Suara Keadilan: Raja Petra Kamarudin Are You a Frog in Boiling Water?

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Raja Petra Kamarudin Are You a Frog in Boiling Water?

And in response to Zahrain's linking him to the blogger, Zaid Ibrahim retorts: So what?
show that blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin and Pakatan Rakyat secretariat coordinator Zaid Ibrahim had checked into the same hotel in the UK last year.

This has raised the eyebrows of Bayan Baru MP Zahrain Mohamed Hashim, who quit PKR in February and declared himself an Independent lawmaker.

"I have here their hotel bookings. Raja Petra made a booking from Oct 1-4 at the Britannia Hotel (in) Manchester and Zaid made a booking at the same hotel from Oct 1-3," he told journalists at the Parliament lobby today.

He questioned the "coincidence" and called for an investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to probe if there is link between the duo.

"I am asking MACC to (find out who is funding) Raja Petra's stay in London. What was (Zaid) doing with a fugitive in Manchester?" asked Zahrain.

Asked if he was accusing Zaid of providing the funds, Zahrain denied this but said he wants MACC to get to the bottom of the matter.

He also claimed to have a copy of an email from Raja Petra to his daughter, stating that he had received RM470,000 from Amarjit Singh.

Since Amarjit is a lawyer for both Raja Petra and PKR, said Zahrain, the money may have come from the party.

"I know that there is a relationship between the PKR right-hand man with Raja Petra, based on the hotel booking. Therefore I want (de facto law minister Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz) and MACC to investigate," he said.

Zahrain (left) added that he would hand over his information to Nazri after the press conference.

Raja Petra was charged with sedition and criminal defamation last year but was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal in both matters, as the prosecution could not serve the warrant of arrest on him despite several postponements.
Missing from Malaysia since May last year, he now lives in self-imposed exile.
In an immediate response posted on his blog, Zaid stayed true to character and appeared unpertubed by the accusations.
'I met RPK. So?'
He instead expressed 'pity' for Zahrain for being "so pathetic".

"Parliamentarians should be proposing ideas for national policy and be brave in criticising government decisions... this is their job, especially "Independent" MPs who are favoured by the PM.

"That is why I am surprised that this has been made an issue. (Zahrain) has become like a member of the Special Branch," he said in the posting.

Zaid also admitted to being friends with Raja Petra and his wife Marina that he had met with them during his trip to Manchester last year.

While Raja Petera did indeed make the bookings for him, the former did not stay at the hotel as it was only 15 minutes from his home, said Zaid.

"Meeting Raja Petra is not a crime, dear YB. Even you have been to his house in Manchester," he said, turning the tables on Zahrain.

Unlike others, he suggested, he does not believe in abandoning friends in times of need and would visit them everytime he is in London.

"I will be in London again next week and God-willing, I will meet with Marina and Petra.
"I also hope to meet with Bala if MACC does not want to meet with him," he said, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the anti-corruption agency's decision to cancel its much awaited interview to record private investigator P Balasubramaniam over the Altantuya

WHERE TO NOW MESSIAH?

What goes round comes round. Raja Petra Kamaruddin (RPK, Raja) was always about his self-centered narcissistic person. He was destined to fall on his own sword when the extent of his far fetched allegations against the Prime Minister and his wife began to take a life of its own out of the Raja’s control.

Added to his circus was one Balasubramaniam (Bala) the former policeman turned private investigator turned internet media sensation appearing with his lawyer Amarick Siddhu Singh. Siddhu admitted on the record that he had assisted Bala with his Statutory Declaration, that he had taken instruction from Bala about its contents. That document it so happens turned out to be another complete fabrication of inconsistencies and lies in the mould of the Raja’s own.

There were those video taped interviews of a Raja so contrived, complete with feigned emotions of a “father who had looked into the eyes of the grieving father of the late Altantuya Sharibuu and knew what it felt like”.

