Relationshiplympics

Mental exercises for building and mending bridges


The news lately has been depressing, whether it's paper or online. Team As versus Team Bs, dirty laundry aired in public, lawsuits and counter-lawsuits, and the seemingly endless string of celebrity infidelities. It probably won't be out of place to wonder if these people should work out their differences in a "mind gym" instead of the media.

Turns out there is a "mind gym" out there, and they did publish a book. The Mind Gym: Relationships is the third book by this UK outfit called the Mind Gym, for those who can't attend (or afford) its £1,500 (around RM7,325), 20-member training sessions. The founders assure us that their Mind Gym training is great for relationships in and out of the office; "from boardroom to bedroom", goes one blurb.

And there's still more to come – possibly books for "prisons, cruises, second lifers and who knows what." From the witty, upbeat, and offbeat tone of the writing however, it's hard to tell whether it's a joke.

While some people sweated over the Y2K bug, Octavius Black and Sebastian Bailey came up with the idea of "bite-sized" 90-minute corporate training sessions or "workouts", each packed with tips, techniques and activities, which can be packaged into different programmes. Training is not a two-way street; the tools and techniques continue to evolve from the insights uncovered by the Gym's team of psychologists, and the real-life experiences of other Mind Gym-goers. The Mind Gym appears to be popular, if not effective, concept. Just ask its clients, a who's-who of recognisable brand names.

A password to the Facebook-like Mind Gym community web portal in www.themindgym.com comes with each copy of the book. Unless a basic online profile is complete, some features will not be available to try. Exclusive goodies for book buyer include back issues of Mind Gym "magazines", and a forum where other users discuss tips and share their own.

In Relationships, the workout programme's structure and content – both online and offline – are similar. Chapters in the book are grouped into four fundamental sections in the following order: "Relationship ready" (prepping yourself), "Coming together" (building a relationship), "Tough love" (resolving conflict), and "A different relationship" (whether to salvage or end a relationship). At the end of some chapters exercises marked "I Spy" (observation) and "I Try" (self-explanatory) await.

Readers will have to endure the tedium of filling out questionnaires, making lists and totalling up points. The results can be surprising, depending on your honesty or whether the questions and answers are correctly interpreted. The first questionnaire determines a reader's workout plan, namely the areas he or she should work on; the more lazy can refer to one of several default plans in the book. Read only what you need – a great option for the increasingly time-starved. On the other hand, it says a lot about a reader who needs to go through the whole book.

Of course, no book of this ilk would be complete without affirming quotes from the famous, and anecdotal evidence of "why it works": examples from pop culture, history, and results of research, which, unfortunately, aren't annotated with their corresponding sources (a bibliography is available, if one is curious).

Overall, Relationships is a relatively small self-help book that tries hard not to be boring. There aren't a lot of page-cluttering visuals; most anecdotal inserts are short and snappy, and each chapter is small and feels modular enough to stand on its own.

Relationships however, don't build themselves. As a young man Albert Ellis (1913 - 2007) overcame his shyness towards women by chatting up over a hundred ladies at the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Though it didn't get him a date, it might have prepared him for his future career as a psychologist; in 1982 he was ranked above Sigmund Freud among history's most influential psychotherapists. ...No reward without effort, right?

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The Mind Gym: Relationships

The Mind Gym
Sphere (2009)
304 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1847440631

Eager, Erudite, Eponymous

Copies of the graphical version of Lydia Teh's Do You Wear Suspenders? The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim reached the office about two weeks ago, but I was too busy to post it earlier. Besides, what else could I write about it after this announcement?

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim #1: Big Bertha Meets Eh Poh Nim.
We're hoping for a #2 and perhaps a #3

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim chronicles the everyday life of Eh Poh Nim, a loquacious woman who can't resist explaining the meanings of English words and phrases - the more obscure, the better - to anyone who'd listen.

