eddy Choong, Teh Kew San, Tan Aik Huang. Names that my generation still speak of with a certain pride. In snooker, players like Lim Kok Leong went on to win world amateur titles. Even in more recent years, Penang athletes popped up in different sports, from bowling to silambam, even chess. So yes, maybe that tagline isn’t so exaggerated after all.

But when we talk about champions, we tend to remember only the medals, the titles and the big moments. What we don’t see are the sacrifices and all the unseen struggles that come before that, such as the training, the injuries, the financial strain, the balancing act between sport and studies, and sometimes the simple question of whether they can afford to keep going. That part rarely makes the headlines.

I came across an invitation recently from the Penang State Sports Council for their inaugural gala dinner and art auction, to be held on 09 May 2026 at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel. It’s meant to be a fund-raising effort, but more than that, it is an attempt to address those less visible gaps I raised above.

Reading through it, I begin to realise that supporting athletes isn’t about only sending them to competitions. There are all sorts of needs. Education, for one. Not every athlete makes it big, and even for those who do, a sporting career doesn’t last forever. Then there are the medical issues of injuries and rehabilitation, and sometimes there are even life-changing setbacks.

Beyond that, there are the ancillary things which are no longer optional in modern sport. Physiotherapy, sports psychology, proper nutrition and decent equipment are the things that separate those who merely participate from those who can actually compete at the highest level. It’s easy to assume all this is taken care of but in reality, it often isn’t.

What struck me as well is how the event is trying to bring different parts of the community together. Not just sports people, but also the arts crowd, corporate sponsors and ordinary supporters. There will be paintings for auction, some donated by artists, others from private collections. Even Nicol David has contributed a couple of signed pieces. And so, this gala dinner will be an interesting mix of sport and art under one roof.

Then there’s the more practical side of the dinner. The tables don’t come cheap and are priced at RM10,000, RM30,000 and RM50,000 depending on how deep the pockets are. But that’s the reality of fund-raising at this level. To be fair, contributions are tax-exempt, and the funds are meant to go directly into supporting athletes.

Still, not everyone can buy a table or bid for a painting. But I'm certain that this will be fine with the organisers. At the very least, an awareness is created. Because if we really believe in this idea of Penang as a “home of champions,” then it can’t just be about celebrating success after it happens. It has to include some willingness to support the journey before that success arrives. And even many journeys don’t quite end in glory.

I think back to the last Sukma Games. Penang did reasonably well by achieving fourth place overall, with a decent haul of medals. But there shouldn't be any resting on our laurels. There is still room to grow, especially if the aim is to produce the next Lee Chong Wei or Nicol David, and that doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when enough people care not just when someone wins, but while they are still training, still struggling, still wondering whether it is all worth it.

So yes, this dinner on the ninth of May is just one single event of speeches, food, polite applause, but behind it is something a little more important. An acknowledgement that if we want champions, we have to build the environment that allows them to emerge. Otherwise, that nice tagline remains just a tagline. And it would be a shame if that were the case.

#badminton #squash #snooker

No respite

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 02:32:00 +0000

Aiyah....just when I was not expecting it, the Tacoma tree outside the house has decided to flower profusely again. It will be another seven to 10 days of sweeping the porch and the road outside to clear off the fallen flowers....

Cataract landmark

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 22:06:00 +0000

Another landmark reached today in my cataract journey. It’s been a calendar month since the operation. I’m only due to see my surgeon for the final follow-up next Wednesday, and I expect he’ll take me off the eye drops then. I’ve been on a steady routine of Nevanac, Maxidex and Vigamox, each with its own timing and purpose, so the day has been punctuated by little reminders on my mobile phone to tilt the head back and squeeze in a drop or two. Not a moment too soon, as one of them contains a steroid, which isn’t meant for long-term use.

I suppose the one lesson I’ve taken away from all this is how important it is to diligently follow the doctor’s instructions on the eye drops. They’re prescribed for a reason. In the past, keeping to such a schedule might have been a bit of a challenge, but with the timer function on the mobile phone, it has been quite straightforward. I’ve had no real difficulty keeping to the schedule once the alarms go off.

Sindarov the challenger

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:11:21 +0000

For the past 18 days or so, my eyes have been glued to either the television or the computer monitor, following each round of the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2026 in Cyprus whenever I can. In a way, it was a welcome distraction: a chance to detach, however briefly, from the madness elsewhere in the world, not least the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

On paper, the tournament looked like a very balanced field. Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri were all seasoned campaigners, mixed in with the younger lot like Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, Javokhir Sindarov and Andrey Esipenko. I thought it might go right down to the wire, but it didn’t quite happen that way.

I must admit that Sindarov had first come to my attention four years ago when the Uzbekistan team won the Chess Olympiad 2022 in Chennai. He was still very young then, only 16 years old, but already one could see something about him. I followed his progress more closely after that, and even more so after he won the Chess World Cup 2025 in Goa last year. That victory felt like a turning point. He was no longer just a rising prodigy, but someone who had to be taken seriously at the very top level. In many ways, what we saw in Cyprus felt like a continuation of that.

