Where Do We Go From Here?

I don’t know what to make of Sir Bobby’s dismissal. I feel sorry for the old man definitely. He came to the rescue of his beloved Newcastle five years ago, built up a talented squad and took the club into the Champions League. It’s a shame it had to end this way. But as is often the case these days, you’re only as good as your last result. And, this season, the results have been alarmingly poor.

But having said that, it’s still barely a month into the new season. Surely, a manager of Sir Bobby’s standing deserves more time than a month to get things right. It’s true that some of his recruits haven’t impressed but he’s been nowhere near as extravagant as Houllier in buying flops.

On the pitch, while performances haven’t been great, the blame shouldn’t rest solely on Sir Bobby’s shoulders. The players have lacked commitment in every game I’ve watched so far. There’s no hard running other than from Bellamy, no cohesion in midfield or defence and even the usually dependable Shay Given gave away a goal to Norwich.

Besides, there couldn’t be a worse time to sack a manager. The club is sitting close to the bottom of the table and desperately needs a few new players, especially in defence and midfield. And with the transfer window closing just about now, I don’t see any new blood coming in till January, which is a scary prospect. We just aren’t good enough to compete. Come January, new manager or not, we might not even be in the running for Europe.

One of the suggested reasons for the dismal performances of late has been the age gap between the players and the manager. I have no idea if it’s true but, frankly, it seems to me that Sir Bobby has just been unfortunate to take charge of a bunch of brats, the key example being Kieron Dyer, who should take a good look at himself despite his public apology. Refusing to play where the manager puts you is simply unacceptable. It’s disrespectful to the manager, to the club and to the fans. I was delighted to read that Dyer might have been moving on, but sadly, other clubs were astute enough not to take him.

As I mentioned, I don’t know if Sir Bobby’s departure is for the better or worse. Perhaps the club needs a disciplinarian more than a father figure. Someone like Peter Reid or Sam Allardyce who won’t hesitate to put players in their places. But then again, very few managers boast the wealth of experience or tactical knowledge that Sir Bobby possesses. It’s gonna be hard to find a replacement.

But that’s what the club must do now. I wouldn’t want to see the likes of Hoddle or Houllier associated with the role. Both have woeful track records. Hoddle is a horrible man-manager while Houllier’s time at Liverpool speaks for itself. Maybe a continental manager could be the answer. Someone like Deschamps or Koeman who encourages fluid, attacking football. Maybe Martin O’Neill could do a job here too. He’s an excellent motivator and knows the English game inside out. Of course, it’ll be extremely difficult to lure him from Celtic but it’s worth a try.

What’s for sure is that the board must take their time to decide. No more Dalglishes or Gullits thank you very much. The new manager has got to be able to take control of the players, to show them who’s boss and to whip them into action. And I mean whip cos that’s the only way this bunch is ever gonna wake up.

Dummy-text (lorem ipsum dolor sit amet…) What the hell does it mean?

Trust good old Cecil to enlighten us.

This other guy does a pretty good job as well.

Finally finished "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy", which is kinda sad. I was beginning to enjoy slugging that block of paper around, especially to the toilet. Bumping into the lawyers next door on the way was particularly enjoyable. They, inevitably, carting their official looking files, only to look down, stone-faced, from the corners of their eyes to see me and my green dot grinning back.

It occurs to me that there may be slightly too many commas in that last sentence. To correct that, I will now start on “Eats, Shoots & Leaves – The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”.

Signs like this, at the Heeren, right in the heart of touristy Orchard Road, show that the Speak Good English (ok… it’s written. Point noted.) campaign is an utter waste of time.

It also drove me absolutely mad which explains why I went on, almost immediately, to spend $25 on a pair of flip-flops. Just to ease the pain, you understand.

The Force is with Singapore

PM Lee delivered his national day rally speech last night and, for those of us who think him stiff, stolid and stern, showed a much friendlier side. His pace was good, his language impeccable, his tone warm and lively. Much in contrast to his father who tended to dictate rather than deliver speeches and much more entertaining than former PM Goh whom I felt always spoke half a beat too slowly.

But, public speaking skills aside, PM Lee showed a genuine desire to change the way this country is run.

The lifting of licensing requirements on indoor talks is a move which signals an important, if small, change in mindset. Freedom of speech has always been a sticky issue here. Some want it, others don’t and yet some others are taking their time to make their minds up about it. We all know what the foreign press thinks. All there is to do now is to wait and see what comes out of this extra bit of freedom.

