That infamous Ali Tinju arrogantly warned that some parts of Malacca will not be safe this Saturday as he is planning to lead a protest there against some Chinese gangsters’ alleged intimidation of a handful of Immigration Department officers.

We never heard of this obscure name until he led a group of retired army personnel to swing their butts towards Ambiga Sreenevasen’s house in the wake of a Bersih demonstration which she led. It was an unimaginably low class act by mostly senior citizens, some already grandparents, who were short of ideas to discourse save to frustrate an honourable and well-respected lady with the most despicable action.

Of course from that incident alone Ali has had a meteoric rise in fame. His fame or is it infamy, is today only matched by that his close rival for attention, Jamal Mohd Yunus.

Both had proudly announced their own upcoming protests. Jamal in Negri Sembilan against Anthony Loke for some alleged statement against the Malays, Ali as mentioned above in Malacca this Saturday.

When Ali announced his Malacca protest I could imagine him picturing himself being hailed as a ‘jaguh’ by tens of thousands of Malaccan Malays. Perhaps he was hallucinating the folks hoisting him on an elephant back with an entourage in royal yellow to reflect the type of importance accorded to Parameswara and Munshi Abdullah.

But Ali’s dream is stillborn. He was only building castles in the air. Who needs a rabble rouser?

His dream was dashed this morning with news that the chief minister of Malacca telling him bluntly his presence is not welcome. “Don’t even mention his name. He is not a good person,” the CM quipped.

Are we going to see the last of Ali? Well he looks every inch like a professional rabble-rouser. Never say die?

The English may have got it wrong when they coined this phrase ‘once beaten twice shy’. That is because they somehow overlooked something called elephant hide. We can’t blame them as there were no elephants in England then.

A more apt attribute is ‘sticks and bones may break my back but words won’t’, and that’s because someone has got extraordinary hide.