Managers and Clerks

Yesterday, I blogged about Permanent Secretaries. Today I will blog on the more mundane job but as equally important jobs that we do on a daily basis. When you were younger, your parents must have hoped and prayed that you become a manager or the equivalent of one at some point in your career. I think that's pretty much standard Asian thinking. Managers are good and anything less than one is not

Permanent Secretaries

Someone asked if there is a 'Permanent Secretary' how come there is no 'Temporary' Secretary? And why do we have Permanent Secretary in the government when the other type of secretary is the Confidential Secretary? In the government payscale, that means a difference of about $15,000 a month between the two there. Nowadays another creature emerges in the Brunei Civil service - the Deputy Permanent

I Love You (Without Breaking the Bank)

I took this from www.dummies.com (my apologies to dummies.com and I do hope that you go out and buy a dummies.com book) which I found useful for the cash strapped lover. Whether it's Valentine's Day or the anniversary of your first date, here are ten simple ideas for expressing your love . . . without taking out a bank loan!Baking heart-shaped food itemsPreparing a heart-shaped anything is a

Mobile Phones in Airplanes

I read somewhere that the American airlines are thinking of allowing passengers talk on their cellphones while they are in flight. You know when I read that I was thinking that at last, someone realised that cellphones do not interfere with navigation systems of aeroplanes! So called safety experts had long worried that cellphones can do that. I will let you into a secret, many of us don't

The Mayonnaise Jar and the 2 Cups of Coffee

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he silently picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full.They agreed that it was.The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled

UBD Dresscodes

I was reading Maurina's blog at wordpress about the posters on dress codes at UBD. That reminded me of my short UBD days. I was at UBD last year being one of the senior government officials forced to undertake a four month executive development program at UBD. The program is organised by the Public Service Department and carried out by FBEPS. Normally about 15 senior government officials (those

Golf Economics

My 6 year old and I went to the Empire Driving Range yesterday afternoon. It was an extremely hot day and we looked like lobsters being baked. My son's face was flushed red and so was mine. But we had to go and do our drives. It was the first time in about 3 weeks that I actually went to the driving range and boy, did my balls go haywire. My son was trying out the new kids golf set that I got for

The Legislative Council Sessions

The Brunei Legislative Council (Legco) has completed its second meeting of the 2006 session. Our local newspaper has no doubt kept its part in making sure that the debates are well covered as well as entertaining readers in hinting at certain policies (for instance, saying policy of no salary rises, when there was no mention at all about no salary rises etc - there was a speech saying that the

Inventors Get Nothing

I was reading last night or rather rereading one of Bill Bryson's books. I have lost count how many times I have read his books, I still find the books humourous and refeshing. I am also afraid to say that I am beginning to copy that style which is really really bad. Not that the style is bad but copying is and this is mostly psychological (you read a person's work over and over again, you can't

Cigarettes Lesson

Cigarette factories are not places where most people got to visit often. I am not a smoker myself but I find cigarettes to be fascinating stuffs. Though admittedly there was a stage where one does try to experiment and during those times, one can discover a great many things. For instance, Japanese cigarettes are so tasteless that I don't even see the point of them having cigarettes at all.

Tourist Attractions

I mentioned the Churchill Museum in one of my earlier spaces.msn blogs on tourism spots. I would just like to bring the subject up again as I received comments on how nice the aquarium was and apparently there used to be a snake exhibits as well. I don't remember the snakes at first but now that it was brought up, I do remember vaguely some form of exhibits on snakes and some reptiles too. Though

Long Walks at Airports

The trudging long walk to Gate F60 at the Changi International Airport to get to the RBA airplane is a real pain. I must have gone over like 5 travellators and still see no sign of F60, it's like climbing up the first bukit at Shahbandar. You go up this hill and everytime you looked up, you still have not seen the top but when you do reach the top and then you looked back, you realised how far

Poverty and Power

Poverty, tenacity, inventiveness and ingenuity make an interesting combination and provides a number of people their meagre day to day living. In two days of staying at Surabaya, I have seen the various ways of making a living especially for those in the wrong end of the society's spectrum.It started to rain yesterday when we were waiting for our car, other people started gathering at the foyer

European Invaders

The Indonesians still have a thing against the European invaders. It must have been due to those Dutch people who used to be the overlords in Indonesia. A lot of monuments have been built all over Indonesia commemorating their struggles for independence. In surabaya the most famous was the Heroes Monument (Tugu Pahlawan) which is the most well known of all heroes' statutes all over the city.

