Dazed and confused

I got up on Friday morning, had breakfast (I had a yogurt that was mixed with Channel Island cream, I'd call that dessert, not breakfast) and went to the airport late in the morning. I sat on a plane -- and then on another (after running through a Middle Eastern airport with my name blazing through the public announcement system in a "last call" warning).

When I got off that plane, it was Saturday afternoon. I had lost Friday night somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Because I never went to bed between Friday and Saturday, my body now won't accept that today is Sunday. And worse, tomorrow is Monday and I'm to be back at work.

I woke up this morning with the dogs pressed against my legs and it feels like I've never left. Waking up in the Earls Court flat, on the barge, in R's house with her cats, in the Coventry B&B seemed like a series of dreams.

But my mind feels freer, looser, all the better for days of seeing green fields stretching into the horizon, for the horses, sheepses and cowses dotting the landscape.



Yes, I've had a wonderful holiday.

Guilt trip

We're baaaaack! With 40 quid worth of chewies -- from Harrods no less -- to appease the furkids.

The petsitter must have done her best -- an almost empty bottle of odour neutraliser which was full when we left and a severe indent in a new bottle of floor cleanser is proof -- but we still had to work the washing machine quite hard when we returned. That Dog had gone on the couch. And in his crate. And on the bathroom mat. Luckily, our bed was unsullied.

But then just now, in full view of us, he both peed and pooped on the pee pad, as if to show that he really knew what he was supposed to do. That Dang Dog.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

And the iBook is not. I don't want to spend my holiday figuring out WiFi in a London Starbucks. Actually, at London prices these days, I'm not even sure if I can afford a venti latte, double shot there.

You'll know when I get back.

See ya!

Oh doG

By this weekend, I'll be on a boating holiday in Warwickshire. To give myself a headstart on the trip, I've been rereading Jerome K Jerome's Three Men In a Boat -- To Say Nothing of the Dog. I'd forgotten that the dog in the subtitle is a fox terrier.



"Fox terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox terrier nature." Amen

I got me a dog

And it's comfy.
All hail the conquering Queeni.

No sub-titles

L took out the recycling to the big recycling bin at the next block. There's a kindergarten there and when he got to the bin, he found that there was a teacher there, telling her charges about recycling.

Nothing like starting your kids out early in protecting the environment but she was speaking in Mandarin and there were a couple of Malay and Indian kids in the group, looking up at her uncomprehendingly. I don't think they're multilingual at that age yet. And you wonder why minorities feel that they are left out.

You know that bit in the Pledge: "Regardless of race, language or religion"... we all recycle.

Making sport of it

I was quite surprised when I turned on the TV yesterday afternoon to find that BMX cycling is an Olympic sport. Sychronised diving caught me off guard at the last Olympics and now there's synchronised swimming. And all this time, I thought synchronised swimming was called water ballet -- which I think of less as a sport but more of a movie genre. You know, Esther Williams and all that.

Whatever happened to higher, faster, better? Prettier, sassier and all together now?

Killing time

I should be throwing clothes into a suitcase and flying tomorrow but I'm not. We've been forced to delay our trip to London by four days because the serviced flat that we were to stay in is not ready. Never rely on a procrastinator to book holidays.

I've done all I can to while away the hours, I've baked a batch of ginger snaps, had a long soak in the tub, took the dogs on a long walk -- well, the dog that would go on a long walk; best to let sleeping, grumpy queens lie. And still the hours are crawling till I can leave. To make things worse, there's nothing to watch on TV -- Olympic coverage has replaced the usual programming. And I don't really want to start into the book that I bought for the 16 hour flight.

All good training, I suppose, for the 12-hour transit that we'll face, although that will be on the return leg of the trip.

A citizen's solution

So we're watching the PM give his National Day Rally speech on TV and he's talking about the declining birth rate and discussing the reasons for that. In the background, his multimedia presentation (eh, not just PowerPoint but multimedia, OK) showed a "Stop At Two" poster from the '70s.

"The reason is because your father f**ked up," L heckled, referring to the campaign in the '70s, started by the then-prime minister, who is the current prime minister's father, to control population growth by lobbying Singaporeans not to have more than two children.

And L's solution to fix the low birth rate?

"Import winter." When it's cold outside, everyone makes whoopee indoors, he reasoned.

And how would one import winter?

"Can lah, if we can import Olympic silver medallists, we can import winter."

Silver!

I bet the sports subs have been playing with silver in a headline all day. So where were you when Singapore won its first Olympic medal in 48 years? This would be Singapore's equivalent of the JFK question. It's a big deal, considering that the last medal was won before the post-independent Singaporeans of my generation were even born.

And that's why the Prime Minister's Office postponed the live telecast of his English speech at the annual National Day Rally. They knew he wasn't going to be able to compete for TV eyeballs. The Malay and Chinese speeches were delivered and telecast but the English speech is embargoed till Monday evening and the papers cannot carry it till Tuesday. That's gonna throw out my colleagues who are working tonight because two pages have been set aside for reporting on the rally.

While the women's table tennis team was fighting for Olympic gold, the whole nation was glued to their TVs. We'd been to see my parents but timed to leave for home so that we'd get back in time for the table tennis final. The taxi driver said he was heading home too. On the way, crowds were already forming at the kopi tiams, with the TV in full blast. And it wasn't the Prime Minister these people were waiting to watch. Not when the general conversation was: "KNN! Still talking cock! Get him off!" -- duly reported by L, who stopped by for a takeout dinner and dashed home with it before the match started. Halfway into the match, Roop needed to pee so I took him down. I could hear all our neighbours' televisions blasting the same table tennis commentary from the same TV station.

