Advance booking

I thought I was so damn forward looking, buying a ticket for a concert in November. November! Six months away. I've never been that organised so far in advance, not even for things like vacations, where one has to book plane tickets and hotel rooms way ahead.

The ticket was for the Berliner Philharmoniker. Yes. *A* ticket. Just one. Could not afford two. L will have to stay home with the dogs that November night.

They went on sale over the weekend, and already, all the cheap seats were gone. Although cheap seat is a misnomer in this case. At $250 for the seats behind the stage, they weren't really that cheap. I had to buy a mid-range seat, and that was on the third level balcony, the level from which I couldn't hear Prospero. And that was $140. The distance this time round cost me $240. But I'm pretty sure that I'll hear something this time round.

Comparatively, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in a couple of weeks is a mere $53, and a Chopin recital the following week cost me just $28. Even if the former was under the auspices of the Singapore Arts Festival and the latter a CIMB sponsored annual piano festival, ticket pricing boggles me.

But then again, this is THE Berliner Philharmoniker.

Still, it isn't the Berlin Phil with Herbert von Karajan leading, but with Sir Simon Rattle. And that only kind of twists the knife for me. The last time I saw Simon Rattle, he wasn't a Sir, he was conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), which was the orchestra in residence at the University of Warwick Arts Centre. As a student, I spent some evenings working as a steward at the Arts Centre, not so much for the money (a few paltry pounds per evening) but for the free concerts and plays I got to watch as part of the job. That's why it's hard for me to imagine Rattle taking on von Karajan's god-like mantle, not when my lasting impression of him was reducing the old dears in the CBSO chorus to giggly fits. And not to mention that I saw him for free, and even got a few pounds at the end of the night in the bargain!

This weekend

... we stayed home.
And we also got b*ths. Phooey

Weekend

We might as well have camped out at Hong Lim Park over the weekend. On Saturday, we went to Pink Dot. It was a bigger turnout than last year, and it was really good to see that it wasn't just the usual LGBT crowd but a diverse gathering that included family groups, mums, dads and toddlers in strollers, and a wheelchair-bound little old lady dressed in pink. And quite a few dogs.

Our tshirts (L wore his from last year that says "Straight but not narrow", mine was "Jesus had two fathers") again got thumbs-up, compliments and several photo requests. And someone tied a pink balloon to Rupert, who was so very proud of it. And that made it easier for our friends to find us.


Some camera crew interviewed L and me. I don't even know where they were from. Bloody dumb questions like: did we have gay friends, and was it a problem when we found out they were gay. L's answer: "I was born straight. That should be a problem then, shouldn't it?"

And then the interviewer turned to me: "What sort of message are you sending out through your Tshirt?"
"That families are not necessarily papa bear, mama bear and baby bear. And that they're still happy, functional families."
"..."
I bet back at the farm, we're going to be edited out.



On Sunday, we were back again, this time for the annual candlelight Aids memorial. We were to have brought the dogs, Queeni is quite the veteran of several memorials but not the ones held in the last 2 to 3 years because they were in an indoors location where you couldn't take a dog. But since we're back to an outdoors location, well, her attendance was requested by a couple of the volunteers. Also, they haven't met Rupert, and I was quite keen to show him off. But since there were long drawn thunderstorms from the afternoon into the evening, we decided that the dogs should stay home.

Action for Aids president Roy Chan said in his opening address that we've come quite a long way since we started the annual memorial almost 20 years ago. Back in the 80s and 90s, he lost many friends to Aids. Just as I did. He then pointed out that since we're now into the third generation of anti-retroviral drugs, there really shouldn't be anyone dying from Aids in this day and age. Provided that there is access to medication, of course.

And then guest of honour MP Denise Phua promptly took us all back 20 years by saying in her address that she didn't know very much about Aids until she was invited to grace this event, and then proceeded to deliver a speech she termed as Aids 101, on what she learnt, and that -- glory be -- you couldn't get Aids from social contact, and hugging and kissing a person with Aids (PWA). And then went on to preach to the choir stalls.

I'll concede that at least this MP has the candour to admit that she didn't know anything, and went on to deliver a speech that reflected her ignorance. She was after all addressing a gathering of PWAs, friends and families of Aids patients who died, who are struggling still, and volunteers who work with PWAs everyday. If they weren't insulted, I was. L was livid, he was snorting "And this is our government!", much to the consternation of Ms Phua's group of grassroots leaders, who were seated on my left. Not once did Ms Phua say what she took away from what she learnt, and what she is going to do about it as an MP. No, it was all: keep up the good work, you volunteers. And not a peep on what the government is doing to help PWAs access affordable medication.

It has been 10 years since Paddy died, and the fight still goes on.

Giving voice

The first time I heard Susan Boyle, I didn't know who she was. A colleague sent me the link to the YouTube video of her appearance at Britain's Got Talent. This frumpy woman walked onstage to a dismissive sneer from Simon Cowell. And then she sang. And a thousand jaws had to picked off the floor, including Cowell's and mine. Not surprisingly, a group of us at the office followed the show on the Net (we don't get it on TV here), rooting for her at the final. She didn't win. But again, not surprisingly, we knew there'd be a CD out soon.

When I first heard Wild Horse on YouTube, I knew I would have to get the CD, just on the strength of that. And so I did. I knew she outsang Mick Jagger on that cover. What I didn't expect when I got the CD was that she'd also outsing Madonna and the Monkees on other covers.

The funny thing is that this CD, an album of ballads and covers, isn't the sort of music I usually listen to. There's no thumping backbeat, no snazzy bass hook. But damn good music is damn good music, and should be listened to.

Every dog has its day

Even a dog can stage a protest.

Getting ready

Some of us had so much fun at Pink Dot last year that we're napping in readiness for this year's event.

Giving voice

I went to Tempvs Fvgit yesterday. I've heard polyphonic sacred music before, but I've never seen it in a performance. What the group of six men did was to stand in a circle and sing. Which meant that each individual was singing in another person's face. It's sort of interactive, in the sense that you had to listen to your neighbour as well as yourself. And they had their arms draped over their neighbour's back or shoulders, so each person could literally feel the other breathing, and as they went on, you suddenly realised you weren't listening to six men singing but one organic entity with six voices. Lovely.

