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I’m guessing they’re hoping his time spent in jail will mean people will forget about the story. Alan Shadrake’s appeal has been denied (as if that was ever anything beyond a foregone conclusion). Remember, his book’s titled Once a Jolly Hangman, and it’s a critique of the Singapore judiciary’s use of the death penalty.
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This may be S’pore’s most expensive home: I’m kind of embarrassed that there is a category of residential housing in Singapore officially termed Good Class Bungalow. WTF?
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The kid’s got balls, I’ll give him that. Maybe he’ll become a millionaire entrepreneur and everyone will ‘forget’ about his youthful antics.
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Apparently the World Economic Forum gives money away, all you need to do is send your details to a Hotmail address. Sign me up for some free money!
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I am fascinated that you can paint with a milk solution.
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I’m sad to be proved most probably right, and so soon. In a conversation with my mother pre-election, I did say there would be highly-publicised moves that effectively mean nothing to try and fake out the unhappy electorate.
Do you not think that this random arrangement of a rubber band I spotted on the pavement looks like a monkey head (or a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle)? I did, so much so that I had to take this rather blurry picture with my phone.
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Here’s hoping that an upgrade of the Linux kernel to 2.6.39.0 will solve my laptop’s issues with kernel panic — which, frankly, sounds like a popcorn-based psychological thriller. I do like popcorn.
Being houseproud has never been something that appealed to me. I’m not a big fan of housework — I grit my teeth when I eventually get round to doing it. I don’t require my home to be neat and magazine-perfect in the slightest.
But as we are looking to buy a place down here, I’ve been spending time looking at various interior design websites. I happen to have put together a presentation of interiors I like the look of. Yes. A presentation. I shit you not.
The easiest thing to covet, however, is furniture. And this walnut dining table by Sean Dix is unreal. I can imagine knocking back a perfectly cold G&T in a flawless highball glass while sitting at this table (there are matching chairs). I would also be perfectly turned out in some Fifties getup — and have someone else’s face and body that’s more suited to Fifties getups, of course.
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Apparently the world’s going to end tomorrow. Like, SRSLY? I think I might head over the local Bang & Olufsen to ‘pick up’ a fancy television once it’s all over.
Thanks to everyone for all the care packages, emails and calls. I really appreciate everyone’s kind words and well wishes. Also many thanks to all the relatives who are doctors, I always find learned and experienced medical opinions helpful, as they spell things out and leave less room for my imagination to panic. Recovery is a bitch, so it’s nice to know people have taken the time to think of me. (Think of Neil, too — he’s been very nice, so unlike his curmudgeonly self!)
Unintended consequences of my ‘experience’ in hospital:
* My arm is now much better — almost normal, in fact.
It appears I have closed a door on a ‘hobby’ that has mildly obsessed me since last century. I saw in my Goodreads newsletter that Erik Larson (author of the excellent The Devil in the White City) has written a new book, In the Garden of Beasts. The fact that I had to think about whether I wanted to read another account of the rise of National Socialism in Germany is a revelation (I decided that I didn’t). Am I finally over Hitler?
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I don’t even know what to say: Luxury stores urge UK to issue more Chinese visas. Oh wait, I do. Are they completely out of their fucking minds?
Hold on, what’s that? Am I leaking something? Eeeeeewww!
Remember that drain bottle, and the tube they pulled out of me? It left a hole behind. And it was leaking. It took some time for a doctor to come see me but he explained that it probably wasn’t anything serious, it was just serous fluid (see what I did there). All we needed to do was bandage me up to soak up the fluid and keep an eye on it. Lovely.
The presenter on the BBC said everyone would always remember where they were when the Royal Wedding occurred. No shit. I was stuck in hospital leaking stuff all over myself, and the entertainment was either reruns of old American television series or the damned wedding on all the main channels. I like wedding services and everything, and yes, she did look nice, and they look like they genuinely care for each other, but so what?
There was nothing else on, so sure, I watched it. What a palaver. I wanted to go home. The surgery had already destroyed the first Bank Holiday weekend, and now I was facing the prospect of spending the next one sitting and twiddling my thumbs as there weren’t enough district nurses in the community to keep an eye on me.
But back to the actual surgery-hospital story. I was soaking the dressings completely every few hours, which I would only notice once it starting dribbling everywhere. Thank goodness for laundry services, I guess. But it gave each nurse the chance to inspect my laparotomy scar and everyone reported that it was healing well. All in all, I think I oozed the clear yellowish stuff pretty consistently for three to four days, and the last two days involved attaching a stoma bag to the hole as a last resort. It was the only thing that was preventing my discharge from the hospital.
I was finally (!) discharged on Sunday, 1 May. My drain hole (heh) had finally stopped oozing and I was eating and drinking normally.
I have discovered Talking Animals. Oh dear, that’s my morning gone.