Plaza Semanggi Gives New Meaning to The Word ‘Soon!’

I’ going out now, but not to Plaza Semanggi!

I did go there recently, and thought to inspect the new food market in the basement, which was promised as a replacement for the quite good Giant Supermart, where useful discounts were often to be had.

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Looking back on previous posts…

Misteri Gunung Semanggi – Kemana Raksasanya? A Giant Vanishes! 

…I see that particular promise was dangled back last year, about FOUR MONTHS AGO.

Hence, imagine my chagrin when I travelled down the escalator only to see the same boring sign, announcing it would open ‘soon!’

I went there to seek a new battery for my wrist-watch.

Once upon a time, PS had lots of little shops where bargains were available, if you persevered.

No more, not if a watch-battery’s what you’re after. I went to the only watch-shop I could find downstairs – there was one at ground-level, but its exterior was so glitzy, I took one look and concluded it wouldn’t be within my price-range – and after deep discussion, the proprietor offered me a battery for Rp.85, 000 – which I naturally spurned.

I knew that the honest orologists at Permata Hijau would do better, but since yesterday I was at Citraland, I tried there…

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Citraland

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Yesterday’s visitor had confirmed my belief that Rp.50K was the most I should pay, so I wandered hopefully into the first promising store and asked.

Rp.150,000!

I wandered back out, disgusted.

Only three or four doors down, heading towards the Hero supermarket, there’s another little shop. In I went, and emerged five minutes later with a working watch, the battery having cost me exactly what Wonder-Visitor had predicted.

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AND I got eggs in Hero on 50% discount!

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Hurray!  

Today’s traditional Sunday breakfast is a sure thing!

An Unusual Week -Pinkos Twice Heard Talking A Wee Bit Sense!

A nice day, a welcome guest in the morning, then a lazy arvo after brief but successful shopping at Citraland Mall.

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Then a look at the news! 

Is it the weather, or are some of our foes being drip-fed sanity without their knowledge or authorisation?

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First we had Justin Turdo telling De Caprio to get a grip on his paranoid climate panic drivel.

Surprisingly, in private meetings in Davos with Leonardo Di Caprio, Trudeau warned the actor and anti-oil activist from making uninformed statements about the oilsands, reports the Financial Post…

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…. which then delightfully adds – as if his continuing disinterest in their collapse is any better.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/trudeaus-rebranding-of-canada-offers-sunshine-to-davos-but-its-cold-comfort-for-battered-oilpatch

Big day today – the first time I’ve ever written ANYTHING that could be construed, however tortuously, as being even faintly in praise of Turdo Junior, or Senior.

Actually, it IS a big day, the anniversary of the day I left the Old Country to make my home here in Indonesia. Arrival anniversary tomorrow, so some kinda fun will be had.

But back to sanity-break-throughs. 

Then, in Germany, when it was reported that two of the federal states are telling ‘asylum’ parasites that they can’t binge on welfare without handing over their hoard of cash and valuables, even a Green MP defended the practice.

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• Green MP Volker Beck- it was right for asylum applicants to pay for services to the extent they could.”Of course asylum seekers aren’t in a better position than those on unemployment benefits. Asylum seekers must repay the costs of accommodation and care to the state.”

http://www.thelocal.de/20160121/germans-join-danes-swiss-in-confiscating-refugees-valuables

One swallow doth not a summer make, nor even two…

But who knows, there may be an outbreak of reality-grasp going on.

Yet some are immune. The German Communist Party’s heirs can still fulminate irrationally. I don’t mean the erstwhile Stasi informers like Mama Stasi Merkel, but rather the Left Party.

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• Left party (Die Linke) MP Ulla Jelpke went into hyper-whine. “Those who apply for asylum are exercising their basic rights [under the German Constititution]. That must not – even if they are rejected – be tied up with costs,” she argued.

Even if rejected?

So if some of the huge percentage of liars are caught out, they must not be penalised?

Gimme a break, ya daft bint!

