i’ve just watched Martyn See’s film Zahari’s 17 Years, and i had/have so many things to say about it and Said Zahari and Martyn See. but then again, the whole thing makes me very sad and very angry, and more than a bit empty inside.

Said Zahari says of Lee Kuan Yew, that whoever is not with him is his enemy.

and somewhere in the middle of the film, Said Zahari says “i’m still a singapore citizen. i was born in singapore, i grew up in singapore. i love singapore, singapore is my country“.

and perhaps that is what the government has to understand. i might not agree with everything that they do, and i will continue to critically assess their actions. but this is not because i’m communist or i’m anti-singapore. in fact, it’s because i love singapore so damn bloody much that i’m doing it. who else, if not singaporeans, have a right to question the way in which we are governed? who else, if not singaporeans, have a vested interest in the governance of singapore? who else, if not singaporeans, should speak up?

it’s not about the government, it’s about singaporeans.

but y’know, i don’t think they care. they’re in power, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power, and reap all the benefits that come with it.

the other day kim and i were talking, and we were saying what makes a successful politician: is it one who does what he/she says in his/her mandate that got he/she elected, or one who is in power term after term. obviously, if you ask the electorate they’d say the former, but if you ask a politician, it’s the latter. and never the twain shall meet.

anyway, it all makes me feel so very pathetic and wishing that i had the guts to do something. really really do something. but instead, here are pictures of pretty things.

i’ve been to berlin and back.

i’d like to describe it in touristy detail, but unfortunately i spent a lot of the week in ikea and bauhaus (literally, buildhouse, a monstrous hardware store). and also trekking around the junk shops filled to the gills with salvaged furniture, clothes and kitsch from dead granny’s flats. they were great.

we decided on a new game while out there. in august, when i’ll be there for a month, we’ll play the alphabet game where we have to eat at places according to the letters of the alphabet without repetition. 26 different places, that’ll take aorund 2 weeks if we include breakfasts and lunches into the game. but perhaps it’ll only be dinners. we’ll see.

coming back to london is always a relief, but i hold my breath (not literally, though) until i swing the door of the flat open and see that everything is still there. one of my greatest fears is to arrive back at the flat and see nothing.

anyway, as i’m still on holiday till next week, it’s been catching up with reading and pottering on the balcony. salads are in sprout, as are tomatoes. the herbs have been divided/re-potted, and the chillies are rallying round to the warm weather. i’ve managed to finish i capture the castle by dodie smith, and am three-quarters of the way through the mandarins by simone de beauvoir.

next up: a second reading of the magus by john fowles, or finishing the naked lunch by william s. burroughs which i’ve left languishing for the past year or so.

… unless it’s pouring down with rain.

but it’s been very dry, dry as a bone in fact, after the weeks of sopping wetness.

and having gotten rid of the cat, for now, i’ve been busy shoving peas into the soil and scattering rocket and basil seeds wherever i can.

this is lazy gardening, aided by the lack of a large and limitless supply of soil/potting compost. i really really must get a sack of compost soon, or else i’ll be growing nothing this year. but it’s difficult to fit a 40l bag of soil onto the back of a bicycle. i shall have to make a day out of it and make use of M’s car.

and once that’s achieved, i can start putting to work the echinacea and verbena, the tomatoes and the mixed salad, and other things i can’t think of right now, but are sitting pretty in their packets in a box at the bottom of the cupboard. i’ve been collecting yoghurt pots, plastic containers, soup cans and vegetable trays in preparation.

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phase 2 of school has started,
and it is hell.

no one needs to know so much about debt finance, equity finance and private acquisitions. and they all seem to merge together into this department called corporate and banking, so i’m probably not going to be totally clear where the decarcation lines are drawn until the exams, perhaps. on the other hand, whilst bits of it are as boring as can be, it’s fun to be doing ‘research’ on the FT when really all we’re doing is sussing out the richest and best private equity firms to jump ship to.

and 5 tutorials in a week is somewhat overdoing it, don’t you think? considering that they are 2 hours each, and we’re supposed to be doing 3 hours pre-tutorial preparation per tutorial. and what is this 6pm-8pm class?! i know it’s an elective, but there’s no need to take the piss.

and a drafting exam right after the easter holidays as well. they have no heart.

usually i like cats.

if my friend’s got cats, oh i love. they’re so cute and furry and funny and silly.

but when it’s some stranger’s cat that keeps shitting in the pots on my balcony, let’s just say it’s a long way from love.

it’s annoying, and it stinks, and i am not interested in allowing some thoughtless and careless cat owner get away with not training their own cats. why should i let them use my balcony as their litter box? cat, fuck off.

