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Thanks! Apologies for the garbled English subtitles. No idea how they got that way. The unsubtitled version is the better watch I think. The history of Johor is very complicated and threading my way through the old annals was an eye crossing experience but I think I pulled out a clear narrative. I was going to follow it up with a doco on the British takeover but Covid got in the way!!! I ended up just doing a lock down vlog where I recount the stories I was going to film. Not as exciting to watch but for those interested in a primer on Malaya it’s worth a look … or rather a listen! I’m currently in the UK and did a website on the history of the village I’m living in: www.greatbaddow.net

Thanks! I’m working on a new series like the Johor Lama documentary except this time about the history of Great Baddow… from the time it emerged from a blob of lava in the South Pole to the time there was a punch up in The Blue Lion pub over massive flood caused by neglecting the drains. We’d be shooting it if my wife wasn’t ill at moment. When she recovers we’ll begin. In the meantime there might be some dregs of material I can put together in someway if I can think of something to say about them. In the meantime why not have an evening watching Lust and Found? I practically had a nervous breakdown making that one. Making a feature film without any money is not recommended!

Yes the moving and reconstruction concept did seem a bit iffy! Perhaps it was that or they’d be completely destroyed by some building project.

Hey! Someone watched the whole show! Fantastic. Malaysia is a fantastic place that never can work out whether it wants anyone to know it exists! Let’s just say that if it’s ministers of tourism spent more time helping local communities to publicise their regions cultures, history and attractions instead of going to conferences and overseas conventions looking, I assume, for deals with hotel chains that never happen maybe money would get into local people’s hands.

Yes I didn’t want to be negative because HK is still very liveable, just not the lively creative place it used to be. However if more people visit and more entrepreneurs enter, it might catch the wind again. Historically it’s been through periods of doldrums and then revived. Though under China’s sovereignty it’s hard to see it running on the same fuel that used to rev its motors.

All that history is fascinating. We found a lot of people complaining that the history was being erased but we found it was all there and people were still digging up new evidence. Of course not enough resources are ever available and there is some political nonsense going on but the curators and professors aren’t slacking. Malaysia is a much underrated country.

There is a historian there named Dato V. Nadarajan who would have have explained Bujang Valley to you in great depth. Pity you didn't meet him there.​@@Goodnessgrays

​​⁠yes. We had big plans to create a series of videos on Malaysia’s history but the lockdown threw a spanner in the works and after postponing everything for two years and there seeming to be no end to this, we packed our bags and left to try establish ourselves in the UK after thirty years in Asia. Visa requirements for the over seventies just became impossible! Trust me, we would have loved to continue our love affair with China and the whole SE Asia world. There was so much to explore and discover and people all around the region were very encouraging. Each project was more ambitious and we intended to increase production values and make it as professional as possible without giving up our simple two handed set up but… life moves on. We’re now trying to adjust to UK life and explore what to us is pretty much a foreign country!

Excellent! Our original aim for this channel was to produce a series of documentaries of increasingly high production values on Malaysian history. Check out the Hidden History of Johor Lama which is pretty good. We hoped to make the next big one at broadcast TV quality. We did a complete recce of Malaysia and lined up lots of local history experts and then covid closed the whole enterprise down. It was creeping into Malaysia as we drove around looking at Bujang etc. The channel became a repository of vlogs and bits and pieces of our other travels with little ambition to make a high end product. I vlogged our round Malaysia tour producing a video every day for Facebook rather than TH-cam but put it here as well. We abandoned the documentary project but this year we’re going to get back into scripted history shows with one on a UK village and maybe next year return to Malaysia for a couple of months to shoot the big one we researched on the British takeover in the 1870’s. We’ve just spent a month here in Malaysia seeing old friends and with the new cameras available thought we might be able to shoot the Malaysian history script at least at the same level of production values as the Johor Lama one but with much less lifting involved! Shooting in the heat is very difficult and we ain’t got younger these past five years! But we might give it a try.

Yes. I’m playing with it to see if anything interesting turns up. Most stuff is so so. The narration has a number of quirks that are giveaways. They often say something like “Picture this…” and like long winded hyperbole. Sometimes if you edit the text you can get something interesting. I’ve pointed it at referencing my web site essays and it kind of works better though its image library is somewhat eccentric and tied to key words. As a device for producing quick videos it’s hit and mostly miss. But if you work at it it can improve but it doesn’t compete with actually real filming. However as a test mock up before committing to a shoot it has its uses. However these AI apps are getting better and better.

Yes. They covered medieval to modern. This bunch were Napoleonic.

Because I was born here

Thanks

Thanks. They’d be better if the animals kept still! They had a habit of moving off whenever I hit the red button on the camera!

One of the many little forgotten wars.

Java is a fantastic place. If covid hadn’t disrupted everything I would have spent a lot of time going around Indonesia.

What color is the zebra?

You’re right. I put it together on an old machine without headphones a few years ago.

Never said he was. I mention Iskandar Zulkarnain who I believe has some reference in the Koran and has been associated with Alexander the Great.

They’ve always been full of silt. Even old Iskander Shah complained of stinky lizards in Muar! But the more factories you get the harder it is to control effluent! People told me how they used to fish in JB’s Segget river.

