The weather is closing in. Vicious lightening strikes hitting the ground a few miles away, one wonders who or what is under the strike and what damage is done as a million volts of energy focused on a few metres of earth. We are in the wonderful world of a new GP season, a world where money is spent like there is no tomorrow and the glamour spots where the races are held are infested with the rich and famous with all their baubles and toys so that the rest of us can only sit back and wonder.
That
was the trick of Hollywood in the old days where the glamorous stars
used to act out self absorbed lives in huge mansions and we, for a few
penny's could jump aboard the fairy tale for an hour or so. It still
works as the celebs are paraded on our screens and we shower them with
interest as if they were a best friend, this sad fraud we play on
ourselves.
It's Malaysia and the second race of the season. The track is close to Kuala Lumpur, newly built to signpost the country.
Back in the mid 60s this area was densely tropical, an intriguing hidden and dangerous place to visit off road. The lush thick vegetation sprouted from the roadside edge like some dangerous inhospitable place but now it's been sanitised, much like its neighbour Singapore which 'back in the days' was a humdrum place with Malays and Chinese competing for every scrap of land and water frontage with sampans thousands of them providing not only a mode of transport but a place to live and bring up a family. The sights and sounds of those robust energetic citizens has been throttled out of existence by Lee Kuan Yew their dictatorial leader who died late last month. The place has become the home of Prada, Rolex and all that is ostentatious.
Both societies Malaysia and Singapore where rich in tradition and I was fascinated to watch and come close to people enacting a way of life that was so remote from my European experience. Sitting enthralled listing to the cymbals crashing and the strange stunted movements of the Chinese actors enacting a piece of Chinese opera, the singers wailing the strangest sounds as mythical dragons rushed forward to menace the heroine.
You knew you were a long way from home. How different now as globalisation and the brand culture represents only one thing and one thing only, how rich are you and are you rich enough to be with us !!!
It's Malaysia and the second race of the season. The track is close to Kuala Lumpur, newly built to signpost the country.
Back in the mid 60s this area was densely tropical, an intriguing hidden and dangerous place to visit off road. The lush thick vegetation sprouted from the roadside edge like some dangerous inhospitable place but now it's been sanitised, much like its neighbour Singapore which 'back in the days' was a humdrum place with Malays and Chinese competing for every scrap of land and water frontage with sampans thousands of them providing not only a mode of transport but a place to live and bring up a family. The sights and sounds of those robust energetic citizens has been throttled out of existence by Lee Kuan Yew their dictatorial leader who died late last month. The place has become the home of Prada, Rolex and all that is ostentatious.
Both societies Malaysia and Singapore where rich in tradition and I was fascinated to watch and come close to people enacting a way of life that was so remote from my European experience. Sitting enthralled listing to the cymbals crashing and the strange stunted movements of the Chinese actors enacting a piece of Chinese opera, the singers wailing the strangest sounds as mythical dragons rushed forward to menace the heroine.
You knew you were a long way from home. How different now as globalisation and the brand culture represents only one thing and one thing only, how rich are you and are you rich enough to be with us !!!
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