Reviews, Reflections, Recollections

Just a blog filled with my usual irreverent observations about life and all that.

Name:
Location: Singapore, Singapore

enjoys reading and is perpetually trying to find space for all of the books he owns in his room. He also enjoys films, and in particular, going to the cinema. Although a self-confessed trivia buff, reports that he is an insufferable know-it-all are completely unfounded. He enjoys a nice glass of tipple now and then, be it a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a single malt whisky.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

A 'Blah' Day

It was a typically blah day for me. I am really struggling to get motivated and to get things done. For the umpteenth time I must must and absolutely must get myself organized. Worse still, I am going to be in London tomorrow for a Jardine lunch and I will be meeting Adrian for dinner, hopefully to secure the keys to his London flat which will be immensely convenient for the vacation. I guess it was just one of those days: woke up, pottered around room, lunch, shelved books in the library, played on the pinball machine in the JCR, went to hall for dinner, quiz squad practice, pottered around in the Library printing articles, went home, wasted time on the internet (including this post) - surely there is more to life than this!

Things that need to be sorted: more laundry, Christmas shopping, Christmas cards, presents, food for holidays, holiday plans, US University Applications.... lots of other things that I cannot quite remember at the moment......

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Harry Potter

I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with DT today, and it was a reasonably enjoyable film, and a fine addition to the series. As expected the visuals were top notch, with dragons, mermaids, pegasus pulled chariots and shifting mazes, it was quite a delight. Somehow though I found this movie just slightly less than captivating though. One big problem that I definitely found was that it was obvious that large chunks of narrative had been cut out, leaving more of a set piece focusing on the central elements of the story - the tri-wizard championships and the plot involving the return of the dark lord Voldemort.

This movie was definitely meant to be a lot darker than some of the originals, and there are some scenes that do frighten. I wasn't overly impressed with the finale involving the dark lord however. Mike Newell, the director has done a polished job with the movie, and his style is a continuation of Alfonso Cuaron's whose darker, edgier work in the last movie made it the best of the series in my opinion.

I thought that acting wise, the ensemble cast remained wonderful - Brendan Gleeson standing out as new professor 'Mad Eye Moody" while Michael Gambon has truly made the role of Dumbledore his own. With Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman as 'ensemble' cast you really cannot go far wrong. As for the teenage leads I think that Rupert Grint really has grown into his role as Ron very well, and Emma Watson has turned into a radiant little beauty, portraying an older more mature and less snotty Hermione very well indeed. Question marks remain over Daniel Radcliffe, however in my opinion, as I didn't quite find him convincing in portraying Harry faced with adolescent attention - and increasing isolation as a result.

All in all, I remain relatively neutral about the series as a whole. I am not a huge fan of the books or the movies, and I am not convinced that the series is particularly captivating fantasy. Besides, the fantasy movie of the vacation that I am truly looking forward to was not this movie but rather The Chronicles of Narnia, which I am sure will be far more captivating.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Lazy Saturday, Gilbert and Sullivan

It was a lazy Saturday on a whole, involving shopping, meeting friends, browsing in bookstores and a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta - always a treat. Having had a late night on Friday, I slept in till about lunch, whereupon I received a phone call from Juliet with whom I danced ballroom with for the last academic year. Apparently, there were going to light the Christmas lights up today, and there were events planned, with Shrek and his donkey coming along to the festivities no less. I thus headed on down into town with Juliet, Jennie and Suneet (who were coincidentally all on the beginner's dancesport team) and Vijay, a friend who was a fellow cheerleader (Juliet and Jennie's replacement for dancing!).

All in all, we had an amiable stroll through town which was also instructive in a way. First port of call was naturally Thornton's, seeing Juliet's general chocoholism. Jennie bought a chocolate angel, and I managed to resist temptation, something that was probably wise seeing that I had stocked up recently on that utterly crucial student commodity just a few days previously. Next we went to what must be one of the most classic girly shops I have ever been in (located in the Clarendon Center), and of whose existence I was not even aware of before that day. It came complete with pink decor, and clothing adorned with cartoons decrying "boys are stupid". At that point, Juliet headed off, and me and Suneet decided it was wise, seeing Jennie and Vijay's plans to go off to a hat shop, to wander off to a late lunch, and leave them to their own devices, rather than stand rather abashed in a corner of whatever shop they were inclined to wander into. Lunch was in Georgina's at the covered market, one of my favourite cafes - we were lucky enough to get a table - the place is usually packed all hours.

