The Forum

If ever you get the chance, you must read the Strait Times – Singapore’s biggest selling English paper. Not for its insightful journalism (of which I am sure there must be some – though, if it is, then it has gone deep, deep undercover) but for the ‘Forum’ – i.e. the letters page.

For people write in to complain about such trivial things that they are laughable. Like how someone jumped ahead of them in a queue, or picked up some salad leaves in the supermarket with their ‘bare’ hands. That would be funny enough but their letters usually start off a trickle of letters from others who have experienced the same ‘problem’, demanding that something should be done. Or, sometimes, you get a serious topic started and that prompts someone to utter their two cents’ worth, which really shows bad taste and is hardly relevant.

For example, someone recently died after being run over by a tube - which was pretty awful, granted. That incident prompted a host of letters ranging from crowd control to automatic safety doors, from lines for people to stand behind to cameras at stations. All sensible enough (ish), agreed.

But on the topic of cameras, someone has written in today to ask why the cameras are not used to catch people who fall foul of the law. Reasonable enough if the crimes were muggings etc but this ‘crime’ was eating an apple!

To quote from the letter: “In one incident, a Caucasian walked right past Security Control eating an apple in his hand – for all to see! Yet no one stopped him. Despite the fact that this was clearly in breach of the eating and drinking regulations on the MRT (tube)”

Unbelievable but true.

Oops

Prompted by a certain Ms Holly Rowland from Shepherd’s Bush, I will endeavour to add more blogs and on a daily basis. More or less.

As for the past ten days or so, they can be summarised as follows:

* Sarah went to Shanghai for work
* Had a few late nights at work myself – though mainly playing pool (our boardroom table is in fact a pool table) and supping ale with colleagues and the bosses
* Shot 102 at Sabana Cove, Malaysia – my lowest ever round. Unless, of course, you take into account that round of crazy golf at Margate in the summer of 76
* Have put Sarah’s birthday pressie (shake / juice book) to good use with many a healthy concoction
* Carnegies - the spirit of rock and quizzes - is now no more. They closed thier doors the other Saturday! And it just so happened to be the night of Sarah's birthday bash - so, surprise, surprise, we were there to see them off and take advantage of the free bar!
* Sarah brought back some golf clubs (for me and her) from Shanghai so we road-tested some clubs down at Tanglin on Sunday – which was fun. Though can’t wait to get to a driving range to test out the Big Bertha!
* The BBC’s Last Laugh writing competition has just started - so will chance my arm at writing (or should that be finishing) a sit-com
* And Sarah and I are off to Koh Samui (Thailand) tomorrow. Originally it was to meet up with a couple of pals from the UK but it now seems that they have had a massive falling-out and have returned to the UK - separately! When we find out more (eg what happened, etc), then will be sure to spill the beans here!

Sarah Says Au Revoir to Carnegies 

All's Well That Ends Well

In the end, my last minute dot com antics cam thru' and managed to snaffle some suitable pressies. Though did really leave everything to the final minutes as I picked up a book at lunchtime (a cool guide to some foreign places that we have our list of places to visit), then after work and before I went off to footy, I got a flash flash for her digital SLR camera, another book (though in a different bookshop to be fair - and on another subject too: super sexy smoothies + juices) and a 'Sunday' golf bag.

Then after our 9pm football match (for the aptly named Beer Cellar Utd - nee Coolies), it was a quick beer at the Beer Cellar before getting home at midnight(ish) to deliver the pressies (as Sarah was opening her other b'day gifts and cards at 12am). And, after wrapping them in the last minute dot com fashion (with pages from the IHT in the back of the taxi!), gave Sarah her pressies and they all went down well.

Yesterday, Sarah had an art class in the evening - so hopefully we will be out this evening somewhere for some nice eats. Otherwise, we have a Mexican meal (in Singapore's oldest mexican restaurant, Magarita's) with some mates planned on Saturday evening.

Lastminute.Com

Sarah's birthday is only a few hours away and, yet again, I have left everything to the last minute to try and find her a pressie or two. Thought that I had cracked when I came up with the idea of an iPhoto. However, after visiting Apple's so-called 'flagship store' at Wheelock Place (Orchard Rd) last night, the service was so bad that I left empty-handed.

[Basically the place was packed, music blaring and the staff knew sweet fa about their products. Reminscent of any sports shop. Or maybe it's just me showing my age!]

Which was a result, as after mentioning the iPhoto to Sarah this morning, we both agreed that it was quite expensive for something that is really just a storage device for pix. And who really wants to lug around all their pix in something that can be mislaid so easily?

And although you can plug it into a TV set and show everyone your pix, how often would that really happen?

Anyway, suffice to say, I will be spending my lunch-time searching for something else.

Every Great Journey Starts With That First Step

Due to a number of reasons that range from the good (ie work), the bad (Coolies Golf Days) and the ugly (ie could not find a Lotus Notes R5 Blog Template that did not require the use of agents), it has been six months since I last updated anything on www.damianrobinson.com!

Which is kinda slack.

In the end, I decided that the best thing was to forget about doing a blog in Lotus Notes (for now, anyways!) and simply set up one thru the wonderful bods at www.Blogger.com and have redirect people from www.damianrobinson.com to the blog.

Sounds convoluted - but, hey, it works for now!