From the very beginning, a more mature Sindarov, now 20, came out looking like a man in a hurry. No messing about, no tentative starts. He just went straight into his games with real intent. Sharp openings, confident decisions and a willingness to take on complications that the others were a little more cautious about. After the first few rounds, especially with wins coming early, I already had the feeling that this might be his tournament to lose.

What impressed me was not just that he was winning, but who he was winning against. When he beat Nakamura, that really caught my attention. That was not a cheap point. It was a proper fight, and when Nakamura slipped up, Sindarov was right there to punish him. He followed that up with more strong results, and by then the rest of the field were already playing catch-up.

Photo: Chessbase

Against players like Giri and Caruana, he didn’t overpress. He was quite happy to take a solid result and move on. To me, that showed a certain maturity. In these events, it’s not just about brilliance but also about knowing when to hold back. In this regard, his support team had done an exemplary job in guiding him. He also handled the rest of the field well by picking up wins where it mattered and holding steady in the return games. There were no slip-ups and no unnecessary drama. Just a steady accumulation of points.

By the time we got into the later rounds, the situation was quite clear. He had a lead and more importantly, he looked comfortable with it. There was no sign of nerves, no sense that he was about to collapse under pressure. If anything, it was the others who seemed to be forcing matters a little too much. In the end, he had effectively clinched the tournament with a round to spare. That, more or less, told the whole story. When a Candidates is decided before the last round, it usually means one player has been in control for quite some time. The final round was almost beside the point.

What I liked about his play was the balance. He was aggressive when the position allowed it, but not reckless. He defended well when he had to. And most importantly, he seemed completely unfazed by the occasion. For a tournament of this level, that counted for a lot.

Rd 1: Sindarov - Andrey Esipenko 1-0
Rd 2: Sindarov - Matthias Bluebaum 1/2
Rd 3: Praggnananda Rameshbabu - Sindarov 0-1
Rd 4: Sindarov - Fabiano Caruana 1-0
Rd 5: Hikaru Nakamura - Sindarov 0-1
Rd 6: Wei Yi - Sindarov 0-1
Rd 7: Sindarov - Anish Giri 1/2
Rd 8: Andrey Esipenko - Sindarov 1/2
Rd 9: Matthias Bluebaum - Sindarov 1/2
Rd 10: Sindarov - Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu 1-0
Rd 11: Fabiano Caruana - Sindarov 1/2
Rd 12: Sindarov - Hikaru Nakamura 1/2
Rd 13: Anish Giri - Sindarov 1/2
Rd 14: Sindarov - Wei Yi 1/2

So now there is a new challenger in Sindarov, and he will be up against the defending world champion, Dommaraju Gukesh, for the world title later this year. That should be quite a match. There’s Sindarov who seems quite at home in sharp, tactical positions, and then there’s Gukesh who strikes me as a more controlled, positional player. Two different styles by two young players, and both with a point to prove. I don’t know how the match will turn out as matches are quite different from tournaments. But watching this Candidates, I couldn’t help feel that we are seeing a bit of a shift. The older guard is still there, still very strong, but the younger players are no longer just knocking on the door. They are already inside. And this time, one of them has walked away with the prize.

Pursuit of jade

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 22:40:00 +0000

I didn’t plan this at all, but somehow I ended up spending the past few weeks glued to a 40-episode Chinese series on Netflix. Watching Pursuit of Jade wasn’t preplanned. I was just scrolling, saw the artwork, clicked play… and about 15 minutes later, that was it, hooked already.

The story started simply enough: a butcher girl saved an injured stranger. Turned out he’s a marquis hiding in plain sight in the middle of a war. They married out of convenience, she thought him as just some drifter, and he keeping quiet about who he really was. Naturally, that didn’t last long. He got dragged back to his army, she went after him and before long she was right in the thick of battles and palace scheming. Along the way she even took down a couple of major villains, which I didn’t quite expect at the start. Eventually the truth came out about her husband, and after some lovers' quarrels and make-ups, the two of them ended up fighting side by side to clear their families’ names. The ending tied things up a bit too neatly, but getting there was anything but tidy.

I’ll admit that there were stretches where I hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on. Too many twists, too many court politics, too many side characters popping in and out. But I stuck with it partly because it was a period costume drama and partly because there was enough wuxia-style action to keep things moving. The visuals helped a lot....lush costumes, sweeping scenery, nicely choreographed sword fights and a male lead who looked prettier than his female counterpart. Even when the plot started to wander, the overall mood carried it through.

After finishing, I had a look at what others were saying and it more or less lined up. People liked the early episodes, especially when the romance was still front and centre. The cinematography got plenty of praise. The snowy backdrops and elaborate sets were all very polished. The female lead was a big plus point too, not the usual helpless type but someone who can hold her own. The main gripe was the pacing. Once the palace intrigue took over, things slow down and got a bit confusing. The villains looked impressive enough, but some of them didn’t quite land as characters. So overall, mixed feelings. Some loved it for the romance and performances, others felt the story got tangled and rushed in parts.

For me, it wasn’t about keeping track of every little subplot. More about the feel of it. The look, the action, the emotional pull between two people caught up in something bigger than themselves. It was one of those shows that worked better if I don’t overthink it.

