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?