6:13

we love today what we hate tomorrow

allergy relief

working in london has so far been quite fun and amusing at times. try working in a restaurant with people from all over. a melting pot of faces and culture.
the ukranian who has a good sense of humour,
the brazillian dude who self proclaims on being number one,
the manja polish lass, '
the bolivian girl who keeps grabbing other`s ass cheeks(and says shes just testing afterwards), the polish woman who puts on depressing love songs all the time on the radio(especially when u dont feel like listening to micheal bolton),
the head chef who is really into house music(`yo taufik, check the beat,check the beat. u hear that? wicked beat mate`),
the algerians,
and the singing chef from the carribean(belting out to the tunes of barry white and the likes).

shit, and thats just the kitchen staff.

service staff from montenegro, poland, us, sweden, germany, etc.

oh and that queer brazillian dude who i had a conversation about faith with.

dude: so, ur islam. ur arab from malaysia
joe: no, im a muslim. i believe in islam but im not an arab. you dont need to be an arab to believe in islam.
dude: (starting to look a bit uninterested and as he walks away splurts out) im brazillian. and i only believe in massive dongs up my arse.

par punde

democracy

bless your heart, you .....you...well, you know what u did.

Dove

a lil raya do at number thirty two.

last sunday saw the occupants of 32ct playing host to a lil raya get together. knowing joe for his enthusiasm in celebrating raya, i just wanted to get it over and done with. turned out it wasnt that bad and it was a good night after all.

it was fun cooking up for the family open house back in kl during raya. thats because you had ppl coming expecting lontong, rendang,etc, and i served up the likes of home made pizzas, lasagna, pommes gratin and thai green curry and to get the bemused looks on some of them, u just know their thinking `what the fuck?`.hehehhe. the food usually went down well with the younger relatives. my justification is, you go for 3-4 open houses in a day on a sunday, u really wanna eat the same stuff everytime?

anyways, this time, Yazmin made the laksa lemak (that oz is getting too malay for gods sakes), i had the honour of making the chicken rendang and ketupats, and there was also malaysian posted kuih rayas/cakes and milo panas/ sirap bandung in between. oh it was a nite of indulging.
pictures galore.

faheem and yaz in gear

eddie (in gear) and omar

joe in his baju melayu with apek

jez and naj

uncle rahim content

doing the raya robot dance

kitchen invasion

pukka tukka

sham and patrick

acab and renee

boris and joe

omar, nani and fytrushka

Bombay Mix

it was Hari Raya yesterday in the uk. happy happy joy joy. no, on the contrary. I have personally lost interest in the celebration ages ago. Before one mutters blasphemy, let me explain.

Back in the day, Hari Raya was fun. Actually enjoying and anticipating to go back to kampung. Being able to hang around and play mercun with the cousins, the `maaf zahir and yeah whatever, give me em green packets' moments, the non-stop eating, the uncles and aunties who go `dah besar dah` everytime they see you, and everything in between.
We were young, we were free.

Fast forward that along the years, and you have almost a charade of the whole balik kampung thing. You are much older, you discover that maybe you dont have much in common with the cousins, family spats are more common amongst the big familia ( u gotta remember whos talking to who), cousins get married and opt out to celebrate with their new families. You dont want to go back,period. but then it matters if i dont go back to `celebrate` as we are forced to give a shit if others bitch of our absence.

Raya last year, like the two years before, saw me doing the whole protocol thing in the morning, and spending the rest of the day in a dodgy snooker parlour in town with a cousin or two. that bad, that bad. Then, why stay another couple of nites like u would back in the day, just come up with some cock and bull story to all who gives a shit, that uve got work, exam, etc the next day. so then, ur off the hook. balik kl and dont need to do the whole `act` till Hari Raya Haji.

Today, I was heavy hearted to go to Malaysia Hall for the prayers as i felt i hadnt the right to go (due to obvious reasons). but i chose to go, just to see if i can get some sort of raya feeling out of it. I didnt. Prayers had finished by the time i got there. Lotsa kids hanging around outside. I left after 20 minutes. I did meet a friend from KL which was pleasant. But yeah, enjoyed more working in the kitchen later in the day.

We need to sort things out. I would like to enjoy and truly be part of Hari Raya in the future.

A year ago, i received a msg wishing me Happy Raya and the msg also had something on the lines of `forgive everybody and hopefully everyone forgives you`. It meant alot to me as the whole maaf, zahir and batin thing had been said for granted all this time. Part of the protocol what?

From there, I would like to play my part, and sincerely apologies to the people ive done wrong through out the year.

Wishing you a blessed Eid.

Regards,
Joe

18

"The whole conviction of my life now
rests upon the belief that loneliness,
far from being a rare and curious phenomenon,
is the central and inevitable fact of human existence."

Thomas Wolfe,
"God's Lonely Man"