My favourite bars

1. The Mai Tai Bar at the Royal Hawaian Hotel, Waikiki, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
2. The Beach Bar at the Shangri-La Rasa Sayang, Penang, West Malaysia
3. The swim up bar at a resort in Labuan, East Malaysia
4. No 5, Emerald Hill, Peranakan Place, Singapore
5. The Lounge Bar at the Conrad Hotel, Hong Kong Island
6. The Union Jack Tavern, Alabang, Manila, Philippines
7. The Loft Bar at Pearl Farm resort, Samal Island, Philippines
8. The Newport Inn, Braishfield, near Romsey, Hampshire, England

I am constantly on the look out for new bars.

No, I'm British

No, I'm British, are the words that I have had to say so many times since my first visit to Manila in 1992. Since I started living in the Philippines in 1996 I have needed to say those words even more frequently.
Many Filipinos believe that all Caucasians are Americans or Amerikanos as they know them.

A little history will explain this quirk. In 1898 the Philippine rebel army, the katipuneros forced a declaration of independence by their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, from the balcony of a house in Kawit, in the province of Cavite. In the same year Spain lost Cuba and Puerto Rico to the USA because of the Spanish-American War. Accordingly the Spanish government sold the Philippines to the US government for $20 million. After a mock battle in Manila Bay a squadron of the US Navy, commanded by Admiral Dewey, defeated a small Spanish fleet and America's rule of the Philippines began.

This rule lasted until 1946, with a few years of interruption by the invading Japanese. More history- Japanese aircraft bombed two airbases in the Philippines(Clarke and Nichols) on the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbour(December 7, 1941). When the Japanese Imperial Army landed in the Philippines Gen. Douglas Mcarthur decided to pull the American and Filipino troops out to the Bataan Peninsula. McArthur and Philippines President Osmeña, together with American and Filipino troops, evacuated to Corregidor and suffered from massive aerial and naval bombardments from the Japanese. President Roosevelt subsequently ordered McArthur to leave Corregidor for Australia to become Supreme Allied Commander, Pacific. On his arrival in Australia he said his famous words, "I shall return". Corregidor and Bataan finally fell to the Japanese and the troops on Bataan were forced to undertake the Death March to a Prisoner of War Camp in San Fernando. On the way, many died of exhaustion and beating and bayonetting by the Japanese soldiers.
On October 20, 1944 Gen McArthur finally kept his promise to return. US troops landed in great force at Leyte. There are bronze statues of McArthur and his group wading ashore at the landing point. He then broadcast a message "People of the Philippines, I have returned"

After the American military presence on Luzon became adequate, in February 1945 McArthur launched an attack on Manila to liberate the city from the Japanese. The Battle for Manila caused massive destruction of a once beautiful city, with street to street and house to house fighting. Civilian casualties were high, partly caused by the cruelty of the defending Japanese soldiers who even resorted to throwing babies in the air and spearing them with their bayonets as they fell. The estimated death toll in the battle was 100,000.
Thus the official language of the Philippines became English. In fact it is American English. The American influence on the Philippines is enormous. You can see it in the architecture, some of the street names, the Constitution, the Presidential style of government, the legal system , education, language and entertainment.
There are fast food places everywhere, many local but many American. MacDonald's, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises are all over the country. Most English language television programmes are American especially the films( alright movies then!). Then there is Disney whose programmes shock me. Disney has taken some of the best works of European literature and turned them into animated movies, I mean films; Kipling, Hugo, Dickens A.A Milne and many others. Winnie the Pooh and his friends have American accents, as do Noddy and Big Ears, Alice in Wonderland and more. Soon I shall be reading Winnie the Pooh in it's original version to my daughter and not from the poorly written books of the same name published in the US.

However the American presence in the Philippines modernised the country after the departure of the Spanish and introduced democracy.
The American and Filipino experience during the war was of death, pain, hunger and starvation, suffering, imprisonment and great courage knowing that their cause was just for which they are due great credit.

In a future post to this blogsite I will describe how I cope with American English and culture in the Philippines.
The Spanish influence on the Philippines is still very strong and I will blog that subject on another day.