This RPK followed up with even bolder claims that he had control over a police officer at Bukit Aman who would do his every bidding. Not quite satisfied with his epiphany of lies to outrage a nation he offered them the ultimate insult by claiming that he was possessed of firsthand information, from a military intelligence officer who he claims was present at the disposal of Altantuya’s body the day it was allegedly blown up with C4 explosives tied to her corpse.

Speculation was rife that Altantuya may have been alive when blown up adding to the gruesome fiction created and disseminated by RPK. RPK had become addicted to the reactions, the feedback to his lies, his fictions and fantasies.

RPK began to feel the embrace of fame and popularity. Having fallen for the seduction of fame and public recognition he immersed himself in his new found passion of playing “the boy who cried woolf”.

He called out woolf time and time again and the gullible and the opportunists in his midst answered his call each time. It was fun. It became addictive. He became a prisoner of his vanity and cocooned himself in that web of deceit he had spun around others engulfing and entrapping himself in the process.

NOTHING IS COMPLETE WITHOUT PARTICIPATION OF THE MALAYSIAN BAR

Then there was the Raja supported by the Malaysian Bar and its driver one Datuk Ambiga Sreenivasan who paraded as champion of the anti ISA and of RPK’s cause at its core.

In tow were the many lawyers turned overnight sensations courtesy of the RPK sensation and circus. They coveted his fame and adulation riding on his coat tails out of the obscurity of their otherwise incompetent unprofessional existence into a spotlight that has turned into a destructive furnace likely to consume each of them in due course.

RPK’s campaign it appears was endemic in the milieu of his generation of Malaysians who saw it as a quick fix alternative to honest argument supported by fact and reason.

The Malaysian Bar on the other hand willingly went hand in glove with RPK. The assumption behind the ethos of the Malaysian Bar, RPK’s shield against the law, was that they would use the law to change society from their lofty perches. An expression of self conscious elitism as some would suggest.

RPK: VICTIM OR BULLY

To some extent Raja Petra Kamaruddin could be said to be a victim of circumstances. Not highly educated, certainly not well read or informed the Raja was culitvated so readily and so shamelessley by an otherwise educated elite of the fragamented opposition to government in Malaysia.

A careful examination of events that led to the ascendency of RPK as the focus of dissent in Malaysia will reveal the hand of the Malaysian Bar and those elements within it who have relentlessley used RPK and to some extent Anwar Ibrahim as stalking horses for their own covert political ambitions. They after all presented the ideal opportunity to Malay bashing by the largely Chinese dominated opposition with their minority Indians and sprinkling of confused Malays in the mix. No one could now accuse them of racism. These were Malays bashing Malays.

For the present this is about RPK and his failing fortunes, the subject of a raging controversy. Raja having admitted to possessing no evidence, no smoking gun to have defamed then villified Tun Najib Razak and his wife Datin Rosmah implicating them falsely in the death and subsewquent disposal of the corpse of Mongolian call girl Altantuyaa Sharibuu.

AN OPPOSITION TO TRUTH AND HARMONY

Waiting for the right opportunity to strike at government like a snake lying in the tall grass of Malaysia’s highly volatile politics, was the DAP. That hand in the glove of Malaysia’s political opposition to government. Has beens that never really were anything.

Courting him and actively encouraging the man in conjunction with the Malaysian Bar to perpetrate his lies and to inflict these on an unsuspecting and trusting population, the DAP, the Malaysian Bar and Parti Keadlian Rakyat (PKR) in collusion with certain ’academics‘ fanned the flames, adding to the flavour of that dangerous cocktail of lies woven by RPK.

Their presence and approval served to reinforcing and embellishing his lies shoring up their indivudual failing fortunes and those of the Lim Kit Siang dynasty.

The DAP and its less experienced politically immature ally the PKR led by that other flower of narcissus, politician Anwar Ibrahim, not short of their own versions and distortions of truth, fact, fantasy and general outrage, allowed themselves be played by all and sundry.

Tragically this is not the first time that Anwar Ibrahim has demonstrated to the world his very poor record and capacity for political and character judgment in public life.

Falling into the hands of a deft and skilful government defence team in the end was the inevitable culmination of the journey along their rocky road to self induced political annihilation by RPK, PKR their supporters in the fringe of politics.

