Michael Jackson - a childlike, shy genius

Jackson – weird but in a friendly way, certainly not a freak .Show promoter Tan Sri Syed Yusof Tun Syed Nasir, who was instrumental in bringing Michael Jackson here for a two-night concert in 1996 (Malaysia), said the King of Pop was “weird but in a friendly way”.

“His behaviour was childlike. For instance, he liked to knock on the hotel room doors of his friends and then run away like a kid.

“He was full of love and very generous. During his visit to KL, I got to know him well and realised he was a gentle and talented person. I sympathised with him for the negative media reports.”

Jackson was also a nocturnal creature.

“His mind was hyper active at night,” said Syed Yusof. “That was the time he would write his songs or discuss business. I personally spent many late hours discussing business with him.”

When Jackson was staying at Syed Yusof’s Concorde Hotel here during his concert, the singer would ring up his Malaysian friend in the middle of the night, saying he couldn’t sleep.

“I had to call in a doctor to get him to sleep,” Syed Yusof recollected. “He didn’t like to pop pills. So I asked the doctor to give him a jab.

Syed Yusof has renamed the swanky room that his celebrity friend had stayed in Concorde KL as the “Michael Jackson suite”.

Located on the 18th floor, the room is full of photographs and collectibles of the superstar. Syed Yusof has also put Jackson’s doodles on the wall.

“Aside from music, Michael loved to doodle.

“Michael wanted to be remembered as the greatest entertainer in the world. And I think he achieved that. What’s really disappointing is that I was planning to go to London for his concert on July 8,” said Syed Yusof.



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Saturday June 27, 2009
Jackson – weird but in a friendly way, certainly not a freak

KUALA LUMPUR: Show promoter Tan Sri Syed Yusof Tun Syed Nasir, who was instrumental in bringing Michael Jackson here for a two-night concert in 1996, said the King of Pop was “weird but in a friendly way”.

The iconic pop star was never the freak that the foreign media painted him out to be, he said.

“His behaviour was childlike. For instance, he liked to knock on the hotel room doors of his friends and then run away like a kid.

“He was full of love and very generous. During his visit to KL, I got to know him well and realised he was a gentle and talented person. I sympathised with him for the negative media reports.”

Jackson was also a nocturnal creature.

“His mind was hyper active at night,” said Syed Yusof. “That was the time he would write his songs or discuss business. I personally spent many late hours discussing business with him.”

They had planned to build a theme park here, but the project did not take off due to the economic situation then.

When Jackson was staying at Syed Yusof’s Concorde Hotel here during his concert, the singer would ring up his Malaysian friend in the middle of the night, saying he couldn’t sleep.

“I had to call in a doctor to get him to sleep,” Syed Yusof recollected. “He didn’t like to pop pills. So I asked the doctor to give him a jab.

“I first met Michael in Las Vegas (in 1995),” said Syed Yusof. “I stayed in his hotel room. He then took me on a tour of Neverland and his recording studio in New York. He was a good host, not to mention a good-hearted person. He had a lot of love in him, especially for children.”

The last time that he heard from Jackson was through his older brother, Jermaine, who is also a close friend of Syed Yusof’s.

“I met Jermaine two weeks ago and asked about Michael. Jermaine said his brother was fine.”

Syed Yusof has renamed the swanky room that his celebrity friend had stayed in Concorde KL as the “Michael Jackson suite”.

Located on the 18th floor, the room is full of photographs and collectibles of the superstar. Syed Yusof has also put Jackson’s doodles on the wall.

“Aside from music, Michael loved to doodle.

“Michael wanted to be remembered as the greatest entertainer in the world. And I think he achieved that. What’s really disappointing is that I was planning to go to London for his concert on July 8,” said Syed Yusof.

Stephen Yap, who was promotions manager with Sony Music (M) in 1996 when Jackson was here said: “There wasn’t the usual ‘diva’ fanfare surrounding him. Even with his bodyguards present, he was pleasant to us. In fact, we even had tea with him. He wasn’t one of those stars who was just waiting for his social commitments to be over and done with. He really cared about the things around him.”

Cynthia Chen, project director for Jojo Events, said: “The concert was the biggest and most expensive production for a solo artiste I have worked on. He seemed like a nice but shy person. Do you know that the Concorde Hotel was closed for bookings the whole time he was here? And we completely refurnished the presidential suite for him.”

Michael Roche, regional director of Lushington Entertainments, the promoter responsible for bringing Jackson to this region in 1996, said: “I remember at the Merdeka Stadium concerts, there were a few restrictions that we were meant to adhere to. And we told Michael to try and refrain from doing his famous crotch-grabbing routine. He politely assured us he wouldn’t. And as he hit the stage, that’s exactly what he did, sending the audience wild with excitement.

“He had this mischievous streak in him. When he checked in at the Concorde Hotel, he felt it was very cold and said he wanted heaters, even though it was 30-odd degrees outside. We had to scramble and try to sort that out for him, and that was the element of fun about him ... he was always delightful and charming about it all.”


