It’s Dhu’l-Hijja the ninth, year 1424 AH. I am really indifferrent to this date.
However, I woke up at five in the morning and the first thing I read in the news concerned a stampede near Mina. First, the news said a few people are feared to have died. I checked out fifteen minutes later, the figure went up to 50. Hold your breath because an update later, the number jumped to almost 200%.
It has been reported that 244 people died in a stampede near Mecca. I really hope that the Malaysian Embassy in Saudi Arabia won’t issue any unwanted statement because if it does, there is a possibility it would affect me and that sucks.
p/s – I’ve just read the updated version of A History of the Malay Peninsula and I found one particular paragraph to be extremely funny despite the author’s serious mood:
They were soon joined by a Siamese warship but the vessel took great care to anchor much further away from the coast to avoid Malay cannon fire. When the British invited the captain to join their blockading line much closer to the ramparts, he would just shake his head and mutter “Tidak bagus! Tidak Bagus!” (No, that’s not good, not good!). He refused the offers so many times that the British – who were not told what the name of the formidable vessel was – from then on referred to His Majesty Siam’s ship as the “Tidak Bagus!”.
LMAO!
And Ajax drew with PSV at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven. For almost a full game, Ajax played with 10 men without van der Vaart and still survived the onslaught.