Something to Bring Back Memories

Was talking to a friend from DSTA and noticed that their commerative 5th anniversary coffee table book is out. I remembered doing a photoshoot for this magazine and the 2 photos I was involved in is attached above. Something for the memories!

David vs David

Ok, Ok, my selection of Dr Liam Fox as the next Conservative Leader has fallen flat. It is now a youthful David Cameron vs. the old-school David Davis. The run-off is now between this two chaps and the vote-holders are the 300,000 Conservative Party members. So after 3 consecutive defeats in the General Election, who does the man in the street think will defeat Gordon Brown in the next Election?

David Cameron has been building a strong momentum in this leadership contest. Coming in from nowhere, he finished with 90 MPs voting for him against Mr Davis 65. The most crucial detail missing from Mr Cameron is what he stood for. Till today, I have not heard a single policy outlined by him that will changed the Conservative way of government. Mr Davis, an experienced fighter have served at various portfolios since 1997 and thus has strong experience in dealing with Labour.

Then again, the key question once again to the Tories supporters is who is the best man to lead the party against Gordon Brown and the only person is Mr David Cameron! In fact, he has been compared to Tony Blair in terms of opinion and way of speaking and will definitely give Mr Blair a run for his money for the next 4 years. Let see what happen in December :-)

Hugh Laurie in Blackadder

Hugh Laurie (currently a very sauve doctor in House) is one of the key characters in the Blackadder series. He first appeared as Prince Ludwig the Indestructible in the last episode of Season 2. I particularly remembered watching the episode during the Christmas of 1999 when I was in Bordeaux. All of us laughed hysterically at his prounciation of certain words such as "A-polo-gies" and" Re-ven-ge". The Prince was a master of disguise and his disguises include that of a poor stable boy, waitress and even a sheep! The 2nd Season of Blackadder ended with the murder of everyone by the evil Prince (disguising as Queen Elizabeth)

Hugh Laurie snagged a major role in the 3rd season of Blackadder as the complete dumbnut George the Prince Regent. His character was based on George IV who was the Prince Regent when George III went crazy around 1810. He was incredibly stupid relying on his butler, Blackadder to perform the simplest of tasks such as wearing of his pants and socks. One of the funniest scene was when Samuel Pepys was explaining to him what a dictionary was and he was severely disappointed when there were no murder plots, no heroes in the dictionary.

Hugh Laurie was then re-casted as Lt George in the 4th season of Blackadder. He was type-cast as a upper crust innocent boy thrown into trench war-fare. Lt George is just as loud and foolish as Prince George in Season 3 but yet he carries himself with a great deal more innocence than the Prince, and his blind optimism shows that he is unaware of the situation he is in. George was actually not that dumb and has several hidden talents such as painting and acting.

Now only 2 more main characters left....

Which Cover do u Prefer?

Don & Drew OR Dawn & Drew

Been quite interested in podcasting recently and have been religiously downloading programmes such as Sportsweek and Today from BBC. Really brings me back to my time in London and hopefully they can put Foxy Top 40 Countdown on Podcasting soon.

An interesting observation came upon me while I was fiddling with podcasting. The most popular podcaster in America is a couple Dawn & Drew who are the pioneers in the industry. They are know for their creative and interesting titbits of information (even though I have not heard them yet). Was listening to the radio of Perfect 10 every morning on my way to work and often hear about the Dawn and Drew Show. I was thinking wow, our Singaporean artistes are quite popular. Unfortunately I found out that our version of Dawn and Drew are actually Don and Drew, an Eurasian and an Ang Mo combo! I must say they are quite good and really enjoy their humour but must they really copy and make a parody of the original Dawn & Drew show. I dun think that is really necessary, in fact even if they called themselves "2 Guys Talking Cock", I am sure many will still tuned in for show.

Some food for thought!

