This week I have mostly been bathed in Christmas lights, as has most of the island. In fact if one is to believe the papers, and we are certainly encouraged to here, then over 6 km of Christmas lights are now twinkling away until January. This means 1/7 of the length of the island and a bit over a third of the width is lit up. Pretty impressive stuff as was the effort from Tangs department store who has managed to find that elusive biblical statement that says Christmas is in fact a commercial exercise and nothing to do with any religious beliefs. It came from Matthew apparently.
Just in note to anyone who has popped by this page on the back of a search for religious beliefs, you are going to be mightily disappointed, I don't have any. It is interesting to see what people type into search engines that makes them swing by. Three searches for the four floors, one for recreational drinking and one where someone googled "wine and flatulance" all of which sent them my way for some reason.
Apart from the lights going on this week, the other big news is that bottom love and kissing people on, in or around their special places is now legal in Singapore. Plenty of sighs of both pleasure and relief being breathed around the island on what was a fairly low key announcement. What was apparently a more news worthy story was that of some fast thumbed 16 year old kid setting a new world record for being the quickest SMSer on the planet. It made the font page of the broadsheets here, the nimble fingered chap shaved half a second off the old time and is confident he can take a further 2 seconds off the new time. I wonder if Singapore will be setting up an SMS training institute to develop this skill. I did also wonder (I seem to do a lot of wondering) if this it was possibly a related story to the and he was hurriedly sending messages to his mates to brag about his first legal experience in the bedroom.
Finally in another bottom related incident this week, the toilet bowl handwasher was back. He had two really good goes at it between flushes and at one point thought he may have been doing his washing in there so vigorous was the scrubbing. I was contemplating rushing out of my cubicle to see who it was, but part of me doesn't really want to know.
This week I have mostly been breathing freely for a change, it seems Indonesia's smoke has drifted off to annoy their own people instead of their neighbours. Some of the fires have even gone out, no thanks to any effort from our nearby slash and burners, it has started raining at last. So there goes the opportunity to go on so called leave with so called respritory problems.
I say so called because that's what Singaporeans like to say, everything is so called. I was coming home in a cab the other day with a cabbie who was lost, seemingly he didn't drive round Orchard very often. Quite a remarkable statement from a cabbie who's job it is to drive around a land mass that is 42km long and 20km wide and Orchard is the shopping captial of this small isalnd. But lost he was and when I told him we needed to exit onto our road he told me to tell him what so called ramp to get onto. I told him it was actually a real exit ramp which is why we were now on it. He didn't get it but we eventually made it my so called home safe and sound so I guess I have no cause to complain.
But then we went to a so called Thai restaraunt called the Thai Village just near our house. We have often passed it and thought it looked like nice. Turns out it is the adjoining spa that is nice, the so called Thai Village restaraunt is in fact a tacky Chinese restaraunt specialising in Shark Fin. Depsite their best efforts to convince us otherwise it was unlikely we were going to get a Jungle Curry there and we were not happy about the proud advertising of shark fin as a delicacy. Slightly reminiscent of a Monty Python cheese shop skit, we told them it wasn't much of a Thai place and legged it to a Thai place that was a in fact a Thai place and turns out a very good one. Except for being in a shopping mall and the very dull person sitting nearby rabbiting on and on to his two lady friends about doing business.
We enjoyed the last of the festivals last week with a public holiday to celebrate Hari Raya on the Tuesday. We also came to a conclusion that there isn't much to inspire you to do much that is off the cuff and doesn't involve booze or food in Singapore. After a late breakfast we were wondering what to do next and eventually half heartedly agreed to go to a museum. We only managed a couple of hundred metres in the general direction of the so called museum when we came to a wine bar so stopped for a bottle of champers. The next thing we knew we were at the ATM getting more cash to go to Brewerkz for more drinks and lunch, and that was pretty much it for our day, exciting stuff.
This week I have mostly still been enjoying Indonesia's gift to the region; smoke. Loads of it in fact, and something the locals are taking advantage of by claiming respitory illness related to the smoke haze. Singaporeans are not very good at coping with any form of illness, a faint hint of a sniffle and it is quickly escalated as fever and before you know it half your team is off with fever. The opportunity for taking some time off work is spreading like wildfire, which is ironic as it is wildfire that caused it in the first place.
I was a little disturbed to receive a postcard featuring Zoe Tay a Mediacorp artiste, actually everyone to do with selling any stupid beauty or vibrating product seems to be a Mediacorp artiste. Can't say I have ever seen them, which isn't surprising as I don't listen to local radio or watch local tv. Logically as Mediacorp is owned by the government, then these people are actually public servants, but I guess it would be more difficult to sell a product promoted by Zoe Tay, Public Servant. However, that wasn't what disturbed me, what di
sturbed me was Zoe's secret to beautiful skin; she swallows. That is quite an interesting piece of information, but I'm not sure of the relevance to beautiful skin and wouldn't she be better rubbing it all over her face?