Keep your cards and PINS safe

About a month ago I checked my Visa card statement on the UK issuing bank's website.
I was quite shocked to find some charges made to my account in countries that I have not visited for several years. Some had been done in Singapore where I have not been for 4 years and the rest in Abu Dhabi which I last visited in 1986 They totalled over $5000.

I called the bank immediately and advised them that these charges were made fraudulently. They cancelled the card and launched an investigation.

Before this incident occurred a Visa card had been mailed to me since my previous card had expired. After 3 weeks I advised the bank that it had not arrived. They then sent me a replacement, by courier, which , after a few days, arrived safely.

It seems that somebody had stolen the card that was mailed and then passed over the details to some people in Singapore and Abu Dhabi who made purchases, giving the credit card number over the telephone. Fortunately, this cannot be done in the Philippines.

Yesterday, however my worries increased.

I called the bank in the UK to arrange a transfer to my account in the Philippines. I was told that my account was subject to security review and therefore, I needed to answer a lot of questions to satisfy them that I was the account holder, which I did. I asked to be told the
reason for this review.

Twice in April a caller had tried to gain access to my account, through the telephone banking service, by quoting the number of that missing card. The calls failed because the person could not give the password I had supplied to the bank.

Becoming suspicious I asked if the bank could arrange for me, and my wife, to listen to the tapes of the call, to see if we could recognise the voice. We were concerned that one of our domestic helpers might have found enough information in the house to make an attempt to draw money from my account. I learnt a long time ago that some of these employees cannot be trusted. About 8 years ago I saw one of them taking money from my wallet. Needless to say she was fired on the spot, and banned from the Village by the security officer.

We listened to the tapes over the phone. It was a Filipino and we did not recognise the voice. He said he was calling from the Philippines but the bank could not trace the number

I was really shocked, however, when I heard him quoting the PIN of my ATM card, not the Visa card.

I still cannot work out how he managed to know that.

Fortunately the bank in the UK has excellent security procedures. Since he did not know the password he achieved nothing. Check that your bank in any country has the same tight controls.

We need to learn some lessons from this:-
never leave your wallet or your cards somewhere when you are not with them, e.g take them with you when you go to bed, out of the house or even into another room
check your accounts regularly. The bank's website is the quickest way. If you wait for paper statements you could be too late to stop fraud.
call the bank immediately if a card is missing or a new one does not arrive quickly
keep all PINs secret. Try to memorise them. As a back up you could put them on a computer file and then password protect it
lock all cheque books away when you do not need them. They carry your account numbers.
try to get all statements from the bank by e-mail or the website. If you must have paper from the bank, either lock it away or detroy it after you have studied it. Shredding is best or read and eat! Do not toss these papers in the waste bin.
Act as if all your banking information is TOP SECRET

This blog is intended to share my information so that you become more aware of the risks.
Fortunately I have not suffered any financial loss, because I acted quickly

A Magical Moment

I experienced one of those beautiful moments with my 6 year old daughter yesterday.

Hannah had been sick for a few days with a bad cold and needed lots of love and comforting, both always readily available from her Mother and Father.

She came into my study and asked if I had any books that she would like to hear me reading to her. I instantly thought of Alice in Wonderland but as I could not find it straight away I suggested Winnie the Pooh. She immediately agreed I took it from the bookshelf. I mean the original version by A.A Milne with no interference, not even in the drawings, from the Disney Corporation, which, I maintain, is the enemy of good literature and speech.

I had bought two Pooh books in Hong Kong four years ago in anticipation of this moment. I used to read them to my first daughter when she was seven or eight to help her get off to sleep. We both enjoyed that and often dissolved into giggles at Milne’s clever humour, such as “Tiggers don’t eat thistles”.

I used to have accents for each of the characters. A low rustic speech for Pooh, high pitched for Piglet, Australian for Kanga, aristocratic for Tigger, and slow and ponderous for Eeyore, a bird song for Owl. Remember Owl had “Wol” written on his house.

Hannah sat on my lap, her head on my shoulder, her arm around my waist and I started reading using the same voices for the characters. I was already feeling the magic when half way through the second page Hannah took over the reading in her still slightly hesitant way. For me the magic became more intense.

We continued like this until the end of the chapter with occasional laughter, although sometimes Milne’s humour only got to me and I laughed alone.