And as Singapore came to a standstill, where were its elite -- the leaders, the politicians, the big-time business honchos and even our newspaper editors (heh). All stuck at the National Day Rally, forced to listen to speeches when they probably wanted to watch a table tennis match instead.

Just last week, a ruling party politician who lost the ward he was contesting to an opposition MP, went on a walkabout and said that party grassroot in the constituency are still strong. If our grassroot leaders were really so on the ball, there would have been block parties organised for the table tennis final. Instead of having every household watch its own TV in its own flat, we could have gathered round for a massive cheer session. It would have been a nice touch to National Day and would definitely produce more Singaporean camaraderie than the National Day Rally. I mean, these guys keep going on about the Singapore Spirit and all that. This would have been a good chance to harness it. But alas, all our leaders were all stuck listening to speeches.

A medal at last

The whole office came to a standstill today as everyone gathered around the TV for the women's team table tennis semi-final. And now, Singapore is through to the final. Which means a silver medal, at least. No one seriously thinks that we can beat China for the gold. Still, that's like the first Olympic medal in 44 years.

And of course you're going to get the cynics who will point out that with a group of China-born naturalised Singaporeans, it's just another China vs China final. What thickens the plot, or the blood, is that the Singapore coach is the older brother of the China coach. All in the family.

The real rub is this. The final will be on Sunday night. That's the night of the National Day Rally. Television programmers are going to have it down to the wire, do you cover the match or the rally.

Of course you know already. Nobody's going to pay any attention to the Prime Minister.

What's for dinner?

The other day, I picked up a copy of Asian Geographic at the supermarket magazine rack and leafed through it. It was the 'Love' issue so I wasn't prepared for an article on dog meat. The article picked up on dogs as cosseted pets in Asia and then ran with it the wrong way towards the dinner table.

The pictures of dogs being slaughtered for meat just wrung my heart out. It wasn't so much the idea of eating dogs, but the picture of a skinned dog carcass that would be someone's dinner that got to me.

I suppose a picture of a skinned pig, lamb or cow carcass would have done the same. So it's not just the dog parent in me.

I know nowadays, all the ecological-minded chefs are pushing for rearing your own animals and growing your own produce. Or, if you couldn't do it, then get it from the farmer down the road. In other words, know what you're eating, or know who's producing it.

But how do you eat a filet mignon if you once knew it as Daisy?

Remember Arthur Dent at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe where a cow comes up to him, introduces itself, and points out the various choice cuts on its body?

I would still like to put on my blinkers and think of my meat as a chop on a cling-wrapped styrofoam tray, not when it had legs and walked and had a mother.

Scott Adams, a vegetarian, once mused that if the sight of a cow didn't make you salivate, then maybe you're not genetically programmed to eat meat.

Well, the sight of Daisy doesn't make me salivate but a perfectly grilled sirloin does. So maybe this makes me a shallow, unthinking consumer. But quite honestly, if I think anymore beyond the styrofoam tray, I will have a problem with what to eat for dinner.

Blogging in Melayu

Last month, Blogger made available blogging in Malay, noting that it has a large base of users in Malaysia.

Maybe in some Freakonomics cause and effect, what Umno decreed three months earlier that candidates for political party posts must have blogs has taken effect on Blogger's Malaysian base.

That and the circus around the former deputy prime minister, his accuser, the examining doctor, the notary and the private investigator. It is more riveting than The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, especially now that there's a by-election too.

There's so much to write about across the Causeway.

Goodbye to two friends

Two dogs in my little e-list of dog owners died on the same day last week. Fritz was in kidney failure and Nicho's little body just couldn't take his epileptic seizures any more.

It is hard to lose a dog, even when you know its time will soon be up. It is even harder to take when two go on on the same day.

And it is really, really hard to explain the loss and the grief I feel when these are dogs that I've only known through an e-list. One lives in Missouri, the other in Minnisota. How do you explain the tears for a dog that you've never petted, never scratched behind the ears, never rubbed its belly? And yet, I do know Fritzy and Nicho. I know how Frtizy like to be acknowledged as a pretty boy, and how he loves running in the park and riding in the car, and how when he was for a while an only dog after the older dog died, hid under the bed in misery for days. And how Nicho went from foster home to foster home and when he was finally really home, it was realised that he came with major medical problems, all of which he, and his people, fought valiantly.

Maybe this says so much about the reach of a dog.

I am reminded of an elegy that Theodore Roethke wrote in an elegy for a student:
"... I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover."

Another one

There's another Malay wedding downstairs again today. It's not as large scale as the last one and the music is all Malay. Not even a whimper of an REO Speedwagon ballad. Although there was Marc Anthony's I Need to Know but I think it was slotted in only because it fitted in with the joget rhythm. And later, when the karaoke singers took over, there was one Deep Purple song. So there were mat rokers in the wedding guests.

Now that it's Hungry Ghost Month and the Chinese aren't holding weddings, I suppose the Malays are picking up the slack.

Now there's racial harmony for you. Happy National Day.

Peachy, just peachy

I was eating a bowl of apricots and had placed a seed on a piece of tissue, the one with the moral fibre. It was a breezy day and I had the window flung wide open. Enjoying juicy stone fruit in a breeze just about cuts it as the best summertime experience, even this side of the tropics. I love it when cherries, nectarines and peaches come into season and become cheaper. Although white peaches are still out of reach -- gone are the days when I could afford to buy it by the crate.

Anyway, that apricot seed. I left my seat for a minute and the breeze must've wafted the tissue off from the side table because when I returned, I found That Dog on the other side of the room, valiantly trying to chew through the apricot seed.

He almost gratefully spat it out when sharply ordered to, because he wasnt getting anywhere with it. I was even more grateful that he did that without me having to extricate saliva-coated objects from his mouth.