Singapore is a small place and I perhaps shouldn't have been surprised to once more bump in to Sandeep Highpants, who was mentioned back in January following his mean guitar session at the Crazy Elephant. As it turns Sandeep is not an accountant but a project manager and one who started working with us a few weeks ago. Funny old world innit, as is this photo taken back in January at Sandeep's performance.
This week I have mostly been passively smoking courtesy of the very generous Indonesian Slash and Burners who chose a particularly dry time of year to set fire to much of the small areas of virgin forest still available to them. Consequently we have been in an eye watering 
fog for over a week, but the Indonesian Government did apologise. There is no attempt or any plans to put them out but they would like us to forgive them.
This burning forest is also the home to one of the last pockets of orangutans in the wild, pushing us them just that little bit closer to extinction. More than likely this means we are not too far away from only ever being able to see them in a zoo, which is something I did when my mum came to town last week.
I am not a huge fan of zoos, but the Singapore one is certainly a goody and breakfast with the orangutans is one of the more interesting activities you can do there. Despite a mix up with a fairly dim cafe staff we did manage to have some quality time with a big orange monkey as well as some food, considering the opening interlude with the cafe staff the food was quite a bonus.
Regular readers of this blog, and apparently there are some, will possibly be wondering if being an expectant father has impacted my alcohol intake and silly things as a result. Possibly it has, but it has been down largely due to the absence of the usual suspects to go boozing. 
However this period of relative abstinence was interrupted by the recent fleeting Reevey visit that required we all head over to Bintan (in the smoke fog) to tear up the very nice Bintan Ria golf course. Three beers and a curry before the 11:00am tee off set the scene. But there were rules though, the red wine did not come out until the back nine, at from that point you could buy a mulligan for a shot of wine.
Surprisingly while my game remained consistent as one of the worst rounds ever seen on the Ria, Miles remained consistent as the best round he ever played, at least according to him. But he did win so I guess we should believe him, not even the sight of Elliott's hairy bean bag on the 17th green put him off his game, he obviously had some attention issues as a child and couldn't wait to race home to ring his dad.
However, we couldn't do that before we had a few more beers and watched some fat old sweaty expats (no not us, we were watching remember) make complete fools of themselves with some local hos. Fantastic stuff that was beaten only by another expat on the ferry home who spent most of the 45 minute journey up to his second knuckle in his nose, which he would quickly gobble up, nothing like a bit of human waste recycling.
It's very festive here right now, three festivals actually; mid autumn for the Chinese, Deepvali for the Hindus and Hari Raya for the Muslims and public holidays for everyone, hoorah. Although culturally and religiously diverse they all seem to involve lights and eating, and we have managed to get along to all of them. The Mid Autumn lantern parade at the Chinese Garden is without one of the lamest things four adults can do, but the kids seem to like it. Seeing as we didn't have any (real) kids with us we went to the pub, Rochester Park to be precise and decided it could be our new favourite pub, excluding Number 5's of course.
And because I haven't been updating this for a while, I thought I should also mention we recently stayed on our very own tropical island in Indonesia. When I say very own, I meant with 12 other people, but we were all from the same party so it was our very own. This is a spectacular place to stay, and thoroughly recommend it if you happen to be in the area. Although having experienced their fishing trips, it is unlikely you will see anything above 6 cm swimming in the water.
This week I have mostly been trying to sort out my blogging, so this week was actually 3 weeks ago when I was back home in Aus, primarily to catch up with the world's worst punters for a Punter's Club trip to Cairns. I was pretty excited by the prospect of drinking reasonably heavily with old friends and also curious as to what would happen when you crossed the streams of two blogs with the coincidental meeting up with Brad and Graz the fish killers. Jaeger bombs as it turned out is what happened.
Heading to Cairns after nearly a year since our last visit home is not a gentle easing back into Aussie culture, it is like being smacked in the mouth with a sackful of beer and pies. The Cairns Cup was a day dominated by the letter B; Beer, Bosoms, Betting, Bosoms, Burgers, Bosoms, Beer and Bosoms. While the punting was predictably inconsistent we did manage to not have to spend any of our own cash and had a mighty fine day. A spate of pregnancies and an out of form Ned meant we had a quieter day than usual. Not so with the locals; they were well and truly on it.
By 4:00 in the afternoon, sober people were rarer than an original idea from John Howard. The highlight had to be the fashion parade, where people were plucked from the crowd on to a stage because apparently they dressed nice, prompting calls from the crowd for the nice looking people to display their genitalia. This was followed by the unexpected arrival of a girl who fell over the fence landing at the feet of the judges. Surprised, scared, disorientated and perhaps just a little drunk, she started pushing the judges around. I can't explain the logic, but her boyfriend came to the rescue only to be given a big shove as well. The most obvious recourse in front of a large crowd was to walk away, instead he pushed her back, right into the roses as it happened. He was escorted out by security, while she picked herself up and unable to correct a lean to the right she disappeared out of the winner's circle and on to the track. Outstanding effort and my fondest memory of the day apart from Reidy picking a 17-1 winner and the Punter's club reunion.
