Room On The Broom!

I've just caught Room On The Broom last weekend. A really delightful piece - puppets are brought to life, catchy music and a innocently silly story.

Witch goes for a ride with her cat to slay the dragon, witch picks up some friends along the way, cat get's jealous of her new friends, disaster strikes, cat saves the day, everyone lives happily ever after.

What really impressed me was how they simulated flying on a broomstick, tossing and turning through the air, landing and taking off...without the luxury of special effects and mechanisms! The actors looked like they were having so much fun jumping, wooshing and dancing for an hour!

I haven't seen a lot of children's theatre (although I'm sure my job will introduce me to a lot more), but there is one interesting observable difference in the behaviour between children and adults.

There were a couple of scenes where the actors were looking up in blank space, in the void behind us. Being adults, we know that they were just simulating a scene where they see a witch flying through the sky. But the kids... they all turned around in such earnest and the little gullibles actually thought there was something flying behind us!

Such is the mind of child... malleable and will believe everything you tell them. I have heard that the minds of children are not able to tell the difference between fact and fiction and as yet they are still incapable of independent thought. Sometimes it pains me to learn that the children we have are undergoing such a low quality of education faced in our schools and kindergartens. Let’s face it: the teachers in PAP kindergartens and public schools aren’t what you would call “excellent communicators”. Granted, the syllabus has been tried, tested and replicated with success: no problem with that. But in such a public environment, you don’t know the ideologies, beliefs and culture the teachers are unknowingly spreading to your child. Imagine dragging a piece of tissue across a seemingly clean desk.

It’s observable – look at the behaviour of children between public and private schools, now tell me that there isn’t a difference. Quality of education equals quality in communication. I am ashamed to admit that most of the teachers I have encountered in my life had such a poor command of linguistic skills. They don’t teach kids to stand-up for what they believe in, they don’t teach them to speak-up for their own defence, they teach them to avoid conflict, they teach them to shy away, they teach them, especially, to do as their told and not to question authority. You may think that it’s easier to manage them then, but give them a few years when they gain independent thinking, you loose all their respect. We’re raising generation after generation of sheep. Sheep who lead miserably mediocre lives and do nothing to contribute to the progress of culture, nation and human-kind.

So yes, Room On The Broom – lovely production, it’s over now in Singapore but do catch it if it comes back again!

Kranji Countryside!

As some of you may already know, I'm busy preparing press and communications material for the farms at Kranji for a really big event in August (this is secret for now, but remember, you heard it here first!)

Well, after writing so much about them, I'd like to really encourage you guys to go down and pay them a visit! It's one thing to enjoy your food, but it's another to understand how your food comes about....and really, it's just so romantic to buy your food right from the source.

You'd really want to check these places out:

Hay Dairies (the only goat farm in Singapore that gives you fresh goat's milk)

Jurong Frog Farm (yes, now you know where your frog's legs come from)

Bollywood Veggies (lot's and lot's of delicious organically grown vegetables!)

Kin Yan (my secret outlet for buying wheat grass...wheat grass actually does keep for very long, so it's worth while getting them in bulk here)

Gardenasia (after all that, just come here, sit down and kick your legs back while you have a delicious steak whilst admiring a view of their pond)

More about them next time....as for now, I need to get back to work...(yes, yes, it's 6pm....)

Kermit and Rainbows

Heartwarming isn't this? I miss the Muppet Show and it's sad that things on television aren't as wholesome or easy to digest as this clip here anymore.

Sometimes I think my heart is stuck in the 80s.

ding dong!

i'm back!

gosh, it's been a while since i posted anything haven't i?

well, yes, i'm lazy - but above all, i've been so engrossed with so many things in my life ever since i got back! gosh, 2008 seem to have gone by in a blink of an eye!

Well, it's a beautiful Sunday evening: i'm in my bed on my brand new MacBook Pro typing this. There's so much I want to update, so much I want to say - but ha, the atmosphere this evening is too chilled out to do anything too serious!

All right, i'll have to leave at this and go back to my banana milkshake!

bored and frozen

The place: Hooilart, Overijse
Why? : I'm stuck because i can't get back to the UK

Note to self: Never. ever. enter another country without an on-going ticket. To those of you who think this is very funny, well, it's not. It's inconvenient to the max, I have to travel halfway around the planet to get my visa. And I have a refusal stamp in my passport that won't go away. I need to get a new passport now because i'm going to get grief from border control each time i cross immigration. And i'm even more pissed off because it is of no fault of mine. I followed the rules, i told the truth and i get the hassle. Next time i shall stick to my lies.

But all that aside, I love europe. Firstly, sure, they pay more tax. But at least the welfare is visible. So what if i'm paying 40 percent taxes and 21 percent VAT? I know that i can rely on someone to help should something go wrong. On top of that i get a good healthy environment where people are not so uptight and more friendly on the whole.

So we pay less taxes in singapore? My dad is on a wheelchair, i tried to look for help and no governemnt department is interested. And if you fall sick, sure it's cheap, but you still have to pay, and if you don't pay, you're screwed. So what if we pay less taxes? It all turns around and nips you in the butt somewhere.

All this stupid propaganda repeated intensively in Singapore is just making everyone think so highly of themselves. Meanwhile, i'm being refused entry because they think i'm from a 3rd world country wanting to overstay in theirs. Singapore is being listed as a "small unknown nation" in marketing textbooks here. No. Everything is not cool and dandy and no, we're not making lots of money. Face the facts, we are faceless, our wages are patheticaly low, we are nothing but cheap, hardworking workers. Social security is an illusion.

I don't miss singapore. not the behaviour, not the short-sightedness, not how every one thnks we're the best on the planet. how everyone is living in a dreamlike state.

Wake up. there is a world out of our 500 square kilometers. If we don't do something about our country, it's going to turn into a worse dictatorship than any communist regime can be.

Singaporean English

steady lah!! documentary on singlish sial!

A sobering thought

It is a sobering thought that the survival of some of the largest corporations in the world ultimately depends squarely upon the persuasive tongues of a handful of men and women working for them.

Even more bewildering than that, the average sales person exposes themselves to the dangers of getting business for about 20% of their working day.

The only real tools the salesperson has are their words and actions. They use words to gain businesses. They use words to loose businesses.

Astounding isn't it?

tragedy