Monthly Archives: January 2010

Gold 90 FM, Home of Brian Richmond

I was slightly offended when I turned on the radio and heard, “Gold 90 FM, Home of Elvis Pres­ley”. It was read out by Brian Rich­mond, the doyen of radio pre­sen­ters. Then I realised that they really should have a promo/announcement that says some­thing to the effect of “Radio Sin­ga­pore — Home of Brian Rich­mond”,

The salty salesmen of the Dead Sea

The sales tac­tics of Vardi & Migdal — the Israeli com­pany with push­carts in malls all over the island — used to work. They use push­carts instead of rent­ing a shop space because if you were a sales­man in a shop, you wouldn’t be able to roam a mall’s thor­ough­fare and accost passers-by. We have

Female circum… whaaaaat?

I was shocked to learn from Naomi yes­ter­day that female cir­cum­ci­sion is prac­ticed in Sin­ga­pore. I had no idea. You learn a lot from moth­er­hood forums, where Naomi stum­bled upon dis­cus­sions on whether to cir­cum­cise, where to cir­cum­cise, how to do it and how much is done and how much is charged. I’ve always thought that

Inappropriate children’s songs

Now that Kai is begin­ning to learn and mimic, we are start­ing to be more mind­ful of the songs we sing to him. Espe­cially children’s songs. On our banned wagon now is the French ditty Alou­ette, which we thought was about a sky­lark. It is about a sky­lark, and the cruel thing (pluck­ing its feath­ers)

Now that the homeless families have been housed

CNA reports on HDB’s 50th Anniver­sary with an open­ing para­graph which would have been an out­right clanger if they hadn’t found lodg­ing for the park-dwellers: SINGAPORE: Is there a role for Singapore’s Hous­ing and Devel­op­ment Board (HDB), now that the entire pop­u­la­tion has been housed? Con­grat­u­la­tions on 50 years of hous­ing the nation!

The music they play in hell

We had to go out to Paragon today because Kai had to see the doc­tor to get some med­ica­tion for his cold. We’re all a bit under the weather, but we man­aged to sol­dier on because Paragon’s com­mon areas didn’t play that infer­nal racket known as Chi­nese New Year music. The indi­vid­ual shops and the super­mar­ket

Unthinkable Singapore

So we might not get to watch the World Cup. They say you can feel the pulse of the nation on sammyboy.com, and yes­ter­day, a heart­felt plea from “Rogue Trader” summed up the dis­be­lief and des­per­a­tion among soc­cer fans around the island. Dear singtel and starhub, i writes to you as a foot­ball fans. Please show

Vegetarian food can taste this good

Once in a while I han­ker for a steak, done medium-rare, and I used to think I wouldn’t sur­vive a day with­out meat. I also have a sen­si­tive stom­ach, about which Naomi loves to talk with some glee to her friends and rel­a­tives. We read some­where awhile ago about ‘eat­ing for your blood type’, and

Mac the Dog’s visit to the vet

Mac the Dog’s chronic itchy paw prob­lem may have a solu­tion. Thanks to a tip from our super dog­gie mommy friend, we vis­ited Mount Pleas­ant Ani­mal Med­ical Cen­tre at Sun­set Way, where the vet told us that almost every­thing Mac’s pre­vi­ous vet told us was bunk. Mac prob­a­bly doesn’t have a thy­roid imbal­ance caus­ing skin prob­lems.

Why Tanglin has a Halt

Yes­ter­day, some­one tweeted some­thing quite innocu­ous — about food and about how she was about to eat food — but the local­ity she tweeted about — “Tan­glin Halt” — piqued my inter­est. I’ve always won­dered who Tan­glin was named for, and why there is (or was) a “Halt” in Tan­glin. It isn’t exactly a burn­ing