A trip to the reef is mandatory when in Cairns, so off we went the next day. I saw three turtles before we hit the water due to crook guts, but the real thing ws far more impressive. We also spotted a sting ray, but declined from cutting its tail off like some of the les intelligent Steve Irwin fans.
Then it was down to Sydney for a flurry of catch ups, dinners and the odd drink. Thanks to all that fed and watered us, great to catch up. Finally special mention to Orietta who crashed her car just so I could write about her crashing her car.
This week I have most been in Koh Lanta, a sleepy little place near Krabi in Thailand. We went there because Tiger Airways were giving away tickets 4 months ago, we weren't aware back then that it is the off season in August. No wonder they were giving away tickets, it is the off season because it is also the rainy season and with good reason, it rains a lot. Except for one morning when it didn't and we got sunburnt instead of wet.
But we did have a very pleasent time mooching about our island resort, especially as we were the only people there for the first 24 hours; very rock n roll. The illusion was shattered by the arrival of more guests on the Saturday, admittedly only 6 of them, but still they were invading our space so we took off on a scooter humming a mandatory Machine Gun Felatio tune as we went.
Lanta is probably only slightly more busy in the not so rainy season, it is pretty much unspoilt with a strip of resorts on the West Coast beach. Do go to the Corner Cafe if you are ver there, their curries bring tears to your eyes both at the table and later in the toilet. Other than that it is jungle, rubber trees, cashew nuts and little fishing villages.
Singapore on the other hand is not and is currently reinventing itself as an even squeakyer cleanier place with the pending IMF forum here in September. As a result the government is ripping up all the roads that people are likely to travel on in the week they are going to be here. They are also painting the gutters and planting new plants. Bit weird really, but quite impressive to walk down to the train in the morning and see they have not only ripped up 5 lanes of Orchard Road but replaced and marked it again in one night. Couldn't imagine the Sydney Department of Main Roads pulling that off, but then they don't have access to the Bangladesh labour market.
In further preperaion for the IMF thingy that the government has been practicing handling riots and protests, even invited the media along to watch, which was a little surreal. However the Riot Police are unlikely to be doing much except drinking tea as protesting is surprisingly illegal here. But to show they are open to free speech they have made an allowance for protestors to book a time for discussions with IMFers if they so wish in a small area near the convention centre. I would imagine it would also involve people loitering in the background with guns.
Finally I was excited to see a huge tabloid headline describing the shame of the ugly behaviour during the recent National Day fireworks, maybe something crazy had happened here. But as I read on I was disappointed the ugly behaviour was actually just people jaywalking and illegally parking on one of the bridges to watch the display. I think the journo responsible for the story should wander the Rocks in Sydney after the midnight fireworks on New Years Eve to get a better definition of ugly behaviour at fireworks.
This week I have mostly been dodging little fires and oranges and lollies and fruit and cakes and stuff. This is because it is hungry ghosts month, where people honour their dead relatives with offerings of food and burning of hell money so that they are comfortable in the afterlife. There are some elements in danger with this, I walked around a blind corner the other day and had to leap over a little man burning things. I think he thought he had seen a ghost, he looked quite scared, I was also hungry (I was heading off for dumplings) so maybe he thought he had aroused a hungry sleeping spirit.
Working out in Tampines is in the burbs and consequently I become more involved in these kind of things like it or not and have trampled through many an offering on the way to work. I have also noticed that the people who have shuffled off their mortal coil have quite a sweet tooth, Mentos are a particular favourite amongst the offerings. I had forgotten I had opted in for the work Hungry Ghost thing and was surprised to come into the office to find a large bucket of food on my desk. I am not entirely sure what I was meant to do with this bucket; if it is meant to be an offering for my deceased relatives, I couldn't see either of my grandmothers being very pleased with their grandson presenting them with 2 litres of Fanta, some sardines, noodles and a variety of cooking oils. One of my team members at work 
told me I am supposed to give it to the poor, but I think he was angling to take the stuff home himself. I went to the loo the other day a the Pungol Park cafe and this sign was plastered across the auto flush of the urinal. Flush your pee or poo manually was the sound advice but it begs the question is urinal pooing a problem in the Pungol Park cafe. Is it a Singapore thing, I don't know. I do know people like to talk loudly on their mobile phones while they are on the toilet at work, so important tip if you are talking to a Singaporian and it sounds like they are on the toilet, chances are they are on the toilet. Kudos goes to the chap who carried on a long an loud conversation on the squat in cubicle 3 the other day.Speaking of oddball Singaporean signs, this sign suggests that Fiona Xio's best angle is right up her skirt. Possibly 
it is, the add is part of a Singaporean obsession with vibrating things, chairs, feet thingies, slimming belts and my favourite the mechanical horse thing. This is basically a gyrating stool that is supposed to exercise your abs and stuff, but it is quite amusing watching 80 year olds doing what basically amounts to a pelvic thrust on a bright green seat.
