I think the MPO is starting to become the oracle for our lives...

Saturday's concert started with Brahms's Tragic Overture. "I could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for a tragedy," wrote the composer (according to the inestimable notes provided for the concert each week). But, in comparison, say, with Shostakovitch, this didn't sound exactly tragic. It's a reflection, rather, of "heroic defiance and passionate utterances".

We've had a fairly defiant week, with more than a few passionate utterances... Most of them have been directed towards the three entities I detest most in the entire world at this precise moment: Banks, Insurance companies, and Tax authorities. The dreaded BITs.

Make no mistake. I respect the role of banks; I believe in being honest with insurance companies; and I fully support the requirement to pay taxes (and the Malaysian tax authorities, be it noted, have been super-efficient in dealing with us this year).

But it does seem to require increasing amounts of herculean effort to get the insurance and financial products you need these days... Always there are more hoops to jump through, more sets of fine print to decode...

Next on the programme was Schumann's Third Symphony, which delightfully "reflects all the optimism, joy of life and chance for a fresh start" that Schumann experienced in his new Rhineland home.

And that's part of our life at the moment, too. As we're fighting hand-to-hand combat with international BITs, we're looking forward to new things. New beginnings, without doubt, mean new headaches, new puzzles to solve, new challenges -- but also new opportunities and new chances to grow and explore.

Then we moved to Brahms's Third Symphony. This is stunningly beautiful. But what caught my imagination here was the description of the finale, where "Brahms spreads five musical ideas out in a vast mosaic of cogent design and unassailable logic". Fantastic inspiration for a new project...

Finally -- in an orchestral encore unprecedented since we've been going to MPO concerts -- they offered us Brahms's Hungarian Dance No 5. This is an energizing three-minute bundle of fire and rhythm, which sends you on your way with a cheerful slap on the back.

How we're going to miss the MPO...

Anyway, other news... This is not a political blog, so I'll pass over the extraordinarily depressing "anti-ICERD rally", and focus instead on the really big event of the week: the discovery of a New Breakfast Place!

This is on Jalan Ampang, and is a real bonus for us, as we are not super-endowed with good noodle places within breakfast walking distance. The wanton mee is good (no wanton mee can ever be quite as wonderful as the version the lady near our old home cooked up, but this is very decent). And the pan mee is pretty spot on, too.



We also tried Dotty's this week, which at some point in the recent past took over the Harrod's spot on the ground floor of KLCC. They do decent enough salads and sandwiches. The breakfast menu also looked pretty interesting, but they don't start serving until 10 am... What?! That's just way too long to wait for the most important meal of the day.

And our third discovery of the week was Zok Noodle House, which specializes in Hong Kong and Macao food. I can recommend the spicy squid balls.



This week we watched Guang, a rather lovely Malaysian movie about the challenges of dealing with autism. The film explores how members of a family -- first the mother, who dies while the boys are still quite young, but mostly the struggling, responsibility-burdened younger brother -- deal with a child who is different.

Guang has extraordinary talents, but little in the way of social competence. When he embarks on a big, crazy, wonderful project, his brother, by virtue of worrying about him so much, is the last to really understand anything about what he is doing.

Almost as rewarding as the film's depiction of family relations was its exploration of KL as experienced by its urban poor. It neither elided nor sensationalized poverty, and that is a tricky balance to achieve.

I'm a huge fan of KL's urban landscapes, but I recognize they might be less inspiring when dwelt in rather than hovered over.

Here are a few contrasts from this week:









And, finally, Christmas is coming. The decorations are going up at a rate of knots, and the mall carols haven't quite driven us crazy yet: