If you read Games of Thrones, or the Song of Ice and Fire to be exact, a common phrase is Winter is Coming, and the north is always depicted as somewhere cold and desolate. Even the undead/zombies are from the north. In some ways the north of England, which is Scotland, is cold (as a…
Recently my family and I went on a short holiday and we stayed on a caravan. It was a novel experience for both my family and I, one that I am not too eager to repeat. To be fair, the caravan was better than I expected with steady hot water and view of the sea,…
The local Malaysian community recently organised a bowling tournament and I joined it, together with my children and wife. Halfway through, she asked where I learned to play and I told her that my close friends during A-levels liked to play bowling. Hence I learned. I am not even good at bowling but I know…
A fellow Malaysian has a daughter who came over and played with my children. This girl was born in the UK and is 7 years old. When I spoke to her in Malay, she looked askance. I asked my friend whether his daughter knows Malay, to which he answered yes, and claimed she was just…
Sometimes we Malaysian, or to a certain extent, Asian, are a bit lacking in giving compliments. The jokes about Asian parents that when their child comes home with 98% exam marks, they will ask where did the 2% went too. Then there’s also compliment given, but a bit too late. I realised this when I…
I think we can all agree Facebook and other social media is a black hole for attention and time, where if you have a few minutes to spare and decided to JUST scroll for those few minutes, then it would turn into hours. I think this is true, and it can be proven by my…
My daughter came home recently and asked whether she could join a music lesson, which costs £49 a month. I’ve seen it before and I was ready to say no, but she added that the lesson was done during class and her friend(s?) who joined it had to skip class. I was horrified! She calmed…
I have been using AI these days to find ways to save money, one of it to search for promo codes. It doesn’t always work but I managed to get a few pounds discount, a few times, so it’s worth having a try. It doesn’t take long. Plus it skips all the popups that voucher…
During a discussion recently on participation of people in study groups, one of the comments was people were ‘disappearing’ during the study session, and not asking questions. While the former is true and some people just click join and do something else, the second got me to think, about why some people don’t (or do)…
Recently the study group I joined was talking about minor accidents and it was a good exercise to go through these cases reported by Rail Accident and Investigation Branch (RAIB), because these accidents most of the time are caused by similar underlying causes, and in left unchecked, will cause more serious accidents. If we look…