Tis a funny old place here.
This week I have mostly been recovering from saying goodbye to the Reeves as they headed out to take up residence in Japan. The long series of farewells hit an alcoholic crescendo last Friday, on the eve of the eve of their departure. Andy Reeve had had a particularly busy day at Boat Quay and staggered off giggling to himself around midnight, perhaps a result of drinking a particularly large flaming Lamborghini.
Soon after the crowd began to disperse leaving myself, Nic Reeve, Elliott and our token Singaporean; Gloria to our own devices with the challenge of ensuring Nic had a last night that she would either want to forget or remember. We chose to do a pub crawl of seedy bars at Boat Quay but possibly due to the a lack of imagination or plain laziness this just meant walking around the corner to Molly Malones, acquiring a jug of marguerita along the way.
This was probably where things started to go a little awry, Elliott started playing a game with a couple of barflies that involved throwing a coaster at the bar and whatever bottle you hit you had to take a shot of. After we told him his drinking buddies were wankers he poured their drinks on the bar while they were in the toilet and we ran out Molly's like the tough little teenagers we were behaving like. Sans Elliott's laptop, but that wasn't quite apparent until the following day.
So after a little bit of procrastination we arrived at Attica, a place supposedly full of the chic and beautiful set. This obviously didn't include us, and the chic and beautiful readings were on the slide after we dropped in. The sensational dance floor moves suggested social skills and motor coordination had taken a hammering, but the signal to leave for me was when the bouncer asked Elliott to get off the podium and to put his shirt back on.
Flopped home around 4:00 and in an effort to be considerate to Emma I sent myself to the blue room, which is where she found me on the way to gym at 8:00 lying in around 4 litres of sweat having forgotten to turn the aircon on. Two hours later I found myself wandering around the supermarket with Reidy trying to sort out stuff for a BBQ to finally say goodbye to the Reeves. Two hours later again I had to have a little lie down after ambitiously attempting to peel 1.5 Kg of prawns with what was now a filthy hangover.
Turns out I wasn't alone, Andy could not drink anything at all, Nic spoke in a whisper all day and only half finished her one wine, Elliott was alternating beer with cordial and was very scared about having to go back to Molly's to pick up his laptop. Then there was Gloria, breezed in bright as a button, after having just woken up at 2:30 that afternoon.
So the farewell festival is finally over and they are now in Tokyo and we will all be sleeping a little better and drinking a little less for a while, at least until Elliott gets back from the UK.
This week I have mostly been in New York again, and this time it was stinking hot, in fact on par with Singapoo for hotness but I think actually a little more stinky. Because people don't wee in the subways in Singers. Mostly because you would get hung and then beaten with a stick if you did. I was very excited to not have to go to Warren in Jersey this time, I would imagine that place in the heat of summer would have done nothing for my already rock bottom view of that shit hole.Surprisingly given this good fortune of being in the city, the aclohol intake and the shenanigans were kept to a minimum, possibly due to the work or maybe to the unavailability of my usual Jaeger bombers until the Friday.
Consequently spent more time wandering and also discovered my phone camera did panoramic photos, which kept me busy for a while.
One of the more unusual things I managed to find was a George W Bush action figure for sale in the delapodated Hallmark 
shop. Apparently if you push the lapel badge he has 25 different things to say. I am a little skeptical about that, because that is 21 more than he has had in his one and a bit terms in office. But intrigued, I needed to know more and if you google George W Bush action dolls, you get a sponsored link come up that says: Talking George Bush doll Jesus & Pope John Paul doll & more are available at the Collectorsgallery Website . That I am sure George would be very happy about being referred to in the same sentence as Jesus, only if describing an action figure. It is a little disturbing that they also refer to Jesus as a Talking President, but it does speak twenty-five (25) unique and authentic phrases. This doll also comes complete with accessories and a biographical pamphlet.
What a crazy place the US is, not to mention a little third world occasionally. Queens was without power for 8 days straight while I was there and when they finally did restore power they managed to then black out large sections of Long Island
So I bid farewell to this silly place by drinking more Jaeger shots than was really necessary and left the States with yet another monstrous hangover.
This week I have mostly been wishing I was in Koh Samui which is where we were three weeks ago for Dapperses birthday. Unfortunately the place had changed a little from the photo here. (I didn't take that by the way, I am not that tall) What this photo doesn't show is the construction site on the left of the villa that meant an early morning arousal to dualling band saws. Try as we might to drink to a comatose state, the whine of palm wood being cut was our 7:00 am bush alarm clock. Unfortunately also one we could not turn off, although I probably wouldn't want to be fumbling around trying to turn a band saw off it was my alarm clock tha
t would probably hurt. This rude awakening was made worse by the idea of maybe being able to sleep through it by drinking heavily the night before, quite a vicious circle really.