 

An Eagle Falls – RIP Glenn Frey

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I was up in Kelapa Gading, in North Jakarta, a little while before  Christmas, and beers were being consumed. The host had a lot of music saved up in his computer, and singing along was the order of the day. 

Then I requested Hotel California, and he had the gall to say, ‘Oh, no – not The Eagles again!’

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I said something like – ‘Again and again!’

Because they are one of my all-time favourite bands. And now they are less than they were, in earthly terms at least.  

Bowie gone, not yet 70 summers seen, now Glenn Frey, aged 67…intimations of mortality indeed.

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• This life is NOT a dress rehearsal.
• Make the most of it!

Jakarta Tidak Takut, Tapi…..

Jakarta Tidak Takut  – ‘Jakarta’s Not Afraid!’ is a good slogan, and I endorse the sentiment wholeheartedly.

The best response to terrorist scum, like today’s jihadist vermin who murdered harmless people to further their satanic cause, is to carry on as usual, doing whatever one normally does, whilst hoping, of course, that the sectarian scum will be caught and put to death.

After all, subverting a way of life is what terrorists want, and jihadist terrorists, especially, want to deny us every trace of the pleasures we derive from life.

Enjoy A Night Out? How Dare You, Say IslamoNazis! 

They will succeed if we all take to staying in, cowering from their menace.

Much like in London, during the IRA/Sinn Fein terror camaign, we could have stayed home but instead took pride in getting to work, despite our stations being repeatedly closed by bomb-threats (which sometimes were more than mere threats!) 

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So despite my anger and distress when I heard the news this morning, I was looking forward to the party scheduled for tonight. Sharing rage and grief is healthier than nursing those emotions indoors.

To my dismay, I got an email saying that ‘due to the current situation,’ the party was off.

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• What a gutless crowd!

The event was to be held in one of Jakarta’s largest hotels, which always has tight security – when I’ve gone there before, I’ve been vexed at the amount of  time it takes to get in!

After the Sarinah outrage, it would undoubtedly have been like a fortress. And though harder to get into, the hotel would have been easier to reach, traffic thinner after the Islamist atrocity.

This party was not hosted by Indonesians, but by foreigners, so shame on them!

I hope they grow up and show some greater sense of solidarity with our host nation in future: though I doubt if I’ll be joining them again.

Whatever!

I made up my mind that, what the hell, I’d go into town anyway. My decision didn’t require any summoning up of courage, simply an unwillingness to be intimidated. Something the supine twits behind the party’s cancellation evidently lacked.

There’s been a drinks voucher I won in a Lucky Draw last month, valid for beer at a bar in Senayan, so I smsed around and headed out, hoping others I know would join my outing.

Traffic was notably lighter then usual and my bus – with only a handful of passengers – got me there in barely half an hour.

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 Slipi Junction

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I noticed a lot of cops plus two ambulances at Slipi – later heard there’d been threats made against that area.. 

Taking short-cuts through Ratu Plaza and Plaza Senayan ( both popular expat shopping centres; I saw few bules – that’s local for expats – in either place) soon enough I reached the bar.

When I got there, it was empty, save for the staff, though they were fun to chat to. 

My voucher used up, five or six beers later, I came home, puzzling over this question – what sort of friends are we foreigners to Indonesia if we run for cover after the threat has been handled?  

 

Ashes to Ashes – RIP David Bowie

Can’t let the passing of David Bowie go unremarked, especially as I read that some repulsives have been using social media to celebrate his death – apparently because he favoured keeping the UK united. 

It’s one thing to cheer the death of an unequivocally evil person, like Mao or Hitler – or, fingers crossed, Castro.

But like most people, I prefer the old idea, nihil nisi bonum de mortuis. Regular readers will have noticed I made no comment at all on the recent demise of one of the prominent FPI leaders here in Jakarta. Decent intervals and all that. 

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The thing is, David Bowie had real talent.

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• When a song is good enough, long years later, to evoke some part of one’s life, that’s music! Even hearing the phrase ‘ashes to ashes’ today instantly recalls, for me, those long, hot, fun, summer days in early ’80s Cambridge.

