TV fatigue

I don’t watch much television myself, but I do happen to see a lot of Gurmit Singh and Michelle Chia whenever I switch on to Channel 5. They have been eating out for a very long time but now it seems like Channel 5 has roped them in to star in a TV series on the Singapore Civil Defence Force.

(The lesson to draw from here is that Singapore has a manpower problem and we must rely on foreign talent to help us become a better place.)

But like so many things in life, you can’t have too much of a good thing. (I think Michelle Chia is a good thing. Gurmit Singh is not my type. ) I mean, there’s only so much Michelle Chia (henceforth ‘MC’) and Gurmit (‘GS’) you can see, without confusing the audience, right?

Alarm in Seng Kang Fire Station rings.
SSG Yen: (to CPT Daniel) Sir! There’s a cat stuck up a tree next to the hawker centre!
CPT Dan: (avoiding her gaze awkwardly) OK let’s go!

At the market, crowds are applauding around a tree at the two firefighters. SSG Yen holds the cat in her hands. CPT Daniel looks tenderly at the cat.. and at her.
SSG Yen: (looking away) Go and eat fish! (lets the cat go)
CPT Dan: OK let’s go. Mission accomplished. (Crowd begins to disperse)
SSG Yen:  I heard the prawn mee here is very famous. Shall we go and try?
CPT Dan: Why not? (They walk in.)

As it is the lunchtime crowd, a queue forms up in front of the stall. The stall is plastered with newspaper cuttings and photos of the owner with MPs and MediaCorp celebrities like Gurmit Singh and Michelle Chia.

CPT Dan: So crowded ah! It must be really famous!
SSG Yen: (goes to nearby table and asks the unsuspecting guy eating his noodles) Do you eat here often?
Guy: (bewildered, a bit camera shy, mumbling) No. no, my friends are sitting here. (points at packets of tissue paper on the table.)
SSG Yen: Oh no,  we are not really sitting here… er.. what’s so good about the prawn mee here?
Guy: Er… The mee isn’t too wet, they use fresh prawns.. ah.. the chilli is handmade.

Meanwhile, CPT Dan is talking to someone at the back of the queue.
CPT Dan: How long have you been waiting?
Auntie in queue: 很久了……有三四个字了咯！(on the screen, subtitles flash: Very long.. it’s been about 15, 20 minutes already.)
CPT Dan: That’s long! Why do you still queue up then?
Auntie: 出名吗！这个摊虾面很有名的嘛！(subtitles: It’s famous!)
Guy behind Auntie: (to CPT Dan)  You want to queue up or not?!

SSG Yen: (at the stall beside the stallowner) Sir! Come!
CPT Dan goes over.
SSG Yen: This is the owner of the stall, Mr Tan (Mr Tan looks a bit nervous and away from the camera). He’s been in this line for the past thirty years!
CPT Dan: (looking around) Mr Tan, you must be careful where you store your cooking oil all that! You keep it very close to your stove.. it’s a fire hazard! See (pointing to the entrance) You put so many pails here! What if there’s a fire, and they obstruct your way?
Tan: Ok, I change later, can?
SSG Yen: Anyway, so Mr Tan, why is your prawn mee so special from others?
Tan: This is trade secret, cannot say! (smiles awkwardly at camera.)

Voiceover while Mr Tan fries the noodles as SSG Yen and CPT Dan look on admiringly: The secret is in the stock. Mr Tan uses several different spices which he boils with pork ribs for 10 hours every day! And with his decades of experience, he is able to control the heat perfectly, ensuring that the noodles don’t get burnt.

CPT Dan and SSG Yen are seated with two steaming plates of prawn mee before them.
CPT Dan uses his chopsticks to pick up the noodles. The camera closes up on the noodles, which he swallows. His face contorts in delight.
CPT Dan: Amazing! Staff Yen, you try!
SSG Yen: Look at the prawn! (camera zooms in) It’s so big! And there are three of them!
CPT Dan: Yah, now a lot of hawkers actually throw in just two small prawns!
SSG Yen: Yah lor!
(Awkward silence)
CPT Dan: Staff Yen, finish up, then we go back.
SSG Yen: Yes sir.

Important books read 2006 and 2007

Orhan Pamuk
- My Name is Red (The nature of art, murder, theology, as told by multiple
fallible narrators. When I read it I was reminded of Eco’s The Name of the
Rose – note the similarity in titles and the similarity of the themes and
the medieval settings. Yet this is no derivative of The Name of the Rose,
but another masterpiece in itself. Highly recommended!)
- The Black Book (about missing persons; I found it confusing and gave up,
choosing to flip through the pages in order to finish the book. After
reading My Name is Red, I was disappointed.)
- The White Castle (A Turk learns everything about his Venetian slave and
they usurp each other’s identity. Confusing, which is the point of the
novel.)

Umberto Eco
- The Island of the Day Before (marooned medieval soldier ruminates on his
life. Eco is a medievalist and his stories almost always involve medieval
elements.)
- The Name of the Rose (Schism, murder, detective work, theology. A
difficult book to follow, with all the theological arguments and sleuthing
going on, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.)
- Foucault’s Pendulum (Dubbed the intelligent reader’s da Vinci Code, I
found the opening chapters quite readable, but it proved a bit too erudite.
I almost didn’t get the references and links to the Rosicrucians, Grail, and
the setting in a small Italian town was a bit too difficult for an Asian
reader like me to really understand.)

Richard Parker
John Kenneth Galbraith – His hife, his politics, his economics

John Kenneth Galbraith
The Great Crash – Galbraith’s account of the causes and events of the 1929
crash that precipitated the Great Depression.

Jonathan Spence
Treason by the Book
Sinologist and Chinese historian writes about a plot by a few literati to
overthrow the Qing Dynasty. I thought this was a particularly difficult
topic to discuss in English, because this plot is literally —- discussing
armed rebellion on paper, and all in classical Chinese, including the
rebuttal eventually published by the Yongzheng Emperor, an ethnic Manchu.
The later crackdown by his son the Qianlong Emperor revived a uniquely
Chinese institution, the literary persecution , where your immediate family and the immediate family of each member of your immediate family can be beheaded and everyone else in your extended family will be exiled.

Man flies 193 miles in lawn chair

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/10/flying.lawn.chair.ap/index.html

BEND, Oregon (AP) — Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks — and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons.

Destination: Idaho.

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