Another long weekend

I was quite happy to be rostered to work on Sunday. I like Sunday shifts -- the top bosses are not around, nobody breathes down your neck, you do your work at your own pace and if you're lucky, you finish early and leave early.

Until I realised that Monday -- I'm working that day too -- is a public holiday. Labour Day. I'd quite forgotten about it. Another long weekend spent at work!

And so it begins

Had a late night last night -- not entirely work related. OK, somewhat work related -- G needed a stiff drink before facing Nomination Day today. So stiff that after we left when the wine bar closed at 3am, he popped into 7-11 for one last beer. Me, I was rostered off on Nomination Day. I offered to work instead and take another day off but the design chief said I could "escape" especially as I worked Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Ah, just desserts.

Which meant that I woke up late today -- well after the noon deadline for nomination papers to be filed, but just in time for the media frenzy to begin.

I think I will switch off the TV and not read newspapers for the next week. I should just read the parties' manifestos. Everything else in the media will be hogwash at best and hysteria at worst.

Close encounters of the lift kind

My pet peeve is a common Singaporean complaint -- people who crowd round train and lift doors, and rush in as soon as they open, without first giving way to those who want to come out. I've never understood this. Surely there would be more room for them inside if they let the others come out first?

Last Wednesday: A Chinese-speaking lady tried to enter the lift as soon as the doors opened, before L could and Queeni could leave it. Queeni snorted. Not barked, not growled. Just snorted in a pig-like way, which is Schnauzer for "ahem". The lady jumped back and exclaimed in Mandarin, "Scared me to death." And then raised one high-heeled foot and made as if to kick Queeni. That was when L stepped in. Ordinarily monolingual, he summoned enough Mandarin to tell her: "Your face also scared me to death." She was all dolled up but looked like "an extra from the Rocky Horror Show", he later told me. I still prefer to have kicked her.

Last Friday: A teenaged girl barged into the lift as soon as the doors opened, only to walk right into us -- two people and two dogs coming out. This time round, the dogs were silent. Not even a polite doggy "ahem". Young Lady promptly burst into tears at the shock of there actually being people (and dogs) wanting to come out of the lift first. When we were well down the path, I turned back to look at her -- she was still standing at the corner of the lift lobby and crying, while her boyfriend held the lift door open and looked helpless. Poor sod. The guy, not the girl. The girl's just what Queeni is biologically termed as.

Happy Easter

L (looking at a printed in Australia calendar): Why isn't Easter Monday isn't a holiday here? (It is a holiday in Australia and Britain.)

Me: Because Easter Sunday isn't a holiday here, so we don't get Monday off to compensate for a Sunday holiday. Good Friday off is supposed to be good enough for us.

And after a moment's thought: This is Singapore. When you resurrect isn't as important as when you die.

The real meaning of just in time delivery

Back in February, the government announced -- as part of Budget 2011 -- several benefits such as utility rebates, tax rebates, growth dividends, education subsidies. This week, a flyer summarising all those goodies arrived at my door step. Two months later. But just in time for the elections.

Pre-election present

I didn't even realise it until the clerk at the counter gave me a quizzical look when I tried to pay my utility bill. Thanks to the utility save handout, this month's bill was a grand total of zero.

And then I went into the office. And found out that Nomination Day is next Wednesday, and Polling Day is May 7.

Do good things come in pairs?

Just before the weekend, two of my colleagues gave me two books, saying that I absolutely have to read them. Have to say that I've never heard of either of the Toms before, but I'll go with my colleagues' recommendations. I don't know if the two of them cahooted to unload two books on me all at once -- especially as I've publicly admitted that a combination of Facebook and cable TV has eaten my brain. If I can't be prised off the couch this weekend, and if the laundry/dirty dishes/dust bunnies pile up, G and P are to be blamed. Wasn't the TV this time round. :)

Night at the museum

Nothing came to life -- most unfortunately.

The only thing that the ArtScience Museum had going for it -- other than it opens till 10pm (which suits night shift folk like me because my days don't start till late afternoon, even on a day off) -- is its beautiful architecture. I'd passed it often enough to know what it looked like on the outside -- a lotus flower -- and now I could prowl inside and try to figure out how the galleries connect. I think the exhibits I spent most time poring over were architect Moshie Safadie's notebook sketches when he conceptualised the building. And they were tucked away in two corners at the landing on the uppermost level, like some kind of afterthought.

The Tate, it is not. What's more galling is that entry to the Tate is free. This one has a S$30 entry fee. It got me into two still exhibitions -- a travelling one on Genghis Khan, and another on Chinese pottery excavated from a shipwreck in the South China Sea. Which really isn't very different from the stuff that the Asian Civilisations Museum has to offer. And frankly, I think the ACM does a better job -- and at one-third the price of admission. The Genghis Khan exhibition had a few interesting items, but it relied heavily on a video narrative -- which I could watch at home on the NatGeo channel.