There were no signs of the tissue despite a manhunt under furniture and even down the back of the sofa cushions. So I'm pretty sure he ate that. Well, at least it's full of "hygienic, soft and natural values" and must be good for him.

Such stuff as dreams are made on

This poster is popping up at bus-stops in the space meant for billboard ads. It's all very rah-rah and all, what with the Olympics starting this weekend, but am I the only one who wants to take a red pencil to it?

Back to work

I went back to work yesterday after a week's leave. There is one habit that I have followed from my parents, that of having coffee on a workday morning and tea on days off (in their case, tea on Sundays; in mine, on days off or as in last week's case, the entire week I was on leave).

Which meant that I couldn't even finish a cup of coffee yesterday. After a week of tea, it was way too strong. Even if the tea wasn't really that delicate but malty Marks & Spencer's Extra Strong. The coffee gave me quite a caffeine buzz after just half a cup -- which is weird since tea supposedly has more caffeine than coffee.

But I'm sure as the week wears on, I'd be gasping for coffee the minute I wake up.

Distractions from downstairs

The roomy pavilion at the corner of the communal space downstairs, and almost directly under our bedroom window, is being prepared for a Malay wedding feast. Nowadays, most kenduri caterers prepare the food in an industrial kitchen somewhere else and then deliver it in chafing dishes. Only the really traditional ones like this one would have an army of mak ciks sitting up all night cooking and stirring huge pots on site. Which means that there is a wonderful smell of rendang wafting up into my bedroom window. It's driving me crazy. And making me hungry all day. And that's just the effect on me. Imagine what the dogs are making of it.

The DJ is setting up his system and running through his playlist so we're getting a free concert as he does so. It's the usual love ballad suspects, Richard Marx, George Benson, Bee Gees, Chicago, Air Supply. And then, very suddenly, George Michael's Careless Whisper. I hope he doesn't play that when the wedding gets started, it's not the sort of song that augurs well for a wedding. And then, inexplicably, it was the theme from Star Wars. Maybe the groom was going to come in to that, along with the kompang hand drums? Or the couple would be using that for the triumphal march as they leave? Or should I look out for Darth Vader?

At least it's natural

I'm not quite sure what "natural values" are in a box of tissue but it's nice to know that the stuff I'm using to blow my nose has moral fibre.

For one blurry unfocused moment, I thought the new detergent pack was offering me a rock 'n' roll wash.

What's cooking?

It all started when I had to walk past Borders to get to the hairdresser's (I now have icy steely blue streaks in my hair). I can't walk past a bookstore without going in, and can't go inside a bookstore without buying anything.

I picked up Nigel Slater's Eating For England because it had pretty rock candy on the cover. I browsed through it and it's all thumbnail write-ups on British food icons. From food that I was happily introduced to when I lived in the UK (Branston pickle, Penguins, Flake, Jaffa cakes, treacle tart, PG Tips) to stuff that I can't understand why anyone would eat (faggots and gravy, tripe and onions, haggis and neeps) to treats of my childhood (Quality Street, Ribena, Jacobs cream crackers, chocolate Digestives, KitKat -- complete with instructions on the proper ritual of eating it -- Toblerone, Bassetts jelly babies). He only missed Mr Whippy, I think. I was quite struck that a lot of my childhood sweet treat memories were all British. I wonder why that is so.

I fairly devoured the book and had to get more. I went to the library yesterday in search of more Slater. I thought he only wrote cookbooks so I had never been interested before. I enjoy cooking but I'm not really a cookbook person. Well, the library only had one of his cookbooks and not the biography that he wrote, which was what I was looking for. The food shelf had only cookbooks but tucked in among them were a few food-related volumes. People who wrote about becoming chefs, food and society, food and culture, that sort of thing. I figured it would be like Kitchen Confidential, only minus the sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. So I took out all of them.

The trouble with reading food-related books is that it makes you a bit nibblish. So I made a batch of peanut butter cookies. I'm not sure whether I'll finish the cookies first or the books. I'll try not to get crumbs on the pages.

If paper can grow on trees, then I think I should try cultivating money.

Some kid upstairs keeps tossing out paper planes and sheets of tissue, I've seen them waft past the window as they float down. A couple of days ago, it was whole sheets of paper. I took a look at the ones that landed on the ground. It's some multi-choice assessment test and he scored a C. I wonder if he was tossing them out before his mother found them.

PlayStation kills

A couple of days ago on the train, two kids sitting opposite me were absorbed in playing on their PSP. I was tempted to take a picture and caption it along the lines of: And this is why we developed opposable thumbs. But I was too shy to take a pix of strangers wiith or without their permission.

In an interesting by the way, PlayStation does shed real blood in its own version of African blood diamonds.

Dog day

It all begins when you wake up to a moat of pee around the bed. RuPEE is on a course of antibiotics and three days (just three, thank goD) of preds for his itchy rash. I've had dogs on preds before and I know they pee rivers when they're on it.

So I was careful with Roop, taking him out every so often. What I didn't account for was the 10-hour stretch shut in the bedroom overnight. He very carefully avoided peeing on the dog bed and the floor cushion and the bed. He just went on the floor on all three sides of the bed so I woke up surrounded by pee. I didn't have my glasses on so not only did I step in pee, I couldn't see a path out of the yellow lakes and rivers to get out of the room to get the mop.

That Dog. But it wasn't really his fault. He just desperately needed to go, only there was nowhere to go in the bedroom and I was too fast asleep to know.

The bad dog story of the day goes to Pancho, M's toy daschund who decided to eat one of a pair of expensive pair of leather dress shoes that he bought in Japan and that he only wears for special occasions. The ratty old pair of slippers next to it were unsampled. So Pancho has good taste.