Would I recommend it? If one likes period dramas with a fair bit of wuxia thrown in, then yes, why not. Just don’t expect everything to make perfect sense. Better to sit back, go with the flow, and let it play out.

More heavy sounds

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 06:20:00 +0000

Several years ago at a garage sale, I came across a CBS compilation that seemed to sit naturally beside a record album I once wrote about, Heavy Sounds. This companion record was titled More Heavy Sounds, issued in 1970. Like its predecessor, it gathered together a selection of powerful tracks from the Columbia/CBS catalogue, and listening to it today feels rather like opening a time capsule of late 1960s rock.

The album followed the success of the earlier Heavy Sounds compilation and leaned heavily toward the louder, more adventurous side of the label’s roster. Psychedelic rock, gritty blues and the first stirrings of jazz-rock fusion all appear here. In those days, compilation albums like this were a convenient way for listeners to sample artists they might not otherwise have encountered, and the selections on More Heavy Sounds were clearly chosen to showcase the energy and diversity of the Columbia stable around 1969 and 1970.

As with the earlier compilation, the interest of the record lies in the music itself. Each track was drawn from albums that had appeared on the Columbia/CBS label during the previous year or so, and the result is an engaging cross-section of what was happening in rock music at the turn of the decade.

The album opened with Save The Country by Laura Nyro, taken from her 1969 album New York Tendaberry. Nyro’s music always had a unique blend of gospel, pop and soul, and this song captured that mixture beautifully. Her piano drove the arrangement forward while her powerful voice delivered a passionate call for unity and compassion. The song would later be covered by other artists, but Nyro’s original remained the most emotionally compelling.

Next came It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue, performed by The Byrds from their Ballad of Easy Rider album. Originally written by Bob Dylan, the song received a distinctly Byrds-like treatment here. Roger McGuinn’s nasal vocal and the band’s chiming guitars transform Dylan’s stark folk composition into a reflective piece of country-rock. The result felt wistful rather than bitter, almost as if the band were looking back on the turbulent 1960s themselves.

Taj Mahal contributed Six Days On The Road, drawn from the double album Giant Step / De Old Folks at Home. The song had long been known as a classic truck-driving country number, but Taj Mahal gave it a very different flavour. Instead of a straight-forward country approach, he injected a deep blues groove, turning it into a performance that highlighted his ability to move effortlessly between musical traditions.

The next track, Mama Get Down Those Rock And Roll Shoes by NRBQ, comes from the band’s self-titled debut album. NRBQ had a reputation for being unpredictable, blending rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and even hints of jazz into their music. This track captured that energetic spirit, slightly rough around the edges and full of the enthusiasm that characterised many late 1960s rock recordings.

From there the album moved into heavier territory with Pacific Gas & Electric and their track My Woman. Taken from their 1969 album, the song was built around thick guitar riffs and the gritty vocals of Charlie Allen. The band would later become known for more gospel-influenced material, but here they sounded firmly rooted in the hard blues-rock style that flourished in San Francisco during that period.

One of the centre pieces of the compilation is Chicago’s expansive version of I’m A Man. This performance originally appeared on the band’s debut double album Chicago Transit Authority. The group stretches the Spencer Davis Group hit into an extended jam filled with brass riffs, Latin-tinged percussion and a spectacular drum break. Guitarist Terry Kath also delivers some searing passages that remind listeners how formidable Chicago were as a live band in their early days.

Al Kooper followed with Too Busy Thinking About My Baby, from his album You Never Know Who Your Friends Are. Kooper had already established himself as a musician, songwriter and producer, and his interpretation of this Motown number carried his trademark organ sound. The arrangement was lush and polished, blending soul influences with the sophisticated pop-rock production that Kooper excelled at.

No compilation representing the Columbia roster of that era would be complete without Janis Joplin, and she appeared here with Maybe. Taken from her album I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, the song shows a more vulnerable side of Joplin. Backed by a strong horn section, she sang with a mixture of pain and longing that made her such a compelling performer. Even among many powerful tracks on the album, this one stood out for its emotional intensity.

The energy ross again with Johnny Winter’s take on Highway 61 Revisited. Winter transformed Dylan’s already surreal song into a blazing blues-rock workout. His slide guitar flashed across the track with astonishing speed and precision, and turned the performance into a showcase for his technical brilliance.

The compilation closed with Treat, an instrumental by Santana from their debut album. Beginning with a jazzy piano introduction, the piece gradually built into a fiery Latin-rock groove. Carlos Santana’s melodic guitar lines wove through the rhythm section’s driving percussion, illustrating the fusion of rock, jazz and Latin influences that would soon make the band internationally famous.

Listening to More Heavy Sounds today, I am reminded of how adventurous the Columbia/CBS catalogue was at the time. The album moved easily from gospel-tinged pop to country-rock, from Chicago’s brass-driven experimentation to Santana’s Latin rhythms. As a compilation, it captured a moment when rock music was expanding in many directions at once.

For collectors and listeners alike, the record remained an enjoyable snapshot of that period: a sampler of artists who, in their different ways, helped define the sound of the late 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.

Grab, why?