But the little ANZACS that we are we got through our days as best we could lounging by the pool, tucking into some tasty Thai food from our resident staff all the while waiting for the Thai masseuseses to show up. They also did your nails if you wanted that, which Darren did and you needed safety goggles as his tallons were clipped. We did in fact venture out of compound once so I could watch the rugby, but there was really no reason to leave.
We did seem to be beset with little problems on top of the whining saws, the tiles started coming off the pool. Possibly as a result of the extreme force exerted when pushing off during the swimming carnival, or perhaps as a result of some quite good bombing, we weren't sure. Our special apology for the bandsaw noise, dinner on the beach was rained out. Our boat trip to the islands ended 20 minutes into the trip when the motor more or less conked out.
But the best was to come at the airport as we were heading home. Turns out I am a crap travel agent and the ticket I booked for Kathryn was for the next day. A bit inconvenient as the plane was full and she was on business travel the next day. But it all worked out ok, we all made it back safe and sound with everyone agreeing that despite the odd little problem it was a smashing holiday and that I was to never book anyone's air travel again.
This week I have mostly been entertaining visitors from home. Mike and Ange were on their way home, while Paul was heading off to Germany to join the throng of band wagon jumping Aussie soccer fans. In preperation for this we took our guests to the local drinking holes in Emerald Hill where we took on a couple of Yagermeister Red Bull bombs. Local watering hole "Number 5's" is having a special promotion where if you drink 7 Yagermeisters you get a free soccer ball. We only ordered 5 but when the bar staff pointed out that if I were to purchase 2 more of these little monsters in a glass I would get a free ball, I had no choice but to eagerly take him up on his offer.
Thinking about this later, which I obviously wasn't at the time, giving a soccer ball to people who have consumed several Yager Bombs is a silly thing. Emerald Hill became a socccer pitch as we dribbled down the street, we also kicked the ball. In fact we kicked it into the Alley Bar where Mike, one of the visiting stunt drinkers loudly announced to the bar staff that Reidy and I were engaged. This prompted the barman to create a three tiered drink that involved fire. Impressive stuff especially as the fire lighting bit failed because the air con was blowing too hard so they had to send another flaming shot down the construction.
So then it was on to Orchard Road where once more a soccer game broke out, Mike has a wicked slice, belting the ball into the middle of the road twice. Pretty crazy stuff for Singapore and with the ever increasing threat of being hit with a stick or hung we crossed the road to try and compensate for Mike's slice. Unfortunately this meant the ball went sailing into the closed and strangely named "Free Banana" bar. Ange showed terrific courage to chase the ball but in retrospect also terrific foolishness as she went for an inelegant but spectacular face plant into the Free Banana.
We finished the night at an almost deserted night club 5 minutes from home half time into the England Sweden game. Obviously due to the effects of the fall Ange developed severe temporary Parkinson's disease and dropped her beer, so we called a long night to a close and headed home surprisingly still with soccer ball.
Fortunately I had the day off, which was very handy considering it was now only Wednesday so work would have been a nightmare. I found Mike and Ange in the pool and was going to report Mike to the cops for abusing his girlfriend. But then it came flooding back, 6 months in the
wilds of South America unscathed and Ange ends up battered and bruised from just one night in supposedly safe Singapore. Swollen black eye, bruised hip and shoulder and a damaged knee were the results of the Free Banana tumble. As much as she would like to claim the headache was concussion I think there was some alcohol involved.
We played the perfect hosts and went to Chinatown in a brave attempt to eat and at least show our guests another part of Singapore other than a pub and our lounge room. Not a huge amount of enthusiasm there so we retired to the lounge for the afternoon. We had planned a quiet BBQ that night and did a reasonable job of holding it together long enough to feed and water people. I crashed at 1:00 thinking that the others weren't far behind, but it was a particularly close thunder storm at 4:00am that sent Andy and Nic home and the others to bed. Impressive effort from Andy as he was due at work in 4 hours, but he didn't quite make it.
Thursday was pretty much a copy of Wednesday battling hangovers and injuries except we all had to get to the airport. Mike and Ange went back home while Reidy and I tootled off to Koh Samui, but that is another story....
This week I have mostly not been shopping, unlike the rest of Singapore who have been shopping. The Great Singapore Sale started last Friday combining two of your average Singaporean's favourite occupations; shopping and getting a discount. Singaporeans would walk 42 kilometres over hot coals made of broken glass for a discount and they have descended on Orchard Rd in their droves. Even Ben Cheng Hian, local purveyors of strange pink meats, are in on the act, offering 20% on sliced pork.
In an effort to avoid the crowds last Sunday, they swell to twice with the maids' day off, we went to a Singaporean expat institution; The Sunday Brunch. The rules are fairly simple eat as much as you can and call the drinks waiter over every 5 minutes to top up your champagne in a 4 hour super session. Any time that a drink made up of a martini, a comspolitan, and champagne topped with a shot of milk seems even vaguely palatable, you know it's time to go 10 pin bowling.The locals tend to take bowling quite seriously, so we were a noisy exception. We thought we were about to be thrown out when a woman from the centre approached us. Turned out she was the drinks waitress, which was fortunate because we needed a drink. Highlights of two frames of quality bowling included one unassisted fall, some stunt bowling from the seat and a late release that saw an 8lb ball hit the pins on the second bounce.
