The Malaysian Insider

BIRMINGHAM, England, July 3 — Taunted by racists as a “Paki” and “terrorist”, Haroon bin Khaled spent his teenaged years feeling rejected by mainstream Britain and increasingly drawn to al Qaeda extremism.

But the young Muslim of Pakistani descent found an unexpected answer to his alienation the day he heard the story of how Muslim soldiers, many from what is now Pakistan, fought and died alongside Britons against the Nazis in World War Two.

Almost at a stroke, the jobless young man with an unpromising future felt a sense of belonging. As he examined the facts, he began to shed his belief Britain despised him or that fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan was a worthwhile idea.

LONDON, July 3 — Andy Murray will be surrounded by his usual battery of coaches, fitness trainers, family and friends at Wimbledon this afternoon, but one of the most important members of his team will not be on Centre Court for the Scot’s semi-final against Andy Roddick. Maggie, his border collie, will be back at home, waiting to give him a boisterous reception when he returns tonight, whether or not he has become the first British man for 71 years to reach a Wimbledon final.

“She’s very important,” Judy Murray, Andy’s mother, said yesterday. A Murray is staying with her son, his girlfriend, Kim Sears, and Maggie the dog, who is named after Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May”.

“The dog makes a huge difference,” Judy said. “This morning, Kim went out to the shops and Andy wanted to be woken up at 9.15. I just opened the door of his bedroom and sent the dog in.

LONDON, July 2 — One country teaches children to recite their times tables and drills them in mental arithmetic. The other bans rote learning and encourages pupils to manipulate real objects and share ideas as they work in groups.

Which one is Singapore, which consistently comes first or second in the international league tables for mathematics, and which is England? The answer may come as a surprise.

For despite the reputation of Pacific Rim countries for traditional chalk and talk, it is Singapore that uses the so-called trendy modern methods whereby children learn by doing in noisy classrooms. Times tables are frowned upon, just as they once were in England before the advent of the national curriculum.

NEW YORK, July 2 — Bonnie Smalley has Internet bragging rights: She has been blocked by Twitter for hand-typing too many tweets in an hour. They thought she was a computer programme made to spew spam.

Smalley, it turns out, is a 100 per cent human customer service representative for Comcast. She is one of 10 representatives who reach out to customers through social networks, rather than waiting for them to find Comcast’s support site.

Known on Twitter as comcast bonnie, Smalley reads at least 400 customer tweets on a slow day at her desk in Philadelphia. Amazingly, she replies to all of them, and an additional hundred or more e-mail messages and a few more messages on Facebook, MySpace, Second Life and LinkedIn. On days when Comcast makes an announcement, the volume of everything triples.

NEW YORK, July 1 — When Jeff Yeager’s book “The Ultimate Cheapskate” came out 18 months ago, he felt like a voice crying in the wilderness telling people to ditch their cell phones, hoard their pennies and pay off the mortgage.

Now the Internet abounds with self-proclaimed penny-pinchers offering tips on living frugally as the recession bites into America’s shop-’til-you-drop lifestyle.

The rise of thrift may be bad news for a US economy where in 2006 consumer spending accounted for 70 per cent of gross domestic product.