Christmas is coming

Only the Christmas cookies are in existence. The tree and decorations and the furkids' stockings aren't up yet. We're not supposed to celebrate anything until 49 days after my father-in-law's death. It's not exactly a mourning period, it was explained to me. The 49 days is the time he's taking on his last journey. That won't be till next weekend. I'm not quite sure.

So I probably won't put up the tree at all this year because it'll only be a week till Christmas by the time I'm "allowed" to put it up. But the furkids' stockings will certainly be up. Their stocking stuffers have already been bought. I've done all their Christmas shopping already but haven't started on the husband's. Typical.

It's Neil Gaiman's fault that I was late for work today

I was reading on the train, and when it reached my station, I was at the cliffhanger finale near the end of the book. So I got off the train and sat on a bench at the platform and carried on reading until I finished the book.

I must have sat there 20, 30 minutes. At least transit security didn't think that I was loitering or behaving suspiciously. Whatever that means these days. Lugging or leaving behind a heavy bag.

Luckily, reading is light activity.

Furry help

Nothing like a little help with holding a book when you've got a pile to read.

Books now

“When I get a little money, I buy books. And if any is left, I buy food and clothes.” -- Erasmus



Because it takes me two months to finish a suitcase of books.

Even more music

I've heard Julian Bream perform John Dowland before (the joys of a regional Arts Centre in a provincial university) so Sting's Songs From the Labyrinth didn't really pique my interest. But then, it's Sting. Rock star plays lute and does Elizabethan ballads. So I caved in and bought it.

And it wasn't bad. I think I was subconsciously holding my breath with this rock superstar goes classical thing ever since Liverpool Oratorio (again, the education of the abovementioned Arts Centre) put me off Paul McCartney even though I like the Beatles like anyone else. Sting's tenor rather suits Elizabethan ballads. I guess he could have been a rock star four centuries ago too.

But I don't think I will cave in so easily to buy a ticket for his coming tour in early December (whaddaya know, Sting in Singapore twice in a year). $25 for a CD is one thing, $100-$500 for a concert ticket is something else. Even if I paid $350 x 2 for the Police reunion tour in February. And there's no Stewart Copeland this time.

More music

This must the week that pigs finally flew. If The Cosmos Rocks was three years in the making, then it's nothing compared to Chinese Democracy -- which was on again, off again, and took 15 years.

The Guns 'n' Roses album was released this week, hot on the heels of the Queen album, and it's quite interesting to listen to one after the other. There's one rock group that carried on without a vocalist while the other is the vocalist carrying on without the rest of the band.

Long live the Queen

This album was a long time coming. In early August, I got wind on the Internet and in rock magazines that it was scheduled for a September release. It still wasn't out by the time I left the UK in mid-September although a copy of Mojo that I picked up then had already reviewed it. It should be out in the stores any day now.

Any day now dragged on till November. In between, everytime I walked past a record shop, I'd pop in to ask. I got a whole range of negative responses from salespeople ranging from the clueless (how can anyone who works in a music shop not know who Queen is) to the argumentative (who wanted to know how could Queen possibly have a new album when they have no lead singer).

Then last Thursday, one of my colleagues, also a Queen fan, said it had to be in the stores now because Amazon had finally started selling it. I happened to be going downtown that day, so I hit almost all the music shops in the shopping district. And got the same range of clueless answers from the salespeople.

And then I walked into Borders. And found it -- just the one copy buried among the old Queen stuff. You'd expect stacks of it to be piled high on the new releases shelf but no, there was just the one sole copy hidden away. Like they'd only brought in one copy because they weren't sure that it would sell.

I pounced on it like it was gold and when I went back to the office, waved it triumphantly at my colleague. He thinks I probably have the only copy in Singapore.

That was exactly a week ago. It should be properly in the stores now. Even if I'd ordered it from Amazon in the first instance, it would have arrived.

I only waited till now to blog about it because I was persuaded to write a review. I did it because someone suggested it; because there was no review filed for this week, the regular music guy being on reservist training; and it was one of those easy-peasy things that wrote itself in 10 minutes.

The practice is that inhouse reviewers don't get paid, even if they do it on top of their normal duties. The kickback is that they get to keep the review copy. However, this was moot to me since I already have my own copy. So I did it for fun, basically. But then somebody else took the fun out of it so I don't think I'll do this again.