And it is the end of the road for RPK, PKR, Bala, their support in the legal fraternity and social and alternative media who merrily engaged in an orgy of outrage , bigotry, incitement and defamation for far too long.

The Catholic church which joined in the fray providing unofficial support to RPK, praying for him at several services at St. John’s Cathedral in Kuala Lumpur whilst at the same time wilfully exploiting the great chasm created by RPK , the PKR, the Raja’s blog, Malaysia Today, and other commentaries feeding his staple of lies and distortions of life in Malaysia have some soul searching of their own to do.

RPK’s fictitious claims to having ‘inside leads to government’, the police at Bukit Aman “setting a çat amongst the pidgeons” there must all be etsted now in an open court for its veracity, to unearth the corruption only the opposition appear to be knowledgeable of in order for this mess to be put to rest once and for all.

These are the creations we now know of the great Raja. And ‘that creativity of his ever vivid imagination by his admission is only dwarfed by his mammoth personal ego.

Add to all of this the NGO’s or so called Non Government Organizations. That group of ‘unrepresentative swill’ as Paul Keating would have preferred to call them, unelected and disruptive have all been a willing part of that web of deceit RPK so cleverly exploited and wove into the fabric of his patchwork of opposition politics.

In the process he shamelessley and relentlessly flaunted his royal credentials, a nobility by birth (which it never was). To him it was that island in an ocean of political incredulity the otherwise lackluster opposition needed so badly for credibility in his title that acted as a guardian angel against retribution to his perfidious and trecherous incitement to division, religious and racial bigotry.

THE AMBIGA FACTOR

Not to be outdone by the Raja, Datuk Ambiga Sreenivasan, another of his cohorts in a rabidly anti government coalition displaying her own immaturity and vanity contradicts her public morality, wilfully if not negligently colouring the tapestry of RPK’s and the PKR’s anti government rhetoric, never hesitating to flash her credentials as a Datuk at every given opportunity.

Much like the Raja before Petra Kamaruddin this is after all a honorific title and decoration accorded to Ambiga courtesy of some heavy lobbying. An award bestowed on her by the hereditary ruler of a Malaysian state, a part of a Federation she claims is so corrupted to the core that its unrequited love for her with that Datukship finds exception.

The irony of people like Ambiga accepting and revelling in the adulation and status accorded her by her Datukship appears lost on the woman and her fellow traveller Datuks and Tan Sri’s alike in opposition who through the other side of their collective mouths preach the politics of division, hatred, elitism and exclusivity.

They are very much like the Raja they have supported at least until now one would guess. Lets see what conspiracies they now hatch in their minds to defend RPK whose theories they once latched onto willingly to use as ammunition against their government.

WILL THE REAL RPK PLEASE STAND UP?

Raja Petra (a variant to the name Peter he was Christened as) Kamaruddin is a man sadly driven by the lure of fiction, suffering delusions of grandeur to become the darling of the gossip and rumour mill that is equally sadly Malaysia’s middle class.

RPK as he is commonly and affectionately (perhaps not anymore) known amongst his large following is according to an audit of his site not such a large following after all.

He created a system designed to produced reactions and outcomes to accord with his elitism encouraged and supported by elements of the Malaysian Bar and the opposition that would accord with their collective elitism. RPK then used his far fetched rants and raves publishing these on Malaysia Today and through any channel willing to lend him their ear and space.

RPK has used whatever he has published on his web blog and in winning acceptance from the Malaysian Bar used it as evidence that his elitism (and his popularity) was correct, was justified however fictitious, incorrect and off the mark his comments and claims may have been.

By applying that logic of his arguments and elitism of his for legitimacy RPK, PKR and the Malaysian Bar had emasculated other potential quality and credible opposition in the land. In fact they trampled on them and ridiculed them. The NGO’s bought into the argument through the exclusivity of their single cause unrepresentative politics ring fencing RPK and the Malaysian Bar in the process.