General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchet

Although Stephen Fry did not appear during the 3rd season of Blackadder, he returned in the last episode in the 3rd season as a cameo as The Duke of Wellington. This was sort of an introductory role for what was expected of him in the 4th season. General Melchett is often described as a buffon often sending people to die without any knowledge of battle tactics at all. The General is often trying to lift the morale of the men, completely ignorant of the fact that they were too frightened to die in No Men's Land. Some of the funniest scene includes him trialing Blackadder for killing his pet pigeon, shooting his aide Darling in the foot to fake injury and spy on Blackadder in the hospital and even tried to marry George! The role seems to fit Fry very well and he even reprised the character of Melchett in future special additions of Blackadder.

Good Makan Week

This past week so far has been ok. Only had to be secretary to a big meeting and it went better than expected. It was a crazy rush asking people for papers and presentation slides and one of the presentation slides only came in 45 minutes before the meeting started. That meeting even though was on Tuesday took up nearly most of my week in terms of time spent to ensure the meeting went smoothly.

Would like to share with everyone 2 places I visited for lunch this week. On Monday, we went to this hawker centre that most of us usually patroned Pek Kio. I have never even heard of such a place in Singapore till I started working. Actually the road name is Cambridge Road and it is somewhere near KK Hospital, but somehow never had a chance to visit it. The most famous item in the hawker centre is the wan tan mee. Unfortunately it is usually sold out by 12 noon and so far I have only tried it twice. Another favourite of ours is the claypot fish rice. A very unique dish of deep fried fish (yet to discovered what fish it is) cooked in a claypot with rice and plenty of vegetable. A decent price of $4 as well!

Yesterday was to Smith Street market in Chinatown. My boss recommended an isolated zi char stall and we ordered:

1. Fried Rice
2. Mee Goreng
3. Omelette
4. Stir-fried vegetables
5. Chilli Prawns
6. Sweet n Sour Chicken

There were five of us and guess how much it costs us?

$20 IN TOTAL

Amazing Right! Still cannot believe the pricing and we adjorned to the Hawker Legend Ah Baling, a sweet glutinous rice flour ball with different fillings like yam, sesame, red bean, green bean, etc. It was really good cooked in a clear pandan flavoured soup. Definitely a place to visit in the future.

Today my company had a corp planning seminar, so our lunch was a bit more atas and it was at California Pizza Kitchen at Forum Shopping Centre. Excellent variety of pizzas such as Beijing duck.

Must really go to the gym this week!

Lord Melchett

The first Melchett appeared in series two of Blackadder. He was Lord Chamberlain to Queenie and was considered as Blackadder's main rival in gaining attention from the Queen. Cowardly and an a**-sucker, Melchett was still one of the Queen's favourite. Melchett's rivalry with Blackadder serves as a main theme for most of the 2nd season. From competing to who can drink the most to who dare to sail to the Cape of Good Hope, the 2 of them were inseparable in front of the Queen.

The character played by Stephen Fry can be identified by everyone. Afraid to lose his job even though he is useless, he uses his connections to his boss to stay in his job. I am a big fan of Stephen Fry having admired his wit and humour in shows such as Have I got news for you and he did a very good job as the narrator for all the Harry Potter books on tape.

Tomorrow, another incarnation of Melchett, General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett

Rent

Saw an advert on tele just now and noticed that the musical Rent is coming to Singapore. The song that left the most memory on me was of course " Seasons of Love". Somehow, I had heard of that song before but it did not occur to me that it was actually from Rent. Watching the musical live in London in 2002 was great! Heard quite a lot of mixed review from friends before watching it but was glad I managed to catch it eventually when they returned to London. The storyline I felt was a bit thin and quite sad but the songs are strong and up-lifting.

I attached the lyrics of "Seasons of Love" (I am sure most of us have heard the song before but have not associated it to the musical Rent, give me a shout if u want a copy of the song!)

COMPANY
525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure,
measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In
inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes - how do you
measure a year in the life?
How about love? How about love? How about love? Measure in love. Seasons of
love.

SOLOIST 1
525,600 minutes! 525,000 journeys to plan. 525,600 minutes - how can you measure
the life of a woman or man?

