Penny Dreadful - Season Two (Spoilers!)

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here"

Over the last few weeks I've been binge-watching quite a few tv shows, catching up on things like Person of Interest, Peaky Blinders, Agents of Shield and Justified, along with introducing myself to other new shows with less success.

Two shows that I won't let slip and that I even watch every week rather than waiting until the season's end,  are Game of Thrones and Penny Dreadful and for me they really are, along with Peaky Blinders,  the best damn programmes on tv at the moment. The quality of the casting and the writing certainly show where the money has been spent and because of this the latest season of Game of Thrones has been, for me at any rate, on a par with all previous seasons that came before it. But the real revelation has been Penny Dreadful and unfortunately I can't write about this show without spoilers so, if you haven't seen season 2 yet, I'll give you chance to leave and I'll continue after the jump...

What would you do with a Wetwang?

So what would be your answer to the title question? Would you eat it, offer it as a service to someone, or live in it? 

The fact is that I love names. Indeed the whole aspect of naming someone or something sould require imagination or knowledge, or it may be something as simple as a feeling. Depending on your cultural background there may be a ritual involved where perhaps the first thing that you see following the birth of a child is used, or, for the sake of posterity, the taking of your father's name and adding a number at the end.

In his book "Notes From a Small Island", the author Bill Bryson takes great delight in highlighting some of the more unusual place names that may be found on a trip around the UK. I am ever curious to know how places wind up with the names that they do. Sometimes it's a simple process of moving from an olde English name where -brook, -ton, and -ford all have meanings to their suffix (eg. the ending -ton, as in Darlington, could mean homestead). The name of the village of Wetwang in this blog's title, and also my favourite place name ever, is supposedly derived from an old Norse word meaning "Field for the trial of a legal action".

Our own names and family names are equally fascinating. It would appear that my family surname of Stoker has a number of possible origins. Firstly it may be attributed to an inhabitant of the city of Stoke-on-Trent. Examples of this could be, say, Lyndsay Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac or David Coverdale of Whitesnake, but probably not Hannah Montana . Secondly, the job of a stoker was to put coal into a furnace so it could come from that, or there is even a link to arsonism too. I've been able to go back 4 generations on the Stoker family tree with no sign of residency in Staffordshire however my brother lives there nowcoincidentally and neither is there a link to stoking or arson.

Before Indonesia I lived for a short while in Thailand and the general feeling is that most short surnames are from indigenous Thai families whereas the longer surnames are more often linked with Chinese immigrants. The Thai nicknames are much more visual and often relate to something around you. If you wish to convey size, you might use a nickname for something that represents that size.

Western names are generally family linked in the surname but the first and middle names are not averse to representing the parents love of sport or gardening, or even the city of conception.  Here in Indonesia that doesn't necessarily have to be the case as families are not bound by the same constraints. Depending upon your ethnicity you may have one or more names and none might represent any familial link. This freedom allows parents much greater flexibility and only recently I came across Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Indonesia is blessed with such different tribal and religious ethnicities that it is reasonable to find many varieties of names and structures. My wife falls into the cateogary of only having one name, Yohana, but due to the need to synchronise forms and paperwork on her passport it says Yohana Yohana and she only refers to herself on social media with my family name.

When we do eventually get around to having a family I can only hope that propriety isn't our only focus and we choose something suitable...

Good days and bad? Put them into perspective.

As with any job it would be naive to think that all days will be good days. It took me a long time to work out that the job that I was doing previously was giving me less and less satisfaction and, if I'm honest, encouraged me to spend more time than I should have in continuing, and to put less and less effort into it. I had been inspired when I started on the road to becoming an area manager in the pub trade and benefitted from working with some incredible people, many of whom I am fortunate to still call friend.

In hindsight there were numerous other reasons for this trajectory as my personal life was in perhaps even more disarray than my professional one and trust me when I say that that's saying quite a bit!

Suffice it to say that it was a risk in leaving the UK and heading to Chiang Mai to take the CELTA. It could have amounted to an intense month spent learning the disciplines of the EFL teacher but with nothing at the end of it, or even worse the discovery that teaching was as equally demoralising as working in the pub/restaurant trade.

