-
Talkback: Singapore Elections
Reverber8: Welcome back to another session of Talkback, the show in which we put the greatest minds on the planet into one studio and get them to dialogue with each other, preferably with semi-automatic weapons. How I love indemnities.
Well, what a week it’s been for Singaporeans! In one of the most hotly-contested elections in recent memory, the ( Read more... ) -
Talkback: Sarawak State Elections
Reverber8: Good evening and welcome to another episode of Talkback, the talk show in which we meet the movers and shakers of the world and debate the important issues of our time. At least, that’s what we tell them to lure them here. Little do they know that this is actually a form of Celebrity Deathmatch. Forget the Libyan revolt, see Ghaddaffi ( Read more... ) -
Uncle Chi Nan's shipwreck
Douglas’s Uncle Chi Nan tells us the story of how he was shipwrecked while fleeing the Japanese during the Occupation of Singapore ( Read more... ) -
Lessons from Chocolate
If you know someone on the inside, you can get quite spoiled in Tokyo.
One morning I stepped out of the spacious Roppongi apartment owned by a generous friend. I walked around the corner for one of Tokyo’s more unusual gourmet experiences - ramen at Ichiran Ramen, which takes a monastic view of the national dish (more of that later). I spent a ( Read more... ) -
The Thief, the Saint and the City
Buenos Aires is a city of many contradictions. One of the most obvious, even to a visiting tourist like myself, is that while it looks on the surface to be a genteel European city, you can be robbed blind while walking its streets.
Which is how I found myself in a police station, making that most hopeless of gestures - waiting to fill a police ( Read more... ) -
The Walls of Constantinople
I’m standing on an ancient rampart on the edge of Istanbul’s old city, looking at an enormous, ruined wall of meticulous construction. It was built in the early 5th century by the Byzantine emperor Theodosius to protect the city of Constantinople, as Istanbul was then known. Even in ruins, it’s an impressive sight. Faced with blocks of well-dressed ( Read more... ) -
Fanfare for the Simple Man
Istanbul. That magical, spicy word, resonant with history and images. The air is thick here with legends - you could grab them out of the air in fistfuls. With a celebrated history going back 3,000 years, you would expect nothing less. Roman fragments jostle with Ottoman baths, Byzantine ruins with cellphone shops, and everywhere the hectic hustle ( Read more... ) -
The Red Pin at the Centre
From the endless representations in film, literature and popular culture, you always get the impression that Australia’s so-called Red Centre is simply and solely that: a martian landscape of unimaginable emptiness and vastness. You know the images: the entire world reduced to a single horizon line, separating an ozone-blue sky above from a rust- ( Read more... ) -
What Arthur Saw From His Seat
A hundred metres or so up the hill, Crispian gasped, “Ok, let’s take a break.” He sat down on the rocks without waiting for me to reply ( Read more... ) -
The Ho Clan does Pangkor & Sitiawan, Part 4: Moses and Joshua Lead a Tour of the Promised Land
When we reached Sitiawan to join the amassing forces of the Ho Clan for this historic reunion, Uncle Moses, true to his past vocation as principal of the Anglo-Chinese School, had prepared an educational tour for all of us. His second-in-command was, appropriately enough, a man named Joshua. Joshua was a stout, devout Methodist who ran a travel ( Read more... )