That's not all. After M discovered the damage to his shoes, he realised that his pair of socks, which he had stuffed into the shoes, were missing. He searched all through the house, trying to keep calm and suppress the panic that the damn dog may have eaten the socks. And Pancho's a tiny dog. And M has big feet. You get the idea. Bloat. Obstruction. Emergency vet. Paying for vet's kids' college education.

Luckily, the socks were found. Laid out on the lower shelf of his printer stand -- where Pancho likes to nap. Pancho probably felt that the metal shelf needed more comfortable bedding.

M, awash with relief, didn't know whether to scold Pancho for eating the shoe or thank him for not having socks for dessert.

20 years ago

There was a party at Bar None last night to mark The New Paper's 20th anniversary. I'd known about it for weeks and although I never got an official invitation from the bosses, I knew I was going to crash it right from the start, along with my gang of TNP contemporaries. We figured that we 1G TNPers don't need official invites.

And that was the spirit of things all night long. The old gang hasn't changed. They're still irreverent, funny, and downright wicked to the point of being complete a**holes if you were on the receiving end. And they are still capable of putting away vast amounts of alcohol. Except for the one who doesn't drink because it sends him off into a manic-depressive dive. I would like to finally thank him now, 20 years later, for introducing me to Jim Croce during his dives.

There're plenty of photos but I can only update them into this entry next week because they'll all be sent to my e-mail at work and I'm on leave for a week. I don't think the current TNP photographer taking them had any idea who we were, much less that we were the pioneer batch of reporters but she was damn good in snapping away when there were photo opportunities -- mostly involving shrieks and hugs when someone familiar turned up. Apart from my gang, there were people I haven't seen in 15 years.

It was a great evening playing catch up. Old jokes were revisited and there was much recalling of old times. It's nice to know that some things -- and people -- don't change. It didn't seem like 20 years have passed. The only thing that forcibly reminded us that it's a new generation at TNP now is that a new reporter who just joined them recently is a student of my old TNP buddy who went on to teach mass communication at a local university. At least the youngster didn't call his former teacher "sir". That would have been too much to bear. For him. Not us. We would have doubled over with laughter. What, him, responsible and moulding young lives etc. And shake our heads. And toss back more booze. Which we did anyway. The first batch of TNPers has produced two PhDs and an MP. But looking at my own gang in particular, it's quite heartening to see that we're the most unambitious lot.

Here's home

This is where Radovan Karadzic can expect to live.

After 11 years on the run, it's not too bad a deal. Particularly as the pix of the cell doesn't look very different from on-campus student accommodation at the university I went to. On top of that, he gets an ensuite bathroom and home-cooked Balkan cuisine. That's already two up on what we got.

Those crazy golfers and the things they get up to

It could only happen here. Company X organises and sponsors a series of regional golf tournaments, the winners of which meet in a world championship final. And in between teeing off, they get little treats such as taking company X's cars on a test drive.

The only "problem" is, what the Singapore winner does for a living when he's not playing golf is to sell cars for Company Y, which is the biggest rival to Company X. Which then refuses to send him to the tournament final. It says that it doesn't want him privy to its new cars and marketing plans. It offers him monetary compensation but he refuses it. All he wants is to play golf with the very best.

The whole sorry PR affair has now become a High Court case as the man is suing to stop Company X for preventing him from playing in the final.

In a more pluralistic society, Company X would have rolled out the red carpet for the Company Y employee and won him over with their largesse. Who knows, he may end up selling even more cars for them.

Instead, they blackmark him as That Man from the Rival and mutter about industrial espionage when all he wanted to do was to play golf. But then, this is how insular minds on a small island work.

Marketing campaigns reflect how a society operates. And ours isn't as gracious and as inclusive as our leaders would like us to think.

God is feeling a little gay

I'm telling ya, Jesus wept. With laughter.

Lions! Tigers and bears! Oh my!!

Well, OK, not the tigers and bears but three lions. Enough to intrigue Rupert so much that he forgot to bark. He also backed away from the window as the lions advanced down the path, until he was all backed up against the sofa and couldn't retreat any more.

The lion dance was part of some festival for Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, organised by our downstairs neighbour who's some sort of medium or devotee, along with a puppet show. The furkids were mesmerised by everything. I missed everything, I was at work. The pix were taken by L to show me what I missed. Not shown is a vegetarian meal, to which he was constantly shouted invitations to whenever the neighbours saw him standing at the window watching the goings-on.

Apparently I also missed the neighbour putting his hand to Rupert and Queeni's forehead (she didn't protest, and she normally would if she didn't know you and you tried to touch her) in a blessing. I've always been disappointed that no church in this country does a blessing of the animals service for St Francis of Assissi's saint day. But hey, now they've got Kwan Yin's blessing.

Lying in state

Here's how Queeni watches TV. Note that the royal head needs a pillow. All that's missing is Rupert peeling her grapes. I don't have to do the bit where I stand in attendance and fan her gently because she's lying on the part of the couch that gets the draft from the airconditioning.

3D puzzle

When we first moved in about two years ago, this lamp was a housewarming gift from C, who bought it in Thailand on one of his frequent trips there. It's actually comprised of flat little plastic rectangles with hook-like corners and you hook all the rectangles together and they somehow magically form a sphere. It's a really clever piece of design.

Knowing what a klutz I am and how anti-DIY L is, C had warned us that it required a little assembly. But by the time he gave it to us, he quite kindly took pity on us and put it together for us, complete with a light bulb. We were still renovating then and we simply handed the assembled lamp to the electrician who installed it for us. When we needed to change the bulb, we just had to unhook a panel, reach in, screw the bulb off and put a new one in, C instructed.

