Vacation And Travels

" Post-retirement usually means living a tranquil life in a place call 'home'. But why do some people uproot themselves, move to a stranger land and start over again?? " Here is a story with a participant in Malaysia My Second Home"

Samantha Jones,38, remembers vividly that moment in 2002. "We were sitting on the lanai in Pelangi Resort and all of sudden i just felt it...wow, i don't think ever felt so relaxe in my whole life", recal Jones.

Samantha and her spouse, John,50, were holidaying in Langkawi for 10 days. " On the way to the airport, I cried all the way. I just didn't want to go home." The Joneses of Somerset Country have always talked about emigrating overseas when John, a fireman, retires after 32 years ofof service. At first, they thought of moving to Spain. But on their second vacation to Langkawi, they made up their minds to move here. Back in the UK, they did some research and found out about MM2H programme via internet.

Prince Harry makes farewell speech ahead of Iraq deployment

LONDON (AP): A British newspaper reported Saturday the contents of an alleged farewell speech by Prince Harry ahead of his much publicized posting to Iraq as a British army officer.

"I am nervous wreck,'' the News of the World, a weekly tabloid, reported Harry as telling a group of friends on Friday. "I've waited a long time and just want to get out there and serve my country.''

Commanders are reportedly reconsidering their decision to allow the prince to fight in Iraq because of fears that his presence could endanger other soldiers. Harry's regiment, the Blues and Royals, is due to begin a six-month tour of duty in Iraq within weeks.

Clarence House, Prince Charles' London office, would not comment on the report. "What he does in his private time is private,'' said a spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with royal household policy.

The spokesman said reference should be made to a speech made last year by Harry to mark his 21st birthday. In it, the third in line to the thrown said he would not have gone through the rigors of officer training at the elite Sandhurst military academy "then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.''

The tabloid reported Harry as telling a group of around 20 close friends at a London nightclub that he is prepared to "do anything they throw at me.''

As the speculation continues whether Harry will be deployed on the front line, the 22-year-old royal reportedly told the group that he would be honored to serve the country in any capacity required, adding that a final decision had yet to be made.

"It's a great, great feeling to go to Iraq,'' he reportedly said. "I don't know what to expect. I'm nervous, excited and apprehensive ... and I'm really looking forward to it. I just want to get out there and do it.''

Harry, a second lieutenant, is a tank commander trained to lead a 12-man team in four armored reconnaissance vehicles. If deployed, he would become the first royal to serve in a war zone since his uncle, Prince Andrew, flew as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands conflict with Argentina in 1982.

Seasonal slick

What are celebrities decked out in this season? Looks like it’s skinny jeans, classics, metallics and 1980s garb for day or night.

BEING in the public eye means your wardrobe will be scrutinised, and then either vilified or copied. Though you have to remember, with celebrities, it’s hard to tell if what you see is their own personal style or the work of a really good (or bad!) fashion stylist. Whether chosen personally or by the hired help, key looks for Spring-Summer are very much on display in Tinseltown at the moment, and we present a few here.

Small is big this season. Cutesy Kate Husdon wears a mini dress from Chanel Spring/Summer paired with black tights and heels. A sure way to sizzle.

Nicole Kidman glams up skinny black pants with a shiny cropped jacket. If you don’t want to look too glitzy, one way of still wearing shine this season is to offset it with something matte.

The gorgeous Charlotte Casiraghi, daughter of Monaco’s Princess Caroline and one of Europe’s most stylish young aristocrats, pairs a shimmery dress and beige fur coat with gold platforms, conforming to one of the season’s most popular looks: metallics. She also carries a silver Tod’s Boomerang bag.

Jennifer Lopez, always the hip fashionista, wears the season’s trends from head to toe, as seen in her super skinny jeans paired with a shrunken waistcoat. To finish off, she accessorises with a row of bangles and the perfect platforms.

Move-ability is good this season. Mary Stuart Masterson goes for volume in this white dress paired with cropped boots and a gold cuff.

Beyonce pulls off the stylish trench coat in a modern day take from Tod’s by Derek Lam and pairs it with glittery platforms for a polished and chic look.

Looking at wine

In the first of a five-part series on tasting, our oenologist shares how just looking at a glass of wine can tell you much about its quality.

THERE are millions of wines in the world, thousands of new wines entering the marketplace – and hundreds of people writing about wine. So, yes, you can read all you want about wine, but it is hardly the best way to learn about it.

Sampling wine is the best approach in the seemingly immense world of wine. And it is the most practical, as most people would seldom taste wine alone; it’s natural to gather like-minded friends who can share the cost of purchasing bottles.

Wine tasting groups can be formed anywhere – ask your friends if they are interested to take part. Form a group at your workplace, as wine tasting can be a good team building exercise. Contact your local wine merchant and he/she might have clients like yourself, looking to form a wine “club’’. Ultimately, in tasting with a few others, you get to exchange ideas and broaden perspectives through discussion.

