DANGER: WHEN YOU THINK YOU ALREADY KNOW AND ARE NOT WILLING TO LEARN.
THE WORLD IS CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING.
WHAT YOU LEARNT PERHAPS A YEAR AGO, MAY NO LONGER APPLY TODAY.
SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS.
BE ON A CONTINUOUS SELF-UPGRADE MODE.
~ ALAN IAN ATKINSON
Writer, Author, Storyteller
🎵Everywhere you go…🎶
We are sooooooo busy with Christmas shopping. In my younger days, we’d shop for new clothes and shoes for Christmas. And receive lots of presents at home.
Nowadays, the shopping spree period is a lot longer… to facilitate more buying. 😁… Yes, we’ve just bought quite a few more new Christmas decoration items. And I bought a Christmas present for myself, labelled as a Christmas gift from Jeannie😉😁- a Marshall Willen II bluetooth speaker. This is quite a speaker. I spent a few days testing out many brands of speaker from Bose, Klipsch, JBL, and other brands before choosing the Willen II. This, in my opinion; is amongst the the best for its size, build quality and price; pumping out a wide sound range spectrum. It is an IP67 rated, water and dust resistant, go anywhere with it, speaker. It looks just like a typical classic Marshall guitar speaker, except for its size.
In our younger, younger days, we, that is my brothers and I; had our clothes for Christmas, tailored. My father made arrangements for the tailor come to our house.
Mr. Magoo, the famous fictional cartoon character, was modelled after our tailor. Our tailor, who was probably a 100 years old at that time, used glasses (spectacles) that were more powerful than those used in observatories looking out for stars millions of light years away. He was a small made made. For every step he made forward, the wind blew him two steps backwards.
So, having Mr. Magoo, the tailor, come over, take measurements and show offer material for our shirts and pants, was not our choice. First of all, we could choose any style we wanted…it always had a way of coming out the style my father chose. It was the military way. You could tell that Nigel, Terence, Malcolm and I were brothers – we were the same clothes. My sister, Jennifer; escaped the “military”. She was free to follow fashion trends.
Then, going out to family and friend’s houses with our parents on Christmas day. I don’t remember much about the delicious food and cakes they served or the presents we received. It was spending time with our cousins until wee hours in the morning that was epic.
From December 26th til after new year’s, was one continuous celebration in our house at 21, Jalan Ladang Klang; each year. This was back in the 1970s and 1980s. Many of you family and friends reading this essay, will remember these awesome times.
As I craft this essay into something for today, I take milli-moments off my keyboard thumping, to gather my thoughts for the next few sentences. I look away from the screen to see the lighted nativity scene with all the glitter dust swirling inside. beautiful. The white one next to it, is made of stone I think. it’s blue light over it has gone out. I will have to get the batteries changed.
As I look around, colourful lights on our two Christmas trees and other decorative items, blink and shine, merrily, doing their part in making this the best Christmas…ever (picture me making that face the younger-sters make, when they emphasise the word “ever”).
My first attempt at putting a serious video together. I invested in lighting, various stands and a BOYA wireless mike set.
This is far from perfect. I expected a lot more. But I will settle with this for starters. Expect improvements in upcoming videos. This is the Hatted Writer, signing off.
#The_Hatted_Writer
#TheHattedWriter
#leatherpotato.com
BE BOLD TO THINK RIGHT. BE BRAVE TO SPEAK RIGHT AND ACT RIGHT. BE YOU TO GET IT RIGHT.
YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, IS TO LIVE WITH PURPOSE.
~ ALAN IAN ATKINSON
Writer, Author, Storyteller
I think I am a bit blurry-eyed, or is it blood-shot (oops! Spelt it wrongly just now. I’m now going to tell, say or re-spell the way I spelt it wrongly. It’s too mischievous!).
We are in between visitor visits. One of the earliest visitors was Keisha. She was attracted to our display of Ferrari cars. As we started talking, I found out that she helps her mum run a booth, selling rare collectors baseball, football and other types of collector cards. They basically are selling off her late father’s collection of cards.
