I have just woken up in a house on Jalan Pimping which, despite its name, is a quiet, wealthy street in Ampang, with largish houses set along the lines of one of KL’s many low hills. It is the home of a friend and we are staying here after having moved out from our KLCC flat. Today we go back to do a final clean, and on Sunday we hand it over to the landlord.
It has been a tiring few days, and I hope this and the dust is why eczema has erupted all over my face. Most unsightly, but not much to be done about it.
The most notable point of the past few days occured on Tuesday when the Gentleman Friend went to see one of the people he worked with and respected most. This is a lady named Do Not Resuscitate, for the heartfelt wishes of her colleagues. I tagged along because I had heard about her, and she didn’t let me down. Salacious gossip about Najib and Rosmah, including the latter’s reliance on a bomoh from Kerala whose foreign curses couldn’t be countered by bomohs from Malaysia; the complete history of her father’s rise from rags to moderate riches; her own recent spiritual cleansing when she had got a persisting skin ailment and an ustaz diagnosed her as being possessed by a demon and pulled it out through her big toe (‘it cut like a knife’). It is a shame I am leaving this part of the world just as my skin goes haywire. Between Chinese medicine and spiritual cleansing, they have a far better handle on skin conditions than they do in western medicine (I say this at least 3/4 seriously; I would have liked to have consulted a sinseh).
Some good news came out of Pakistan: the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a Raj era travesty, has been abolished and the region is now being merged with neighbouring KP province. This is far, far overdue. FATA is one of the poorest and least developed places in the world, is where the Taliban were born, and for the past century or so has been ruled as fiefs by tribal chieftains and political agents. Particularly appalling is the British institution whereby the crime of an individual led to punishment for the whole tribe. FATA has been treated in an appalling manner over the decades and certainly this mistreatment has spilled out to affect the rest of the world. From a nationalist perspectrive, it has also contributed to ongoing tension with Afghanistan on the Durand Line.
Less good news out of Washington DC, as usual, where Trump never fails to appall. This time it’s the letter he sent to Kim Jong-Un cancelling their summit, which is bad enough, but the letter itself is not less than unspeakable, even to my untutored eyes.