Stamp of Identity

WILL stamps become obsolete in the face of frenetic advances in communications technology where e-mails and SMSes are fast replacing handwritten letters?
And haven't courier services such as Pos Malaysia Bhd's PosLaju (however not laju it might be), FedEx and DHL also been fittering the traditional postal market away?
A special grade lecturer in graphic design and digital media at UiTM doesn't think so. Professor Datuk Raja Zahabuddin Raja Yaacob, who has a task most philatelists can only dream of, believes postage stamps will be around for a while yet.
They are still an important source of income for the country while the commemorative ones serve to document important moments in history. Furthermore, stamps often serve as a symbol of the nation's identity, he says.
A stamp collector himself, Raja Zahabuddin, who turns 55 today, has been designing commemorative stamps for Pos Malaysia since 1982.
"We've not actually looked at it that way (stamps becoming obsolete)," he admits. "I will bring this up to the board at our next meeting."
He was referring to the Malaysian Stamp Advisory Board on which he is a committee member. He's also the chairman of the Stamp Design Committee.
Raja Zahabuddin also wants to present his design committee with suggestions on how stamps could be used to project the identity of the country.
"Take, for example, the British stamps," he says. "The country's name isn't even printed on them. Even if the subject on the stamp is just a silhouette of the bust of the Queen, we automatically know it is a British stamp.
"Why can't we have that also? We can use the tengkolok or the Chap Mohor, something that is synonymous with Malaysia."
The veteran designer notes that works of Malaysian artists have yet to be used on stamps as well.
"Definitive" stamps - those that are in normal use - currently in circulation feature agriculture as a subject. Designs are changed every five years with the next one being due in August 2004 where the subject will be Malaysian birds.
Raja Zahabuddin designs the entire package - stamps, first day covers and brochures, presentation pack covers, posters and special cancellations (special purpose post marks).
The commemorative stamps he has designed include those which mark the International Year of the Homeless (1983), the 33rd International Conference of the Commonwealth Parliament (1984), and the official opening of the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque (1988) in Shah Alam.
He also designed stamps covering the installations of the IX Yang DiPertuan Agong (1989), the X Yang DiPertuan Agong (1994) and the XII Yang DiPertuan Agong (2002).
Then there are designs for occasions like 30 years of Asean (1996), 100 years of the Conference of the Malay Rulers (1996), Malaysian Artifacts and Arts (1998), and the coronation of the ninth Sultan of Selangor (2003).
The UiTM don was asked to design stamps to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Federal Territory Kuala Lumpur in 1982 but that was not a personal commission - he had tapped the capabilities of his UiTM graphics students for that. The students were asked to come up with several designs to be submitted to Pos Malaysia.
"We submitted three designs, with a monorail as the subject. They (Pos Malaysia) liked it," he says.
Other stamp designers, most of whom were from the advertising agencies, were also invited to make submissions.
As a stamp designer, Raja Zahabuddin explains, he not only has to come up with the design concept but also to source appropriate pictures and determine the text to be used.
One rule in designing local stamps is that no image of people could be used as a subject except for heads of state or government. However, an exception was made for the national scholar Zainal Abidin Ahmad, better known as Za'aba.
"I don't know why the exception, but if I were to use an image of a person other than the heads of state or government in a design, it would be an art work."
An avid photographer who does not believe in digital cameras ("digital is not pure photography," he declares), Raja Zahabuddin takes his own photographs with his trusty SLR camera, a Nikon FM2.
Upon being commissioned by Pos Malaysia, he says he only needs a week or less to come up with some kind of idea as to what would appear on the stamps. Time is usually needed only for such things as sourcing for photographs and other particulars.
"Once we received approval for a picture only two weeks before going to print."
In his early stamp-designing years, Raja Zahabuddin had to do it the hard way - manually superimposing images by cutting and pasting them on boards.
These days, with computers, he starts by conceptualising a design in a thumbnail size, measuring 30 mm by 40 mm, which is the actual dimensions of the stamp. The word "Malaysia" in Times font is the first to be added.
"Previously when we didn't have computers, I had to do letter transferring. Now, I simply typeset on the computer."
Then, he would blow up the thumbnail image by between five to 15 times to add the artwork. When this is done, the image is reduced back to the thumbnail size.
The stamps are printed at the Percetakan Keselamatan Negara. "They are like cheque books. Security printing is needed."
Many jobs are commissioned at "the last minute" and as such cannot be sent overseas for printing. Also, there are too many commemorative issues in a year. For overseas printing, a design is sent to the printers at least six months ahead of the date of issue.
"You can tell the quality of print. The difference is in the finishing," he says. Overseas printing used to carried out in the UK, Holland and New Zealand.
Despite being a member of the Perak royal household (the late Sultan Idris Shah was his first cousin), Raja Zahabuddin says he could not hide his nervousness when he had to present his work on the stamps to commemorate the 100 years of the Conference of the Malay Rulers to the Sultans.
"My knees went weak when I entered the conference room where they were meeting. The designs were passed from one Sultan to another. Some Sultans were represented by the Tengku Mahkota. Menteris Besar of the respective States were there too.
"When it reached the then Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohamad, he looked at me as if to size me up.
"Then he asked, `Pakai komputer?'. I nodded and he said, `Bagus'. Boy, was I relieved! There were no complaints. Everyone said it was cantik. Raja Zahabuddin says, however, that his most satisfying job to date was to design the entire package to commemorate the official opening of the Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque in Shah Alam.
"I was the first person to take a photograph of the mosque before it was officially opened. The mosque was also specially lit up one night before the official opening so that I could take night shots," he added, obviously still thrilled by the privilege.
So good were his pictures that the architect of the mosque dome made a request to purchase all of the slides.
"The pictures were used in an article in Malaysia Airlines' inflight publication Wings of Gold," he says. "It so happened that the architect read it on board a MAS flight. He contacted the publisher and asked to buy all the slides. I sent the slides to a Birmingham address and a week later got a cheque for RM4,500."
Raja Zahabuddin has also acquired a "celebrity" status of sorts. He had dropped by a post office to buy first day covers, when "someone pointed me out as the designer of the stamp".
Philatelists lost no time in requesting for his autograph on the covers.
"I asked one of them why, he said that it (the cover) could fetch a good price later."
Imagine what Raja Zahabuddin's first-day cover on the 100 years of the Conference of the Malay Rulers could be worth now if it had been autographed by all the Sultans!
Twenty years ago, when he was first commissioned to design stamps, he was paid RM5,000.
Now, he says, commissions can be quite lucrative. Payment to designers depend on how and what is used in designing the stamps.
"For example, payment also depends on the kind of illustration, although I believe the rates should be standardised.
"Some people don't understand what illustration means. It is not simply a drawing, or a photograph or silkscreen. It's the concept and idea."
As a stamp designer, he is critical of some designs, which would not get past the Stamp Design Committee.
"As a designer, I look out for these flaws."
He cites the stamps featuring Malaysia's second Prime Minister, the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, as an example.
"There were too many words on the stamps and one would not be able to read the text even by using a magnifying glass.
"If it had gone to the design panel, we would not have approved it."
Another flaw in design, which he has noted, is of envelopes that are far to small to fit in the brochures.
Raja Zahabuddin is also an artist, with his photo-montage works currently on display at UiTM Art Gallery.
Of his three children, only Raja Zefrli, 22, a mass communications student at UiTM is showing interest in pursuing a career in art and design. Raja Zulfiz, 20, is studying computer science also at UiTM, while Raja Zahira, 17, has just sat for her Form Five exams.
Raja Zahabuddin has certainly turned stamp-collecting and photography into something more than just a hobby.
But he still pursues one activity with no thought whatsoever about pecuniary rewards, and which sometimes takes him away from his wife Datin Zuraidah Jamaluddin.
"I like fishing, especially deep sea," he reveals. "It teaches patience. As a educator, I need to be patient when dealing with students. Fishing allows me to practise deep concentration and discipline. Otherwise I return empty-handed."