Keisha is a Formula One (F1) fan, and a Ferrari fan at that. Ferrari has been progressively gaining momentum back to its position as a top F1 team, and currently is amongst the top 3 teams. Keisha, predictably chose the F1 Ferrari car that was on display for sale.
The Batik Capes under the “JEANNIE’S OWN” label was doing well. The Batik Influencer did multiple demos throughout the day, which led to several acquisitions by the audiences.
I think it must have been the lack of sleep that kept me actively thinking of what to do next to stay awake. Then, I got this brilliant idea, why don’t I write a new article. And since I quite often break off from writing to recalibrate my thoughts, people stopping by our booth will also help me break off to recalibrate my thoughts. However, here it may be too frequent a break off.
I decided to give it a go, and here I am, working on this article with my Samsung Galaxy Fold 5. Though the “start / stop” of writing or finger tapping on the Fold 5 screen was quite frequent, yet bearable; stopping in the middle of a sentence while creating it was not because I kept losing my train of thought. However, as my late grandmother used to say (when she was alive), “Slow, slow, catch monkey.” Let me know in the comments if you guys know the meaning of this phrase.
As, I sit, momentarily to catch a moment’s rest, I watch people as they walk past. The hat culture seems to be catching on. Here, when I talk about people wearing hats, I am not talking about the usual baseball cap wearers. More and more are wearing fashionable hats, be it flat caps, Panama, Jason Miraz, bucket, etc. There was one who donned a “Sherlock Holmes”, look – interesting. His sidekick, Watson (“elementary, my dear Watson” ), was not with him today .
I can hear someone in the background, a couple of floors down; strumming a couple of musical notes on his electric guitar. He has been at it for some time. However, no song or even part of it can be made out. It’s o.k. He’s chilling out with a couple of people.
I spoke… wrote (?) too soon. He’s now singing , ” To Love Somebody” by the Bee Gees, and strumming to the tune of it.
My best and most beautiful Tibetan friend, Rigzin, who is more popularly known by her last name, “Dolma”, and runs a booth next to ours; has been kept busy with many customers visiting her booth. She sells mainly ladies’ costume jewelry and some East Asian items. One of them is a brass sort of bowl. You strike the brass bowl with a small wooden mallet and it will echo, vibrating a melodious sound. At the same time, you rub the wooden mallet round the outer age of the brass bowl and it creates a sweet melodious sound. Very unique. You should drop by and visit her booth. By the way, Rigzin is the only Tibetan friend I have so far. 😁
What do you call a specific time that is shorter than a moment, as my moment’s rest has come to an end. The moment felt shorter than a moment.
There was a guy who dropped by last week and asked me to reserve the Samsung Buds Pro2 for him. This Buds Pro2 set is brand new, with the box still unopened. The guy said he would be coming by today. I am going to give it to him at an amazingly low price with an 80% discount. I think he is a low income wage earner who would like something very nice like this lilac colour Buds to have some enjoyment.
Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Good morning. Great start to the weekend. This early Saturday morning’s weather is a bit gloomy, however, it is still fine. The last few mornings and almost all of each day, we had rain, with many parts of the day experiencing heavy downpour.
The Batik Influencer, that is, my wife, Jeannie: and I, will be at Amcorp Shopping Mall, at our own booth, F1.08; on the first floor, today and tomorrow. We are going to be there shortly, at 10.00am. We are excited to be there (We are always excited to man a booth at Amcorp Mall because we can meet multiple (o.k. “so many”) people – relatives, friends and make new friends.
We were at Booth F1.08 last weekend, too. We met many interesting people. One of them was so taken up with the Batik Influencer’s Batik Cape Creations under the “JEANNIE’S OWN” label, that he is proposing a collaboration of sorts with her for 2025, as Malaysia takes the “Chair” for Asean. Endless opportunities of excitement there. We just have to harness all the abundance of positive vibes that will be flowing through this honourable role that Malaysia will be in, for the whole of 2025.
