Rancho Tsunami

Bill and Toni were in Wellington over the last few days so they checked in on Rancho Relaxo; bit of a problem!

It appears that small, furry creatures of the wild have nibbled their way through the water pipes under the sink and also eaten the dishwasher hoses. The water pumps have then discharged all 40,000 litres of stored rainwater all over the floors with the result that all the carpets are totally squidgy and mouldy. Additionally the floors are made of particle board and they, of course, support the walls which, in turn, hold up the roof. Particle board is not conducive to absorbing thousands of litres of water. At the moment the walls and roof are still intact probably thanks to the water escaping down the floor drains in the bathrooms.

I'll get the builders and the insurance company on to the problem and update the blog when I have further news. All the carpets will have to be ripped out and then I guess we'll see what the floors are like. Apparently the books, pictures and posters etc. are all OK but Bill moved the wine fridge to a different electrical circuit because he turned off the water pumps. At least he has his priorities well sorted :)

King of Fruits

Today I ate Durian!

'So what?' you may ask? Well its the most offensive fruit ever invented by God. What she was thinking I have no idea. It is banned from public transport in Singapore. I don't mean eating it on public transport is banned I mean carrying it, wrapped in a supermarket bag and unpeeled is banned. It's that obnoxious.

Actually it was rather sweet but if I burp I think everyone within a 100m radius may asphyxiate and be inclined to incline and fall down and, apparently, if I sweat tomorrow because of the humidity the same thing will happen because the smell will emanate from my pores.

All in the call of culinary science and cultural harmony :)

Robots in Disguise

I was a Transformer today! The School is making an animated film for Singapore National Day and I was the voice-over for Bumblebee. I had no idea what they were talking about; at first I thought I had to go buzz, buzz, buzz but I had to be a very moralistic Robot admonishing a variety of Malay, Indian and Singaporean students for being racist. I also had to utter one word in Malay - 'Singapura' so I am now officially multi-lingual all over again.

And I'm a car.

Your England is very powderful!

The other day I finished a draft of a 'How to Train' booklet for the 12 year old swimmers who have no idea how to push off in a straight line, count to five, read a pace clock or remember which way is up. One of the coaches I sent the draft to for critiquing was on pool deck this morning so I asked him his thoughts.

'Mister Clive, your England is very powderful,' he replied, which I thought was rather amusing.

JKR and other muses

Speaking of Ormus (see previous post) I have often marvelled at JK Rowling's imagination, attention to detail and ability to weave interconnecting ideas throughout her marathon literary work. If you're wondering how Ormus and JKR are connected its because Ormus is likely to be a rediscovery of the original Philosopher's Stone known to alchemists in the Middle Ages and now to middle-aged alchemists.

Any, enough divergence; remember in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the students use mandrake root to cure several victims petrified by a basilisk and they had to wear ear muffs to protect themselves from the screaming when they pulled the Mandrakes out of the pots. Remember what they looked like? Check out the plant on the left in the photo! I daren't try to re-pot it in case I go deaf.

These two photographs are nothing to do with JKR, mandrake roots or Ormus, they are shots taken at a place called Sentosa Beach.

Do you think Ormus is really named thus because it's Orsum? There's a Samoan heavyweight boxer in New Zealand called David Tua. He won Olympic bronze and fought for the world professional title but is most famous for an appearance on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune where he asked for 'An O for awesome,' and later for a 'P' when buying a vowel. I'll bet he even mixes malt whisky with sports drinks. Nuff said.

DI - KH - AD!

No other word for, really there isn't. I can't believe I did it but I tasted the evidence with my own tastebuds. Remember the Michel Couvreur whisky from yesterday's post? Well, firstly, when Iwas writing up the story of its discovery I forgot to mention the box. We were carting the Brunello and the Couvreur around the store and on check-out the guy asked if we wanted the bottles in a bag? Strange question really. I replied that a box would be nice, a really nice box, a really, really nice box. So he went delving and came back with this wonderful offering complete with neat dovetail points and brass catches.

Anyway that's not the problem; this is - with a fine 'over-aged' malt whisky offering itself there is no option but to sample it, especially as Monsieur Couveur is precise with his instructions - 'To be savoured at 63/64F (17/18Celsius) and in complete silence.' The black wax seal was very brittle but not too difficult to remove then the cork was soft and squashy. If it hadn't had the seal I suspect the squashiness may have proved a problem for the liquid gold (more about which in a future post because I'm into Ormus!) but it was OK.

