Honk! on Hello on Two

I attended the January MPH Litbloggers Meet with Xeus and Tunku Halim as the featured speakers. MPH had arranged for the tv crew from RTM's Hello on Two (HOT) to interview Tunku Halim. Xeus was also pulled in for an interview on her newly released Dark City 2. She asked me and Chua Kok Yee to tag along as we were both contributors to DC2. However, it so happened that HOT's broadcast journalist had done a review of Honk! If You're Malaysian for their new Book Review segment and I was interviewed for my books instead. Though I wasn't dressed or made-up for the occasion, I seized the opportunity lah. That's why I looked absolutely washed out here. Lesson learnt : when attending literary events, be smartly attired as you never know when you might bump into journalists looking for a story.



Thanks to the Samsung SGH i550 which was loaned to me for a promotion campaign, I was able to record the interview which was aired today and post it here. It's the first time ever I'm doing this kind of high tech stunt, so please excuse the amateur quality of the clip.

I shouldn't have stopped recording when I did, because after that the tv hosts (sorry, I didn't get their names) continued to sell Honk! If You're Malaysian. They said that the book is making waves in Malaysia! Since I missed that on the recording, I had to mention it here.

Viewing the clip, I realized that I had again used my 'crutch words' - meaningless phrases that creeped in unconsciously. "You know" was said at least three times and a couple of "uhms." When I asked my son what he thought of my talks (which I dragged him to sometimes), he had pointed out the countless "you know." So at the last talk that I gave at UCSI, I remembered not to use this crutch word. It worked but another faux pas I made was shaking my legs and the notes I held in my hands. Ah, as they say, the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. If there was a seminar that teaches you how to appear polished in front of the camera and audience, I may just sign up for it.