Eyes at Tate Modern

Camera-phone series #35.

Wedding speech

I learnt from them that the swish man-bag is called a sporran.

Ted on hot tin roof

Ted is an engineer. In pre-arthritic days, he used to dance on the hot tin roof, on the pretext of fixing pipes.　

Poppies

Armistice Day this year is 11 am, 11 Nov 2011.

In the two weeks leading up to the Remembrance Day weekend, a good 30-40% of the people in London wear poppies on their lapels.  During this time, I particularly like spotting poppies popping up on escalators travelling in opposite direction of mine.


Here is my »previous post on poppies.

Joyeux anniversaire Christine

Christine handles her birthday chopsticks with finesse!

Croatian summer

Two cellos at Rector's Palace

Anton Arensky’s Quartet No. 2 for violin, viola and two cellos in A minor, Op 35.

This was part of the Julian Rachlin and Friends concert series at Rector's Palace in Dubrovnik, which looked like this in colour:

Elegy

Elegy for viola and piano in G minor, Op 44.  Alexander Glazuov.

Light at Mljet

Love-hate

Bathroom effect

Diocletian's Palace, Split. Roman emperors and a capella choirs all like the sound of their voices there, thanks to the superb acoustics of the tower.

盛夏的果实

Out of the strong came forth sweetness

»via the Londonist

At Samson's wedding, he posed a riddle to his thirty Philistine groomsmen:

Out of the eater came forth meat,
Out of the strong came forth sweetness.

I hope he told them that they were supposed to guess a scene, for I could make neither head nor tail of the riddle at first.

The answer is the scene depicted on the tin of Lyle's Golden Syrup.  Fascinating.    (The rest of the story between Samson and the Philistines is however rather violent and testosterone-filled I am afraid.)



Note: I have seen and prefer a more rhyming phrasing: "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong something sweet". However, the above is what appears in Abram Lyle's bible and the King James' bible.

Dubai old town

It reminds me of the old Pasir Panjang in Singapore.

Camera-phone series #34.

Suspend belief: Dubai

Camera-phone series #33.

Until human judgment is infallible

It has been »widely reported that the current President Nathan stated last year that he can only grant pardon from the death penalty "on" the advice of the Cabinet.  That is, a President has no discretion - the Cabinet decides, the President signs.

The operative paragraph is para 22P of the Singapore Constitution which states:

Grant of pardon, etc.
22P. —(1) The President, as occasion shall arise, may, on the advice of the Cabinet —

(a) grant a pardon to any accomplice in any offence who gives information which leads to the conviction of the principal offender or any one of the principal offenders, if more than one;

(b) grant to any offender convicted of any offence in any court in Singapore, a pardon, free or subject to lawful conditions, or any reprieve or respite, either indefinite or for such period as the President may think fit, of the execution of any sentence pronounced on such offender; or

(c) remit the whole or any part of such sentence or of any penalty or forfeiture imposed by law.

(2) Where any offender has been condemned to death by the sentence of any court and in the event of an appeal such sentence has been confirmed by the appellate court, the President shall cause the reports which are made to him by the Judge who tried the case and the Chief Justice or other presiding Judge of the appellate court to be forwarded to the Attorney-General with instructions that, after the Attorney-General has given his opinion thereon, the reports shall be sent, together with the Attorney-General’s opinion, to the Cabinet so that the Cabinet may advise the President on the exercise of the power conferred on him by clause (1). 

Per »Siew Kum Hong's analysis, I agree that this has to be read in conjunction with para 21 of the Constitution, a few paragraphs up from para 22P:

21. —(1) Except as provided by this Constitution, the President shall, in the exercise of his functions under this Constitution or any other written law, act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet or of a Minister acting under the general authority of the Cabinet.

(2) The President may act in his discretion in the performance of the following functions:...

However, Siew implicitly argues that para 21 contains an exhaustive listing of all the decisions that the President has discretion to decide.   Since the death sentence pardon in para 22P falls outside of para 21, there is no discretion allowed.

I disagree on this last point, for para 21(1) states "except as provided by this Constitution" not "except as provided by this paragraph".    It is not beyond the shadow of doubt for me that para 21 necessarily precludes discretion of the President in para 22P.