PS, this link might be better if you want a listen.

Portraits

Some things are still best done the old-fashioned way -- with an old-school Haselblad camera using black and white film.

Pictures with thanks to Thomas Tan.

Bwahahaha

When Iceland's economy died, its final wish was to have its ashes scattered all over Europe.
(attributed to a Facebook posting)

At the dog park

You want me to *run*?!


Queens do not run and chase frisbees. They have minions to do that for them.


It helps that the minion wants you to throw the frisbee till your arm drops off.


I know I've never met you before, and you're a spunky Jack Russell and all, but you need to know your place before the Queeni.

It's not my bed, really

We took down the ikat cloth that used to hang over the bed from the carved wooden hanger -- I call it a hanger because I don't know what else to call it, it's a carved Indonesian wooden piece you hang weaves from to display them. Now, a very McGyver combination of binder clips and S hooks are holding up two Ikea LED lamps from it. I'm not sure if you can technically call it a lamp, it's LED lights embedded in a cardboard covered with fabric. You're supposed to roll it up and stand it up on its end so you get a cylinder of starlight, but I thought they looked prettier hung flat like a canopy of stars above the bed. The starlight effect doesn't come out with the idiot-proof camera's automatic flash.

Oh, and Queeni is lying on her spot under the aircon draft. And to let you know, the bed is hers.

Real Madrid versus Barca

And we're not even talking football but potato chips. I can hardly wait for Liverpool versus Manchester United.

The joy of tax

It's surer than death. I received a letter from the IRAS dated April 3, outlining my provisional tax for the year of assessment 2010. The letter arrived on Saturday, so it took a full week to arrive -- which either shows how slow the post office is or that the IRAS did not pay for first-class next-day delivery.

April 3. A full 12 days ahead of the April 15 filing deadline, they are already telling me how much they expect to squeeze out of me. They are so out to get my money. Maybe they need it to pay for first-class postage.

Sweet nothings

No real reason for this post, other than a surfeit of peanut brittle, chocolate drops and sugar cookies makes a pretty picture.

Welcoming foreign talent

The senior minister, at a community event where he presided as the constituency's MP over the weekend, urged Singaporeans to make immigrants feel welcome.

Well, I don't need to make them feel unwelcome -- because his government has already done that. I didn't really pay attention to the business side of the Budget report in Parliament in Februrary. I knew they revamped the scheme for issuing employment passes to foreign workers -- it's now more expensive for an employer to get a new Employment Pass or to renew an existing Employment Pass for a foreign worker, and also the quota of Singapore workers to foreign workers have changed -- all supposed to gear employers towards hiring local.

I didn't think it would concern me. I was dead wrong. Now, the restaurants in Little India are reportedly affected. Restaurateurs are having problems in the kitchen, which is usually helmed by a cook from India. This goes the same for zi char stalls and Chinese restaurants with a chef from China. No cook, no authentic food, no business. So they've got to hang on to the cook. But they can't hire more Singaporeans to renew the foreign cook's Employment Pass because there's only so much wait staff you need. And if it costs more to retain the cook's pass, of course the cost gets passed on to the customer.

This much I know from one of our reporters -- that at least one restaurant lost seven chefs in a span of two months when they were unable to renew their Employment Passes. The boss was told to switch those Employment Passes to S Passes. And S Pass-holders are capped at a ceiling of 25 per cent of a business’s total workforce.

And on a more personal note, my dance master, who is from India, is also now facing employment pass problems. He is hired to teach at a yoga school, and not unsurprisingly, a good half of the yoga teachers are from India. That probably means half of them will have to go. And wasn't welcoming foreign talent the mantra only yesterday?

If music be the food of love, pay on

I just bought four concert tickets -- for Tempvs Fvgit (just one ticket, going alone because they do sacred music and L thinks that it'll be too churchy for him), T'ang Quartet (going alone again because L thinks that they're just a bunch of Nigel Kennedys, ie nothing more than spunky haircuts) and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (finally, a group that L agrees with me in that they're brilliant) -- and altogether, they cost me less than *one* cheap-seat ticket to Sam Mendes' The Tempest. From where Prospero could not be heard, I again add.

Tempest in the theatre

I enjoyed The Bridge Project's production of The Tempest even though it wasn't exactly my favourite Shakespeare play and even though Prospero could scarcely be heard from the cheap seats -- the second level circle where I was. Not that the $140 ticket was exactly cheap by my standards. If I didn't know the play and didn't know that the final scene had him asking the audience to release him with their applause, I wouldn't have clapped and he'd still be there now.

Preparing for a visitor

Last week, a banner went up at the bottom of our block of flats, saying that the residents warmly welcome the constituency's MP. That's a bit presumptuous, it assumes everybody in the block is eager to shake his hand. I haven't decided whether I want to meet him -- and tarik the hell out of him -- or put a rebel flag up on my door.

Then yesterday, there was a flyer in the mailbox, reminding of the time of his visit (this Sunday) and stating the purpose of his visit:
1) To get to know you.
2) To listen to your suggestions/problems, etc

Well then, this changes things slightly. If my MP wants to get to know me, then heck, I should let him get to know me. I have no problems for him to solve, I don't need help to find a job, don't care if I have a covered walkway all the way to the bus stop and train station. But I would like to know if we're selling arms to Burma.

Bah, humbug

I didn't join in Earth Hour, didn't turn off my non-essesntial lights for an hour between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on March 27. Partly because all the non-essential lights and non-essential anything were already off anyway. This household practices Earth Year all round, and not just lip service for an hour once a year.

And why should I sit for an hour in the dark when the people who could have really done something about climate change sat around and did absolutely nothing in Copenhagen?

Playdog

Styling by L; I disclaim all liability.

Dogbert would make me feel better

The designer/layout artist assigned to work with me on a magazine project hasn't got InDesign loaded on her Mac. So we requisitioned it.

Then her Mac's memory wasn't enough for the program. So we asked for an upgrade.

