Take it down…

Just a notice here: I will be taking down three pages from this blog on New Year’s Eve, so if you need to back up anything from those pages, feel free to do so!

1. That GP Schedule…

2. That PW page for 1907…

3. That PW page for 1508…

Hohoho!

PS: That will also roughly be the time I respond to those of you who have emailed me queries on your holiday assignment =)

The transport situation

This post is not about the talk given by the Transport Minister in 2007!

This post is about an article that actually excited me a lot. It was on the front-page, so presumably it was of earth-shattering epic proportion. It had to be big. So when I read the headline, I thought it was indeed truly an amazing piece of news. I thought Singaporeans have been brainwashed (successfully)!

I am utterly disgusted by this report. I’m sure you know why. It is not the ERP. Note that I don’t have anything against the ERP, neither do I support it. It just is part of city living, so I live with it. I personally don’t think it is effective, neither do I mind paying the toll.

I am disgusted that such a misleading piece of writing can make it to the front page. Well, to be fair, the main problem is with the headline and the first paragraph. They set the tone. They are the culprits.

What is the agenda here?

I don’t know and I don’t want to speculate.

For goodness sake, it is not even the majority of the respondents and we are not even talking about the representativeness of the data. Those whom I had supervised for Project Work had their reports thrown out by me if they gave such despicable evaluation of the statistics.

If you still have a copy of this article (including the one on A8, you will realise that the majority didn’t even believe the system works.

For your information, without a quantifier (eg: “some”, “all”), the noun “drivers” refers to the group of people who drive a vehicle (obviously) and is naturally taken to mean the same as “all drivers”. Thus I get the impression that all drivers in Singapore felt that way.

Test drives

Driving in Singapore can be a real test. If you are lucky when you are in an accident, all guilty parties willingly admit their faults–such acts of honesty have indeed happened (it has happened to me). But the majority of people can still be nasty simply because you don’t know what to expect out of accident claims especially when insurance companies are merciless mercenaries who charge high premiums and penalties because there are merciless mercenary workshops out there who over-claim because there are a lack of proper checks in place in the first place. You want to be nasty first to preempt any nasty reactions from the other party. Or you better hope for a piece of good luck.

On Dec 20, on Woodlands Road heading towards Bukit Panjang, a champagne gold Jaguar (SDU 8886A) on the left suddenly swerved into mine and back into her lane. There might have been an obstruction on her lane and she realised too late. As usual, my trusty Vios, in good speed, avoided yet another collision from drivers who refused to signal. It’s a Jaguar, for goodness sake, go fix your lights. Then I realised the Jaguar’s lights were not to blame–Tata might have taken the air-conditioning out of its Nano but I’m sure it has not removed the signal lights of the Jaguar. The woman was still happily yakking on her cellphone after a distance–it was in broad daylight. That explains: the young Chinese lady probably needs to save up to get a third arm implanted before she even considers Botox. Or she could consider sewing the cellphone to her ear if a bluetooth hands-free set is too expensive. (Well, I don’t own a hands-free set, so what I do is to ignore the call altogether or stop the car somewhere that wouldn’t cause a burden to others if I feel the urge to answer it.)

I usually don’t post comments about bad drivers because city life is this frustrating anyway. Got used to it. Everyday I see drivers who refuse to signal, although the situation is improving. But irresponsible actions ought to be dealt with somehow.

*

On to the topic, test drives.

I have the honour of driving a few other makes this year, but I am proud to say that my Vios J Manual is still the best I ever have, had. Here is a review of my experience with the three other steel steeds I’ve made friends with.

Mitsubishi Ex 1.5 Auto

Some called it the exhausted cow. Some called it the lawn mower. Indeed the engine was way too loud–not that I minded. I love loud engines, like the one on my Vios. This Ex 1.5 meows compared to the roar of my Vios. It had slow pick-up, probably because it is an Auto, but I believe it is also due to its weight: the engine might not be powerful enough to counter the heavy body. It drank more petrol too and the same two reasons probably apply. The interior still looks a bit of the 90’s, although it has some new gadgets built into the console. There is no power-window or electronic folding mirror, which I thought are essential items in a 21st Century car.

Daihatsu Materia 1.5 Auto

“The Little White Sheep” is the name given by the owners, my friends. It was a quite a quiet car with much more headroom than my Vios. I could spike my hair up all the way! The windscreen is also tall enough and I felt like I was driving a Prime, what I dreamed of when I was a kid. I think it is just me, because my Vios has very sensitive pedals; the pedals here were not as responsive and I had a little trouble with that.

