IS EUTHANESIA ALLOWED?

FORGET, for a moment, the title above. I will come back to this after-lunch poser.

Last night whilst doing a spot of fishing with Dave, Paul, Benz and Desmond I got an SMS from HANTU 2: Meet me 1pm @ Villa Danieli. Smart casual please. For this I cancelled an appointment with my doc with a flourish of neat white lies. Karen just shook her head. No way was I going to miss the Rigatoni All'Amatriciana and Braised Beef Cheek at the Villa. Better the old fox was feting me.

We are old friends, me having taught 3 of his boys from three marriages whilst he walked abrasively in the corridors of power in late 60s and mid 80s as self-appointed doyen of the younger diplomats. He was unusually cordial over our meal. When the food was cleared he reached under the table and produced a Yoichi 20 years Old. Dang! This Japanese whisky was recently voted the best single malt at the World Whiskies Awards, beating off stiff competition from Scotland and Ireland. The bit of kampong in me asked how much he paid for corkage. “What cock, corkage. The money I spent here has already contributed to the recent refurbishing!”

Small talk ensued and he volunteered that the malt was round and full bodied, starts with sugared pecans, vanilla, sweet malt, then moved into more hazelnut and fruit cake in the finish. “And you?” he coaxed. “Medium amber hue with a bold nose of sherry tobacco and old leather....and inner thigh smooth,” His “Bah!” took us into another topic. Sibu. I recounted how the results were nearly stolen from under our noses. He agreed it was a pathetic attempt with “If Tun Ismail was alive he would castrate that guy pickle the prick and feed it to the commodore lizard.”

At the sixth he popped the question: “Do you agree with euthanasia, should it be allowed.” Fearing no catch in this question I asked if he was OK. Of course he was OK. He is seeing someone now that the three mems are spa-hopping.

It will never be allowed for sure but I would want all plugs detached if I went into a vegetative state. If we can put down an animal what’s so special about us that nobody is allowed to end suffering….mercy killing they called it. “And you. What’s your take?”I queried. “Don’t anybody resuscitate me if there is no more hope. I will not want to go in and out of a coma, would you? Better be dead than near-dead.”

What we did after that is classified OSA!