Waterstone's and Borders were having 20% off everything, and this clearly necessitated a round of book browsing - me and DT went to Waterstone's for a good two hours. It is usually not a good idea to throw yourself into the jaws of temptation, but I survived relatively unscathed - that is until I went to Borders later that evening and promptly bought 5 books (2 of which in all fairness were academic).

The evening was spent watching a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta - in this case "the Magician" which was set in the British Raj and involved a love potion that sets off a whole chain of unintended love matches. It was classic G&S - wonderfully witty, sometimes downright silly songs (such as one sung to jam, tea and ham), and always great fun. I have developed a great love of G&S since coming to the UK, with this being the 5th operetta I have seen. All in all, wasn't quite as witty as some of the others, and the music was a bit one-dimensional, but it still made for a hugely enjoyable evening. An enormous plus was the cast which was one of the best I have seen, all the more impressive seeing that many of them were freshers. A fantastically fun evening, it must be said. On an off note, I was quite astounded by the number of random people that I recognized - both as part of the cast and crew, as well as in the audience. Looking through the program, I recognized one of the leads whom I had sung with in Keble Choir, as well as two people in the chorus. Then, the person with page turning responsibilities turned out to be Mira, whose brother is Johann. There were also a huge number of random people in the audeince I knew - Jennie for one, and Dan from Keble, as well as other friends from St Catz, Lincoln and Hilda's. Either Oxford is really frighteningly too small or else I have been here too long.

Friday, November 25, 2005

An Odd Couple of Books

I thought that I would give an update of my recent reading. In terms of this week it has been an odd couple of books. I borrowed The Sea by John Banville (and this year's winner of the Booker prize) as well as Dan Brown's notorious Da Vinci Code from the Oxford Union library and I have since finished both. As reading combinations go, the two together must seem decidedly odd - one the epitomy of the airport bestseller read, the other the epitomy of contentious, high-brow literary award winners. I am happy to say that I enjoyed them both.

The Sea literally made waves when it won the Booker, if only because it was such a rank outsider. It is written in Banville's very lyrical Irish voice, which seems even more suited to the subject matter of rememberance, love and loss. It isn't a long novel, and there isn't a great deal of plot to it, as many critics have pointed out, but my answer to that is - who cares? It was a beautiful, poignant novel, which I greatly enjoyed - sad and honest and true, and it is highly recommended. That makes two (and a half) of the six Booker prize shortlisted books that I have finished, and I must say that the quality has been superb thus far.

I had sworn not to read the Da Vinci Code. I have a general aversion to bestseller lists in general, though admittedly having grown up on a fair diet of John Grisham and Michael Crichton. Lest I be accused of snobbery, I think in all fairness it comes from just realizing that I don't really enjoy all these bestsellers anymore. Seeing the Da Vinci code being read by no less than 6 different people on my flight back to London from Singapore was the final nail in the metaphorical coffin so to speak. However, that being said, I am by nature a very curious person, and bestsellers bring this to the fore. It does prompt one to ask the question: what is it about this particular book that has captured the imagination of everyone else? What is the secret behind it? This led me to read the notorious Bridges of Madison County in 1999 when it was at the waning point of a year and a half long stay on the New York Times bestsellers list and it was what prompted me to read the Da Vinci Code too.

In the end, I did enjoy the book. True, it verged on melodrama at many points, in particular the opening scene in the Lourve, which I had read a year or so previously and taken as confirmation of my worst fears that this was a hack thriller and nothing more. Where is stood out was the slipping in of real and interesting historical facts - from history, art and so forth. Being a bit of a trivia hound myself, I was quite intrigued by these, though a further question that arises is the accuracy of what Dan Brown confidently states (a few facts such as the one that the Louvre pyramid has 666 panes of glass have already been refuted). He also keeps the suspense up admirably and it was a page turned in every sense of the word, with little let up in the action, and things zipping from Paris to London and beyond. One stand out feature was definitely many of the puzzles that were thrown in - from word clues to crytography - which added immensely to the fun of the novel; seeing the popular appeal of crossword puzzles and sudoku, there seems to be a natural love of puzzles in many of us.

