The global sport

Its Sunday morning in Penang and I am watching Liverpool play Watford in a premier league match on tape delay. I just checked on the nationalities of the players on display and there aren't that many Brits. It underlines for me that this game and more so this league is THE global league of THE global game. Just don't expect there to be many Brits actually on the field, particularly in the creative positions in midfield or up front.

This is a World Cup year so the English media will hype up England's chances as usual but really what we have are some decent full backs and central defenders and some hardworking journeymen defensive midfielders. As for the creative element? A Messi or more specific to the game I am watching now, a Salah -- who is in the process of scoring 4 and laying on the other in a 5-0 drubbing?  Sadly not. Harry Kane undoubtedly is a terrific finisher but he does that with the help of a Dane, a Korean and a variety of other nationalities. I am pretty pleased that Iceland didn't make it but undoubtedly there is a another banana skin beckoning.

I don't know why but watching the game made me think of a cup match my school old boys team played in the Southend Borough Combination some 40+ years ago. It finished 13-11 after double extra time. No penalties back then, you just played till you finished.

It was the regular 90 minutes plus extra time of two 15 minute halves and then another two 10 minute halves. It was 8-8 after 90 minutes, 11-11 after the first period of extra time and we went down 13-11 after the second period. One guy on their side scored 5 and should really have scored 10. Nobody on our side scored more than 1 goal and there were no substitutes which means that everyone including our goalkeeper scored.  I cannot believe that that record will ever be beaten!

I haven't watched any amateur games for years so do wonder if the global game at its grass roots level is still played this way. I do hope so.

Incidentally this is a great advert, particularly so as the poor suffering opponents are wearing the same strip that we used to!

Plus Ca Change, Penang Style

The Far East is the most populous part of the world by a distance. Something like 60% of the global population are near by, well relatively nearby so one of the things that happens is that the cost of labour is cheap. Being someone that does economics for a living, I remember reading that globally there are only 2 billion jobs. Given the population size this means that nearly 50% of all working age people are either unemployed or under-employed so little pressure on businesses to pay up for staff.

That is noticeable here in Penang. The island has 750,000 people and is of relatively small size so is very busy and crowded but also that means lots and lots of low paying jobs away from the factory complexes which are very high tech indeed (Pharma, Tech, Chips, etc) so require highly trained white collar skills as well as the command of English. Away from this salaries drop precipitously and you can see that with jobs that simply wouldn't exist in the west, here there are always people and in many cases multiple levels of back up for that job.

I am completely OK with this as I follow the trend of robotisisation (if that's not a word, it soon will be) and the use of Artificial Intelligence to enhance tech solutions even though I don't necessarily agree with it all as people do need to work for a living. What would they do if there no jobs? Nothing good I suspect.

I met a guy here recently who manages his California IT business from just down the road. OK that's nothing special I know as many people do that these days but its what he does that blew me away.

If you remember the last two Jason Bourne movies, you may remember that on at least two occasions the CIA trackers were trying to find him by hooking into local CCTV networks remotely from wherever it was that they were located and by communication links directing their trackers to find Jason. That was managed by people so even though it took seconds in the movie, that was pretty darned inefficient according to this guy.

Imagine now that you want to do that and you harness the power of AI into the loop. Ditch the people watchers and replace them with a computer image that you have of the person you want to track. And then do it globally. Apparently once you do all of this correctly it now takes less than a nanosecond to find whomever it is that you want to find. Anywhere in the world.

Unsurprisingly law enforcement agencies from all over the world are buying this technology and adopting it. So this computer nerd from the 1970's is now an AI superstar with killer technology that everyone wants. Forget about the intrusion into your personal life. See what this wonder technology can do! I told him that this was 1984's worst nightmare come to life. He laughed. Thanks!

However that world has not made it here yet. Well not entirely anyway. There's a wonderful taxi service here called Grab, a Singapore start up and a competitor to Uber which is also here. As the local taxis are dreadful, both these guys have killed the licensed taxi industry. The service is very fast, very cheap and the people that drive the cars are happy to use this for a second job. We have used both frequently and both are fantastic. We have also met some great local people, all friendly, all inquisitive on their side too.

One young man we met in this way said that his lifetime career ambition was to own his own hawker stand selling the best chicken rice. We asked him his recipe and he said he would be learning from a chicken rice sifu and go from there. Talk about life aspirations but typical of here and I imagine typical of this highly populous region. AI won't have much luck competing with this young man I hope.

The original purpose of this post was something different but clearly I had that other stuff on my mind too! We are just settling in here and have moved into an apartment where we wanted some work done. Nothing major, just putting in a sink and cabinet. Sounds simple but just as anywhere else as soon as you start off with a contractor, he says well if you want that, you'll have to do that and that will be more expensive. Sound familiar? Anyway we agreed on a price way more than we expected and the works to do and the cabinet installers have just been in and I have to acknowledge they did what looks like a great job. The cabinet has a lovely new cabinet smell too.

The various stages of work

So I went in the room where they were working and found a crew there. Maybe 6 or 7 guys. Two were on their phones looking at videos and giggling, one guy the boss had his back turned and was tapping away vigorously on his phone, another two were generally milling around and the one sole guy was doing all the work.