My question is why para 22P uses "on the advice of the Cabinet".  Why has para 22P not used  "in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet", which would have left no room for doubt?  In my mind, one interpretation of "on the advice" could be that the President has to necessarily seek counsel from the Cabinet before granting a pardon and give weight to its advice.  But he or she may not necessarily end up acting in accordance to it.

There are only two possibilities as to why para 22P does not use "in accordance with":  (a) the draughtsman did not give too much thought; (b) it was deliberate.  Either is possible, but in all likelihood, (a) is the more probable case.  (If you have seen how lawyers work and the kind of time pressure they are under, it will not come as a surprise.)

If the draughtsman didn't give too much thought, the onus then falls upon the judiciary to interpret it in a reasonable way.   Sim Kum Hong and the Court did not think that there was room for any other interpretation.  »M Ravi thought there was and proposed the very attractive doctrine of legitimate expectations.  It was however defeated in court. 

It is not an outcome I like.  I can accept it if President Nathan did not want to grant the case at hand (Yong Vui Kong, for drug trafficking) a pardon.  In fact, I have often explained to people that we cannot run a country if we keep granting ex post exceptions.  It is however very dissatisfying to see President Nathan deflect his personal burden of saying no by instead creating a constitutional interpretation that Presidents have no discretion to grant clemency.  It further begs the question of whether past pardons are constitutional, if it turns out that past Presidents somehow did not act in accordance with the Cabinet "advice".  If I were one of the seven lucky people in Singapore's history who managed to receive a pardon from past Presidents, I would be very worried.

But the law is the law,  and the letter of the law has failed the popular expectation of what it is supposed to do.   The only thing we can do now is to change it.

My attention turned onto the issue of pardon recently because of the compounded effect of the mandatory death sentence.  I have seen those three words many times in the last 20 years, but did not fully grasp its full meaning until a week ago.  Mandatory death sentence does not mean "a maximum penalty of death sentence".  In the specific case of drug trafficking, it means simply this: if you are in possession of more than x grams of drug y, the public prosecutor is obliged to push for the death sentence and the judge is obliged to sentence the same.  There is no gray area, no extenuating circumstances, no judicial discretion in prescribing something other than death sentence.  

This is my understanding of how »Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Act works.  I would love to be told that I am wrong, but it is unlikely.

All these come together to mean the following: if you are caught with more than x grams of drugs, and you are unable to rebut the presumption that you have knowledge of it, the presidential pardon is essentially the only hope.  However, we are now faced with the situation that the decision for this pardon lies not with the President, but with the Cabinet who is most unlikely to diverge from the stance of the public prosecutor.

We cannot allow both to exist in our system for the simple reason that the British MP Sydney Silverman has put so elegantly in 1948 -

Until human judgment is infallible, we have no right to inflict irrevocable doom.

Powers of the Singapore President

With the Singapore Presidential Elections around the corner, I decided to see if the Singapore President is really as powerless as is often believed.

 I was pleasantly surprised by what the Constitution contains.  If the President wants to make a credible job of earning his keep, he in fact has the constitutional power to do a number of things.  It is already well known that he is supposed to safeguard the reserves.   What I was not aware is that he also has veto power over the appointments and budgets of statutory boards and Government companies.  Even more importantly, he can veto detention or further detentions under »Part XII of the Constitution.  This would include detention without trial, a colonial remnant still retained in Singapore and Malaysia laws.

So, there are perfectly good reasons to choose your candidate carefully.  Did you also know that the President enjoys immunity from suit for actions arising from his official capacity?   This immunity can only trumped by a tribunal convened by the Parliament against him.

For those who enjoy legalese, below is the overview paragraph of the President's functions.  The right to grant pardon from the death penalty is not there, because it is in paragraph 22P.  I will discuss 22P in a separate post because its language and recent events left me confused as to the exact powers of the President.

»CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

Discharge and performance of functions of President
21. —(1) Except as provided by this Constitution, the President shall, in the exercise of his functions under this Constitution or any other written law, act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet or of a Minister acting under the general authority of the Cabinet.

(2) The President may act in his discretion in the performance of the following functions:

(a) the appointment of the Prime Minister in accordance with Article 25;

(b) the withholding of consent to a request for a dissolution of Parliament;

(c) the withholding of assent to any Bill under Article *5A, 22E, 22H, 144 (2) or 148A;

*Article 5A was not in operation at the date of this Reprint.