He would have done well to address the concerns of the gay and lesbian community as well. While the government has allowed openly gay people to join the civil service and permitted a few gay events this year, many view this as merely window dressing. People Like Us, for example, still hasn’t been allowed to be registered as a society. The reason? It is “contrary to the national interest”.

It will be interesting to see if PM Lee continues this liberalisation process beyond these first tentative steps. Conservatism has always been part of the PAP’s style and PM Lee, while showing an understanding of the need to open up, is still ultimately a product of this system. As he told parliament in April, “If you are absolutely up at the leading edge in matters of social change, you are never quite sure whether the leading edge has taken a wrong turn, needs to back-track and make a U-turn.” I suppose we’re in for a little bit more nanny-ing for just awhile yet.

His views on education, however, are encouragingly progressive:

“We've got to teach less to our students so that they will learn more. Grades are important, don't forget to pass your exams but grades are not the only thing in life and there are other things in life which we want to learn in school.

Parents are part of this and they've got to support the efforts of the schools. When the schools are trying new teaching methods or when they are trying to build character or just toughening them up a little. I know some parents have gone to schools to complain, to say, 'The other school has more worksheets.'

Even some kindergarten parents are complaining that their children are not getting worksheets, and kindergarten students are attending remedial classes. No need. Let them grow up in their own time.

It's okay for children to get hurt. They fall down, bruise their knee, knock themselves, a few scrapes, can't be helped, that's part of growing up. If you grow up with no scars anywhere, you've never fallen off a bicycle, I think you are a different sort of person.”

Less emphasis on learning from the book and more on learning from life is the message. I doubt he’ll be able to convince parents to lighten up any time soon but it’s good that the government acknowledges that our papers based system does have its drawbacks.

A whole bunch of goodies were also unveiled. All family-centric but well received nonetheless. An extra 4 weeks paid maternity leave, 2 days childcare leave for parents with children under 7 years old, medical benefits extended to women and, drawing the loudest cheers of all, a 5-day week for the civil service (for a more balanced life i.e. more time for procreation).

With the economy forecasted to grow by up to 9% this year, PM Lee could afford to be cheerful and candid in his first national day rally speech. The chance was taken to give Singaporeans a reassuring pat on the back and hand out some carrots. The usual reminders that we need to constantly improve and not take things for granted were also there but the overall mood was one of celebration and progression. As the Straits Times reported, many sacred cows were slaughtered last night. Whether this is a one-off or if PM Lee will continue to ring the changes, only time will tell. But for now, it’s looking good. As he put it (tongue-in-cheek, I hope), “I think the force is with Singapore.”

Been Turd-ed

The best part about turd water messes, is that eventually someone gets angry enough to do something about it. One of the sergearnts called for a "stand-by toilet" (which did not include me) thereby activating the men of the unit to clean all the toilets in the building, bringing some respite to the 24 hour stench and eye-sore. For about 2 hours.

Apparently, this turd water leakage had sparked off many angry fits in the past. This intimately links the people who actually tried to do something about it, whether they had simply used a mop to wipe the precarious turd drip, or called in someone to fix the pipes.

Both had been done, and everything in between as well. All failed.


I've been turded, and it isn't a pleasant experience. It's not stopping either. In fact, the drip patterns are no longer predictable. It is spreading at an alarming rate, and now it threatens to turn the corridor into a turd-waterfall.

They should condemn this building.

Since we were on the topic of love and money (or love of money or money for love) before being interrupted by turd water, Whorfism and bad singing, I decided to post this.

It must be noted that this was found in a women’s magazine and thus must be considered clinching evidence that money is more important than love to the average female.

Also, why and how I came to browse a women’s magazine does not matter the slightest bit.

Apparently, these are also related to love in some bizarre way.

Singapore Idol is the type of programme that you should not watch while having dinner. This is especially true if your dinner involves chicken wings. Asphyxiation notwithstanding, you may inadvertently impale your cat with flying chicken bones shot out of your mouth as contestant so-and-so mutilates song such-and-such.

In fact, I strictly recommend that this hour of mental torment be viewed only with a thick and very hardy towel wedged in your mouth. This is to ensure you do not bite your tongue off in the ensuing gnashing of teeth.

The pain of this experience is something words cannot describe. Yet, despite the sheer torture of it all, people constantly put their tongues (and cats) on the line, week after week, contestant after woeful contestant. That includes me, by the way. Where is the sense in all this? I don’t know and I don’t care. But I’ll be back next week… chewing on a towel.

Can a concept exist without words to describe it?

An interesting article that explores the extent to which language influences our thoughts.

Reminds me also of all the time I spent laughing at the word “Whorfism”.