Then her mother called her to come and eat and she stood up and said “Can we read together again soon, Daddy?” “Of course we can darling” I answered.

I really believe that my lovely daughter and times like that are given to me by God.

I will treasure that magical moment always always.

Are Computers Female?

Computers, like ships, boats and yachts, must be female. They all need a lot of loving and occasionally need to be shouted at, they often have problems depending on the time of the month, and all of them need a lot of money spent on them regularly.

Do you remember the time when only pretty secretaries with nice legs and short skirts had computers on their desks? The bosses looked at them longingly, the computers not the secretaries, but sometimes both.
The computers were called word processors because that was all they could do. The secretaries could do more, but I will not go down that path. At least the secretaries made coffee, if you were nice to them.

If the company had a mainframe computer, it could spew out large quantities of information on huge pieces of folded, perforated paper. Confidence in computers was so low then that these documents were never thrown away and offices had tall piles of especially made folders containing them.

In those days, I had no computer skills. Did not need them. I just pressed a button on my desktop telephone and pretty secretary came running in with notebook and pencil ready to take dictation. I enjoyed that because pretty secretary always crossed her nice legs in her short skirt in front of me before I started dictating.
Change always comes. I talked my way into a good job at a senior level with a high tech telecommunications equipment company. No secretary, pretty or not.
On my first day a new laptop computer, heavy in those days, was delivered to my office. Luckily, I was scheduled very quickly for two days computer training.
I learnt all the basics, like how to start it up and adjust the settings, how to troubleshoot, how to defragment the disk drives. I learnt how to use Windows, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It had a fax and LAN card.

My new job involved a lot of travel to Asia. My boss said “Take your laptop with you always, we expect regular reports faxed to us after your meetings”

I had become a road warrior!

Sounds exciting doesn’t it? It was a lot of the time; visiting places I had never been to before. Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and China all gave me new experiences, cultural, business, visual and food. I became a more experienced and educated person as a result and I am lucky to have been through that.

Ineluctably, the term Road Warrior brings other experiences too. Boarding aircraft with an extra bag containing laptop, portable printer then a portable scanner and that little bag containing vital accessories like adaptors, power and telephone cables, tiny screwdrivers. Being questioned in security channels, having to power up the computer to prove it was not stuffed with Semtex, and then interrogated by customs officers about where I bought the hardware, was all part of that exciting lifestyle.

I was often travelling to various countries for 2-3 weeks and usually spent at least one day of the weekend working on the computer.

Even 5 Star hotels did not have wireless internet connections then, so I spent a lot of time in hotel rooms crawling around the floor trying to find a telephone socket I could unscrew and the connect my cable to a line. Every country seems to have different connectors but thanks to my little bag, I was never defeated and could send the required reports to the office.

I dreaded being asked for a presentation at short notice. That meant hours with Microsoft PowerPoint then printing and hoping the client had a good projector.

She often let me down too, my unfaithful travelling companion the laptop computer. Shouting at her never solved the problem, but coaxing with the promise of a software upgrade or a disc defrag. as often as not resulted in an afternoon of bliss.

I miss dictating to those pretty secretaries though.

Cigars are a better choice

There are two very good reasons why smoking cigars is a better choice than smoking cigarettes.

The reasons are, health and relaxation.

The important benefit to your health is that a proper cigar, as described above, is not inhaled into the lungs. It is far too strong for that and will make the smoker feel quite ill. The smoke of the cigar is enjoyed only in the mouth and in the nose from the aroma. Of course cigar smoking is not totally safe. If one smokes too many there is the risk of cancers of the mouth and possibly of the nasal tracts. Remember the passive smoking risk to others, especially indoors. Remember that smoking cigarettes also increases the risk of a heart attack as well as cancers.

Cigarettes are mainly smoked because of the addictive nicotine boost coming from the smoke inhaled into the lungs. The flavour does not seem important to the regular cigarette smoker, only the strength of the nicotine. A good cigar, well made with quality fillers and wrappers will provide a bounty of flavour even in the mouth. A light nicotine boost will be felt also. Good cigars can be expensive, more than a pack of cigarettes, so many smoke no more than one or two a day, or less.