(d) the withholding of concurrence under Article 144 to any guarantee or loan to be given or raised by the Government;

(e) the withholding of concurrence and approval to the appointments and budgets of the statutory boards and Government companies to which Articles 22A and 22C, respectively, apply;

(f) the disapproval of transactions referred to in Article 22B (7), 22D (6) or 148G;

(g) the withholding of concurrence under Article 151 (4) in relation to the detention or further detention of any person under any law or ordinance made or promulgated in pursuance of Part XII;

(h) the exercise of his functions under section 12 of the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (Cap. 167A); and

(i) any other function the performance of which the President is authorised by this Constitution to act in his discretion.

"Where is the Love..."

Sunset with 63,000 people and the Black Eyed Peas in Hyde Park.  Rocked out!

Camera-phone series #32.

Ronsard

A Cassandre

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avoit déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au Soleil,
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée,
Et son teint au vôtre pareil.

Las ! voyez comme en peu d'espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las ! las ses beautés laissé choir !
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
Puis qu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir !

Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.


Ode To Cassandra

Mignonne, come let us see if the rose
Which this morning opened
Her robe of crimson to the sun,
Has not already lost, at evening,
The folds of her crimson robe,
And her complexion, so like your own.

Alas, see how in such short a time,
Mignonne, she has, from above, 
Alas, Alas, let her beauty fall!
O Nature, truly cruel,
That such a flower should endure
Only from morning till evening.

Now, if you would believe me, mignonne,
While your young age is in flower
In its verdant freshness,
Pluck, pluck your youth,
Since, as with this flower, old age
Shall tarnish your beauty.

- Pierre de Ronsard, 1524-1585

Witness the sterility of translation:

Cueillez, cueillez vôtre jeunesse :
Comme à cette fleur la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.

Pluck, pluck your youth,
Since, as with this flower, old age
Shall tarnish your beauty.

Pluck?! 

There are translators who attempt to inject some poetry, but it loses the meaning and musicality of cueillez, cueillez completely:

Be merry ere your beauty flit,
For length of days will tarnish it
Like roses that were loveliest.

I don't think liberties of this extent should be allowed, particularly since the last line really does not work .


This one is better but still no cueillez and the insertion of doom seems contrived:

Do take advantage of your youthful bloom:
As it did to this flower, the doom
Of age will blight your beauty.

If I had my way, I would make it mandatory for all translated poems to be published side-by-side with the original.

If Kerouac were in Venezuela

I am on the road a lot this week. To get to our plant takes 40 minutes on the highway of nothingness from Barquisimeto. I do the journey twice a day, mostly in silence because I can't chat with the driver. Today being the weekend, I decided to see Carora, which meant whizzing through over an hour of tundra land at high speed, also in silence.  Every ten kilometres or so, you see stalls selling hammocks and what looked like pots and kitchen sinks (!). 

I had my very old point-and-shoot with me just now.  All the car windows in Venezuela are tinted black, so shotting through them confused the meter and gave this rather nice effect.

The trouble with danger

I am in Caracas, consistently rated among the top 10 most dangerous cities in the world. (One does not tell the parents this of course.) It is an city embraced by mountains. You wake up seeing the green mountains nudge the billowing clouds, the way one might half-heartedly push away the bedsheets in the morning. At night, the mountains flicker romantically from the lights of the hundreds of houses stacked on them. It might well have been San Francisco.

Except that many of the houses are crime-ridden shanty towns that even the police avoid patrolling. Except that it is a city where our office has a cash machine (not inside the building, but inside the office - beside Sofia's cubicle).

At lunch yesterday, the other girl and I were lightly chided by a fellow foreigner for bringing our very modest handbags. 'I carry nothing here, only a card and some cash,' declared the American man proudly.

'But you're a man. For me, there's the makeup, the water... And the local girls all carry bags too,' protested the American women.

Out came the ultimate trump card: 'But it only takes one incident.'

It is true of course. There is apparently a woman in the office whose husband has been kidnapped for sixty days. In Caracas, there are still three express kidnappings a day, down from five.