Hyundai Verna 1.6 Manual

By my calculation, it would drink more petrol than my Vios. However, this Verna performed better than I expected: it had power and the pick up was quick. The engine was not noisy. The gear shift is pretty unique. It took me a while to get used to the different gear positions, designed this way for safety reasons I believe. The reverse gear has a safety clip and is on the side of first gear instead of the typical spot after the fifth gear because there are day-dreamers like me who would think that we have a sixth gear (ask my Vios and it will testify).

*

The topic on cars will inevitably cause some to ask if there is a need for one. I will tackle this concern as soon as I am feeling abled to post my comments on the Transport Minister’s dialogue in the college last year!

In Singapore for most of us, it is a dream that we actually own the car we have. We do not, and banks will remind you on their websites and other related documents that the car belongs to them until you cleared your loan. For those who take a 10-year loan from the banks, you would need to scrap the car just as you cleared your loan, just when you could call it your own. The existence of the car in your parking lot is a surreal reality. Well, here’s a consolation–eternity matters not; cherish the memories of what you had (loosely translated from that Chow Yun Fatt line in the Solvil et Titus advertisement almost two decades ago: 不在乎天长地久，只在乎曾经拥有).

Madness by whose call?

While searching for an article, I chanced upon a cool foreign site that allows you to virtually flip the pages! Check out the screen shot:

 

http://vedomosti.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx#

Well, this article makes me want to read Foucault again.

*

Shrinks blamed for family suicide

16 Dec 2008 (ST) 

Susan Sachs

 

PARIS: A man whose wife and two daughters threw themselves under high-speed trains in southern France has blamed their separate suicides on the psychiatrists who were treating them.

 

Mr Michel Previdi’s older daughter jumped in front of an approaching train in July, while last week, his wife Sylvie, 50, and younger daughter did the same thing and at the very same spot.

 

The bizarre case stunned France after the grieving man revealed that his family had been released from a local mental hospital only recently, after being involuntarily committed.

 

“The psychiatrists destroyed us,” said Mr Previdi, 58, who was quoted in an interview with the newspaper, Journal du Dimanche.

 

The family’s tragedy began last July when Ms Virginie Previdi, 28, stepped into the path of a train near their home in Solliès-Pont in southern France.

 

According to the newspaper, Mr Previdi said Virginie had been depressed, “like a lot of young people”. But a psychiatrist, he said, had given her anti-depressants that “made her nuts”.

 

After Virginie’s suicide, the mental state of the surviving family members so alarmed their friends that they alerted the local authorities.

 

The town’s mayor told the newspaper that he called in the police and fire chiefs and the dead girl’s doctors because he thought the rest of the family was planning to kill themselves right away. Mr Previdi said that was not true. But the mayor said he mounted “a commando operation,” involving 10 police officers, to shepherd the surviving Previdis’ into an ambulance after the funeral.

 

Over their protests, they were taken to a local mental hospital. Under French law, the authorities can involuntarily commit people who pose an immediate danger to themselves or others, or are delirious and refuse hospitalisation.

 

An angry Mr Previdi said he, his wife and their younger daughter Amelie spent 44 days there, and became “robots” from the amount of drugs they were administered. “We would have liked to cry together over our dead daughter, but we were kept apart from each other for 12 days,” he added.

 

Psychiatrists treating the family preferred to keep mum on the allegations, citing patient confidentiality.

 

Some 78,000 people are involuntarily committed to mental institutions in France each year, where health officials frequently criticise doctors for over-prescribing antidepressants.

 

The Previdis were released from the hospital at the end of the summer. Their plan, according to Mr Previdi, was to start a new business together running a hotel. But grief still had a hold on his wife and Amelie, 22.

 

Last week, the two women threw themselves under a train passing at the same spot where Virginie had killed herself.

 

“My wife and daughters were subjected to ordeals that they never recovered from,” said Mr Previdi, who has vented his anger at the psychiatric profession on a website and in the media.

***

ED: Another (somewhat) related article appeared in the Dec 22 papers. It’s in France again. And I am still very intrigued by the foreign website so I’m going to post a screenshot of it here again!

L’Oreal heiress slams daughter

She threatens to cut child’s share of fortune after a lawsuit was filed against her friend

PARIS: Liliane Bettencourt, the billionaire heiress to the L’Oreal cosmetics empire, lashed out yesterday at her daughter for questioning her right to donate a billion dollars in gifts to a society photographer.

Mrs Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers claims that her 86-year-old mother, France’s richest woman, was charmed by an unscrupulous dandy 25 years her junior into parting with close to a billion dollars in artworks, gifts and life insurance.

