Italia is Love

Models take selfies as they walk the runway for Dolce & Gabbana during Milan fashion week. Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

Model taking a selfie of her Dolce &Gabbana wicker basket. Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

A camera bag from Dolce & Gabbana’s spring/summer 2016 collection. Photograph: Daniel Dal Zennaro/EPA

Photos: Reuters/Alessandro Garofalo

Photo: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

 

Against a backdrop showing a 1950s Italian high street, complete with red and white stripy awnings and a fruttivendolo (greengrocer), and That’s Amore on the soundtrack, Dolce & Gabbana took fashionistas on holiday on Sunday with their Spring/Summer 2016 collection that paid tribute to the designer duo’s home country.

 

The models took selfies as they strutted the catwalk, showcasing the vibrant designs – that Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana had decorated their dresses with all things delightfully Italian.

 

Entitled “Italia is love”, the collection presented a picture-postcard view of Italy over an exhaustive 90 looks.

 

Decorations on bags and dresses celebrated the country’s greatest tourist hits: Capri! Amalfi! Taormina! Rome! Portofino! There were Virgin Mary medallions dangling from shoes and appliquéd on burgundy velvet dresses.

 

Bags were fashioned after tourist’s cameras or traditional wicker baskets. Michelangelo’s David, Rome’s Colosseum, Venice’s gondolas, the tower of Pisa and Florence’s Duomo all became sequinned patches on frocks.

 

And there were lemons everywhere – embroidered into dresses, on headdresses, used as chunky plastic earrings.

Known for their use of embellishments, the celebrity-favorite designers employed an array of colors, sequins, gems, pom-poms and appliques for their fashion extravaganza.
 

For the show's finale, models changed into short dresses, made to look like postcards from cities and holiday spots across Italy from San Remo in the north to the Almafi Coast.

 

A riot of colors in a wardrobe of delectable designs! Italy rocks!

 

On Friday, I collected my office mail and this is what I received:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One ALB, two CL and two CC awards! Wow! My total tally for this 2015-2016 term, so far is 9 and I can expect to amass a collection of at least 16 Toastmasters awards this term!

 

On Saturday, I was at the Premier Advanced Toastmasters meeting. I took on the role of Speech Evaluator and I must say I was impressed with Lhavanya’s speech. I trust my evaluation had helped her to improve further. I was voted Best Table Topics speaker and yes, I deserved it!

 

 

Mooncakes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mooncakes (月饼 yuèbǐng/ ywair-bing) are Chinese pastries with highly-varied fillings, generally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. This year it falls on September 27th (the date not just of a full moon but also, in much of the world, a lunar eclipse).

 

In Malaysia, these cakes are normally stuffed with fillings, often based on lotus seeds, nuts or sweet bean-paste, and with or without egg yolk. But there are also other types of fillings and they include chocolate, coffee, durian, green tea, pandan and yam. 

In China, I read that organic and vegan mooncakes are also having a moment. 

 

 

My favorite: Frosty Durian Musang King mooncake, RM32 for 2 pieces @ Dragon-I Restaurant, Sunway Pyramid

 

If I may add, these innovations are superb too. 

As Fuchsia Dunlop, a British authority on Chinese food, notes that “cuisines are living cultural artefacts… they are a response to where we are now”.

 

Chinese cuisine – including mooncakes – is no longer confined in the Sinosphere. Like everything and anything else that is Chinese – they are reaching out to the world. It's a globalised world, after all.

Who would have thought that mooncakes were once used in the Ming dynasty to hide secret messages for the Han Chinese revolt?

Malaysia's Junk Status

Source: Webpage http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-23/do-malaysia-south-africa-deserve-junk-moody-s-model-says-yes

Business conditions in Malaysia have deteriorated this year and they are not going to turn the corner any time soon. It does not help that there is a dearth of good policy measures to counter market-related headwinds. 

Moreover, Najib Razak can’t really focus on his job and spends a disproportionate time trying to hold on to his prime ministership.

 

And the credit rating agencies have not been honest with Malaysia because they are all wearing blindfolds. The country gets the thumbs-up even though the economy has been on a descent.

 

But credit default swap (CDS) traders understand our economy better and so we have been awarded “junk” status. This means the market – whether we care to admit it or not – is now negative about Malaysia.