So, an odd couple of books as term time reading goes, but both enjoyable in starkly different ways. If only I found as great enthusiasm and enjoyment reading about Metaphysics and Cold War Politics.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Multiracialism through CCA

Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has suggested that schools need to encourage "multiracialism" and that one way in which they could do so was through CCAs or co-curricular activities. He apparently cited how football teams tended to be dominated by Malays and that this should not be the norm, and noted with approval how CCAs can promote bonding between students of different races - in his words "nothing like sweating it out together, winning and losing together, shedding tears of joy and pain together" and in that respect I can agree - sports and activities create a bond between people that is often closer than that forged in the more stuffy and rarified air of the classroom.

My question is this - isn't the whole point of CCAs that of giving students a chance to pursue their interests and areas outside the classroom in which they are talented at? Based on interest alone, some CCAs will necessarily be biased - I would not expect many non-chinese to be joining the Chinese Orchestra, for example. There are also traditionally some CCAs, particularly some sports like Football and Cricket, which are dominated by a particular race - the Malays and Indians respectively. Why then does multiracialism (whatever that is supposed to mean - greater interaction between the races, I suppose) have to interfere with that? There are some activities with a strong gender imbalance, the modern dance society at my Junior College had 2 guys and 23 girls participating, for example, and we don't seem to have a problem with that, nor with the fact that some sports, rugby and water polo in particular, remain the preserve of men. Why then is race such an issue - why are we addressing a supposed lack of multiracialism, but not one of gender imbalance?

All this goes back to the Government's fundamental stance on race - namely that it is a delicate issue, a gossamer thread liable to be snapped at any time, a fragile egg liable to do a Humpty Dumpty. We are reminded continually, repetetively of race riots in the 1950s, of Maria Hertzog, of Malays seeking shelter in good samaritan chinese flats fleeing the hatchets and knives of assailants. This is not to deny that learning about such events is important - for they are - but it almost seems to me that it has been drummed in too far. I think my generation has grown up far less attenuated to differences in race - it is something that is not really fundamentally noticed. Indeed, the past decades has seen a much greater intermingling of the races, partly as a result of specific government policy mandating a minimum number of so-called "minorities" living in each HDB flat.

It thus seems very surprising to me that the Government incessantly brings up the notion of race, and fears of racial divide and a repeat of bloodshed and riots. For, in a sense, it is almost as if a division is being created, where one almost no longer exists, precisely from this emphasizing of racial difference, this clarion call to remain vigilant and not let our differences boil over and for the need for integration and communication. Measures such as putting one's race on Identity Cards, though relatively uncontraversial, is just one example of the seeming fixation we have on this issue. For many, categorizing themselves like this is more or less meaningless - I have friends who have mixed chinese, malay, eurasian and dutch backgrounds, but we still do it. It is scary to think that in Rwanda, the massacre was aided by ID cards similar to us branding people Tutsi or Hutu.

Thus my view is this - let anyone play football whether he is chinese, malay, indian, eurasian, european or a mix of all of the above, whether he is black, white, yellow, or pink, so long as he loves the game. That is why football is known as the universal game - it seems quite odd to particularize any pastime and activity along such seemingly unrelated lines. It is time to lay this old Singaporean bugbear to rest.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Cold Evenings, Being in Oxford

It has been one of the coldest Novembers to date, and certainly nothing like the previous two Novembers I have experienced in Oxford. I was quite surprised to see my bike seat frosted over when I unchained it to ride back to my flat on Woodstock Road a couple of days ago, and it is some measure of how truly freezing it is that the days following that were colder still. The previous two days have been rather misty (or foggy - I prefer misty as it sounds more enchanting and less threatening) too boot - you can feel the moisture in the air. It is indeed rather disturbing to read the weather forecast and see a low of -4 predicted for this evening, and -2 and -1 respectively for the days prior to and following tonight.