I, the Hatted Writer; met with an Italian Scientist, who stopped at our booth. He is researching and working on how to split platelets to increase its numbers. It could be in the area of helping those with low platelet count or splitting the platelets after donors donate it, to multiply its numbers. I told him that I was a regular platelet and blood donor, having donated 304 times in total. His immediate remark was, “You have saved many, many lives”. He and his wife are on holiday in Malaysia.
Several people have called or messaged us, asking if we will be having a booth at Amcorp Shopping Mall this weekend, as they want to drop by and visit. So, we are expecting to be kept on our toes. Exciting! Some people who came by last weekend, booked some of the items we had on display and said that they will come this weekend to get them.
The Batik Influencer has several new pieces, limited number, of course; for this weekend. She is definitely an inspiration to the batik world. She was introduced and inspired by her late maternal grandmother, who word batik daily. So, come early to get your batik cape by the Batik Influencer.
This time round, among the many new items that we will be putting up for sale; there will be many Ferrari cars – a rare collection of over 15 years ago. You Ferrari fans and collectors who have been constantly asking me if I had Ferrari cars, your wishes and dreams have come true. You better come early to get yours. There are also, sets in special display containers. These will be offered as sets only.
A transparent “briefcase” style cabinet of a series of Cars used in James Bond movies, is also up for grabs.
These sets are in ultra beautiful display units. Very rare. Definitely show pieces for topics of conversation.
Another item of interest is a set of high end headphones, its condition is like new.
O.K. I will have to go now. The Batik Influencer, Jeannie; and I, are looking forward to meeting with all of you. See you there.
Amcorp Shopping Mall,
Booth 1.08, 1st Floor, ,
8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: November 30th to December 1st, 2024
Time: 10.00am to 5.30pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)
I am overly tired, I think.. What a day today was. It is not over…yet. The time is only 11.30pm. I am yawning all the time, so much so that when I yawn , it does not seem to be in sequence. Before I can finish one yawn, another one comes.
I was working on 5 new articles for my upcoming book over the past few days and I was falling behind. This was on top of my usual daily tasks to do…one of them is an article everyday. So far, I have had an article published each day, every day; over the last 488 days. Whose keeping count? Not me. WordPress is.
WordPress keeps tally and has been sending me notifications each time I publish an article consecutively, each day.
The Batik Influencer (My wife, Jeannie) and I, the Hatted Writer; set up a booth at first floor (F1.08) in Amcorp Mall this weekend. I could not get an article out in time to inform our friends, families, customers, readers and followers that we would be in Amcorp Shopping Mall. The details of our booth are below.
It was a good day at our booth. We met many people who came over for different interests. I met with a lot of people who were giving me advice for the book. I will definitely try to take everyone’s suggestions into consideration. Many fantastic ideas. A close friend suggested that I write an article about him. I’m not sure if he meant it.
I took a short break from manning our booth, to go visit a good friend, Mahmud and his wife; and see their new hats on sale. Mahmud is the guy I buy all my hats from.
I came across a green and red flat cap. It really looked stunning. The colours of the cap “called out to me”, “Take me, take me”😁. I was trying not to hear the “take me” pleas. Hahaha.😂
My short break time ran out rather quickly. I told Mahmud that I will come back and see him tomorrow. I like this flat cap.
Funny thing happened a couple of times while I was trying on this red and green racer flat cap. I was wearing my tweed newsboy cap when I went to see Mahmud. I removed my newsboy cap and put it on top of the other caps on display as there was no where else to put it while I tried on the new hats. Twice, people came up and straight away went for my tweed newsboy cap. I told them that that it was my cap. Both the guys said that my newsboy cap was very nice.
A bit of new information. The newsboy cap is also known as a baker’s cap. I will inform Sarah and Joanne of Good Ground Bakery the next time I go there, wearing this cap.
JEANNIE’S OWN label Batik Cape Creations had the “wow!” factor that drew many people to our booth. Most of the pieces were sold, with only a couple remaining, which will be sold by tomorrow.