That was last week. It seemed simple enough. Only when I hooked the panels back up, the beautifully perfect sphere wasn't perfect and I know I messed it up somehow and a couple of panels aren't where they're supposed to be.

L, with his statistics background, says there's a mathematical formula to it. I'll be damned if I, the maths failure in school, needed to apply maths to changing a light bulb. I just slotted slats back where they could fit and let it be, beautiful perfect sphere of a lamp be damned. The statistician, being a non-DIY guy, didn't help beyond postulating mathematical theories. He'll fix it later. One very fine day. Or until the next bulb change.

So how many statisticians does it take to change a light bulb?

Fun at the supermarket

First, I couldn't find the Marmite. It wasn't with the bottled sauces and it wasn't with the soups. That's what I use the yeast extract for so I didn't knew where else to look for it. I finally found it by accident -- next to the bread. So that means that Marmite on toast isn't a solely British thing nor as cultivated a taste as I thought.

Then I came across breakfast flavoured milk. I didn't know breakfast was a flavour and now I'm curious as to what lunch and dinner flavours taste like.


But nothing can be as interesting as absurd seafood...

Wheels go on the road

I'd recently written about a pet peeve being cyclists on footpaths. They are an accident waiting to happen and L had a near miss yesterday. Someone cycled down the footpath behind him and he didn't even know she was bearing down on him till the mud-guard of her front wheel came into contact with the back of his leg.

He spun round, letting fly a torrent of blue words. The elderly cyclist responded just as vociferously as she pedalled off. She spoke in Chinese dialect, which L doesn't understand very well but enough to distinguish that far from apologising for hitting him, she was giving him what-for for giving her what-for. She's jolly lucky he didn't fall over or was hurt any more badly than a bruise on his calf. Or there'd be hell to pay. And that's just from him.

I think some cyclists don't want to go on the roads because they feel that they'll be at the mercy of *real* traffic. The result is that they ride on the footpaths and then pedestrians will be at their mercy. I'm sure we can compromise somehow. Don't ride up behind people who don't have eyes at the back of their heads. Or build more cycle paths. They're not unknown. We have them in parks. But the point is that a lot of people don't just cycle in parks for fun. In housing estates like ours, they cycle to the shops too. And more and more people I know are cycling to work. Our ministers who tell us to take more public transport don't seem to acknowledge that cycling is also an alternative fuel-free form of transport. And that as such, you need to provide for cyclists too.

Owww

I wrenched a muscle in my back. Again. This time, I did myself in when I dropped a slippery piece of soap and it skittered into a pail of water that was standing next to the sink. Almost without thinking, I bent over quickly to retrieve it. And that did it.

I'm very cross with myself because I know I should have squatted down instead of bending over -- all that stuff that the physiotherapist taught me.

And I thought I had been so good with the physio and yoga threapy exercises the past 10 months or so. Since the last time I stupidly wrenched my back simply by getting off the sofa. I do them at least three to five times a week and had felt my back getting stronger. Apparently not. Or maybe stronger but not strong, because at least this time round, the muscle pull isn't as bad as last time.

I think my body is telling my mind that I'm middle aged. Ouch. That hurts.

Sun dog

It's not just a bulge in the curtains. It's Roop sitting at the window in the sun that's streaming in when we get out of bed. This has become a daily habit for him now, he'll take a little sunbath while I have a quick cup of coffee before we go downstairs for the first walk of the day.

To me, it's a sign that he's become a little calmer at two-and-a-half years. Previously, he used to follow me about, watching my every move in case he'd miss something. It wasn't so much attachment as his acute need to be part of a pack.

Now, he's coming into his own and developing his own habits, and that's nice to see. What's also nice is that he's got enough control over his bladder now and doesn't need to be rushed downstairs the very first thing and I can enjoy a wake-up cup of caffeine first.

Sheer laziness

Getting three legs out of four up on the couch with you aint bad.

Desperately Seeking Mas Selamat

I took this pix a while ago and forgot about it. It is a bookmark that serves as an invitation to the launch of a new local search engine. At the bottom of the the bookmark, in the mock-up of the search web portal, some one had inked in the "Find" square, the name of the escaped alleged terrorist who is still at large.

Somebody is wicked. Very wicked. Delightfully wicked.

Digging up bones

This was what was found under the sofa. Twice as many bones as dogs -- and that's just what was kicked under the sofa, there's more scattered about -- in different varieties of textures, shapes and flavours, all for their chewing pleasure.

Dang, not only have they taken over the sofa, they've taken over the space under the sofa.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Two radio DJs have started this project where you're encouraged to video the good, the bad and the ugly side of Singaporeans and podcast it. It all started when one of them tried to leave a lift but someone else was adamant on entering it and blocked his way. It's a familiar situation for many of us, I think, and it also applies to train doors.

So that's why he thinks there are going to be more bad and ugly videos than good. Though to be fair, he emphasised that if you're going to shoot something bad, you should also shoot something good. The results would be interesting.

My only question is, how do I shoot cyclists who are coming up the footpath behind me, ringing their bell, scaring me out of my skin and then expect me to jump out of their way? (By shoot, I'm not restricting myself to video. An M-16 would do just as well.) That is one of my top peeves. It happens very frequently, and it did yesterday. I yelled at the cyclist that he has ****ing wheels and should be on the ****ing road and not the footpath. So if he'd whipped out his cellphone then, I would be the ugly one.

