Flights of fancy

Well I must say: thank goodness British Airways didn't go on strike...and I (selfishly) made it back to splendid Singapore. This rant isn't going to be about the politics of strike action (I'll save that for another time), but rather about how impressed I was with BA's service.

I've been living in splendid Singapore for over 6 years now - and by the way I think "splendid Singapore" a much more apt and "out there" epithet that "uniquely Singapore" adopted by the tourism board here - and during this time have been a loyal advocate of Singapore Airlines (or SQ as we affectionately refers to them, using their airline code as shorthand). They are indeed hard to beat; well designed cabins, impeccably trained crew, the slimmest women (and men) you've ever seen in the sky; and a record for efficiency and accuracy that is legendary.

I had some Cathay Pacific OneWorld miles to use up before they expired and managed to secure (with great difficulty) business class flights back home for Christmas with British Airways. It was going to cost me virtually nothing and I thought "why not?!".

The flight to London was a great start with wonderful seats (newly designed) and much more comfortable than the "old" SQ seats and even better laid out than the new SQ "largest seat in business class" mammoth. The cocoon-style pod of BA is a tad hemmed-in to begin with, but once you get over your innate sense of claustrophobic self-preservation, the seat is soft, long and terribly enticing to a good night's sleep. I always feel the SQ wide-berth leather-coated chair-cum-bed with a donkey leg, lie sideways to sleep approach, a bit awkward.

But surely SQ trumped BA on service, I hear you shout...well, actually the service both ways on BA was very very good; welcome drinks were served, food was delivered with precision (mostly) and the crew were polite and engaging. There were glitches, of course there were, but that's a fact of a very complicated service offering with many variables...I was slightly peeved, I must confess, that after telling at least 5 BA staff at different stages of my arrival that I wanted to use the arrivals lounge to shower before my connecting flight to Newcastle and not one of them advised me I could use the departures lounge at Terminal 5, even though I was flying economy, since I'd arrived in business class from HK. So I did waste about 30-40 minutes exiting customs and putting myself through unnecessary security searches to get back through - ah well, customers often know more about the products than the brand ambassadors themselves.

I could have wished for more TV choices (films were OK) not knowing a single comedy option on offer and feeling short-changed on the documentary front, but these are small points in the big scheme of things - and coming back to Singapore, I did watch a fabulous commentary on Beethoven, which imbued me with a serene joy.

So all in all, a delightful experience and one I will most likely repeat - SQ's penny-pinching of late has become a tad annoying and the food quite inedible in all classes - so it's not very often I wave the Union Flag and shout bravo England!, but on this occasion I feel I shall and more importantly, I feel that BA deserves it.

Well done.
And by way, the photo is of Carlisle, Cumbria showing a snowy lane on 22nd December.

Madras or Chennai?

I was recently lucky enough to visit my very good friends Patrick and Beebee in the rather nondescript city of Chennai - formerly Madras.

Is that a contradiction, I hear you cry...yes and no.

As with so many things in life it's an oxymoron of real-life proportions. The city itself was nothing to write home about, but the people....oh the people.

As expected, Patrick showed me the party side of Madras: those guys know how to party, with 80s funk and 90s chic. After surviving the driving to get to a stag night on Saturday evening, the booming didn't stop. We were fortunate to be cocooned at a friend's "studio"-cum-"kitchen" with all the mod cons including sink and conveniently placed bathrooms. The trance music mixed by the groom-to-be was a little jolting, but the conversation was passionate and engaging.

I think a couple of the conservative Channaikers were somewhat taken aback at my openness about being gay; but that will do them good in the long run.

Then we retired to the hen party - a first for me....I've done plenty of hen nights on their own and a couple of stags - including my own - but this was a first combining the two..... and after a bum-feeling contest which I managed to avoid, I thought perhaps it was not a bad idea to combine the two. Mind you, I did miss the actual "feeling" action, but my vodka tonic was refreshing - a man can't have everything, now, can he?!?!

Then, Monday, and some culture....the rocks at Mamallapuram were amazing. Entire temples carved from single pieces of rock; smoothed over centuries of lapping seawater; eventually preserved by constructing a simple barrier sanctioned by the late Indira Ghandi.