Pour a delicate amount into the Riedel champagne glass because I don't have any whisky glasses here. Taste; lots of hints of slightly fiery Glen Garioch. I normally cut my malt 50-50 with water so I searched the fridge rather than use tap water. A pesimistically half empty/optimistically half full bottle of Perrier proved to be of the sparkling variety but something called '100' looked very still so I used that. Ready for the tasting; yeeuugghh!!!!! '100' is an isotonic sports drink!

What would you rather be, or a wasp?

Elliot sent this photo of himself, Laurel and Tom (L to R) recently while he was on a trip to Vancouver for a family friend's funeral. According to sources close to the action he also made G'ma wear some shiny, luminous thing on her ears.

The title of today's blog is inspired by a question Elliot posed but it's actually a quote from my philosophy teacher way back when - Eugene Halliday - who used to like playing around with words and ideas. See also this site and this one. Elliot pointed out that it was obvious G'ma should have been a florist rather than going into the medical profession. Laurel used the 'If you could be anything what would you be?' approach as part of her University course projects where she photographed people wearing a huge pair of angel wings and they had to say what they would be if they could be anything; G'ma said something like 'flower shop owner' at that time. Hannah, photographed being a barrister behind the counter at Starbucks, admitted she wanted to be a Polar bear.

Anyway, to answer Elliot's question, I'd be a surgeon but I think I'm maybe more suited to writing.

Ganging aft agley is a good thing

Wow! Discoveries galore last night and all surprising. I guess that's what 'discoveries' always are or else they'd simply be 'finds' wouldn't they?

Angie (definitely not blonde!) wanted to go into town for 'simple fare, wine by the glass and desserts' but, again, Rabbie Burns was way ahead of the game and 'gang aft agley' was in order but in a good way.

I grabbed a taxi and picked her up at work - first time I'd seen Warren Golf and Country Club and very impressive it was. Then we drove down to Dempsey Hill for the simple fare etc. Upon arival a tour of the area was in order and that's where the agley started. First distraction was the Red Sea Art Gallery which had a lot of sculptures of very fat, contorted ladies, some metal sculptures of dogs sniffing each other's bottoms and a few very impressive, very shiny acryllic on canvas paintings. There were some neat cartoon-ish paintings which reminded me of the paintings my Dad did on my bedroom walls when I was tiny and a couple of Jackson Pollock take-offs which were very spectacular. As devoted readers of this blog know I like Pollock-ese splashes so I was enthused enough to suggest we source huge canvasses and start splashing around again.

Next distraction was jones the grocer which is Australian owned, Singapore situated but the nearest thing you'll find to an Italian deli this side of Tuscany. We wandered around ooo-ing and ah-ing at the laden shelves then arived at the fromagerie which is one of the most amazing smell places I've ever been; I could have lived in there. Angie hates smelly cheese and was mortified when I was eating Blue Stilton a few days ago. The jones the grocer fromagerie was Blue Stilton to the extreme. Ting, the fromagier, was encouraging me to taste things so I tried all sorts of sweaty sock taste-a-likes and ended up buying Provolone and Tarago Blue Orchid. They had something which was in a box and covered with furry, festering, fungusy mould but I couldn't bring myself to even try, let alone buy it. They had some wonderful looking truffle oil but it was S$50 for a very small bottle so I passed on that.

While the cheeses were transported to the check-out by the extremely helpful Ting we continued our exploration of the shop; wines of course. Alcohol in Singapore is mega-expensive with most wines at least double what I would expect to pay in New Zealand - a 375ml bottle of Pegasus Bay 'sticky' was S$80 and I'd normally look at NZ$25-30 for that. At this point Ting reappeared with some Brie Truffle Brillat Savarin which she had just liberated from its box and that was heavenly so a good-sized glob of that joined my other smelly parcels at check-out. Then another discovery; Riedel & Bollinger Champagne Glass Boxed Gift Sets on special! Two engraved Reidel champagne glasses for S$25! That's insane, totally insane, so I bought two sets. That was enough shopping as I couldn't find any Barolo so we checked out. Interestingly an item identifying itself as Abbondio Rossa 250ml appeared on my bill but I had nothing to do with it!

That should have been enough but lo and behold just across the street was another deli - Culina. This was nearly as good but not quite as comprehensive and no fromagerie. However, big however, big, huge; Michel Couvreur whisky! Remember him? He's the French guy who ships distilled single malt Scotch to France then matures it in French caves. He lives in Old Meldrum where my great grandfather used to be the Cooper at the Glen Garioch distillery. I have NEVER seen this whisky in a shop before. So that was a no-brainer; one bottle please and thank you very much. Then the Barolo appeared but it was simply too expensive. The Brunello di Montalcino on the other hand was incredibly reasonable given we were in Singapore so, Hey, why not? a bottle of that too my good man!