Are You Flying?

When you are on a plane at night getting ready to land and the flight attendants announced that they will dim all the lights and request us to open all the blinds, have you ever wondered what those instructions are for? I have always been curious about as to why should the plane's interior lights be dimmed as I thought the brighter the plane, it would be fairly visible to everyone on the ground

Responsible Lawmakers

I was one of few lucky people invited to attend the first day of the new Brunei Legislative Council session. It was interesting as I have never attended one anywhere else in the world before. Though I have visited a few parliaments or the equivalent of our legislative council in other countries but not while they are in session. Today's ceremony was full of pomp and ceremony. I was quite

Brunei's First Public Debts Through Sukuk Al-Ijarah

The Brunei Government will have its first public debt very soon. The Finance Ministry officially launched the short term Brunei Dollar Islamic Bond Sukuk Al-Ijarah yesterday. The questions which a lot of people are asking - what is sukuk and why is the government issuing this?To the completely uninitiated, a bond is basically an IOU note issued by the government which you buy and the government

What's in a Name?

I was passing by the Lambak Kanan area and I saw this brand new primary school called the Lambak Kanan Primary School Jalan 19. You probably thought that this is a temporary name. Nope, you are wrong. The name is emblazoned in front of the school gate with big bold brass lettering. So it is permanent. I cannot remember that many schools nowadays having names derived only from the places where

The Government Employee

A Government Employee tired after surfing the internet and reading the day's blogs, sits in his office and out of boredom, decides to see what's in his old filing cabinet. He pokes through the contents and comes across an old brass lamp."This would look nice on my mantelpiece," he thinks, so he takes it home with him.While polishing the lamp, a genie appears and grants him three wishes."I wish

Simple is Best

I have often argued that simple is best. Too complicated sometimes put people off. By moving to this new blogsite I have decided to go back to simple stuff. Spaces@msn was going too complicated but here it is almost like back to nature.And that goes the same with attracting people to Brunei. We have already mentioned a few ideas such as including changing of the guards at the Palace, our Royal

The Bad Brunei Bookshops

The Singapore Straits Times had an interesting article called the good bad books. The good bad books just mean books that are very poor in terms of accuracy of details but are just plain good reads. The most famous currently being the Da Vinci Code written by Dan Brown. A movie starring Tom Hanks is currently being produced but this is pending the outcome of the trial of the infringement

How to Make a Woman Happy

HOW TO MAKE A WOMAN HAPPYTo make a woman happy..... A man only needs to be:1. A friend2. A companion3. A lover4. A brother5. A father6. A master7. A chef8. An electrician9. A carpenter10. A plumber11. A mechanic12. A decorator13. A stylist16. A psychologist17. A pest exterminator18. A psychiatrist19. A healer20. A good listener21. An organizer22. A good father23. Very clean24. Sympathetic25.

Airplane Security

I will be leaving for Surabaya next week to attend a central bankers meeting. Central bankers love to have meetings. I noted that the agenda even though heavy with materials but was also heavy with social programmes (one that involves a stick and a tiny little ball which you play on acres of spaces). I think it's something to do with the fact that in most countries, central bankers are the

Much Ado About Nothing

I never realised just how infuriarating spaces.msn has become of late. I am not sure whether it's because I have so much material or there is a conflict between spaces and mozilla or something. I have been looking to move out for quite a while. Maybe I should do so now. A couple of bloggers have persuaded me that spaces.msn is not the place to be in. One of my loyal commentator also noted his