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 03:26:00 +0000

How I would drive to get home

Had to take Grab yesterday from an Icon City food court to get home. Car came fast, like 5 minutes, no issue there. Fare was RM11, time was around 1.30pm. Now normally if I drive myself, I’d just go straight into Chian Heng Kai Road, turn right into Song Ban Kheng, then keluar to Kulim Road. Simple, direct, done. But yesterday, it was a completely different story.

Driver went some weird, roundabout way. Even getting onto Kebun Nenas Road also not direct. He looped around inside Icon City first, which honestly I’d never do. Then from Kebun Nenas, instead of keeping it simple, he turned onto the old north-south trunk road, only then into Kota Permai.

How Grab drove me home

I thought okay, maybe that’s it. Nope, there was more nonsense after that. Grab map suddenly send him into Alma instead of just going straight like a normal person would. Then instead of turning into Taman Desa Palma, he masuk one small narrow kampung-style road where two cars also need to slow down and squeeze past each other, and came into my area from the back. Ended up travelling extra like 2km for nothing.

So now I’m thinking… why did Grab route like that? Why not just take the obvious, shorter way? Feels a bit suspicious. Like purposely make the trip longer so can justify the RM11 fare when it could’ve been cheaper if just went direct?

#Grab

A time of remembrance

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 04:35:00 +0000

Cheng Beng (清明) is over for us this year. We finished it last week, spread over two visits. The first was on Monday at Sungai Lembu on the mainland, the second on Friday on the island. The mainland trip was for my father-in-law, who died four years ago. That Nirvana site, I must say, is very well kept. Clean, orderly, almost too neat in a way. There were attendants arranging tables, making sure everything was in place. Very convenient.

A few days later we went to the older graves, my two sets of grandparents at Batu Lanchang and Wat Pimbang On. These are out in the open, exposed to sun and rain, so timing mattered a lot. There was a time we used to leave at six in the morning, reaching Batu Lanchang around 6.45am, the cemetery cloaked in darkness but other people were already out and about to perform their own Cheng Beng obligations. In the past decade we eased that a bit, leaving at 6.30am and arriving around 7.15am, just as the sun nudged above the trees. This year we went even later. Left the house at seven, got there about 7.45am. The morning helped us out: a bit overcast, so the heat didn’t come down too hard.

From Batu Lanchang we crossed over to Wat Pimbang On, a Siamese cemetery that looked more chaotic and less organised. Somehow, I felt that many people have already abandoned the place. Untidy and unkempt with overgrown grass, vegetation all around. Even under the canopy of trees, we could feel the day catching up with us. The sun's rays were cutting through the humidity. After that, our final stop was the Triple Wisdom Temple, where we paid respects to the memorial tablets of my parents and aunt. A quieter ending, it was indoors but no less meaningful.

I remember as a child in the late 1950s or early 1960s, when we were still living at Seang Tek Road, Cheng Beng meant booking a trishaw pedlar from down the road to take my grandmother, my mother and me to the Batu Gantong cemetery. At six o’clock sharp, the trishaw would arrive and wait for us. Then came the slow, unhurried ride through York Road and Batu Gantong Road. Along the way we passed huge angsana trees, their small yellow flowers falling constantly around us and carpeting the road. After all these years, I can still remember the cool morning breeze and that feeling of calm and serenity.

Every year going through this Cheng Beng process, I find myself thinking about the alternate name people like to use, Tomb-Sweeping Day. It’s not wrong, but it never quite right either. Yes, we clear the lallang, clean the headstones and tidy up the place. That part is visible and easy to describe. But there's more to Cheng Beng because the sweeping is only incidental. It’s just something that needs to be done before anything else can happen. To call the whole day by that one act feels like missing the point. It turns something that has taken shape over centuries into a simple task, almost like a chore to be checked off.

Cheng Beng itself means “clear and bright”. It began as a marker in the yearly Chinese lunisolar cycle. As far back as the Zhōu Dynasty 周朝 (1046–256 BC), people were already observing the seasons through solar terms, paying attention to the small changes in light, air, growth and renewal. Cheng Beng marked the time when the sky cleared, the air sharpened and the earth began to stir again after the stillness of winter. It wasn’t a festival in the beginning, just a moment in nature.

But alongside that, there was always this deep-rooted practice of remembering those who came before. In the Zhōu world, burial grounds were under official care. Remembering wasn’t optional, it was part of maintaining continuity. By the Warring States period 戰國時代 (475–221 BC), these practices had been adopted by ordinary families. People began visiting graves, bringing offerings, acknowledging that their lives were part of something longer, something that didn’t begin or end with them. By the time of the Táng Dynasty 唐朝 (618–907 AD), with Confucian values firmly in place, filial piety became something the state actively encouraged. Cheng Beng became the natural time for these acts of remembrance.

So when we reduce it to “tomb sweeping”, something feels out of place. The clearing of grass and the washing of stone are just preparations. What's more important are the quieter moments that come after. The offer of food and fruits, the lighting of the joss sticks, calling the names of the forefathers, standing there for a while without saying much but having a quiet conversation with them in the mind, then the burning of paper offerings before leaving. Every time, it feels like we are continuing a process that has always been there.