Samples from chapters "Hatter-somethings" (left) and "Do you
wear suspenders" - or something like that

In his volume, Eh Poh Nim show off her eponyms when meeting a Big Bertha at the airport. She also devises language puzzles for a friend in distress, gets into a heteronym face-off with an equally showy colleague, dispenses bits of kibitz to a fellow bibliobibuli, and more. We also take a trip back in time for a little Manglish lesson Down Under.

Lots of hairy expressions for your entertainment

Rediscover the excitement of learning the stories behind some English idioms, metaphors and other figures of speech in this illustrated, delightfully re-imagined series that brings the humour in the anecdotes to life.


Lydia Teh hung up her apron after seventeen years as a homemaker and is now managing an English-language centre. She wrote Life's Like That: Scenes from Malaysian Life, Honk! If You're Malaysian and Do You Wear Suspenders? The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim.

Diana HND (aka Diana Chan) is an accounts associate by day and a comic artist by night. She lives with her family and a hyperactive beagle in a quiet neighbourhood far from the Klang Valley.

The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim #1: Big Bertha Meets Eh Poh Nim is priced at RM12.90. It should be on sale at all major bookstores and is available through MPHOnline.com.

News: Events And Stuff, Because It's Spring

Because it's close to the Chinese New Year holidays I'm taking a break like the rest of you, so nothing of much substance for the time being. But there'll be some events to look forward to when you all return.


16 February  Newly opened indie hangout Merdekarya is hosting "Saya Selaku Perdana Menteri..." ("I, as Prime Minister..."), a piece of stand-up (or sit-down) entertainment at 8pm where four writers: Zara Kahan, Amir Hafizi, Hafidz Baharom and Umapagan Ampikaipakan will present their 'inauguration speeches' should they become Prime Minister of Malaysia. Check the Facebook page for details.


17 February  Artisan Roast TTDI will be hosting a Blind Date with a Book event organised by book columnist Daphne Lee starting at 10:30am; this post describes one example of such an event. Basically, pick a book, wrap it up, give it a really catchy label, leave it there for others to pick and 'blind-pick' a book yourself. More details on this Facebook page.


23 February  Author Tash Aw, who wrote The Harmony Silk Factory and Map of the Invisible World, is scheduled to be in Kuala Lumpur in conjunction with the release of his latest work, Five-star Billionaire. He'll be appearing in Silverfish Books at 1:30pm and Readings at Seksan's at 3:30pm.


Meanwhile:

• RIP Barry Wain, author of Malaysian Maverick.
• How (female) bloggers became the latest chick lit heroines.
• How to let go of books you won't read and cut down on the clutter.
• Israeli and Palestinian textbooks "largely present one-sided narratives", but do not demonise. But wouldn't people fed on a steady long-term diet of one-sided narratives tend to become more, well, biased?
• Of these nine writing mistakes you're probably making, you probably know six or seven already. You probably just don't care.
• That thing about print being better for reading than digital? It's wrong, apparently. Who knew the Germans were prejudiced against digital media?
• Sales of sci-fi/fantasy artist and author MCA Hogarth's self-published book on Amazon was blocked after makers of the Warhammer 40,000 series of games, complained that the title of her book violated their trademark over the (already widely used, like, everywhere) term "space marines". What are these guys, Apple?
• Anne Ishii talks c*ck in her review of Eddie Huang's Fresh Off the Boat. Oh, like you could resist.
• William Faulkner thinks living in a whorehouse (as its landlord) helps you be a writer. Is that why Wei Xiaobao, the anti-hero in Louis Cha's Deer and the Cauldron, was such a storyteller?
• Chuck Wendig's 25 jumbled thoughts on book piracy.
• After Going Clear, here comes Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill. It seems that, even in this 'church', the one percent are treated different.

And, something unrelated to books: Slate's prime Explainer sheds light on the apparently skinflint pastor who refused to leave a tip on 'religious grounds'.

He also thinks "...it’s possible that Christians think their devotion to the next life exempts them from such social niceties as tipping in this one. That confidence in their ultimate salvation may also diminish their sense of financial obligation to God."

Does this "confidence in their ultimate salvation" also explain why some religious people are so dickish to those who aren't?

Something to ponder over the lunar new year.