OK, definitely enough, what about eating? Off to Dome Express and two of the most comfortable wing-back, leather arm chairs I've ever experienced as dining chairs. I had the 'simple fare' pepperoni pizza but tiny, petite, size 2 Angie ordered the Mixed Sausage Combo which included grilled pork bockwurst, cheese cracker and marquez spicy lamb sausages accompanied by mashed potatoe, sour kraut and drizzled with black pepper sauce; very yummy indeed, in fact the lamb sausage was nothing short of historic. 'Wine by the glass' went out of the window as well as the one I wanted was only available by the bottle. So a bottle it was. Desserts bit the dust as well which is a good thing because I want to continue losing weight.

That was it; pay the bill, refuse to contemplate the total spent during the evening, flag down a taxi, drop Angie off and return to Sports School to find a place of honour for the Riedel glasses and the whisky. Undoubtedly the best night out since I arrived in Singapore. Rabbie Burns eat your heart out.

Another Visitor

Gekkos are cute little things aren't they? Their little, pudgy hands and inquisitive expressions are endearing.

But (and there is indeed a 'but'), when they insist on wandering round your bathroom it can get a tad disconcerting. I thought my little visitor - only about 3cm long - had come in through the window but after I tried to trap him in the bathroom so I could take a photo, he promptly scurried under the door (absolutely no gap whatsoever!) and vanished. The accompanying image is courtesy of Wiki.

I have a big plastic bag of tennis balls, Tempo Trainers and Hydro-Hips sitting near the 'front' door and this morning I heard the plastic rustle. In the best traditions of stalking wildlife I stealthily crept up on the bag and was just about to pick it up and shake it when the little creature promptly fled under the closed front door (again absolutely no gap whatsoever) and hurried off to terrorise the rest of the building.

It must be baby gekko time because we've had a few on pool deck recently which causes mayhem amongst the little girls and frivolity amongst the silly little boys.

99 kg and counting

Here I am on the all-weather 220m indoor track which runs alongside the two 50m pools. I hit 99.6 kg last week but then pigged out at the end-of-Schools'-Nationals team meal and bounced over 100 kg again. Just now I was 99.35 kg and that's after lunch which included a deliciously smelly Stilton sandwich, a cup of soup and a cup of tea - fluid weighs heavy so the 99 is good news.

Unwelcome Visitor

Because of the H1N1 potential pandemic (not calling it Swine Flu any more; must be a Muslim thing) the School has introduced a lot of increased health monitoring and security measures including twice-daily temperature checks and main gate only access to the campus. The first is interesting because my temperature fluctuates quite a lot depending on the time spent in a/c saturated rooms (all set at 22 degrees) or how dehydrated I am by carrying heavy bags on the walk from the supermarket in the 32degree heat and 100% humidity. The second is a pain as it means the supermarket bags have to be hauled about 300m further than necessary which makes me more dehydrated which increases my core temperature which makes me look as if I have H1N1 which means they will put me in quarantine which means I won't be able to go to the supermarket which means I won't get dehydrated which means my temperature will be normal which means I won't be put in quarantine. Its all a bit like, 'You remind me of a man.' 'What man?' 'The man with the power.' 'What power?' 'The power of Voodoo.' 'Who do?' 'You do.' 'What?' 'Remind me of a man.' 'What man?' .......

So what has all this to do with the price of fish? Very little actually but the increased security measures did fail to stop this slippery customer from getting past the main gate, through most of the School and into the accommodation block where s/he was found patiently waiting for the lift to take her/him up to the eighth floor where food had been left out near the trash wheelie bins. Rancid food atracts rats, rats attract snakes, snakes attract frightened people, frightened people have lowered immune systems, people with lowered immune systems contract H1N1. There's really no way to stop it; it will take over the world.

I wonder if you could use the Jedi mind trick and talk Parseltongue so that it went to another floor instead of the eighth?

TODAY

Two in two days! I must have remembered blogability :)

Yuuuuummmm, Seng!

OK, back to blogging! Honestly I haven't had any thought which I deemed blog-worthy but now I've resurrected golongdistance and here I am returning to misterclive! I'm smiling if no-one else is!

Last night I attended my first Chinese wedding reception. Everyone told me it would be really different from 'western' weddings but I wasn't amazed or astounded by anything. Intrigued and interested, yes, but not amazed or astounded.

