Going Native

Me: So before I bought the camera, we walked around all the different shops selling it to compare prices, and see who would throw in more extra stuff.
Alec: Like a free travel bag?
Me: No!
Alec, stifling laughter: Or, say, a free radio alarm clock?
Me: NO! Relevant stuff like CompactFlash memory cards!
Alec, chortling out loud: But wouldn’t you prefer a free calculator watch?
Me: RRRROWR.

Even given the fact that Alec reads Talking Cock more than I do, the scary extent to which he is in touch with the Singaporean psyche still suggests he has not actually been in Ireland these past few months, but has instead been living a secret existence in a 3-room flat in Toa Payoh.

Whore Fun

We went drinking on Keong Saik Road on Saturday. Across the road from our bar (37) was X-Zone Karaoke Pub. A few doors down was Streeters Pub. After my first drink I decided to go outside to have a look around. After all, it’s not every day that I go drinking in a red light district.

I stood by the side of the road. I took a long look down one side of it. I turned and took a long look down the other side of it. For some reason, I was standing with one hand on my hip. I then realized I was behaving like a prostitute, and hurriedly retreated into the bar to order another of what they cheerfully referred to as a “big motherfucker” of a Hoegaarden.

Happy Birthday To Me, By The Way

There’s a great line in David Sedaris’s Barrel Fever – “If you’re looking for sympathy you can find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.” I’m not looking for sympathy; at least, not here. It’s just that I seem to be going through an odd mental blogging block, which I think will only clear once I’ve written something down about the strange phenomenon that afflicts me every year on March 17 and its surrounding days. Snarks will point out that such writing need only reside on my hard drive, but what would be the fun in that?
Read More “Happy Birthday To Me, By The Way”

Non Sequitur

His hair was classic 60something/Chinese/male, Brylcreemed to the contours of his head like brittle plastic. He was walking with a little girl in school uniform, possibly his daughter but more probably his grand-daughter. Her pink vinyl Barbie schoolbag hung from his shoulder, and her Tare Panda waterbottle was slung across his torso. His T-shirt had raglan sleeves. It read “Funky Monkey”.

Harry Potter Can Kiss Their Arses

The books of The Borrible Trilogy (Michael de Larrabeiti) are full of theft, swearing, treachery and murder. Decapitation, electrocution, catapult blow to the head, crushing, burning, and innumerable stabbings are only some of the ways in which various characters, both good and bad, meet their deaths. And they’re among my favourite children’s books ever.

The London of these books is bleak, ugly, and riddled with decay and brutality. Borribles live in derelict buildings in rough parts of the city like Tooting and Peckham, and live off what they can steal. On their adventure, they travel by night, paddling up discoloured, viscuous rivers, wading through dank sewers, and seeking refuge in vast rubbish sites and industrial wastelands. It’s the London you glimpse through the window of the train half an hour before it pulls into King’s Cross, before you shudder delicately and return to your book. It isn’t the London I knew, but in my hopeless irrational love, even this London is intriguing.

Some points are perhaps made a little less subtly than some adults would like. As a child, I never picked up on the fact that the Rumbles of Rumbledom were a dark piss-take on the Wombles of Wimbledon Common, or that their arrogance, wealth and speech inflections (e.g. “I’m tewwibly sowwy, old bean”) were meant to satirize a certain class of English society. I also didn’t know enough about London to understand why the author chose to make the Borrible from Brick Lane a Bangladeshi, or the Borribles from Brixton black. (The German Borrible, for what it’s worth, is called Adolf.) Perhaps my political correctness hackles are supposed to rise in response to this, but they don’t, because none of these characters are ever confined to a stereotype, or a caricature.

There is no magic in these books. There is no train departing from platform 13 and a half at King’s Cross. The stories are as riveting as any good action thriller I’ve ever seen, and I remember many late nights spent as a wild-eyed hostage to distrust, suspense and genuine concern for the welfare of the characters, who live or die solely by their wits, courage and indomitable spirit. If the most recent children’s books you’ve read are the Harry Potter ones, step out of your comfort zone and meet the Borribles. Rated PG.