Apparently, Jackson was not one of those stars who liked to stay cooped up in their hotel room. He went out on the town and took in some sights while in Kuala Lumpur, said his Malaysian pals.

Pop star Michael Jackson dead at 50

Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead today after paramedics found him in a coma at his Bel-Air mansion, city and law enforcement sources told The Times.

When they arrived, Jackson was not breathing. The paramedics performed CPR and took him to UCLA Medical Center.

The circumstances of Jackson's death remain unclear. Law enforcement sources said that Los Angeles Police Department robbery-homicide detectives have opened an investigation into the death, though they stressed there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The detectives plan to interview relatives, friends and Jackson's doctors to try to figure out what happened. The L.A. County coroner's office will determine a cause of death.

TMZ said on its website that Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. "We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back," the site said.


In May, The Times reported that Jackson was living in a Bel-Air mansion and rehearsing for a series of 50 sold-out shows in London's O2 Arena. Jackson had won the backing of two billionaires to get the so-called King of Pop back on stage.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March.

Jackson has three children -- sons Prince Michael 7, and Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., 12, and daughter Paris Michael Katherine, 11.


The Michael Jackson kids - Paris, left, Prince and younger brother Prince Michael, aka “Blanket” - usually go about complately masked.


Michael Jackson, the child star turned King of Pop who set the world dancing but whose musical genius was overshadowed by a bizarre lifestyle and sex scandals, died on Thursday. He was 50.

His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, made him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

Jackson, who had lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation, had been scheduled to launch a comeback tour from London next month.

Outside the hospital in Los Angeles about 200 fans and reporters gathered on Thursday, waiting for confirmation of Jackson's death or condition.

Some fans were crying and hugging each other, and others were climbing atop fences to get a better look at a microphone stand where a news conference was supposed to take place.

Johnny Caswell, a principal at Centerstaging, the Burbank soundstage where Jackson rehearsed for his London concerts, watched many of the run-throughs and said he was "absolutely shocked" by the performer's death.

Jackson, he said, was "very frail" but approached the rehearsals with boundless energy.Screeners "declared him healthy," Phillips said. "His cholesterol level is better than mine."

But a physical may not have revealed a looming heart attack, said Dr. John Harold, a Cedars-Sinai Medical Center cardiologist."This is the type of patient who could have a stress test the day before and it could be completely normal, and the next day could have a plaque rupture and a fatal heart attack," said Harold, who did not treat Jackson.

Deadly crash of Air France flight 447

Investigators probing the deadly crash of Air France flight 447 over the Atlantic are running out of time to find the flight data recorders which could prove crucial to working out what caused the disaster.

The U.S. Navy has contributed two high-tech acoustic devices -- known as towed pinger locators -- which have been attached to French tug boats and can search to a maximum depth of 20,000ft (6,100 meters).

The firm which makes the recorders, Honeywell Aerospace, has told CNN it has a 100 percent recovery record from air accidents.Honeywell said it was hard to estimate how much battery life the locator beacon on the recorders had, as it depended on the conditions, but it is typically around 30 days.

In another strange twist to this tragic saga, it’s been revealed that maintenance technicians had been summoned to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport on June 1 to replace the Pitot tubes on the Airbus A330 aircraft. The jet, of course, never arrived, instead crashing into the ocean northeast of Brazil, killing 228 people.

Charles Bremner, reporting in the TimesOnline, wrote that Air France officials had confirmed that a maintenance team had been dispatched to the airport after the aircraft sent an automated message reporting a problem with its Pitot tubes. The tubes, sometimes called Pitot probes, are used to measure the airspeed of aircraft.

Rather than appearing to be a rapid response to a problem, Air France’s action instead may be viewed as damning evidence that the airline reacted too slowly to an issue it had known about for months. The website eurocockpit.com, produced by professional pilots, has posted a document which it says originated in June 2008 that shows Air France was aware of problems with the Pitot tubes on Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft.

Faulty Pitot probe readings could have caused the aircraft to automatically fly at the wrong speed for the weather conditions in the stormy Inter-tropical Convergence Zone near the Equator.

French authorities have today revealed that Air France Flight 447 sent 24 error messages shortly before the plane disappeared during the flight between Rio de Janeiro and Paris with 228 people on board. They also said that the plane’s auto-pilot was not active, although they say that from the error messages it is impossible to determine the reason for it being inactive. The crash is said to be the world’s worst aviation disaster since 2001.

Rescuers have long since given up on attempting to find any survivors instead now trying to locate and recover the wreckage of the flight and more importantly the flight data recorders, without which they say they may never know what happened to the flight. The process of recovery is expected to be difficult with the seabed reaching depths of 3,000 to 4,000 meters. Both American and French specialist equipment has been sent to the area with the aim of recovering the recorders, however French officials say that the locator beacons attached to the boxes could possibly have become detached by the force of the impact.

Most bodies were found without clothing

Most of the bodies were found without clothing, which could possibly have been taken off by the wind during their fall (further evidence that they were sucked out of the plane). It's therefore possible that the bodies which have been found were those sucked from the plane, and that the majority of the remaining bodies are fixed to their seats in the hull of the plane (presumably underwater).

