Last night, I went for the opening performance of Beauty & the Beast at Plenary Hall. Normally, I wouldn’t go for opening night, I always have this idea in my head that opening night is never as good as it could be, because there would be minor glitches here and there, which they need to iron out. However, this time, my dad was buying the tickets to celebrate his 70th birthday, and he wanted to go for the opening performance. His reasoning was that since it was the opening performance, there should be something “special”. Who was I to argue, after all, it was a free ticket!

We got there in plenty of time for the beginning. My dad was astonished that for a RM250 ticket, we were seated so far at the back! Such is the pricing of musicals over here… Anyway, they started late, about 8.20pm. At one stage, people started clapping to try and get them to start. I’ve never really experienced a musical like this starting late, I’m not sure whether it was of problems, or they were trying to start a bit later because the hall was quite empty, and people were still coming in.

I feel for the performers, they did nothing wrong and they were really good, but people will have a bad impression of the musical because of the sound + disruption. My conclusion is that I will try never to go for opening night again!

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In essence, Malaysians (except for the poor) will no longer have fuel subsidies. We’ve been enjoying quite a big subsidy, only paying less than RM2 (that’s less that USD 0.65) per litre so far. The most compelling statement in the article was this:

In effect, pump prices could be more than double the current subsidised prices.

I’m one of those people who are really blessed to not have to drive so much. OK, it’s also because I really detest driving! But my office is really near, and on weekends, BF drives. But even I can see the country-wide effect that this new ruling is going to have.

Fuel prices go up, EVERYTHING goes up, most importantly, prices of food. Prices go up, and I’m sure salaries aren’t going to go up. This probably will result in crime rates going up too! *sigh*

I’ve always said that people shouldn’t complain over the fuel rates whenever the government increases the price. After all, prices in all countries are going up, so why shouldn’t the government increase it? We’ve already been blessed because the fuel rates are one of the cheapest in all countries. So, whenever it goes up, I’m grateful that although it has gone up, we still have cheap fuel. Now…? What’s going to happen to our country?

My colleagues and I were discussing it already, saying how food, airflight prices and everything is going to increase. Car pooling will come into effect more than ever before. One idea thrown around was that this is a ’scare’ tactic by the government. Right now, they’ll say that subsidies will be scrapped, causing a huge uproar in the country. Later on, they’ll say that they will continue the subsidies, but perhaps at a much lower subsidy than before. And everyone will be so thankful, that they won’t complain at the large price hike for fuel. I’m crossing my fingers that this is the case!

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