Superhero Battle

This week I have mostly been enjoying a week in Singapore dominated by the news of a General Election. This is apparently the election to watch, personally I will be watching myself hit my shins with a stick as a more interesting alternative. Why would I want to stay glued to an election that has put the same party into power since May 1959, although it might be interesting to watch the TV commentators trying to string the night out. On the upside Election Day is considered a public holiday even though it is a Saturday, so I get an extra days leave credited to me, hooray.
It seems that to be in the race for the much watched election you need to have a good party logo, and it would appear that the logo must look like one that would be emblazened accross a lycra wearing super hero. My favourite is the little yellow hammer, which looks more like an add for a kiddies range of toy tools.


About the only people vaguely interested in the election that we are all meant to be watching, are the cabbies. They also appear to be the only people with an opinion. From one of these dangerous Nissan Cedric drivers I learnt that if the ruling govenrment finds itself in the unnusual situation of losing ground to one of the few opposition parties in one of their constituancies then they dissolve it and absorb it into one they are dominating. I am surprised young Johnny Howard hasn't extracted his toungue from Bush's bottom to come and learn a thng or two from the Singaporians, but I guess he is too preoccupied trying to put kids into detention centres.
Another way of keeping your opposition at bay is to make anyone who wants to run for any form of politics that doesn't look Chinese has to fill out a certificate of minority, something one of the few opposition politicians forgot to do causing also sorts of drama and threats to sue the ruling governement.
In somethng that apparently wasn't vote buying, the people in power dished out up to $1000 to every Singapore Permanent Resident last weekend. Impeccable timing over a long weekend, the week before the election, it was apprently so the people could share some fo the budget surplus. No good to me and was in fact a very annoying generous gesture as it turned orchard Road into a madhouse for 3 days as people quickly set about spending every last cent of the ill gotten gain as quickly as possible. In fact it was difficult ot get a cab because many cabbies earned up to 10 times and average days take home in one cheque, so why would you bother.
We're escaping the election day, heading into Borneo with visiting stunt drinker John Burrows, and will be eagerly awaiting the news of the PAP party's amazing sweep back into power upon our return.