Two Guys & A Cili Padi

MOHD Azhari Ahmad took a year to convince his business partner, Rizal Azim, to wear a tie, if not a suit, when they meet clients. In turn, Rizal took the same amount oftime convincing Azhari that in the advertising business, a clean shirt and jeans would do even for "formal" meetings.
"I don't feel at all comfortable if I am not dressed appropriately when meeting clients. Rizal, though, has no problems going to see them in shirt and jeans. He tries to drag me to meetings on days that I wear jeans but I simply refuse to go," Azhari says, immaculately decked out in a dark shirt and tailored pants and matching tie at the interview.
The two young men, both still single, helm the Caberawet Communications Sdn Bhd. Rizal at 31 years old and Azhari, 27, must be the youngest owners of a full-fledged advertising agency in the country.
"We're in the advertising industry, people dress this way," insists Rizal, who is in a grey dot-textured white shirt with the long sleeves rolled up nearly to the elbows, denim blue jeans, and rings on the thumb, and fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand.
His hair is fashionably close-cropped, a style in keeping with his "low maintenance" approach to personal upkeep, perhaps.
And the irony of their contrasting dress sense is that formal and proper Azhari is the creative director (and managing director), while relaxed and casual Rizal is the executive director, whose core responsibility in the partnership is to service clients.
They are entirely agreed on the approach to their business, though, and seem to get along famously, despite the fact that they only got to know each other four years ago.
It was Petronas which brought them together. This was in 1999 when they were working on separate jobs for the national oil corporation.
"I had clients and could find the jobs but no creative support. Azhari had the creative talent but had difficulty looking for clients. So, it's a merger of strengths," Rizal says, recalling their first meeting at The Dome at Suria KLCC.
Between them, they have handled, among other jobs, product launches, company family days, concerts, advertising campaigns, contests, roadshows, annual dinners, and dance and anniversary celebrations.
Azhari admits that he is not very good with company, especially in making small talk.
"When we first met, the first thing I noticed was that he didn't talk very much," Rizal laughs.
He, however, also saw the other side of Azhari - young, creative and extremely hardworking.
"This guy doesn't sleep... doesn't seem to need much sleep, anyway. When we started out, I used to keep him company when he did his work late into the night. I'd fall asleep while he continued on. When I woke up in the morning, all the things would be done and we'd be ready to make a presentation to the client."
Azhari acknowledges that Rizal is the talkative one. "Rizal excels in that area. He can talk about almost anything. I'm more at home with technical stuff. Ask me anything technical and I would probably bore you to death."
Rizal, on the other hand, confesses to being a complete failure when it comes to managing finances.
"I can bring all the money into the company but I cannot manage it. Azhari does that. You know what? He's the stingy one but it's good for the business. He has definitely taught me to be more disciplined about money," he says.
So disciplined is Azhari that he has refused offers from banks to bankroll the company. All expansions to date are funded internally.
It was at a millennium party in 2000 that they decided to team up. In April that year, they merged resources to form Caberawet.
From having a staff of three and doing only small jobs, Rizal and Azhari have expanded Caberawet into a company that provides creative solutions in all aspects of the business: brand consulting, design and concept, marketing communications and public relations.
The name Caberawet was suggested by one of their good friends, Mazlan Shariff. It was one of many proposed, which included Latin, English, Javanese and Malay words, or combinations of them.
"We didn't have any problems registering the name with the Registrar of Companies because it is unique. But the officials there laughed... it sounded weird to them," Rizal says.
Caberawet is Javanese for cili padi.
"The name was itself a challenge, initially. We were going into the business of commercialising brands... and the first brand we had to work on was our own."
They set up shop at Bandar Sri Damansara, Selangor, but in early 2001, both Rizal and Azhari decided to take a gamble and move to Bangunan SPPK in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur.
It was logical as their anchor client then was developer SPPK.
"When we were at Bandar Sri Damansara, I had to come out four or five times a day to SPPK. Moving here helped a lot in terms of cost and time saved," says Rizal, who was servicing the account.
He used up Caberawet's entire savings ofRM7,000 to pay the first month's rent at Bangunan SPPK.
"The office was sprawling and there was only me, Azhari and another designer. Friends thought we were crazy to get such a big place.
"We moved to where our client is to enable us to service them better. And that gamble paid off," Rizal adds.
Two years on, every corner of that big office is now occupied. Caberawet has grown into a group comprising five other companies, each one a profit centre and specialising in different areas.
It now has 30 staff and an equal number of clients who include developers, trading companies, oil and gas companies, banks and tourism-related companies.
It is considering leasing another floor in the SPPK building as Azhari is looking at doubling the team in light of increased business.
Not bad for a three-year-old company thatstarted from scratch, and especially in an industry as tough as advertising.
"Initially, we didn't believe we could go up against the international agencies. But after a while, our work starts to speak for itself.
"Since then, we've won pitches against some much bigger agencies. In the process, clients - and we ourselves - have gained confidence in our work. Furthermore, our pricing is much more competitive," Azhari says.
Last year, the company raked in RM1.2 million worth of billings. The company has surpassed that so far this year.
"I have to hand it to Rizal. It's his work. If he says he'll get this much of business for the company for the year, he works at it. He's a go-getter," Azhari adds.
However, far too many Malaysian companies still prefer to go with international agencies, although the local ones can offer the same, if not better, service, he laments.
"We've been told that our pitches are brilliant but still get turned away with the prospective client opting for an international agency.
"Why? Because of their name, never mind that most of the creative guys in the international advertising agencies are locals!"
Like most agencies, Caberawet is busiest between March and June when clients engage them to undertake production of things like annual reports and greeting cards.
The team also produces design "collaterals" such as corporate folders, marketing brochures, bunting, leaflets, corporate ID and other below-the-line materials.
Much of whatever they earn is ploughed back into the company - and as reward to the employees. Last year, Caberawet staff had a pleasant surprise when their bosses decided to give them a bonus before Hari Raya.
"We heard them checking with each other on the extra money they had in their bank accounts. It makes our staff feel good and when they feel good, we feel good too," Rizal says.
The company rewarded the staff again this year, only a handful of whom have experience working in the advertising industry before joining Caberawet.
Azhari believes in taking in fresh graduates, and training and moulding them.
"When you train them yourself, you get the quality ofwork that meets your expectations and specifications. And we train them to do everything," he says.
Both Azhari and Rizal spent their formative years with a number of printing and advertising agencies.
Azhari, a Lim Kok Wing Institute of Creative Technology graphic design graduate, started out as a colour separator at a printing company. He had also worked at McDonald's part-time while pursuing his studies.
"Eventually, I got a job as art director at Equatorial Bangi. You know the A3-portfolio bag? I was carrying it around to meetings, actually sitting on it when riding on my kapcai," he says.
Rizal, Perlis-born but whose family have moved to Kuala Lumpur ("no more balik kampung each Raya"), had basic training in graphic design.
"I've gone through a lot, even retrenchment when I was 26 years old. It was the lowest point of my life. My car was re-possessed and I had to schedule my meetings in-between my dad's and my sister's so that I could use their cars. Alhamdulillah, things are better now."
Rizal drives a Waja (with a prominent dent on the right side) and true blue KL-ite Azhari a Wira, which is a refreshing indication that the young men have their feet firmly planted on the ground. No high life and flashy cars for them - yet.
Still, where do they network for contacts?
The dance floor!
Rizal, the Salsa King of Caberawet (he took salsa lessons and "the floor literally parts when he does the dance," Azhari reveals), however, claims that his clubbing days are over.
"You bump into lots of people at clubs. They can be potential clients. Sometimes it's useful when you pitch for jobs because you already know the people socially," he says.
The two friends and business associates also share a favourite lepak destination - Langkawi. They go there so often that the people on Pantai Cenang greet them like old friends.
"The first time we went there, we had only RM200 between us but we stayed for a week. We've been there so many times we've lost count," Azhari says.
"And we always make new friends each time," Rizal adds.
The likeable duo are apparently also acquiring a widening circle of clients too.
(END)