She has filed a suit against Mr Francois-Marie Banier, 61, Latin Quarter artist, jet-set photographer and longstanding friend of the Bettencourts, suggesting her mother’s faculties must be impaired for her to part with such a vast sum.

According to letters published by Le Monde newspaper, Ms Bettencourt – who insists she is a “free woman” in full grip of her senses – responded with a threat to slash her child’s share of a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at US$23 billion (S$33.6 billion).

In an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, Ms Bettencourt insisted she had done nothing to fritter away her capital, and her daughter would inherit the family’s full 30 per cent stake in L’Oreal. “She will get everything when I die,” she said. “What on earth has got into her?”

“What I gave to Francois-Marie Banier, although it is a large sum, is really not that much when put in proportion,” she said, without confirming the gifts’ value.

Ms Bettencourt accused her 55-year-old daughter – with whom she has no contact – of acting out of “meanness” or to “settle old scores”. “Jealousy could be part of it,” she said, suggesting her “introverted” daughter suffered in contrast with the flamboyant Banier.

Mother and daughter long worked hand in hand to manage the family’s stake in L’Oreal and retain control of the group. But Ms Bettencourt said their personal relationship was over: “I don’t see her any more and I don’t want to.”

She acknowledged that Mr Banier had an “interest” in their friendship, but flatly denied she was manipulated by him. According to testimony leaked to magazine Le Point, she signed over life insurance contracts to Mr Banier worth more than ¤600 million (S$1.2 billion) in 2003 and 2006, both times after a stint in hospital.

Investigators are close to wrapping up their probe into the daughter’s claims and will shortly decide whether to press charges, according to judicial officials.

Ms Bettencourt denied reports that she had asked President Nicolas Sarkozy to intervene to halt the probe – saying he “has enough work to do as it is”.

Mounting media attention to the dynastic battle forced Ms Bettencourt’s estate on Wednesday to issue a statement to friends and L’Oreal staff, reassuring them that she was in “excellent” health.

Ms Bettencourt told the Journal du Dimanche she had seen a psychiatrist following her husband’s death late last year, who told her “nothing was wrong”. According to judicial officials, she has so far refused to undergo a mental health check.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Asian Friendly Football (AFF)

Very friendly indeed. Punishments had never been severe enough to deter the offenders. The last time it happened, it was reported in the papers that “face” of Asia is important. Friendly ties must be maintained.

Wonder if there would be another piece of drama in the remaining matches this year..!

Loan sharks

I love this comic! This is dedicated to those who charge exorbitant fees for the most menial of tasks. I always thought the paperwork was part of the job for which they are paid to do, so why are they charging things like “administrative fee for loan termination” or its variants?

No offence to those in this sector.

Non Sequitur Dec 5, 2008

I don’t know if I could pity them in the current financial crisis, although I must admit that it is true that they do indeed offer attractive and competitive interest rates, perhaps like the loan sharks. Maybe the difference lies in the way they ‘repo’ you when your dues are up.

GSS

This post is not about the Great Singapore Sale. It’s about Good Service Standard! And below is an article found in the Dec 5, 2008 issue of the Straits Times. Quite a touching recount of the Mumbai Blast. It is actually not a discussion of service standards by any means, but more of a moving tribute to those who dedicated themselves to their profession.

Mr Pollack (second from right) and others taking cover at the sound of gunfire at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai last Thursday, when terrorists stormed the building. — PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

‘I hid in toilet stall for 7 hours’
American Michael Pollack was having dinner in the Taj Mahal Hotel with his wife when attackers struck. He gives one of the first comprehensive accounts to emerge of the terrifying hours that followed. This is an excerpt from his story published by Forbes.

MUMBAI: My wife Anjali and I were married in the Taj’s Crystal Ballroom. Her parents were married there, too, and so were Shiv and Reshma, the couple with whom we had dinner plans.

The four of us arrived at the Taj around 9.30pm for dinner at the Golden Dragon. We were a little early, and our table wasn’t ready. So we walked next door to the Harbour Bar and had barely begun to enjoy our beers when the host told us our table was ready. We decided to stay and finish our drinks.

Thirty seconds later, we heard what sounded like a heavy tray smashing to the ground. This was followed by 20 or 30 similar sounds and then, absolute silence. We crouched behind a table just feet away from who we now knew were gunmen. Terrorists had stormed the lobby and were firing indiscriminately.