RPK is not just the man. RPK has always been a state of mind lurking conveniently behind that questionable royal pedigree, the convenient link to his faith of Islam and the unseen hand of a racist anti Malay coalition underwritten by the Sinocentric DAP. Added to that are certain disgruntled individuals within the mainstream of politics and the incompetent elitism of the Malaysian Bar.

YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME

To his credit RPK is a phenomenon like no other. Malaysia’s ‘chardonay lefties’ and its highly mobile and affluent street culture are now confronted by the reality that their treacherous hero and God has feet of clay.

Raja had informed himself of the gullibility of the masses. There are too many examples and temptations out there for someone in his position of internet trawler and gossip blogger to have ignored. There was Jim and Tammy Baker, Jim Jones, Beni Hinn, and of course the unseen forces that dominate the internet gossip culture, snaring by the millions the unwary with their scams and circulars of populist theories and about the sky falling. It is an ideal market for those who are prepared to accept these theories and the grand assertions of other without question and without first checking the facts.

Those who against all logic and common sense attend the Billy Graham type crusades even to the point of mass suicides as occurred in Jonestown Guyana in 1977 led by the preacher Reverend Jim Jones are the low hanging fruit that people like the Raja and their coalition of opposition to government pick first. It is almost effortless.

Take the falsehood of the infamous Tommy Hilfiger scam in emails. It was a scam of Himalayan proportions that drew in millions from a wide range of the cross section of society. Doctors, judges, lawyers, academics and that core of the Malaysian middle classes RPK’s constituency many of whom continue still believe in that outrageous lie that Tommy Hilfiger a world renowned designer would have gone on to the Oprah Winfrey show to declare how he hates Blacks, Hispanics and Asians. An that scam email continues to do the rounds absorbing in its wake those who are willing to believe that lie.

These scams apply so effectively the same psychology which for decades have been used by multi level marketers to sell common household products to consumers by convincing them that by buying it, they like that bar of soap become part of a proven formula for personal success reflected in the glossy brochures (usually fictitious figures) they supply with it. That secret formula they claim is capable of elevating them to a status of superstardom way above that of the unenlightened, the common man. And there are those who will continue to believe it because they want to.

There are rituals they create and embrace to reinforce the mantra of their logic. It reinforces the belief of their exclusivity and self conscious elitism. They trim their circles to exclude anyone who harbours doubt or has the temerity to question their logic. The enlightened amongst them are gradually reduced to being prisoners of their own ignorance, a captive market for someone elses designs and greater objectives.

The latest in this series of circular scams is that anti Islamic comment ascribed to Julia Gillard Prime Minister of Australia and another to a pilot in Australia’s international flag carrier airline QANTAS doing the rounds of the internet.

The scam continues to do the rounds like a virus unabated as it is likely to continue well into the future with such a large pool of fools out there in cyberspace willing and waiting to be exploited.

Perhaps Tun Dr. Mahathir did have one flaw. He failed to tell Malaysians that securing a university degree does not necessarily mean gaining an education. The latter requires far more common sense than a parchment to achieve.

RPK loved to up the ante at every given opportunity in his blog. He would even if it meant stretching credibility, spreading and embellishing his outright lies, third hand hearsay or plain gossip to shock and to outrage a society largely conservative and politically immature in its makeup.

RPK was never alone. He could not have possibly operated alone or in a vacuum. He had allies many of whom are currently running for cover in the wake of his recanting of the Najib/ Rosmah allegations on TV 3.

Anwar Ibrahim is a natural scapegoat and convenient hook to hang any miserable flaw onto. To his credit he designed that hook himself.

SOME TELL TALE SIGNS

RPK’s web site moderators have cleverly engaged in the practice of repetitive logging onto his site in a practice known as indexing using ‘spiders’ or ‘search engine noise’ to create the illusion of mass appeal.

Log of the ‘hits’ on RPK’s Malaysia Today web site tend to debunk the myth of an exaggerated readership and following RPK’s site claims credit for. The audit logs show repeated hits from ‘lists’ from public computers all contributing to the larger than usual number of real ‘hits’ from page reviews.