News: Jumping The Gun, NYT Reviews And Gulag Humour

The literary world shed sweatdrops of dread when news came out that a library holding ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu was torched by Islamists fleeing from French forces. After all, it wasn't too long ago since a library in Egypt was torched destroying many valuable papers. Timbuktu locals claim, however, that some of the more important manuscripts were saved.

Back home: Is Pak Lah taking on Dr M in a tell-all to be released after CNY? No, he's not, it seems. The authors, Bridget Welsh and James Chin, have apparently denied the book's "tell-all" nature and called the report "an overly-sensational shoddy piece of journalism". A correction has since been added to the original report.

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"He's Anthony Bourdain with a side of pickled radish." Eddie Huang's memoir, Fresh Off The Boat, reviewed in The New York Times.

Huang may be chuffed at by the rather positive review. William Stadiem, however, feels he has to defend himself against a NYT book reviewer's alleged accusations of Jew-baiting in a critique of his novel Moneywood.

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Not long after Google Earth exposed the locations of some of North Korea's gulags, the 'reviews' start coming in, from "Great cuisine" and "Will visit again" to Meh".

But is it appropriate? Not if it focuses attention on these camps, apparently. "Smart-aleck awareness is better than ignorance." I'm kind of two minds about that.

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Elsewhere:

• Bells continue to toll for B&N and the mega-bookstore. B&N is planning to close up to a third of its brick-and-mortars over ten years, but states that it is "fully committed to the retail concept for the long term." The response is one you might expect.
• Hilary Mantel brings up the accolades again, this time winning the Costa Book of the Year award for Bring Up The Bodies, and she's not apologising for that. Why should she?
• Talk about embracing trolls: Writer Brian Allen Carr is seeking the best one-star review in exchange for his books. Am I missing something?
• In the wake of the Lance Armstrong confession, somebody ponders the reasons we read memoirs.
• In the annals of weaponised reviews: Milanese opera house La Scala has blacklisted a newspaper's music critic after some of his reviews were said to have crossed the line. Calling Luciano Pavarotti a "musical illiterate" takes some balls, but can he back it up? Just asking.
• The next time you publish a book, please don't name it after a terrorist organisation.
• Some of the best arguments for and against the Oxford comma.
• Was that famous short story written by Ernest Hemingway? Perhaps not.
• Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis is awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. He's the first Indian recipient of the prize.

Card-Carrying Reviewers? Yelp!

Brad Newman thinks that online reviewers don't get enough respect. So he came up with a card that a reviewer can flash at rude waiters or uppity maitre'ds for near instant R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Of course, not everybody can get a shiny black ReviewerCard. Prospective cardholders will be screened for eligibility. For one, a cardholder must have written lots of reviews.

The idea came to Newman in France when he was brushed off by a waiter when he asked for green tea instead of normal tea during breakfast. When Newman hinted that this would mean a negative review on TripAdvisor, the manager of the place paid for his breakfast.

A thought hit him like Mjölnir from above. "Why can't waiters, hotel workers, concierges know that people are reviewers? If that French waiter had known at the beginning that I write a lot of reviews, he'd have treated me like Brad Pitt." I don't know whether he got his green tea, though.

Newman also cited a time when he got a hotel room in Geneva for about half price a night after waving his little black card. He doesn't call it what some people might see it as: extortion. "I see it as letting the restaurant know that they should treat me good because I'm going to be writing a review."

Unless you're Jay Rayner, A A Gill, Pete Wells, or some motormouth from Ipoh, I don't feel like paying attention to anything you say. Nor do I think anything you have to say matters all that much. However, this is the Internet we're talking about.

I've read some of the 'reviews' on sites such as Yelp. I've also read some of the horror stories about 'reviews' and 'reviewers' from sites such as Yelp. So I can say that giving this kind of people something like the ReviewerCard is akin to arming them with AR-15s. Both require a certain degree of faith in the integrity, maturity and intelligence of those entrusted with such power - faith that is at times misplaced.