But an upgrade to the OS would mean that it would be incompatible with another programme.

Bangs head.

Help me, I'm caught in a Dilbert warp.

As sure as there are fishes in the ocean

The fine print on the label of this bottle of cider (and isn't Pipsqeak such a cute name?) is: "Contains/produced with fish products"

So somebody please tell me where's the fish in apple juice?

Ageing workforce

I know the government keeps harping on remaining in employment well beyond retirement age, contributing to the economy even in one's golden years and all that stuff.

But it's a helluva kick to my stomach when the cleaner clearing up after me in the food court is a bent-over grandma. When you go to the food court down the road from your house at an average of twice a week, the cleaners become familiar faces, and you start nodding at Aunty and Uncle, and try not to leave too much of a mess for them to clean. This particular grandma is a sprightly old thing, and I've seen her and the other aunties delightedly share the bounty of a plate of unsold food that a stallholder gave them. So yeah, they have a good time at work but really, I would challenge any minister who wags on about re-employment for the elderly to eat in a foodcourt and have someone older than his mother pick up his plate. It doesn't do much for the digestion.

Marmite on toast

Remember the Virgin Mary toast?

Well now, there's Jesus on the Marmite.

Good and bad gnus

The good bit is that the dog whom we once seriously considered to have a case of mental arrested development seems to be showing signs of cognition -- he saw at the window another dog passing outside, and he wanted to get at this dog (in a friendly way), so he ran to the door. In other words, he has finally worked out the difference between outside and inside (which he didn't use to, judging from his toilet habits) and also connected that the door was what took you outside.

The bad bit is that he slammed against the closed door. Twice. Two thumps. And whined. He hasn't yet realised that it's only an *open* door that can take you outside.

The face in the window

A goods van drove past Rupert and I when we were out for our walk, and turned into the multi-storey carpark. Being only knee-high, Roop missed the sight of a grey furry face riding shotgun beside the driver, a face whose ears picked up when it caught sight of Roop, a head that tilted as it looked questioningly at Roop. Yay, yet another Schnauzer in the neighbourhood.

What happened to holding up half the sky?

International Woman's Day (yesterday) was not a good time to read The Economist -- the cover story really made me sit up. It wasn't so much the topic -- gendercide -- or even the fact that China and India had abnormally high male sex ratios at birth. It was the fact that Singapore was also among the Asian (read paternalistic) countries with a skewed male sex ratio that was above the natural rate. At no point did it even imply that Singaporeans kill unwanted baby girls, it merely pointed out that distorted sex ratios are not confined to the poor, uneducated, illiterate agrarian societies because distorted sex ratios also exist in affluent societies such as Singapore. Now I'm stunned. Is there something happening in my backyard that I'm not aware of?

There's a reason why they're called killer whales

It's a horrible tragedy, the SeaWorld orca that drowned its trainer. Somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of orcas as hefty sentient beings with minds of their own and need to be respected in their own right. Which is why I feel weird visiting marine parks and didn't want to swim with dolphins in Hawaii. It must be a form of Disneyfication -- to think that dolphins are friendly, because they have smiley upturned jawlines; and sharks are nasty, because they have rows of sharp teeth.

I live with two dogs and I don't forget that they are really two wolves in my parlour -- even if they look so cute when snoring across the sofa that they're instantly forgiven. Which is why I disagree with L when he picks up and cuddles the one that looks like a teddy bear whenever the cuteness factor so impels him. If any pet owner hasn't been biten or scratched, it is because their dogs and cats have shown great restrain. Even a chihuahua is capable of taking off a finger, if it really wanted to. Maybe they should, everytime they're stuffed into a handbag. Teach us some respect.


Rupert's the sweetest natured dog I've ever had, but those teeth can do a lot of damage -- if it occurred to him.

Tax dollars at work

A friend of mine (who should be unnamed for his/her protection) recently became a librarian at a public library. Which means that I'm technically paying his/her salary since he/she is now a public servant.

Well, I just found out that public servants who work at libraries get reimbursed for a tailored jacket every year. They also receive a S$100 shoe allowance every year because they must wear "covered shoes".

I pointed out that the shoes which I wear to work -- Converse sneakers -- are also covered shoes but apparently they are not considered to be the same class.

Stepping out of line

There was a long queue for the two counters at the post office when I got in. You joined that one queue to be served at either counter when you reached the top of the queue. But the post office had a new policy -- if you were only buying postage stamps, you could cut the queue and go up to the one counter that was dedicated to that. Presumably, it took less time to serve a customer who was only buying stamps than someone who was paying bills (which must be the post office's main transaction these days -- who buys stamps any more let alone send snail mail?)

But the guy at the top of the queue who should have been served next didn't realise that, and asked the fellow who jumped queue to join the end of the line. The counter staff politely explained that he could cut the queue as he was only buying stamps, and it wouldn't take a minute to serve him. So Top Guy gave up, went back to the top of the queue and waited.

Which I suppose was very bad timing for me to pipe up from at the end of the queue to the staff: "I'm buying stamps AND paying for a bill -- so where do I queue?"

So they waved me to jump queue since I fulfilled the buying stamps requirement. Which meant that Top Guy got eclipsed by two people already. But he had the good humour to sigh and say maybe they should create a new queue policy just for people like me.

I knew it, I'm special.

Heart & soul

I recently caught an interesting programme on the Chinese language TV station, a locally produced series called Hometown Flavours. Every week, it features a local television actor or actress, and explores a home-cooked dish particular to that person's dialect group. It looks at how it is cooked in Singapore with maybe a short sequence shot at a hawker stall or restaurant that sellls the dish, then cuts to China where the actor tastes it in a local restaurant and talks about the difference. Then he is sent to the market to get the ingredients and must cook the dish with a local family.

In the episode I watched was a scene where a Hakka actress is in a China market getting ingredients for lei cha (literally, thunder tea -- it is herbs, peanuts and sesame seeds ground into a paste which is turned into a "tea" with hot water. That is poured over a bowl of cooked rice topped with spoonfuls of different diced vegetables, peanuts and beans. You stir it up into a sort porridge of leftovers, that's what it essentially is.) Anyway, at the China market, the actress was peppering the stallholder with questions of what sort of vegetables to buy and how much to get. From off camera, you could hear the stallholder's wife scolding him. So the actress went over to Mrs Boss and tried to engage her conversation, and Mrs Boss just snapped back: "Why should I waste my time talking to you even if you are filming? You just talk and you don't buy anything."