Winter is coming

I live one degree north of the equator but I can tell -- because the cranes are back. These elegant, tall, white long-legged birds winter here from North Asia and can usually be found in feeding in the large grassy fields outside the development where I live and watering at the monsoon canals.

They used to be a welcome seasonal sight but in the past years, have been regarded as potential bird flu carriers. Times have changed.

Hot seat

I was on the train to work yesterday when an elderly gentleman got on, just one station before where I was going to get off. By then, there were no more seats left. So I stood up and gave him my seat. Osteo-arthritis notwithstanding. This guy was clearly waaaay older than me.

He didn't want to take the seat initially, until I told him that I was getting off at the next stop anyway. And then he smiled one of those sweet smiles only old folks have and shuffled towards the seat.

By then, a kid about 10 years old was inching his way towards the vacated seat and about to set his bum down on it.

"Oi! I didn't give up my seat for you!"

He leapt up like the seat was hot.

One day, young punks will have osteo-arthritis too.

It's confirmed, I'm old

I've been a bit creaky here and there lately but didn't think much of it as I popped glucosamine. Last week, I had the odd feeling that sometimes my right knee downwards wasn't connected to the rest of my body. I'd turn but the lower leg wouldn't turn with me, giving my knee cap a sharp twinge.

The GP thought it could be wear and tear problems, given my age, but insisted that I take an X-ray, just to rule out that I didn't break anything. I couldn't have, I haven't fallen or anything.

So I had an X-ray done last week and popped back into the GP clinic today for the results.

"The good new is," he said, "you haven't broken anything."

"The bad news, hmmm," he hesitated.

So I filled in the blanks for him. "The bad news is that I'm an old lady, right?"

I have the beginning of bone spurs in the joint and am one step along the way to osteo-arthritis. You know, Old People Stuff.

I am now Officially Old.

Aint it the truth

I got this from my dog e-list yesterday with the subject: Some things are so beautiful, you HAVE to share them.
And so here it is.

TODAY I RESCUED A HUMAN
 
I rescued a human today.

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her.

I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid. As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card, I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and my only desire is to make a difference in some loving human's life.

She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds to me. I shoved my shoulder and the side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship. A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well.

Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms. I promised to keep her safe. I promised to always be by her side. I promised to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes everyday!

I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.

I rescued a human today.

Relatively speaking

It's a small world as they say, and on top of that, Singapore is a small country. Everybody knows everybody else, or at least knows of everybody else.

But never in my wildest dreams did I think that a friend of mine would turn out to be a distant relative.

I have known R since junior college and she also went on to the same university as I did. She now lives in London and we spent many happy hours together when L and I holidayed in London in August/September.

We had talked about our families and she had remarked that her mother's maiden surname is the same as L's, and that her name was remarkably similar to L's father's name. We never really thought much about it until this week, she found out from a conversation with her mother that her mother and my father-in-law are cousins.

Which makes her and L cousins first removed, I think. Is that how you count "removed" cousins?
And her furkids -- two lovely Maine Coons and an independent-spirited Bengal whom I fell instantly in love with when I finally was able to meet them a few months ago -- and mine would be cousins second removed. Queeni grew up with a kitten and so has cat-like habits and loves cats. Now, she's actually related to cats!

Hi Cuz! *waves*

Hanoi

One of the reasons why I didn't blog about my recent trip to Hanoi was that I came home to a rather surreal time because of a death in the family. The other reason was that I had to write about it, and also supply pictures that I had taken. Now that the article has been published, I can finally put here the pictures that weren't used and the text that had been cut. This blog has no advertisers and therefore, I don't have to be as judicious as the lifestyle editor.

Thirty years after the Viet Cong saw off the Americans, the Vietnamese are still reducing them -- albeit tourists -- to a quivering mass. Charlie has returned as the cyclo driver. The cyclo is pretty much like a trishaw, only the driver is behind the passenger -- which is good from Charlie's standpoint since the passenger gets hit first in the event of collision. Charlie's modus operandi pretty much consists of heading straight towards what seems to be oncoming traffic and challenging bus drivers to cut into his lane. The bus driver wins. They always do. It's the same everywhere.

That the Vietnamese love their motorbikes is obvious, not just by the sheer numbers on the road but also by the case of one (parked) bike spotted -- its seat was upholstered in that unmistakable LV logo and motif more commonly stamped on handbags. Bike by Louis Vitton.