Holding a glass of wine against a white background, like your notepaper, is a good way to really examine the colour of the wine. –

If you are a beginner, resist the temptation to taste a wide variety of wines. Instead, choose just one or two varieties. That way, you can taste various versions (vintages, diverse producers, different country/region, origins) of the same variety.

Advanced tasters might use similar wines. But they would be examining the wine in detail to learn about the intricate aspects of the wine. For example, whether natural yeast fermentations of the same variety might taste different from a wine fermented using freeze-dried yeast; whether the same variety, aged in American oak tastes different to that aged in French oak barrels.

Ultimately, you need a structured approach when tasting wines. We covered some of these aspects in various instalments of Uncorked but here’s a checklist for assessing wines by sight. I have also included some additional facets of wine that “advanced’’ tasters should look out for.

Eyes can inform

Limpidity – is the wine clear, limpid or crystal-clear, gassy or cloudy or hazy?

Brilliance – is it dazzling and does it reflect light, is it bright or dull, flat and murky?

Intensity – is it deep, or pale and lacking in intensity?

These are the tint and colour descriptors you should get to know:

White wines – white-gold, green-gold, pale-gold, golden, pale yellow, light yellow, canary yellow, green-yellow, gold-green, grey-yellow, water-green, amber-yellow, straw, old gold, rose.

Red wines – violet, purple, scarlet, garnet red, peony, deep purple, cherry red, dark cherry, bright cherry, ruby, bright red, brick red, orange-red, brown, mahogany, tile red.

Rosé wines – light scarlet, raspberry, light claret, orange tint, salmon, apricot. Quality rosé wines often show a purple edge when the glass is tilted. Sparkling wines – similar to descriptors for white or rosé wines, but also including a description of the size of bubble, quantity, rate, duration.

Condition – wines that are unusually brown (white wine) or too light coloured (red wine) for their “age” may have been adversely affected by premature oxidation or by improper storage (heat, light, etc).

Inferring from look, colour, tint

Maturity of wine – As the wine matures, colours change due to slow oxidation in the bottle. Ageing of wines in oak barrels is an oxidative process too. Red wines turn from red to ruby, brick red to mahogany and then tawny or amber brown. As tannins fall out in the sediment, so do the anthocyanins and colours. White wines turn a darker shade that changes from straw to gold and then to brown from slow oxidation.

Grape variety – for example, the thick skins of Zinfandel provide more colour, the thin skins of Pinot Noir provide less colour.

Maturity of fruit – colour builds up as the fruit approaches optimum ripeness.

Soil type – soils rich in iron produce more scarlet colour.

Growing temperature – cool climate grapes have relatively thicker skins and provide more pigments and colour. Warm dry summers produce more scarlet colour.

Extraction – The extraction of phenolic compounds, including anthocyanins, from grape skins during fermentation and maceration provides colour in wine. Higher fermentation temperatures extract more colour; and you can surmise that aromas are affected by higher temperature fermentations, and that the wine might taste more jammy rather than fruity or floral.

Others – The condition of the wine, whether it has been filtered or is there a lot of suspended particles in a young wine; the pH and its reactions with sulphur dioxide in wine, etc.

Telling age from colour

White wines – if they look green, they’re less than two years old; yellow means wine with a few years maturation; gold means well aged wine more than six years old.

Red wines – violet means youthful wines between one and three years old; ruby red are wines matured two to fours years in the bottle; tile red means mature wines, five to as much as 15 years old.

Rosé wines – whitish pink ones are less than two years old; pinkish grey means wines matured for two to fours years in the bottle; amber means a mature wine.

Ed Soon is a qualified oenologist and has run wine shops and worked as a winemaker in various countries. He now writes and teaches about wine around Asia.

Spiderman-3

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has finally found some measure of peace in his life. He has learned to strike a balance between his devotion to M.J. (Kirsten Dunst), and his duties as a friendly neighbourhood superhero.

But his seemingly perfect life may just be disrupted by that thing called er, ego. Of course, it may be he’s acting strange because of an alien symbiote (posing as a superhero costume); the perfect catalyst to start a storm a-brewin’ on the horizon.

As his masked alter-ego Spider-Man basks in the public's adulation for his accomplishments, Peter is pursued by the lovely Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), who competes with M.J. for his affections.

All this attention goes right to Pete’s (Web)head -- he becomes overconfident and overbearing; a spider jerk who starts to neglect the people who care about him most.

When he finally realises that his new black costume has a life of its own, and is taking charge of his, he tries to get rid of it. But then there are still a new breed of supervillains - Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), The Green Goblin, and Venom (Topher Grace) – to contend with. Is this then, the end of Spider-Man?

Bird Flu Death

A 14-years old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, a senior health ministry official said yesterday, citing result from local test. The boy was admitted to South Jakarta hospital on Wednesday and died on the same day.

President Gorge W. Bush has assigned legislation

DECENCY BILL : President Gorge W. Bush has assigned legislation that will cost broadcaster dearly when raunchy programming exceed " the bounds of decency." The federal Communications Commission can now fine a broadcaster up to US$325,000 per incident.