For baby boomers like me, listening to the weekend Top Tunes of the Week on radio was a must. Some of us also tried to "transcribe" the lyrics onto exercise books (the kind with the multiplication table, how many taels make one catty, a mnemonic on the number of days in each month, etc, on the back cover).
I don't recall ever writing in to make "requests" for popular songs but it was fascinating to hear, say, Ricardo Elvis Ringo Ong making a dedication to Connie Doris Baby Neo...
The DJs indeed held court, with their sonorous voices. Hence, a letter from ST reader Victor Khoo (unrelated to me but I think he's the same one who did police national service with me at Still Road station -- before I got drafted into army green uniforms) stirred fond memories of my avid radio-listening days. Here's Victor Khoo's letter in ST Forum (24 April):
Trend of multiple radio DJs sacrifices that old personal touch
Why does a person listen to the radio? Apart from getting information, news and music, a radio listener wants someone to keep him company; a proxy for personal, warm and friendly one-to-one companionship.
For the radio listener, that companion is the deejay on air. So the test of a good radio deejay is to be able to communicate with his listeners in a manner that replicates a personal, face-to-face encounter via the restricted confines of audio contact. This is not easy.
A deejay can use only his voice to reach out and connect with the listener in an audio embrace. A deejay who succeeds in doing so has done the job and is the benchmark of a good one.
Unfortunately, the new trend among local radio stations is to have two or more deejays hosting one show for reasons fathomable only to these broadcasting stations. I say unfortunately because this trend robs the station of that personal touch.
More often than not, the listener ends up literally as a passive eavesdropper on a bunch of men and women talking and joking among themselves in a cacophony of chatter.
While they may be entertaining, these deejays and their bosses should remember that they are working on radio, not a television sitcom.
Of course, there are exceptions, where a station bravely soldiers on with just one deejay holding the fort. In this respect, my kudos goes to solo radio deejays like Mr Hamish Brown of Gold 90FM.
Can I have my good old radio deejay back, and radio stations back to what they were meant to be?
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That letter above reminds me too of the very apt song "Pilot of the Airwaves", by Charlie Dore :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiyyL5FYcPI
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Meanwhile, the taxman, it seems, will doggedly ask for one cent in taxes due!...
Retiree's property tax bill: 1 cent
(ST, 24 April, page B6)
WHEN retiree Steven Ooi opened a letter last Saturday asking him to pay his property tax, he was stunned to discover that the amount he owed was one cent.
The letter was sent to him by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras). It added: Pay up or there would be a 5 per cent penalty fee.
Mr Ooi, 75, was baffled, but he shrugged and paid up. That same day, he wrote out a cheque for one cent and sent it to the tax authority.
He said he mailed the cheque because he was curious to know what would happen next.
“Apart from making them happy, I wanted to see what the authorities would do with my one-cent cheque,” he said.
Mr Ooi, who lives with his family in a condominium in Braddell, said he usually receives a letter from the Iras to pay property tax once a year.
He added that he received an earlier tax letter in February, so this latest one was unexpected.
His four-room unit was bought nearly seven years ago, and Mr Ooi and his family have lived there since.
When contacted, the Iras said it was unable to comment as tax matters are confidential.
Mr Ooi told The Straits Times that the Iras called him yesterday evening at about 6.30pm.
The authority told him that it was trying to locate and retrieve his cheque before it was deposited.
Mr Ooi said he was not sure if the Iras would return his cheque, and that the matter was probably an oversight on its part.
“It boils down to red tape over standard procedure that big organisations go through,” he said.
“No matter how much or how little you owe, you pay up. So things could get sent without someone going through every single thing,” he added.
Mr Ooi, however, said there is a part of him that regrets sending the one-cent cheque.
“In a way, I wish I had not sent the cheque, because I really did want to see how they would charge me the 5 per cent penalty.”
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Mr Ooi, you may be 75 years old, but you rock, man!
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