Most retailers will accept US dollars, and conveniently so, especially in the company of fellow travellers who can read double entrendres in "How many dongs have you got on you?"


Vietnamese organisation is written on the walls. While most places have graffiti spray painted in free hand, Vietnamese graffiti is stenciled. These, I was told, are phone numbers for contractors. They come along, identify a unit that is likely to be refurbished, and leave their phone numbers so as to save the owner from looking up the number in the Yellow Pages.


This is a view of the city from a local coffeeshop that is four floors up on a rooftop. There is no visible frontage of the coffeeshop at street level. You walk in through an art gallery (apparently almost every Vietnamese owns a motorbike and paints in oils) down an alley way, into an open courtyard that looks like someone's house and up a winding staircase. The rooms that you pass on your way up really are part of someone's house. If the guide didn't lead us, we would have never found it. As it was, we were the only foreigners on the rooftop. No Starbucks would have a view like this, since passing pedestrian traffic is everything in their business plan. And in anycase, there was no Starbucks in Hanoi, despite its coffee culture. There are small mercies in developing countries.

Heir and heiress

Mother-in-law, in tying up father-in-law's estate matters, has instructed their family lawyer to give $500 each to Queeni and Rupert from the estate. It's not exactly a bequest but a gift.

So the lawyer calls L and demands to know: "Do you have two children that I'm not aware of?"

"Err, yes, I have two kids."

"What are their names? Can you spell it out?"

"Queeni. And Rupert."
Lawyer was obviously writing everything down.

"Boy or girl?"

"Queeni's the girl, Rupert's the boy."

"How old?"

"She's seven, he's two."

"Can I have their IC?"

"Err, you can have their licences."

And now, hot shot lawyer -- who has an ongoing trial at High Court -- is completely stumped and needs to consult his partners on how to give money to dogs.

Under Singapore law, pets are not considered entities (like corporations are, although I know more animals with heart than some corporations). Instead, pets are considered possessions and you cannot give or bequeath money to chattel. If you want to do something like that, you're usually advised to start a trust fund and name an executor, that sort of thing. I don't think we're going into all that for $500.

Still, that's probably a lot in dog money. Or bones. Or chewies.

My furkids are gazillionaires.

Going bananas for a purpose

Back to mundane everyday-living posts. The only reason why I bought a bunch when grocery shopping the other day was so that I could use the new lacquer plate I got from Vietnam.

Friends in high places

A friend of mine emailed me to say that the wife of the new president of the Maldives is someone we knew at university.

The University of Warwick has a reputation for being a hot spot for student activism. Which is one of the reasons why it changed its mind about opening a campus in Singapore.

But I never imagined that my friend's former housemate would turn out to be the First Lady of the Maldives.

She is in illustrious company -- another housemate, a Jordanian, married into the royal family and is now a princess.

I feel like I've achieved nothing with my life!

Life is transient

I left for Hanoi on Monday. Sometime late Sunday night if not Monday morning, my father-in-law died in his sleep.

I came home on Thursday. My father-in-law was already cremated.

And all this while, L never wanted to tell me, didn't want me to cut short my trip. He even told my mother and our friends not to tell me. But then I got one rather odd text message late on Monday by the time I finally turned on my cellphone. L was uncontactable all day, so I called a friend. And that was how I found out.

Everyone, even my mother-in-law, said not to cut short the trip, seeing that it was already a short one. L didn't see the point of my getting off the plane only to turn round and get back on it.

So I went through the motions of Hanoi.

It was a weird trip. When I left home, this old guy was doing his own thing. A few days later when I got home, there was nothing left of his existence on earth. It was like he had never been, especially as I don't see him often. Life is odd.

Off again

I'm off to Hanoi, Vietnam on a four-day junket. I never put my name in the hat for junkets because they tend to be very businessy affairs, hosted by chambers of commerce who want to drum up investment or a company wanting to show off the production lines in a spanking new factory. The last junket a reporter went on just a couple of weeks ago involved a long-haul flight just to admire a new transit train.

The days you're absent from work when you're on the trip comes out of your vacation time. And worse, you're sometimes expected to write an article on the trip when you get back. So thanks but no thanks. I can just about sub business-type stories but I can't write them.

And then this Hanoi junket came up, and the chief sub did let on that it was hosted by a hotel. Which means it's hardly a business-type thing but a lifestyle thing. You know, nice resort, good food, maybe even a spa. I could live with that.