Bored with wrecking the bowling alley we decided we should be hungry and thirsty again we headed to the Wine Garage for a spot of dinner. We managed to make it there in time for a spectacular sunset, but not before stopping to stare in surprise at a promotion on the way out of the mall. A whole floor dedicated to visiting Canberra. Weird. According to the promotional bunting one of the highlights of visiting Canberra is apparently shopping. There are going to be some disappointed Singaporeans wandering through Australia's national capital. Driving into Canberra on a Saturday afternoon often leaves first timers thinking they had stumbled through a post apocalyptic movie set.
Speaking of Aussie eye wool pulling; the previously reported Aussie basketball export to Singapore have 
finally been christined; The Slingers> lot of thought went into that. I didn't know this had happened such is the excitement this team has generated here. No I had to find out by way of freelance sports reporter and semi professional drinker Matt Cleary. It is unlikely we will in fact learn the team song, nor wear face paint as he suggested and will in fact behave like every other castaway on this island and ignore them. If the strange quote on Channel News Asia web site is anything to go by this is going to be a brilliant piece of strategy by the NBA.
Said Ben Knight, Singapore Slingers forward, "We have got a fair bit of experience in our team already, then with the coaching stuff, I think playoff for us. I think if we are not in the top six or seven, top eight, I will be very disappointed during our first season. I expect the finals in the first year."
This week I have most been in Borneo with my other intrepid explorers Reidy and John Burrows who interestingly we like to refer to as JB. Setting off on election day we packed 
our bags and Yaegermeister fuelled hangovers then legged it over the Causeway to the toilet that is the other JB; Johor Baru in Malaysia. Not normally an airport of choice, but it was the cheapest option for last minute flight bookers like us and it seemed fitting we take JB who likes to spend time on the toilet to see a whole city that is a toilet called JB. Two hours later still reeking of elderberries and not looking our finest we landed in a soggy Kota Kinnabaru, or KK to the locals who seem to like giving their towns two letter acronims.
A little slow off the mark the next day we hired a car and headed for the hills so John could scale Mount Kinnabaru and mostly stunning hills they were too. Unfortunately the government doesn't mind lopping down the rain forest so it's not always a perfect postcard picture. We stayed in the Mountain Park and helped JB prepare for his 2 day walk by shoving Beef Rendang and wine in him in an effort to make his use of pit toilets on the mountain as uncormfortable as possible.
We left him in the capabable hands of his guide while we headed back to the coast, but not before we stopped at the Sandakaran Death Marches war memorial. Not a particularly pleasant story, and one that possibly would not have been told but for the 6 escapees. Vowing never to eat sushi again we headed back to KK enjoying the scenery, but imagining that it would have perhaps not been quite as enjoyable 60 odd years ago to be an Aussie in this part of the world.
Next day it was off to Kuching in Sarawak landing in the shiny new airport humming along to Machine Gun Felatio's Pussy Town, because that's where we were. Kuching means Cat in the local dialect. After taking a Kuching Limo into town, we Dropped our bags and headed off to play with the Orangutans in the rehabilitation centre just out of town. We were very lucky to be treated to the early arrival of Richie the full grown big boy of the place who decided to drop in while everyone was milling around waiting to go to the proper feeding area. It is quite an experience standing 3 metres away from a full grown Orangutan stuffing his face with fruit. Reidy wants one now.
Kuching is the gateway to the Malay Longhouses and we set off the next day for the Hilton Longhouse Resort to live in a relatively luxurious version of 
the real thing. Not sure Paris has ever made the bum numbing journey to this place, but I would thoroughly reccommend it as a destination if she happens to be reading. We did in fact make it to a real longhouse and that was some experience, 90+ people living more or less under one roof. Despite some fairly ugly signs of the random logging programmes going on the lake cruise was stunning.
It was all over too soon, and before we knew it we were once more landing back in the toilet known as JB and crossing the border back home. It was also back to the news that the PAP pa
rty had once more swept themselves into power. Big surprise there, they actually had won 37 seats uncontested before the election started and only needed to win another 10 or so to regain power. The Must Watch election must have been quite a spectacle. The Fisher Price toy hammer party won a few seats but all in all it was a mockery of a mockery of an election.
We decided to drink heavily that night and all was going well until around 4:00am when JB and I staggered home and realised due to unfortuante mix up with keys we were locked out. I thought what would Pinchy do in this situation and promptly lay down on the doorstep and fell alseep on the doorstep with JB. Which is where Reidy found us 5 hours later disheveled and sweaty continuing the fine tradition of making our visiting guests sleep outside our locked appartment.
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.