SOLOIST 2
In truths that she learned, or in times that he cried. In bridges he burned, or
the way that she died.

COMPANY
It’s time now to sing out, tho the story never ends let's celebrate remember a year in the life of friends. Remember
the love! Remember the love! Remember
the love! Measure in love. Seasons of love! Seasons of love.

Hmm...I am tempted to watch Rent again when it comes to Singapore. Any Takers?

Gorgeous Apple

A few friends and I have been talking about getting a mac for the longest of time. It was nearly 1.5 years when we started our mac dream. We decided to wait for OS X Tiger to come out before finally purchasing it but somehow even after Tiger came out in April, all of us held out. For me, my main reason is that my company already provided me with a laptop and I had no intention to use 2 computers of 2 different interfaces at the same time.

Somehow where Apple release their new version of the imac yesterday, it has rekindled my thought of actually owning a mac again. With the all integrated home entertainment system, it will definitely be useful and also kind of neat as well. The price for the basic model is quite steep but I believe in Apple through my good experience in using the ipod. Even that has gone through a huge upgrade since I bought mine last August. OK, wish list an imac and maybe a new ipod! Maybe in the next year or so when I finally saved enough..hahaha

Queenie

The next character on the list is Queen Elizabeth I or otherwise known as Queenie on the show. It was played by Miranda Richardson who will soon appear in the next Harry Potter film as the nosey reporter Rita Skeeter. Playful and childish but yet authoritative and powerful, she was the boss of Lord Edmund Blackadder. Always being accompanied by the a**-sucking Lord Melchett and her caring Nursie, she treats Blackadder as her favourite courtier and even contemplating marrying him.

One of her most famous quote was "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart - and stomach - of a concrete elephant!" An excellent deviation from the original line spoken by Queen Elizabeth I " I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England too"

She even wrote a poem about Blackadder named subtly "Edmund" which I will share:

When the night is dark
And the clouds are black
And the ducks go 'quack'
When the sky is blue
And the cows go 'moo'
Think of lovely Queenie,
She'll be thinking of you

Blackadder replied "Mum, life without you is like a broken pencil"

"Pointless"

One of my all time favourite quotes!

Of course, the real Queen Elizabeth I was not exactly that love-struck. She ended up being known as the "Virgin Queen" and was a national hero by leading the country against the Spanish Armanda. She deeply regretted not having a heir and thus ending the royal line of Tudor. In fact, the next in-line for the throne was her worst hated enemy, Mary Queen of Scots' son. James VI of Scotland took over when Queen Elizabeth I passed away in 1603 and thus uniting both crowns of England and Scotland. He was henceforth known as King James I of United Kingdom and thus starting the Stuart line which would only end in 1711.

Busy Week! :-(

Been really a hectic week so far due to work! Even though the dengue is toning down and most of my colleagues are back to "normal" work, it is still as busy as ever. Been involved in a project asking the members of the public regarding the environment. Not really sure how the public will react towards the environment. We are more of an invisible force, if everything goes right, no one will notice. But if something serious goes wrong, the public will be hounding on us. Not sure what the results of the survey will be, just curious essentially. :-)

Been also going on my orientation programme, a good 6 months after I join the organisation. It was quite interesting especially the site visits to the key installations. My personal favourite was the offshore landfill. It was really a feat of nature and engineering. The nature bits are just fantastic with all the replanted mangrove. I can't wait when the place is opened to the public and bringing friends there.

Orientation in the end was not very good as I had a lot of other work to catch up upon. Really felt very guilty that I did not fulfil my role as a secretary for next week's meeting and had to rely upon my friend to help me settle all the administrative work. Will not commit such a mistake in the future!

"Bob"

Been rather busy for the past few days and thus have been neglecting my Blackadder character study. Today I will concentrate on a character who only appeared in only 2 episodes of all Blackadder but left quite a good impression on me.

