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Cold out east
It was only about nine p.m., as I sat at a table covered in chilli crab, that I realized I was ill. Up until then, I’d just felt confused, tired and disgruntled, but as I sat there with my daughter dribbling down my shirt, fluid began to seep from my nose as if in sympathy.
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Soundclash!
Tonight, as well as well the nightly concert in the square beneath our flat, there was a procession around the Temple Of Buddha’s Tooth. That meant lots of jangling bells, three lions and a dragon, the last of these accessorized with neon lights, all making a huge din that almost drowned out the noise from […]
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A quick drink
After work this evening, I skipped through the sunlit streets of Singapore to the pub, where I necked two pints of Guinness while thrashing out arrangements for a cyclocross race. I wrote everything down, but even when stone-cold sober my handwriting is terrible, so I’m worried that in the cold light of day I’ll find […]
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Bless you
Somewhat exhausted after a day of poring over spreadsheets, I went to the supermarket on the way home and picked up ten boxes of tissues. I don’t think I’d understood how many minor messes a baby can produce, but between drool, posset, vomit, sneezing, spilt milk and various other secretions, there are a lot of […]
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After bats, cats
In Singapore, you can’t have a cat if you live in any of the HDB estates. This is because cats are noisy, and will leave droppings everywhere, and are generally dirty. (It’s ok to have a small dog, which suggests the person responsible for those rules has either never seen a dog or a cat, […]
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Saving Mr Bat
This evening we went to Kallang MRT station by mistake; we should have been at a completely different station, on a completely different line. While it’s nice to explore new places, Kallang MRT on a Sunday evening isn’t a palace of delights. Nobody got off the train there apart from us, which is easier said […]
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Drinking, running, and noises
At about four this morning I woke to the sound of my child’s bodily functions. I’m not sure if she was coughing, sneezing, defecating, urinating or farting, and I think it was coincidence that sleep abandoned me at that moment, rather than her being loud enough to startle me awake. But awake I was, and […]
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Jigger and Pony
This evening I went for a drink after work at Jigger And Pony, a cocktail bar on Amoy Street. It was happy hour when I arrived, which meant a mixed drink would be only fifteen dollars. That isn’t the bargain it sounds like, because after you’ve had one, you’ll have another, and before you know […]
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Birthdays
For lunch today I went to Renn Thai in Clark Quay, to celebrate a co-worker’s thirtieth birthday. Conversation moved to discussing how she’d spent her twentieth birthday, and I almost blurted out that I’d spent mine in Oxford, wearing a not-particularly flattering blue dress at a party on Cowley Road. I’m glad I didn’t say […]
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The Devil’s Coffee
This morning I planned to buy myself an iced coffee on my way to the office, but with a tight budget that did,T make much sense when I’ve got a French press in the cupboard and a big jar of coffee doing nothing in the fridge, so I executed an about-turn half way from my […]