And this is why I don't buy Chinese. No customer relations and no PR, and absolutely no heart, whether it is a market stall or a milk powder producer or pet food manufacturer, it's always just the cold hardnosed bottom line.

Fleeting moment of fame

... here, at about 2 minutes into the video. Closest I'll ever get to a Pulitzer. :)

A visitor

... and over Chinese New Year too. This praying mantis on the outside ledge of the living room floor-length window had the dogs in a tizzy -- directly at nose height but on the other side of the glass. So near and yet so far.

Festive abundance

This display of Chinese New Year goodies is for the benefit of overseas Singaporean friends who need a pineapple tart fix. [evil grin]. (The bak kwa isn't in this picture because it's in a tupperware in the kitchen. So consider yourself spared. [even bigger grin]) You can take a foodie out of Singapore, but you can't take Singapore out of a foodie.

Actually, I hardly ever buy so much CNY goodies because I have few visitors and don't want to be the one taking on all the calories by myself. But this year, I had a bumper harvest, primarily because my mother's neighbour set up a home-baking business, invited her to be quality control and mum outsourced the job to me. Talk about the benefits of job sharing.

We also had an excess of mandarin oranges because our Malay neighbours presented us with a some. And since they didn't have hongbao, they did the next best thing -- possibly an even better thing -- they gave us a flat box of chocolates that came in a red wrapper.

Gongxi facai. Wishing everyone an uproariously happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger.

All dressed up

... and somewhere to go. Chinese New Year visiting, to the grandparents. And yes, they got hongbaos.

We'z gotta look sharp. We can't let a big cat get all the attention just because it's the Year of the Tiger.

Tissue alert

The premise is simple: your dog is the best dog in the world, despite little foibles like eating your furniture; he grows old; you know his time is up; and when you say goodbye, it breaks your heart and you write a tribute to him.

It's a tried and tested dog book formula. And it works. Some work better than others when they become movies and you can cast Jennifer Aniston as the wife.

Some of those books should come with a warning label. It doesn't mean a bad label though. Just that it's so good, so evocative that it will make you cry.

Which meant that riding the bus to work was the worst possible place to read Life with Beau. It took me less than half an hour to read the slim 82-page volume. And a whole lot longer to pull myself together. But oh, how much emotion was packed into that thin book. Marley -- as much as I loved it -- aint got nothing on this.

My first spelling mistake

Maybe the folks behind this pre-school group was going for cutesy little tyke sort of spelling. But you'd think that parents looking for their kid's first school would want to pick an institution that can spell school in the first place.

You know how teachers have been blaming students' lack of ability to spell nowadays on texting and instant chat. Well, it started way before that. Dun blame e fone, e teech in skool st8ted it 1st.

Second look

I didn't take a second look at the new Adam Lambert CD. I thought it was Rihanna. Don't they look the same to you? It's that "my head hurts" pose.

Nice work

I've had a few days off -- time that I had wanted to take off over Christmas week but had to delay till January, thanks to a printer who didn't differentiate between five days and five working days of lead time, forcing us to rework schedules and deadlines.

I spent my time off vegetating on the sofa, watching TV. I don't think I've watched daytime TV in years -- reruns, talk shows, game shows, old episodes of reality shows (turns out that you never do remember who wins Survivor and can happily watch it all over again). It was like audio-visual junk food -- zero calorific value but you just can't stop.

Has anybody wondered why Vanna White hasn't been downsized from Wheel of Fortune? It's not even like she has to turn letters any more, now that everything's gone electronic.

Moving on

Geographically, in terms of reading, that is, from Afghanistan to Turkey. Went for another round of Khaled Hosseini (almost half glad he's only written two books so far) and then went on to Orhan Pamuk. You'd think that a Nobel prize winning author with a barrelful of books would occupy more shelf space at the library but no, there were only two Pamuk books available -- I took the one entitled Snow if only because of snow-bound friends in US and Britain -- and six copies, yes, six of Husseni's first novel.

Maybe the Nobel prize for literature is like American Idol and Britain's Got Talent. Winning isn't necessary for success. Just ask Adam Lambert and Susan Boyle.

Christmas revelry

The angel with the halo was held down to have this picture taken. Just so you know that sometimes, things are not as they seem, not even with halos. Queeni froze the minute the halo was put on, and refused to co-operate. Rupert, on the other paw, acted like he didn't realise there was something on his head. Eventually, he even fell asleep on the couch with the antlers still on.

L is wearing beer-tinted glasses -- a matching present for Rupert's bottle of beer. We figure that since he is 3 -- making him 21 in human years -- it's about time he had a drink. That was one present I couldn't resist, I love how it looks exactly like a bottle of Heineken, down to the label and the red star on the bottle cap. And it's called Houneken, how cute is that?

Christmas reading

I really don't know what made me pick this up at the library other than the thought that it would be supplementary reading for the usual passages from Isaiah and the Gospels over Christmastime.

Read any good books lately?

I finally got round to reading Khaleed Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Hosseini spins a good story and there's enough twists and turns to keep you turning the pages. But then again, so does Dan Brown. I think the only reason why this book, and his subsequent book, has captivated so readers the world over is probably because of a renewed interest in Afghanistan. And Obama's recent surge will only keep Afghanistan in the world theatre for a little while longer.

It's kinda like not too long ago when every Chinese woman who made it out of China and was living in the West churned out a spate of literature, fiction and non-fiction, set during the Cultural Revolution. There's a fine line between starting a genre and overkill and that red tide somehow was on the excessive side of the line.

So I don't really know, maybe the novel setting du jour has moved from Cultural Revolution China to Taliban Afghanistan. But there's always a story in there somewhere.