Even before the Internet, complaints tend to travel faster than praise. Thanks to feedback sites such as Yelp, grouses gained warp drives. Some groups of Yelpers have begun acquiring an unsavoury reputation for shaking down restaurants and being free with lone-star rants. Thus, the means to help players in the hotel and food businesses improve via crowdsourced feedback is slowly becoming an instrument of terror where F&B players are concerned.

Which is why anything that empowers hordes of uninformed freeloaders and discount whores in this manner is just many kinds of wrong.

There are reasons why all these 'reviewers' are online and not in, say, The New York Times or The Observer. How much to they know about the businesses they're writing about and the cultures of where they're based? Do they know what is and is not available at the establishments being reviewed? Are they magnanimous enough to allow for days when the floor staff or kitchen staff may be having a bad day?

Do they really care about their readers, or is it just about the power trip from all the freebies and bragging rights?

Newman got miffed because the French waiter turned up his nose at his request for green tea. If this gentleman is correct, French waiters are known to be rude or snobbish. And does this establishment have any green tea to serve? Did his sense of entitlement just so happened to kick in at a particularly busy time in that place?

We don't know. But it's what he doesn't say in the LA Times article that rings louder in my head.

For whatever reason they're written, reviews are essentially a kind of service, and sites that collect these are supposed to help consumers with their decisions. If written well, reviews can be entertaining as well as informative and, most of all, reliable, as it describes a normal situation at an establishment that people are more likely to encounter.

When you declare your reviewer status at the table, you are never going to get that.

One can argue that food critics with a face also get preferential treatment, but that's because (one hopes) they earned it and, writing for a news agency and all, they're also bound by a journalist's code of conduct. Also, because there's the impression that food critics are relatively more stable and reliable than Yelpers.

"The food critic is definitely a reference because Yelp is basically full of people complaining," said chef Eric Ripert of the famed New York restaurant Le Bernardin. "We have to take into consideration some of the comments, but very often it's not even rational what they say."

The rise of what I call 'raviews' - overly glowing praise that is bought, faked or written in exchange for freebies or discounts - and the growing number of 'reviews' that are nothing more than complaints are bringing into question the helpfulness of crowdsourced customer feedback. Though Yelp and others have tried to rein in the insanity, the struggle seems to be an uphill one.

The F&B business is already fraught with pitfalls: competition, staff and customer turnover, logistics, and red tape. The nature of the business means that good restaurants and hotels generally prosper, while the bad ones will fold under the weight of their own screw-ups. The drive-by review business is changing things, but is it for the better or the worse? We don't know yet.

But the last thing it - and the rest of us - needs is a bunch of whiny entitled know-nothings waving cards that says, "I'm a reviewer. Treat me right - or else."

News: Novels For All, Tweets Of The Week

I'm mourning the end of a nice long weekend, so no yard-long list of Book Marks. Let's start off with something positive and more important.

Non-profit community Novels for Nepal is morphing into Novels for All, in its goal of encouraging reading while raising funds for charity. One of its initiatives, Café Reads, has been going on for some time now, raising funds to refurbish a study room in The Divine Mercy Boys Home in Kepong.

Novels for All has set up mini-libraries in several cafés in KL and PJ, including Artisan Roast TTDI, The Bee @ Publika and MyBurgerLab which isn't a café, but who cares if it's for a good cause?

Each of the books in the DIY shelves are for sale at RM10, or one can drop some spare change into a donation jar in the premises. All proceeds will go to the project; the target is to raise RM1,000. Sadly, books have been filched from these shelves.

All titles are handpicked by dedicated members of the group, so you probably won't see Fifty Shades (thank G*d) or anything from Harlequin or Mills & Boon.

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Those following the Buku Fixi-Popular micro-saga shouldn't be surprised to know that the inevitable has happened:

Popular x nak jual Fixi lagi & kembalikan 1000+ buku. Termasuk stok cetakan 2011. Menunjukkan mrk x pandai jual buku. pic.twitter.com/slRlUmMY

BukuFixi @BukuFixi • 23 Jan 2013

So Popular Bookstores has decided to stop selling Fixi titles and has returned over a thousand copies of the former's books, which includes stock from 2011. Which, according to Fixi, is no big loss, since buyers are going to other bookstores as well as its own online shop.