Bowie also had humour, and would probably have chuckled at that broadcaster who got him mixed up with another David and announced Cameron’s death – Fiona Winchester was reading the news for Heart FM Radio earlier this morning when she made the embarrassing gaffe.http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-bowie-dead-radio-presenter-7155270

Like me, he found (West) Berlin in the 1970s very much to his liking – though I guess we moved in different circles – at one stage I dossed down in a flat full of Trots, just of the KuDamm!

And he wasn’t that much older than me, when cancer sprang up and carried him off so fast.

Scary.

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• But when that happens, you don’t get scared, if you have any sense and any spirit. You should live all the harder, the further down the bone-yard path you get.

His latest release was only this month, I believe.

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My Home-Cooked Xmas Dinner – New Career In Catering?

Given my incredible age, it’s not often I can say I just did something for the first time ever!

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• But yesterday, I cooked Christmas Dinner!

In times past, of course, I had played my part, maybe fetching things, assisting with setting the table, and even doing some of the washing-up.

But cook?

No way. It’s never held any appeal for me, always easier to find somebody agreeable to tend to that particular responsibility, or just take a walk to an eatery, like my beloved warteg.

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• This year, this Christmas, however, I had no plans for going out, yet felt that a proper traditional meal would be appropriate.

Scanning the ads for what was on offer in the grand places of Jakarta, there were many choices, wondrous feasts for half a mill, some even less.

But the series of parties, from October and November’s North American Thanksgiving celebrations, through the run-up to Hari Natal, had given me turkey galore, even Brussels sprouts, and, yes, stuffing!

•  I recommend the Marriott for that.

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My Christmas Dinner!

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Resolved, therefore, to make my own dinner, I shopped diligently, some fine de-boned chicken, and a hunk of pork, plus some peas and carrots.

But stuffing?

Nowhere to be found, ready-made, except maybe in posh Kemang, and that’s such an isolated territory, hard to get to on public transport (there is a regular kopaja, the 605A, from Blok M, but the traffic is a nightmare) that it seemed far wiser to do the job myself.

But how?

Consultation. Bread, onions, spices…and butter.

So parsley and thyme were discovered in Permata Hijau, onions, bread easily obtainable anywhere – hey, no problem.

So on Wednesday I got to work.

Only to discover that one of my visitors, Lord knows when, had used up my Blue Band.

Indonesians don’t talk about margarine, simply call it by the most popular brand name, much as Brits call ball-point pens ‘biros’ and vacuum cleaners ‘hoovers!’

Heck, I wasn’t going out again that day, and Christmas Eve loomed, much of which was scheduled for various activities, not least the Midnight Carols.

I quote from an email I sent my chief consultant.

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Aha! 

Minyak goreng. fry-pan oil, a perfect substitute.

 

Had acquired parsley and thyme, so dropped them into a pot, with salt, and boiled it all, stirring fiercely. When it was gooey enough, I changed from pot to frying pan. When it was firmer, i placed it on a plate and put it in the fridge to set.

Had a lick at the fork – smells like, looks (a little) like stuffing, but not sure of the taste. 

Once I microwave it tomorrow, I’ll report further.

And here’s the result!

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Da Stuffing!

And it wasn’t half bad!

I served it up to my good self after returning form the Yasmin Service in town, devoured the lot by 7pm – not the lot, actually, enough left-overs to see me through tomorrow and share when my Boxing Day visitor arrives!

Not perfect, the consistency of the stuffing was not quite as solid as I’d have preferred, but tasty. I’d begun to get my hopes up from the aroma whilst cooking it, and it proved just about up to expectations.

• 

• So maybe it’s time to emerge from retirement? Ask the nice ibu who runs the warteg if she wants to vary her menu and increase the number of bule customers from its current level?

(That’s one, BTW!)

Something to think about when I’m out of town at the start of 2016. 

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Merry Christmas, All Ye De-Sexualised Folk!

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Just got back from the Carol Service, and am very tired. 

Can’t complain about the sermon, or the cake afterwards, but MUST complain about the silly PC mangling of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen!