Time flies

When we first moved here, we were -- like many of our neighbours -- newly married and settling into our first home. It was only when the neighbour upstairs invited us for his second child's first month celebration that we realised it's been quite a while. Not that long ago, he had invited us for his firstborn's first month. Do years past by so quickly?

We watched the mak cik's daughter next door get married, move out and now mak cik's a grandma. We watched the young couple across the landing come home from hospital with their first baby. We watched the kid take his first steps and now he's running around driving his parents stir crazy. Soon, we'll be watching him go to school.

New world order

First off, a disclaimer. I don't watch beauty pageants on TV, nor want to have anything to do with them. But Saturday night TV programming gave me no choice -- it was either Miss World or the SEA Games. It was truly between a rock and a hard place.

One thing interesting came out of the Miss World pageant though -- the talent segment was quite a mixed bag. Miss Canada was an ethnic Chinese who performed a soprano aria; Miss Korea was a classical ballerina; Miss Australia was a white woman who did a Bollywood fusion dance; and the most amazing of all was Miss Sierra Leone, who perfected the traditional Chinese opera art of "face changing". Now that's globalisation for you.

Boy bands

There are some music groups that I follow loyally to the extent that I'll buy their new albums unquestioningly, even if I haven't heard the new songs yet, because I know they'll deliver.

That's why I picked up the new Bon Jovi when I went past the record shop. Then I noticed that The Priests also have a new album out so I grabbed it as well. I never thought that I'd be groupie-ing after a trio of priests.

I was rather amused that they had abandoned the sober, classical approach of their first album for a rock-star pose in the cover of their sophomore album. I was even more amused to find that the last track of the album was You'll Never Walk Alone. Maybe they're secret Liverpool FC fans. Although they did take pains to point out in the liner notes that it didn't originate as a football song but a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical.

What I get up to

A meme, courtesy of The Dahn Report

Things you have done during your lifetime:
( ) Gone fishing in the snow
( ) Saw Elvis in Vegas -- saw a lot of things there but Elvis wasn't in the building!
(X) Lived on a barge
( ) Danced on TV
( ) Performed at Disneyland
( ) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school -- who hasn't?
( ) Gone snow-shoeing
(X) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Europe
( ) Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida
(X) Gone White-water rafting
(X) Gone Kyaking
( ) Been to Texas
( ) Been to Pennsylvannia
(X) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
( ) Been lost
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain-naked -- I danced in the rain but not naked!
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Been bowling
(X) Sailed a boat
(X) Played tennis
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
( ) Drove a dune buggy
(X) Gone roller skating -- fell more than I skate though
(X) Gone to the movies
(X) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
(X) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser in person
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty in person
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(X) Been on a cruise
(X) Travelled by train
(X) Travelled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco Cable Car
(X) Been to Disneyland/ Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of positive thinking
(X) Been in a rain forest
(X) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
(X) Ridden on an elephant
(X) Ridden on a Camel
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been snowboading
(X) Been to Westminster Abbey
(X) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to the Great Pyramid in Egypt
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League game
( ) Been to Jamaica
( ) climbed a waterfall
(X) Climbed the Eiffel Tower -- I didn't climb, I took the lift

Wild life

Spotted a monkey in the grassy area next to the playground in the flats across from the office.

And I thought the only monkey business in Toa Payoh North took place within the office building.

The business of war

It's interesting that after checking out The Science of War from the library, which is an academic's take on the business of the US armed forces, accompanied by copious statistics down to divorce and suicide rates in the military as compared to civilians (not much difference), I go down to the train station and am confronted by Navy recruitment ads.



It's all glamour, no divorce and suicide rates here, not even a mention of death as a possible job hazard despite some rather challenging missions packed into a day. Don't military personnel in countries that are not at war ever consider that between "launch torpedos" and "prepare to surface", a thousand things could prevent you from surfacing, say a couple of mines or depth charges; and that "dinner under the stars" sometimes means being shot at?

I'm getting the picture that this country is defended by boy scouts who get to go home to mummy every night.

It takes a woman

This is the Christmas tableau at the suburban mall down the road from where I live, the Christmassy scene where parents stand their kids against for a photo. It's the Singapore equivalent of having your kid sit on Santa's lap and getting a pix. I have no idea who this lady is, I don't think she's Mrs Claus since Santa is conspicuously absent. I think she's the Fairy Godmother.

I think I could warm up to this little old lady. This Fairy Godmother isn't all about ball gowns; instead, she's all about books. She's obviously a reader, with a shelf full of books behind her, and more on the floor. Not a single toy in sight. I think she's better for the kids than Santa.

Ready for Christmas

Christmas last year came right after the 100-day mourning period following my father-in-law's sudden passing so the festive season was rather muted -- I put up the dogs' stockings but not the Christmas tree and didn't have a wreath on the door.

This year, all the works are up -- and before Thanksgiving and Hari Raya Haji even. I think what's making things really Christmassy isn't so much the tree and the fairy lights but the dog wearing antlers.

Not all subs are evil

Boo hoo, Neil Gaiman hates subs. From his blog: When I was a journalist, one of the things that stopped me wanting to spend the rest of my life journalisting was sub-editors who made me feel embarrassed by carefully introducing mistakes or slight distortions into things I'd written, or into headlines.

Thank god he liked my Tshirt first.

Things that make me smile, #2,311

Being able to remember the choreography in dance class, and then being able to keep up with the teacher when everyone gave up and stopped following, matching him move for move until we're the last two left standing, err dancing.

It is so nice not to be the class duffer for once

It's not what it seems

A copy of Mein Kampf tossed carelessly onto a taxi dashboard. Like it's telling you that the cabby isn't driving a taxi because he got laid off from his job but he's some PhD candidate or something.

Was he reading it, I asked the cabby as I paid the fare at the end of the ride.

Yes, he said, a little self-consciously. Why, did I find it surprising, he asked.
Well, it's not light reading, I answered. The cabby's reply was that he wanted to know why Hitler did what he did. He's a asshole, said L (Hitler, not the cabby), you don't need a few thousand pages to tell you that.

Guess some people like to find things out the long, hard way.

Things that make me smile, #2,310

The aunty seated next to me on the aisle seat of the bus, when I had to interrupt her close reading of a prayer book so that I could get past her and off the bus, told me to have a nice day at work.