How do you know you are in Oxford? Well, you stand at the side of the street late at night, enjoying the streetlights in the mist, and the empty road stretching out before you, the scene lending an almost mysterious feel to things. Within the space of 5 minutes, as you stand there with a friend, two seperate people crash their bikes upon passing you (going in opposite directions) mainly because they are too drunk to walk straight, yet alone balance themselves on two wheels. What a way to spoil the magic of the moment.

Ultimate Geek Novels

A poll conducted by the Guardian technology section revealed the unofficial top 20 Geek books. The article can be found here. I must admit that of the Top 20 I have finished #1, #2, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #13, #16, #17, #18 which makes 11 of them. With regards to the rest, #3 Brave New World has been on my to-read list for ages, as has #12 The Watchmen by Alan Moore. I also own a copy of #9 The Color of Magic, the first Discworld book, and even started it, though I never finished it and I didn't and still don't enjoy Pratchett all that much. I currently also have #14 on my bookshelf in Oxford, and #15 Strangers in a Strange Land has been sitting on my shelf in Singapore in ages, unread, surprisingly so seeing that I must have read about 6 or 7 other Robert Heinlein books. Only #10 and #2o surprised me - especially #10. I had heard of Douglas Coupland before but I never knew he was held in any regard.

I wonder what this says about me, geekiness wise......

Monday, November 21, 2005

Visit of the Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales visited the College today to commemorate the 450th Anniversary of our foundation, causing the usual stir that any royal visit would. He is actually the second royal in a week to visit after Princess Margaret had opened the Sutro Room (formerly the Arts Room) recently.

I had decided that I may as well try and meet him, seeing that I probably would not have had any other opportunity, despite not being all that fussed about royals in general. The College had a ballot for 10 places for undergrads to meet the prince as a group (along with other groups of Fellows, Staff, Postgrads and so on) and I put my name in a metaphorical hat, and found myself selected, out of 70 odd students, so I am told. So we all crowded into the dining hall and availed ourselves of the tea, sandwiches and other condiments that are always a big drawing factor at these events and awaited his arrival.

I wouldn't say it was an anticlimax because I was not expecting very much, or in fact anything at all. He came, he made small talk and he left (a modern version of veni, vidi, vici). I didn't even get a word in, mostly because we stood in a semi-circle and I found myself standing just over his right shoulder at the edge of the semi-circle and thus could make out only snatches of what he was saying. It mostly involved what work we did, and riding bicycles and the like, thoroughly uninteresting. Still, I admire him for his capacity to make small take - it takes considerable skill to be able to talk to a group of nervous admirers and still be able to cut things off once they have been given their appropriate 10 minutes and then move on.

The greatest part of this whole event was still to come as the Prince cut the Anniversary Cake baked as our President noted by our award winning chef, and a fine cake it was too. Of course, being one of those present, I got a slice. A couple of my friends actually wrapped leftovers in napkins to send back to parents - an interesting thing to do, but quite thoughtful nonetheless.

Seeing my love of anacedotes, I have to relate this one, which I gave as reason for meeting HRH The Prince of Wales. In Oxford, there is a tradition of one having to down (i.e finished at one go) a drink if a penny has been dropped in the drink. The reason for this custom, is that the queen is on the reverse face of the penny, and is thus drowning. You thus have to down the drink to save the Queen. My comment was that seeing how many drinks I have had to down over the past two and a quarter years on account of the royal family, it was about bloody time I got a chance to meet them!

Thursday, November 17, 2005

JCR vs MCR Quiz

Today was the much anticipated JCR vs MCR quiz held in the beer cellar. I had got Peter from the quiz squad to write the questions, and ended up with a very good JCR team - Max Irving, Beth Sutton, Ben Pope and myself. The MCR team looked pretty decent with Martin Cooles as their captain. All in all, it was pretty good fun, though a lot of things were left to the last minute and we did not have a MC for the event in the end, necessitating Sam Longair the JCR secretary to take over the job. In the end, the JCR emerged with a hard fought 110 point or so victory - and I even managed to wrangle a pint for each member of the winning JCR team.

