Malaysian Schools Rugby Championship.

The PMR (Year 3 Secondary School Examination in Malaysia) has ended. Those who have completed it were jumping, Merdeka! Merdeka! (independence in English). The Schooling was still on, my kid came back for a week. He studied in a public (full residential/boarding school) in the state of Perak, in the west coast. Then he left again, went back to school, en route Malacca, to participate in the Malaysian Schools Under 15 Rugby Championship, that will stretched into the second week of the holiday.

Their school represented Perak. The reached the semi final, beaten by 1 try by King George the V (KGV) of Seremban Negeri Sembilan, another state in the west coast south of Perak. They got the third place. KGV was beaten by a School from Kelantan, Sultan Yahya Petra of Kuala Krai (SYP), SYP came out as the champ. I was told the SYP is now a sports school. In Malaysia now they are schools earmarked as sports school where good students of reasonable academical standing who have inclination over sports are placed.

Rugby is a good a game. At least me and my kid shared the same passion. I could share the excitement and enjoyed watching too, when he switches on a match say between All Blacks and Springbox or the recent Springbox, English tour on Youtube. I can associate with that. It’s a tough game for gentlemen and not a place for rowdies. In the game, we have one thing in common, we were not into scrums. I played more as one of the 3Qs probably just before the winger, was my favourite position. My kid play full-back. It is a position that I would rather not choose. Being the last man in the line up you will have to make sure that you can take any runner from the opposite side down.

Favourite Verses :

Rivalry in worldly increase distracteth you

Until ye come to the gave.

Nay, but ye will come to know!

Nay, but ye will come to know!

Nay, would that ye knew (now) with sure knowledge,

For ye will behold hell-fire.

Aye, ye will behold it with sure vision.

Then, on that day, ye will be asked

Concerning pleasure.

102:1-8 Al- Takathur ( By Marmaduke Pickthall )

Favourite Supplication :

O Lord, Thou art my shelter if I grow sad, and Thou art my resource if I am in need and unto Thee I cry for help, when deeply afflicted, and with Thee is recompense for what is lost, and reformation for what is corrupted, and alteration for what Thou disapproved:

Therefore, favour me with security before calamity, and bounty before begging for it and right direction before error and spare me from bearing me peace on the day of resurrection and favour me with handsome guidance.

O Lord, bless Muhammad and his family and ward off evil from me with Thy grace, and nourish me with Thy blessing, and reform me with Thy graciousness and cure me with Thy goodness and hide me in the shelter of Thy mercy and clothe me with Thy approbation, and help me, when matters grow difficult about me, to choose the most righteous of them, and when actions become dubious, to select the purest of them, and when the creeds conflict, to adopt the most praiseworthy of them.

O Lord, bless Muhammad and his family and crown me with sufficiency and adorn me with the grace of Thy love and grant me true guidance and do not try me with prosperity and confer on me the beauty of comfort and do not make my life a succession of trials, and do not reject my prayer with repulsion; for, I do not recognise any as Thy rival, and I do not call upon any as Thy equal.

O Lord, bless Muhammad and his family and restrain me from extravagance and preserve my subsistence from waste and increase my possessions by giving blessing therein and let me walk along the path of benevolence; in whatever I spend my wealth.

Supplications of Imam Ali Zayn al-'Abidin a.s.

Favourite lyrics:

I could be the driver an articulated lorry
I could be a poet I wouldn't need to worry
I could be a teacher in a classroom full of scholars
I could be the sergeant in a squadron full of wallahs
What a waste
What a waste
What a waste
What a waste

CHORUS:
Because I chose to play the fool in a six-piece band,
First-night nerves every one-night stand.
I should be glad to be so inclined.
What a waste! What a waste!
But I don't mind.

I could be a lawyer with strategems and ruses
I could be a doctor with poultices and bruises
I could be a writer with a growing reputation
I could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway Station
What a waste (x4)

Repeat CHORUS

I could be the catalyst that sparks the revolution
I could be an inmate in a long-term institution
I could dream to wide extremes, I could do or die
I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by
What a waste (x4)


Ian Dury and The Blockheads : 1977

You deserve to hear this Late Cockney Londoner lyrics from the stage