The CELTA was as tough as I'd been led to believe but I can unequivocally confirm that it, and the following 6 years that have brought me to where I am now, have been some of the best years of my entire life. Sure there have still been good days and bad days, there always will be, but even the bad days aren't all bad, are they?

Today has been one of those mixed days but the way it started was just the warmest justification for why I chose this new path. I arrived to find this photo on my desk and signed by the students on the back. Somehow puts everything else into perspective.

I was once told that if you have a bad day, write it down and it becomes the benchmark for all future bad days. If ever a day is worse than the one that you wrote down, that replaces your previous benchmark. I can heartily recommend this to anyone struggling for perspective and who wants to enjoy each day as much as they can...

The house....now 8 months on

There's a scene in the trailer for the upcoming Marvel superhero movie "Ant-Man" where the camera pans back from a dramatic train wreck, presumably involving our hero, to actually show the crash to be a child's 'Thomas the Tank Engine' set. It's very effective and evidently all a matter of perspective.

I had a similar feeling yesterday when Yohana and I went to check on the progress of the house. As those of you who've read the previous blog entries know, we bought the house from viewing plans and a model and it was interesting to get a better perspective.

When we bought the house we knew there was a small piece of land at the back of the house that we would eventually build on. The plans showed it as garden but it really isn't big enough to be that. The length of the house, hell the overall size isn't exactly what we needed, but the location and size of houses that we did want were outside our current budget so this was the compromise. Anyway, we knew that we'd eventually build onto the back but only really on seeing the show house did we truly realise the limited space we'd have to play with, especially in the kitchen area. So it was that Yohana and I started finding prices for the building of a small kitchen extension before the house itself is even finished.

First stop was the developers who are actually building the house and the rest of the cluster. It made sense as for one, they have architects and for two, they're in the middle of building the house! They were really helpful, especially considering that when we first bought the place they told us that small changes to the original design were impossible. Now they were happy to start knocking down walls and adding doors where previously a door couldn't be found. As it was a hypothetical situation we asked about a two story extension that would utilise the spare land at the back of the house. This would give us the extra space in the kitchen, a third upstairs bedroom, bringing the downstairs bedroom into the living room and adding a "maid room". Many families in Indonesia employ maids and whilst we don't have need for this facility ourselves, it would make the house more attractive if it comes to selling it in the future.

The developer came back within a few days to say that it would cost 30% of the original house purchase price. Considering it was giving nowhere near 30% extra size we thanked them for their offer and went away to rethink some stuff.

The culmination of the last few weeks of negotiation have been Yohana meeting with builders to discuss the work and negotiate the prices. The reason for Yohana doing all of this and not involving me in the meetings is trying to avoid 'Harga Bule' which loosely translated means 'westerner price' which sees everyone; contractors, retailers, street hawkers, inflate their prices when they see they're dealing with a westerner. The situation now is the contractor who is building the row of shops on the front of the cluster, as well as the cluster's communal swimming pool, is also building a one level extension to our kitchen and is working alongside the builders of the original developer from whom we bought the house in the first place. The added benefits are that the house will still meet the original December handover date, we won't have to start extending the kitchen after we've moved in, and the cost of the kitchen extension, including all tiling work, is 3% of the original house purchase price.

Pak Haji showing Yohana the kitchen extension while a guy makes what looks like a spear (seriously, it did)

To put the whole 'Harga Bule' thing into some sort of context, this was the first time I've been on-site in two months and while we were there we were offered many additional extras, some of which already come in the agreement! We did agree to a door which will lead to the space where a future maid room may be but which for now will be a small BBQ area and the upstairs above the kitchen extension will have to wait for a bit.

The difference between a house and a home is all about the people, the atmosphere and the decoration so we're now thinking a lot about that side of things (the decor, not the people) and anyone who follows me on Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) can see some ideas of things we like.

Here are some more photos taken yesterday....