On top of that, it came at a time when I had just returned to work after a month away on holiday. I wasn't in a mood to knuckle down and get to work so I put my name in the hat for the junket draw. And I got it.

:)

Ack

This is the first time that a recalled product has been sitting in my pantry. The recall has gone beyond dairy products to food products that have been made with China-sourced dairy ingredients. I don't buy Chinese if I can help it, and these recalled crackers weren't even China-made, just that the Malaysia manufacturer used ingredients of China origins.

Food for thought

I could hardly believe the news story I was subbing last night. Singapore Food Industries, a government-linked company is going to develop a "food zone" in Jilin province, China. It will start up a pig farm, and process and export pork. This is part of Singapore's attempts to ensure long-term food security, explained the prime minster, who was in Beijing to sign a Singapore-China free trade agreement.

Oh right. We're ensuring food security by processing food in a country that poisoned its milk. And pet food.

I need to ask the reporter who's there covering the China trip if the PM drinks his coffee black and what he eats his cereal with when he was there.

Fact and fiction

Because I work nights, I watch quite a bit of daytime TV (well, I don't always watch but L leaves the TV on) and the afternoon 3pm slot has gone through the gamut of drama series from the 80s -- The Scarecrow and Mrs King, The Fall Guy, now you know where old TV series go to die.

Only lately, that slot has been taken up by The West Wing and not only is it fairly recent, they're showing the season where Jimmy Smits runs for president. We know he wins it of course. Some programmer must be timing this for the run-up to the US elections.

Funny how fiction points to the future (well, let's see if this one turns out that way) -- brown Democrat candidate wins over old white man. With the other scenario mapped out in Commander in Chief -- woman VP from nowhere becomes president when old white guy in charge dies.

Do Hollywood scriptwriters know something that we don't?

Sometimes, you gotta look a gift horse in the mouth

On Thursday, I happened to pass by a pet shop so I went in for a packet of dog biscuits. I don't always go there, which means the staff don't know me, and I didn't even flash my discount card since it was such a small purchase. Still, they gave me a free gift -- a plastic squeaky toy.

It's lurid Day-Glo orange and there's no label on it about where it was made but I bet you that cheap toy came from China.

Yesterday, the pet shop that I usually shop at, ie they know me there, sent me a flyer advertising a massive discount on a brand of rubber toys. This brand, I know, is made in China. I'd thrown out several of its products after the lead in paints in children's toys scare.

I think quite a few retailers are having trouble moving their China-made inventory.

Maybe they should just send all the toys to the ministers and the business leaders who keep going on how wonderful it is to do business in that country.

Even Hardy Amies, dressmaker to the Queen of England, are calling in the administrators because no one is buying their clothes as even rich consumers cut back on their spending.

Then small retailers, with warehouses full of cheap Chinese toys, haven't got a chance.

Who's laughing now?

In times like this when cash is king, the only thing that is stopping me from keeping money under my mattress are two dogs who would probably find it and chew it all up.

So I did the next best thing. I put the money that I had taken out of a foreign bank and put it in a local bank that's noted for its ringfenced conservatism and low leverage, in a plain vanilla fixed deposit.

Normally, when you try and open a fixed deposit there, some financial advisor tries to sell you an investment product. This time round, they didn't even try. I guess they knew nobody would buy. And the most amazing thing wasn't even that, it was that I had to wait 2 hours to open a FD account. You used to be served straightaway or maybe wait just 10 minutes or so.

There's that many people throwing money at Big Local Bank.

One of the professors at the NUS Business School has been giving a series of lectures to my organisation. He said that in his opinion, Asian banks aren't as severely affected as US banks by the subprime contagion because they were unexposed to sophisticated products. Basically, their ignorance saved them, he said.

And now, these dumb local banks are laughing all the way to the err, bank.

Would that be milking it?

The senior minister is in China and all the reports are on how far-sighted it is and what a wonderful place it is to do business etc.

I suppose no one asked him if, while he's there, is he taking his coffee black or with milk?