Adzmi's Whirl

"LISTEN," says Captain Mohd Adzmi Ariffin. "Listen carefully." To the untrained ear it was just the sound of a helicopter engine revving. "No, listen. A good pilot should be able to tell what is wrong with his helicopter just by listening to the engine," he adds.
Adzmi was given the tip by an instructor in Redhill, Surrey, southern England, where he earned his wings some 20 years ago.
And he honed that skill over the years, first flying for Bristow Helicopters to serve North Sea oil rigs and later for MHS Aviation Bhd.
Pahang-born Adzmi ("don't call me captain, it's not my first name") is a rare breed. Currently chief pilot for MHS Aviation's rotary wing operations in Sudan, he is one of only a handful of civilian-trained helicopter pilots in Malaysia. Most local helicopter pilots are military-trained, serving with the armed forces prior to becoming commercial
helicopter pilots.
Although MHS Aviation has 126 pilots, few can match Adzmi's experience.
For example, he has flown Eurocopter's Ecureuil 355 from London's Gatwick Airport, across the English Channel and via France, Italy, Greece, the Mediterranean islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, on to Alexandria, Egypt, then south along the River Nile and finally into Sudan. Not once, but twice!
The second occasion, what should have been a five-day ferry flight, took an incident-riddled month to complete. It was early this year.
As he had to make stops every 3 1/2 hours to refuel, Adzmi had to chart his route carefully. An engine blow-out saw him grounded in Corfu (turning it into "an all-expenses paid holiday of sorts," he says). After the repairs made by Eurocopter, he flew across the Mediterranean into Egypt ("it was madness on our part... a pretty dangerous thing to fly a helicopter long distances over water").
Nearing his final destination in Sudan he ran out of fuel because he had deviated from his original route ("we had to land in the desert").
Unlike his commercial jet pilot friends who routinely fly scheduled routes, Adzmi, whose tasks change almost on a daily basis, feels his job is more like something out of the National Geographic or Discovery Travel and Adventure channels.
Located some 480 miles south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Heglig has been Adzmi's base for three years now, ever since MHS Aviation started providing helicopter services to the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company.
He heads a four-man team.
Although the company's core activity is servicing the oil and gas industry, it also undertakes community services such as humanitarian evacuations and the sending of engineers into the remoter reaches of the country to repair water wells. It also ferries VIPs visiting the oil and gas fields in the southern parts of Sudan.
MHS Aviation also operates a fixed wing service in Sudan, with six pilots, based in Khartoum.
Despite having been a helicopter pilot for almost half his life, Adzmi, who is rostered to return to Malaysia every other month, still feels the adrenaline rush whenever he tucks his 175-cm frame into the pilot's seat.
Helicopters, according to Adzmi, are extremely reliable flying machines, their performance only restricted by human limitations.
"Helicopters can reach altitudes of up to 23,000 feet, but given that we are not in a pressurised cabin like the cockpit of a jetliner, we can only comfortably climb up to 10,000 feet. Any higher than that and we would have to put on oxygen masks.
"Lack of oxygen leads to disorientation and we don't want that to happen... we constantly need to make important decisions. When flying a helicopter, we are flying by the seat of our pants. Anything can happen and we need to be mentally alert."
Unlike some commercial jet pilots who can renew their licences using simulators, helicopter pilots have to do it for real, usually having to perform a series of tasks to see how they react, among other things, to engine failures and onboard fires. The licence is renewed annually, but for pilots aged 40 and above, it's every six months.
"The helicopter," says Adzmi, who has covered the length and breadth of the vast land on Horn of Africa without any difficulty, "is the fastest and safest mode of transport in Sudan. Furthermore, a helicopter can land almost anywhere in the rugged country".
"We once landed on the main road in Muglad and caused a traffic jam. There was an accident and we were asked to send in a team of health, safety and environment officers to investigate."
Finding his way to towns and villages in Sudan poses few problems too, even though the places he has had to fly to cannot be found on conventional maps.
"We find our way by the latitude and longitude coordinates given to us by the Community Service officer. We punch the coordinates into the GPS (global positioning system) and let the helicopter take us there. We often also bring along a guide to show the way. Maafi mushkila (no problem)," he says, in Arabic, the official language of Sudan.
Winter, continues Adzmi, is the most challenging time to fly in Sudan due to the cold, dry air.
"Everything is brown as far as the eye can see. The dry conditions result in clouds of brown dust engulfing the helicopter as it hovers just above the ground prior to landing.
"The pilot will not be able to see anything outside the cockpit. He can become disoriented, lose his situational awareness, and any over-controlling of the helicopter can lead to a hazardous situation. Violent manoeuvring too close to the ground can prove fatal."
In such circumstances, Adzmi says, the non-handling pilot would concentrate on the artificial horizon monitor and warn the handling pilot of any aggressive movements.
"The handling pilot will be on the lookout for stationary objects that can be affected when the main rotor is down."
There is also the danger of what is called a dynamic rollover, caused by a helicopter making contact with the ground with only one skid or wheel. The threat is greatest when trying to land on sloping or uneven ground.
And in emergency situations, the Thuraya satellite telephone is a lifesaver.
"We can call for help from anywhere. We may try to rectify the problem ourselves or just wait for help, which comes by road."
In case of a fire on board, the pilot would have to come down immediately, irrespective of whether it's on land or water.
"We do think about it quite a lot before flying. Each and every moment, we ask ourselves if we are going to make it through our tasks and return in one piece."
In his two decades as a helicopter pilot, Adzmi has had to make his fair share of emergency landings. He vividly recalls that when he was based in Miri, he had on separate occasions to make emergency landings at the airport there, and in Labuan and Kota Kinabalu.
"The airport authorities had the Airport Fire and Rescue Services on standby on the runway all ready to shoot foam when I landed," he says.
When stuck in the middle of nowhere, tech-savvy Adzmi is not without company. He has an iPod that holds thousands of MP3 songs whe he has downloaded.
His taste in music is eclectic, from dangdut by local songstresses Amelina and Sheeda, to internationally-renowned Indonesian artiste, Anggun. He also listens to Linkin Park and Eminem.
"Some are from my children's collections," he says, sheepishly. He has four children aged from six to 16, who live in Subang Jaya with their mother, Zakiah Ahmad, a legal counsel with an oil and gas company.
And Adzmi could have acquired three other wives in Sudan if he had wanted to.
"It was a hot day and we had just landed in one of the community camps. I wanted to get some shut-eye before flying out again. I placed a mat under the belly of the helicopter and lay down.
"I don't think I had slept very long, when I suddenly became aware that I was surrounded by people... a bevy of Sudanese women. Then I saw this man who said: `Sauja, arbaa (wives, four)' pointing to the women.
"He was offering me his daughters. Of course, I declined. How was I to explain to my wife?" he laughs. He couldn't also imagine paying 15 head of cattle for each of the man's daughters.
Another high-tech gadget which is always with him is his four megapixel Olympus digital camera (which he is planning to upgrade soon). He has used it to take countless pictures of Sudan and its people.
"When I first arrived, I noticed that none of the people in the community camps we visited wore shoes. When we returned a year later, they were wearing slippers. On subsequent visits, they could be seen wearing sandals. Of late, in places closer to town, people are sporting Reebok sneakers. We attribute it to improvement in living standards and income levels," he adds.
That explains the many pictures of feet in his collection of photographs.
Adzmi admits that he didn't have a very favourable impression of the country initially.
"I knew it was a poor, war-torn country. And when I got there, I found that it was worse than I had expected.
"I can safely say that there has been a lot of improvement since. There are now better roads, more cars and lots of construction going on in Khartoum. Outside the capital, development is slow, but there is progress as well. Many shops have opened... the economy is picking up."
In Sudan, the staple food is fool, a type of bean, and dura, cooked maize or millet. Both are eaten with various vegetables and bread. For something little more reminiscent of home, the MHS pilots would don aprons and cook up a storm in the kitchen. Malaysian students studying in the country often also join in.
Whenever he's back home in Malaysia, the first thing Adzmi looks for is nasi kandar.
"I go for the food first. I go to specific places for certain kinds of food," he says.
Starbucks' Latte is a must-have too, although he did think the coffee in the north-east African nation was just as good - until he found out how it was made.
"We landed in a desert-like area and there was this little hut selling coffee. We saw a woman pounding coffee which she then poured into a cup and added sugar and boiling water. It was without doubt the best coffee I had for a long time.
"Then it dawned upon us that we were in the middle of nowhere and we wondered where the woman had got the water from to make the coffee. We looked around and saw her scooping water out of a container – brackish water.
"Surprisingly, it didn't make us sick. It probably built up our resistance."
To Adzmi, who has flown seven types of helicopters, flying is no longer done just for a living. "When you enjoy your job, the money doesn't figure much. It is all about passion. If you don't have that, then it's just another job."
Adzmi could easily be a doctor, a flight engineer or a commercial jet pilot today.
But the ex-Putra (Royal Military College) boy is not only passionate about flying but also feels challenged by the helicopter.
He was initially slotted to do medicine at Universiti Malaya in 1978 but found out, when visiting a mortuary, that he was squeamish around dead bodies and blood.
He opted out after four years and joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 to train as a flight engineer.
"It felt as if I had been given a second chance. I wanted so much to do engineering. I was always tearing apart things when I was a child. I was curious to find out how things operated."
His stint with the national carrier, however, was short-lived. Training was terminated in 1982 when the airline upgraded its fleet of aircraft and no longer required the services of flight engineers.
In the same year, Adzmi left for the Bristow Flying Training School where he spent two years earning his commercial pilot's licence. Towards the tail-end of his training stint, he flew for Bristow Helicopters.
He returned home in 1984, joined MHS Aviation as a helicopter pilot and was posted to Terengganu for six years before moving to Miri as Flight Safety Officer for the company's operations in Sabah and Sarawak.
In the 12 years he was there, Adzmi developed and implemented the country's - if not the world's - first Aviation Safety Management System for Shell Aviation.
In 2000, he was appointed managing/chief pilot for MHS Aviation's operations in Sudan.
He has logged 8,800 flying hours so far. In between, he has found time to study and sat for an aviation safety programme management course at the University of Southern California in 1990 and earned his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Ohio in 1994. For good measure, he also earned a Master's degree in Science from Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2000.
Would he want to swap positions with his commercial pilot friends who, with the prettiest of cabin crew and even more attractive salaries, fly to the world's biggest cities?
Not at all. "I do have a choice... I could sit at home and view the world second-hand on the National Geographic channel, or I could be at the scene and experience it all first-hand.
"I think I'm getting a better deal."