When Pipes Leak And Bones Creak

There's a pipe just outside my bunk, and I suspect that it has sprung a leak. It drips a foul smelling liquid that looks like black coffee. It most probably is turd water.

The worst part of the whole thing is the trail of the leakage. It's pooling on top of the door frame of the entrance to the toilet, forcing the users of the toilet to dance an absurd one-man tango to avoid the drips. The viscousness of the water allows a huge drop to accumalate before it plops on an unsuspecting visitor.

This usually happens precisely when one decides to put on a white shirt.

Fairy tales, in my humble opinion, are utter rubbish.

Females would disagree.

But I'd like to take this opportunity to prove something, so bear with me.

We all know the format for fairy tales. There's a prince charming, complete with a beautiful white steed, shiny armour, a chateau, and most importantly, a heroic chin (I've got a theory on this, but I digress). There's a princess who's all frail, but lovely and beautiful. We'll leave out the story of epic proportions that ensues, and go right to the happy ending. Now, let's see some hands guys: who actually wants to grow up to be Prince Charming? Okay, no takers. Now ladies, and let's be honest, who wants to grow up to be the Princess?

I rest my case.

The SDU's Success Stories™ read like fairy tales. But it's not that they are untrue, but like Allen Wu's acting, it's unreal. Here's a lady, single, and she's looking for a date. She enters a speed dating service. She meets a guy, who's above average looking, spends lots of time overseas, rich (because he can buy you a Lancer!) and best yet, can expose you for the shallow person that you are.

I'm not going to start venus-bashing. I think that article has done it more than enough. It's just that I'm upset that a government body meant to relieve the Singles issues in Singapore has resorted to cheapening its females and pimping them to rich men. They play on the fantasies of desperate thousands.

I once joked that 90% of Singaporean women are interested in only 5% of the men here; those who are rich, smart, handsome, and preferably, caucasian. Jokes aside, I think that's largely the case. Because though I know quite a few ladies who are not like that at all (thank God for them), I've known even more who are.

What? Sour grapes? No, not me, I've got a heroic chin.

Find true love at $DU

I'm sure SDU is trying to show that their matchmaking techniques work.. but to have such a testimony just puts Singaporean women in a bad light.

http://www.lovebyte.org.sg/sdufiles/hotstories/html/successstory_augsept.html

Look at the seventh entry. What was that guy doing at SDU anyway? This is ridiculous.

I hope they are really happy

If only I could recall

There have been many times when I had displayed the contents of my mouth to friends, especially my girlfriend. The sight of chew-processed food almost always resulted in provoking people to give me their most impressive expressions of disgust.

Solid foods (best if it were colourful) mixed with saliva and brought to a pasty/chunky consistency had the best effect. Liquids in the mouth tended to have a more translucent quality that just didn't have the impact that appropriately masticated solids had. That's why I cannot recall the time when I displayed the insides of my mouth, supposedly filled with banana milkshake, to Joel, any man, or anyone of the opposite sex.

You've got to see me eat cake.

Takeshi at Genki

I’m stuffing myself at Genki when who saunters in but Takeshi. I’m sure John and Adrian will find this very unimaginatively nicknamed person familiar. He’s the model/self-professed philosophy aficionado who always sat sulkily alone in class. But then again, when you’re a model who’s constantly engrossed in deciphering Kierkergaard’s Knight of Faith rubbish, you don’t really need company.

So Takeshi sits down literally right in front of me and I see that he’s wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a COAT. A damn business coat in Sunny Singapore! This confirmed my theory that models are in fact cold-blooded organisms from a distant, and as yet undiscovered, piece of rock in the proximity of Mercury, banished to Earth to lead a life of constant pouting while staring at distant objects. The average temperature of Earth is also 1,000 oC below what they’re used to. Hence the coat.

Anyway, I must have been gawking, exposing the contents of my mouth, which at that moment, happened to be a half-chewed spicy tuna handroll, for he glanced in my direction and quickly turned away. (Of course, in terms of grossness, this pales in comparison to the time when Adrian tastefully opened his mouth after filling it with banana milkshake bringing to mind a certain word starting with a capital “B”.)

Then Takeshi’s friend decides to talk to him. Ah… I have not yet described his friend. I suppose he’s sort of a Mini-me meets big lump of tofu kinda guy. Shaven-headed, creamy-white, and fat. I might add that he had no neck as well. But, lest you think that he has no charm, he speaks with an American accent. WOOOH! This automatically makes him cool to the average Singaporean. However, being atypical ones, neither Suyi (my unfortunate dinner companion and Honkie-at-heart) nor I (being simply maladjusted) were impressed.

