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It was about a month ago, when a friend approached me asking if a meeting could be arranged for Noel Tata and someone in Singapore.

I checked to see if it was possible and eventually that meeting was arranged and did take place on Tuesday morning.

After that meeting I met him for about 45 minutes and then went for lunch, hosted by Mayor Alex Yam at Violet Oon Ion.

A true gentleman. Calm, soft spoken and humble. He has an amazing knowledge of all the businesses in the Tata Group and was humble enough to admit the one area that he was not that top of things was software.

We spoke inter alia about AI, nuclear power and Air India. Fascinating to hear his views. On AI we spoke about the impact of AI on employment within the Tata Group and on training and education generally.

I am glad to have met him. I believe upbringing, education and discipline make a world of difference in how children turn out. Tata Group has managed that process well.

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I attended this inaugural conference by DBS on Monday. A whole day affair.

Being their inaugural event, DBS had pulled all the stops. Top names, amazing organisation and food. And to top it off, the PM was there for a coffee side chat to end the day.

Not much content that I didn’t already know but it was still good being there and meeting people.

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This was held last Saturday at Como Dempsey. I came back earlier from KL just to attend this.

Standing only event, packed and loud. But I managed to meet and talk to some people I know and so that was nice.

The highlight was Lucy Guo, only 31 but one of the youngest self made billionaires after co founding ScaleAI. She turned up slightly later to become the celebrity DJ. That was fun!

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This was the second half of the LPA talk. After last Sunday’s talk when 60 people attended, 39 signed up to do their LPAs.

This is a record number. Usually less than 5 will sign up after the talk but this number signing up was incredible.

I arranged for Shi Mei to do their LPAs. Took 3 and a half hours to get this done. But a very meaningful event!

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This was last Thursday at the Laguna Golf Club.

I went in my capacity as chair of Club 100 and they kindly seated me at the VVIP table.

The GOH was Minister Ong Ye Kung and together with Mayor Alex Yam, 6 other grassroots advisors were there. I enjoyed the dinner because I know so many people there over the many years. And I didn’t have to do anything but eat!

Once again it was time for our dinner. It was Victor’s turn but unfortunately because of a medical condition he couldn’t host or even turn up. So Mildred took over and we had our dinner at Shang Palace.

Decent food, good service and good conversation. Just a good general uncontroversial conversation. But it is obvious that with age, more people are facing medical issues. Benson needs an operation, Jen Howe had one and Victor is undergoing treatment. Well one cannot fight age.

Yesterday was his birthday. He turned 67. As he had nothing planned for the entire day, I said I would take him out for lunch.

He wanted to eat at Erode Amman Mess …. Again. I said let’s go somewhere with a nicer ambience to celebrate a birthday but he insisted that’s what he wanted. And so we did have lunch there followed by coffee at Madras Woodlands.

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I used to do much more of this. This request came from Yew Tee and since it was to be in English and Mandarin, I asked my colleague Alina to be the speaker. They were initially supposed to get a doctor to be the CI but that didn’t materialise and so i had to find them a CI at short notice.

Well attended talk last Sunday. 60 signed up and 60 attended. Mostly people in their 50s and above. They had so many questions and there was much enthusiasm. And many people signed up for the free CI session for next Sunday. And Yew Tee had so many young volunteers helping out that day.

So happy to be able to help doing these community events.

I was invited to lunch at short notice by the US Ambassador. It was either Saturday or Sunday and it was to be at his residence.

It was a lovely drive up to his house. It is a huge quiet house with well kept gardens. He gave me a short tour of the house and the various memorabilia on the walls. There were original and replicas of documents on when the US first arrived in Singapore. In 1834, John Balestier arrived in Singapore as a merchant and then he became the first  US Council General in 1836.

The Ambassador has an Indian cook and we had dosas and idlis. Good home cooked Indian food. We spoke, without handphones nearby. Interesting. And he is a wonderful person and so easy to talk to and we have quite a number of common interests.

We then had coffee on the veranda overlooking the greenery. All the napkins have the US Emblem on it. I was so tickled by that!

A very lovely Saturday lunch!

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Attended this dinner last night, courtesy of Steven Seow, who’s wife Charlotte was the organising chair for this dinner. Held at the Conrad Hotel, the former Regent Hotel.

A lovely dinner. The President came. The Speaker, SPS Shawn Hwang and MP Hamid Razak were there. I spent a bit of time chatting with all of them.

My table was also interesting. David Chong was there as was Alfred Dodwell. He told me that my father taught him Tamil in secondary school and that I was his law tutor in the University. What a small world!

The dinner was nice. Good emcee.

The only hiccup was that one of the guests at the table was someone my client had sued in 2003. One of my biggest cases at the time and led to what I am today in so many ways. I didn’t say anything to him and I am sure he recognised me.