The Work Station Toilet - and a London Divorce!

Whoa! Slow that descent from cyberspace down a little, dang it! You're rattling the coffee mugs again. Hey...good to see you. Grab one of those mugs and fill it with some choice arabica. With your other hand, wrestle one of those mega muffins onto your plate. Aside...why doesn't someone come up with a combo coffee and side plate so you can handle both with one hand, keeping the other hand free? Beats me! Now...listen to this...

Pauline Chai and her estranged husband, Khoo Kay Peng (a Laura Ashley executive), are battling in a London courtroom in a very expensive divorce, with the current issue to determine whether the English judge has jurisdiction instead of courts in the couple's native Malaysia. 

In the course of bringing the British judge up to date, Chai casually described how she has supported her husband's relentless nature -- by revealing that he would do copious amounts of work (for four hours at a time) at home while sitting on the toilet. Khoo "got backache there," she said, "so I got the idea of (a) padded toilet seat" for him. [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-2-2014] 

The pair, who both come from Malaysia and married more than 40 years ago, are currently fighting over where a final trial should be held.

Khoo, who is based in Malaysia, says a judge in Malaysia should make decisions. Chai says they moved their "home" to Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, before separating in 2013, and wants decisions made in an English court.

Mr Justice Bodey is expected to make rulings on jurisdiction after hearing legal argument and evidence from both sides.

Judges have heard that the pair, who have five children, have already run up legal bills of more than £2 million.

Earlier this year one judge described the amounts spent on preliminary legal ''skirmishes'' as ''eye-watering''.

Mr Justice Holman said Khoo owned a ''chunk'' of Laura Ashley and had properties in England and Malaysia worth more than £50 million.

He said that, on any ''feasible'' view, Chai would get tens of millions of pounds for the part she had played in their 42-year ''matrimonial partnership''.

I do some of my best thinking on the toilet. Doesn't everybody?

See ya, eh!

Bob

"I come here to sit and think while others just come here to..."