I might add, at this point, that I made all these observations while cunningly looking preoccupied with eating sushi, sipping Sprite, making small talk with Suyi and generally appearing uninterested in anything else. I am now convinced that my true calling is really in private investigation.

Surprisingly, after only 10 minutes of this excruciating pretense, they went off, which left me able to be genuinely preoccupied with eating sushi, sipping Sprite, making small talk with Suyi and generally appearing uninterested in anything else.

Once they were out of earshot, I told her that the guy in the coat who just walked out with the funky hair and lips that looked like they very recently had a nasty experience with a fishhook was a model (MAWWWWDEL). To which she suffered a vicious pang of unimpressedness.

“He looks so gay!” was her reply.

From which I had the epiphany that the criteria for becoming a model are simply being 6 ft tall and looking gay. Which I guess is pretty fair compensation.

"When we’ll be found out as pretenders. And then? We’ll probably get jobs as editors."

I resent that. Editors have to be experts in their fields. put "copy" in front of that "editor". Even then, it's not something just anyone can do.

I failed to deliver a headline yesterday. Or at least, I failed to deliver a line that the client (bitch) liked more than her own. It’s irritating when such things happen. It didn’t help that the client was the type of person whose sole reason for existence seemed to be to piss people off. It’s amazing how the suits managed to maintain their pleasant dispositions over the course of the teleconference, which, by the way, is an infuriating way of conducting a meeting because it makes it nigh impossible for a peeved copywriter to fling his shoe at a smug client.

But over and above the initial irritation was the total destruction of any confidence in my abilities as a copywriter that I may have previously had. Copywriters are an insecure bunch, as Yvonne pointed out to me. We are constantly afraid that there’ll come a day when we won’t be able to produce. When we’re totally stumped. When we’ll be found out as pretenders. And then? We’ll probably get jobs as editors.

The thing is that there really isn’t anything we can do to guarantee that the next idea WILL come. You can have a great idea one day, triumphantly cracking the brief and going for a celebratory meal somewhere with lots of smoke and then suddenly be stumped by some damn one-liner for some stupid EDM with the word “FREE” in point size 24 the next. So what we, or I at least, continually do is hope for the best. And try to get our hands on as many award books, copy books, novels, archives, pamphlets, direct-mailers and so on and so forth that we can.

But, having said that, it’s kinda fun going to work everyday, fingers crossed, hoping for the best. The triumphs outnumber the defeats definitely. Just that the defeats are more fun to whine about.

Have Thumbs Will Travel

Yesterday, I ventured with Pat to Bugis Junction in search of a decent pair of shorts. Therefore, I popped into Kinokuniya and got myself The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But not just any Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The omnibus edition. The one and only trilogy of five books complete with a bonus story all in one outrageous volume. The paperback edition that costs $6 more than the hardcover one.

I suppose that despite my present financial situation (I am currently facing cash-flow problems i.e. the money isn’t flowing from my boss to me), this is just as good a time as any to have made this… er… investment.

Firstly, even though I’ve read it twice, just looking at that grinning tennis ball sans lines with the camera, hat and suitcase makes me happy. Inexplicably happy.

Secondly, I wanted to get the book way before The-Hitchhiker’s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-movie craze which will undoubtedly sweep the world next year when the movie is released which will see secondary school kids lugging the volume around whining like Marvin the Paranoid Android (or me, as John would have it) or proclaiming themselves President of the Universe ala good old Zaphod. What’s worse having to endure JC students debating, for example, if Douglas Adams’ style is more P.G. Wodehouse or John Irving.

However, having said that, comparing THHGTTG to The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter would be a slight exaggeration. The latter two aren’t even in the same league. What we are talking about in THHGTTG is, after all, the most hilarious, imaginative, eye-popping, gut-swelling collection of stories ever written. The type of book that laments the state of humanity but that also makes you laugh. And laugh out loud at that. (If you are shallow and totally uninterested in the goings-on of the world, like me, just read it for the laughs.) And besides, who ever squeezed five novels about sticking your thumbs up at the stars AND a bonus story into a trilogy?

maybe i can install this in my arm

click on picture for full article

An excerpt:

"Deep Green is extremely accurate at hitting the cue ball into any pocket from anywhere in the table. That, of course, is not really what pool is about, so the next step is to improve its accuracy when using the cue ball to sink the remaining balls"

I'm better in this respect as i can get the cue ball into any pocket after making a shot from anywhere on the table! HAH! Beat that, Deep Green!

[on the radio]
What did Sushi A say to Sushi B?
WAZZZABI!

*proceeds to pull hair out*