But if we take such a reasoning to its logical end, we would be mobilised into inaction. The trouble with danger is not so much the consequence of the danger (being hurt), but the multitude of possibilities (carrying a handbag, wearing earrings...) that may cause the onset of that danger. Today it is not carrying a handbag, tomorrow is not wearing heels, and the day after is not going out for dinner - because anything can happen.

I am not suggesting foolhardiness. This trip, there is no SLR. Yet at the same time, I really struggle with OTT self-censorship. Beyond a certain point, one has to just leave it to prayers - if you are religious, or hope - if you are not.




Camera-phone series #31. Straight out of the camera.

The TPL phenomenon

When I was 6, there was once when I had to choose between staying over at my aunt's place or going to Sentosa the next day with my cousin. I still remember that day very clearly. I was babysat by my aunt, very close to her and her family, and did not want to go back to my parents' home that Friday. My mother gave me a choice: stay over, or forfeit the Sentosa trip. She warned me, sternly and a few times, that I could only choose one.

The desire for immediate gratification being urgent and immediate the way they tend to be, I told her I wanted to stay over. I thought that I would be able to convince her the next day to let me go to Sentosa if I begged hard enough.

The next day, I begged, begged and begged. She did not relent. I cried my eyes out. She did not relent. I think I even skipped lunch in profuse tears after I saw my cousin leave the house. She did not relent. The family thought it was rather harsh of my mother, but still my mother dug her heels in.

That day, I learnt that when you choose, you have to live with your choice.

I therefore have some bones to pick with the whole TPL phenomenon. The rules of the elections were very clear - when you vote, you vote in a party of four. It is all or nothing, and there is absolutely no ambiguity about that. You cannot say that you only want one of the four, because it is not the rules of the game. If one were so unhappy with the GRC rules, one should have been more active in lobbying for the change instead of leaving it to others . If one were still that unhappy, then one would simply have to vote against that entire team and/or go on a crusade to convince residents in Marine Parade. There is no two ways about it, and that is the way life is.

For this reason, I did not sign any petition calling for the resignation of TPL (or for the re-election of CST for that matter). I cannot say at all that I have been impressed by TPL, but the people of Marine Parade have chosen for themselves, and consequently for Singapore. To give another analogy, if you knew your boyfriend has a pesky mother, then it is a case of caveat emptor before you marry him. I think it would be unreasonable to ask him to disown his mother after you are married.

In response to my objections, some people have countered that even if TPL has been democratically elected, she should still step down in light of the public displeasure against her. Should she? To be fair, the only two things she has done wrong is to have posted those kawaii photos and silly suggestions about holding down hawker prices down . She has not committed any grave offences, whether civil or criminal. There is doubt in her ability to deliver (in which case you should have taken that into account when you voted), but I am not aware of any tenable reason for her to resign.

What seems to have happened is that a mob has gathered against her. Unfortunately, mobs are not driven by logic but by the adrenaline of the moment. She has, not out of her conscious choosing, become a celebrity like Paris Hilton. Not a celebrity politician, but a celebrity whose existence is to entertain a bored public. It is a difficult starting point to be in, but I hope for our future in the next five years that she overcomes it. At the very least, the TPL phenomenon will clearly remind us that when we choose, we have to live with our choices. Or to put it in more blunt terms: citizens in a democracy deserve the government they have.

李公言重了

设使国家无有孤，
不知几人造反，几人亡国。

-- 改自曹操《述志令》

»"A generation that does not remember from whence we came" 读后感。

宰相肚内可乘船

今天从翁老先生那儿学到了新俗语。

读者有兴趣可以追踪»他的博客。博客主人翁老先生从前算是响当当的人物。听说他八十几岁了，但说话仍一针见血，看了真令我这种晚辈汗颜。

Love nests

Camera-phone series #30.

Norwegian Wood

This movie was the third and final chance I gave Murakami. (I read two of his books before.) Honestly, it was twice too many chances. Murakami is like a guy you really want to like –he is nice, polite, well-to-do, kind to his parents... You know, all the wrong reasons. You give both of you many chances, and there are moments when you think: maybe we are getting there... But then, you never do. He is too bleak and name drops too much.

There was one thing I did manage to like in the movie. It was the idea of walking as catharsis. After one of the main character dies, his girlfriend and his best friend met every Sunday to walk together, silently, aimlessly and for hours on end in Tokyo.
I came across this cluster of trees on »last week’s walk in the Chilterns, and it reminded me of Norwegian Wood.

