Which New Year?

[I wrote the following piece for Brunei Times for the New Year 2008. I thought it is still valid for the New Year 2010. Happy Reading.]TODAY is the first day of 2008 AD or, to be all-inclusive 2007 CE ("Common Era") since AD stands for the Latin expression Anno Domini — "in the year of our Lord", in reference to Jesus Christ. As the Oxford Dictionary pointed out, "AD" refers strictly to "the

On hiatus

Apologies to regular visitors. My PC has died on me (suspected motherboard problem), so I can't update from home. And I don't have time and I should not update during office hours. Besides all my photos and notes are on that PC, so I don't have much reference material. So, I am going on forced hiatus until I can sort something out. In the meantime keep on checking, maybe by then my PC would have

Jerudong Park v.2?

I thought I was an avid newspaper reader and I was quite surprised to have missed this one. Anyway, I found this news on www.earthtimes.org about our Jerudong Park:-Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei's famed 644-million-dollar amusement park - Jerudong Park Playground - will relaunch this weekend after being "virtually dead" for years, park officials said Friday. Opened in 1994, the Playground was once

Jame Asr Stained Glass

The Guardian UK had this story on 8th December 2009 about John Lawson. Who? I bet that you would ask. I asked that too until I saw this photograph:-[Stained Glass at Jame Asr Mosque in Kiarong]And it was this guy who made that:-John Lawson, who has died of cancer aged 77, was one of the leading stained-glass artists of his generation. He designed glorious windows not only in Westminster Abbey and

Remember, Remember, The 8th of December

Exactly 47 years ago today, some people thought they heard fireworks. They were wondering why fireworks? Thy did not know that it was not fireworks that they heard. It was the sound of small arms fire. A group of people decided that they needed to take matters into their own hands. I was a two month old fetus in those days. My mother told me that she and my father had to sleep on the floor in

Karnival Daerah Tutong

The people in Tutong District are really working hard to make their Tutong District Carnival a success. For those who do not know what to do today have the following options at Tutong:-* Pesta dan Pertunjukan Kereta @ Kompleks Dewan Kemasyarakatan (from 9 am to 10 pm), today is the last day. It started on Friday.* Pesta Pengguna @ Petani Mall (from 10 am to 10 pm), it started yesterday and will

Bruneian in Atomic Bomb Hiroshima

I remembered when I was in Darjah 4 way back in the very early 1970s, one of the fahaman article or comprehension I was reading had a story about a Brunei man during the aftermath of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Apparently he had been a student there and the bomb fell over the city. Luckily he survived the bombing. After that I searched high and low for the book but to no avail. At that

Our Pantangs

Someone asked in the comment box whether I could write something about pantang larang of Bruneians. I could. But then why would I do that? There is a book that you can actually buy and read all about it.This book published by our Dewan Bahasa in 2006 contained all there is to know about the do's and dont's of our society or rather the dont's of our society. All the pantangs are listed in

Old Tutong Photo

I was looking through my father's old album searching for photographs to illustrate my third book when I came across this photograph. I thought this will go nicely with the maulud article in that book.My father was an Assistant District Officer in Tutong in the 1960s. You can see him in the middle of the photograph in white with his interesting long shoes. That shoe we used to call as kasut