Well they do that at the US presidential elections as well so perhaps no great harm done. No harm done except till you get to the bottom of this political and social vandal’s objects of personal advancement in politics, his craving for personal attention and his mercenary approach to achieving his personal ambition by attacking and vilifying those who cannot often respond to his every vilification.

He uses the internet to abuse and his blog as a form of leverage against those he identifies as legitimate targets including the Prime Minister Tun Razak who he now admits could not have possibly been involved in an event he so passionately pursued an allegation against even to the point of lying under oath in his Statutory Declaration.

A SUMMARY OF RPK THE PHENOMENON

RPK’s statutory Declaration not quite unlike Balasubramaniam’s is the work of a Malaysian lawyer. It bears all the hallmarks of their inadequacy and incompetence considering the value placed on his obscure hearsay statements deliberately leading people to draw unfavourable conclusions about Rosmah and Tun Razak Najib. It was designed for that purpose. He admits to it now but not for the same reasons he ought to.

An abject unmitigated liar now proved to be, many in the mainstream were afraid to lock horns with for his demonstrated capacity and propensity to manufacture events, evidence and to gather lynch mobs in support of his ‘causes’.

The man draws from that wellspring of Malaysia’s middle class of novou riche, that layer of the social space “the great intellectual vacuum”, much like that large hole in the ozone layer, that drive RPK’s ego. To this extent he deserves credit. A Billy Graham, a political evangelist, the new Ram Bam, Rasputin or simply a manifestation of Malaysia’s political ‘freedoms’ gone mad.

RPK’s constituency consists of that section of Malaysia’s middle class fed on a regular diet of CNN, CNBC and the fake American accents of Asian presenters on on their screens, local copycat presenters of ‘newsmen and women’ thrusting hand held recorders into the faces of parading lawyers and other actors in a pantomime of deceit, conceit and empty rhetoric. How clichéd. How ‘B’ grade American TV can it get? But that’s RPK and his audience.

Throw into the equation you have the Nutgraph, Malaysia Kini and other cohorts of this fourth estate so desperate for a villainous hero, a Robin Hood, a Paul Revere or Ned Kelly and you get the picture.

It was all about manufacturing consent as professor Naom Chomsky who coined that phrase would say. And RPK was never alone. He could not have survived the burden of the logistics of Malaysia today, prepared speeches, protection, money and access to media, travel and foreign travel at leisure without a well funded team of not supporters but anarchists and political transvestites.

WHAT DID RPK SAY THEN AND WHAT SAYS HE NOW?

There have been credible revelations about the deals RPK courted with government published last year in this very blog. Deals which he RPK believed would catapult him instantly into the inner sanctum of power circles of Malaysia’s elite, a dream he had craved and coveted fulfilment of faster than the speed of light.

“Raja Petra Kamaruddin is believed to have confided in some of his closest of associates that he never really had any of the evidence he claimed he had against the wife of current Malaysian Prime Minister implicating her in the death of Altantuya Sharibu.

The fabrication, the concoction of ‘military intelligence‘ as his wellspring of information. Intelligence operatives confiding in him sensitive facts relating to the murder of Altantuya Sharibu was perhaps his biggest lie, and an empty boast that brought Raja Petra Kamaruddin undone in his own mind compelling him to do a runner.

It is an absurd proposition that military intelligence would indulge Raja Petra Kamaruddin in his flights of fancy over the Altantuya affair. It is even less credible that he was in possession of classified information relating to the death of the Mongolian woman. If he did have such information, reliable and of probative value, there would have been no need for him to run.

Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s constant outbursts on his website was more a reflection of contemporary Malaysian society’s hunger for news and sensationalism, a general embarrassment and anything but a creditable source of news or a show piece of journalism. An extension of the Susan Loone/ Zorro Unmasked mentality. Loose, irresponsible and appealing to the lowest common denominator and incapable of telling fact from fiction”. (Gopal Raj Kumar on “Where is Raja Petra Kamaruddin- A sweetheart deal to return November 2009?”

