masterwordsmith-unplugged

To be honest, I have quite a number of friends and relatives who are in the airline industry, either as pilots, aeronautical engineers or flight attendants. Whenever I meet up with them, they would share with me tales of funny encounters and the many challenges that they face on the job. Franky, none of them have ever revealed any juicy or saucy tales that would compromise the integrity of the airline staff - most admirable indeed.

Coming back to the title of this post, do sex stories or tales with sexual innuendos sell? Of course they do! Think Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon. In the 1980s and 1990s, such novels were in vogue. Since the advent of the internet, however, with the click of a mouse at particular websites, one can access all kinds of saucy, erotic tales por gratis too! So do sex stories still sell? Not as much as in the past - over-exposure to such pornographic material can numb one to the excitement of reading about one's sexual exploits, regardless of how explicit these can be.

Today, some Asian newspapers and online news portals announced the release of a new memoir by Janet Chew, a Singaporean ex-stewardess, saucily called "The Mile Hi! Club".

According to Frank Chee of The New Straits Times (Singapore),

The new book, whose title puns on the term 'mile high club', which refers to people who have had sex on a plane, tells of crew members making out with passengers in aircraft toilets and walking around without underwear.

But the book written by Janet Chew also brings to light the more mundane, unglamorous aspects of the job, such as one occasion when she had to clean up after an elderly passenger who fell sick and soiled his underwear, pants and shoes.

"This is part and parcel of my job, this is what we have to do," she explains.

She admits The Mile Hi! Club's cheeky title is meant to attract readers and is not filled from cover to cover with juicy details of high-altitude sex romps.

"The 'Hi!' is representative of the famous smile we have," she clarifies.

"Episodes like the sexual romps do not happen very often. I wanted to keep the book true and didn't want it to be over-dramatic. It's not meant to be about the sleaze.

"Many people have misconceptions about cabin crew, that we are materialistic high-class waiters and the funny antics that that they think go on among us.

"So this is a good opportunity to open their eyes," says Chew, 35, who quit flying last year to take care of her five-year-old son.

The Mile Hi! Club is not the first book written by an ex-stewardess about the profession. There are at least 10 others before it, including The Sky Is Crazy: Tales From A Trolley Dolly by Malaysian Yvonne Lee, which was published in 2005.

Chew spent six months working on her book, which is based on her 13 years as a flight stewardess.

The first-time writer, who declines to name the airline she worked for, forked out about S$10,000 to design and publish 3,000 copies of the book, which is sold on her blog and in bookstores.

Having attended a few writers' conferences and workshops, including the one held by Oscar Hijuelos (author of the Pultizer Prize Winning novel Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Antonio Banderas' first movie "The Mambo Kings" was based on this book), I know that it is not that easy to find a book publisher, especially in Malaysia. Even if one succeeds in doing so, the marketing strategy for that book could either pave the way to success or ensure that it remains covered with dust in some obscure bookshop. At the same time, not that many are willing to fork out money to publish their own book because it is definitely a big risk!

Are there good writers in Asia? Of course. Take a look around and one can see many brilliant writers such as Antares, Kee Thuan Chye, Penangite Tan Twan Eng (whose book "The Gift of Rain" was nominated for the Man Booker Prize 2007), Tash Aw (whose book "The Harmomy Silk Factory" won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award, 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel and longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize) and many other writers.

But the sad fact is this - there are not that many readers who would go for literary gems; in fact many do not read...as discussed in my post TO READ OR NOT TO READ. Many of us live such fast paced lives that we want to read instant stories, juicy tales, political scandals but to consider serious fiction, *sigh*...few would take that path...

So dear reader, if you have not been reading much lately, I would encourage you to read a book ...a good one to start with is my favorite - Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie which you can read online por gratis at THIS LINK.

Have a good evening, dear reader...may your life be filled with wonderful, life enriching literary gems!

A Sunday school teacher asked her class, "What was Jesus' mother's name?"
One child answered, "Mary."
The teacher then asked, "Who knows what Jesus' father's name was?"
A little kid said, "Verge."
Confused, the teacher asked, "Where did you get that?"
The kid said, "Well, you know they are always talking about Verge n' Mary.''

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3-year-old, Reese:
"Our Father, Who does art in heaven, Harold is His name. Amen."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A little boy was overheard praying:
"Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had been teaching my three-year old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord's Prayer for several evenings at bedtime, she would repeat after me the lines from the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word right up to the end of the prayer:

"Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us some E-mail."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One particular four-year-old prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets." A Sunday school teacher asked her children, as they were on the way to church service,
"And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?"
One bright little girl replied, "Because a lot of people are sleeping."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother Joel were sitting together in church.
Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had had enough.
"You're not supposed to talk out loud in church."
"Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked.
Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See those two men standing by the door?
They're hushers."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5 and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.'"
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull lay dead in the sand.
"Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked.
"He died and went to Heaven," the Dad replied.
The boy thought a moment and then said,
"Did God throw him back down?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A wife invited some people to dinner.
At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?"
"I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied.
"Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"

HAVE A NICE DAY!

In the 1980s (before I had my boys), I spent a lot of time on games mainly swimming, canoeing, bowling and gaming - of which my favorites included combat games such as 1943 Battle of Midway, Counterstrike, Red Alert and Tiberian Sun !!! We did not have sophisticated game consoles such as PS3, PSP, X-box 360, Nintendo DS or Nintendo Wii.

FYI, the Nintendo Wii (pronounced as the English pronoun we) is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of both.



A distinguishing feature of the console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and detect movement in three dimensions. Another distinctive feature of the console is WiiConnect24, which enables it to receive messages and updates over the Internet while in standby mode.

I was delighted to discover the following video clip a few days ago. Please click and enjoy this funny skit that makes fun of the Nintendo Wii.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights of all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option own one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

A TEXAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...