So, is it Chennai or Madras? Who the hell cares, it's a city full of life, wonderful creativity and amazing relics.

I personally like the onomatopoeia of Madras but do acknowledge the political obligation of a name-change.



I'll be back.

Thoughts on a Tuesday evening....

Or is it Wednesday morning....?
Suppose it depends where you are, right?

Life throws all kinds of malarkey at you...and it almost never seems fair...but how much of it, is of our own making? This is a question I often I ask myself. What if I did that differently, what if I had done that, what if....oh for goodness' sake; what if?

Someone told me recently it's good to wear ones heart on ones sleeve and I've always done that and this old dog won't change his tricks. And why the hell should we? We are what / who we are and the tricks we've perfected should serve us well. But in defence of the dark art of honesty, I firmly believe when we're truthful, honest, open, admissive, we allow others a view of our soul; we allow others the right to judge; we allow others to be themselves.

Let go; just be...

I am trying that philosophy right now and I think it's a good paradigm to work within.

I'm listening to a CD a good friend recorded and the track by Leona Lewis resonates with: what if it hurts me? what if I break down? ... I wanna hear myself ... don't care about all pain in front of me ... I just wanna be happy.

And that's where we all surely wanna be.

This blog entry is a truly joyous entry; one filled with hope and optimism.

I shall see many many friends over the Festive Season and there will be many more I won't see, but I know there are constants in all this turbulence.

I will probably blog more often (if more succinctly) over the next few weeks...hope you can cope with following it all...and PLEASE DO COMMENT.

Well here endeth the rant...or was it a revelation?!

Decorations - a premature X-jaculation?

Well as I've been told several times this week, we're now a mere SEVEN weeks away from Yuletide. Seven long weeks, 49 days (give or take); this is ages away and yet we're treating it as if it's just around the corner. It's two months away for goodness' sake.

And yet, and yet, the decorations are up, the lights have started to twinkle and the glitter is sparkling in those said twinkling filaments. We will now have to embark on a full 7 weeks of anticipation in a run up to a splendid celebration of a great world religion. It's not the commercialism that concerns me; I'm a committed capitalist. It's more the ruinous aspect of doing things too early and spoiling the end effect. The anti-climax that is now Christmas for many of us starts with a garland being decked far too early.

In Singapore, it's a year-long celebration city, as one festival after the next is honoured and revered in street decorations and in-shop buying opportunities. New Year flows into Chinese New Year which flows into Easter, then Vesak, Ramadan, National Day, Deepavali and ultimately the Haj season. All this before coming full circle to Xmas. The challenge for the local economy is that the Haj season doesn't really see enough people swinging their handbags in the shopping malls - therefore Chirstmas "needs" to start early.

In my opinion, and it may not be so humble on this topic, let's keep the special exactly that: special. Decking the proverbial halls with faux-holly and tacky glitter-spiked baubles so far in advance somewhat deflates the crescendo before it's begun.

My plea to you, therefore, is dust off the decorations, pin up the window dressings, cast the lametta and erect your tree when it's time and not before; let's save December for Christmas, the other months are already cluttered.

And as we all know, coming too soon can only lead to a limp finale...

Why does the 2nd world war still haunt us Europeans? And why do families fight?

It ended over 60 years ago and yet it pervades so much of European consciousness. The Second World War was heinous in extremes; whether thinking about the sheer number of dead on both sides, the genocide that took place (the effects of which we're still feeling in the Middle East today) or the ultimate triumph of freedom over fascism, the war was record-breaking in so many ways.

And yet, we persist to label the Germans, sympathise with the Jews to the neglect of all other concentration camp suffers and pat ourselves on the back as victors who would never have stooped so low. Never, would we have treated our fellow man in such a despicable way; and yet history is littered with examples of men being callous to his neighbour in every part of the world: Indian Partition, Rwanda, Bosnia...

The deaths, the senseless deaths of the holocaust and the others who died alongside the Jews: the Catholics, the political prisoners, the gays, the gypsies, the mixed races; it brings me to choking point, and I wasn't even alive when it all happened. One could be sucked, so easily, into a downward spiral of pessimistic pandering. But the strong amongst us will see the good in people; the beauty that surrounds us; the joy we can give to each other. Without this we're doomed.