Still Shaking

SHEIKH Abdullah Sheikh Ahmad aka Datuk Shake, at 52, can still cause women to go weak at the knees - just at the mention of his name, in fact.
And with his boyish Latin American good looks barely touched by the years, the Johor-born international singing star appears fully capable of inciting a new generation of women to throw panties on-stage and bare their breasts for him to autograph (presumably with an all-surface pen).
"Those were the days... I enjoyed it (the fame)," he says, referring to his 15 years as a top 10 singer on the Hit Parade in France, and in most French- speaking countries in Africa and West Asia, in the late-1970s and `80s.
Shake's biggest fan base, however, was in Belgium and Holland. Being the Francophone answer to America's David Cassidy, his face regularly made the covers of almost all teen magazines in France.
That virtually all his fans are female is something no one seems to have faulted him on.
"I enjoyed my moments on-stage. Screaming fans are a bonus for any entertainer. I get girls stalking the house, the office and at concerts.
But some fans do become very emotional. On occasion, they can turn aggressive and punch the bodyguards even.
"It's not funny, I get scared sometimes... when they cannot contain their emotions."
But that was before. These days, Shake savours the moments he spends with his family.
"Looking back, it might have been fun, but I was also not taking good care of myself - physically and spiritually."
"When we were touring, I did not sleep much and I looked older than I do now. I had my vices... smoking, drinking. In the studio, I can kick the habit, but it comes back when we hit the road.
"About 15 years back, I got to thinking, `How am I going to teach my kids anything when I'm not prepared to practise what I preach?'"
That made him tone down his lifestyle somewhat, and focus more on the family.
As for his looks, would the reverse be true? A little tone-up? A nip and tuck here and there, maybe? After all, home is currently Los Angeles, the vanity capital of the world.
"No," he laughs, but then admits that he had considered some work around the eyes.
"Maybe I'll do it in five or six years."
Shake moved to California from Paris about 14 years ago and is currently working on an English album, while his Yugoslav wife Melina runs a fashion business there.
The address? Beverly Hills.
No, not 90210, but just next door at 90212.
Shake openly admits that Melina is to him what Posh Spice is to David Beckham. By that, he means that he owes his stylish image entirely to Melina.
"She was a model (with Christian Dior), she's now a fashion designer. I'm a walking billboard for her. These are her designs," he says, spreading his arms.
He is also well accessorised, in silver - two studded earrings in his left ear, a double chain round his neck and seven rings, three on the right hand and four on the left.
Melina and Shake have three children - Natasha, 24, who is married and lives in Paris, and twin sons, 21-year-old Amaro Igor Shake and Amiir Nicholas Shake.
His other daughter, from an earlier marriage, 32-year-old Mina, is also married and living in Paris.
Shake has three grandchildren - two granddaughters aged five and three and a two-month-old grandson.
He has been back in Malaysia since June to work on a new album, possibly his last for fans in this part of the world. His seventh Malay production, the album is expected to be wrapped up by next month.
"We always say it's the last because we don't know if we are ever going to do another," he grins. He refused to divulge the details of the album, preferring to surprise his fans when it hits the market.
Shake released his debut Kau Bungaku in 1984, which was actually a response to a challenge from one of his brothers who chided him over his "slipping" command of Bahasa Melayu.
The second youngest in a family of 12 siblings, he ended up releasing five other Malay albums in quick succession, the last of which was Destini in 1988.
But well before then, he had already established himself as a major act in France. Shake started his journey to stardom back in the early 1970s at Johor Baru's Mechinta nightclub, then famous for its raunchy entertainment.
He was short on money but long on luck, befriending - surprise, surprise - two strippers, one an English girl and the other a Maltese.
Taken in by his good looks and voice (not necessarily in that order), they encouraged him to go seek fame and fortune in Europe.
"I told them I didn't have money... we weren't paid much at that time. So they bought me an air ticket to Paris, while they headed for Tokyo to work. I was to go (to Paris) first and meet up with them after their Japan trip, and I did... they put me up with a girlfriend of theirs. Later, we toured Europe and Africa on gigs together."
This was in 1973, and he was just 22 years old. A year later, Shake went to London and enrolled in a vocal training class conducted by one John Dolby.
"I was singing other people's songs, English songs, but through Dolby's coaching, I was able to develop my own style."
After a year of vocal classes, Shake was introduced to some people in the French entertainment industry by a Frenchman in London.
They liked what they saw and heard and arranged for a proper audition.
"I went to Paris, auditioned and was signed up immediately. But the condition was that I must sing in French. I told them it was not possible, I didn't speak the language.
"So, they gave me six months to study French, especially the diction."
As it turned out, Shake didn't have too much difficulty getting the diction down pat.
"As a child, I had to mengaji (recite) the Quran. Learning French diction and enunciation is not unlike learning to recite verses from the Quran."
His first French single, Tu Sais Je T'Aime (You Know I Love You), sold a million copies in France within months and was later distributed in other French-speaking countries, as well as in Italy, Spain and Greece.
Other hit singles and albums followed. They include Je Viens De Loin (I Come From Far), La Fille Que J'Attendais (The Girl I Waited For), Io Tamero, Shake Disques d'Or (Shake's Discs of Gold), Soleil (Sun), Angel and Sorry Sandy.
To date, he has 30 French albums and singles under his belt.
The most recent of his French albums was released in 1996, a compilation called Best of Shake. It had sold only about 40,000 copies, when the producer called.
"I was already living in the US and the producer said I should come over to promote the album. I did. Sales jumped to 200,000 copies."
Shake has the distinction of being the first Malaysian entertainer to be conferred a Datukship - by the Sultan of Johor in 1979.
He was home often at the time, performing on television and doing other shows. But one incident in 1987 still haunts him.
Shake was performing in Sarawak, a gig which was being telecast "live" to the rest of the country. He inexplicably stopped midway and left the stage, watched by the entire nation.
"Nobody, not even the Press, has asked me what happened that night. The truth needs to be told. Umi (mother in Arabic) passed away that day but here's the strange thing, I wasn't told about it until after I had got off the stage.
"Everyone else knew she had died... no one told me. I didn't feel too good the entire day, I couldn't pin it down to anything, though. I didn't even attend the high-tea organised after the day's rehearsal.
"Before the start of the show, I met up with the other performers backstage but no one wanted to talk to me. I thought they were angry because I didn't go for the tea.
"When I went on-stage to sing, I couldn't hear the music. It sounded muddled. Then I heard this voice saying, `Stop!', and I did and walked off the stage.
"Datuk Jaafar Kamin, the then director-general of broadcasting for RTM, came to my room. I apologised to him but he said it wasn't any fault of mine, and then he told me about Umi.
"If I had known, I would not have gone on- stage. I would have gone home straight away. When my dad passed away in 1979, I was in Paris and couldn't return in time for the funeral.
"I took the next flight out, and arrived in Johor Baru just before they took Umi's body to the cemetery."
In 1988, he decided to move to the US from Paris, a calculated move on his part. "Having made it in France, I was keen to find out what the US entertainment scene was like.
"I was also looking into my boys' education. They had shown interest in pursuing careers in the performing arts too."
Amaro is now studying at the Los Angeles Arts School while Amiir is already an actor and writer.
Incidentally, in the US, Shake gets mistaken for a native American now and again. And while he may have left France, he is not forgotten. In 1994, the French Government bestowed upon him the Medal of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, an award introduced in 1957 to honour individuals who have distinguished themselves in the arts, or contributed significantly to the promotion of French arts and literature worldwide.
Any thoughts about coming home to Malaysia for good? Yes, possibly after Amaro has completed his education and become independent.
He may look into starting a business then. With his connections in the entertainment industry in France and the US, Shake feels he should be able to make a difference in the local scene.
After all, he plays tennis at the Beverly Hills Country Club where the who's who in the US entertainment industry meet, socialise, conduct business and play.
Thinking aloud, he says: "I would love to help one or more local stars go international. But first, they must believe in what they do and can do."
For now, however, Shake's time and focus is on the new Malay album.
When that is done, he'll head for France to cut a new French album - another last? - and then back to the US to complete his English album.

Out Of A (5-Star) Suitcase

HE'S on first-name terms with Luciano Pavarotti and has been invited to the White House by former US Vice-President Al Gore, which also led to an Oval Office encounter with ex-President Bill Clinton. He's enjoyed a tete-a-tete with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad as well during the latter's many visits to Pangkor Laut Resort.
But Hawaii-born Richard W. Riley, the new general manager of the Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur, is far from being star-struck. He is just doing what needs to be done to accommodate the needs of heads of state and government - no different from dealing with the regular guests, demanding divas included.
It's all in a day's work.
With 21 years' experience in the industry, Riley does have a few tales to tell though.
Four days after reporting for duty at the Shangri-La, for example, Riley received yet another statesman as a guest - this time in the form of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
The German leader was in Malaysia for a state visit from May 12-14.
"As the hotel general manager, I like to be around and prepared for any and all eventualities. That guy (Schroeder) has got a sense of humour.
"He asked me why I was following him around, to which I replied that his visit was one of the highlights of my career.
"Then Schroeder asked why we had laid out the red carpet, so I explained that this was common practice here for visiting VIPs. The next day when I escorted him out of the lift, he actually nudged me off the red carpet. The German leader actually did that to me!"
The current stint is, however, not Riley's first taste of Malaysia or Malaysian-owned hotels. Prior to his arrival here he had worked at two Malaysian-owned resorts. He was the general manager responsible for the opening of the Pangkor Laut Resort (December 1991 to April 1994), and likewise the Berjaya Le Morne Resort and Casino in Mauritius (April 1994 to January 1996).
"We were at Pangkor Laut for three and a half years. My children really thought they were monkeys. The only friends they had were guests' children and the monkeys - there were about 300 of them, monkeys I mean, on the island."
And it was here that he made Pavarotti's acquaintance. The internationally-renowned tenor was a guest and he performed during the resort's opening ceremony.
Riley still recalls all the necessary arrangements he had to make to ensure that Pavarotti was more than just well accommodated.
"He had this 50-page write-up containing all the things he wanted, such as a bowl of lemons with no pips.
"We also had to bring in a one-foot thick mattress for the massage bed. In fact, we had a special bed made of chengal."
Riley also remembers having to haul a golf cart through the jungle for Pavarotti's use.
"We had put him in a villa on the hill. We had to get a golf cart up to the elevator tower so he could use it to get to the villa. There were easily 50 people in front pulling the cart and 50 more pushing it through the woods."
The effort seemed to be appreciated, for Pavarotti - who together with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo make up the trio of greatest tenors in the world - personally serenaded Riley.
"It was a Beatles' song. We were at Emerald Bay, sitting on a log, when Pavarotti sang Yesterday to me."
And it was also while working at Pangkor Laut that Riley met Dr Mahathir, whom he drove around in a golf cart.
"I thought him to be very progressive. He cares about the people... few politicians do."
Riley had joined the Shangri-La Group after a three-year stint in Mauritius, moving between properties in Shanghai (1996-1998) and the Philippines (1998-May 2003).
In Manila, he sort of wore two hats - that of general manager as well as security manager.
"Bombs were exploding everywhere. People were walking around with guns."
After three and a half years there, Riley asked his children where they wanted to go next.
"My daughter is 12 years old and has been to five different countries.
My son said Malaysia, and I asked him why. He was very young when we were here last. He had heard some pupils at the British School in Manila going on and on about how great it was when they were here. My daughter then jumped in and said, `yeah, it's alright by me'. I was happy. It was perfect."
Riley said he had been waiting to return to Malaysia "so I could eat".
"I like laksa, I missed the kway teow. I am happy to be back and having good kway teow and laksa."
And he is also a Mat Salleh who loves the odiferous durian. "I know I'm weird. All my friends tell me that. My wife doesn't like them. I also like the little triangular durian cakes."
And local coffee? Nah, Riley's brew of choice is an espresso latte, made
from Brazilian arabaca beans.
He's also slowly reacquainting himself with Bahasa Malaysia, various words he picked up when he was last here.
"A few nights ago while I was having a drink with some of my staff from housekeeping, I said, `satu lagi' when asking for another beer. They all looked at me in astonishment. Yeah, it's slowly coming back."
So what compelled him to join the industry?
"If you're from Hawaii, you either go into agriculture or tourism. I wasn't too crazy about pineapples."
Riley's job has also taken him to Japan, Australia and Singapore, but the China posting must be his most memorable.
It was in Shanghai that the charming 47-year-old met his Chinese wife who was working at the same hotel.
"Do you know what we hoteliers do? We tell our staff not to fraternize with other staff, but we end up marrying other `hotel people'. That's the truth. Look at all the general managers and ask them where they met their wives. It's ironic but true.
"My wife was teaching English. That made communication easier because she was able to understand me. It was harder with the other girls because, as much as I tried to tell them I loved them, I really didn't know how," he adds, cheekily.
Today, however, making himself understood shouldn't be much of a problem as he now speaks passable Mandarin and understands the Shanghai dialect.
It was also in Shanghai that he first met Gore. The US vice-president's visit to the "Paris of the East" was followed by one from Clinton. "Gore told the president to look me up and he did.
"Two weeks later, I was in the US for a family reunion in North Carolina. I made the mistake of telling my aunt about Gore's invitation to the White House. She basically forced my hand and I dialled the Secret Service number on the card.
"They knew about the invite and my meeting the president in Shanghai...well, they are the Secret Service. They know everything."
The Secret Service booked him into the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington DC and told him, "6.30pm. West Gate. Be There."
When Riley and his family arrived at the White House, Gore personally came out to receive them.
"There were some 200 to 300 people on Pennsylvania Avenue clapping and cheering us.
"When we got into the White House, Gore said there was someone who wanted to say hello and walked straight into the Oval Office where the president was.
"The president was on crutches, he had twisted his knee or something while in Australia. My son ran right up to him and sat on his lap. He mesmerised my wife... well, he is Mr Smooth... walked her through his office and showed her the things that he picked up in Australia.
"Being Chinese, she found it all an incredible experience. After all, very few Americans themselves can actually say they went to the White House and met the president.
"I'm not very American. I've been out of the country for 23 years, (but) I felt an immense sense of pride.
"It was extremely interesting. They (Clinton and Gore) didn't have to do that. They could always have said they had things to do. I came out of there, thinking `it's too bad that I didn't vote for them'."
It was only later that Riley found out he had visited the president a day after the latter broke up with Monica Lewinsky.
"When the Starr Report came out, we checked the dates," he said.
For Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Riley said he has established certain priorities.
"I am at a point where I feel secure enough to be able to understand what I want and believe in my ability to judge what others want in a hotel.
"It may not all be great, but I am looking at the nuances that create this. The greatest achievement would be to bring this hotel to what I believe it can become. And I believe the Shangri-La Hotel Kuala Lumpur can really kick butt."