Thanks. And there’s more to come. We went all around Andalusia.

Thanks. For some reason most people interested in this are from India! My next travelogue is from Andalusia. It’ll be interesting who that picks up. .

@@Goodnessgrays your video was a good mix of information as well as some witty commentary 👍, also appreciate that is not too glossy and over produced, looks real; will follow your adventures. All the best

Ha ha senility meets vlogging!

I assume you’re referring to me and not Henry V?

@@Goodnessgrays yeah seen cool where ya went

I’ve heard it pronounced garlic! Seems to vary. On Eriskay it seemed more Irish. The Hebrides overall seemed a very different world to the rest of Scotland. I had expected a sort of extension to the Highlands but it had a very feel.

@@Goodnessgrays Garlic? Och, that's just the accent😁 I hope that you're enjoying your trip despite the weather but it makes you appreciate the fire, good food and a large malt all the more - every cloud and all that!

@@jaystevens1965 Certainly left me pining for the heat of Malaysia! It's a brutal climate up there and we weren't there in winter where the days are very short, if exist at all! Hard to think that those islands were pretty much the first place where civilisation in the British Isles of sorts began. Though I am informed that the place was a tad warmer back in the neolithic and covered in trees!

But who’ll pay the airfare?

@@Goodnessgrays He’s going by tumbril

@@andylewis248 I bet the EU don’t allow them to be exported!

They may look harmless but they have the eyes of cold blooded killers!

Took ages to persuade their agent to let them perform.

That was my theory! I’ll leave episode 8 for you to find out what happened. I should add a follow up episode to say what happened next!!! Am writing that up as a blog on my website. Let us just say that despite exercise being the one thing that comes up as a positive thing in the eyes of doctors there is a reason why they set a very low bar with what they consider adequate exercise. Also it’s worth taking a look at the health of your doctors. They smoke. The drink. They eat too much… I’ve a few doctor friends and have pointed this out to them and they shrugged and said things like how they’ve seen the inevitable and the state of people who have lived too long!😂

I had learn how to fly for that one.

It went down well in Johor. We met the Sultan and his wife.

Indeed! Goodness Grays goes wild.

Thanks! My next lot are about a trip to Andalusia.

Ha ha… lived in Asia for thirty years where Chinese walk backwards to remove the years. Joined in a few times. My wife can be found with the Garden Ladies th-cam.com/play/PLm1dbMBKfRKqjXziNYqFhTJ657-UBdoNX.html They’re doing an Indonesian routine.

@@Goodnessgrays Haha likewise. But it's about far more than trying to "reverse" ageing. eg. You strengthen muscles+joints that are underused whilst resting those that are overused. It also puts less stress on the heart and stomach etc and feels especially good for the metabilism and heart if you have recently eaten and are are still feeling bloated and heavy. And walking/running backwards "on auto-pilot" really does help induce a Zen state of mind - much like sitting facing backwards on a train. (Or in one! ) By contrast, when facing forwards your eyes are constantly being blasted by fast-moving images hitting your retina and brain from the front and sides - coming at you all the time. And of course most people forget that football team training has incorporated side-by-side backward running - since the dawn of (half-)time. Watch this fairly exhaustive overview of the sport and health benefits of retro-walking(link below) PS. Footnote(so to speak) : - when I started backwards running/walking about 15 years ago, I did it with no awareness at all that others might be doing it. I'd done zero web-searching - but its potential benefits just seemed obvious to me - and my curiosity has never killed a cat. Or a dog. Oh yeah - there are now also plenty of TH-cam vids of dogs that have been trained to walk backwards! Watch: 1) th-cam.com/video/YuKfikI6elY/w-d-xo.html 2) th-cam.com/video/xnNHj4llzvk/w-d-xo.html Paul G

@@Goodnessgrays @Goodness Grays Haha likewise. But it's about far more than trying to "reverse" ageing. eg. You strengthen muscles+joints that are underused whilst resting those that are overused. It also puts less stress on the heart and stomach etc and feels especially good for the metabilism and heart if you have recently eaten and are are still feeling bloated and heavy. And walking/running backwards "on auto-pilot" really does help induce a Zen state of mind - much like sitting facing backwards on a train. (Or in one! ) By contrast, when facing forwards your eyes are constantly being blasted by fast-moving images hitting your retina and brain from the front and sides - coming at you all the time. And of course most people forget that football team training has incorporated side-by-side backward running - since the dawn of (half-)time. Watch this fairly exhaustive overview of the sport and health benefits of retro-walking(link below) PS. Footnote(so to speak) : - when I started backwards running/walking about 15 years ago, I did it with no awareness at all that others might be doing it. I'd done zero web-searching - but its potential benefits just seemed obvious to me - and my curiosity has never killed a cat. Or a dog. Oh yeah - there are now also plenty of TH-cam vids of dogs that have been trained to walk backwards! Watch: 1) th-cam.com/video/YuKfikI6elY/w-d-xo.html 2) th-cam.com/video/xnNHj4llzvk/w-d-xo.html Paul G

@@evukelectricvehicles when the spring returns I’ll throw that into my routine… if a get back to outdoor training. You’ll have to watch the whole series to find out what happened to me after returning to running.

I understand it was moved to the present site in the 50’s for Marconi to use.