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All of you will know my hair situation; thanks to some rather shoddy familial DNA and an abundance of testosterone it’s not holding onto my head as well as it could. Hence I keep it short myself, with a wireless trimmer in the shower, and the lovely Jo tidies up the edges so I don’t look too much like a homeless person. However, it’s that time of year again, …
Today brought my first piece of hate mail since I arrived in Singapore. I can’t say I was expecting it, as Singaporeans of all ethnicities are extremely nice to foreigners. A quick google search for our racist pal threw up one previously aired racist epithet from Wen Kole from 2006. Rather than reply directly I figured I’d pen an open letter and point him back …
I know what you’re thinking, two posts in as many days, you can’t handle it. You’re made of sterner stuff than that, stiff upper lip young fella-me-lad, we didn’t build the Empire without going through a few hardships – here have a gin and tonic. It was with such British verve that a couple of weeks ago we boarded the Orient Express. Jane had …
Singapore may not exactly be on the world tour circuit for many bands, but every now and then a ‘big name’ will visit during a rapid race through Asia. Cliff Richard & Westlife were, non-ironically, attended by Jane before we got here and we went to see Christina in June.Read More
We’ve been back in Singapore for a couple of months (thank goodness) and the place feels so like home I’ve not really felt the need to write on this site given that this place kinda feels like a ‘holiday’ diary.Read More
In a fit of randomness, Jo and I booked tickets to two out of three nights at Womad Singapore 2007. Held in the park near our house, a selection of acts performed; from Asian Dub Foundatio …
It’s been a year since Jo foolishly said she’d put up with me for the rest of her life (or at least until she can be bothered to call a lawyer) so we decided to splash out on a trip to The Banyan Tree. This was on the recommendation of Jane, who had previously been gifted a trip as a respite from the madness of holding Asia together, but who has now returned to …
Nicole Sullivan is a Performance Engineer & International Evangelist at Yahoo, her work involves optimising and streamlining performance on large scale websites from a front-end perspective. Here’s another useful note session from an content-packed video. This talk on not blaming the rounded corners is is on the YUI Theater. Speed Matters From large scale research …
I attended the e27 Unconference 2009 at Biopolis on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised at the levels of both high quality entrepreneurship and interest in the new web/technology scene within Singapore. The only loser in the whole day for me was the venue, although a fabulously impressive building the facilities let a little to be desired. The morning keynote was delivered …
There seems to be a trend to publish a lot of information in video format these days, which is great but it’s by no means the best method to receive information. Watching video cannot be skimmed like text or easily bookmarked, plus it simply takes a lot of time and the functionality of the various flash players can leave a lot to be desired. Not everyone is as diligent …
In the gym listening to my regular dose of comedic Britishness from BBC Radio 4’s podcast of The Now Show when the song maestro Mitch Benn broke into a little song-ette about kids in British primary schools being taught about social networking. The podcast has expired, due to crazy assed BBC rules so I dug up the song on YouTube and present it here for your …
Health warning – this blog is a bit grumpy. I think it’s called culture shock. After living in Singapore for over a year, first impressions of Manila couldn’t help but be unfavourable, es …
When you live in Singapore, where is the obvious place for a mini-break with a friend from the UK? Clearly – Dubai. At a mere 7 hour flight away for both parties, it’s very convenient.Read More
Jane’s leaving Singapore tomorrow, after six weeks turned into a year by accident – this tends to happen out here. Thus we all ate little on Saturday and went for a massive food-based goodbye celebration. So, if you’ve been out for a lovely all you can eat buffet at the Fullerton, with free flowing champagne for three hours, what do you do afterward? Do you …
When you live in a country you can get a bit lazy and out of the habit of leaving your “24” DVDs in the box and going out to do the tourist stuff. So a couple of weeks ago we decided to “do” Chinatown. First stop, Temple Road. Lots of old shophouses, most of which are selling Chinese “antiques” that were probably made a couple of weeks …
Jo has already covered a lot of first impressions of Manila, along with various tortuous and waring trips to the low budget John Lewis that is Landmark. However, despite not venturing far from the flat due to the heat and my pursuit of web design greatness, I have noticed some marvelous randomness.Read More
Seeing as Jo and I will be in Oz for Christmas we decided to head back to the UK to do some well needed friend and family seeing. However I shall not write about how lovely our chums are, how pleasant the crisp autumnal sunshine is or indeed our spectacularly frequent journeys around the South-East rail network. Instead I’m going to bitch about British Airways. Short …
The following is a conversation I had with the hotel taxi driver on Monday morning in Manila. I was surreptitiously making notes throughout so I know I got it down pretty much word for wo …
All good things come to an end, and so the days of me tapping on my laptop in bed and mooching about the house working on my websites have ended. I’ve taken a job with a local internet startup, Bezurk – a travel search engine as a designer / developer. Which means going into an office and talking to other humans during the day. It’s just as well, as it had …
Lest you believe that every day of our Singapore lifestyle is filled with sun-drenched holidays, cocktails and cultural escapades let me reassure you, it can be hard. I’m currently in my sick bed, joints aching, temperature finally receding slightly, but still on the lookout for rashes (in case of Dengue). The fact that I’m even in this bed at all, is a testament …
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