Cheap Snips

DEEP in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, in a lorong off Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, is a colony of Malay barbers which has been in existence since the city's Great Flood of 1971.
There used to be 15 small wooden shops, but there are only 13 now, although they are bigger in size. Two of the lots have been converted into stores selling textiles and headscarves.
There are definitely great movie script prospects here, too - P. Ramlee Bujang Lapok style, perhaps.
The barbers not only offer possibly the cheapest haircuts in the city at RM10, (depending on the choice of style), but they also have interesting stories to tell.
Take for example Shamsuddin Japri, Ashaari Mohd Dani and Suldi Junaidi of Sentosa, Lot 5, of the colony.
Shamsuddin, 58, the eldest of the trio, is popularly known as Charlie Din.
"Ramai sangat Din masa tu. Masa muda, pakcik ada misai tebal. Orang kata macam pelakun Holly wood tu, siapa nama dia? Charles Bronson? Dapat nama ikut dia. (There was one too many Dins then. When I was young, I had a thick moustache. People said I looked like the Hollywood actor... [Charles] Bronson. I got my name from him)," the now clean-shaven Shamsuddin offers by way of explanation.
Ashaari, 53, is Jimmy Din. No reasons are offered as to how he came by such a name, nor is there a resemblance between him and the late Hollywood legend James Dean. Ashaari has been a barber for 30 years.
Suldi, 47, has been in the trade for 15 years, and is in fact related to Aziz Sattar, one of the Bujang Lapok stars.
"Sedara sebelah emak saya (we're related on my mother's side)," he says, speaking with a slight Javanese accent, adding that Aziz still drops in occasionally for a haircut and a chat.
Looking back, Ashaari says the shop started out with only two chairs and a wall-mounted fan to keep the air cool.
"We asked to extend the shop and City Hall allowed us to add two more chairs and we have since installed air-conditioning units."
The barber chairs were imported from China and Japan. A brand new one costs as much as RM4,000 while a used one can be had for RM1,500. And if these chairs could talk, they'd be able to tell you a lot of stories, Suldi says.
"Menteri pun ada (we have ministers too).…”
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, General (Rtd) Abdul Hamid Zainal Abidin is apparently one of Sentosa's regular customers.
"He'll call from Putrajaya to tell us that he'll be coming in and that we should wait for him," Suldi adds.
A haircut used to cost RM7 until a few years ago, and a shave RM5. Sorry, no "wash and blow-dry" as there is no water.
"Kalau ada, kami pun boleh buat (if we had water, we could offer that too)," Ashaari says.
The three gentlemen have also had their fair share of difficult customers.
"Customer cerewet, kita buat apa? Kita senyum saja (what can we do if customers get difficult? We just smile)," Ashaari says, flashing his pearly white teeth.
Arabs, he adds, are by far the most difficult patrons. "There was one Arab customer who insisted on checking in the mirror every time I made a snip. How could I finish cutting his hair when he kept doing that?
"Another customer insisted on combing his own hair while I was cutting it. We've been cutting hair most of lives yet we still have customers telling us how to do our jobs."
For Shamsuddin the biggest challenge, rather ironically, is when a customer offers no instructions and simply leaves the style of trim up to him.
"I find it rather tough when they tell us just to cut their hair any way we please. I've asked customers what they'd do if I were to shave them bald, and I've been told just to go right ahead. They trust us to make them look good."
All three barbers take pains to ensure they look presentable too.
"We are in the service industry. When we look good, our customers will feel good too," Shamsuddin explains.
The barbers also receive customers who ask for haircuts that make very little difference to they way they look. A simple trim is all they're after.
Most customers come in during lunchtime or after office hours, but some come in during working hours.
"Once, we had a customer who came in during office hours. I was busy cutting his hair when his superior walked in. We were later told that when they got back to the office, the officer was told to fill up a borang cuti (leave form) as he had been away from the office for half of the day."
Ramadan is easily the busiest month for all the barbers here.
"There's no such thing as rest the week before Raya. Everyone rushes in to have their hair cut," Ashaari says.
The shops are open seven days a week and only close once a year – for Hari Raya Puasa.
"We'd have to answer to our wives and families if we didn't close for Raya. And we don't want to have to do that," Ashaari says, with a laugh.
On weekends and public holidays, the partners take turns to man the shop.
Most of the time, they don't need to ask customers how they want their hair cut as the regulars tell them exactly how they want it done, even down to the clipper number to use.
True enough, an Iranian customer walks in and tells Shamsuddin, in perfect Bahasa Malaysia, "empat belakang, separuh atas" (four back, half top).
The numbers represent the mould of the clipper. "0" or "1" is for a close shave, "2" for a haircut that looks like week-old stubble, "3" is a crew-cut (of the kind sported by police recruits), and "4" a trim. There's even a style known as the chairman's cut.
"When a customer asks for that cut, we know he wants to look good. Nak segak dan bergaya (he wants to look good and stylish)."
At RM12, a flat-top costs a little more than the normal haircut.
"It's not easy to cut a flat-top. Macam landasan kapalterbang. Tak semua rambut boleh buat. Rambut macam dawai saja boleh. (Like an airport runway. It cannot be done on any kind of hair. Only on hair that's like wire)," Shamsuddin says.
Whenever one of them is free, he will stand outside the shop to usher in customers.
"In the past, when there weren't many barbers, you could see customers queuing up. Now, there are so many, we have to attract customers in.
"But this doesn't mean that we are competing with each other. If we have too many to handle, we pass them on to the barber next door," Ashaari say.
Business is brisk. In two hours, they have tended to eight customers. Then there are those who come in just for a chat. What about their own hair?
Suldi reveals that Shamsuddin is the only one among them who can cut his own hair.
"He stands in front of the mirror and runs the clipper through his hair.
He makes it look easy."