There’s no festivity in it, and I don’t think there is meant to be. Just a kind of stillness, even when the sun is already up and the day is getting warm. Families gathering, not out of obligation alone but because something in the rhythm of the year brings them back. And in that space, between the living and the remembered, the connection doesn’t feel distant at all.

Blue-eyed soul

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 22:26:00 +0000

I didn’t buy Blue-Eyed Soul because I was chasing disco. I bought it because it looked like something that didn’t quite belong. Most of my mid-1970s records leant one way or another: pop, folk, rock, soul. This one sat slightly apart. The name itself was curiously Asian: The Biddu Orchestra.

Behind it was Biddu Appaiah, who had come to England in the late 1960s and spent years trying to make something happen. His turning point came in 1974 with Kung Fu Fighting, recorded by Carl Douglas. It was meant to be a B-side of a 45 but it turned out be a hit instead. With Bruce Lee ruling the screens, Kung Fu Fighting ruled the airwaves. Biddu had arrived.

When I played my copy of Blue-Eyed Soul, what I noticed was how clean the sound was. The rhythm was steady, The strings didn’t swirl wildly; they arrive on cue. The brass didn’t compete; it supported the music. It felt assembled rather than jammed.

Summer of ’42, drawn from Michel Legrand’s film theme, could easily have tipped into novelty. Instead it was an elegant arrangement. Aranjuez Mon Amour, adapted from Joaquín Rodrigo, was something similar. Biddu took something formal and gave it a pulse without turning it into parody. Even Exodus followed that same path. He took a melody people already knew and let it move.

The title track, Blue Eyed Soul, summed up the mood. It wasn’t gritty soul in the American sense. It was smoother and more polished, more British. And that’s what this record really was: a producer’s idea of how disco should be. The Orchestra wasn’t a touring band. It was top-tier musicians brought together to realise one man’s arrangements. The producer as the central figure who shaped the sound, deciding the tone, setting the pace.

Which perhaps explains why the record felt different even then. It wasn’t chasing the disco wave. It was constructing its own version of it.

Addendum: In fact, Biddu was quietly helping to shape the early sound of British disco even before the genre fully exploded in the United States. After the success of Kung Fu Fighting with Carl Douglas, he developed a studio style built on tight arrangements, polished strings and disciplined rhythm sections, using top session musicians rather than a touring band. The emphasis was on precision rather than improvisation, with the producer firmly directing the sound. In that sense, records like Blue-Eyed Soul reflected an early shift toward the modern idea of the producer as the central creative force behind the music.

Side 1: Blue-eyed soul, Black magic man, Aranjuez mon amour, Joy-ice, Northern dancer

Side 2: Summer of 42, Couldn't we be friends (song for Su), Exodus, You don't stand a chance if you can't dance

Panguni Uthiram festival

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:46:00 +0000

On my way to a hospital appointment yesterday morning, I was caught in a heavy traffic congestion that stretched almost a mile long. At first, I thought that there was an accident up ahead but when I rounded a corner, I realised it wasn't. It was an Indian religious festival taking place, every year around this time in Bukit Mertajam.

Along the road to the hospital, cars were moving bumper-to-bumper, going past temporary stalls and altars. Eventually, I passed by the Shri Maha Mangalanayagi Amman Devasthanam, crowded with devotees mainly wearing yellow. My curiosity was piqued. What an opportunity it would be to visit. But that would have to wait until my appointment was over.

Leaving the hospital at about 11.15am, I crossed the road only to be stopped in my tracks by the temple chariot being pushed and pulled to the main road. What luck, the procession was about to begin. Only then did I begin to appreciate what I had just stumbled into.

This temple goes way back to 1893. More than a hundred years old, it started off tucked inside a Tamil school, the old Ramanathan Tamil School. In those days, the deity was known as Sungurumbai Mariamman. Over time, as the school moved out, the community grew and the temple grew with it, eventually becoming what it is today, a full-fledged devasthanam. This was quite typical of how early Indian settlers in Malaya did things. They started small, built what they could and slowly over the years, those little shrines became proper temples.

Today, the temple stands along Jalan Kulim, not far from the hospital, with its towering gopuram and all the usual South Indian architectural features. And of course, that chariot I spoke of. Big, imposing, intricately carved, and I was standing just feet away. People say it is one of the largest in this part of the region and seeing it up close, I have no reason to doubt that.

The festival itself, which I had unknowingly walked into, was the Panguni Uthiram, the main event of the year for this temple. Everything had built up to this day. Early in the morning, special prayers would have been conducted. The goddess, Mangalanayagi Amman, would have been dressed in silk sarees, adorned with gold jewellery and fresh flower garlands. By the time I arrived, all that had already been done and the focus had shifted outside.

The chariot was brought out slowly to the road. The deity placed within, and then the long pull began. Devotees took hold of the ropes, inched the whole structure forward along a fixed route through town. Wasn't a fast affair, the procession could take the whole day accompanied by the steady beat of drums and the wail of the nadaswaram.