No burns

Prelimanary analysis of the bodies indicates that they didn't suffer any burns, indicating that there was not an explosion and that the plane broke apart mid-air.
No water in lungs, multiple fractures

The bodies had no water in the their lungs, indicating they did not die from drowning, but had multiple fractures.

Bodies delivered to Recife

Bodies will be delivered to the airport at Fernando de Noronha island and then to Recife for identification. Rescuers believe that some bodies may have been consumed by sharks or have sunk.

Bodies widely dispersed

The bodies have been found dispersed as much as 85 miles apart, indicating that the plane probably broke up over several minutes whist in the air, with the passengers sitting helpless and occassionally some being sucked out.
Warm water means bodies sink quicker

An intact body will typically float for 2 or 3 weeks. The warmer the water the quicker the process of a body surfacing, floating and then sinking once again; as a result of the increased amount of marine life which breaks the bodies down. The water in which the bodies of flight 447 lies, is 28 degrees celsius.

Personal items

Numerous other personal items belonging to the passengers have been found, but authorities are not revealing what they are. All personal items are being handed to Air France, who will deliver them to the families of the Flight 447 victims.

Two passengers on terrorist watch list

French secret servicemen have established that 2 passengers on board flight 447, are also on highly-classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.

Italian who missed AF447 dies in car crash

Johanna Ganthaler, an Italian lady from the Bolzano-Bozen Province - South Tyrol, was lucky enough to arrive late for AF447 and missed the flight. Her and her husband Kurt caught a flight later in the day from Rio de Janeiro to Munich. However, like in the movie Final Destination, fate finally caught up with Johanna and she died in a head-on collission when their car swerved into a truck coming from the opposite direction. The accident occurred near Kufstein, Austria. Kurt Ganthaler was also injured in the accident.

Ball girls become instant celebrities

Two British teenagers revelled in their 15 minutes of fame at Wimbledon today after an on-court collision turned them into instant media stars.

Ball girl Erin Lorencin was shaken but not stirred after Frenchman Michael Llodra collided with her and had to retire from his match with Germany’s Tommy Haas yesterday.

Michael Llodra was one game down in the first set at Wimbledon yesterday when he raced across Centre Court to try to return his opponent’s drop shot. Although he made it, a split second later he careered into the umpire’s chair and collided with one of the ball girls crouched beside the net.

Soon after, however, Llodra — ranked 137th in the world — was forced to concede the match and hobbled off court for treatment after only 20 minutes of the set had been played.

Feeling disappointed, perhaps, that his game had come to such an early end, his opponent, Tommy Haas, the German 24th seed, decided to play on with another of the ball girls on court.

Chambers, facing the cameras with amazing media savvy for a 15-year-old schoolgirl, said: “I am just over the moon that I got to play with Tommy on Court One. It was just amazing all the response I got from my family and friends.”

Fellow ball girl Chloe Chambers then stepped into the spotlight, enjoying a light-hearted game with Haas in front of 10,000 spectators on Court One.

'Missing' Governor Mark Sanford admits affair

Mark Sanford, the Republican govenor or South Carolina, finally ended the mystery over a bizarre week-long disappearance by confessing on live television yesterday that he had been having an affair with a woman in Argentina.


At an emotional press conference in which he spent several minutes reminiscing about childhood holidays and rambled about “God’s laws”, he eventually said: “I’m a bottom line kind of guy I’m just gonna lay it out. It’s gonna hurt and I’m going to let the chips fall where they may.”

“It began very innocently, as I suspect these things do, in just a casual e-mail back and forth. But here, recently, over this last year, developed into something much more than that. And as a consequence, I hurt her. I hurt you all, I hurt my wife. I hurt my boys. I hurt friends like Tom Davis. I hurt a lot of different folks.”

“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” he said in a bombshell news conference in which the 49-year-old governor ruminated aloud with remarkable frankness on God’s law, moral absolutes and following one’s heart. He said he spent the last five days “crying in Argentina.”

Later Wednesday, The State newspaper in South Carolina released e-mail exchanges between the governor and the woman, identified only as Maria. Sanford's office Wednesday did not dispute the authenticity of the emails, The State reported. One exchange was dated July 10, 2008 when the governor is reported to have written to her:

"Two, mutual feelings .... You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ..."

Sanford admitted that what had started as an "innocent" e-mail exchange with a "dear, dear friend in Argentina" had developed over the past year into "something much more than that." He said he’s seen her three times since the affair began, and wife found out about it five months ago.

“He shouldn’t have lied to us. He should have been up straight,” said college student Gerald Walker, 19, in downtown Columbia. “It’s very embarrassing for someone in a leadership role that we are supposed to respect, especially me being a young guy.”



Wiping away tears, he apologized to his wife and four sons and said he will resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.

Glenn Mitchell, of Columbia, said he felt Sanford’s absence showed a lack of concern for the state.

“He left the state unattended,” said Mitchell, 54, out of work recuperating from surgery. “He just hasn’t been there for us.”
“There is nothing left to save,” Rutherford said. “There is no reason for him to remain as governor.”