Wild Hidden Treasures

FOR someone whose idea of hiking is to climb the LRT station's couple of flights of stairs, the trek from the main observation deck for the cable car at the peak of Langkawi's Gunung Machinchang to the other one slightly below was a gasping challenge - a torture, really.
The staff at the observation deck told us (me, stand-in photographer friend Fahmi and two British tourists, William and Caroline Walton), it would only be a 20-minute jaunt.
"No problem."
It took much longer, at times seemingly endless in fact. Heaving and straining, the respites came mostly from William who frequently stopped to track black ants that were fully laden with food.
"Or are those eggs they are carrying?" asked Caroline.
And it wasn't exactly downhill all the way either - first down, then up, and then down and up again.
As we approached our destination, we ran into three Langkawi Scientific and Nature Expedition members who were just starting out on their own trek. "Seen anything interesting?" one asked.
Did we? I wouldn't know, I was busy fighting for oxygen.
They were among 150 local scientists and researchers on the island to undertake a comprehensive inventory of Langkawi's flora and fauna; the main objective of which was to provide input for a plan to manage the environment and economy of the Langkawi Islands in a sustainable manner.
In their company, who needs an encyclopaedia? Ask them anything and chances are you will get an answer on the spot.
Azhar Hussin of Universiti Malaya, for example, can talk about Langkawi's geology all day, if you have the time.
And Amiruddin Ahmad from the Penang-based World Fish Centre is so "fishy" that his room-mate at the Mutiara Burau Bay Resort, the base camp, decided to move out because the room smelled like a fish market.
Azhar will tell you that Gunung Machinchang is the oldest geological formation in Malaysia, dating back at least 500 million years. He can also show you the island's youngest alluvial plains, which are a mere 140 million years old.
He is the man to go to for a run-down on the geological periods too - Cambrian (more than 510 million years), Ord-Silurian (410-510 million years), Camb-Devonian (290-410 million years), Permian (250-290 million years), Triassic (250 million years) and Cretaceous (60 million years).
Ask him what he thinks is in store for Langkawi, and off comes the free-flow of information again.
"(We) have to look at the major activities (in the area)... South China Sea is expanding and Australia is moving upwards between the Pacific Sea plate, but the Sunda Shelf (where Langkawi is located) is stable for now," Azhar said.
But it was Amiruddin who was easily the most excited person in the group. He had caught an Anguilla marmorata (the swamp eel or giant mottled eel) on the night before the launching ceremony of the expedition.
The eel was easily one-metre long. "A female can grow up to 1.5m long," he enthused. A quick check on the Internet showed that these creatures can grow up to two metres long and a maximum weight of 20.5kg. Some of the fish he had caught ended up in the freezer. "If you want to see them, come to my chalet before 11pm. After that, it becomes a specimen," he said matter-of-factly.
Mutiara Burau Bay Resort was a hive of activity throughout the expedition, especially at the end of each day. The researchers started out for their various locations as early as 6am, returning only at the end of the day to compare notes.
Some went out only at night, for example, those interested in bats and mosquitoes, obviously.
The area under study extended beyond Langkawi Island proper to the smaller islands and islets that had special conservation significance and/or ecotourism potential.
The team from the Malaysian Agriculture Research Development Institute went looking for wild ginger, but returned with wild nutmeg instead.
And a freshwater crab, that was collected on Gunung Raya, was confirmed as a Geosesarma foxi by world-renowned expert Associate Professor Dr Peter KL Ng from the National University of Singapore.
The first find of the rare crustacean was made by B.H. Buxton in 1914 at 2,000ft up the same gunung.
Ornithologists meanwhile spotted, among others, the Oriental Pied Hornbill and a flock of chestnut-capped bee-eaters.
And did you know that except for two species (neither are found in Malaysia), only male cicadas "sing"? The biggest cicada is the Pomponia imperatoria, with a wingspan of over 20cm, and it can be found right here!
So, shouldn't Langkawi's promotion be consciously extended - beyond just swaying palms, sun-bleached beaches (gorgeous as the ones at Datai Bay and off the Andaman Sea are), and duty-free shopping - to include nature?
The Waltons, who were on a five-day visit, concurred. William, a forester, was enthusiastic when invited to join the trek. Caroline, a teacher, was equally eager.
"It was a wedding present, but we only managed to get away recently," she said. They married two years ago.
There are many, like them, who prefer the jungles - and the nature guides in Langkawi are known to be the best in the country.
In fact, some guides participated in the expedition too. They not only took the expedition members to their various locations but also actively participated in the nightly talks.
"I don't think you need any more physical development on the island," said a Swiss couple, met on the cable car up Gunung Machinchang. They were on the third week of their holiday in Langkawi.
"There are enough hotels already. Also, the basic infrastructure is sufficient. And the people are nice.
"Improve on the nature trails, and put up signs and tag the trees, tell people what can be found at each place. It would make visitors like us enjoy the island more," they suggested.
Certainly worth considering.

Perahu Big and Small

ABDULLAH Muda has come a long way from the days when he made toy boats with coconut husks. In the half a century or so that he has been making boats for real since, he has crafted million-ringgit 65-footers that sail the seven seas.
He builds both conventional wooden sail boats and ornamental vessels, which boast genuine traditional craftsmanship.
And his clients come from far and wide - Singapore and Australia to Algeria, Denmark, England, Italy, and France, and even Canada and the US.
These days, however, the 60-something Abdullah seems to be coasting, but full retirement has to be put on hold for a while yet. He is still grooming a successor to take over his trade.
"Saya dah tua dah, takut bawa mati (I'm old already, fear I may take it to my grave)," he says, obviously taking pains to keep his Terengganu accent in check to enable us to understand him.
Abdullah's hope is his only son, Khairul Azwa or Wa, who is only now showing some interest in the family business.
"If he doesn't take over, who would? He's a bright boy... jumped class twice. I wanted to send him to South Korea to study boat-building before but he wasn't interested. I want to teach him to draw boats but there is no new project currently," Abdullah says.
A technology graduate of Universiti Sains Malaysia, Wa has quit his job and is spending more time at the workshop to "tolong sikit-sikit" (help out a little), according to Abdullah.
Wa is not only expected to take over the business but also to inject modernity into the operations.
In fact, Abdullah longs to see the day when his boats are fully designed on the computer, not like he does now, on pieces of paper.
"Kerja sekarang dah senang. Dulu, semua buat atas kertas. Sekarang dah ada komputer (work now is easy. Before, everything was done on pieces of paper. Now, there are computers)."
Unlike his son, Abdullah did not have much formal education. "God gave me this gift... but people nowadays with high education do not want to make boats. When I was in school, my friend, who wasn't schooling, was already making boats. I joined him until I got a job offer from Rida (now Mara). I left (the agency) in 1965 after working there for five years and started my own business."
He is currently completing a project for Putrajaya Corp, which has ordered 10 20-footer Payang and Kolek ornamental vessels that are to be used at the Putrajaya lake.
Abdullah is charging RM72,000 per boat, with RM10,000 of the cost going to the intricate carvings alone.
It took a long time to secure the contract, he says. "Pergi, balik Putrajaya... nak sign kontrak (to and fro... to sign contract)."
The instructions given to him were for boats "stail lama-lama (old style)."
He currently has eight craftsmen working on the boats.
The difference between the Payang and the Kolek is in the hull. The Payang's is straight, and the Kolek's crescent-shaped.
Abdullah also makes two other styles of traditional boats, the bigger Pinis and Bidor, which are simply known as Perahu Besar, or "big boats".
He still has a few more boats to complete for Putrajaya Corp. The first two have been delivered to Putrajaya, which were first launched into the Terengganu River, and then transferred at a landing point upstream onto lorries to be transported to the administrative capital.
Asked about his costs, Abdullah says a 65-footer, for example, requires some 60 tonnes of wood costing RM400,000 or more. "Senang-senang setengah juta harganya, itu baru harga kayu (easily half a million ringgit, that's just the cost of the wood)."
Cengal from Terengganu and Sumatra is the best wood for boat-making, he says.
"Foreigners buy my boats, Malaysians don't... our own people do not value local quality work," he laments.
"It's like buying clothes. We normally look at the labels and buy the foreign ones, thinking that they are better than the local ones."
His local customers also tend to bargain a lot, while the foreigners would just pay any price quoted, he adds.
Finding him was not too difficult as Abdullah is a local celebrity at Pulau Duyong, about two km from Kuala Terengganu. Just ask anyone for directions to his workshop, and chances are that person will even volunteer to lead you to the place personally.
Abdullah gets some 40 visitors daily, mostly foreign tourists as his workshop is on local tour itineraries.
He used to receive many more visitors, and by way of explanation, notes: "Ekonomi tak berapa baik (the economy is not very good)."
For someone who builds million-ringgit boats, Abdullah leads a simple life. He recalls having been asked how many Mercedes cars he owns. "People said with the kind of business I do, I should have at least three. I told them I own an old, battered car."
He also tells of a visit by some Singaporean boat-makers in the late 1980s, who came to press him to hike up the prices of his boats. They scolded him for offering his boats at a much lower price than theirs, Abdullah says.
"Cukup makan sudah lah (enough to eat is sufficient)," and that seems to sum up his philosophy in life.

Evening Bouquets

STANLEY Foong stands on a plastic chair with a water spray in his right hand and two stalks of roses in his left. Raising the roses to his mouth as if they were microphones, he bellows: "Happy hour, happy hour, three dozen for 10 ringgit."
His voice resonates, easily the loudest, at the Bangsar pasar malam in Kuala Lumpur.
"Roses are red and flowers are cheap for you. Men love roses and roses love water," he prattles on while spraying the roses with a mist of water.
Well, happy hour for the flower seller begins when he starts business at 4pm right up till packing up time at 10.30pm. He does this twice a week - on Sundays at the Bangsar night market, and Mondays at SS 2.
"You can hold hands but better if you buy her flowers," he tells a young couple walking by. The lady seems to agree, the man just smiles.
Stanley has been selling flowers for the past six years and has accumulated some loyal customers along the way. For one, Australian Monica goes to Stanley for her weekly supply of freshly cut flowers. She and her son, Carl, have been frequenting Stanley's stall since they first came to Kuala Lumpur. "I've been coming here since Carl was very small... in 1997," she says. Carl is now nine years old.
"I like to buy my flowers from the same stall... same goes with the other things that I buy, always from the same stall," she notes.
Each time, Carl would have a jolly good time spraying water on all the flowers at the stall. There must be some 2,000 stalks in all.
At the end of it, he is rewarded with a bunch of flowers. On that day, he chose a dozen red roses for his mum.
It is not too difficult to see why people buy flowers. A behavioural research conducted at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, shows that flowers is an effective way to improve emotional health. Flowers trigger happy emotions, heighten feelings of life satisfaction and affect social behaviour in a positive manner, far beyond what is commonly recognised.
In the 10-month study, a team of researchers explored the link between flowers and life satisfaction by observing participants' behavioural and emotional responses to receiving flowers.
The results of the study, posted on the Society of American Florists' website, show that flowers are a natural and healthful moderator of moods. It has an immediate impact on happiness, a long-term positive effect on moods and encourages intimate connections, leading to increased contact with family and friends.
Probably, that's why people go back again and again to Stanley and daughter Jeanne.
Father and daughter talk to their customers and non-customers alike, happily answering all kinds of queries about flowers despite being shorthanded at times. Flower power at work maybe?
Stanley also has three workers to help out. According to Jeanne, one of her customers also helps out at the stall at times. "You can join us if you want. It's fun," she says.
An elderly Malay man who, Jeanne says, is another loyal customer, approaches. She addresses him as uncle as she does not know his name. "He buys the same flowers every week, without fail," she confides while wrapping up his purchase of the night.
When she ribs him about buying the flowers for his girlfriend, he replies good-naturedly: "For ex-girlfriend, now wife." Who says romance is dead.
The flowers are cheap, going for between RM2 and RM60 a bunch. "B-Grade" roses are, among others, priced at RM10 for three dozens, while stargazers cost RM13 a bunch of three stalks with seven blooms. The five-lot stall also offers more exotic blooms like bird of paradise, cat's tail, and cigar and ginger flowers.
"That is probably our strength," says Jeanne. "Unlike florists, we are able to offer low prices because we do not pay rent. As such, we can pass it on to our customers. We only pay an annual licence to operate at the pasar malam."
Some of the flowers are brought down from Cameron Highlands the night before. Others arrive on Sunday morning itself. The stall carries about 20 varieties of flowers. The bestsellers are fragrant tuber roses, lilies and orchids.
Flowers are normally graded by stem length and bunched by weight in one- to two-pound bunches. Some are also graded by stem count depending on flower type.
For the two nights a week, Stanley, Jeanne and their workers drive from Bandar Sungai Long in Kajang (where their company, Sunny Garden, is located), reaching the night market as early as 4pm.
Even before they are done arranging the flowers in buckets by the roadside, customers are already picking out their favourite blooms!
"We sell about 80 per cent of what we bring. We bring just enough because at the end of the day, if no one buys the flowers, we cannot even offer them at a discount because they will no longer be fresh," Jeanne says.
Her mobile phone rings incessantly, mostly from customers requesting her to keep aside some of her best flowers. Yes, one can place orders by cellphone.
"This is an extra service we offer to keep our customers, times are hard," she says.
On "easy" days when there is enough help around, Jeanne also does flower arrangements, and occasionally makes home delivery, especially to houses in the vicinity. Nearby restaurants such as Flams, Le Bodega and Telawi Street Bistro are her clients, as well. And there are the Puan Sris and Datins too.
Sales are good but can be better, Jeanne says.
"Our business dropped a little when the pasar malam was moved from Saturday to Sunday about a year ago. Most people prefer to do their marketing on Saturday and stay home Sunday as Monday is a working day," she concludes before excusing herself to tend to another one of her loyal customers.