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• Nowadays that grand old favourite  has been purged of sexism, the offensive line replaced by ‘God Rest You Merry People All!’

I of course sang the proper words.

•  “Enough, you lot!”

• Next it’ll be prayers to ‘God, the Parent, the Child and…?’

What CAN the nitwits do to the Holy Ghost?

‘

Pre-Christmas Greetings From RRA!

Ten? 

I’m sending this to ALL my hundreds of readers.

So far, the partying has been intense, and I have yet to have my tree’s formal switch-on ceremony!

No party tonight, but this week will see the start of the round of individual catch-ups with friends I’ve not seen for a while.

So pre-emptive apologies if the blog output is somewhat patchier than usual.

Battery re-charging a work in progress!

Matahari, Alexa Michiko and Nasi Goreng Bacon!

nasi goreng sausage (no photo of the bacon version as I ate it too quickly)

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Sunshine, dangdut and nasi goreng bacon!

The breakfast was provided by my imminently departing visitor, the matahari (sun) by Mother Nature and the dangdut by the cable tv channel Dangdut Keliling, which this morning featured not only the yummy hostess Michiko Alexa…

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… but also a comely pair calling themselves the Duo Cici…alas, I can’t find a photo of those two little cuties, so you’ll need to be satisfied with Alexa – who wouldn’t be!?!

On reflection, and by way of compensation, I offer photos of some other charming pairs (take that any way you like!)

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Duo Serigala

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Duo Racun

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And as a further contribution to your remaining weekend fun, there’s a link to a YouTube performance by the DR!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gsl23NKKCM

Not a bad way to start another pleasant Sunday, and as I have no plans to do much today, there’s no reason to think the rest of the day will be any less agreeable.

But this is Jakarta, and you never know what’s going to happen next – that’s one of the many joys of residence in the Big Durian.

So I’m going to take it easy for a while, no particular place to go, except maybe seek out the tukang gado2 for a late lunch – still stuffed from that big brek – but otherwise save my energies for the run-up to Xmas!

Ooops!

Just realised my cigarette supply is running low – so an outing IS required…

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…but first, a post-prandial nap…

,c

 

Jakarta Best Xmas Deal? FREE FLOW WATER – 3rd Dec!

I was idly scanning What’s New Jakarta for ideas on where to indulge my festive gluttony, when..

Well…

After a fairly uninspiring week, and a weekend clouded by grim news from the West, my thanks to the Raffles Hotel in posh Kuningan for the best laugh so far this month!

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http://www.whatsnewjakarta.com/jv_events/christmas-power-lunch-at-art-cafe-hotel-raffles-jakarta/

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I’m not sure what a ‘power-lunch’ is, nor that the idea of a ‘power-lunch’ appeals to me much.

Lunch should either be a ten-min guzzle between other needful tasks or, better, a relaxing, self-indulgent hour or three of casual hogging, washed down with copious quantities of intoxicating beverages.

Without a doubt, the good chef mentioned in the above ad can serve up excellent food, but…“power…?” 

Never mind, the ‘power’ thing is not why I won’t be going.

Here’s what is!

The price per pax is only 350,000 nett /pax
Including free flow water.

WHAT?

And my expressive WHAT is not a response to the price, which is probably what one expects in posh Kuningan these days.

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‘What? Free-flow ends in five minutes? OMG!’

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As the above illustration, used in a previous post…

Terima Kasih, Arif Suryobuwono – Cerita Miras Luar Biasa! 

…indicates, I enjoy social life, and especially free-flow events, because my healthy thirst for beer and wine always ensures I get good value for whatever price I have to pay upfront. Free-flow beer, like free-flow wine, is a dashed fine phenomenon.

But FREE-FLOW WATER?

Truth to tell, the Raffles is a dashed fine place. The staff are first-rate – polite, friendly and attentive – and the public rooms are splendid (of course I’ve not overnighted there – posh hotels in Kuningan are beyond my means, except to meet up with friends)

But do their PR people really think an endless flow of aqua is a powerful lure for the power lunch?

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