It was a fun day today. Looking forward to meeting more people tomorrow. You may want to suggest what subjects I should write about for the 3 articles I have outstanding to include in the upcoming book. It will be fun to meet with you all. See you there.
Amcorp Shopping Mall,
Booth 1.08, 1st Floor, ,
8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: October 26th & 27th 2024:
Time: , 10.00am to 5.30pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)
Yay! It is the weekend again. We sure can be happy about it. The last two evenings, coming through P.J. on the Federal Highway and surrounding areas was what can I say? “Peachy”. It put P.J.’s road system to the limit. You are going to say, “What system?” I am sure that all of you who were on the Federal Highway or surrounding areas are going to agree with me and say, “Yes, it was just…’peachy’”.
To be fair, it was the exceptional heavy rain downpour that probably was the culprit. Come to think of it, in all the areas that we drove through on both evenings, we had missed both storms. The rain at its heaviest, was just a heavy drizzle. Today, the weather is fine. And, I don’t need to pick my wife, Jeannie; and our daughter, Laura; up from work. They both, have own their plans for the evening.
Which leaves me home alone. It works out well for me as I have lots to do in the current phase of getting my book manuscript ready for publication. My target deadline is to complete this phase by middle of next week.
Both Jeannie, who is the Batik Influencer; and I; are looking forward to this weekend, which has officially begun. We are looking forward to it because we will be having a booth at Amcorp Mall Shopping Centre in P.J.. We always look forward to having a booth there as it gives us multiple opportunities to meet and make new friends.
As the Batik Influencer, Jeannie talks of batik with passion. Batik designs are endless. They are either factory or block printed, or hand painted motifs. Hand painted motifs are really for the exceptional exclusive few.
Batik showcases colour in all its richness and vibrancy. I love colour. At one time, handheld Personal Digital Assistant devices boasted 16k (16,000) colour screen displays. Recently, the brand, Oppo, a smartphone maker from China, introduced its Reno8T model, which is capable of displaying 1 billion colours. Wow! Technology takes the spectrum of colours to a whole new level. Can you imagine, batik, in its finest; displaying 1 billion colours in its prints?
The Batik Influencer will be showcasing her Batik Cape Creations under the “JEANNIE’S OWN” label. There are a very limited number of pieces of these “JEANNIE’S OWN” Batik Cape Creations available. So, come early to get yours. One of our good friends, Jino Lim; has somehow always missed us. So, we have to send a personal invite to him and his wife, Angie; to head on down to our booth this weekend.
I will get the opportunity to meet followers, readers and visitors of www.leatherpotato.com in person. I am honoured to meet these wonderful people. They share their views on the articles and have many, many suggestions for various stories, and cafes and restaurants all over town that I should write about. The biggest takeaway I guess, is that they are excited for me, that my book is going to hit the bookshelves at bookstores real soon. They are pre-booking orders so that they can be the first to get the first series print. They seem to be making it a “limited edition”😁. One of the most important points that resonates with them is that this will be a physical book.
A physical book offers the opportunity of the reader getting immersed in the stories, which come alive as they are being read. There are no distractions like notifications and other such things that you would get if you were reading from a screen. No glare, pleasing to the eyes. Anytime, you want to re-read the story or article, you just refer to the book. As the Hatted Writer, I am always reminded of the multiple reasons that reading a physical book is always better.😊
While we take weekends running a booth at Amcorp Shopping Mall such as this as an opportunity to meet new people, we are just as happy to meet with all our exisiting friends again. We have met multiple people whom we had not seen in years, come by. I wonder who will be the mysterious friend or friends this weekend.
We are at Booth F1.08, First floor. Looking forward to seeing you all there.
Amcorp Shopping Mall,
Booth 1.08, 1st Floor, ,
8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: October 5th & 6th:
Time: , 10.00am to 5.30pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)
Another day has gone by. For multiple (not “many”. The word “many” may seem like a word for the commoners. haha😀😂[1 emoji for each “ha”]) people, the countdown to Christmas has begun. They are just short of putting on their Santa Claus or Santarina outfits. Our house has half the Christmas decorations up already. (It is beginning🎶 to look a lot like Christmas♪♪🎵) I’ll let you in on a little secret: whisper (come closer so you can hear…er… see) – We’ve not taken them down last year…or the year before that. They’ve been up all this while.