"Bob" or Kate is a country girl who is naive but yet determined to strive to make her father enjoy life at an old age. Her father tried to sell her to prostitution but she refused and she would rather dressed as a boy to be a manservant. So she did and knocked upon the doors of Lord Blackadder in the 2nd season. Immediately she was hired with Baldrick being fired. Eventually, Blackadder grew attached to the "boy" and when he found out that "Bob" was actually Kate, they decided to get married. The wedding date was set but unfortunately Blackadder's best man Flashheart stole the show and ran away with "Bob"

"Bob" appeared back in the fourth season in the same incarnation except this time as a soldier/driver. She reminds me of Mulan...a girl determined to seek out her future regardless of her sex and even though "Bob" did not reach the success of Mulan, she was still headstrong and determined to prove her point.

Wonder will this really work in today's world and will the reverse actually work? Hahahaha..

Lord Percy Percy - Duke of Northumberland

Lord Percy Percy, played by skifully by the excellentTim McInnerny (who also played Capt Darling in the 4th season) was Blackadder's idiotic sidekick in the first 2 seaons. With a brain the size of a peanut but yet stupidly loyal, Percy is described by Blackadder as "a dimwit I can't seem to shake off".

My famous favourite scene of Lord Percy when Blackadder was running tight on cash and he promised to create gold. Unfortunately he discovered only a green substance which he name green. The only real fundamental difference between green and gold is that green is green rather than gold, it comes in 'splats' rather than nuggets and it has no value whatsoever.

Lord Percy has something of a dislike of Baldrick. This is perhaps as a result of the fact that, despite his higher social status, he still receives the same amount of affection (or lack thereof) from Blackadder. Lord Percy's distaste towards Baldrick can also be seen, as he is reluctant to count him in on the money he plans to make by fashioning 'Green' as jewellery.

Unfortunately, Tim McInnerny did not want to be stereotyped and decided not to join the 3rd season. A pity but he return in season 4 as Darling!

It has been quite a good weekend so far. Attended Cirque Du Soleil yesterday and was superbly impressed by the whole show. Even though there was not much storyline, the acrobats and stuns performed were incredile. It was really like a feat of endurance and concentration for all the performance. My personal favourite was the top-twirling chinese girls (another clever form of outsourcing) and the Adam and Eve act (super jealous of the guy's body!). It was then to a steamboat dinner even though the mala hotpot was too hot..it was the company that really matter.

My weekend was made even better with both Blackburn and Michigan winning.

Blackburn Rovers is the team I have supported over the past 11 years even though they relegated and were isolated for 2 years. I am actually quite happy if they just survived this year. Mark Hughes has definitely make his mark onto the team and the tenacious fighting spirt is starting to show (hopefully not too many red cards pls). I particularly enjoy Kuqi celebration when he scored and hope many more will come. Think will be safe this year and let's see how hard we can push.

Michigan is where I went to college and definitely have been keeping tab of them even though I left 2 years ago. The past 2 seasons have been good at least as we progressed all the way to the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately we lose both of them and was particularly heart-broken by last year lose to Texas 37-38. Was actually hoping for more this year having been ranked 3rd at the start of the season, but so far it has been disappointing. Losing to Notre Dame was hard to swallow especially it was at the Big House and then last week losing to Wiscosin! Luckily this week we beat Michigan State. If not I will not know where to hang my head. Do not think we can progress to the Rose Bowl this year since we already have 2 losses and we have yet to face the Buckeyes! Let's wait and see what will happen this season.

Come on Rovers and Wolverines!

Nursie

The third character of Blackadder I will call upon is Nursie. Unfortunately she only appeared in the 2nd season as Queen Elizabeth I's nanny and never appeared in future Blackadder. She is famous for her one-liner statements such as
" My brother, he had this brilliant idea of cutting his toenails with a scythe, and his foot fell off."

Caring and a loyal servant, she is always seen by the side of Queen E and often sharing stories to others abt the Queen's youth. Loves her impression of a cow in the last episode and her real name is actually Bernard.