Maybe those returned books can be sold as part of some kind of promotion. I'm curious as to how fast they will go.

Guess that's the end of that. Both sides should let it go already.

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Meanwhile, controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen had some words for countries that banned the screening of Tamil film Vishwaroopam, allegedly due to the film's terrorism theme and portrayal of Islamists:

Malaysia banned #Vishwaroopam.Coward countries will ban it.Coward cinemas will not show it.This fear of Muslim fanatics is just plane stupid

taslima nasreen ‏@taslimanasreen • 26 Jan 2013

Sharp words and typo aside, I'm unsure as to how this film could worsen perceptions towards Islamists, especially those who openly advocate violence and bay for the blood of critics and opponents. When they are their own worst enemies, who needs filmmakers, writers or poets?

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Is a library in Sydney, Australia going to shelve Lance Armstrong non-fiction titles under "Fiction"? Uh, no, it isn't. And it can't. "Libraries can't arbitrarily reclassify categories of books, because that depends on the ISBN number that is issued by the National Library," said a spokesman for the Manly council in Sydney that runs the library. Fair enough, though it would be a manly thing to do. Suing Lance and his publishers for 'cheating' readers, however....

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As readers go digital, physical books as collectibles may become a viable option. A 101 on collecting books seems to argue that it's easier to hoard for love than financial gain - spotting books that will become eBay bonanzas in the future.

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Move over, Disney princesses, for Chitrangada, Sita and Draupadi, says New Delhi-based writer and educator Saraswati Nagpal. Perhaps its time a new generation of Indian women had some homegrown heroines to look up to.

Now, if only someone can stand up against those who want Joe Anton's supporters barred from the Jaipur lit fest.

Yeast, Encore

I rarely produce two reviews from one restaurant, but this place changes character according to the different times of the day. And I am sort of taken with the food there, even though I can afford to dine there, like, once a month. Thank goodness they also sell breads and pastries.

Two realisations: Virtually all my food reviews end with some form of "I'll be back", and I seem to be reviewing more restaurants than books lately. Which is why I guest-blogged this piece elsewhere first. In hindsight, this makes no difference, since every piece I've ever published will still be archived here.

Truth is, I love food more than books but eventually there'll be some foods I may no longer be able to enjoy. Books, on the other hand, do not raise blood sugar or cholesterol levels, although stress level warning labels should be applied to some.

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Paris on a plate

When it comes to classic French bistro fare, Yeast Bistronomy rises to the occasion

first published on Nooks and Gems, 27 January 2013


The words spilled into the chat window from Melody's end: "I feel like splurging."

Me too, as it was just after payday and I can always count on Melody's sombre moods as an excuse for a posh evening out. And I had one spot in mind.

"Let's go to France!" I typed out.

"Haha," she shot back. "You going to fly me there, izzit?"

"No, we'll drive. Only twenty minutes to get there."

Because another slice of France had arrived on our shores just a few weeks back.

Diners at Yeast (left) and the vacherin aux fruits rouge
(vacherin with red berries)

On one of her occasional food hunts, Melody had stumbled upon a quaint little boulangerie (bakery) with a cheerful yellow signboard in Bangsar. As I am often a grouchy bear in the mornings when I wake up, she had to drag me there for breakfast one early morning – "Try it, you'll like it" – in case she couldn't finish the food.

Besides breakfast eggs and baked goods, Yeast Bistronomy also offered lunch and, more recently, dinner. I took three looks at the lunch and dinner menu (so many lovely items) and decided that we would be back.

Yeast Bistronomy was a slightly different place at night. The cosy Parisian-style boulangerie in the morning was now a cosy Parisian-style bistro and wine bar by night. The bread shelves and baskets were mostly empty, save for a few doggie bags filled with samples of the morning's baked goods for patrons to take home after dinner.

