From the Chair

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoAn early start, the sort that requires you to be decisive with yourself before you've had any real evidence that the day is worth attending. A quick round to get through first, and then straight on to the Hilton at Sentral, arriving in that slightly breathless state where you've already done half a day's work and everyone else is still queuing for coffee.

I was chairing the session before lunch. Chairing is a peculiar job. You're the least interesting person in the room by design, and your entire purpose is to make sure the interesting people run to time and don't talk over one another. Done well, nobody notices you at all. I've come to quite enjoy it — there's a craftsmanship in keeping a session moving without ever appearing to push.

And the speakers were superb. Colleagues over from Germany, France and Italy, all of them presenting work at a level that genuinely makes you sit up. World-class, and I don't reach for that phrase often — it gets thrown at anything that's merely competent. This wasn't that. It was the real article, delivered with the particular confidence of people who have lived inside a problem long enough to explain it simply.

There's also the pleasure of watching three European speakers approach the same material in unmistakably different registers. Precision, elegance, and enthusiasm respectively, and I'll leave it to the reader to assign the nationalities. Between sessions I caught up with old acquaintances — the ones you see twice a year in hotel foyers and never anywhere else, and yet somehow pick up mid-sentence from wherever you left off. These conference friendships are odd, shallow in frequency and surprisingly deep in substance.

Lunch was excellent, which matters more than organisers sometimes appreciate. A good lunch buys you a room full of people who are still awake at two o'clock. And the afternoon sessions carried on properly, which suggests somebody understood this.

By the end of it, though, I was thoroughly spent. There's a specific flavour of tiredness that comes from a full day of concentrated listening — not physical, exactly, just a sense that the part of you that processes things has quietly clocked off without telling anyone. I still had bits to finish, and I couldn't face them at any reasonable hour. They got done late, badly, and mostly by force of habit.

So I'm heading into the new week with a small deficit, and no great illusions about it. A weekend spent talking, however good the talking, is not a weekend spent resting. The mind is full and the tank isn't.

Still — better this than the alternative. A day among people doing excellent work leaves you slightly restored even as it exhausts you. You come away with things to think about, which is a decent trade for an early start and a late finish.

Rest first, though. Everything else can queue behind that.

Test Drives and Late Drama

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSunday started the way Sundays around here tend to — with rounds, because the calendar's opinion on rest days rarely matches the ward's. Brisk enough, though, and done with enough time to spare that the rest of the morning still felt like it belonged to the weekend rather than merely following it.

Home early, then straight into something with a bit more shine to it — a test drive booked at iCAUR, the sort of appointment that turns an ordinary Sunday into one with a little anticipation built in. It delivered, too. A good spin, by all accounts — the kind of drive that makes the walk back to your own car afterwards feel like a slight downgrade, even when your own car's done nothing wrong.

From there to TRX for lunch, which rounded the morning off nicely, followed by a bit of a diversion into merchandise — Anita had her eye on the new Mercedes F1 top, and there's a particular efficiency to a shopping trip with one specific target rather than a vague browse. In and out, mission achieved, no lingering required.

Home early again after that, with the evening earmarked for staying exactly where we were — a proper quiet night in, the sort that doesn't need justifying after a day that had already covered its bases nicely. It opened with two new episodes of The Gentlemen, which is precisely the kind of viewing built for a lazy Sunday evening — stylish, a bit knowing, easy to sink into without asking too much of you.

Then it was time for the race, and this is where the evening's good mood met some resistance. George Russell came home second, respectable enough on paper, but not quite the result that gets celebrated with any real enthusiasm — the sort of finish that reads as fine rather than fitting. And then, as if the day had been saving up one more twist, United contrived to get pegged back for a last-gasp equaliser, the kind of goal that arrives just late enough to undo whatever composure had built up over the previous eighty-odd minutes. There's a special sort of quiet that follows a stoppage-time leveller — not shouting, not despair, just a resigned sort of silence that says everything on its own.

So the day ends on a slightly flatter note than it started, which feels almost unfair given how well the earlier hours had gone — a good test drive, a good lunch, a mission accomplished at the till, and a show that delivered exactly what was asked of it. Sport, as ever, declined to read the room. Still, one dropped point and one runner-up finish is a fairly mild way for a good Sunday to lose its shine, and there's always the next race, and the next match, to put it right.

