Catching up on the NDP I missed...

I was not in Singapore on Aug 9. So what did I miss?...

Wow, the National Day Parade (NDP) fireworks display at the Marina Bay area looked spectacular! But the clouds "rained" on the parade of the SAF's Shirley Ng who, as a member of the Red Lions, would have been the first woman sky-diving parachutist at the parade -- if not for the cloudy conditions which forced a cancellation of the crowd-favourite event. Let's hope she gets to do it next year.

One piece of shoddy editing spoilt the otherwise very readable front page story. It is impossible to "reach a crescendo"! Indeed, one New York Times writer recently explained why (reproduced in ST):

------------------------------------------------------------

As I am wont to do every time I am out of Singapore, upon coming back, I go through the newspapers I had not read. I thought this headline below was strange...

What? It must have been a bad skid, with one passenger -- a cow! -- dead! (It must have been seated in "cattle class".)

You have to read the story to have the mystery cleared up. But that's not the point... a good headline helps to tell a story accurately. All that's needed in this case is a tweak to say "... stray cow killed" instead.

I found this other story interesting, with its very well-crafted introduction an added bonus:

--------------------------------------------------------------

To get back to this year's National Day Parade, kudos to the organisers for slipping in this ode-to-Singlish segment:

 And of course I found the La La La Song on YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngkJHEE9N-U

...as well as the Social Media song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nob6R5wq_Fg

----------------------------------------------------------

Finally, it's always great to fly home on SIA. This luggage tag gave me a thought...

Immigration Officer (upon handing back the passport to someone leaving the country for good):
Go, and SIN no more!

SIN-ful note: Somewhere among my junk are two priceless Finnair boarding passes. One says "From SIN to HEL" and the other says "From HEL to SIN".

Rock it, man!

2013, A Space Oddity

This man is cool. Not only is Chris Hadfield a bona fide astronaut who commanded the International Space Station, he got to sing Space Oddity (David Bowie's hit song) while strumming the guitar. For the record, Hadfield made the first music video in space...

Here's the must-see video clip which includes stunning views of Earth from the space station:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

--------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, here's ST's update on Singapore's bid to put a Singaporean into "space"... 

So shy, ah! Seven unmanned flight tests have been made overseas (where?) so far and no one knew. In any case, the craft in question will not reach beyond Earth's stratosphere, so technically it will not be going into space. As previously reported, the launch is set for National Day 2015.

--------------------------------------------------------

I'm taking advantage of the super-long weekend break to fly off to Surabaya. Back blogging on Monday.

Prepping up for the Little Red Dot's birthday...

Wah, the buildup to National Day 2013 is palpable. Certainly, discounts-wise, it gets better...

I don't expect to be around in 2065 but imagine the discounts then... 100% off!

Of late, there seems to be a new NDP (National Day Parade) song every year. This year's was panned by many people -- including me, so I won't even mention it. Here's what one critic felt:

A compilation of tried and tested favourite NDP songs was put up by insing.com:

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/5-best-national-day-songs/id-a3783f00

But as someone noted, that list omitted Tanya Chua's "Where I Belong" (2001) -- a very nice composition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&hl=en-GB&v=jUf-5W6AKes

Local song composer Dick Lee shared with ST readers the inspiration for his 1998 NDP hit, "Home":

Among other newspaper stories that have appeared in the run-up to National Day this Friday (Aug 9) is this one from ST that I like:

I think our boys in green should have a special place on every National Day. This song below -- "The BMT Song" -- while not an NDP theme song, is very good!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt_x0BTg6OU

----------------------------------------------------------------

Lifted -- the haze over what SBY actually said!

Finally, when Indonesian President SBY famously apologised to "our brothers in Singapore and Malaysia" in June for the smog that hit those neighbouring countries as a result of peat cum forest fires from Sumatra, I had -- in a blog entry -- wondered what were his choice of words, in Bahasa Indonesia. Well, I am glad someone else was just as curious, albeit from a feminist perspective:

Ah yes, "saudara saudara" would indeed have been an apt choice as the term connotes "brothers in common purpose" or, simply, "comrades".

Bet you didn't know this!

Quite obviously, I find certain print ads interesting. Some are even fascinating. Others are cheeky, like this one:

StarHub was taking a pot shot at rival telco SingTel, which had hiked the fees for its BPL package (the closely followed premier league in the English soccer calendar), much to the unhappiness of many SingTel subscribers. With its dangled bill rebate, StarHub's offer did seem like an "Ole! Ole! Ole!" deal. That is, until The Sunday Times (Aug 4) carried this story:

AirAsia too could not resist taking a dig at rival budget airline TigerAir:

  This came after TigerAir had announced that it was dropping the tiger logo from its brand image:

But I am glad TigerAir dropped the meek looking tiger it was using. A fierce, lean, tiger out to devour the competition does not clench, ie, pull back, its claws. This one looks like an oversized playful kitty (or a fat cat?) :

Just compare it to Tiger Balm's majestic tiger, paws outstretched and ready to pounce!...

