Singapore 4

A rest day after the Aussies and did a bit of editing in the hotel to mid-afternoon. There was a fantastic thunderstorm at around 2:00 pm and a tropical deluge – good to be inside!  Then off to Little India for a walkabout – small shops and market – took the MRT south to Harbourside and looked out to Sentosa Island – a resort area.  The cable car trip to the island and back to a hill location looks good.  Perhaps Hilary and I can do it over the weekend.  Later joined up with some of the lads to visit the Raffles Long Bar for a proper Singapore Sling with peanut shells on the floor.  Just the one, as they are pricey! Off for supper at our local.


Tuesday – match day – Bill and I set ourselves the task of finding a Laundromat, so set off with bags of not too nice kit.  Alas, the one we had found online was shut and really a drycleaners, so strolling the streets and malls to no avail.  Back at the hotel, we tracked down a coin-op on floor 7 and Bill dried the kit beside the pool.  A late game v. Singapore at 20:00, which started late.  On the bus at 18:00, giving us good time to get there and prepare.  Tried out a new formation with PJ up front, as Tim’s calves are in a bad way.  We were galvanised to score after not netting against the Aussies and with some good first-time passing, PJ was on-song, ending with a hat trick and Kaka scoring a cracker.  Skins should also have been allowed a goal, as we dominated to win 4-0.  Back to the hotel by coach and some beers and food in the foodhall behind the hotel. 

Wednesday – another rest day – I have been working in the Wiley offices in Polaris Tower, near the One North MRT station, meeting my Production Editor, Ika Lestari.  It is great to put a face to a name – charming and efficient.  I have been plugged into the internet all day, catching up with emails, editing and this blog!  We have a very early game tomorrow against the Kiwis, starting at 08:00.  That means an 06:30 departure, which will probably have most of us feeling groggy.  No doubt we will be up for it from the whistle though, as there is a semi-final place we need. I guess that Hilary will be somewhere over Russia while we are playing.  It will be great to meet her off the plane later.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don’t be a colonial tourist, or why we should review our travel expectations

Image
Have you noticed the heavy advertising for travel and tourism?   It seems to be in every medium. just as lockdown is easing.   Have you ever thought: Why do we expect to travel the globe and be tourists everywhere?   What is this sense of entitlement?   What does travel do to climate, to local communities, wildlife etc.?   What should we be doing? Fairly recently, I heard the following: “Everybody has the right to travel to wherever they wish”.   Pre-coronavirus, that was probably a very widely held opinion.   However, at the very simplest level, this is patently now not the case.   I am not able to visit my grandchildren in Scotland.   If we were to follow our inclination to go where we like, when we like, in fairly short order we would likely be subject to state intervention and sanctions – and in my opinion, under current coronavirus conditions, rightly too, including Mr Cummings.   So, how does this sit with our apparently insatiab...
Read more

Agricultural machinery is now too big for rural roads

Image
We have a problem that is specific to life in the countryside – ever larger tractors and associated machinery on country lanes.  I appreciate that living in the country brings privileges, especially under Covid-19 lockdown, when we have been able to walk out of our garden and not meet many, if any, people.   However, when we, our dogs, the verges and roadside walls are threatened by high speed tractors and trailers weighing tons, there is a time to speak out.   Our lane was built for traffic that consisted of a horse and cart and many rural roads across the UK are just the same.   The mechanisation revolution in agriculture that started around the Second World War still continues.   With ever fewer people working on farms, the technological answer has been to develop larger and larger and ever more powerful machinery.   The larger the tractor, the less time it takes to work a field.   This brings time efficiency, but at what cost?   More and mor...
Read more

Ecosystem services – a bit of a mess

Image
Ecosystem function, ecosystem processes, ecosystem services, final ecosystem services, ecosystem goods, natural capital and biodiversity – all these terms are currently very popular in ecological and related circles, reflecting the improved links between science and policy.   These are important, as society considers its options for increased food production, the threats of climate change and the needs of species, habitat and landscape conservation.   A recent paper by Mace, Norris and Fitter (TREE, January 2012; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534711002424 , for those with academic access) gives a comprehensive review of the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem services. Reading this paper and a series of in-depth research proposals on the subject over recent weeks confirms my suspicions that the area is complex and conceptually messy.   As scientists, we need to have our concepts sorted, preferably elegantly, before we can make headway ...
Read more