Along the route, people lined both sides of the road. Makeshift stalls were everywhere, a bit like a moving carnival except that underneath it all, there was a deep sense of devotion. I could see it in the faces of those carrying milk pots on their heads, fulfilling their vows. Others carried the kavadi, walking barefoot under the hot sun. These are personal acts of devotion, fulfilling promises made and now being honoured.

What struck me most was how the whole town seemed to adjust itself around the procession. Traffic slowed to a crawl, people waited patiently, nobody really complaining. Everyone knew what was happening. This wasn’t an interruption. It was part of life here.

The first thing I noticed on entering the temple was the dwajasthambam standing tall in front of the main sanctum that housed the Goddess Mangalanayagi Amman. But since the statue had been taken out for the procession, only the priests remained. Devotees continued lining up to pray before the sanctum, and the priests kept passing containers of cow’s milk inside. At the side of the sanctum, the emptied milk flowed out through an opening in the wall.

In the multi-purpose hall next to the temple, free food was being served. I was curious to see what was on offer and suddenly, an empty plate was thrust into my hand. A holy man urged me to join the queue, and I came away with a plate of Indian vegetarian rice that never tasted more delicious.

All these sights, sounds, smells and tastes at the temple. To think that I had almost dismissed them as just another traffic jam.

Grandparents

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 22:18:00 +0000

This story touches on the darker side of life and death. It may come across as a little sad, even depressing. For a long time, I hesitated over whether I should write anything at all about the passing of the people on my side of the family who were closest to me. I refer to my two sets of grandparents, my parents and a paternal aunt who stayed with me right to the very end of her life. But then I thought, I had already touched on my paternal grandfather before, how he died and how his remains were taken to the funeral parlour. That was my very first personal brush with death in the family. I was nine years old, and the unpleasant experience terrified me. Having gone that far, perhaps I should write about the others too.

Let me recap what I wrote last August 2025. My paternal grandfather (Quah Teik Beng) died in the wee hours of 10 December 1963 at the age of 66. Someone came round to Seang Tek Road to wake my father. By the time we arrived, his body was already cold. Later, a man from the coffin shop came to take the body to the Toi Shan Convalescent Home in Hutton Lane for the funeral preparations. Despite the name, the ground floor of this "convalescent home" was entirely a funeral parlour, divided into cubicles. Lighting was poor. At night, after the rituals, only a dim bulb lit the corridor. Shadows were cast on the walls, and if a candle was still burning, the shadows would dance. The dead, covered only with blankets, lay on wooden planks waiting for their coffins. As a young boy, I found the whole atmosphere terrifying.

One ritual involved wiping my grandfather’s darkened face and symbolically feeding him rice, placing a few grains on his lips for his final journey. That moment, staring into his lifeless face, has stayed with me to this day.

During the funeral, we had to wear black, topped with the mua sah, the rough hemp mourning cloth. My father wore a matching headgear made from the same coarse material. All of this was meant to show outwardly the depth of grief, that the mourner no longer cared for comfort or appearance. After the funeral, we were required to mourn for three years: wearing black for the first year, black-and-white for the second, then white-and-blue for the third. No celebrations were allowed. No angpow during Chinese New Year. Rigid rules, but that was the way things were done then.

Less than three years later, on 11 February 1966, my maternal grandfather (Oh Joo Siew) passed away, 68 years old. Although we had not completed the mourning period for my paternal grandfather, my parents and I had to quickly tnooi ang, literally meaning return to red, before going back into mourning again.

Of the two, my maternal grandfather was my favourite. He doted on me and much later, on my young cousin Irene. In the evenings, he would take me to a nearby Indian sundry shop. I was happy with the simplest things: sweets, crackers, biscuits. In return, I became very attached to him. So when he died, I was devastated. Just the day before his death, he was carrying his one- or two-year-old granddaughter happily in his arms. He could no longer walk while carrying her, having suffered from a mild stroke the year before. And that was the last time he ever held Irene.

At about five in the morning, my grandmother woke the family to say he was not responding to her call. We rushed downstairs to see him laying still on the bed. I shook him, beseeching him to call me, but all we heard was a gurgling sound from his throat. That was all. A massive stroke had taken him. Soon after, my mother’s sister arrived. She fell to her knees and crawled into the house, wailing that she would never see him again. That set my mother off again, though she had already been crying earlier.

Since he died at home, the wake was held in the house. The living room furniture was cleared, pictures removed, altars and mirrored surfaces covered with red paper. His body was placed on a narrow bed behind makeshift curtains. The curtains were drawn but if I climbed the stairs behind the living room to go upstairs, I could still look down at my grandfather's body. The coffin came the next day, and then there were the Taoist rites. My mother and aunt took turns kneeling beside the curtains, burning joss paper piece by piece, their mourning interrupted by fresh wails whenever relatives came. I was supposed to kneel and receive them as they entered, such was the custom.

As my grandfather hadn't any son, there was nobody in the immediate family to wear the mua sah during the funeral. Instead one of his nephews in Penang, his elder brother's son, stepped in to wear this rough hemp clothing and also carry the tong huan or paper lantern. For the year-long mourning period, we were wearing only black-and-white, which was comparatively a more relaxed requirement than my earlier experience.

