Sure, politicians say smart things

In the newsletter published by my constituency's grassroots group that is distributed to residents, the foreword written by the mayor (who is also a constituency MP and junior minister) stuck to the issue's theme of fathering, since it's Father's Day coming up next month. He wrote of his own method of bonding with his child, that he "make(s) it a point to send (his) son to school every morning", ie he drives his son to school. Well, bully for him. This constituency is in HDB heartland, ie 90% of the residents live in public housing. Of this demographic, not every household owns a car. According to 2008 figures, 430,000 Singaporeans (out of a population of 4.8 million) own cars. Most kids who live in an HDB estate take a bus to school, or walk to the neighbourhood school.

Another MP preaching to the choir.

There must be a term for it: not trusting politicians.

Time off at home

Two dogs fit nicely on one lap.

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.