Honesty

When I was in my early twenties there was a group of us who used to get together to play a board game. It was called "Scruples". In this game of moral dilemmas you were given a scenario and a yes, no or depends card. The dilemma in the scenario card needed to be matched with another of the game's players who would ideally answer yes, no or depends to the situation given. As for strategy, you could be honest in your reply, or alternatively you could play Devil's Advocate to stop someone else from winning. If you chose the latter option, you had to have a good reason for choosing the way you did and your rationale would be open to inspection/ridicule from the other players. A straight, or poker face was also a useful weapon, the first sign of a smile and people would know you were lying.

There are times in life when full fledged honesty is a choice that has to be made. The whole concept of white lies, or lies that don't hurt, came about from the desire to protect someone from a harsh truth. It has also been utilised to avoid saying what is truly on your mind. The downside is that sometimes by shielding someone from a truth makes that same truth doubly hard when it is eventually heard.

The rights and wrongs of absolute honesty is a conundrum for the ages. Biblical stories suggest that Peter denying knowing Jesus Christ was an act of self preservation in the face of betraying beliefs and principles. Such extremes show people to be shallow and untrustworthy. Yet in answer to a wife's question "Does my bum look big in this?", what should the husband say?

Sycophants, blithely agreeing with a boss to allow themselves the favour that may or may not come from that, are possibly self delusional but it's hard to deny them their choice when you look at the potential rewards that come from that sort of behaviour. Alas, if the superior is at fault, the wave of support can blind one to the reality and prudence of the situation. Nazi Germany, anyone?

So who amongst us hasn't wanted to tell a superior when they're doing something wrong? Sometimes blunt facts are the perfect broadside when leaving a job as you have no immediate reason to be wary of the words you chosse. But what if you're not leaving and still need to get your point across? A superior who doesn't want to hear the truth because they may not like it needs to look inwardly at themselves. I have seen 360 degree feedback used as an effective tool in this kind of situation. But it still comes down to the choice of words that one uses. A person who chooses to deliver information without considering the impact of what they're saying, shouldn't be surprised at the outcome, especially if in future they need something like a reference etc.

This is where diplomacy and tact join the party. These two guys allow us to pick and choose not only the words we use, but also the time and place in which we use them. Therefore it is possible to still tell the truth but also fall short of being considered impertinent. Alternatively, a good leader would encourage honesty, yet still to be delivered in a thought out manner.

As I said earlier, I guess it boils down to personal choice...

National Sport

Every country has a national sport. Well, most do anyway. Here's a quick quiz and see if you can get them right. I'll give you the country and you tell me the sport. Ready?

1. England

2. Wales

3. Scotland

4. Canada

5. Sri Lanka

6. Chile

7. India

You can find out how you did at the end of the post, and I'm guessing you're in for a surprise?

When I was at school all sports were considered 'fair game', as it were. The UK has been responsible for the creation of many sports and games; badminton, baseball, cricket, rugby, snooker, tennis, darts, football, table tennis, netball, golf, bowls, curling, and squash to name just a few and a cursory glance at some stats (I may have been gender or team specific) says that we're world number one in only 4 of that list.

The first secondary school I attended had a great attitude towards sport and games. If you were inclined and showed enough interest, the Physical Education Department would offer their help and resources to help you to do it. So it was that I got to play football, cricket, both codes of rugby, track and field athletics, basketball, volleyball and swimming. On top of this we were able to do lots of outward bound activities such as orienteering, hiking, sea surfing in kayaks, and mountain climbing, basically cause we had a great bunch of PE teachers. I will be eternally grateful to Chris Booth and John Hacking, the teachers, for their interest in us.

It was surprising that when I moved schools at 14, the new school only focused on cricket and football, even though in some ways it was in a better part of the country. I can only guess this was down to interest, or the lack of it, and the calibre of the PE dept.

Technically Indonesia doesn't have a national sport. Some may argue football or the martial art Pencak Silat, but in 1992 Indonesia won 5 medals at the Barcelona Olympics and since then it has been the de facto national sport. It could have been much, much different though as four years earlier Indonesia won it's first ever Olympic medal, a silver, in the archery competition.