This week (actually it is 3 weeks now) I have mostly been trying to cope with some odd things that are as the tourist office rightly points out are "Uniquely Singapore". Perhaps it is the onset of Spring, which is something I knew only because the shops told me to buy some Spring fashions. This means the long hot winter is over and we are heading into a long hot Spring, woohoo.
Our cleaner is a bit of fruit loop, we share her with several friends here and the cleaner pimp who introduced her to us all is a keen collector of Asian art. It turns out the very impressive and lifelike picture of a proud old man is putting a curse on our cleaner, so now she can no longer clean his house. She couldn't tell him herself, we had to break the news to him and the sympathetic souls that we are thought we should move the painting around to each of the houses she cleans just to really freak her out. Shouldn't have come of too much of a surprise to us though, earlier this year when I asked her how her Christmas was she told me it was bad because her friend put a hex on her and her bag got stolen and her face kept swelling up and stuff and it was costing her a fortune in exorcisms.
I finally braved the Tampines Hans eatery that has previously been my nemisis in the past by carefully placing excessive amount of cucumbers on toasted sandwiches. I had to meet this dickhead from work there for a casual meeting and asked for a toated sandwich sans the stinking Beelzebub's Bellend, and they pushed a button on the till that said No Cucumber. Why the bloody hell didn't they do this for me last time I asked for it.
Anyway this dickhead turns up for the meeting and for a moment I forgot he was a brylcreemed, hair dying, crap waffling, old dinosaur that I normally wouldn't give a whiff of my best fart to. The reason for this new found respect was the fact he obviously didn't like cucumber either. The respect was short lived however, I only found he didn't like cucumber because he coughed it up like a cat coughs up a fur ball, twice.
Things only got worse as he proceeded in an obvious attempt at trying to impress me with how cool he was, that if we didn't do things his way he would get his "Arse Butt Kicked." It was around that time I began astral travelling thinking it would be great comedy moment to just lean over and slap him in the face and tell him to shut up.
Maybe next time, actually I probably won't because I don't plan meeting him outside of the office again. But I do take great delight when ever I am in a meeting with him in getting to the room 5 minutes earlier hiding the whiteboard pens. He can't make it through a meeting without drawing on the board, which is just too irritating for someone that I already want to punch. Apparently he now carries a set of pens on him to each meeting, which is a juvenile yet somehow rewarding victory.
This week I have been most hanging around in the lobby at work for prolonged periods. All because of a campaign that warned me not to get into lifts with strangers and despite being here several months there are still many people I consider strangers in my building. While the target of this particular campaign seems to be little kids, I think anyone would think twice about entering the lift with this weird looking chap. Lift related crimes fall under the Outrage of Modesty laws and carry a jail term of 3-10 years combined with a jolly good caning. I would also like to see Outrage of Modesty extended to girls in hipster jeans exposing uneccessary bumcrack.
The big news of late here has been the prospect of a General Election. The ruling Peoples Action Party (PAP) have been in power since independence in 1965 and although there are other parties invited to participate n the election it seems to be largely an acedemic exercise. I was asking a cabbie about it the other day and said that voting was compulsory but quite offen there are no opposition parties in his voting area so he didn't need to vote. I asked him if he could remember any smear campaigns against the PAP, ignoring my purile attempt at humour he replied it wasn't a good thing to do. Something one of the few opposition politicians found out when he questioned the judicial system and ended up in jail for a while Apparently bloggers discussing the election will be under some scrutiny so the next update could be from a cell with Bubba.
The Aussie National Basketball League (NBL) is particularly annoying, the NBL has worked out there is a sporting drought between rugby finishing and cricket starting, which is when the NBL starts. I thought I had escaped this period of pain, but now the brains trust in the NBL has decided to move team to Singapore. And not just any team, but the quality Hunter Pirates franchise are going to be calling Singers home this year.
Singapore Basket ball CEO Oon Jin Teik said. “For a little more than the price of a movie ticket, Singaporeans will not only be able to catch live world-class basketball action right on home soil, but be able to participate in a whole new form of sports entertainment that is wholesome and exciting, much like what we see today on TV at NBA basketball matches. In time to come, we hope this event will become another key marquee event in Singapore’s ever growing and vibrant sports calendar.” He has obviously been misinformed and perhaps never seen Aussie basketball. Personally I prefer hitting my shins with a stick and would probably eat dirt rather than sit down to watch the Hunter Pirates do their thing. I'm calling crimestoppers this is a serious case of fraud.
This week I have mostly been taking a trip down memory lane with Mr Foo the cabbie. Actually it only happened once, but it was a very interesting trip. It turns out he grew up in the area we now live and let me tell you there have been some changes in the Orchard area since 1958. The place we live in now used to be the forest where he would catch spiders, the subway station at Orchard used to be a Jewish cemetery, the school near to our local drinking holes on Emarald Hill was a hostipal and a Japanese admin centre in the war, and apparently there is an umarked Japanese Soldier's grave still there to this day. He used to live on Emerald Hill when there was a weird law that long term tenants became dual owners of a property if they stayed there long enough. Unfortunately for him he didn't, it isn't a cheap place to live now, and long gone are the days when he used to have evening picnics on the park that is now the school.