A couple of weeks ago, the same thing happened. On the same footpath to the train station. The cyclist came up from behind, whizzed past me, narrowly missing me. Further up the path, he wobbled where the path was uneven, veered onto the grass, tipped over and fell. He wasn't really hurt and by the time he was picking up his bike, I had caught up with him. And I laughed. In his face. Oh lord, I was ugly. But it felt good.

Been at the music store

I enjoyed the movie Shine a Light so much that I had to go get the soundtrack. And since I was at the CD shop, I also got the new Bryan Adams and the not-so-new Bon Jovi.

I had meant to get the Bon Jovi when it came out last year but dithered because nothing in it really grabbed me although it was all very listenable and in the end, I guess I sort of forgot about it. I liked Bon Jovi very much back in the 80s but then I was much younger. Now, it's one of those embarrassing 80s moments that you don't want to linger over.

L used to sneer at Bon Jovi, all backbeat and big hair, he said. At least, they've all got decent haircuts now. The backbeat is still there but they're sounding more subdued. I think the one thing that has made me stick with them still is that they're still straightahead rock 'n' roll. A bit sugary now and then but they have never condescended to slide into pop. They've still maintained that bit o f edginess.

Much to my surprise then, L took to the "new" Bon Jovi album. It had mostly to do with one of the tracks, We Got It Going On and everything to do with its lyrics: "We got it going on / We'll be bangin' and sangin' just like the Rolling Stones / we're gonna shake up your souls / We've come to rattle your bones"

The Stones are everywhere!

At home with Hockney

Photography courtesy of L

Read a good book lately

I'm a terrible fisherman, I don't have the patience for it and I can rarely bring myself to eat something that I've killed.

And that's why I never read Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It. Fly fishing is pretty alien to an urbanised Singaporean. Even when Robert Redford turned it into a movie with Brad Pitt in it, I still wasn't interested.

And then I came across the book's 25th anniversary edition in the library. It had a quiet cover with a simple pencil and ink drawing of a fly on it. Always one to judge a book by its cover, I borrowed it. Actually, I took it because it has a foreword by Annie Proulx and I was more interested in what she had to say because I've always enjoyed her books.

And I was -- err -- hooked. Line. And sinker. Except that I don't think there are sinkers in fly fishing. Right from the opening line -- "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing."

In my -- err -- book, that's an opening line that ranks up with Austen's "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Funny how you can remember word for word a good opener of a book you first read 25 years ago. Guess I fall for a good pick up line anytime.

A River Runs Through It is one of the most beautifully lyrical books I've read in a long while. I just wonder how it was possible to capture it into a movie. Even if it's Robert Redford.

You know it's football season...

I was sitting next to an elderly Malay man on the bus when another elderly Malay chap got on. They obviously knew each other because they did that hand-to-heart handshake and the second guy sat on the next row and the two began a conversation -- none of which I understood.

sdsdfjwerrjkv ... injury time... poiuder werjkjkl; rerwlj kj;jwer ... free kick ... sdfwejk @#!@#!!!

Aah, they were talking about Euro 2008.

Being Singaporean

I think we've met the conservative greyhead of the estate. You know the type. Elderly retired gentleman, used to being in a position of authority, has a view on everything and his view is always right.

We were walking the dogs, Rupert on leash and Queeni trotting alongside offleash. She usually ignores everyone and goes about her business but our paths crossed Greyhead's and he muttered something at her so she snorted at him and went on her way. Snorted. Not barked. Nor even growled.

Don't worry, she's tame, L assured Greyhead. Greyhead then lectured L about the virtues of keeping a dog on leash, "they could go wild on you anytime," he emphasised. "Oh really, you're an expert on safety?" enquired a now irritated L.

We're always mindful that dogs are really domesticated wolves. Queeni does get leashed when there are children about and we're always mindful of the Muslim neighbours. So I guess L felt really unjustified about the impromptu lecture on dog behaviour.

Greyhead clearly wasn't used to people talking back to him and launched into a monologue, building up for the grand conclusion -- which was addressed to me because by then, he had drawn level with me as L had fallen back with Queeni who was busy sniffing at a tree.

"Singaporeans!" he thundered.

By which he probably meant that we were ill-mannered, inconsiderate, discourteous louts, the usual complaints one makes of Singaporeans.

What I don't get is that he obviously is Singaporean too. He's one of us. Unless he somehow thinks that he's better than us. Well, he's quite beyond me.

All that while, the elderly lady walking with Greyhead, probably his wife, kept her head down, ignored everything and stepped up her pace. I bet she knew too well what Greyhead is when he's home.

A Singaporean.

'It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)'

L and I went to watch Shine a Light yesterday evening. Great movie.

Only a few days ago, a colleague -- who had just recently discovered Scorsese's The Last Waltz but was dithering about watching Shine a Light because he had never been keen on The Rolling Stones -- had wondered if he should watch it on DVD or in the cinema.

Definitely the cinema. The big screen makes all the difference. It was like a front row ticket to a Stones concert. And at $7.50 for a movie ticket, it's definitely cheaper than the $500 for a front row seat to watch them when they came here a few years ago. (No, I didn't go. I didn't have $500. I figured I could spend that same amount on a whole, whole lot of CDs. L somewhat sourly said that he wasn't going to pay for a new liver for Keith Richards. He said it's been said that Richards gets a new one in Switzerland every year. Legacy of Jack Daniels.)

The only funny thing about watching a movie about the Stones in concert is that you get so caught up in the music, you forget you're not in a concert hall but a cinema -- and then you suddenly realise that nobody else is bopping around in their seats except you. The first five rows of the cinema were empty -- it was a weekday evening after all, and let's face it, it's a limited audience, you have to be of a certain age to want to watch the subject of this movie -- and I seriously debated if I should manouvre my way through all the people seated in my row and go sit in the empty rows where I could dance. Only having to move in the dark stopped me. And I had to stop myself from throwing my arms up mid-song or even clapping with the screen audience at the end of each number. It is not easy to sit to the Stones.

