Sandra

I am elated...so much so that I can even use such a fancy word as "elated". You know the feeling you get when your spirit is uplifted by a gracious compliment or acknowledgement from somebody you care very much about ! Well it just happened to me. I have just received an e-mail from Sandra who lives in Perth, Western Australia saying she has read my blog and she's happy I'm doing it and she seems to like it and she is telling her friends that "Uncle David has a Blog !"

Hi San ! Thanks for those sweet words. You know what ? I am one of those old people who are trying hard to keep the generation gap from drifting too far apart. Note that I still use the word "old". Some people prefer other less obvious terms like "retro", "senior" or "vintage" which I dont really like. It makes me feel like wine or an old model car.

By the way, Sandy also has a blogsite : http://www.okaysandy.blogspot.com/ . If you want to know what young people in Perth are up to these days, read Sandy's posts. She plays football. I hope it's the British version - soccer as the yankees call it - not the Australian version. The Australian version is like two musclebound teams of Mr. Universes or Mr. Olympias trying to score goals using their heads, elbows, knees and feet. Unlike their sissy yankee counterparts they wear no protective gear. San, tell me you play SOCCER.

I have another reason to be happy. This blogsite is being graced by Captain Fred. If you look hard enough at the "followers" panel you'd see his logo. I am honoured. Captain Fred is a living example of the title of my blogsite. He is all kinds of everything although by profession he is a Businessman who owns a successful I.T. company. Entrepreneur is the word that describes him perfectly as he has been able to establish a profitable business out of his hobby and past-time i.e. fishing and boating. He was recently invited to participate in a Government run Forum to brainstorm the potential for Eco-Tourism employing the seas off Brunei Darussalam. I was going to write about this today but there appears to be some intelligent exchange between the "animals" on this subject by emails so I thought I had better wait until a consensus is arrived at.

Diahhrrea.....does this word scare you? It does me, especially after the Geylang Serai Rojak incident. Even the spelling of the word is frightening. Funny how the sound and pronunciation of a word always seem to suit so well the subject it describes. Anyway, I received an e-mail today from someone close..in the same way as Sandy is to me..which I feel can be helpful if and when (touch wood) we are afflicted with Diahhrrea. Here is part of the e-mail copied and pasted :-

Hi all,With recent cases on the Gelyang Serai, Spore food poisoning out break(with 2 deaths todate), I would like to share the info received from afriend. Pls read on it may be of help....When someone gets diarrhoea, sometimes the solution is so easy, wewonder why anyone has to suffer.The secret is in rice water.This is already known in this region. Ask your maids -- Sri Lankan,Indonesian, Filipina and they would know about it.My mother knew about it. When Dr Albert Winsemius came to Singaporemany years ago for a farewell and thank you dinner in his honour, hebrought along hiswife Aly and his granddaughter, Jolijn. Both women came down with verybad gastroenteritis.. They saw the doctor who gave them medication. Itwas slow to work.Mother boiled some rice in lots of water and went to their hotel withtwo 1.5L bottles of rice water.I cringed in shame at the offer of this folk remedy, which seemed soprimitive to me. Never heard of this cure before. To my surprise, itworked, and they were even able to go out for dinner the next day. Bothwere exclaiming how the rice water did the trick of making them wellagain. Well, luckily it worked, I thought to myself.I was discussing this a few years back with Kim Ng, the ex-matron of KKHospital. She said, yes, that is what Professor Wong Hock Boon, thenotable paediatrician teaches. I was shocked and made some comments howcould he? It was common knowledge so what had he got to do with it?Many months later, I regretted laughing at it. Dr Christina ShantaEmmanuel, who is the CEO of...uh, which group I have forgotten. EitherNational Health Group, or Polyclinics, or whatever... regarded meseriously when I brought up the topic like it was good fun. She saidthat Prof Wong Hock Boon had presented a paper on it. At someconference. After he had done clinical trials.Then his results were published in the Lancet, the Medical Journal alldoctors read. In fact, said Shanta, he was credited for saving the livesof 2 million African babies by this method.Ah, so! I am impressed.It is rice water and not rice, that does the trick. I have found iteffective again and again. You take a handful of rice and boil it in alarge saucepan with lots of water. Like three or four large glasses.Then you cool that and drink the water. If you are in a hurry to relievethe ailing person, take the saucepan off the fire and dunk it in afrying pan or basin of cool water with ice cubes if necessary.This gives the patient a chance to drink the rice water sooner and curehimself or herself sooner.When drinking the rice water, make sure there is lots of it. You have totell the patient that enough water must go in to line your guts fromthroat to other end, all 10 to 12 metres of it. If you take rice, itstays in the stomach. If you take broth, some of it may go into thesmall intestine.But if you take rice water, it will carry rice grains to every inch ofyour small and large intestine to the end where the problem is.How does it work? Even Prof Wong Hock Boon doesn't know. Read theattached file. Or go to* http://rehydrate.org/dd/dd06.htm#page2*It is good to pass on the news to everyone you know because thecomplaint is so common and people suffer unnecessarily. You would bedoing your friends a great favour to relieve them of their misery whenthe occasion arises. Thank You.

Several other follow up e-mails between ladies of different backgrounds and races were also forwarded to me and all agreed this remedy has been used by their mothers, grandmothers for ages and they worked all the time. The odd thing is...only the ladies seem to have an interest in it. Hmmmmm I wonder why !