Things that make me smile, #2,309

Watching through a bus window a woman walking two fluffy white dogs. The Westie-looking one was straining at its leash, trying to get at a flock of pigeons that were taunting it.

Poop patrol

I've spent enough dollars at the pet shop so they gave me a free gift with purchase -- a little plastic cylinder that holds a roll of plastic poop bags, along with several refills of poop bags. I guess it's the pet shop's version of corporate responsibility -- all that dog food they sold has to come out the other end.

I think I should put it round Roop's neck and send him round to all the irritating dog walkers who never pick up. Look at this charmer, isn't his earnest face more personable and effective than a sign that merely warns you of a fine if you litter?

Inside Rupert's Brain

Although Rupert is quite possibly the sweetest dog I've ever had, he is also a Dog of Very Little Brain. So that's why I giggled when I saw on the library shelf a book entitled Inside Rupert's Brain. It also helped that it was a very small book.



When I pulled it out of the shelf and saw the cover, it had a picture of Murdoch's face on it. It was about that Rupert. And the moment was lost.

Neil Gaiman likes my Tshirt

He said so as he looked up while signing my battered, yellowed copy of Good Omens. I had given up finding an ankh pendant so I used a fabric crayon and drew an ankh onto a black tee. Incidentally, earlier, the cute guy in front of me in the queue to get in also liked my Tshirt. Then his girlfriend showed up and that was the end of the conversation.

I asked Mr Gaiman if it wasn't too much cheek signing a book of which he only wrote half. I had brought a whole bag full of everything Gaiman that I own but we were allowed to offer only one book per person for Mr Gaiman's autograph. So I chose Good Omens, it was the first Gaiman I ever read, the first time I ever knew he existed. Mr Gaiman owes Mr Prachett a great deal. I didn't get into the Sandman until much later -- I had missed out on comics in my childhood because my mother wouldn't let me read them, she thought I should read "real" books rather than stuff where the text comes out of mouths in balloons. I wonder what Mr Gaiman would say to her.

Anyway, Mr Gaiman's response was that he was proud of his half of Good Omens, and who knows, maybe Terry Prachett wouldn't have come up with such a great book if he, Neil Gaiman, didn't write half of it.

L chose Anansi Boys to be signed, and he wanted the dedication to be for: "Queeni, Adeline". "Queeni??" Mr Gaiman looked up. "My daughter," answered L, but never explaining that the daughter in question wasn't human.

We had queued for an hour, maybe an hour and a half for the signing. L said sniffily that he didn't do this even for Elton John. The truth was that it was pelting down so we couldn't leave anyway. After the signing, we ran across to a nearby restaurant. After some wine and before the food arrived, the rain lessened, and L wondered if he should go back to the Gaiman signing queue. It should have petered out by now and what's there to stop you from joining the queue again, with another book?

A bouncer, that's what. Mr Gaiman's minders put the guy at the end of the queue so they knew that was the end of the queue. But L pleaded, it's our anniversary and he wanted Gaiman to sign his wife's Sandman omnibus collection as a present.

And whaddaya know, bouncers have heart and L was waved through. Mr Gaiman looked up at him and remembered: "Ah, Queeni, Adeline?" And that was the point at which L became a Gaiman groupie. The Man remembered.

My copy of Coraline was left unsigned in the bag but what Mr Gaiman did was to draw two button eyes on an illustration of The Doll's House -- kinda like killing two birds with one stone.

So now I'm not the only Neil Gaiman groupie in the house. And the next time Mr Gaiman returns, It's L who will will suffer ankh angst for a Sandman costume.

Ankh angst

It was pointed out to me that the confluence of obtaining tickets to a Neil Gaiman event on Halloween evening is a sign from the Endless Ones that I should go in costume as a Gaiman character. Death from his Sandman series was the glaringly obvious choice -- short of the kohl and ankh pendant, I already had most of the get-up.

It shouldn't be that hard to find an ankh, I thought, as I set off to hit all the trendy streetwear shops downtown. I even tried two suburban malls. I was, err, deadly wrong. I found enough skulls to fill the killing fields, enough crosses to ward off a whole other world of vampires. But no ankhs. I also found out that the trendy 'in' pendant now also looks just like my front door padlock, complete with a key -- if I'd only slung that round my neck instead of using it to lock my door, I'd actually be very hip. I also found that Ican be very 'in' if I wore L's car key around my neck.

I just can't find an ankh outside of Egypt. My next choice is dress as Delirium. Also easy enough -- spray colour my hair orange and purple, and mess it up. But then it was pointed out to me that people would just think I'm going as myself on a bad hair day.

I think I'll just use fabric paint to draw an ankh on my black top. Otherwise, ankhless, people will just think I'm going as Neil Gaiman.

The elephant in the room

I don't know how some of my colleagues do it -- cover a ministerial conference and file on the creation of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and its mission to promote and protect human rights in Asean. All done with a perfectly straight face while behaving oneself in a roomful of ministers as Burma shuffles her feet in the corner of the room.

Wave motion

... because that's how Fortune rocks you.

First off, the disclaimer is that I work in a place with people whom PR professionals feel the need to make nice to, thus resulting sometimes in free donuts, free concert tickets and travel junkets.

And that's when Fortune starts you on an up and down cycle.

Neil Gaiman appears at the Singapore Writers Festival the coming weekend. Tickets to the event are free. But it's the same collocation of if you need to know how much something costs, you can't afford it: If you need to know where and how to get hold of those free tickets, there won't be any left to get.
Score: -1.

Someone posts on the e-bulletin board at work, hoping for Gaiman tickets. Maybe someone had returns, she hoped. I add my name to the wishlist. If someone can get lucky there, I could try and get lucky too.
Score: Hope springs eternal.

My company is one of the sponsors of the festival. So we received some complimentary tickets. To be divided among 3,000 staff across the group. Of which 2,999 are probably Gaiman fans, 2,990 the rabid variety, especially the graphic artists in various artrooms in the building. Fastest fingers to email corporate communications win.
Score: Improving.