In related news, Remi has lost his bet (see earlier post). Apparently his attempts to remain tee-total lasted less than 24 hours, and he was reduced to begging for more champagne top ups. Well, seeing that he is half French, perhaps we should treat him less harshly.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

My First Ballet

I had an opportunity to go to the ballet for the first time in my life today. I went as Denise Teoh had bought me a ticket, upon learning that I was interested in going. The performance was part of her birthday celebrations, which was a wonderful idea, really. It was the last day of the English National Ballet's Sleeping Beauty (music by Tchaikovsky), so I was really happy that Denise got me a ticket, despite me being useless and not confirming with her earlier that I wanted it!

It was an interesting experience. If you had asked me two years ago, I would have been convinced that I would hate ballet - prancing about and twirling on pointed toes would have struck me as decidedly odd, and perhaps even somewhat inane. Furthermore, ballet had bad press in my books due to the fact that it was one of those things that every Singapore parent forces their children to do (in this case just the girls) along with learning the piano or violin so as to keep up with the Jones' and to have a patina of cultured airs about the family. However, I must say I really did enjoy the dancing, and the way it meshed with the music, and I was quite enthralled by the first (of two) intervals. Things did get a bit draggy towards the end, largely due to the entire Third Act being a wedding celebration which was basically a chance for the dancers to strut their stuff. I had read a review of Sleeping Beauty saying that one of the problems was the plot was crammed into Acts I and II and the Prologue and Act III involved mainly a lot of prancing about to no real (narrative) end and it was quite an astute judgement. One could tell that everyone was getting restless towards the end. But a wonderful experience, one that I would love to repeat.

Instead of joining Denise for dinner, I went over to Hertford for formal hall with Dan, Remi and Eleanor and Kiril. This was in return for the formal I had at Trinity for the three of them. I had never been into Hertford before, so it was nice to have a chance to dine in hall there, and indeed to see the three of them again. The food was so-so, the chicken wrapped in Bacon being the highlight I think, but I really enjoyed myself. Remi and Eleanor kindly agreed to take me over the Bridge of Sighs which is Hertford's landmark - something that basically linked two seperate buildings divided by a road. It was just one of those things you had to do while at Oxford I guess.

I did make an interesting bet though with Remi. I am not sure what instigated it, probably Eleanor's jibes at Remi's alcohol drinking, but I made a bet with him saying that he wouldn't be able to go 4 days in Oxford without a drink - with two pints the price of the bet. He took it up of course, and it is due to end this coming Thursday at 9.15pm - just the right time for the winner to claim his pints at the Turf.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman came to Oxford to do a reading and a signing session at Borders and me being a utterly devoted fan, I went down to see him. He read the first pages or so from Anansi Boys and had a wonderfully descriptive reading voice, interestingly, the most expressive part of which were his pauses. In many ways, he is as funny in real life as he is in his novels, where his particular wit shines through quite readily.

I bumped into Timothy Tay when I was leaving college to go to see Gaiman, and he gladly came along. I remember that I had passed Tim my copy of Neverwhere more than two years previously, when I was back on holiday in Singapore. Tim admitted that he was now hooked on Gaiman and a big fan. I remember passing some of Gaiman's the Sandman comic strip to a fellow friend in the army and him also getting hooked on Gaiman and buying the whole 10 book set. It always gives me tremendous pleasure to know that people have taken my book recommendations and enjoyed them immensely.

After his talk, Tim and I instead of trying to crash the queue, headed out to buy a sandwich (we had not had dinner) and thus ended up right at the back of the line - and faced a good hour's wait. I actually didn't have anything by Neil with me here in Oxford, and so I bought a copy of Stardust from Borders and got him to autograph it (I had wanted to get a copy of Neverwhere but they sold out). Tim bought the Endless Nights comic. Neil drew me a little picture of a moon and a star. I can only marvel at his patience, signing stuff for people, and trying to make each and every one feel special. I got a photo of the two of us on my mobile phone camera, which was fantastic.

So, quite a dream come true for me, meeting Neil Gaiman in the flesh. And it really was an experience, seeing the person whose writings inspire you, of which you greatly treasure. Something I won't forget in awhile.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

PPE Dinner

This evening marked the annual PPE dinner which was a typically exciting and marvellous event. It was a formal dinner held in the College's Old Busary - the SCR dining room - in which we had a chance to dine with our tutors and talk to them in a more informal setting than would normally be the case. Of the tutors Chris, the economics fellow and Steve, the politics fellow, was there; also in attendence: Alistair McMillan, who took over for Steve the whole of last year when the latter was on sabbatical, Vicky Nash, who teaches us Political Theory, Corrine Besson, the philosophy lecturer, the new economics lecturer, and also, Nishan DeMel, who had taught my year economics in our first year at Trinity.