Looking around, and especially teaching the youth of the country, one might be forgiven for thinking that electronic sports and games are king in. But when you look at how badminton can very quickly be set up and equipment not needing to cost the earth, it's easy to see the appeal.

Currently, football in Indonesia is in the doldrums. The professional football association is beset by problems relating from bad organisation to rumours of corruption and this has an effect on the teams and the fanatical supporters.

Indonesia is about to spend huge sums of money in building facilities for the 2019 Asian Games, including a velodrome complete with tennis courts. But many sports are elitist and expensive so I can't help wishing the focus was on getting to kids and giving them similar opportunities to those that I had.

I was lucky enough to meet some members of the current Indonesian men's badmnton team recently and I laughed at how even though we invented the sport Brits aren't very good at it when compared with Asians. They in turn joked that Indonesians are good because many don't work. Joking aside, if more people here were able to access the sports for free, rather than paying huge sums of money for facilities that will only be used by a ridiculously small proportion of the population, we might see a few more Indonesian world champions.

Quiz Answers 1. football, 2. rugby union, 3. golf, 4. la crosse and hockey, 5. volleyball, 6. rodeo, 7. hockey

sources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatpicturegalleries/9438973/Sports-invented-by-the-British.html

"Takeaway beer" or "take away beer"?

Wandering around the internet looking for examples of extreme, crazy, or extremely crazy laws, I found these;

Only a qualified electrician is allowed to change a light bulb in Victoria, Australia

In Canada, by law, one out of every five songs on the radio must be sung by a Canadian

In Florida, it is illegal to pass wind in a public place after 6pm on Thursdays

In all of these instances, I find it hard to disagree. Anything electrical is potentially life threatening. Who among us hasn't screwed in that bulb only to get a vivid surprise when the bulb springs to life, indicating our lack of forethought where surging volts of death are concerned? Secondly, if we all started doing the jobs of electricians, they might be encouraged to take up secretarial work, or policing, that's not a good idea.

Canada has produced some awesome songsters. Leonard Cohen, Alanis Morissette and Joni Mitchell are just some of the amazing musicians from the land of maple syrup, so the chances of having to listen to Justin Bieber or Celine Dion that often seems within tolerance levels.

As for Floridian flatulence, well chances are that you're only going to be adding to the unnecessarily high methane levels if you go around casually bottom burping so maybe it should be enforced globally?

None of these laws would stop me from enjoying my time in these countries but that is where they differ from Indonesia's recent decision to remove bottled beer from sale in Minimarts.

The government of recently elected President Joko Widodo seems to be doing all it can to appease it's conservative coalition partners. To protect the morals of young people in a 90%-plus Muslim populated country by removing the temptation from the purchaser and the Minimart sales staff, is something I could live with. 

However, as far as I have been able to determine, the ban only applies to the "local store", not the supermarkets, even going so far as to specify that any supermarket with more than 12 square metres of sales floor area may continue to sell beer as long as it is located in an area next to the checkout.

So I'm perplexed at having visited the four big supermarkets in my local area this weekend; Hypermart, Farmers Market, Giant and Carrefour, to discover that they have all removed beer from their shelves and when asking a member of staff about it I was greeted with thinly veiled contempt. And laughter. 

 



It is not a need for alcohol on a daily basis that drives me, just the need to be able to enjoy a cold, frosty pilsner in the comfort of my own home whenever I feel like it. This is why I have less of an issue with the minimarts being banned from selling it. But why the need for supermarkets to jump upon the same waggon? 

Sure, beer is still available in restaurants, but at marked up prices and not the comfort of my own home. The agreement to allow Bali to be exempt from the law, on the grounds of disrupting tourism, is so shallow it resembles a beer stain. Tourism is a driver throughout the archipelago.

I also don't believe it's 'Creeping Sharia', a term that suggests Indonesia's slow move to that kind of  government. Rather, it's probably similar to visas and other red tape where the right hand refuses to take any interest in what the left is doing.