London Calling To The Faraway Town

I have a two week holiday between the end of my exams in late April and the return of my nose to the mooting grindstone in mid-May, and of course I’m making a beeline for London. (With a jaunt to Poland and the Czech Republic.) And even though it’s more than two months away, I can’t stop thinking about it.

There’s so much I want to cram into those precious few days there, but I can’t decide whether to spend the time revisiting what I already know and love, or to explore the vastness(es) I still didn’t get round to discovering even over four years there.

The tug of the familiar and beloved is difficult to resist – I want to stay in Bloomsbury, visit dear old Jeremy B (deceased) in the UCL building, buy too many CDs in Berwick Street, and check for new sad robot graffiti on Brick Lane. I want to attend mass either in Newman House or the noon one in St Anselm & St Cecilia with the amazing choir. I want to rollerblade in Hyde Park. I want to lose money at the greyhounds.

I want to have a leisurely breakfast (fry-up) reading the papers in Cafe Valencia on Marchmont Street, eat anything anytime in Savoir Faire, Song Que (yes, I obviously don’t need to go all the way to London for Vietnamese food, but the crispy pancakes, oh the crispy pancakes!), The Perseverance, Carluccio’s, South, Incognico before 7 pm, strawberry beer on a Sunday afternoon at The Spitz.

There’ll be an El Greco exhibition at the National Gallery. Roy Lichtenstein at the Hayward. I’m adamant on Jerry Springer The Opera. McLusky are playing The Garage on 6 May. I’m keeping an eye on the Do Something Pretty and Track And Field gig guides to make sure I don’t miss out on the small venue gigs Stargreen doesn’t list. (Incidentally, this is actually an exercise in agony, due to all the gigs I’ve found out I’ll be missing. The Shins are at the tiny beautiful Water Rats pub on 1 April, for which I reckon tickets will be all of £5, and Yo La Tengo have decided to deny me a third brush with gibbering ecstasy by playing the Shepherd’s Bush Empire a month before that. Insert profuse swearing here.)

And then there’s the other impetus – to do something new. I always meant to go to the Sir John Soane’s Museum but never got round to it. Same with the Dulwich Picture Gallery. And the view from Richmond Hill. And a Regent’s Canal walk. And meals at Andrew Edmunds and Frederick’s and Le Cafe Du Marche.

I haven’t even got to the human aspect of a London visit yet – all the dear friends I want to see again. Eep. Something tells me it’s going to be a very manic 5 days.

My Funny Valentine

There are worse ways to spend Valentine’s Day than waking up to lilies delivered by Alec, going out later that evening to meet Terry for dinner and cocktails on the NUSS terrace balcony, then being presented with even more lilies, going home to videoconference with Alec, and finally arranging my big combined lily bunch in a vase before going to sleep. There really are.

[In case it looks like I’m two-timing someone somewhere, rest assured that I’m not. I’m merely lucky enough to have a great guy friend in Terry who knows how to treat girls but doesn’t have any designs on me, a secure boyfriend in Alec who knows how much he is loved and therefore has no problems with my multitudes of close male friends, and the very pleasant coincidence between Alec and Terry of good taste in flowers.]

And that’s not all. Those of you who’ve been reading this site for a while may remember Bellagio, the inflatable, anatomically correct sheep Alec presented to me one night in Italy. When I had to leave for Singapore, we decided Bellagio would stay with Alec, since I didn’t think my mother would be particularly receptive to her charms, and she’d have lots of sheep friends in Ireland anyway. (There was, of course, the mild possibility that the other sheep could ostracize her due to her inflatable nature, but we hoped showing them her orifice would be proof enough of her essential sheepness.)

So as a charming epilogue to this tale of Valentine’s bliss, Alec, ever romantic, decided to show me just how much he appreciated the planter full of spring flowers I’d sent him. The best way of doing this, he thought, was by sending me a photo of Bellagio, posing shyly next to the planter, with a trowel in her fanny.