Just as those thousands and hundreds of thousands of Jews who dug their own graves were doomed; only to be shot in the head by with a Nazi bullet.

We are better than that; we're stronger than they.

And to make it personal; my own family is rent apart because of a stupid puerile disagreement that could have been so easily averted. We must find it in ourselves to forgive our trespassers, for if we don't we're condemned to a life of hatred and loathing that will consume our very being: look at amazing South Africa and the reconciliation the managed to achieve! We can do it. We can move on.

As the tears stream down my face, I lament a family once in love with each other and now one that is riven apart by misunderstanding, pride and baseless prejudice.

The war of the worlds is often played out in the parlours of families.

Let's hope the butler soon arrives and asks us for our choice of sherry to sweep away the lacrimosa effect of my rantings and we shall, in typical English style, sweep our anxieties under the proverbial carpet and get on with life...!

Funny what T-shirts people wear

Public declarations are interesting things.

Some of us wear a red ribbon, at least on 1st December, to show their solidarity for the thousands already heaven-bound due to AIDS; some of us don Prada and Gucci to show the world we love fashion - and yes, can afford it; some, on the other hand, are perhaps less subtle.

I was leaving the office the other day and entered the lift as I usually do.
There in front of me was a charming looking young lady, with neat hair and a deliciously white smile.

Then I noticed her T-shirt.

It was jet black with white words emblazend on it. It clearly conveyed her whole being and perhaps that of the entire Y-gen at large.

It read: If you don't like my attitude, dial 1-800 EAT SHIT.

Not your usual call centre mnemonic, yet, catchy nevertheless, I'm sure you'd agree.

The Internationale - why the obsession?

Recently, or perhaps not so recently, I have been mildly impressed and indeed intrigued (it makes my hairs on the back of my neck stand on end) by the communist anthem The Internationale.

"Oh!", I hear you yelp; this from Darren the Thatcherite - how can that be?! The tune is blood-curdling and the passion with which it is sung is nonetheless electric. These worker-strugglers stood up for what they believed in and looking back with Cold War distance it is easy to mock - but also less challenging to appreciate it.

A German version is particularly rousing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aRF4aN5C6U&feature=fvw
Not to mention several Soviet renditions.
The Chinese don't do a bad job of rousing the party-faithful either.
And for those of you who know anything of Japanese nationalists - get the irony?!?! - this is wonderful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRkRiOYFs4A&feature=related

Mind you listening to an Hewbrew version - that sounds like Milk and Honey from the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhbMuW_RxP4&feature=related) it's perhaps not all doom and gloom or taken too serious either. You can compare and contrast with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqFOxKPD_Ok&feature=related

On YouTube it's in virtually every imaginable language: Norwegian, French, Greek, Bangladeshi, and it goes on and on.....I even found it Burmese.

Marx was fool, Engel his equally idiotic side-kick, yet the lure of equality appeals even now. And perhaps it's right that it does: capitalism has taken a knock of late, but I still feel it's the most logical of human life-systems - the one that rewards those who deserve to be rewarded and penalises those who perhaps should be disadvantaged.

Yet, the powerful notion that we're all due something in life from government, from our fellow citizens, from God, is compelling and has ramifications for non-communist doctrines like capitalism. My Great-Uncle Jack has been a communist / socialist all of his life and a great life he's had too; I respect the history and origins of such beliefs, of such Weltanschauungen (world philosophies / views) but that framework of a solution is defunct, distressed, deserted.

We cannot and should not ignore our fellow man, we are all responsible for the good of our village, community and ultimately planet. This responsibility transcends left and right and currently the world is failing largely to acknowledge this obligation.

Yet the hypocrisy of communism should not be lost on anyone, especially the Nepalis in the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAxz0ECZ-Lo&feature=related where an adherent proudly wears an Arsenal football top - overtly displaying a symbol of both the submission of a sport to rampant capitalism and corporate manipulation - O2....?!!?

The world is crazy. But I love it.