No.043/VIII - Oct/Nov' 99
A Piece of Paradise
Discovering the Sidemen secret
Fruits From the tree of
life
Nine steps to coconut palm appreciation
The Tradition Lives On
The Islam Wetu Telu Religion
Inspired
By Rinjani
The King's Playground at Narmada
Gallery
In a Perfect World
Entertainment
Dramatic Revival
The Gambuh Drama regains Popularity
Entertainment
The Art of Balinese Clowning
Advanture
The Balinese Notebook
Postcard
Weather
Natural
Bali
An Uncertain Future
Food
The Fusion of Foods
Environment
Action
Turtle Crisis
Fiction
The Hook and Your Eyes
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 Spoilt infants, miniature dogs, stand-in talk show hosts, designer chairs, sunken seating areas, lace doilies, corporate climbers, Porsche sunglasses, leather-backed driving gloves, real estate agents and people who talk about the weather. These are the things that get up my nose. Especially people who talk about the weather... Now that we have a telephone - may the good Lord help us - we have in the last two weeks grown almost used to its incessant ringing with calls from Blighty, a place where the advent of summer appears to have been playing with the sun-starved synapses of the anaemic minority. Invariably, they all ask the same question: “What is the weather like in Bali?” Well, call me old fashioned, but I have always been under the impression that the weather on the equator is generally best described by one word: Hot. Sometimes we even manage to stretch it to a couple: Very hot. “It’s hot over here,” I say. “Yesterday it was very hot.” “How hot?” they ask, as if it really matters. “Well, I don’t know exactly. Maybe 35 degrees.” “Centigrade?” they ask. “Yes, of course Centigrade! What else?!” “Well,” they say, “just have a guess how hot it was over here yesterday?” I can sense a sort of smugness oozing down the phone, the beginning of a game of climatological one-upmanship peculiar to the likes of Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean. “I have no idea...” “It was 36 yesterday!” they say in triumph. “It’s hotter here than it is over there!” Well, bully for you. What is this? A low-pressure quiz? An aneroidal examination? Do they think I really care that for one week out of the whole miserable cold, rainy, damp, and disgusting year in naff old England the sun actually manages to get its sorry butt into gear and shine for the pallid population? Get with the program boys! Get a suntan! Catch some rays! And another thing: when I am unlucky enough to have Euro-houseguests from hell out here in these sunny central foothills - you know the ones, they arrive with their ridiculous resort wear and translucent, blue-veined legs - they always ask me the same question. “Gosh ...,” they say, “... you’re not very brown, are you? We would have thought you would be much darker.” There is a certain insipid concern in their voice when they say this, the kind of concern you want to expunge from their consciousness by frenzied, corybantic violence. “Well, excuse me,” I say, “but haven’t you heard about skin cancer? Do you not read international magazines? Are you so dumb as to think that I spend my entire days lying on a leather lounger on the badminton court being burnt crisp by the tropical sun, just so I can go down to the pub and let people admire my tan? Give me a break!” I do admit that some of my callers can tend to be a little shocked at the vehemence of this type of reaction, but then who cares? Not me. Those who know me well enough are not offended by my atmospheric outbursts, and those who are offended only seem to come out of the woodwork when the sun shines. Like my dear old grandmother used to say: fair weather friends, who needs them? Leave them to the doldrums. Leave them to their lace doilies. Leave them to their Porsche sunglasses.
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