Bronze, Chequered Flags, and One Very Well-Earned Nap

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSunny again, which by now feels less like weather and more like a running joke the sky's decided to commit to. England's win over France in the third-place match was already safely banked news by the time I properly surfaced — six-four, apparently, in a game that by all accounts had no business being that dramatic given the stakes were essentially pride and a medal nobody particularly wanted a month ago. Funny how bronze becomes strangely precious once silver's off the table.

Early rounds done, I headed out to Bamboo Hill for the first time — a colleague's son getting married, and one of those venues you hear mentioned in passing for years before finally seeing it for yourself. Worth the wait. Green in every direction, the kind of setting that does half the decorating work before anyone's lifted a finger, and the ceremony itself had that particular warmth you get when it's clearly less about spectacle and more about everyone in the room genuinely liking the two people getting married. No pretence to it. Just a proper, lovely afternoon.

From there, onward to Pavilion, ostensibly just passing through, which is always how the more expensive detours begin. Wandered past the Mercedes store and came out the other side having bought their F1 shirt — Petronas green, unmistakably so, the kind of purchase that requires no real justification beyond simply wanting it. Anita will no doubt have opinions about the wardrobe expansion. I've prepared no defence.

Home in the afternoon with the Belgian Grand Prix on, Spa doing what Spa does best — that long, unpredictable lap where the weather changes its mind more often than some people change their socks. I settled in properly for it, fully intending to watch the whole thing with appropriate attention, and instead managed roughly the first stint before the sofa quietly won. Woke up somewhere past halfway, slightly disoriented, scrambling to piece together who'd actually done what through Eau Rouge while I was elsewhere.

In fairness, the nap wasn't entirely an accident. There's a World Cup final still to come tonight — Argentina and Spain, Messi against Yamal, the kind of match that doesn't reward being half-asleep by full time. So the unplanned doze through the Grand Prix has, in a roundabout way, done its job: eyes are clearer now, the shirt's hung up rather sensibly, and there's a proper evening of football still ahead. A day that started with a wedding and somewhere along the way picked up a race, a bit of shopping, and an accidental rest — not bad going, all told, before the real business of the evening even begins.

F1?

There used to be events here on F1 weekThe Malay word would be "hambar". And with the Sepang circuit only contracted with the FIA until 2018, we might not see another F1 race after that. Compared to the festivities in Singapore a couple of weekends back, we definitely lack behind.

And the F1 being all about glamour, there was no reason for the contract to be extended after 2018 unless more money were poured into the coffers of F1. Judging from the state of our economy, it would be prudent just to let it go. We haven't capitalised enough from the exposure we got from the F1 races thus far.

And without F1 coming to Sepang every year, I suspect the circuit will also soon die a slow death...

People were waiting for Lewis Hamilton and Rico Rosberg to make an appearanceThey were not on time and the crowd had to wait ... in the end it wasn't much of a crowd ....Guess who they were supporting?It was supposed to be the F1 week this week. The whole city should be buzzing with motorsport related events.

So long F1 Malaysian GP, 1999-2018.

The Race is Near

There was not much of a buzz around town about the coming F1 GP. Understandable since plenty of people were still thinking about the coming GST and also the recent CNY. Things were pretty quiet. As for the festivities, the coronation of Johore Sultan would likely made more of a headline in terms of who’s headlining the shows.

I was booked for some teaching program this weekend, so I would definitely not be attending. Did hear any of my friends were going as well.

I was at KLCC yesterday afternoon, and the stalls was already out. Not surprising as Petronas is one of the main if not the main sponsor. Even then, it didn’t create much of a pull to me. I did;t even bother checking the events.

Maybe the GP in Malaysia would die a slow death. I don’t think we were generating much of an income from the event. At least the Singapore GP seemed to attract more people, with more glitz. Either because it was organised in the evenings, which would likely also meant better weather, or because it was penned into the later stage pf the season when more was at stake. Either way, the organiser had to think about making the event more attractive or otherwise it would be a drag. Maybe we would be better off without it …