Just last week, another colleague laughed at me when I told her that Mick Jagger is my personal hero because he's proof that there's rock 'n' roll -- and hence, life -- after 60. The man is 20 years older than I am, and moves like he's 20 years younger.

There's something to be said for rock 'n' roll.

A conqueror's notes

When both humans are on the bed, try and wedge yourself between them. Then manoeuvre yourself to occupy the bed cross-wise. Make yourself as long as you can, stretch out your nose and your tail.

The humans will usually roll over and balance themselves on as little bed space as they can, without falling off the edge. Sometimes, you may even be able to prise one of them off the bed. They usually mutter something about going to the loo, and give you a sharp look as they stumble away. The loo is just an excuse. Victory is yours in terms of bed space.

When that happens, quickly occupy the vacated spot when it is still warm. But once it has lost its warmth, return to the remaining human and wedge yourself up against her. Take the spot between her legs if necessary, so she can't stretch them out properly.

It doesn't matter how much space there is left by the vacated human. The luxury of stretching out in that space is only temporary. The idea now is to take the remaining human's space.

And then the bed is ours!

O!l

Singapore's annual inflation rate stayed at 7.5 per cent in May, boosted by rising food, transport and housing costs, the government said on Monday.

As if to pre-empt that, the National Development Minister said on Saturday that fuel subsidies were not the way to go, and that even "neighbouring countries" are rethinking their subsidies. And recommended that people take public transport instead to cut costs.

I'm not expecting any subsidies. Hand-outs simply do not happen in you're-on-your-own Singapore. But I'm expecting a little less lip service from our ministers. This only looks slightly worse than the minister who, some years ago, drove to officiate a No-Car Day event.

I still haven't seen any of our MPs on the bus. But at least MPs in a "neighbouring country" have taken to biking to Parliament House. I've seen AFP pix so they must be somewhere on the Net too.

On yer bike, Mr Mah!

Queeni's turn

Just playing fair and following up a pix of Roop with one of Queeni. She's lying by L, belly-up, all the easier for him to give her a tummy rub. You'd think from the expression on her face that I was interrupting something.

Spa dog

L was using a piece to tissue to wipe his glasses and when he finished, he conveniently placed it over Roop's face. Roop just went to sleep, presumably assuming that someone turned off the lights.

Downward dog

It's easy. Just use the cushion as a yoga aid.

Oh, and all those bones next to Queeni do not belong to her. They're all Rupert's. HRH decided to annex them even though she doesn't really have the teeth for them.

His 'n' hers

And on the days that they don't want to share (read Queeni, really), he goes to his corner (in his crate) and she goes to her corner (on the sofa of course, she's the Queen).

If you can't make out what Queeni is doing, she is lying on her back, belly and all four legs up. Yup, she is revelling that the couch is hers, all hers. Queens are like that.

You take the high road, and I'll take the low road

... we'll put that stuffed dog between us and together, we'll share the couch quite nicely.

Down memory lane

My misspent childhood is coming back to haunt me. The Osmonds are here on a reunion tour this week and so are The Wynners. The Osmonds everybody knows. And even if they did sell out Wembley in an hour, I'm not rushing for tickets to their concert, I'm just too embarrassed. I'd rather forget about my Donny Osmond purple socks era. I plead juvenile ignorance, I was about 10 years old then. I still remember bolting through dinner on Saturday evenings so that I could beat my mother to the TV and could tune in to the Donny and Marie Show instead of her Chinese drama serials. And rushing to the music shop round the corner from my school when word went round that there's a new Donny and Marie album. And buying Fanfare magazine when Donny was the pin-up.

The Wynners are only a vague memory. They were a Hong Kong pop group that a cousin was into. I listened for a bit, maybe even bought a cassette (yes, those things) or two. My uncle used to take the mickey by calling them The Whiners instead of The Winners. I could name the members of the group once but not now. Same like how I've forgotten the names of the rest of the Osmond brothers. Funnily enough, the Osmonds names and songs came back quite readily when I saw them on Oprah.

And now, Get Smart has been made into a movie. I'm as enthusiastic about it as the Osmonds in concert. It just feels so wrong to sit through a movie-length version and in colour. It's just not Get Smart if Max doesn't walk down a long corridor of doors closing on him, uses his shoe phone and the whole thing isn't black & white (look, I'm not that old; when I started watching Get Smart, it was in afternoon off-peak reruns).

This lack of enthusiasm must mean that I'm old and jaded.

Bearing fruit

Somewhere in the housing estate across from my office is proof that teddy bears really do grow on trees.

Hitting the wall

No real reason for this picture, other than the fact that I was still playing with the new cellphone's camera. It takes sharper photos than the old one. This is a shot taken at the office rooftop where I eat my packed dinner.

At first, I wondered why anyone would place a park bench facing a wall, instead of facing the flowers at the other side of the rooftop garden. Or facing the view of the surrounding rooftops.

But then I realised that staring at a wall is not so daft after you've been staring at a computer for hours.

Weighty things

Just testing the new cellphone camera again. This tree stands by the path to the mall and I pass it all the time. Today, I realised that its low branches have been so weighted down by the rain that they are touching the ground.

L says that he's seen a guy stand under it in the evenings, practising on his trumpet.

iPhooey

I'm an Apple fan, having always used Macs -- unless I'm at work and then the Windows PC is really my employer's fault. I still have Macs that I'm not using, like a dinky Mac Classic that is still in working condition -- only there's not much you can do with it in this day and age. I mean, who even remembers black and white screens these days?