I guess, with a name like ArtScience, I was expecting a cross between MOMA and the Exploratorium -- both of which I absolutely loved. Nothing like that here. :(

The king of musicals

The Lion King was the reason why I spent one summer in London angsting at the return ticket booth at Leicester Square almost daily when no returns were to be had. So you can imagine how happy I was that the production finally came to Singapore.

Breathtaking staging, wonderful costumes, amazing puppetry.

Loved it.

A Watergate by any other name

The placard that all cabbies have on their dashboard with their names printed on them said that this Chinese youngish 30-something driver's first name was Nixon.

By the end of the trip, I couldn't withhold my curiosity any longer, and had to ask him if that was the name he was given at birth, or a Western first name that he picked for himself. His parents named him Nixon.

You'd think that if you wanted to name your son after an American president, someone more salubrious than Nixon would come to mind. Eisenhower, maybe. Or Roosevelt. Maybe that would be a bit hard for Junior to spell... But Nixon! Hmm, or maybe it was that Nixon in China business.

Out of sync

The problem with working a six-day Sunday-to-Friday week (other than six days! Working on a Sunday!) is you're facing a mid-week slump on Tuesday -- just when other people are recovering from Black Monday. By the time it gets to Wednesday, you're starting to coast downhill for the second half of the week while everyone else is struggling up the mid-week hump.

Hmm

If I said that I wanted to red pencil this, then I would be equally guilty of verbing a noun, right?

Don't get outraged

The poster on the advertising billboard at the bus stop was a collaborative effort between an arts school and the police force to come up with visuals for a campaign advising the public on how to prevent "outrage of modesty" (such a lovely Victorian turn of phrase, if you ask me). That the bus stop is on a road with little traffic and is dark at night, well, that's the sort of thing that would make you look over your shoulder.

The copy includes useful tips on how to avoid being outraged -- avoid dark areas, have someone meet you when you're going home late.

It just doesn't tell you what to do if you've been outraged. I think maybe a good swift kick in the goolies should do it. Pity they didn't illustrate that.

Saturday night out

Working Sundays for the weeks ahead -- and am facing a six-day week ahead on top of that -- so nipped out to the Mosaic Music Festival at the Esplanade to catch Erik Mongrain and to chill a little, while I can. He played mostly acoustic guitar, which he also turned it into a percussion instrument to accompany himself. And then he set the guitar on his lap and played it like I've never seen before, by tapping it -- air tap, it's called. Blew my mind. I think sometimes, it's OK not to pay attention when your music teacher is going on about Proper Fingering. Or learn it all and then turn it all upside down. Or in this case, sideways on your lap.

Mis-prince?

Does this look like Harry or Wills on this royal wedding commemorative mug?

Did they get the wrong prince?

The Singapore government announced a couple of days ago that it was donating $500,000 to Japan, towards aid efforts.

Today, a Singapore woman bested them by giving double, $1 million. No press release, no announcement. The Japanese embassy had to hastily arrange a ceremonial handing over of the cheque for her, and only because the Japanese Association told them of the fat cheque.

Phooey to the government. I hope they at least give the woman a tax break.

My office is organising a charity drive for the Red Cross. Hope it shows the government what-for too.

No friend left behind

I'm used to seeing gory pictures taken at disaster scenes, Katrina, the Burma hurricane, the Indian Ocean tsunami. My first reaction of the pictures coming out of Japan was, oh, another Banda Aceh.

The first time any disaster picture made me teary was this video clip posted on a colleague's Facebook wall.

Ganbatte kudasai

I remember a snippet off the newswires that a colleague showed me, weeks ago, post-Christchurch quake, and the authorities were abandoning hope of finding survivors. The leader of the Japanese rescue team was asked for his comment, and his reply was: You must understand that I rescue people. My business is hope. Ganbatte kudasai

Rock on

As much as I like Santana's music, the two best bits of his concert here actually had nothing to do with him.

The second best bit was when Mrs Santana took over from the resident drummer for a set.

The best bit when Santana introduced his band, and when it came to the guitarist, the guy used the spotlight to launch into the opening stanza of U2's New Year's Day.

That's as close as anybody is going to get to two rock concerts for the price of one.

Spotted something new

They look like and are the size of greengages. But they're exactly like kiwi fruit inside -- tiny kiwi, minus the furry brown skin. Genetically modified kiwi? Kiwi crossed with greengages? They're sweet, juicy, yummy and very expensive (almost $4 for a punnet that held just nine pieces).