Living in a TV drama.

Life, in Malaysia, is turning out to be a bit like living in a TV drama. By this, I mean that far too many unusual events seem to occur in a short space of time, to be at all possible in the real world. However, this is the real world and they are happening.

I shall explain. We are staying in a house in KL, right now. We have just begun our stay. Yet, already we are receiving odd phone calls from people claiming to be persons in authority of some kind. Today, for instance, we had three people call pretending to be from the phone company, asking us questions, whose answers the real telephone people would already know. It was all just a lead up to arranging a visit from someone who really, really shouldn't be given admission to our home. Then again, we had a visitor from the "gas company", asking our kids to open the gates to let him in the house. However, most oddly, we hadn't called the gas company and weren't in need of their services, in the least.

So, what we have here, is four attempted scams in one day. That, I must say is quite something for the real world. It is just like a TV show in which a cascade of unlikely things happen to the protagonists that everyone, who pauses to think, would not believe for a minute, could happen in the real world. Only, in Malaysia, they do.

The worrying thing about all of this is what would happen were we less aware of the possibilities of duplicitous crime, here. You see, we had been forewarned that there are a lot of "chancers" around here, who will try their best to gain admission to a home to do there what they can to rip you off - or worse. No doubt, there are newcomers here who are not so prepared. God knows what their introduction to the country might be like.

The other worrying thing is just how these people have managed to get my details. All the callers knew my name. Some of them used my full name. Some inquired whether I was my wife's husband. All of them, obviously, had our phone number - though it had only been registered three days before. I am left to assume that someone at the phone company - or at the phone store - is selling information of new subscribers to the criminals for personal gain, so that the con men might have the base material they need to work with: knowledge of identities, contacts and location.

Funnily, for the "gas man", all we did was wait. After a couple of minutes parked outside our house, he got the message and left. If he had been a real gas man, who had been really called to do some work at our house, he would rather have persisted, I think.

I am reminded of the Nigerian con men who continuously send out email scams, all over the world. Here, much the same thing goes on, but it is not based around emails: it is based around telephone calls and personal visits from people who are not who they say they are.

I am thankful that we had been forewarned about all of this. Without such warning, perhaps we would have let our guard down...and who knows what might have happened then. For now, the gates shall remain closed and unexpected callers shall receive a cool response.

I must say, watching TV dramas is a lot less unsettling than living in one!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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