First the invitation was to the reception, not the wedding. There were abound 500 guests. I have no idea how many attended the actual service but of all the ones I knew (Sports School staff) I think only a handful had. It was held in the Grand Ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Hotel so pretty posh stuff and there were around 50 tables each with 10 places (see picture). I was told by a lot of good people that every guest was expected to contribute to the cost of the bash so that's the first difference with 'western' culture. All my advisors independently estimated the cost of each table at $1,000 so $100 pp. Add on $8 because 8 is a luck number and the expected contribution was $108. It is given in cash in a neat, little red envelope and is known as 'Ang Pow'. Why do they cover the chairs in white shrouds? It's as if they were expecting the chimney sweep to arrive any minute.

The invitation was very specific; 'Cocktail reception will start at 7.00pm. Dinner will be served at 7.30pm sharp. Your punctuality is greatly appreciated' so, in the great tradition of all countries hot, dinner started at 8.45pm :)

The bridegroom was called Desmond Tan and the bride Janine Tan so I guess the day transmogrified Mr and Ms Tan into Mr and Mrs Tan; all that for the addition of a solitary 'r'.

Now, the 'meaty' substance to this blog;the menu. Nine courses gently simmered across three hours with a very professionally produced but extremely smaltzy video of the happy couples' history and the day's service.

Grand Hyatt Delights (eau d'oeuvres in 'Franglish!)

Shark's Fin Soup with Shredded Seafood. This is apparently a great delicacy here and demonstrates that no expense is being spared. How 'shredded seafood' differs from soupyfied shark's fin is left up to your imagination.)

Canton Roasted Chicken with Walnut Topping. Historic. Absolutely yummy.

Steamed Live Garoupa with Superior Soya Sauce. My culinary advisor advises me that 'live' means 'fresh' as in 'fished out of a tank in the hotel kitchen and then despatched to the watery afterlife prior to steaming' and not 'thrown kicking (well, squirming) and screaming into a steam bath'. Judging from the look on the Garoupa's face my advisor is dispensing misleading and incorrect advise; it was not happy at contributing to the happy day, in fact it looked decidely astounded at having to appear in its mortified state. If Chinese weddings contained the phrase, 'Speak now or forever hold your peace,' (they don't) the Garoupa would have waved its sinewy fins in the air and belched 'Stop! Stop! A thousand (and eight) times stop!' However it was very, very fresh.

Braised Sliced Abalone with Shiitake Mushroom. I'm not a fan of Shiitake mushrooms but at least I now know how to spell it. Two 'i's' is not what I would have guessed. The '2I's' was a coffee bar in London during the 1950's and 1960's where many of the first wave of Brit Pop stars started their careers - Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Joe Brown ... and I'll bet they'd never heard of Shiitake mushrooms in those days. First time I've ever tasted abalone and they are good. Very good. They made me think the experience must be something like tasting truffles for the first time but as I haven't tasted truffles for a long time and can't remember what they tasted like I guess truffles aren't as memorable as they're made out.

Sauteed Scallop with Asparagus served in Cheese Basket. Fantastic scallops. Excellent asparagus. I could have eaten just this dish all night.

Steamed Crab Claw on Zuchini, Fungus with Dried Shrimp Sauce. Big, meaty and tasty but not historic.

Wok Fried Korean Glass Noodle with Rice Vermicelli. I can't remember what this tasted like but I do remember that it was OK. How strange. Must have been the Tiger beer taking effect.

Sweet Yam Paste with Ginko Nut in Coconut Pumkin Sauce. Can't be the Tiger beer because i remember this last course. Terific, bordering on historic. Sweet Yam paste is like vanilla custard.

Everyone received two presents, a brownie wrapped in a paper square then contained in a Grand Hyatt presentation box and a very nice, distressed paper notepad with moulded leaves and flowers and complete with 'barky' pencil (Q: What's brown and sticky? A: a stick). The bride and groom appeared at various times throughout the meal dressed in different outfits. I was told this is important to demonstrate that each is a good catch as they have more than one set of clothes. Right.

Best bit of the evening was listening to groups of guests performing the equivalent of 'Three Cheers' as the happy couple visited each table for photographs. Everyone says 'Yuuuuuuuuuuum, yuuuuum, yuum, yum, yum, yum', at the top of their voices and strings it out for as long as possible before finishing on a resounding, 'Seng!'.

Worst bit of the evening was our table didn't do it!

Woo-woo, woo-woo

Arrgghh, disturbances in the force and all that. Remember ages ago when Bill and Toni were moving out of Fernside and I told you about one of Toni's paintings I'd seen? I said to her, 'WHERE did you copy that from?' Toni packed the artwork before I could get a copy.

They are living at Rancho Relaxo at the moment and have liberated some of their stored stuff from near Martinborough. Here is the painting and here's the original which Toni copied from out of Hammy's book.

