Thursday 18th July, Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Popped into the Hard Rock Cafe in KL after today's meetings and caught up with a whole heap of people I hadn't seen for ages. Stayed far beyond acceptances. Interesting linguistic conversation with a group on reverse language colonisation including Jeff and Dale, who are linguistic connoisseurs. Bahasa Malaysia, as many would know, borrows a lot from English. "Bus" for example is "Bas", and "Taxi" is "Teksi". Some others are "Buku" for "Books" and "Farmasi" is "Pharmacy". However instances of Malay words making the reverse trip are rare. Amongst us we came up with a few which may have. "Sarong" is one, as is maybe "Orang-utan". However proper names were deemed, after a few beers, as being invalid. (The rules of scrabble apply). In the end there was one word which all agreed on, which is "amok". As in "run amok". And this is not surprising.... If anybody can run amok its a Malaysian..

( Any other suggestions gratefully received here.)

And talking of Orang-utans and going amok, also discussed was the current report of an orang-utans which ran amok in downtown Taipei in Taiwan last week. Seemed the owner had let the ape escape. The New Straits Times reported that the ape ran up to an innocent schoolgirl and started hugging and trying to kiss her and had to be forcibly removed by the local wallopers.

Official reports were that the schoolgirl was unharmed, however the ape was under sedation at the Zoo..

Unofficial sources report that the schoolgirl was in seen in a state of distress a few days later, sobbing her eyes out crying... "He hasn't phoned, he hasn't called...!..."

One great thing about the Shangri-La of course is that it is within staggering distance from the HRC, indeed its almost straight across the road, so you don't have to bargain with the shark-like can drivers that congregate outside during the wee hours. But be careful crossing the road. The motorcycles zoom down here at a rate of knots...