It was a sumptous meal as usual. The starter was a lovely prawn salad, and the main was duck, brilliantly done with its own sides, and I greatly enjoyed it. I was put next to Andrew, which was nice seeing that I had not had a chance to speak to him for quite awhile, and Vicky, whom I find that I could always talk to on numerous topical issues. Dinner was of course preceded by the obligatory champagne reception, and the meal came with red and white wine, the latter especially being quite wonderful.

The evening was interrupted somewhat by the fact that it was hustings for JCR committee positions, and us being PPEists, three first years had run for posts. The last person was Daniel Smith, who somewhat bizarrely ran for Diversity Rep. After going in to watch Dan husk, we retired to the so-called "Gentlemen's Club"(Damian and Dan's room) with Alistair and Chris in tow, for more evening entertainment. It was wonderfully seeing everyone gathered together like that, generally having a great time. I stayed quite late that evening, and had a fair bit to drink, meaning that I shared a taxi back to Stav with Rory, who had come down on the day for the dinner, but not before I had played Chris at chess (and lost) and Justin had beat him twice.

All in all, a wonderful evening that was just so typically Oxford. Black tie, fine dinner's, tutors smoking and playing chess against you, plentiful wine and port. Surely the way life is meant to be lived.

Monday, November 07, 2005

OxIMUN

It has been a crazy weekend, with our very own Oxford Model United Nations conference taking place. Over 300 delegates from all around Europe and the United Kingdom, including some as far away as the United States, came to attend this conference. As the director of the Crisis Committee, I had to run a simulated crisis, along with the Security Council as we were doing a joint crisis scenario for the first time at this conference. All in all, it was a wonderfully satisfying experience and renewed the joy I have of doing MUN.

The Crisis scenario was great fun and very topical indeed being about a nuclear Iran. The Crisis committee was supposedly a special council called together by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khomeini to look into how to respond to the UN over the Iranian nuclear program and this allowed us to choose a mix of delegates from different ideological perspectives, ensuring that reaching a conscensus would be difficult. Things were escalated by the fact that the Iranian Uranium Enrichment had gone ahead further than expected and that I suggested a version of the Shahab missile had been tested and was operational. It was great fun from the get go and got more interesting after the Defense Minister declared that Iran had nuclear weapons and the Israel delegate on the Security Council threatened to use unilateral force if the issue was not settled quickly.

More fun was had when I released my report of a Israeli national being captured near an Iranian nuclear facilitywhich of course prompted anti-US and anti-Israeli riots throuhout the country. The committee then finally managed to come up with a statement disavowing that Iran had a nuclear program or was seeking nuclear weapons and presented it to the Security Council, only for a nuclear scientist to defect and reveal the program to the Security Council just a couple of minutes afterward. Unsurprisingly the SC was not impressed.

In a sense though, I am quite relieved it is all over, and that by all accounts, the delegates found the scenario to be quite a success. The usual procrastination, a lack of contact from the Security Council and the fact that the scenario was developing rapidly in real life meant that during the vacation nothing had got off the road at all, and even after returning to Oxford progress had been markedly slow. About a week and a half before the conference, we finally hammered out a scenario, did up the profiles and got things together, only just. It was definitely crazy planning everything - between Thursday night and Sunday night I averaged about 3 hours sleep each evening. Thursday night was spent printing out placards and doing up delegate packs, Friday night at the social and then doing up last minute preperations and research. Saturday was another MUN social followed by further crisis planning and Sunday was the after party at Oriel and another late evening due to the fact that I had to walk all the way to Catz to pick up my bike keys which had been leant to Natascha, and then walk to St John's to get my bike before cycling back.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Richest Fictional Characters

In a parody of their usual 100 Richest People in the world, Forbes magazine made a list of the 15 richest fictional characters which can be accessed here. I must say I am pretty impressed by the selection though the top choice might be a tad controversial. Anyhow, it is all in good fun.