Talking of trips down memory lane and remembering the glory days, this week I also had the misfortune to meet Greg Matthews. By his own admission he is Australian cricket legend and all round good guy. He was shipped out to help the Reuters team win their annual 6 a side cricket competition, but it wasn't entirely clear in what capacity. If drinking heavily, regaling anyone who would listen with personal feats of cricket heroism while all the time busting moves on any female he saw, were part of his brief with Reuters then he did his job magnificently. I think I added more value to the team by cooking sausages for free beer.Later in the evening he turned to marriage councellor as he berated me for not marrying Reidy and went further to annoy the crap out of me at the BQ Bar. When asked if I was happy, I told him I was, mostly because I didn't have to pretend I wasn't something I am not and hang out with celebrities thinking I am one. He was a little upset after that and was whinging to his mate that he was going to change managers. No idea what that had to do with anything, but I wish him well, especially as he turns 50 this year and he sounded really happy about that.
Funnily enough we did make up and was due to the efforts of another girl in the bar who clearly under the influence of a day's worth of beer in the sun told me she would like to make love to me and Reidy. After I stopped laughing I told her she would have to check with Reidy, so over she goes and starts rubbing Reidy's arm and staring cross eyed into her eyes. Reidy looked at her like she had gone mad, and Greggy, now my best friend quickly forgot his sage like advice on the joys of being married and starts nudging me saying "You're in there with 2 chicks mate."
At that point we were saved by an unassisted fall, the drunk girl fell heavily to the floor, we took it as our cue to leave. Old GM thought she actually fell rather sexily to the floor and took at his cue to pull out the old charm.
This week I have mostly been doing nothing exciting. But there have been a few odd things going on at work so I will take this temporary lull in proceedings to share this with you.The first issue, and the second come to think about it, are related to the toilet. I have been a little wary of the toilets at work. There were two reasons for this; firstly I discovered the flush is sensor driven and I have given myself a couple of surprise washes while shifting position and secondly people occasionally use the toilet bowl as a hand basin. However that is old news, buried somewhere deep in this blog. I have other issues with the toilet.While as a Westerner I am always a little surprised that someone would choose the squat over the comforts of a comfy (albeit with a hair trigger flush) seat. People do for a variety of reasons; some say it is more hygienic amongst other things. But I think even these people would agree with my thinking that a squat is not a place to take prescription medicine. Why go to all that bother to seal a pill in a sterile packet if the user is going to crack it open, with their pants down squatting over a shithole, not a shithole like Warren New Jersey, but an actual shithole. By the way I am not the only person worried about toilets; http://www.worldtoilet.org/ is a Singaporian web site dedicated to toilets.The other gripe I have with the toilets is the cleaning routine. They prop the door open for all to see while mopping it down. However if you happen to swing by looking to drop the kids off in the pool and they are in full clean mode, they don’t stop. No they usher you in and you feel obliged to go through the motions, so to speak. Anyway the car is prone to backfire a little when I am dropping the kids off and this is an unfortunate consequence with the door right open and the kitchen next door. I try to out wait the cleaner in this situation, but this can be a prolonged stand off lasting several hours if the cubicle I am in hasn’t been cleaned. Speaking of cleaners, we have one that empties my bin 3 times a day, I don’t generate that much rubbish, but that’s the rules; 3 times a day. Then once a week the cleaner comes past with a bucket and sponge and wipes down my desk. I am not the cleanest of corporate citizens, so the desk cleaning has become another stand off with the cleaning staff. I don’t move my stuff and neither does she, so I end up with unusual shapes of cleanliness amongst the rubble on my desk. Eventually I am hoping to match up all the triangles of cleanliness to make one clean desk, could be a while on current form. I was invited to join a Singaporian blog register this week. No idea what they will make of this, I suspect I will just get arrested or killed or something for taking the piss out of their patch. Click on the vote button on the site and skew the figures. I would also like to thank a masked avenger with the handle of “Footprint” who left me a note last week to explain why stupid towns had stupid names in Jersey. It was in fact because “they are named after the first toilet makers and the first companies to dump toxic waste. But then they ran out of towns...” Makes a lot of sense now, thanks Footprint.
No photos were taken this week, so here’s an old one of a moth I took with my phone. Really I did.
This week I have mostly been bathed in Christmas lights, as has most of the island. In fact if one is to believe the papers, and we are certainly encouraged to here, then over 6 km of Christmas lights are now twinkling away until January. This means 1/7 of the length of the island and a bit over a third of the width is lit up. Pretty impressive stuff as was the effort from Tangs department store who has managed to find that elusive biblical statement that says Christmas is in fact a commercial exercise and nothing to do with any religious beliefs. It came from Matthew apparently.
