Singapore National Education Part 7
I have also learned lately:
1. That in Malaysia, you can apologise for an apology you did not make.
2. That when you are a star like Ann Kok, the gracious and intelligent way to fend off criticisms about your bad singing and less-than-ideal breast-to-torso ratio is to threaten your critics with gangsta talk ("Dey don messa wit' me and I don messa wit' dem, ok?") at an interview meant to _promote_ your latest album.
3. That Ann does not know you can be a Star today and a Fann tomorrow.
4. That the success of the $100-per-month-to-use-the-Central-Expressway scheme at improving traffic flow there may lead to similar schemes islandwide to correct the increased jams at all other roads caused by the success of the abovementioned scheme.
5. That if making folks pay $100 per month to use the CTE has solved the jam there, why not make everyone pay $100 per month to use the ECP, PIE, BKE, Lornie Road, Thomson Road as well, since, for reasons unknown to me, the traffic has gotten worse at these roads lately?
6. That it is a chicken and egg question whether the Electronic Road Pricing system came first or the Cashcow, eh, Cashcard.
7. That Singtel is not only powerful enough to bring their own Cellular and Paging Networks down with their own faulty switches, they can also bring other Cellular and Paging companies' networks down with them as well. I guess that is what they meant by their Big Red Umbrella advertisment.
8. That the Big Red Umbrella of Singapore Telecoms has huge holes in it.
9. That M1 is better off not hiding under Singtel's umbrella.
10. That sorry is even harder for Singtel than for Umno Youth's Zahid to say.
11. That despite the nice big number (110,000?) of subscribers that Singtel claims to have signed up for their GSM network, we don't know, and they won't tell us, how many were upgraders from their own AMPS and ETAC (that have about 70,000 subscribers each?) networks and how many were genuine new subscribers. Another case for the X-files. Remember the 400 base stations they claim to have? How many are GSM again?
12. That Singtel will send a goat's head to our doors (or something close to that effect) when we are late for _one_ payment but are silent when customers ask for compensation for the massive cellular and paging network failure the other day.
13. That according to the authorities, it was the cocktail prawns in Orchard Hotel's wedding dinner menu that caused the food poisoning of more than 30 guests. But Orchard Hotel, after their deep deep research, thinks it was something the 30 different guests ate _before_ the wedding dinner. I guess that somehow, they all managed to eat the _same_ unclean dish before coming to the hotel.
I stand corrected when I suggested it might have been the Char Kuay Teow they ate _after_ the dinner (see Part 6 of this series).
14. That Mike Tyson can bite someone's ear off and still go home with US$27 million as part of his punishment. I wonder how much he would have gotten if he had bitten the whole ear off.
15. That Singtel can chew our handphone and pager reliability off and still claim to be the company with the Big Red Umbrella (and to think that people are banging Hutchinson Paging for their "Bad Attitude" adverts -- see Straits Times, Thursday, July 10th Forum page "Advertisers should be more responsible" -- at least Hutchinson's ad is just a clever slogan, Singtel seems to live it out)
16. That it is cheaper for Singtel to say sorry in the free Forum page than taking out an ad in the papers.
17. That it is possible to have money for 3 huge luxury cars (a Rolls, a Merc, a Volvo) and can only afford _one_ $60 ALS season ticket.
18. That if you own 3 huge luxury cars and just one $60 ALS season ticket, try not to offend anyone or they will call the LTA (Land Transport Authority) to tail you and jail you.
19. That using one $60 ALS season ticket for three cars to go into town is a mockery of the ALS scheme but making us pay $100 a month to drive into the city is not a mockery of us.
20. That our massive budget surplus is used to finance the LTA's little pet projects like assigning an officer to tail a rich dude who did not buy enough $60 ALS season tickets.
21. That it is possible that in the near future, we might be jailed for not tearing enough parking coupons.
22. That mockery of the LTA's policies like the ALS scheme can lead to jail time. I wonder if telling jokes about the scheme counts.....
23. That there is justice afterall when you read that Ann Kok and Fann Wong are labeled the worst dressed TCS artistes in The New Paper. I guess shorts just don't cut it when one goes for an awards ceremony.
24. That when you snub Record companies by using their stars' photos in a Promotional Souvenir Book without their permission and without monetary compensation, they will snub you when you organise a Big Hit Awards show that depends on their participation.
25. That it pays to play nice with Record Companies even if you _think_ you are some bigtime Radio/Television Corporation because it will look silly when no one turns up for your Big Hit Awards.
Copyright 2004 by Lee Kin Mun
