The best TV I had ever watched was definitely on Sunday 26th August 7.30 pm…..

Yesterday I was invited to spend a delightful evening in a nearby plantation that is owned by my good friend Dr Pang. Only a very small private group was invited. All of us r in plantations or in related industries. All of us stay in the East Coast of Singapore. All us never miss an opportunity to fellowship – most of them are much older and far more successful than poor house me. I guess they have been at it much longer – and that’s why I never ever miss an opportunity to connect with them whenever I am invited. Besides the Pang’s can always be trusted to serve up top class Kim Joo Guan Bak Kuah along with Mrs Pang rendition of Joo Chiat Laksa. Wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Though I didn’t ask specifically. I had expected that the Pang’s had invited the guest to watch the PM’s National Day speech on satellite TV. Mrs Pang had after all asked me to bring along a flag. When I told her I didn’t have one. She simply exclaimed, “that simply wouldn’t do young man…” And promptly insisted that I should at least have the decency to appear wearing a red and white montage. She was terribly insistent and mentioned “this would set the mood just nicely for the evening.”

When I pulled into the drive way of the estate Bungalow at 6.30. Mrs Pang grabbed me by the arm and ushered me into the open area where a BBQ was just about beginning. Then at around quarter past seven, Mr Pang gestured to the rest of the guest, “shall we.” So we all took our seats before the TV.

To be honest with all of you. I don’t ever watch TV. Don’t even follow sports or for that matter the news. Haven’t even owned a TV for nearly 15 years now. Much prefer the BBC droning in the background with Big Ben banging away to mark time. That’s just me. But since everyone was in such a jolly mood, I just thought it would be a good idea to play along and join the rah-rah brigade for a change.

At exactly half past seven, we were just in time, they had just kicked off….the game was just beginning. I don’t normally watch football…but even I have to say, yesterday’s game was perhaps the best football I’ve ever watched in my life. I just can’t believe how much technology has changed through the years – it was a DVD of Mr son’s interschool football match shot on a handycam.

And I have to say it was rivetting right to the very end – you wouldn’t normally expect this from a kiddies league – but that was how it panned on that evening. At the end of it all Mr and Mrs Pang suggested that we should do it all over again next year. I simply flashed her a smile that said, “Why not?”

Just another ordinary way to while away Sunday. A good wholesome bull shit free Sunday. If only all Sundays are like this. This time of the year. If only…..

Darkness 2012

P.S: You might also want to catch up on this excellent essay: conversation-what-we-need-is-national.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ASingaporeanInAustralia+(A+Singaporean+In+Australia)

“I am very careful with my brain. I consider it a temple of sorts. Though I admit sometimes it can look like a compost heap. So usually I have zero tolerance for people who either try to brainwash me or insult my intelligence. I want to be very clear about this from the onset so that we don’t have any misunderstandings. Otherwise many of you will say that I am simply on another rant again.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that in the not so distant future the capacity to produce, transport and store food will be the new economy – one day, the ability to drive a tractor will be cooler than running around in a Ferrari – now you know why, stock brokers have moved their invested portfolio from the Citibanks, General Motors and Boeing Aeroplane group to the Archer Daniels Midlands and United Foods et al – a shift has occurred. This is no accident. That is why I have decided to go into agriculture. Food security will eventually move from the back waters to the very important quadrant because I for see it playing a preponderant role in moderating social stresses in a declining economy, where wages will remain stagnant while basic necessities continues to escalate.

We are living in a topsy turvy age. 

This is the age of strife where cyclically inflected food prices will simply be the lead-in to a crisis of the social system, because for years no one has bothered with food security, now for the very first time, since the French revolution, we are beginning to see food concerns transcending strictly economic issues. Food scarcity these days can even provoke major transformation regime changes more efficiently than tomahawks guided missiles or stealth bombers – 10 years ago, this was unimaginable. This idea may seem unreal today to those who have not ventured into the deep interior of the jungle – against this new reality, we are not alone. We have come across 3 to 4 mainland Chinese expeditions during our travails – why do you think they are prancing around in the jungle? They are looking for land to plant oil palm.

I will be honest with you. We are no match. They have better equipment. Their men are hardier and most importantly, they seem to realize that failure is not an option. As for the Brotherhood, even our hardiest are finding it tough in the jungle. I do not blame them as even I find it very difficult – half of them have either dysentery or imaginary ailments  – the other half is either pretending or spending their time trying to cook up believable excuses to get their asses back to comfy Singapore- I understand as this is hard country, it is tough here – but that is why we must persevere and see through this matter to its logical end. It is clear to me the guilds consider this a crazy project, but when I go to Munich, I will present a paper to the Confederation and my hope is wisdom will prevail. 

What we badly need is a new breed of technocrats who know how to farm and function effectively in the this type of hostile environment. This is why I consider it a great mistake when Philip Yeo once proclaimed to the whole world, “Singapore has no agriculture!” And he proceeded to dismantle all the set pieces that once made up the cornerstone of agronomy. He was wrong! And the people who signed off on his cracked brained idea were a bunch of idiots. Antwerp may not have any diamond mines but that is where they are tabled! The Swiss do not have a single sprig of cocoa plant, but they produce the tastiest chocolates. There are no cows in Milan but they have  best tanneries for leathers – so when you say there is no agriculture in Singapore, you have effectively wiped out our strategic capability to ensure food security regionally – no one studies agronomy, no one wants to go into the jungle, no one wants the sun on their back – now I hear maids are carrying the backpack of soldiers, next thing that will happen is they will also be carrying their armalites.

This demonstrates only imagination’s weakness, not the unreality of the challenges in store for us, as the biggest unknown in contemplating the future of capitalism is the tolerance of the world’s population for the havoc that food shortages will inflict on their lives. For the moment, many in power are still under the delusion the vast majority of humans are able to react constructively in the face of rising food prices, little do they realize, something as benign as scarcity of food may even lead to a breakdown of normal patterns of social life. Neither should we take cold comfort by placing our hope in mankind’s sagacity i.e his ability at improvising solutions to immediate problems of physical and emotional survival, it is aptly clear to me 21st-century man has lost the skill to confront the economics of lack – only yesterday even my men were fighting over a bar of chocolates and they have become so petty that everyone seems to hide food to save his own hide – this explains why youths are throwing Molotov cocktails in Athens, striking civil servants in Johannesburg, and most spectacularly the Egyptian and Libyan uprising demonstrate clearly people these days will not put up with rising food prices any longer, to better their conditions of life in the concrete ways they have no qualms whatsoever in voting with their slippers and taking their grievances to the public square.

While at present there may still be stupid people awaiting the promised return of prosperity via zombie banks – we should now break the rules of an economic system that was once based on the old calculus, that itself implies a radically new mode of generating wealth. This is why we have to learn how to plant. If we have this technology, it will not be so different from how the brotherhood has been able to consolidate it’s power in the Imperium and Confederation despite our numerical inferiority and the lack of the hinterland through out remarkable ability to fold space – no tribe, except ours have mastered this black art. And so we control the politics of space. Without the power to transverse the infinity of space, a community might as well be marooned in an island like Robinson Crusoe. Similarly if we can learn to plant and cultivate crops in a scientific manner here, instead of relying on their mumbo jumbo hit and miss techniques – we can also transplant our knowledge to Africa, South America and beyond. This remains my fervent hope, as I write to all of you in this God forsaken place.”

Darkness 2012

Transcript of a broadcast from the FC boys (the renegade force of Darkness) / intercepted by the mineral cruiser KDD Xanadu @ Primus time: 09274011

Check this weekend post out!

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