Bulgemeister

So will it be another epic final? If the current forms of the two men contestng the Australian Open Final are any indication, it could well be another epic battle from the two best tennis players at the moment.

This letter, re-published from Telegraph.co.uk, has been billed as the best and funniest customer’s complaint letter ever. The author flew on Virgin from Mumbai to London and was not too impressed by the service of the airlines, which prompted him to write this letter. I could not help but feel impressed with the way the author let out his steam towards Virgin. Apparent–ly, the boss of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson was so impressed with the author’s letter that he personally telephoned the author to thank him for the letter.

Read the letter fully here.

So here it is…..

Dear Mr Branson,

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincerely…

Apparently, the results for the Brunei GCE O-levels have been released.

Do you know where one could get a copy of the results??

All the talk before last evening’s match against West Brom Albions concentrated on the absence of many key players to various injuries. There were talks that Manchester United would be a weakened team and there were questions if Manchester United could sustain the challenge for its eleventh Premiership honour.

Manchester United produced one of the best performance this season, beating West Brom Albions 5-0 at the Hawthorns. The main three payers, Berbatov, Tevez and Ronaldo scored; Ronaldo scored his first goals in ten weeks. It also marked the return of Rio Ferdinand after a bout of back injury kept him out of the squad. Some players also played despite being declared injured in the days building up to this match. It was a record-setting victory, as Manchester United now goes eleven matches without conceeding a goal.

Now it’s up to Liverpool to keep up the pressure on Manchester United, who now sits at the top of the league, three points and 7 goal difference more than Liverpool. Liverpool will play against Wigan Athletics at the JJB Stadium.

Manchester United’s next BPL game will be against Everton, the blue side of Liverpool and probably the real team of Merseyside ;), on Monday, 2 February at Old Trafford.

In the past week, Manchester United stepped up their conquest for five major trophies this season.

Last Wednesday, Manchester United booked their place in the League Cup Final at Wembley on 1 March 2009 after beating Derby County. Manchester United lost the first leg 1-0 and won the second leg 4-2, to win by a 4-3 aggregate. In the Finals, Manchester United will meet Tottenham Hotspurs, who beat Burnley to reach the Finals.

In the FA Cup Fifth Round match, Manchester United beat Tottenham Hostpurs 2-1 to play either Derby County or Nottingham Forest in the Last 16 Round. The winner of this match will proceed to play in the Quarter Finals. Paul Scholes scored a screamer, his first goal since many months ago.

This evening, Manchester United will play West Brom Albions who sit at the bottom of the league table. On paper, this should be an easy win for Manchester United, but at least eleven players are on the injury list, causing a big headache to Sir Alex. Among the injured players are Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Nani, Anderson,Partice Evra, Park Ji-Sung, Wes Brown, Jonny Evans, Fabio and Rafael da Silva, Owen Hargreaves and Danny Welbeck. The list is missing only a goalkeeper, otherwise they could form another team, of probably equal, or even higher, stature as tonight’s opponent. One good news, Cristiano Ronaldo should play tonight.

Just hope Sir Alex can weave his magic again tonight and take us further towards that eighteenth Championships honour.

Another long weekend is upon us once again. The new Chinese Year of the Ox will fall on Monday.

For all those who celebrate it, it will be a time to start a new year of prosperity, wealth, good health and peace. After possibly one of the worst ways to prepare the new year, many people are looking ahead to move on and celebrate the new year with a bang.

For all those who don’t, it is the time to take a well-deserved break. It has been a quite an eventful start to the year. Some are affected by the floods, landslides and power cuts. Thankfully, almost everything is back to normal.

Anyway, what’s your plan for the long weekend? Or more precisely, on the first day of the Chinese New Year? One of the biggest firework shows in Brunei will kick off right on the stroke of midnight. If you happen to be in Kuala Belait, go out around the Pandan and Jalan Maulana areas. You will see an amazing show of firework rivalry between the many households around the areas. I can’t think of any other place in Brunei where you could witness such spectacle. Take your family out for the show; it only happens once a year. And tomorrow, take your kids out to watch the lion dance. One of my nephews, who is barely two, is a big fan of the lion dance. He has a mini lion dance set, complete with the drum. During a niece’s birthday party last weekend, he made an impression on many guests as he danced in his lion dance set.

And don’t forget the solar eclipse tomorrow, but please observe the safety precautions.

P.s. I wonder if there is any Chinese belief or if it means something when you have a solar eclipse on the first day of the new year?

It’s raining again. And it’s really heavy….

Hope the worst won’t repeat itself.

Wishing all a safe evening….

As many landslide incidents happened in the past few days, many things have been said and commented. Some people said that the relevant agencies were not prepared for such eventualities. Some people said that the relevant government agencies did not control hillside developments. Some people said the relevant government agencies did not do much to avoid such landslides to happen.

I believe the government should not be solely blamed for the landslides that happened. There are only so much that the relevant government agencies could do, but at the end of the day, it was upto the developers and the property owners to carry out their projects in a more responsible manner. Retaining walls should be built; but not just any retaining wall, it should be strong and able to withstanding whatever nature throws at us. The developers should also built good drainage system. There are many instances that approvals were granted by the relevant government agencies to build such property with stipulated precautions, only for the developers to cut corners and modify their project, without due considerations to the environment and the surroundings.

As of the prolonged power cuts, it is unfortunate that it happened. May be we should be more prepared for the sudden ‘disaster’ but there are only so much we could do to prepare ourselves. At the end, we cannot really predict what nature may want to throw at us. And has anyone thought that perhaps it is God’s way to remind us that we are doing something we are not supposed to do, or we are not doing something that we are supposed to do?