Soon after, my paternal grandmother (Lim Poh Choo) and aunt moved in with us at Seang Tek Road. She was already unwell and my father wanted her nearby. For a time, both my grandmothers lived under the same roof, a rather unusual arrangement.

But my paternal grandmother’s condition worsened. She tried all sorts of treatments, including an enema to unblock her bowels, but it only left her weaker than before. By early 1967, just before Chinese New Year, it was clear she would not last. On the night she died at the age of 62, on the sixth of February, my maternal grandmother decided to go stay with her other daughter to avoid the inevitable, but it was too late. Just as she reached the door, my mother’s wails drifted down from upstairs. She was trapped, and had to remain in the house through the funeral process.

Because it was so close to Chinese New Year, few relatives came and we couldn't fault anyone for that. It was a quiet affair except for the obligatory wails by my mother and paternal aunt. The funeral took place on the eve of the Chinese New Year and that night, as neighbours lit firecrackers and celebrated, our doorway had no red cloth and our lantern remained unlit. My father and I sat on the five-foot way and watched in silence.

This time, we completed the mourning period of one year. After that came the tnooi ang ritual. A cleansing bath, followed by the sin tok or pouring scented water and seven-coloured flowers over the head before changing into red clothes.

In the mid-1970s, we moved to Lorong Zoo Tiga in Ayer Itam. I can’t recall the exact year, maybe 1974 or 1975. The landlord of the row of four Seang Tek Road houses wanted them back. All the tenants resisted but eventually, we had to leave. We moved in with my maternal grandmother’s sister. Space was tight. My parents, aunt, sister Judy and I crammed into one room, while my grandmother (Tan Kim Lean) shared another with her sister's daughter.

It was there that she passed away on 16 August 1980, aged 79. She had long suffered from weak lungs. On that day, her breathing finally failed and she collapsed on the bed in my mother's arms. I remember that on the first night of the wake, there was a power failure. The house was in darkness, lit only by a pair of candles at my grandmother's feet. Immediately my mind raced back to that funeral parlour in Hutton Lane in 1963 when shadows danced on the wall. When the lights came back, I felt a huge sense of relief. By the time of her passing, mourning customs in Penang were already beginning to shift. Some of the older, more rigid practices were being relaxed. For instance, the wearing of black-and-white was shortened to about 100 days, a more practical arrangement for modern times.

There is one small incident I should mention. There is a Taoist belief that the soul lingers until the seventh day, not fully aware that it has departed the physical shell. The living cannot see it, but there may be signs of its presence. On the fifth day after her passing, two days after the funeral, most of the family had gone out. Only my sister, my paternal aunt and I were at home. My sister, as usual, started talking her light-hearted nonsense, even making jokes about our grandmother. Suddenly, from the back of the house, there was a loud crash of pots and pans falling to the floor. We froze. Then my sister started crying. Was it coincidence? Or was our departed grandmother cross about the jokes and wanted to show her displeasure? We shall never know for sure.

I think I’ve gone on long enough for now. There are still more to say, but perhaps I’ll leave those for another time when I feel ready to return to this topic.

NOTE: This story is part of my reminiscence series which I've been adding to my blog once in a while. The series is meant to document things I remember about my younger and childhood days; my important memories, which may be pretty mundane to other people, to pass down to my son and daughter. Life as it used to be in the 1950s to 1970s, perhaps into the 1990s. But let's see how it goes...

#seangtekroad

Oh, what a Carry On

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:01:00 +0000

The very first Carry On film I saw at the cinema was Carry On Doctor and from that moment on I was hooked on every Carry On film that ever screened in Penang. That continued until I temporarily moved to Kuala Lumpur in 1973 for my studies. Even then I believe I might have caught one or two Carry On films there as well, but I honestly don't remember much about them now. A lot of those memories came rushing back recently when I received this album, Oh! What a Carry On, from Anwar Fazal.

Come to think of it, the humour in those films reminds me a little of the Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads record by Oscar Bran,d which I mentioned a fortnight ago. Brand may not have been British, but many of the songs he collected and recorded came from the same old Anglo folk tradition of cheeky double meanings and playful innuendo, something the Carry On films turned into an art form on the cinema screen.

Oh! What a Carry On is a rather interesting little compilation that was released in June 1971. It brought together novelty songs and pop recordings by several stars from the Carry On movies. What made it unusual was that none of these songs were actually recorded for the films themselves. Most of them were singles released during the 1950s and 60s, later gathered together by the record company to ride on the huge popularity of the Carry On gang.

The LP contains 12 tracks. Side A opened with Be My Girl by Jim Dale, which was a genuine hit in Britain back in 1957, reaching number two on the charts. That was followed by You Need Feet by the towering Bernard Bresslaw. Barbara Windsor contributed On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep, while Frankie Howerd appeared with It’s Alright With Me. The real comic highlight of the side was Kenneth Williams performing as Rambling Syd Rumpo in Green Grow My Nadgers Oh! before the side closed with Spring Song by Joan Sims.

Side B continued the fun with The Ugly Duckling sung by Kenneth Connor. Jim Dale returned again with Piccadilly Line. Dora Bryan offered a cheeky rendition of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. Frankie Howerd popped up again with Song and Dance Man while Joan Sims sang another number titled Men. The album closed with another Rambling Syd Rumpo performance by Kenneth Williams called The Ballad of the Woggler’s Moulie.

