Any advice on this?
Published on: Tuesday, June 09, 2020
By: Sylvia Howe
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I need advice please. Official or otherwise. What is the best way to have goods (simple ones, like clothes you have forgotten, or some water mixable oil paints which are not available in Malaysia) sent to Sabah from UK without a long delay?
A courier is fine, but very very expensive. Ordinary post doesn’t work – my record is a birthday card for March which arrived in June. Recorded from this end is fine, but I am at a loss about the other. I don’t order much, but I have not had much luck. This can’t be right, can it? What’s the best way to send stuff? Do I have to pay duty? After Customs in KL does it have to go through Customs in KK? How do I find out – the Post Office checked but was unable to give me any more information than I could find on the web.
Below is my story. Tissues at the ready.
THE SONG OF THE SHIRT
With apologies to Thomas Hood
I ordered a shirt from my friend’s shop in
Kent
And I asked her to send it by courier.
It is nice, it is white, it is cool,
But by no means by a couturier.
She sent it the seventh of May
From the Post Office, registered mail.
The times estimated, they say,
Won’t be more than about 14 day(s).
I waited, excited. I waited some more.
I asked her to check all the details.
She looked and she checked and she sent
back the score:
in KL, at Customs, with all other mail(s).
I looked up the website to follow
It now was the last week of May, and
counting.
It seems the promises were hollow –
It left KL today. Anticipation mounting!
I stood in the sunshine, mask on,
Sweating sadly, for an hour and a half.
To enter the post office with number
And see if they could follow its path.
Where’s it gone? No-one knows.
On its way from KL – that’s all.
Can we check when it comes, where it
goes
Before queueing and trying another call?
What’s the story? On website nothing
shows.
Will it need another Customs
inspection?
Is there really a need to check all the
clothes
That are sent to KK, for detection
Of what? Drugs? Stolen goods?
Or just plain Customs Duty?
It’s all fine, I’ll pay up
If I can get hands on my booty.
Still not here. It’s been Raya, I know,
And this always causes delay.
But nothing’s been said, no info
been sent
And I wait, gently wondering, day to day
Not a masterpiece I grant you, but there you are. A poem, from the heart. The worst part so far is standing in the boiling sun in a long socially distanced queue, looking through the window at empty socially distanced seats in the cool. ‘Only six people allowed inside’ said the man taking temperatures, before returning to his games on his mobile.
I would like to avoid the wait in future, sweat dripping steadily into my eyes, my fish white skin sizzling in the rays. I need to do some serious research. Please help. [email protected].
I’ve only had trouble with this package. When the Customs open it, I fear they will be sadly disappointed. No exciting contraband. Just embossed white linen, long sleeves, feminine cut, down to mid calf! Not Sabah style, I fear but it is mine, and I long for it!
Apart from this, all other orders (through Lazada mostly) have taken a little time, but have been delivered painlessly to my condo. I have also received a confirmation from Marks and Spencer that a package ordered last week is being brought to us on June 3, by the end of the day. Halleluya – but less yearned for than my shirt, I fear. I am essentially a frivolous being.
Fresh Air
Recorded my first Fresh Air show with Ben Uzair, who worked the deck and chatted with me – we enjoy each other’s company and it shows! It’s a show different from the other ones, and I hope it adds a bit of variety to radio in KK. Chat, old music (not the gavotte, but Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley and The Beatles), interviews of people from the UK and locally: this week we have international expert David Hensley on Branding, and therapist Fiona Hooper on supporting young people over the pandemic restrictions.
I am collecting all sorts of people and we are also going to record shows on the move: in a boat in the National Park, at the LepaLepa Regatta next April. If we are allowed to travel there by then.
Every month, last Saturday, from 8 am to 10 am. We encourage interaction, so do please listen and get involved if you wish.
Residents’ Rates
Talking of travelling, we have booked a two night Residents’ Package at Gaya Island Resort to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It is very reasonable and offers a lot. We upgraded for a view of Mt Kinabalu, and will have to pay for our drinks and any spa treatments, but that’s about it.
It is so important to support local hotels, restaurants, tour businesses when there are no visitors, and it should play both ways. Residents’ Packages show Sabahans that their custom too is valued; when I lived in Kenya there were residents’ rates and visitors’ rates, and because the first were reasonable, the hotels were full with a mixture of people, and everybody was happy. Something to develop in Sabah, I suggest.
Theatre online
As well as all the offerings from Lord Loud-Wobbly (Joseph, Phantom etc), and the marvellous contributions from the National Theatre, Royal Opera House, Royal Ballet, Australian Ballet and much more, there is going to be a play at the Old Vic streamable from £10 or the equivalent to help keep the place open. Those who wish to watch are asked to contribute as much as they can afford, and everyone gets the same view; it’s not the same as going to the theatre itself, but at least you don’t have to queue for the loo, or pay ridiculous prices for drinks at the crowded bar!
Lungs has Matt Smith and Clare Foy who played the young Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II. Written by Duncan Macmillan, it had a sell-out run last year to excellent reviews. On stage the two actors will play to an empty house, keeping two metres apart, as required.
Old Vic: In Camera is the name of this initiative, the first of its kind, and will include rehearsed play readings and several performances of Lungs in June. More to come.
The Old Vic is 202 years, one of London’s oldest theatres, and it is not financially healthy during the pandemic. It is a charity and relies only on ticket sales sponsorship and donations. It is very important that it keeps going. We can’t lose such a great place, which puts on so much worth watching. There are also archive production being streamed, starting with A Monster Calls on 5 June.
Part of a review from The Guardian
Foy and Smith perform this two-hander after having honed their chemistry in Netflix series The Crown, and it is an achievement that they are not defined by those roles. These characters are instantly convincing as a trendy young couple arguing in an Ikea queue: she is a PhD student in dungarees and rolled up shirt sleeves, he is a new man in Nike trainers, nodding along to her stridency. Their rat-a-tat repartee of the early scenes is sharp and funny, but frenetic, too, and the drama gathers powers as it slows and introduces silences.
Rob Howell’s set design, like the original, is minimalist to the extreme, empty but for a solar-panelled floor and two tiles on opposite sides propped up by rock crystals – a sly satirical reminder of the couple’s fashionable, new age environmentalism. The bareness on stage forces the actors to do all the work; for Foy and Smith, it allows them to showcase their natural synergy, sometimes with a hint of swagger. But it also works on a metaphorical level in stripping their relationship down to its bones.
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