But I'm going to pass on the iPhone. First, it took too long time to get here. Second, it wasn't until yesterday that the mobile service provider which clinched the deal with Apple announced that it was going to offer the new 3G model. Third, it costs way too much.

And more importantly, it's because I already have a 3G phone. So I don't need to be among the first in Asia to have a 3G iPhone. On top of that, my 3G phone came free. OK, so I had to extend my mobile contract for two years to get that but it was no hardship. My mobile service provider offered this lure last month when it probably already knew that it didn't get the iPhone deal.

For the first time in a long while, Apple has stepped in with too little, too late. Phooey.

Meme

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

3. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their name, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

Pretty much the same thing, just at a different place, for a different publication and a different pay.

Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:

1. Ice cream sundae with all the works -- hot fudge sauce, whipped cream. And a cherry on top, of course.

2. Cake with ice cream on the side

3. Cookies

4. Prawn crackers

5. Potato chips

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:

6. Tapioca crackers with chilli sambal

7. Ice cream -- it has to have bits of stuff in it, like chocolate chips or marshmallow bits. Plain flavours get boring after the second mouthful.

8. Yogurt -- "normal" or frozen

9. Fruit -- freshly cut or a fruit sorbet

10. Popcorn

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Cut down on my working hours. I wouldn't quit, I like my job too much. But I would persuade my boss to let me work part time or just come in on the busy nights.

2. Buy some land and start a no-kill animal shelter. It pains me that Noah's Ark had to ship out to Johor because they couldn't renew their lease. Or maybe I'd just give the money to them, I don't think I have the resources to actually run a shelter.

3. Buy a car. L would have to drive. I never learnt how. Or I guess as a billionaire, I could get a chaffeur with the car.

4. Buy a weekend home in Bali. It will have to come with a private jet or at least membership into one of those pilot-and-jet services.

5. Set up a trust fund that will go towards funding Aids medication. If the government won't help people obtain live-saving anti-retrovirals, then dammit, I will.

Five jobs that I have had:

1. Salesperson in a book shop

2. Teacher

3. Reporter/journalist/staff writer -- different places, different designations, more or less the same job.

4. Sub-editor -- which is my current job. Good grief, I haven't done enough in my life to cover five jobs.

5.

Five of my habits:

1. Must have coffee first thing in the morning. Tea on a day off.

2. Must cuddle the dogs in bed before I can settle down to sleep.

3. I need separate shampoo and conditioner. Can't abide the two-in-one stuff, it makes you wonder if you should rinse it off straightaway (you don't want the shampoo on your hair that long) or leave it on for a while (or how will the conditioner have time to set in). The bottles of shampoo and conditioner have to be at the same level.

4. I use bar soap in the shower on the alternate days that I wash my hair and shower gel when I'm not. I'm just required to list habits, not explain them.

5. I use facial scrub on the days that I wash my hair and a gel cleanser on the days that I don't.

Five places I have lived:

1. Coventry, UK

2. Hong Kong

3. With my parents. In Singapore. I'm out of places as in countries.

4. Small cosy rental house in Changi Village by the sea -- one of the nicest rental places I ever had.

5. A rental flat in Sengkang. We liked the township so much, we bought our own flat in Sengkang two years ago.

Five people we should all get to know better: (A nice way of saying TAG!)

1. Funny the World

2. The Dahn Report

3. E-Hung

4. Benedict Says

5. Compaunmeri

Littlest member of the household

If I didn't point him out, you would miss him. He's that tiny speck of a lizard. There, on the floor. Between the edge of the table and the chair.

All the lizards in the house are called Jimi. This stemmed from the early days when we first moved in and I found a lizard overhead, clinging onto the recessed part of the living room ceiling that is painted to look like a cloudy sky. You know, Jimi Hendrix's "Kiss the Sky".

It was Roop who alerted L to Tiny Jimi on the floor by performing springing goat-like leaps around the chair under which Tiny Jimi had tried to hide. He was lying still, squarely under the chair where Roop couldn't reach him, however hard he tried to poke his nose under the chair's legs. Even a little lizard has more brains than That Dog. Who had to be sternly told that little lizards aren't live food.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Is this bag me?

L was putting away the grocery bags when he decided to put them on Roop instead (don't ask me why). Then he filled one with toys and slung the handle round Roop's neck. Roop, of course, managed to contort himself to get the toys out.

This probably means that it's a bad idea to have Roop carry home the shopping, he'll only get the stuff out of the bags and eat them on the way home.

Drats. Back to the drawing board.

There isn't enough room in here for the two of us

OK, I know, this is really Rupert's crate. But as Queen, it's completely natural that I can annex it and roll around in it. Why should he have a crate that is bigger than mine? Even if he's bigger than me? I'm the Queen! And then that stupid serf has to barge his way in. How's a royal to get her beauty sleep?

Security

... is a dog sleeping on your tummy.

And a human to lie on.

Portrait ... with food

The only way to get a picture of the two dogs together is when somebody else is eating.

Psst, look behind you

It's that impostor again, isn't it?

Sofa, so good

What, you want to sit on our sofa too?

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world"

The same week that Nasa revisits Mars, somebody else makes an equally intriquing discovery in our own planet. Which only goes to show, there's a lot of wonder still in our own backyard.

Royal disdain

None of that hoi polloi cab sauv stuff for me, thank you. But a bordeaux, perhaps a Chateau Lafite, would be nice.

Queeni's experiment

If I sleep with my butt elevated, will all the blood rush to my head??

The Masked Avenger strikes!

As a follow-up to the previous post, the score, 48 hours later, is now:
Poop: 1
Pee: 2

All thanks to Rupert, Double-O Blur, licensed to poop.