Cell Culture

LOVE him or hate him, he is the man who freed some one billion people the world over to communicate with one another anytime, anywhere; and in the process irritate the hell out of those seeking a quiet meal in a restaurant or enjoying a movie or a concert.
Unlike Alexander Graham Bell who stumbled upon his invention of the conventional land-line telephone by accident (he spilled acid on his clothes and cried into a transmitter, "Mr Watson, come here!") in 1876, Dr Martin Cooper's 30- year-old invention stemmed from his strong belief that wireless communication should be "attached to a person".
Back in 1973, the only mobile phones were car telephones built into automobiles. The American company AT&T, then the world's largest company, had invented the concept of cellular, but did not believe that a handheld device was necessary.
"I strongly believe that wireless communication should be attached to a person, so it can travel with them, and not tied to a car or other physical location. People are inherently and naturally mobile. So my team and I began work on creating a portable cellular telephone.
"With the creation of the cellular phone, we showed people that they could have the freedom to be anywhere and still remain connected to society," he said.
The first working prototype mobile phone was called the Motorola Dyna-Tac. It looked like a brick, weighed 2lbs, with no display screen, a talk time of 35 minutes and a recharge time of 10 hours. Its only features were dial, talk and listen.
Indeed, it was something of a mammoth compared to today's cellphones that weigh about 3oz or 4oz and can easily fit into users' palms. And last year alone, a total of 423 million handsets were sold to consumers.
For as long as he can remember, 74-year-old Cooper said he knew he was going to become an engineer or a technologist. As a child, he wanted to know how everything worked.
"I still have recollections of imagining a train operating by magnetic levitation in an airless tunnel when I was eight years old. It was very natural that I went to a technical high school where I took every shop available, from woodworking to foundry, including chemistry and physics. I always knew that I would go to an engineering college, and of course I did," he said.
Cooper grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and earned a degree in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. After four years in the navy serving on destroyers and a submarine, he worked for a year with a telecommunications company.
Hired by Motorola in 1954, Cooper worked on developing portable products, including the first portable handheld police radios, made for the Chicago police department in 1967. He then led Motorola's cellular research programme.
While he was a project manager at Motorola in 1973, Cooper set up a base station on the roof of the Burlington Consolidated Tower (now the Alliance Capital Building) in New York with the Motorola Dyna-Tac.
On April 3 that year, standing on a street near the Manhattan Hilton, Cooper decided to attempt a private call before going to a press conference at the hotel. He picked up the chunky Dyna-Tac and pressed the "off hook" button. The phone came alive, connecting him with the base station and into the land-line system. He dialled a number and held the phone to his ear.
And whom did he call?
The first call he made was to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs' head of research.
Did he ever imagine that his invention of the first portable handset would turn into such a booming business?
"The impact of cellular telephones was in one sense a surprise and in another sense predicted. There was no question in our minds when we created the cellular that everyone would ultimately use cellular phones for their personal calls.
"However, at the time that the commercial cellular service started, a portable cellular phone cost US$3,500 in 1983, which is equivalent to about twice that today. It was hard to imagine the huge market we have today at those kinds of prices.
"The surprise is that in a mere 19 years the price of a cellular phone has gone from the equivalent of about US$7,000 to a situation today where people give cellular phones away for nothing in order to acquire a subscriber."
And Cooper does not believe that there is such a thing as a "universal device" that does all things for all people.
"Just as there are many types of people - teenagers, business people, seniors - there will be many types of phones with characteristics that are perfectly suited to them.
"Likewise, there will be varying types of voice and data services to meet their needs, with many different prices and features to help people communicate the way they want to," he said.
Cooper left Motorola in 1983, the year the first cellular systems became commercially available. After starting, then selling a company that managed billing for cellular companies, Cooper worked as an independent consultant until he established his current venture, ArrayComm, in 1992.
When he co-founded ArrayComm, he was motivated by the unfulfilled promise of cellular. "It has not replaced the land-line phones as we expected, because wireless access is still not as reliable or affordable as a wired telephone."
ArrayComm's core technology increases the capacity and coverage of any cellular system while significantly lowering costs and making communication more reliable. This technology is what is needed to fulfill the dream of the cellular industry."
Five years ago, the company conceived of using its "smart antenna" technology to make the Internet personal and portable. That concept has become the i-BURST Personal Broadband System, which delivers affordable high-speed, mobile Internet access.
"It's very exciting to be part of this movement towards delivering the Internet wherever you want to use it, just as I helped deliver that mobility to voice communication," he said.
He said wireless voice service still frustrates many consumers because of dropped calls, poor coverage and expensive fees.
"The technology exists to solve those problems, and as the wireless industry matures it will adopt technology to give customers a completely reliable and affordable communication experience. In addition, people now rely on the Internet for a large part of their business and personal communication, and existing cellular networks are not designed for effective Internet delivery. So mobile wireless broadband, with systems designed specifically for Internet access, whether with a computer or some other Web-enabled device, will be the next wave of major innovation," he added.
His ArrayComm is currently addressing both the existing cellular problems and the new wireless Internet opportunity.
And at 74, Cooper is still very much running the business. Will there come a time when he will retire? "Retirement is being able to do exactly what you want to do every day, and I'm already doing that!"
Neither of his children have followed in his footsteps as an inventor or a technologist. One is an attorney and the other an accountant.
"The difficult part of inventing is to understand the problem, the opportunity, that the invention attacks. We literally lived the business - 24 hours a day - and that takes a toll on family. But my family was always very supportive. I have high hopes that one of my four grandchildren will follow in my footsteps."