Some things really do not change!

Call that traffic? This is traffic!

It has been a week or so since we returned to Penang, sorry home to Penang, from Bangkok but as with my previous post about Penang I wanted to ruminate a while rather than jump right in. I did use the wonderful Track My Tour app (thanks to Chris as always) for those keen on a more contemporaneous account of our short trip there -- you can view it here -- but this post is made with the benefit of thinking about things a little first.

If you think that the header for this post is Crocodile Dundee-is you are right. That bit was my favorite part of the movie but exchange things for traffic and you have Bangkok.

Yes, that scene!

I thought Penang was busy and bustling with humanity after Bermuda and then Canada but then we arrived in Bangkok and my goodness. In the previous post I said that Penang was an assault on all my senses and it was but Bangkok is that on steroids.

5 million + people, endless traffic, small streets except for the freeways, monstrous buildings except for the tiny streets, hawker stands, market stalls... It was endless. Returning to Penang has made it seem that my new home town is serene in comparison.

We went on a night time tuk-tuk eating tour to some of the city's most famous restaurants, local not fancy. This one for deep fried chicken had its kitchen in the alley behind the restaurant itself.

Even though Thailand is the next door country to Malaysia, there are huge differences starting with religion. 95% of Thais are Buddhists and you can see this everywhere. Apparently 441 temples are in the city and I can believe it. You keep coming across them everywhere. Some not so grand but all reverently cared for and respected.

The Temple of Dawn by the river with the late King (left), the late King's wife (middle) and the current king (right). Their pictures were everywhere in the city. All huge pictures too.

And respect is a word that could be used widely in Bangkok, at least from my vantage of 4 busy days of visiting, sightseeing, eating (particularly) and drinking with our friends Tracy and Norbert from Malta (but also ex-Bermuda hands). From the greeting that practically everyone does -- the two hands together plus bow -- to the respect shown for Buddha and their King whose pictures are simply everywhere, particularly the late King who ruled for a long time and was considered a man of the people.

But yes whenever I think of the King of Thailand I do always think of Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr in The King and I. That was a wonderful movie with one of the classic movie lines of all time: "Dance after Dinner!" Just watch the movie and you will understand.

In that movie in the more serious scenes, few and far between I know, the undercurrent is clear that the King is fully aware that his kingdom is one of the few independent ones around. Every one of their neighbors is part of one empire or another and he is trying to make sure Siam as it was known then stays that way. Quite how that all happened is not clear to me even after reading my favorite go to knowledge site Wikipedia who sadly failed me in this question. Anyway, well done to him and his successors for managing it. No wonder the people revere their kings.

One popular connotation for Bangkok is sleaze -- girly bars and lady boys. In addition back packers and people that look as though they sort of arrived in 1970 and never left abound. This is strange to me as drugs are illegal and trafficking carries a death sentence but clearly people don't care and still come and stay in one of the endless back street hostels and get a tattoo and some body piercing. Why on earth would you get one of either of those in a grungey back street parlor where of course they sterilize their needles?

Oh yes, back to sleaze. I never saw a girly bar nor a lady boy, unless they were very good which I understand many are. We went to Khao San Road where endless westernized bars exist alongside mobile phone shops and trashy tourist souvenir shoppes. We also went to Pat Pong market which seemed to be grunge central alongside the massive night market selling trashy tourist items -- I bought some of these! I am sure they exist but just saying, we never found them.

What we did find were shopping malls. Endless and huge shopping malls. We didn't even go to the famous Chatuchak outdoor market. Didn't have to as there are so many others. All huge. All with massive hawker stands dotted inside and out.

On our food tour, the guide took photos so we didn't have to however  in every photo that included me, I had my head down in some dish or other! He could have said "say cheese" or something.

We also found traffic. Lots and lots and lots of traffic. Nobody uses taxis as they are considered untrustworthy. Rarely would they use a meter and would then charge a fortune for a ride. Particularly tourists. So people use Grab and Uber and of course the tuk-tuk. They also use the motor bike taxi which is not for the faint hearted as no helmet is provided and like I said there is lots and lots and lots of traffic. Also did I say that nobody pays attention to little things like road signs, give way notices, traffic lights... and as for the dividing line in the middle of the road. Chicken!

Chinatown just before Chinese New Year was thronging with people and traffic. I asked the guide if it was due to CNY that it was so busy and she said "no, its just Tuesday". As in on any day the crowds are like this...

One night we were planning to go our for a dinner to a place in the centre of the city -- we stayed in the old part, near the river -- and our hotel first asked why we wanted to go there as there were loads of great places nearby, then said it would take us an hour and a half to get there by taxi because of the traffic, and then offered to make us a local reservation. Our Uber took 20 minutes! I know it depends on your luck as on other occasions it did take a while but never that much.

And then there's the bugs! I suppose it is a 5 million person city so you should expect there to be 5 billion bugs. But did they have to all decide to eat me that one night?

I counted over 100 bug bites on both my legs from that one night sitting out by the river at night!

Brilliant city though. Loved it and am looking to return!