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 I went to Scotland and visited the Isle of Bute. We took a short ferry trip from Wemyss Bay, which had a small railway station. I was very surprised that for a small town, it had quite a big terminal station. One can take a train from Glasgow, step off the platform at Wemyss Bay railway station, and walk…
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,…
There’s a term in safety in railway, called ALARP, which stands for As Low As Reasonably Practicable, in the sense that people in the railway need to make the risks as low as possible, considering the effort needed. For example if the cost is too high to reduce a risks, such as designing a train…
The full title of the book is a bit too long: The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz. In comparison, the book is quite short. And the chapters and paragraphs are short too, a bit similar to blog posts compared to productivity/business books. The lessons however are packed and concise. The book starts…
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…