If you have ever experienced the end of an intimate relationship (and chances are you have), I'm sure you are familiar with the common denominators of intimate relationship endings: anger, anxiety, sadness/depression, despair, relief. What I've learned as a psychologist -- and personally, too -- is that it is how you use these emotions that determines whether your intimate relationship ending is categorized as either the Good, the Bad or the Ugly. Think of how your last intimate relationship ended and judge to which category it belongs. Be honest.

Start with anger, a frequent ending for divorce and sudden breakups due to extenuating circumstances like cheating.

The Bad: the anger prevents you from doing your daily business. You find it hard to concentrate and impossible to feel relaxed, and you become short and irritable with others, even those who offer support.

The Ugly: your anger is out of control. You verbally abuse your significant other to anyone who will listen, obsessively scheme how you can make his or her life miserable, imagine yourself doing all sorts of villainous but "justified" acts, show up at his or her office for a "scene" and maybe even spit at him or her. That's ugly.

The Good: Become an "anger athlete" by using some of anger's key functions. First, see it as a cue that something is wrong; in this case, what's wrong is that your relationship, for whatever reason, is over, and there is nothing you can do about it, so there is no point in making it bad and ugly. Next, use your anger to mobilize your resources so that you can move on with your life. Do this by transforming your anger arousal into directed energy: "What's the best thing to do?" You will realize that moving on is a much better option than making your anger bad and ugly.

Regardless of how your relationship ended, you are now in the midst of a "new" experience, so it is natural that you experience anxiety.

The Bad: you wake up feeling unsettled. Unlike your angry thoughts, which blame and demand retribution, your anxious thoughts immediately focus on the questions, "What will happen to me? What will I do?" You will feel like you are worrying all the time, and your work performance will probably take a hit.

The Ugly: sleeping will become difficult, and there will be intermittent crying, maybe a physical symptom or two and a few trips to a recommended psychiatrist for some meds or the latest magnetic cranial device.

The Good: Anxiety communicates uncertainty and vulnerability, so use your anxiety to assess what you are uncertain about, where you are feeling vulnerable. Use your answers for a cognitive reality check and to guide you into actions that will help you feel more secure. Continually reminding yourself that "newness" can be fun and exciting will help rid some of your anxiety.

No one would dispute the fact that the ending of an intimate relationship -- especially by death -- is a great loss, so depression says "hello."

The Bad: you wake up every morning feeling sorry for yourself; cry frequently with the accompanying thought, "My life will never be the same"; eat much more than you need; and tell anyone who will listen your woes.

The Ugly: you don't want to get out of bed, forget about work and believe there is no future. Eating and sleeping become rare, and moping around is your norm. You avoid your friends, stay home and have zero interest in anything. The more you try to suppress your pain, the more it hurts. The best you can do is to muster up your energy to see the psychiatrist.

The Good: you allow yourself to "befriend" your feelings, so that you can heal your wound and move on. You might think, "It was great while it lasted, and it hurts to lose it, but I will feel better." Instead of avoiding your friends, use them as a support group. Inevitably, depression becomes sadness, which will eventually lessen so that hope, optimism and enthusiasm enter your picture.

Whether the relationship ends through divorce or a breakup, relief is often felt.

The Bad: you get down on yourself for staying in such a bad relationship. Your self-esteem might take a hit.

The Ugly: you become relationship-traumatized and say, "Never again."

The Good: you interpet your relief as a reward for ending a relationship that you no longer wanted. Celebrate that you're out!

Relationship endings are tough for all of us, but your task is clear when you experience one: minimize the bad, avoid the ugly and make it good!

As the world's most interesting psychologist, I urge you to value your intimate relationships, my friend!

It's the staples that bond a relationship. The shared moments lingering over a Chardonnay, making a meal together, laughing at the same joke, rolling around on the couch. It's these fragile moments of tenderness that will form the glue that holds us together during life's inevitable speed bumps and sometimes even unexpected boulders. These are the currency of love.