Ravaged Land, Ravaged People

WHEN war first erupted in the Persian Gulf in 1991, Denni Fahmi Adam was only 17 years old and studying for his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) exam.
Now yet another war is being waged in the region, this time mounted by the United States and Britain against Iraq. And for Fahmi, the war, any war for that matter, brings back haunting memories.
"No words can adequately describe the suffering and hardship faced by civilians when conflict breaks out," says Fahmi, who has, in the intervening 12 years, been to a war zone and back. "I feel this overwhelming sense of relief that I was born and live in a peaceful country, Malaysia."
This 28-year-old, a volunteer with the Global Peace Mission, a coalition of Malaysian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) brought together to help civilians affected by the acts of terrorism, visited Afghan refugee camps at the height of the battle against the Taliban in late 2001 with two other volunteers, Khairil Annuar Khalid and Kamal Ali.
The trio had been tasked with looking into the basic logistical needs of Afghan orphans, single mothers and the physically impaired, who had been displaced as a result of protracted war and the oppressive Taliban regime.
They also brought monetary donations from the people of Malaysia during their visit, which coincided with the opening of the Global Peace Mission's office in Peshawar, Pakistan.
While there, the trio visited the Afghan refugee camp at Shamshatoo near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border 20km from Peshawar, in Pakistan's arid North West Frontier Province. A barren, dry and dusty site, the camp is home to an estimated 50,000 refugees who fled Afghanistan seeking refuge, food, hope and a rare semblance of peace.
"Sanitary conditions were basic and access to water a problem," explains Fahmi. "Tents distributed by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, one per family, to newly arrived refugees provided no protection against the bitter cold at night.
"Half a day there and I was already coughing up dust," he added.
The Afghan government estimates that there are still some four million Afghans, comprising both refugees and migrant workers, living outside their homeland - mostly in Pakistan and Iran. In 2001, more than 1.8 million Afghans returned home from Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics, with many more expected to return this year.
During his stay, what affected Fahmi most was the plight of the children, innocent victims of circumstance and conflict.
"They should have been in school instead of begging for food in the streets. It was a pitiful sight. The children... you feel it in here," he says, gesturing to his heart, "when you realise what they are going through."
Usually considered an everyday treat, lollipops distributed to the children were not typically slowly savoured, but were instead rapidly chewed and swallowed because the children were so hungry.
Some of them had also been put to work making Afghan rugs and carpets.
"Most of them were orphans, their parents having died in the war," explains Fahmi. "And the carpets are bought from them for the equivalent of a few ringgit but are then sold on for thousands more."
He recalls an incident when his team had to face a 10-year-old boy who had lost his coupon, which was used in exchange for goods distributed by the Global Peace Mission.
"He kept begging us to give him the rations but we couldn't, not without the coupon. At the end of the day, we pooled together enough money to last him a month," Fahmi says.
The Global Peace Mission's fact-finding pursuit resulted in the delivery of short and long-term emergency relief and humanitarian aid. Programmes concentrated on health, education and human resource training, with the main humanitarian efforts being directed towards fleeing Afghans inside and along the North West Frontier portion of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.
"When we got there, fighting was raging in Jalalabad and Mazar-I-Sharif.
Some refugees had walked up to 1,700km to reach the border camps. When Pakistan decided to close its borders to the refugees, some had little option but to try and get into the country via rugged mountain passes. We managed to get supplies to these refugees through our contacts there.
"We successfully distributed supplies and medical aid to some 70,000 refugees in Peshawar. As a follow-up, our medical team later opened up hospitals and clinics to help treat them."
When the Malaysian team first set foot in the country, the Afghans thought they were the enemy.
"From afar, they mistook the Malaysian flag for the Stars and Stripes of the US.
"They didn't like me initially either, because I smoked an American brand of cigarettes - Marlboro. They also mistook me for a Japanese until I greeted them with a salaam. Only then did they realise I was Muslim."
Fahmi recalls being mobbed by single mothers during the distribution of goods, including flour, sugar and blankets, which were to last families for a month.
"When the supply lorry drove into the camp, I heard a stampede behind me. I turned round and was mobbed by women running after the supply lorry. I was pummelled and punched about the face and stomach. I was lucky when those on the lorry hauled me up and out of the fray."
Fahmi says he felt humbled at the treatment the trio received when the Afghans found out who they were.
"They went out of their way to make us feel welcome, literally begging and borrowing to feed us. They barely had enough to feed and clothe themselves, yet here they were doing everything possible in an attempt to give us a taste of Afghan hospitality."
As a result of his experiences, Fahmi now thinks twice before even tearing the crust off a piece of bread before eating it.
"When we eat bread, we remove the crust. People there have hardly anything to eat. It has all made me realise just how lucky we are," he says. Fahmi and his two colleagues took RM170,000 with them that members of the Malaysian public had donated to buy tents, food and clothing for the refugees.
Last June, the Mission also organised a major fund-raising initiative called Majlis Malam Sentuhan Hati. Some RM250,000 was raised which will go towards providing 37 water pumps, 40 tents, a year's sponsorship of 20 orphans, 15 sanitation units, the cost of building a school, a teacher's salary for one year, sponsorship of two medical students and a twice-weekly feeding programme for a year.
"We definitely have to do our homework first before we go in. We have to find out what the refugees need most and prioritise accordingly. Only then can we be sure of sending them the things they require and through the proper channels," says Fahmi, who works in an advertising firm.
He also concluded that it would be wiser to bring cash donations rather than goods into the camps.
"It is far cheaper to obtain the supplies there rather than ship them in from Malaysia. In Pakistan, flour costs the equivalent of 60 sen per kilo.
If we were to ship it from here, we would also have to bear the additional transportation charges."
Fahmi considers his 11-day stay in Pakistan one of the hardest things he has ever done. Mindful of the potential dangers, he had left his belongings with his closest friends and family prior to his departure.
"I left my car with my employer and my apartment keys with a friend. I wasn't sure if I would be coming back."
He even let his grandmother believe that he was going into Afghanistan with 30 others.
"I didn't want her to worry... she saw me off at the airport and only then did she realise that only two others were accompanying me.
"When one of the Abim (Angkata Belia Islam Malaysia) leaders told her that I was going there for a good cause, she asked why he wasn't accompanying us."
As a foreigner, Fahmi also encountered some amusing, if not embarrassing moments, when faced by some of the different aspects of Afghan culture. An incident when performing Friday prayers stands out.
"After the imam recited the Fatihah, I ended the surah saying `Amin', as loudly as I could, which is the normal practice here in Malaysia. The Afghans, in contrast, do not end each surah in such a fashion, so my typical response was met with total silence. Needless to say it was a little discomfiting."
Fahmi also began wearing the shalwar-kamiz, the traditional Afghan costume of long-sleeved shirt and wide pants, which enabled him to move around more freely.
"It cost RM10 for the six metres of cloth needed to make the outfit and I paid another RM15 to have it tailored," he says.
Despite the harrowing experience, Fahmi doesn't think the trip to the Afghan refugee camps will be his last. With the knowledge he gained, he will be invaluable as a member of other Global Peace Mission trips, but he will be most happy if his services are not needed - that there is peace instead of conflict.
But with the war now raging in Iraq, and the human tragedy that is unfolding, sadly it looks like it won't be too long before his next trip.

Ferocious Drive

AS everyone knows it today, Formula One is a sport of glamour and huge expense. Monaco, yachts, private jets and annual budgets in excess of RM1 billion to even hope of reaching a podium finish.
At the centre of all that, however, is a man who started in this sport battling the bailiffs - from a telephone booth that was his office.
He has gone on to build one of the greatest teams in Formula One, and won the highest accolade possible in the sport - which was the regulating body Federation Internationale de l'Automobile's decision to change the rules because of his team's domination of a category.
His blood is as blue as you can get in racing. He is Sir Frank Williams, whose first season in the 1970s cost roughly STG25,000, compared to an estimated STG220 million budget today that he spends on putting two racing cars on the track 17 times a year under the banner of BMW.WilliamsF1.
Sir Frank, who turns 61 on April 16, was knighted in 1999 for his contributions to British motor sport. Thirteen years previously, he was involved in a horrific car accident which put him in a wheelchair.
The same ferocious drive that made him run 70 miles every week before the accident in 1986 is what keeps him to a punishing travel schedule.
This year's 16-race season starts in Australia and Kuala Lumpur in March, and continues with 13 races in Europe, the US and Latin America before finishing in Japan. Belgium has been dropped. The season is expected to go back to 17 races next year with the inclusion of Shanghai.
That determination is also what brought him the most dominant team of the 1990s. His focus never wavered, and together with partner and team technical director Patrick Head, WilliamsF1 has raked in nine Constructors' Championships and seven Drivers' Championships.
Almost anyone in the Formula One pit would have greeted their driver's second place in the Australian Grand Prix with glee. Not Frank Williams, or his lieutenant of 25 years, Head.
Their reputation in dealing with drivers - who, in the public eye, take all the glory - is legendary. The partners of 26 years have sacked no less than two world champions after they won drivers' titles for Williams.
Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill, having become world champions, thought for the briefest of moments that they could command the Williams team. One ended up failing a seat-fitting for McLaren in 1993, and the other, playing guitar at charity functions.
There is no doubt that Sir Frank and Head will continue to dictate the pace for all drivers who are fortunate enough to sit in a car engineered by WilliamsF1.
It may well be that they have at least one of the two best drivers in the Formula One World Championship today. But the likes of the Colombian cruiser Juan Pablo Montoya would do well to resist stamping his pudgy paw on the shiny throttle mid-way through a corner - especially after the British Grand Prix in July, where electronic assistance will be no more.
Without question, Sir Frank has secured his place in Formula One history through the sheer competitiveness of the WilliamsF1 team. Head and Sir Frank's 28-year-old son Jonathan, who is now involved in the business, can be expected to continue to build on the Williams tradition.
And that will only be to the benefit of all Formula One fans.

Q: What does Formula One mean to you?
A: It is my passion, it is my life, a fascinating business.

Q: What do you think of the new ruling on qualifying?
A: (FIA did it) for several reasons. One, may be to make (the) qualifying (session) better for the fans. Previously, you see only a few cars on the track in the first 30 minutes of qualifying (on Saturday). The more cars run at any one time, the quicker the track becomes. The quicker the track, the quicker is the time, not the fuel load. But everyone waits for the last 30 minutes to go out.
By extending it another day, it makes better television viewing and helps get more sponsors.

Q: It (winning) depends on strategy?
A: It does depend on strategies. We (the cars) carried a lot of fuel during qualifying (at the Australian race). Ferrari carried a lot more than us. It is quite a different situation as drivers get a different kind of confidence (depending) on the fuel on board, whether it is 7 kilos or
100 kilos.

Q: The F1 World Championship 2003 has just started and you are already
taking a break?
A: A rare event. We work 52 weeks a year on F1 and 17 times a year we stop work to go racing.

Q: Who are the best drivers on the track today?
A: Everyone says Michael (Schumacher) is the best driver in F1 now ... (David) Coulthard and (Kimi) Raikonnen (another McLaren driver) are up the alley ... (but where drivers are concerned it's) very subjective.

Q: Who is your idol?
A: Sir Jackie Stewart (former World Champion Driver). He was and still
is.

Q: You've said that four key elements of a modern-day F1 package are car, driver, tyres and engine. Does WilliamsF1 have these for the 2003 season?
A: We have had a reasonable start. We have a brand-new car... we've not got the best out of it yet.

Q: You've been described as "a dealer, a fitness fanatic who was happiest thinking on his feet. As a race driver, he was erratic: as a team manager and owner, he possessed that indefinable something that is key to survival." How far is this true?
A: Well, as a dealer, that was 35 years ago. I was erratic as a race driver. (I was racing until) I broke my neck. As a team manager and owner, we all know that in a business like this, where you have 200 to 500 people working for you, it is a team effort.

Q: Besides motor racing, what are your other interests? How much time do you spend on these?
A: Aviation, reading, classical music. I spend like 2 per cent of my time on them. The rest is on Formula One. Like I told you earlier, it is my passion.

Q: Where do you source your strength from?
A: You source your energy from this (passion). It gets you going. It gets you up in the mornings.