Camera-phone series #29.  Macro mode accidentally left on.

Bluebell forests of Ivinghoe

When you finally come across a forest of them after a good 6 miles, stretched out as far as you can see, ‘magical’ is the word that comes to mind. You half expect Peter Pan to fly out and say hello.

Camera-phone series #28.

被安逸收买了

在动荡中长大的孩子，义无反顾地追求安逸，只能说是无可厚非。

在安逸中长大的孩子，还只是义无反顾地追求安逸，只能说是被安逸收买了。

蔚蓝的天

我的小国再过两周就要投选了。身在大国的我近几天看了许多政治评论、许多人物专访、许多国民的心声感言，觉得特别亢奋。原来新加坡人还是有血有肉的。就凭此，我的小国将前途无量！

Camera-phone series #27.   This is the Chilterns on a summer day, »somewhere near the Whipsnade lion.

Beachy Head reactions

Everyone had a reaction when they heard that I went walking in Beachy Head.

Reaction #1 was the brow furrow from my English colleagues. They asked if I knew what it was famous for. "Jumping off," Ms M told me. "Or driving off for that matter," added Ms S helpfully. Oh.

Reaction #2 was an ooohh-and-ahh from an old classmate on Facebook. But hers was a very specific ooohh and ahhh. In particular, looking at the photo I had posted, she was reminded of the old days when her geography tutor (Mr White - an English) showed them pictures of Beachy Head on a *slide projector*. And presumably in her head, the 100 different geographic terms used to describe erosion must have bubbled in honour of Mr White...

Beachy Head

Credits: »sameer

Lush green, turqouise blue, chalk white.

Finally, an English seaside that can rival continental Europe and Australia - I was  impressed!

This was my second hike in the south with Tania and Kieren of the »Trailblazer group.  It was the sort of brilliantly sunny spring day that makes you want to order two ice-creams even though you are still hiding behind a jacket.  10 miles of traipsing up and down the hills later, we got to trade strong salty winds and magnificent piles of dung for an ice-cold beer.  Paradise.



Aside: Really need a good small camera for walks as I can hardly haul myself up sometimes, let alone the SLR. Let me see if I can salvage my old Powershot.

We like having neighbours – Amsterdam redux

Keukenhof Park just outside of Amsterdam.

The first time I spotted many nests on one tree was »also in a tulip park – Istanbul's Gülhane Park. Ever since then, I have made it a habit to look out for nests when I am out walking in winter and spring.

The Surprise

What a surprise to stumble upon it when walking through Chelsea with Ms C a couple of weeks ago. It was tucked in the middle of the posh residential area, and they were surprisingly down-to-earth.

Camera-phone series #26.

McVitie's

On that scenic morning with Addison Lee, one of the new places I passed by was the McVitie's head office.  I snapped and emailed it to Mr C who is positively mad about McVitie's.  Turns out that he was just tucking into a pack of their ginger nut biscuits, live.  An ad-worthy moment.



Camera-phone series #25.

Convergence

Waking up late a few days ago, I took an Addison Lee to work. The driver somehow decided to take the local roads instead of the zippy A40. The scenic route was taking too long, we were stuck behind a whole herd of police horses on their morning stroll, and I was running late.

Normally I would have expressed some displeasure, but I didn't because it was such a treat to be chauffeured around on a sunny morning, seeing new neighbourhoods with half-sleepy eyes. And then, there was a point when a cyclist squeezed between our cab and the horses in order to overtake us.

In that singular moment, transportation across time converged.

Not immediately obvious

Camera-phone series #24.

A spring hike in Sussex

I was so impressed that this gadget can even track your elevation in addition to your hiking route.  Refreshingly, this was not done with an iphone.  It is a serious device called »Garmin eTrex Legend HCx which can hold a GPS signal even if in the depths of the woods.

Deep cold water

With the »British penchant for swimming in cold water, cold requires underscoring.

To be read aloud with a very English accent

Recalling the past Saturday where I laughed so much, I recalled another laughter-filled weekend last month when Ms K and I went to see Wilde's Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville.  The dialogues are just exquisite.  This is one of them.