I was off for two days. And came back to find that I've scored tickets to Who Killed Amanda Palmer. There're only single tickets to the Gaiman talk on fantasy novels. But that's OK. Who Killed Amanda Palmer was the event I really wanted, and I could give up my place on the wait list for the other events.
Score: Yay!

I also came back to find an email saying that there're free tickets for the New York Philharmonic. On the night that I was offf. So I could have gone, something I couldn't possibly do on a worknight. The email came on the day that I was off. So I didn't see the email. Missed NY Phil on their Beethoven night. That I was informed that they did the Egmont Overture as an encore didn't help.
Score: Fortune gives with the right hand but raps your knuckles sharply with the left.

My supervisor messages that there's a press trip to Krabi. It's smallish, very exclusive, guests are being flown there by private jet. Over the weekend of the Gaiman events. Do I put myself in the draw for the trip? I felt guilty about not using the tickets that was given to me.
Score: swinging. Fortune is really effing with me today.

Husband practically berates me over the phone. Put your name in the Krabi ballot, he thundered. Neil Gaiman will always write another book. You'll never have the chance to fly to Krabi on a private jet for a spa and sea sports weekend.
Score: still guilty but hopeful. If Fortune had smiled on me for the Gaiman tickets, maybe she'd be even nicer with Krabi.

Only three people are in the ballot for Krabi. That's a one in three chance.
Score: on the upswing

I did not pick the short straw.
Score: I still have Neil Gaiman.

One born every minute

The other evening, I was walking through the HDB estate across from my office when all the stray cats hanging about there came running up to me, meowing expectantly. Clearly, there's a cat feeder who goes there regularly and they must have mistook me for her.

I would have thought that the smell of two dogs on me would have driven off any stray, street-smart cats, I told my colleagues.

It's the SPCA T-shirt I was wearing, one said. "Cats can read," she laughed.

Nah, I have "sucker animal lover" in neon on my forehead that only strays can read, laughed another colleague.

Sigh. That welcome sign that's only visible to animals, mentioned by my mother in the previous post, has now somehow plastered itself to my forehead.

So what was one to do but to go to the provision shop at the end of the street for cans of Whiskas.

I challenge you to say no to a hungry animal that's looking expectantly at you. It's much harder than winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

That or there's one born every minute.

Finding the lost

This is Rupert jumping up at Jacky, a black mix of terrier and indeterminate something else, who lives in the next block, when he and he and his human dropped in for a visit.

We meet quite regularly on our respective walks downstairs, where Jacky sometimes gets let off leash -- he only runs speedy circles round his human, never away from her. A couple of days ago, we heard her shouting, looked out the window and saw him dashing off with his human in pursuit, and thought uh oh, he's made a break for it.

Only to hear scratching at our front door. Jacky made a break only to run up two flights of stairs up to our flat. He'd clearly remembered the way from that one previous visit.

My mother thinks that the flashing neon sign, the one that says "lost animals welcome" -- visible only to animals such as the lost collarless boxer that showed up at her driveway, the terrapin that somehow crawled up an adjourning six-foot monsoon drain into her garden, and the stray cat that crawled under my dad's car to breathe its last -- has now somehow moved from her house to my flat.

Yes, he can

When I got into work on Friday, a colleague who was monitoring the wires looked up from her computer and informed me -- with a somewhat taken aback expression -- that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm ashamed to say that my first reaction was: "For doing what?"

It's not that I'm not an Obama fan. I am. It shouldn't matter to someone on the opposite side of the globe who the US president is since we have no say about the matter. But yes, I was happy that he was elected. And was one of the interested millions watching his inauguration on satellite TV.

But I really don't know what he's done so far to win the Nobel Peace Prize, especially as nominations reportedly closed on Feb 1, and there really wasn't much time for him to do anything by that date. An opinion piece in The Guardian newspaper in the UK remarked that he probably won it solely on the basis of not being Bush. Well, that I can live with.

It didn't help that the current issue of The Economist that I just got in the mail on the same day has a feature on Obama's mounting woes, with the week's political cartoon showing him struggling with an unwieldy Afghanistan, and after he had managed that, only to be confronted by a weighty Pakistan.

Other Nobel laureates worked long and hard before they were honoured: Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, last year's winner Mohammad Yunnus. Even Jimmy Carter got his some 20 years after leaving the White House and Al Gore had to share his with a whole bunch of other people.

That Obama got his on the hopes of what he can achieve rather than what he has already done can only make us wonder what else he might win once he's been in the White House to actually achieve mighty things.

Oh, and my next reaction on the news: Has anybody got a soundbite reaction out of Bush yet? Nyah, nyah, nyah.

Nyah nyah nyah

It's bad enough that the episodes of the Ellen Degeneres talkshow that are being broadcast on the free-to-air station here is six months behind the US screening.

It's even worse that they are shown at 3am. (I catch them because I happen to watch TV at that time of the night after coming home from night shift.)

But it is unforgivable when a whole episode goes missing.

I was watching the show last week when I saw on the little crawler that flashes the next day's guest: Portia Di Rossi. Who also happens to be Ellen's spouse. Now that would be a nice episode to watch, I thought.

The episode never materialised. Play It Safe Broadcast Corporation didn't just apply their usual (insert sarcasm here) light censorship hand, they took an axe to the whole episode.

To say that I was piffed off was an understatement.

But then, I figured there was no point getting angry, writing in or complaining. Play It Safe Broadcast Corporation would only say that they had to follow the Media Development Authority's broadcast guidelines on undesirable content or risk paying a fine.

They probably thought they got away with fooling an audience of maybe 5 people at 3am. Maybe they thought that we didn't notice the crawler. Or that we blinked and missed Portia's guest spot. Or maybe they thought we're stupid.

We're not. We know what you did. And we know how to YouTube. And there it was. Two people glowing with happiness when they talked about their wedding day because they could share their life together. A gay couple who outshone a straight couple when they played The Newlywed Game, the game that tests how well you know your partner.

What's more morally reprehensible or more of a threat to the insitution of marriage: a gay talkshow host who proudly introduces her wife on the show, or a straight talkshow host who recently confessed to having sex with his staff when he was in the middle of a long-term relationship with his partner?