We (my wife, Jeannie; and daughter, Laura) were stuck in the usual traffic jam on the Federal Highway, on our way back to Subang Jaya, after I picked them up from their offices. Today seemed unusually slower than other days. This time in the car, with the family; is generally quality time.
The first thing on our “day-on-day” meeting agenda was “how was your day?” Laura and Jeannie will share the going-ons and stuff like that. There is always lots to share about. I find this interesting because we become involved, to a certain extent in their daily activities, even though we were not physically there at that time. We do this every evening, after work. It is a bit different in the mornings, on the way to work. Both, Jeannie and Laura will start their work, sort of; thanks to technology – using their laptop computers and mobile hotspot technology.
Laura was dropped off at the gym. Jeannie and I continued on our way home. The usual, “Dinner – what shall we will eat?” statement / question came up. We both thought, “chap fan” (pronounced “cha-p fun”) at T23. Chap fun or jaahp faahn is mixed rice (dishes). It is quite common to hear it referred as “economy rice” as the prices are reasonable.
The other day, I heard my mother-in-law refer to this restaurant as “723”. I thought that all this while we must have been reading the sign wrongly as “T” instead of “7”, more so because the first character is stylised. It made sense as many Chinese restaurants are named in numbers. This is evident in Klang for example, along the Persiaran Raja Muda street. However, when searched on the internet for the actual name, it is stated at “T23”.
When we got to T23, we got into the queue (not “lined up” – that’s for schoolchildren😀) and waited our turn to get a plate with rice served, first. As I don’t eat rice, I got an empty plate. Jeannie got a plate with rice. Then, we walked along the aisle, served ourselves (self-serve) from a choice of about 100 different dishes. Once we picked our choice of dishes, we paid at the cashier at the end of the aisle. He calculates the price of your meal and charges you accordingly.
Then, we went to the adjoining room, the dining room; where we chose a table to sit at, and comfortably had our meal there. There are fans and air-conditioning to keep the temperature cool and comfortable as you enjoy your meal. At times, it can be quite cold which makes it uncomfortable to sit in that dining hall.
There are also people who will “tapau” (to pack back or takeaway) their meal, too.
At the back of this dining hall, there is usually a pot of hot soup, for customers to self-serve free. There is also hot Chinese tea and hot & cold water that customers can help themselves to.
The meals as always, were delicious. I am quite sure that all the dishes they offer are delicious. Eating here does take away the chore of having to cook at home, especially if you want a variety of dishes. Another thing is that you don’t have to wash the dishes. This is a very ideal set-up for those coming back from a tiring day at work, possibly having to go through traffic jams and wanting to have dinner without having to be involved in cooking and washing dishes.
T23 is opened throughout the day until 10.00pm, everyday. They have many outlets in the major cities and towns. We can come here everyday and eat different dishes as there are so many to choose from.
For dessert, we popped in to Berry’s cake house next door, and bought a loaf of chocolate layered sponge cake, sprinkled with lots of chocolate rice on top. Yum.😋 Couldn’t wait to have a go at it. It was a long 5 minute drive home. Then, not 1; but 2 slices of the cake. 😋Tomorrow, exercise to work off the calories.
It was T23
NOTES:
1. Also spelt as jaahp faahn (Chinese: ‘mixed rice’) in Cantonese
50,000 HITS!
From over 100 countries. Thank you to each and everyone of you for your support through all the various forms of social media and communication. I enjoyed meeting multiple readers / subscribers / followers in person whenever the opportunity was made available.
As one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers, Michael Schumacher once said, “Records are meant to be broken”. I am looking forward to the next 50,000.
I am grateful.
ALAN IAN ATKINSON
Writer, Author, Storyteller