Blog

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1LTaqsorS4/

I was given a copy of this book by SMS Murali on Wednesday. It was so very kind of him to remember me and present this to me. I am grateful.

I have put out a short post of my views of this book.

Interesting subject matter, huge potential but superficial treatment and bland presentation. Unfortunate.

I had dinner with CW Tan on Wednesday night. This was planned sometime ago.

But about 3 weeks back, Centurion emailed me about the retirement dinner for Owi.

I was an independent director of Centurion since 2007 till my retirement in 2024.Gn Hiang Meng and I were the first independent directors. Owi came 2 years later.

We had some wonderful times as directors in Centurion. I saw the company grow from a disc pressing company called SM Summit to what it is today.

I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this so I rushed down immediately after my dinner to catch the last 15 minutes of the retirement celebration.

I was on the way to Dempsey to meet CW Tan for dinner. Whilst on the way there, CW messaged to say he would be late, which was annoying because I was going to be there by 615.

Lo and behold, as I was parking my car, Murali drove by. He was coming from MFA after a book launch and he had gotten a book for me. He planned to have a simple dinner at Dempsey before attending a constituency event and pass me the book some time in the future.

So he passed me the book and we chatted for about half an hour whilst he has his dinner. What a small world.

I was very fortunate to be able to have dinner last night with the US Ambassador Dr Anjani Sinha. The venue was Tiffin Room at Raffles Hotel.

The venue was not my choice and he picked it. I am not crazy about North Indian food. But he said he can’t take Chinese food and so he sticks to Indian food. He also likes a glass of scotch with his food.

The dinner was arranged by a good friend for me to meet him. We got on well and we talked for about 2 hours. I learnt a lot from him. He was candid and open. I guess because he’s not a career diplomat, he could afford to be more open.

He was very friendly and kind to all the staff at the restaurant and the bell hops at the hotel. A nice change!

I can’t talk about anything we spoke about. Except to say that I will now need to do the follow up.

He gave me his number and we have tentatively agreed to meet in another 2 weeks time.

Attended the launch of Age Q by Lucence yesterday afternoon. The event was at NUS Enterprise building.

This product is the culmination of a 10 year longitudinal study by NUS, AStar and Lucence on healthy aging. The product measures the biological age of an individual, as opposed to the chronological age. This then allows the individual to make lifestyle choices such as eating well, resting more or exercising to lead not just a longer life but a healthier one.

I am an investor in this company and am glad to see them doing well. They have great products. I think their cancer tests are top class. They just need to find a way to let the public know about them and use them.

I last attended this event in 2016. Then it was at the floating platform. Getting there and out was a nightmare and it was so hot just sitting out in the open waiting for the parade to start. I told myself I wouldn’t want to do this again.

This time it was at the National Stadium and the CDC had called me and asked if I wanted to attend and took the trouble to send me the tickets. So I felt I should go. I went with U Zyn.

I felt getting there and back was easier. I was at the venue within 20 minutes. Clearing security was a breeze. And as for the stadium itself, it was cooler and shaded.

People mostly wore red and white, as I had done, and seemed to enjoy themselves waiting for the event to start.

But I felt the overall standard of the show was below par. The stadium is just not conducive for this. No fly by, no military columns and no view of the fireworks. And I just felt that every single one of the items had no impact and no single theme. Even the inspection of the guard of honour was sub standard. The drone show was ordinary. People were just sitting and watching the big screens as it was impossible to see the performers actually doing their thing. A mass event or performance like what they do for the opening of the Olympics might have fared better but that was not to be.

I could see that towards the end, people were looking bored and losing interest. I do hope they change the venue for future parades. Everyone needs to have a central focus and they all need to be able to see the stage. And a parade must have a fly past and military columns to stir interest.

I walked out at 8pm before the parade ended to go outside and watch the fireworks. I didn’t think I was missing anything anyway. The fireworks was for me the only highlight of yesterday’s event.

I had dinner with a German couple who are staying at Four Seasons in KL on Monday. I got to know them when I met them in the lounge some time back and they hosted dinner foe me the last time and so it was my turn now.

I picked Le Mirch, a very decent North Indian restaurant in Ave K. I have been here before and so I suggested this.

They now have made Malaysia their home and they are very happy with their decision. But they are negative about the prospects for Germany and Europe. For him the key problem is migration. I agree with him but I think it goes beyond migration. There is complacency, stagnant and laziness at every level in Europe and they have completely lost their competitiveness. Stopping migration may not solve the problem. They are an ageing continent and they need to bring in young people and fresh talent. The question is from where they should identify such people. They also need to rebuild their infrastructure and their industries and cut down on social security and start getting their people to work harder. The problem is no politician wants to say this to their people.

Early this morning, my friend Joshua sent me an image from today’s ST reporting on the opening of the new Fuchun CC, which I had attended on Saturday evening.

One of the main reasons why I came back from my KL trip was to attend this event. I was invited because I had donated to the rebuilding of the CC some 3 years back.

It turned out to be a simple, standing only, event lasting an hour. Fortunately, in that time, I managed to say a few words to the PM, Mayor Alex Yam, Minister Zaqy and Hany Soh and also to meet up with some old friends.

Joshua noted that the ST picture, reporting on the article, had me in it.

Then I received quite a few more messages, all alerting me to this. Amazing how some people are so sharp that they scrutinize all the pictures appearing in the papers. I would never have given them a second glance!!

I visited Dynasty Antiques some months back. They had sold me a Li Shuji in 2013. That piece went straight to my art storage. In April this year, they called me and asked if I still had the piece and if I wanted to sell it. It was pretty incredible that they were able to track me and call me after 13 years. So that was how I came to visit their gallery, which is now at Trade hub 21.

Amidst the thousands of artworks there, I came across this calligraphy by Liu Kang. He wrote this in February 2004 and he passed away on 1 June 2004, at the age of 94. I suspect that this may well be one of his last artworks. The gallery owners were close to Liu Kang and his family and they have over the years collected and resold many of his pieces.

I immediately confirmed to them that I wanted to purchase this. I didn’t take delivery because I was still deciding where to put this. I didn’t think it should go into storage, considering it is one of the last artworks by one of Singapore’s foremost pioneer artists. I felt it needed to be seen and appreciated.

So two weeks ago, I finally found a suitable place for it. I was delivering something to an office at a new building. This office had just moved there and they have taken a 60 year lease. Their place was being done up. Having seen the place, I told them I shall be donating this piece to them and they have indicated to me that it will be in their main conference room, a place befitting his status.

So I took delivery of this piece yesterday and I sent it to its new home. Hopefully it will be seen and appreciated by many people in its new home.

Prasoon invited me to this dinner, which was organised as part of a 2 day SBF ASEAN event.

SBF had also signed me up for the 2 day event but there were just so many other things on both days for me and in the end I could only attend this dinner.

There were 5 Ambassadors at my table, mostly from European countries. The seating arrangement unfortunately was not conducive for conversation across the whole table and so I ended up talking to only the Indian High Commissioner on my left and Luis Coronado on my right. I didn’t even get to talk to Prasoon much yesterday.

Also they had a fireside chat during the dinner, which I thought was strange, because no one was able to have any conversations at the table. Not that they were listening to the speaker in any case.

The food was quite ordinary. My chicken was dry. And the appetisers had already been served and were sitting on the table by the time people were arriving for dinner.

Also it is a bit of a drive for me to reach RWS from home. I can now understand why RWS is not an attractive venue for conferences and conventions. The venue is isolated, there is no shopping nearby, the food served is ordinary and there is no readily available public transport. In these respects, MBS wins hands down.