Conditioning

It was back to pushing my way onto the train during the morning rush-hour yesterday. Now that we're learning to stand on one side of the escalator so that people can walk past on the other side, we're pretty much like London commuters. The only notable difference is, Singapore commuters don't read. Well, Singaporeans don't read, sniffs L. And this is despite two freesheets on offer. The Londoners grab their freesheets, Metro in the morning and The London Paper in the evening, and leave them on the backs of the seats after they're done reading so someone else can pick it up for a read. Or they've got their noses buried into books. I don't think I've ever seen anyone reading an actual Real Book here in a long while. In Singapore, people just stare blankly into space. Or play PSP. I didn't see a single PSP in the London Tube. Though I suppose if you're flashing one when you're heading out to say, Epping, then you're really asking for trouble.

Only yesterday, I read on the Guardian online how London mayor Boris Johnson proudly showed off the new air-conditioned carriages for the London Underground. Having only recently sweated it out on the Piccadilly line, I wondered why it took the world's first underground system till 2008 to install air-conditioned trains. And it's not for all lines but the newer ones. Commuters on Piccadilly will still have to sweat it out. Sorry, R.

Revving up

You know that Formula One is bearing down on Singapore this weekend when the movies on TV all week have a distinctive theme: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle; 2 Fast 2 Furious; and Gone in 60 Seconds.

I know it's supposed to be a Big Deal, the first F1 night race and all. But it ain't doing nuthing for me, it's just cars making a lot of noise and going round and round very fast. And using a lot of fuel. And generating a lot of pollution. Ugh.

Holiday over

Now to dive into all those books (also part of the reason why a new suitcase was needed). And that would be a mini-holiday in itself.

More curious finds

All the time I was living in Britain, I never felt the need to see Stonehenge. Oh, I was curious about it -- and who isn't -- but it was too far away; could only be reached by a bus that ran once a week or something; and completely fenced off. I guess the most off-putting thing was that I couldn't wander about it like Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

And then this trip, R&K took me to Avesbury. It contains what is said to be Europe's biggest stone circle. There are two rings, a moat and an avenue leading up to it. More amazingly, the village -- including the local pub (very important) -- is slap in the middle of the circle.

You can wander up to the stones and the only things that will stop you from doing so are the sheep. And the mud. So again, no Tess of the D'Urbervilles for me, just pictures from a distance.



Crop circles have been spotted in surrounding fields but we only saw a crop doodle, and only a very vague one at that as the wheat had already been harvested.

Not a stoodent any more

The nice thing about going back to the town you lived in when you were a student is that you can now afford the things you never could before. Like finally having dinner at its only Italian restaurant. I used to treat myself to their gelato -- which wasn't often but unsuitable weather had more to do with it than prices -- but never ventured into the cave-like posh-looking restaurant (Etna, opposite the HMV, next to the post office -- information for YH, whom I'm sure has question marks above his head already).

This time, we could sit down to a three-course meal plus wine. And because one of our party had a birthday, the staff accommodated with candles in the tiramisu and a happy birthday song -- in which the other diners also joined. That really took me by surprise. This isn't Hard Rock Cafe where people are expected to break into song and dance. So much for the reticent British.

Not being a student also means there's no ISIC card to wave about for massive discounts.

But not being a (homeless) student also means that I can finally buy the beautiful handcrafted homeware I've always coveted (like these coasters). Which also partly accounted for the need to buy a new piece of luggage the day before we left for home.

Twenty years later...

* My Middle English prof is still looking like a Middle English prof, ie, he still has a beard down to his waist. Even if he has considerably less hair.

* There is beef rendang on the menu at what used to be the Airport Lounge (thusly named because of its airport-like carpet. Urban campus legend had it that it was picked because its 70s motif design would hide vomit spots). Heaven knows what it's called now (feel free to contribute, Yee Hung, it's the lounge on the first floor of Rootes Social Building). Outside the restaurant. Which used to be called the refractory. Now, every eating place on campus is a dang restaurant. Oh lord, how I used to pine for beef rendang. We used to have to trek to the Chinatowns in Birmingham or London for a chilli fix and now Warwick students get a bottle of sambal in a condiments tray that comes in the form of a dim sum steamer.

* There's a Costcutters supermarket on campus where you can get a sandwich for instant gratification and the ingredients for a meat and 3 veg if you're DIY, along with the pots and pans to cook it. We used to have to go to Coventry Market for tableware and cookware. Now, an Ikea has sprung up almost next to the market and I suppose ubiquitous Scandinavian designed plates have displaced willow pattern ones.

