Asbo on tomato planting

Reading the news this morning, I was quite amused by this news article. Basically, a retired grandmother who has grown two tomato plants in the entrance foyer of her council flat has been given an Asbo warning (anti-social behaviour) and was given strict orders by the council to remove her plants due to fire satefy precaution (and also someone in the same flat had complained).

You can only shake your head in disbelief and amazement at the kind of news the nanny state in this country has produced.

That prompted me to think about the kinds of 'potential' hazards in Malaysia that only we Malaysians can accept as normal and live with. During durian season, we see all kinds of temporary fruit stalls springing up along the road and even the highway set up from a range of materials including wood, plastic gazebo, curtain, cardboard, zinc or even straight from the boot of a car. You name it and they can do it. Or, how about that temporary mamak stall that is just round the corner from your house which has been there for yonks and it looks like it's going to fall apart anytime? Not to mention the wobbly tables with chairs that have legs that look about to snap if you put too much weight on them?



Living in a foreign country is the best kind of opportunity for one to look back at the relaxed and easy-going attitude that Malaysians in general have.

Sometimes people can be so petty. It's a common disease of humankind, not being able to rejoice in others' achievement and some people go to great lengths just to be a 'killjoy'. Only the other day I found out that in the UK, if you are planning to refurbish your home, or add an extension, or build a garage, you first need to get permission from the council, and then you need to let your entire street know what you are planning to do and if enough people are not happy with it, you don't get to build it. Funny isn't it? I suppose in a way it's to protect the residents in case someone decides to add an extension as big as Buckingham Palace, which would therefore block the road and so would slightly inconvenience the neighbourhood. But how likely is that to happen? And not only that, whatever you are intending to build, it must not cross the line of the front part of your house, in other words, you can only build beside or behind, but not out to the front because all the houses along the same street has the same 'line'. Odd, you think?

Don't get me started on the three different kinds of wheelie bins we have got at home !!