Suck it up, Prop 8 and Section 377a. And suck it up, Play It Safe Broadcast Corporation.

Mathematically speaking

This isn't my usual reading material. I only picked up Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry because the Keats in the title intrigued me. And the blurb seemed kind of interesting -- the exploration of symmetry as a mathematical concept. Symmetry has always been key in music, art, dance -- forms that I'm familiar with -- but apparently, symmetry is also the central idea in the theory of relativity, quantum physics and string theory.

I'm no mathematician. I took Maths at AO Level in junior college and failed my first year exams with the astounding grade of 3% (at least one mark was awarded out of pity than for getting an answer correct). The Maths Head of Department hauled me up and sorrowfully pointed out that it was the lowest Maths exam score ever in the history of National Junior College. You need to understand that NJC proudly produced a President's Scholar every year. Up in the assembly hall was a plaque with the names of the scholars, one, sometimes two, a year, every year, in the history of NJC. That year, the year was already inscribed, it was only waiting for a name to go alongside it. I'm sure my record-setting math exam score had nothing to do with it, but my cohort was the only batch that failed to produce a President's Scholar. There was no name to go next to that year. How our principal must have been humiliated.

Anyway, I digress. But not far enough to emphasize that maths is just not my kinda thing. But I'm beginning to realise that it can be an interesting subject and not the dreary quadratic equations I was forced to solve. This month's National Geographic had a really eye-opening article on how origami is more than folding paper cranes, and is a mathematical puzzle involving an algorithm for folding a piece of paper into a three-dimensional object. And it was origami that helped engineers figure out how to fold an airbag into a car dashboard, how to unfold a telescope in space, and extend a heart stent implanted in an artery. Gosh, I should have paid more attention in math class.

Still, the book was hard going in places where mathematical formula were involved. Those were the bits I skipped. But still, it was amazing. For instance, I realised that in calculating frisbee trajectory, my dog was actually working out calculus -- the quickest route between two points. My stars, Rupert, that dumbo who still can't get it right where not to pee, is a mathematical genius.

Community reading

I picked this up at the library, it's one of those fluffy books you know you'll enjoy without much effort. What made it really enjoyable was a post-it note stuck to the index page which listed in short the 100 reasons why dogs make you happy. The post-it note added two more reasons. How thoughtful of that reader. Now I feel like I have to keep this chain going and add reasons of my own. It shouldn't be too difficult. I have expert help at my ankles.

God goes high tech

In a previous life, I used to work in a publishing company that also had a tele-marketing department. That was really just two kids sitting down with a phone directory and methodically calling every phone number listed in it.

Now, tele-marketeers have computers to do the dialling for them. Some even have recorded messages to do the hard-selling.

What I didn't expect was for God to do the same. L picked up the phone today and was somewhat startled to hear a recorded message informing him that Jesus loves him, and that if he wanted to know more, he could call a certain number. Thank goodness he didn't. It could be a long-distance call scam, and god knows how much it'll cost to call Heaven.

It's not happy. Period.

There's a feminine product here that has followed its American cousin in using a new advertising tagline: "Have a happy period."

It could only have been dreamt up by a male advertising guy. Because if he were to bleed from his penis for a week, he'd understand that there's nothing happy about periods. You cramp, you bloat and you bloody *bleed*. I bloat so bad even my fingers swell and I can't wear anything that requires doing up buttons or a zip at the back because the bunch of bananas that my hands have become can't manage them. Not a happy camper at all.

Never trifle with a menstruating woman. She can bleed for a week and still not die.

Getting into a good book

Was cruising the library shelves under C for Artemis Fowl books (Eoin Colfer) but he wasn't on the shelf so I ended up with JM Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year. And it turned out to be the most amazingly structured book I've ever read, possibly outshining Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

You've got an author writing a serious essay, who gets the pretty girl upstairs to type it for him, and her boyfriend's suspicion over her new pastime. Three narratives going on concurrently, down the page. I don't know whether to read down the page and jump from one narrative to another or to read one narrative straight through to the end and then go back to the beginning of the book for another.

I am going to have so much pleasure reading this book, and I know I'll read it more than once, and in different ways.

Dumbing down

One of the things I got to do with four days at home was to watchTV, which included a lot of quiz shows. Does anyone remember Magnus Magnusson in Mastermind? Now, that was a real quiz show. I can't remember how much it paid out, but the point wasn't really winning money but the laurel wreath of being really, really smart.

As opposed to the winners in Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader now on TV. You could win a million dollars by knowing the answers to the stuff you were *supposed to know* when you were 10 years old. It must be why we've gotten collectively stupider over the years, when you could win a million bucks for knowing what the measurement oz stands for instead of boning up to be quizzed on say, sexual politics and power play in Shakespeare's tragedies. Or string theory. Or the periodic table. What's the point of being learning so much nowadays when popular TV has taught you that it doesn't really pay?

No place like home

I had worked enough public holidays and Sundays to accumulate enough off days for a long four-day weekend. Much of it was spent with a dog on my lap. This, I discovered, was an automatic effect. For instance, the deck chair came with a self-regulating furry seat-belt. The minute you sat down on it, a furry seat-belt will instantly drape itself lovingly and protectively across your lap. How you want to remove your seat-belt so as to get up to get another cup of tea is a different matter altogether.

I don't spend enough evenings at home watching the sunset. I think having a dog on your lap actually helps the sun go down a little better, even if the sun can do it on its own without any help on your part.

I also organised the music in my iTunes, and have rearranged a new folder named Tenors. Which made me realise something -- why does Italian sound so magnificent when sung? I don't even mean the Puccini and the Verdi arias, but the fact that Il Divo's Unbreak My Heart sounds a whole lot more resounding in Italian than the original Toni Braxton English version. Same with Paul Potts' Memory, Lloyd Webber's English version from Cats didn't have the oomph that the Italian version did, as beautiful as it was.

The other realisation was that I have 4 or 5 different versions of Ave Maria. For some reason, every tenor who records a CD feels that he must include it, and always the Schubert version. Why?