Smoke a good quality cigar of a reasonable size. Good quality can, of course mean Cuban, but if you live in the USA, then remember that the late President John Kennedy made buying them illegal with the embargo at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. A White House staffer of that era recalled that, before signing the embargo, JFK ordered one of his aides to buy up as many Cuban cigars as he could in Washington DC. JFK was clearly a Cuban cigar aficionado.

Many Cuban cigar makers emigrated to other parts of the Caribbean and continued their business. The Dominican Republic was one destination which now produces excellent cigars. Cuba was part of the Spanish empire until 1898 and from there, plants and seeds and know how were exported to Mexico and the Philippines which both now have very good cigar makers still.

A reasonable size means that you should forget the cheroots and thin small cigars which are too similar to cigarettes. A Corona, Torpedo or a Robusto would be fine.

The best time is when the experience can be enjoyed at leisure, as part of a relaxation period. The best place is often in the fresh air, the garden or poolside, though many prefer the golf course.

Make the change, gradually if preferred, to two cigars a day rather than two packs of cigarettes a day, and your health will be safer and you may become less stressed.

Great pleasure can be enjoyed from selecting, cutting and lighting a good cigar.

Rudyard Kipling once said "A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke".

A Town by a Volcano

On a bad day the mist rolls up the hills from the lake below and engulfs the area of Tagaytay. Driving up the side of the ancient volcano’s crater using the road from Nasugbu, Batangas, on the Philippine’s coast on the South China Sea, to Tagaytay, on the rim of Lake Taal, the air temperature may drop startlingly from 31°C to 20°C and there can be a hammering of monsoon rain for half an hour. The mist rolls thickly across the road and some of the Filipino drivers, unnerved by this, apparently hitherto unknown, phenomenon, pull over to the verges and stop. Only expatriate drivers continue, having experienced thicker fog in Europe. They switch on the headlights and the fog lights, which they may have scorned when they bought the car.

On a fine day, when driving up to Tagatay from Manila, the tropical blue skies and sun reveal yet again the dazzling beauty of Lake Taal with its volcanic island protruding from the blue water.

Taal is an ancient volcano forming part of a chain of volcanoes along the western side of the island of Luzon. It is located about 50kms from the capital, Manila. The Philippines is a part of the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, which comes from Japan southwards and arcs east to the Philippines, Indonesia and New Zealand.

Lake Taal itself is, in fact, in the crater of a larger volcano, with a second volcano, whose short cone protrudes through the lake, forming an island.

This volcano is, by no means extinct. Wikipedia reports that “a notice on 28 August 2008, notified "the public and concerned authorities" that the "Taal seismic network recorded ten (10) volcanic earthquakes from 5:30 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. today. Two (2) of these quakes that occurred at 12:33 and 12:46 P.M. were both felt at intensity II by residents at barangay Pira-piraso. These quakes were accompanied by rumbling sounds. The events were located northeast of the volcano island near Daang Kastila area with depths of approximately 0.6km (12:33pm)”

Nonetheless, Lake Taal, on a clear day is a very beautiful sight and many trippers come up from Manila to enjoy it. Along the road around the lake, in the town of Tagaytay, there are many good restaurants and hotels where good food in pleasant surroundings can be taken with a view of the lake in the background.

Tagaytay is a very pleasant place for Manileňos to escape to, for a day or a weekend during hot, humid, polluted summer days in the city of Manila. Tagaytay, at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level has an average summer temperature of 22C, with a humidity level of 75%.

The rich volcanic soil, on the sides of the hill up to the lake, make the area a prolific spot for fruit and vegetable growers. Pineapples and sweet corn on the cob seem to be crops in demand. In addition flowers which do not thrive in the lower lands do well in the semi tropical climate and one can see many varieties common to Western Europe, such as Lupins, Dahlias and Foxgloves. The first mile of the hill near Tagaytay is lined with stalls selling fruit, vegetables and flowers, although prices tend to be a little higher than in the usual markets because of the increased demand from passengers on tourist buses, which often stop by these stalls.

Tagaytay was also the drop zone for troops of a US Army Airborne Division in February 1945. The aim of the troops was to secure the ridge against the Japanese forces to ensure the free flow of men and supplies from their beach landing point in Nasugbu, Batangas proceeding to the liberation of Manila.