After interviewing more than 300 men and women about dating and mating, I cannot stress how important it is to make time for romance. This is corroborated by any number of studies, which point to the fact that our relationships are the most important contributor to our overall happiness. Yet we often squander the most precious resource we have by neglecting to tend the fires of affection.

Every man and woman I interviewed had a presentiment that a relationship had gone cold once they became careless about sharing memorable moments -- when they stopped making time to go out for dinner or light the candles at home while sharing a favorite dish. Many could trace the journey from here to detachment and finally to one or the other walking out the door.

Whether you are looking for that special someone, just beginning a relationship or with a long-term love, I believe it's imperative to make romance a priority. Every partnership needs a little poetry. We don't live by beer alone, and eternal love was not founded on to-do lists. There have to be moments where we are lifted from the mundane and connect with each other in a meaningful way.

I spoke to one wife, Julia, in a decade-long marriage, who told me she and her husband had not been out by themselves, without their two children, for over a year. I suggested that they set aside time to go out for dates, during which they should make it a rule not to talk about their offspring. Julia looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "What will we talk about?" They had become strangers outside their shared responsibilities and clearly needed a romance intervention.

When you think about the high emotional and financial toll of divorce, the cost of an occasional outing is almost immaterial. They also reap a huge return on investment. The first step for those who have lost their romantic roadmap is to make time for their significant other. If you make it as much a priority as the next job promotion, than your relationship will prosper.

Set Aside Time For A Weekly Amorous Assignation

Firstly, set aside time every week to have a date together. And don't make excuses. If having the kids minded is an issue and you can't afford a babysitter, make a plan to swap nights with other parents and alternatively beg or bribe your relatives. Even if you are busy at work or have an ongoing amour with your remote control or feel so tired that you claim the only event you want to attend is "the blanket show," get out of your romance rut, reshuffle your priorities and give date night the importance it deserves.

Plan Something Special

Romance is really about being able to discover the emotional g-spots of your partner. What is it that tickles their tender parts? And I'm not talking sex toys; I'm talking about gestures. Spend time considering the activities your partner really enjoys. What times have you seen their face light up the most? This could be making their all-time favorite meal, signing up for a course in tango lessons or even strolling down memory lane and recreating your first date.

Take turns creating a special date that has meaning for each of you. Think about your partner and what would be significant for them. For instance, don't just take your wife to a football game or force your boyfriend to sit through a chick flick. This is about creating a memorable evening that you will both enjoy that involves one-on-one time and engaging in intimate conversation and actual eye contact.

Create An Ambience

Romance is about ambience. It's about adding a bit of Vaseline to the harsh lens of real life. Think dim lighting, or as I often call it, "over-thirties lighting." No one wants to be lit up like the display shelf in a convenience store; there is no greater romance contraceptive. Choose a flatteringly lit restaurant, or light candles at home, or use lamps. Make sure your home or the venue you select is also conducive to romance, with flowers and some soft touches.

If you are at home, break out the best silverware, and don't stint on each other; use proper napkins and not paper towels. Make sure the television is turned off, and play a seductive soundtrack. Ditto if you go out: make sure it is somewhere that doesn't feature action replays but rather background music that puts you in an amorous mood. And make sure you dress up, even if you are only serenading each other in your lounge room. The power of a nicely pressed suit or a gorgeous frou-frou dress can't be underestimated when it comes to igniting even long-dormant sparks.

Talk About What You Adore About Each Other

There are conversations, and there are conversations. We can talk all night but say nothing of import, even turn the night into a glorified memo. The best rule of thumb is to make this your special time where you don't talk about chores or children or anything that brings to mind the pressing problems of day-to-day life. Ideally, talk about things that make you remember what attracted you to each other in the first place. A great strategy is to tell each other what you appreciate and adore about each other.

Compliments are champagne and oysters for the soul. Come up with more and more creative ways to tell the other person how fabulous they are. This sort of ego-stroking will make your man feel two feet taller and your woman feel like she's gone up a cup size. As they say, her cup will runneth over. It's about putting the rosy hue back into each other's cheeks.

I say we all give old-fashioned romance a little CPR. It's Viagra for the spirit.