Chefs at work at Yeast Bistronomy

The founder himself met us at the door and showed us to the seats we picked: at the bar, facing the open kitchen. A veteran of the food and beverage business, Christophe Chatron-Michaud helped open and run restaurants with names such as Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten (Chatron-Michaud reminds me somewhat of New York chef Eric Ripert).

In addition to easing his palate's homesickness, he started Yeast to bring Malaysians what he claims is a more authentic French culinary experience with imported French talent. Form his home country is Yeast's baker, Christophe Gros who inherited his father's skills as an artisanal boulanger (baker) and Yeast's head chef Clara Champonnois. Even the butter Yeast uses, a delicately flavoured, creamy product from the Charentes region in France, is covered by the European Union's Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme.

Frisée aux lardons: French chicory and bacon salad,
with poached egg

With that kind of attention to detail, little wonder the baked goods we'd sampled one Saturday morning had that effect on us. What would the dinner menu do?

We picked seats facing the kitchen prep area, not far from the stoves. Rather warm, but we like being different, and these were ringside seats to some hot cooking action.

After our orders were taken, the bread basket arrived, along with a bit of that EU-covered butter. We nibbled sparingly at the bread, mindful of the need to save room for the main dishes.

Hearty, flavourful beefy braised goodness. Not telling you
any more about it... go and try it yourself

We shared a salad and soup. The frisée aux lardons is a classic French bistro salad that consists mainly of French chicory and bits of bacon, topped with a poached egg. No complaints with the salad, and the sweetness of the soup du jour, a sweet corn soup, was just right and went well with the shredded duck confit.

Nothing says France more eloquently than foie gras, but boeuf bourguignon will do if you're on the look-out for creeping calories or PETA-type activists. It's enough for Melody, who considers the dish of beef slowly braised in a sauce of red wine a classical French must-try.

Petites Madeleines Chaudes: Tiny bundles of fluffy warm sweetness

What arrived was three chunks of beef sitting on a rib bone laid on a bed of greens, drizzled with sauce that mingled with a pool of "root vegetable" puree — I suspect it's celeriac, which is a kind of ... root vegetable. We saw the sous chef dipping into a crock full of the stuff for someone else's order; "celeriac puree", he told Melody when she had asked.

Mon dieu, the rich, tender, melt-in-your-mouth beef ... each mouthful was a trip back to an old French kitchen where peasants simmered tough cuts of meat in red wine to make them more palatable. The mellow, slightly nutty puree cuts through some of the beef's richness, making each bite feel less heavy, so it goes down much easier. The crispy fried onions on top were a nice touch.

By now, Melody was almost full. I wiped the plate clean of beef juice and sauce with some leftover bread. I sighed deeply. "Okay, I think we can forgo dessert."

For some reason, Monsieur Chatron-Michaud thought different. In spite of Melody's protests, he insisted and assured us that it was just "a little something" that won't bust our guts.

We looked at each other, hoping that the "little something" was measured by Malaysian standards.

We ended up with a vacherin aux fruits rouge, a glass filled with vanilla ice cream, red berries, red berry coulis and bits of meringue at the bottom. The heavy-looking concoction was strangely light, not very filling, and delicious. We also had a ramekin of tiny madeleines, still warm from the oven and dusted with icing sugar.

I look over at Melody, whose mood had significantly improved - but that happened after the braised beef, which I can spell on the first try by now.

"So, can you roll proper French 'R's now?" I asked, still surprised that she had taken French lessons at university.

She seemed uncertain. "I ... think so." And then, she threw out a few phrases. "What do you think?" she asked afterwards.

I think there are some things even authentic French cuisine can't do.

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Yeast Bistronomy

24G, Jalan Telawi 2
Bangsar Baru
59100 Kuala Lumpur

Pork-free

Fridays and Saturdays: 8am-10:30pm
Other days from 8am-10pm

Breakfast: 8am-11:30am
Lunch: 11:30am-3:30pm
High Tea: 3:30pm-5:30pm
Dinner: 6pm until closing

Closed on Mondays

+603-2282 0118

enquiries@yeastbistronomy.com

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