She is pretty sure she painted it between 1974 and 1976 and she met me for the first time in 2001. She has never met your Mum!

Day 1!

I have to be institionalised again! It's not easy. There are rules and regulations and they're not my strong point!

I know its called the Singapore Sports School but it is the first organisation I've experienced which seems to genuinely treat sporting/physical development as equal to academic development. There's a respect for purposeful, focussed training and no (apparent) insistence on immediate performance. We'll see.


And here, just to show what arduous conditions we have to put up with, is a shot of the pools. We had 30 lanes available this morning; 10 x 50m and 20 x 25m. Hard times.

Eating out

G'ma's Christmas present dinner out this year (last year, but this Christmas) was at Dockside on Granville Island. Unfortunately Hannah wasn't there but it was a good outing anyway. The food wan't as historic as last year's at Blue Water but the atmosphere and ambience were right up there with the nicest ever.
Next on the list is a Thai restaurant in Singapore. No idea what it was called but its in the Mall down the road from the School. No beer! I must have drank a hundred litres of water. We went there an hour after I arrived from 36 hours of travel. I think I look quite human considering.

2009 and all that

I may love Air New Zealand but Lufthansa is going down, down, down in my estimation. Maybe its the recession. The 747 from Frankfurt to Singapore must have been the original rolled out in late 1968. I know these things last forever if they're serviced correctly but they are usually sold off to Air Zimbabwe or similar after 20 years or so. If this one was sold off it was probably to Lufthansa and from Richard Pearce.

The 'entertainment system' was archaic. Remember those tiny little (superfluous diminuation I know) T'V's perched up in the ceiling which play a film of Herr Lufthansa's choice then go blank for an hour or so then play something else also of Herr Lufthansa's choice? Now, honestly, when was the last time you remember those on a long-haul flight? No airline has them any more. Well, maybe Air Zimbabwe has but at $7,559,934,292ZWD for the ticket (at the time of writing but you may have to add a few zero's by the time you read it) no one could afford to experience the nostalgia.

We got Mamma Mia! which was fine even though I'd watched it from Vancouver to Frankfurt. It's that kind of jolly singalong, ABBA's (how do you get HTML to reverse a 'B'?) compositions and arrangements never cease to amaze and I could watch shots of Skopelos and Skiathos forever. But, and here you have to imagine you've suspended disbelief with the best of them and you're engrossed in a delightfully jolly fantasy so its a BIG BUT, what is worse than the usual intervention of the pilot during a good film merely to tell you that you're about to be thrown out of your seat by an atmospheric disturbance so best to buckle up? I'll tell you what's worse; right at the climactic resolution of Act III the film stops and is replaced by Flyrobic, that's what's worse. Even though cute little Tony is a marvel of animation I don't want to know how to do exercises in my aircraft seat! I want to see three geezers who can't sing sing their way to accepting one third each of one of their daughter's. (Not, you will note, 'one of their daughters'). The daughter of one of them, whatever.

Eventually the complaints won the day and Flyrobics was temporarily sent to the trash can (we got it later). Did they have a 2009 style solution to the restart and were able to go directly to where they'd left off? Nein! Nein! A thousand times Nein! They 'fast-forwarded' at x2 speed from the very beginning. And remember we were at the resolution of Act III - where the wedding is about to take place and Donna has told the congregation that Sophie's dads are present. It took forever but we got there eventually, a marriage took place and we got to see the best bit of the whole film, the take-outs of the cast singing in 1960's ABBA costumes.

And, ... (dot, dot, dot) the drinks were very small, the food was bad, the air hostess was miserable and my seating companion was an Irishman from Liverpool!

By the way we were over The Ukraine when we transitioned New Year.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Grouse Mountain. Tom wanted to snowshoe so off we went with G'ma in tow. Lots of Christmas traffic and lots of snow and ice on the roads. Lots of all sorts of lovely Christmassy things but no power. Nothing was working on the mountain. The disembodied voice over the loudspeaker system (well, some things were working) reassured us that things would be 'good to go' in no time at all but the 100 or so people squeezed and locked in the gondola waiting to climb to the summit didn't look as though they believed that. We aborted the day.
The next day we went again, this time substituting Laurel for G'ma. Laurel is a much more experienced snowshoer than G'ma and also brought electricity with her so everything worked. In fact the snow was working overtime and even Santa's Workshop was in danger of fading out of 2008 before its time.













The buses had stopped trying to get up the mountain so we thought we'd have difficulty getting down but it was actually a nice adventure with no real problems. A white Christmas indeed.