The Rambling Syd Rumpo tracks are probably the most famous items here. The character actually came from the BBC radio programme Round the Horne which ran between 1965 and 1968. The writers came up with a clever trick to get past the BBC censors. They filled the lyrics with nonsense words that sounded extremely rude but technically meant nothing at all. Words like nadgers, moulies and cordwangle had audiences roaring with laughter while the censors could not really object because those words did not exist in any dictionary.

Another fascinating aspect of this album is the early career of Jim Dale. Long before he became a familiar face in the Carry On films, he was actually a teenage pop star produced by George Martin at Parlophone, years before Martin discovered The Beatles. Be My Girl, which appeared on this LP, was one of Dale’s biggest hits. Ironically he never enjoyed the life of a pop idol and preferred comedy, which eventually led him straight into the Carry On series. Much later he reinvented himself again as the narrator of the hugely popular Harry Potter audiobooks, performing more than a hundred different character voices.

Even the sleeve artwork is worth mentioning. The cover illustration was done by Tom Chantrell, the artist responsible for many of the colourful Carry On film posters that once decorated cinema lobbies.

Today, the record feels like a small time capsule from the golden age of British comedy. And for me personally, thanks to Anwar Fazal’s thoughtful gift, it also brings back memories of those days in Penang when a new Carry On film arriving at the cinema was always guaranteed to fill the hall with laughter.

Cataract routine

noreply@blogger.com (SS Quah) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 02:43:00 +0000

It’s been almost two weeks since the cataract operation on my left eye. I’ve already gone back twice for follow-up sessions with the surgeon and, according to him, everything is progressing well. So far, I haven’t experienced any of the warning signs he mentioned earlier, no pain, no discharge, nothing out of the ordinary, so that in itself is already something to be thankful for. There’s one more follow-up scheduled towards the end of next month, just to make sure everything continues on track.

So how do I feel with this artificial lens sitting inside the eye? From the very first day, the difference was quite striking. Vision suddenly became very bright and very clear. Almost too clear, if that makes sense. The best way I can describe it is with the Penang Hokkien expression, Cheng Beng. It's the same term used for this time of the year when we Chinese make our way to the cemeteries to spring clean the graves of our ancestors and especially, to remember and fulfil our duties to those that came before us. Cheng and Beng, clear and bright. That same sense of clarity in the air, as if everything has been washed clean. That’s exactly how things look now. Colours appear more vivid, whites look whiter and there’s a certain crispness to everything that I don’t remember having for quite some time.

But of course, it’s not all perfectly balanced yet. The left eye is now long-sighted, while the right eye is still short-sighted. So when I look at something, the left eye sees it sharp and clear, while the right eye comes in slightly behind, blurred and struggling to catch up. It’s a strange sensation, like the two eyes are not quite in agreement with each other. At times I find myself unconsciously favouring the left eye, letting it take the lead.

I suppose this is part of the adjustment period. The brain probably needs time to sort things out and decide how to combine the two different images into something workable. For now, I just carry on as usual, reading, moving about, letting the eyes and the mind slowly get used to this new arrangement. How long that will take, I really don’t know. But at least for now, things are heading in the right direction, and that’s good enough for me.

Of course, there are all the little routines that now come with it. Whenever I’m outdoors in the daytime, I have to wear sunglasses. “Protect your eyes from the ultraviolet light,” the surgeon warned. For how long, I asked. “As long as necessary,” he said. I suppose that means quite indefinitely.

At night, I have to put on an eye shield before going to bed. It’s quite a ritual, sticking it on with surgical tape. For afternoon naps, it’s much simpler, just the sunglasses will do. Both are really there to stop me from accidentally touching or rubbing the eye when I’m not fully aware of what I’m doing.

Then there are the eye drops. Three different types, several times a day. And this, not counting my glaucoma eyedrops too! By now I’ve more or less settled into the routine. Life goes on. I’ve even resumed driving, although with the difference in vision between the two eyes, I do have to be more careful and alert. Night driving I’ve not attempted yet, leaving that to my wife for the time being.

On the hygiene side, showering is not a problem, although I’ve avoided shampooing my hair these past two weeks. Instead, I give the scalp a good wipe with a damp cloth. Surprisingly refreshing. The eyelid too gets a daily clean with damp cotton puffs, just to remove any accumulated dirt. But that’s as far as I go when it comes to getting water near the eye.

As for food, the surgeon more or less dismissed any need for restrictions. But my wife, after listening to various well-meaning friends, has taken a different view. So for now, anything involving prawns, shrimp, hehbee or belachan is off the menu. Pantang for three weeks, she decided. Thus, no Hokkien mee, no char koay teow. She is the "She Who Must Be Obeyed", as the character Rumpole in Rumpole of the Bailey would say of his wife. Woe is me.

As a postscript, perhaps I should say that inevitably, in the longer term, I shall need another operation on the right eye to balance up my vision. That is something for another day. For now, I’ll just let things settle and take it as it comes.

#chengbeng