(To be read aloud with a very English accent.)

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Bowing.] Every one is dying to know the brilliant Mrs. Cheveley. Our attachés at Vienna write to us about nothing else.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Thank you, Sir Robert. An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship. It starts in the right manner. And I find that I know Lady Chiltern already.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Really?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Yes. She has just reminded me that we were at school together. I remember it perfectly now. She always got the good conduct prize. I have a distinct recollection of Lady Chiltern always getting the good conduct prize!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Smiling.] And what prizes did you get, Mrs. Cheveley?

MRS. CHEVELEY. My prizes came a little later on in life. I don't think any of them were for good conduct. I forget!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am sure they were for something charming!

MRS. CHEVELEY. I don't know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it! Certainly, more women grow old nowadays through the faithfulness of their admirers than through anything else! At least that is the only way I can account for the terribly haggard look of most of your pretty women in London!

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What an appalling philosophy that sounds! To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence.  But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Oh, I'm neither. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You prefer to be natural?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What would those modern psychological novelists, of whom we hear so much, say to such a theory as that?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Ah! the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women . . . merely adored.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And women represent the irrational.

MRS. CHEVELEY. Well-dressed women do.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [With a polite bow.] I fear I could hardly agree with you there. But do sit down. And now tell me, what makes you leave your brilliant Vienna for our gloomy London - or perhaps the question is indiscreet?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Well, at any rate, may I know if it is politics or pleasure?

MRS. CHEVELEY. Politics are my only pleasure. You see nowadays it is not fashionable to flirt till one is forty, or to be romantic till one is forty-five, so we poor women who are under thirty, or say we are, have nothing open to us but politics or philanthropy. And philanthropy seems to me to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures. I prefer politics. I think they are more . . . becoming!

»Full screenplay

For Yi Zhang (1935 - 2009)

I like the concept of lighting up so much. The dimly pulsating red, the curls of smoke.

How much does a shadow weigh?  I wondered as a child.

It turns out that a shadow of smoke weighs a wisp, but a shadow on a lung – a ton.



- A slightly different version of this picture is a contributing piece in the "Light" exhibition.  Goodenough College, 6 March 2011, 2 pm.   On hindsight, revealing the beer mug suited 姨丈 more: he was the man who gave me my first taste of beer - at age 5!

Sunning the keropok

This is why I prefer HDBs to bland condos.

I can eat a whole basket of these btw.  Move over, English crisps!

Camera-phone series #23.

Edgeware Road at 11 pm

Positively pyschedelic. The kebab shop is heaving, the shisha shops are full, and the pharmacies and grocers open well past 11 pm.  Imagine summer.

Camera-phone series #22.

On the other hand

Yesterday, a friend recounted an old love.  He said they eventually broke up because it was long-distance and the love was not strong enough.

Then he remarked, "On the other hand, love wears slower."

Bellissimo.

The name of this toad

Walking past the foyer of Hyatt Hotel, the mother complained, "TSK. Why is this car so noisy? Like a toad croaking."

Me: "Mother, the name of this toad is Ferrari..."




(And so it is true that a Ferrari is only nice if you are the one in it!)

Google logos

»Google Logos

I stumbled upon the »repository of Google logos which is great fun to browse.  I learnt that apart from celebrating holidays, artists (in the wide sense of the word), heroes (dads and mums included*) and codes (bar, braille, Morse, Unix), Google also likes elections and games (Olympics, Tetris, Pacman).

Outside of the established Western world, Japan and Turkey got their customised logos quite early on, followed by Thailand, China and even Singapore (2009 - after they set up their office here). You also see that as the official logo got more established over the years, they took more artistic liberty to venture away from the confines of its shape.

Above is the customisation for Australia Day on 26 Jan 2011. 



* It is a bit annoying that mums always get just a flower, but dads get to lie in a hammock while the lawn gets mowed by the kids.

Survived the postal journey from France

This one was not, but about half were in perfect shape, miraculously.

On the bathroom mirror

Thank you to those of you who participated in the project!

Good old Goodenough days

Last days with my first love in London.  Sep 2010.

Lilies are harmful to cats if eaten

Two of my favourite things are incompatible!

Every tree has had its day

Tomorrow is the first garbage collection day of 2011.