so i bought a whole bunch of bamboo skewers (satay sticks to you and me) and stuck them pointy side skywards into my pots. it’s like war out there on my balcony, i tell ya. those sticks are vicious, injuring even me while i was doing the deed.

they’d better work, or else i’m going to have to resort to more violent measures.

i’ve been ignoring my balcony for a while.

initially, it was because the summer drought had started to abate, and so i didn’t have to spend half to three-quarters of an hour watering the plants. then it was because as autumn began, the only things i could pick were the cherry tomatoes that kept on giving all the way up to october. and then the rains came and i didn’t want to do anything in the cold and wet.

but today, bright and sunny morning that it was, i got out there for the first time in months and immediately remembered how much i like gardening and pottering about.

i got down to some serious tidying-up, cutting away the skeletons of the verbena and the mint, clearing away the remains of the borage and tomato plants, as well as the husks of the sweet peas, spaghetti squash and marigolds. i pruned the mini-rose topiary, the sage, the gardenia and begonias, and cut away the dead and dying leaves of the stock and the salad box.

i also hunted down as many slugs as i could, depositing them in a plastic bottle and leaving it out by the bins with the rest of my garden waste. slug eggs (at least i think they’re slug eggs) look like frog spawn, and are alarmingly identical-looking to sago - which of course means that i will never be able to enjoy honey-dew sago again.

while i’d fretted about the parsley dying in the summer, i found out today that the seeds it cast off prior to its death had germinated in and amongst its neighbouring pots, and the plants are now about 2-inches tall. so i gathered the stray plants from their various landing places and re-potted them together, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. the anemones that i’d been dismissive of in the summer are thriving. this is, i think, in part due to them thinking it’s spring rather than the supposed dead of winter (hello, global warming!), and also because they’re lack of performance earlier this year has given the bulbs/corms tremendous stores of energy to throw out frond after frond of beautiful foliage and the occasional stunning flower.

the cyclamen i’d rescued from the garden when we moved out of elephant and castle is putting out cute fuschia flowers, and the jasmine has finally started to produce little flower buds that i hope will proceed to burst into white clouds of perfume. several of the seeds i’d planted really late in the season are still going strong, albeit rather slowly, but at least they’ll be well-established by the time the growing season begins in earnest and hopefully avoid being devoured by aphids and slugs. the daffodils are beginning to shove up from their hiding place in the planter box, and the hydrangea has started to produce leaf-buds after the rather severe pruning i gave it.

i also discovered that a potato i’d half-heartedly buried in some soil because it was no longer fit for eating. having sprouted leaves and whatnot, had actually gone and produced a bunch of tiny potatoes! while i knew the technicalities of how it reproduced, i’d never grown potatoes before, and to somehow manage to do it without even having to try very hard led first to astonishment, and then to a warm glow of awe at nature’s abilities to just get on with it.

by the end of it, my hands were scratched up and my nails were filthy, my thighs were burning from the squatting i’d been doing, and i’d broken a pair of scissors (must remember to buy secateurs). but i was feeling very relaxed and satisfied, and very at-one with the world - gardening is seriously therapeutic. now all i need is for the lavender to grow like crazy.

and i was being so good too.

waylaid by the evil-internet, google and email. also, by the sudden realisation that it hasn’t rained for a week, and i haven’t watered my plants, and that they’re all looking slightly sad and forlorn out there on the balcony.

anyway, i went to the brighton speed trials yesterday - for cars and motorcycles and vintage automobiles. it rocked! i love all the vintage cars and want all of them for christmas. i especially loved M’s dad’s lotus. it is tres fantastique! photos will come shortly, i promise. for now, just imagine the smell of burning rubber and exhaust, combined with sea salt spray, and the warmth of the afternoon sun beating down your back, with the drone of engines and the surf in your ears.

and, school has started. have i mentioned this already? it’s started, and it’s HARDCORE i tell ya. seriously, this LPC shit is not some main-main, masak-masak thing, it is for real dude. not only are we told how long we’re expected to spend preparing for each small group session (3 hours), but we also have business simulations, interview and advising simulations, constant assessments and all that kind of other stuff. even the one day a week we don’t have school is meant for studying, revision and catching up with reading.

so, i was being good today, and i’ve done my readings, and was about to type out a table of different business media and other stuff for a compare and contrast exercise before all that other stuff interrupted my diligence. i think now, though, that i shall have to continue with my intentions, and stop faffing around, otherwise i’m never going to finish the rest of it. it’s a crying shame, but that’s life, eh.

Since the last time I put up pictures of my plants, they’ve come along nicely. in fact, i think they’re doing excellently.

maybe if i spent less time thinking about my plants, i might have had enough time to revise for some firsts. but, y’know, what’s a first as compared to looking at lush greenery and vivid blooms. i’d much rather be eating them veggies than a piece of paper.