 

Bloomberg reported Thursday that two weeks after Brazil's credit rating was lowered, CDS investors are punishing other emerging markets facing similar challenges. The report said Moody's Corp rated Malaysia A3, although traders saw it six levels lower at Ba3. 

 

The so-called ratings gaps for nine countries – including Malaysia – are some of the biggest among the 65 borrowers tracked by Moody’s implied-ratings model, which is based on CDS prices as of September 21, 2015 compared with peers in the same ratings category.

 

The report said most developing nations were confronting the same issues that saw Brazil losing its investment-grade rating at Standard & Poor’s – a plunge in commodity prices, a slumping currency and political turmoil.

 

The rating agencies need to get their act together. Have they forgotten that they were roundly criticized for being slow to react during the 2008 crisis as well as the 2011 euro-zone crisis?

 

I was in KL’s Brickfields on Wednesday for the MIA Toastmasters meeting. I also delivered my CC #6 speech and again, I found I could have done better. Sigh! I am still not a very good speaker. I am very much a work in progress.

 

 

Ink-redible Tattoos

Tattoo artist Ondrej Konupcik imitates the freehand style of watercolor painting with brush strokes and ink splatters to create colorful artwork.

The 31-year-old, who lives in Znojmo in Czech Republic, sees only one client a day so he has 'enough time' to carry out the painstaking work. In his studio, there are 'no catalogs', preferring customers to write down what kind of design they'd like. He then draws the tattoo directly onto the skin.

His impressive images have included a tree, wolf, phoenix, elephant and flowers.

Image credit: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3235418/Czech-artist-imitates-style-watercolour-paintings-create-striking-tattoos.html

Going by the name of Ondrash, his work is already so popular that there is a two-year waiting list!

Liverpool and Norwich played to a 1-1 draw last Sunday in another below-average EPL match insofar as the former are concerned.

 

After a dull first half Danny Ings came on to score his first Liverpool goal in the forty-eighth minute but Canary defender and Scotland international Russell Martin profited from Simon Mignolet's error on a corner to level in the sixty-first minute.

 

Reds have not won in their last five matches. And Brendan Rodger’s side has not given me any reason to believe they will win honors this season.  

Since Luis Suarez (left) left, the Reds have been a disappointment. But Suarez has been going great guns with Barcelona.

 

Last season he made his debut with the Catalans only on October 25 but once he began playing, he had scored 25 goals and bagged 20 assists. [Note: He was serving a ban for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup]. Suarez was simply spectacular!

 

We dearly miss him at Anfield, that's for sure!

Noah's Ark in Acrylic

The barges travelled down the River Seine loaded with sculptures  

Toucans, parrots and other birdlife designs displayed against a backdrop of the Eiffel Tower

 

The colourful display named "Noah's Ark for Climate" is intended to raise awareness of climate change

 

An installation of 140 colored animal shapes representing Noah’s Ark sailed up the River Seine in Paris, France on Saturday.

 

The art project is to raise awareness on climate change as the French capital prepares to host yet another round of climate talks in about two months’ time.

 

The animal sculptures were made out of fully recyclable acrylic sheet and are a creation coordinated by French artist Gad Weil.

 

“The work of pop art is this, a sort of continuous game for children and families that gives them the chance to take pictures and put them on social networks with the hashtag #ADNClimat along with their suggestions to halt climate change. We will have all sorts of proposals, some more interesting, some less interesting and all these proposals and pictures will be displayed during the [summit],” explained Weil.

 

The 2015 Paris Climate Conference is set to take place from November 30 to December 11, 2015.

 

I was in Bangsar, KL yesterday to deliver CC#5 titled “A Pile of Letters” at the KL Advanced Toastmasters meeting. And I was voted Best Assignment Speaker. Additionally, I was the Table Topics Evaluator.

I must add that Gerard Peter as the Toastmaster-of-the-Evening was in an exceptionally ebullient mood. Wow! Overall, a good meeting although we started two minutes late and finished even later. I would score this meeting a 4 over 10.

 

 

This Toastmasters meeting represent my two-hundredth regular meeting for this calendar year todate – a good achievement, if I may say so myself, although I must acknowledge that I am behind by two assignment speeches as compared to last year.