-----------------------------------------------------------

Finally, still on airline-related stuff, bet you didn't know this!...

The caption reads: In the 1950s, infants travelled in hammock 'skycots'.

Skip the Land of Lotos Eaters, go straight to Dudu-land...

The Dudu (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

“Onward!” we rallied, pointing towards Duduland,
“This mounting craving rolls us on, we swoon.”
So in the evening, did come the clan
To where it seemed always afternoon.
All round the poolside languid folks did drool,
Breath smelling o' the fruit that hath 'pungent' cream.
Full-faced above the condo stood the moon;
While we downed the heavenly stuff,, and dreamed
O' next dudu do, a call to feast, even if on a whim.

So what are the dudu? It's a term coined by a family member for our clan of durian aficionados. A dozen or so of us feasted on over 30 kilos of the King of Fruits. We felt languid after getting home, but eager for more of the same -- the next time! Another family family, not to be outdone by "TennySan", took liberties with a familiar National Day song:

Count on Us (The Dudu Variation)

We are the family that loves durians
Yes we do, we are "Dudu"
We always ask what's new in store,
We want some more...

We all have to do our part
Hands together, pry the shells apart
There more in there for everyone to eat
This is so sweet
Oh such a treat!

Count on us to eat durians
Appetites like roaring lions
Count on us to meet and eat like this
Family feasts are truly bliss!

And the last word goes to... Durian Seng

When I grow up, I want to be...

A bug squasher!

I could not believe it when I saw the headline. Hey, litterbugs are humans, not insects!

A delivery (despatch) rider!

There's lots to look at in this job, it seems.

A bus captain!

I never made it pass the corporal rank in NS, so it's good to be a high-ranking bus captain. And I get the chance to become -- not a, but THE -- Chief Bus Captain (just as there's only one Chief of Defence Force). But wait a minute... the CDF has thousands of men under his command. An army captain has a company of soldiers to shout orders at. So what underlings does a bus captain have when he confidently strides up to his bus, settles in, hits the door cock (yes, it's called that; I don't know why), and toots the horn to let us waiting commuters know that we can now obediently "troop" onboard.

In the old days, we knew them as bus drivers. They did not need to be called "captains"; no one looked down on them (or dared to; they were often the grouchy sort). And I wonder how many of today's young people know that there were once bus conductors as well. I found online this blog writer who reminisced about those bygone days, of bus companies like Singapore Traction Company, Green Bus, Hock Lee, Tay Koh Yat, etc, all with the two-man crew of bus driver and bus conductor:

http://wwwyeohongeng.blogspot.sg/2011/07/my-experience-with-bus-transport-in-50s.html

From the blog above were these photos which triggered my (now fond) memories of the conductor coming round with the familiar "click, click, click" sound before a ticket was issued...

---------------------------------------------

Finally, just what is a dish technician?

Time flies, in this silly season...

This is a really classy joke...

Two boys were having fun chasing after insects. "Time flies," said one of them. "They're too fast. You can't," said the other.

There is this other famous word-pun: "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana".

There is even a poem (found in Wikipedia):

Time Flies Like an Arrow

Now thin fruit flies like thunderstorms,

And thin farm boys like farm girls narrow;

And tax firm men like fat tax forms -

But time flies like an arrow!

Like tossed bananas in the skies,

The thin fruit flies like common yarrow;

Then's the time to time the time flies -

Like the time flies like an arrow.

Edison B. Schroeder 1966

Which brings me to this strange SingTel ad:

Yes, it is that time of the year when advertisers invoke the seasons here in tropical Singapore. Sizzling summer? You bet, all 12 months of the year. But at least three advertisers dispute that: one season has ended, and another has begun, it seems...

Since this is the season to be silly, I shall ask: WHEN IS A GUY A GAL?

When it's this baby boy...

because of his name...

Advertisers had been cashing in on the birth of George Alexander Louis (GAL). This one drew mixed reactions:

Hopefully, the silly season of going gaga over the royal baby is tapering off and the couple themselves will finally have some peace and quiet.

------------------------------------------------------

I'll wrap up with two stories that caught my eye...

How does one tell that there were about 30,000 bees? Just as flies are too fast to time, I am sure a swarm of angry bees is too many to count, especially if you want to get away from them!

I thought the headline was excellent! But what a weird story. Ah well, it's the silly season.