We tried to break the glass window in front of us with a chair, but it wouldn’t budge. The Harbour Bar’s hostess, who had remained at her post, motioned to us that it was safe to make a run for the stairwell. We believed this courageous woman was murdered after we ran away.

We took refuge in the small office of the kitchen of another restaurant, Wasabi, on the second floor. Its chef and staff served the four of us food and drink and even apologised for the inconvenience we were suffering.

Through text messaging, e-mail on BlackBerrys and a small TV in the office, we realised the full extent of the terrorist attack on Mumbai. We figured we were in a secure place for the moment. There was also no way out.

At around 11.30pm, the kitchen went silent. We took a massive wooden table and pushed it up against the door, turned off all the lights and hid. All of the kitchen workers remained outside; not one staff member had run.

The terrorists repeatedly slammed against our door. We heard them ask the chef in Hindi if anyone was inside the office. He responded calmly: ‘No one is in there. It’s empty.’

That was the second time the Taj staff saved our lives.

After about 20 minutes, other staff members escorted us down a corridor to an area called The Chambers, a members-only area of the hotel. There were about 250 people in six rooms.

Inside, the staff was serving sandwiches and alcohol. We were told The Chambers was the safest place because the army was now guarding its two entrances and the streets were still dangerous.

But then, an MP phoned into a live newscast and let the world know that hundreds of people were ‘secure and safe in The Chambers together’.

At around 2am, the staff attempted an evacuation. We all lined up to head down a dark fire escape exit. But after five minutes, grenade blasts and automatic weapon fire pierced the air. A mad stampede ensued to get out of the stairwell and take cover back inside The Chambers.

After that near-miss, my wife and I decided we should hide in different rooms. While we hoped to be together at the end, our primary obligation was to our children. We wanted to keep one parent alive.

Because I am American and my wife is Indian, and news reports said the terrorists were targeting Americans and Britons, I believed I would further endanger her life if we were together in a hostage situation. So when we ran back to The Chambers, I hid in a toilet stall with a floor-to-ceiling door and my wife stayed with our friends, who fled to a large room across the hall.

For the next seven hours, I lay in the fetal position, keeping in touch with Anjali via BlackBerry. I was joined in the stall by Joe, a Nigerian with a US green card. I managed to get in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and several agents gave me status updates throughout the night.

After our failed evacuation, most of the people in the fire escape stairwell and many staff members who attempted to protect the guests were shot and killed.

The 10 minutes around 2.30am were the most frightening. Rather than the back-and-forth of gunfire, we just heard single, punctuated shots.

We later learnt that the terrorists went along a different corridor of The Chambers, room by room, and systematically executed everyone: women, elderly, Muslims, Hindus, foreigners. It was terrorism in its purest form. No one was spared.

The next five hours were filled with the sounds of an intense grenade/gun battle between the Indian commandos and the terrorists. By the time dawn broke, the commandos had successfully secured our corridor.

A young commando led out the people packed into Anjali’s room. When one woman asked whether it was safe to leave, the commando replied: ‘Don’t worry, you have nothing to fear. The first bullets have to go through me.’

Anjali and I embraced for the first time in seven hours at the Taj’s ground-floor entrance. I didn’t know whether she was dead or injured because we hadn’t been able to text for the past three hours.

Some may say our survival was due to random luck, others may credit divine intervention. But I can assure you only one thing: Far fewer people would have survived if it weren’t for the extreme selflessness shown by the Taj staff, who organised us, catered to us and then, in the end, literally died for us.

***

Taken from ST of the same week & Tourism Board Website

Frustrating Instructions (Yet Another Typical Typo)

I tried for an hour to understand what exactly the instruction sheet was trying to say, but I just got frustrated and I gave up. Maybe I’m stupid or something.

This is just a part of the instruction sheet: the rest was torn beyond recognition. Believe you me, the entire string of instructions was badly phrased.

If this is a cheap mouse, I would have dismissed such nonsense (as I did to a previous mouse). The maker of this mouse, called “Nezumi”, could have put a Recommended Retail Price at S$10 and this would be fine for me. But this is going at around $20-$40 at some places. That is certainly misleading–especially when you think it is made in Japan or by Japan (“nezumi” means rat, or mouse). This Made-in-China product reeks of apocryphalness.

I seriously can’t get this “Nezumi” mouse to work. Give me a Nezumi Shortfang anytime: I think it’s worth more than that Mickey.

PS: After about a week, I finally understood the mouse (more or less). I still don’t understand why does the indicator not show when the mouse is being fully fed or when it’s dying of hunger: I just plug it in to charge as frequently as I can. Other than that, it’s been a rather good mouse. =)