* My old room now has four power points in it. Plus high-speed Net access. WiFi. Back then, it had just the one power point -- and in an obscure round-pin at that -- and I had my first lesson in creative electrical wiring even before I went to class.



* The sapling outside my room window -- I had taken pictures of it through a year, during all the seasons -- is now a fully fledged tree. When I had mentally accounted for more buildings sprouting up on campus, I had forgotten to allow for how much trees can grow in 20 years.

I know, I'm going to sound like my own parents doing their "back in my time" act (and YH must be doubling over with laughter). If I had a beard, I'd be stroking it in a sage-like manner. Especially if it's waist long like a Middle English prof.

Interesting finds

L found silver spoons in Portobello, I found a bronze plaque to hang over the dog crate:


We also found a cafe called Makan. Very clever name, you know exactly who would head towards a sign that says Makan. It had laksa for five pounds. But we thought we could hold off till we came back to S$3 laksa. Still, that was a find we could pass onto R and other pining Singaporeans in London.

One of the best finds was an Italian cafe called Re:Hab where Max, the Italian waiter told us to forget about the menu. Instead, he would go into the kitchen to find out what "Christina feelsa like-a cooking-a". "Becausa it willa come out all gooda." We wanted breakfast so out came crusty bread drizzled with olive oil, italian sausage and eggs from Bologna with yolks so vividly orange like a sun rise that we had to take a photo.


The couple who owns the cafe was going to shut it down the next day and hightail it to their cottage in Italy for two weeks to "get some sun" because summer has been dismal. The husband is Australian and they fly to Melbourne every Christmas, with a three-day stopover at Singapore, staying in the Shangri-La, to break up the long flight.

That's pretty much like the lifestyle of the rich and famous for me. Makes you want to throw it all in and run your own caff in Notting Hill, doesn't it?

Buoyed by our experience with barges and locks, we hung around the one at Camden, waiting to watch people work them. We weren't going to laugh, honest. But no one sailed that way. I guess nobody wanted a bunch of tourists taking pictures of them being confused.

Only in Britain

* L and I are the only people speaking English in Camden.

* There's a hot water tap at one end of the sink and a cold water tap at the other. Which means that you either scald or freeze your hands when you wash them.

* You can get a pint and pay for it with loose change, without having to break into paper money. It's that cheap to drink.

* Doors would be "alarmed". Oh sorry, door, I didn't mean to startle you.

* Everywhere else, shoplifters would simply be prosecuted.


* Mr I Don't Feel the Cold, I Survived Canadian Winters So I Don't Need Woolies wears a cardigan (mine). However, he's still in the kitchen (of the barge) and still holding wine. So some things don't change. Especially the "eat and sleep" bits.

Half a century

We squeezed as many candles as we could on the cake but couldn't manage anywhere near the 50 required for the birthday boy.



As part of the slowing down process, the big five-oh was spent on a barge going at 4 mph down a Warwickshire canal.





Obligatory countryside pictures of sheep and cows follow.






Plus ducks, moorhens and swans. I also glimpsed a brown rabbit (or maybe it was a hare) by the water's edge. That was so cool, I've never ever seen a wild rabbit before. Swans can practically climb up a barge window for food.



Oh, and we managed a couple of locks without embarrassing ourselves. But that was only because we had tons of help and advice. The British are ever so polite.




Even during the very beginning of the trip when we had to make a sharp turn after sailing out of the marina. We made landfall very rapidly and must have startled two Brits sunning in deck chairs because we were going straight for them. They didn't say anything and personally, I think that they were sitting there to get a VIP view of inept boaters coming out of the marina. Another couple started video taping us. I'm sure we're going to show up on one of those Funniest Homevideos show on TV soon.

You know your holiday is off to a good start when you get upgraded to Business Class. It was very welcome after an eight-hour first leg in a seat designed for midgets (and whose big idea is it to stick the airplane equivalent of the interactive TV set-top box under seats? it means that you can't stretch your legs out in front of you) and a three-hour layover in an airport that's stuck in the 70s (ie, no Internet and no hot showers).



I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't already fatigued by the previous 10 hours. I actually fell asleep between the courses of the meal. Yes, courses. You ordered from a menu and are served course by course, on fine china, glassware, set on crisp, thick table linen.

But the cutlery was still plastic. I suppose just in case terrorists get upgraded too.


High tea took on a different meaning at 15,000 feet altitude.

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.