Looks Like A Flower But She Stings Like A Bee

Friday night in the Raffles City carpark, on the way to Cityspace. A phone call from Alec at the precise moment M and B spotted an object of desire in a backless top.

Me, in M’s car: Oh, hello dear, I’ve just been judging debates and I’m headed out for drinks with some of the old debating guys.
M and B, going wild in the background: Oh MAN, check out that fucking hot chick! Oh my GOD she’s not wearing anything under that skimpy top! Yeah, baby! (etc.)
Alec: Riiiiiiiigght.
Me: Er, they’re normally very intellectual. Really. They’re just tired.
Alec: Go have some fun, dear. We can talk later.

—

Friday had range. Evidence seminar in the morning. Meeting with my future boss in the afternoon, in which I was pleasantly reminded of her extreme coolness. Judging secondary school debates at breakneck speed for four hours at night. Reeling out of the debates with fellow judges. Dancing to Milkshake, Baby Boy and Hey Ya (also She Bangs, where the DJ exhorted us all to “Do it like William“) 70 storeys above the Singapore nightscape, and retiring soon after that to Cityspace, where I fell madly in love with the lighting.

All great fun except for the mild frivolous downer that I felt somewhat dowdy in such a gorgeous place with my sober Meeting Future Boss attire and big bag o’ law notes from the morning lectures. Am currently considering whether judging the next round of debates in an orange halter-neck top would detract from my gravitas.

Non-Grouchy Moments

I meant to write about the Friday night before Chinese New Year: the prosperity god in a Suntec City atrium with enormous breasts that turned out to be unfortunately placed oranges, the first yu sheng of the season on the outdoor balcony of NUSS bar, $6 cocktails, filthy conversations which were hopefully not overheard by too many people due to their extreme offensiveness, the astonishing ability of Mundian To Bach Ke to collectively transform Fay, Yen and me from house-music-induced sleepyheads into dancefloor divas in the Boom Boom Room, the astonishing ability of Yish to climb large sculptures in Raffles Place and get dragged on stage by drag queen cabaret comedians, the astonishing discovery by me that I was thoroughly enjoying myself in Singapore.

I meant to write about judging a debating tournament the next day at Serangoon JC, and being told by a particular teacher that he would never forget how, two years ago, I had rebuilt his team’s shattered confidence after their day of losses and harsh criticism.

I meant to write about last Saturday’s excursion to the mindboggling Mitre Hotel on Killiney Road (Directions: Walk down Killiney Road, away from Orchard Road and past all the food joints. You will see “145” spray-painted on a pillar, and a scary-ass pitch dark driveway on your left, which every intuitive bone in your body tells you not to walk up. Walk up it. Round the bend there will appear a quiet, dimly lighted building vaguely reminiscent of the Bates Motel. You’ve arrived.), where we swigged cheap beer, sat gingerly on ancient dusty mismatched furniture, tiptoed up unlighted staircases to gawk at the unbelievable dilapidation of the first storey, and somehow loved it so much we’re adamant on going back and becoming regulars at the bar.

I meant to write about beginning to find some shreds of meaning in my life in Singapore, but I was too busy living it.

Things I Have Learnt In My First Two Driving Lessons

  • Pressing the accelerator as hard as I’ve been used to doing in Daytona, including the time I kicked Alec’s ass, produces an alarmingly loud vrrrrOOOOOOOOMMM.
  • The rear-view mirror is just big enough to notice my bad hair day in, but not big enough to fix it in.
  • I seem to have gone all these 23 years without noticing my short, weak left leg.
  • While walking through the circuit ground in order to get to the service counter of the driving school, do not take any known rules of traffic for granted. I was reminded today, while concentrating more intently on mastering turns than not mowing pedestrians down, of my realization when I learnt skiing that I wouldn’t want to be downslope from me. At least they put an extra brake pedal on the instructor’s side of the car.
  • Note to self: When rollin’ along in my 5 point o, with my ragtop down so my hair can blow, releasing the clutch too abruptly will produce the required jerky car-bouncy effect. Good to remember.