Still somewhat upset at the irregular regularity at which items in my own apartment go missing…

Nevertheless, I’m not going to let that spoil my day. Because today, I am bond free!

Technically, though, but still – it’s good to be free! *makes whale sounds*

Context here:

I embrace this opportunity of remarking that [Mr. Jaggers] washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer’s shop. It had an usually large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his hands, wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and my friends repaired to him at six o’clock the next day, he seemed to have been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for, we found him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat on.

– Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Even more information here, in case you didn’t understand the symbolism.

I predict that for the rest of the day, you’re going to hear the catchy part of the “Moves Like Jagger” chorus running through your head – but this time, it’ll be cows mooing i.e. Moo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-oo.

Christmas is coming!

But as part of a long-standing tradition (LOL), that means I have to gently remind everyone: please do not give me any gifts.

However, if you absolutely must give me a present, please ask me what it is I want first.

BONUS: Scientific research that proves why you need to ask me what I want first (H/T to Gabriel).

It was such a delightful sight, and I regret not taking a photo of it.

Nevertheless, I give you MAX PERRY instead as an EQUIVALENT substitute:

So it seems that McDonald’s outlets around Singapore have run out of curry sauce.

It is thus timely for me to explore the non-altruistic/capitalistic side of my nature and place on offer two (2) packets of original, authentic McDonald’s curry sauce (as shown in the above picture) which I have in my possession.

Let the bidding wars commence!

Elyot: (seriously) You mustn’t be serious, my dear one; it’s just what they want.

Amanda: Who’s they?

Elyot: All the futile moralists who try to make life unbearable. Laugh at them. Be flippant. Laugh at everything, all their sacred shibboleths. Flippancy brings out the acid in their damned sweetness and light.

Amanda: If I laugh at everything, I must laugh at us too.

Elyot: Certainly you must. We’re figures of fun all right.

– Noel Coward, Private Lives.

Also relevant:

…we have to…be able to laugh at ourselves – because if we can’t laugh at ourselves when you (sic) are standing on a pedestal (sic), somebody is going to knock you (sic) down.

– Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister’s National Day Rally Speech 2006.

Was just reminded of the poem below when I received an e-mail blast from The Arts House regarding a reading of Czeslaw Milosz’s poetry.

–

Christopher Robin
By Czeslaw Milosz

I must think suddenly of matters too difficult for a bear of little brain. I have never asked myself what lies beyond the place where we live, I and Rabbit, Piglet and Eeyore, with our friend Christopher Robin. That is, we continued to live here, and nothing changed, and I just ate my little something. Only Christopher Robin left for a moment.

Owl says that immediately beyond our garden Time begins, and that it is an awfully deep well. If you fall in it, you go down and down, very quickly, and no one knows what happens to you next. I was a bit worried about Christopher Robin falling in, but he came back and then I asked him about the well. “Old bear,” he answered. “I was in it and I was falling and I was changing as I fell. My legs became long, I was a big person, I grew old, hunched, and I walked with a cane, and then I died. It was probably just a dream, it was quite unreal. The only real thing was you, old bear, and our shared fun. Now I won’t go anywhere, even if I’m called in for an afternoon snack.”

There was a story which my father and mother used to tell people about me when I was a child. They had said to me one day, “Today we are going to take you to school.” At the end of the day they asked me, “Did you like school?” I said, “I loved it.” The next morning they got me up early. When I asked why they were doing that they said, “You have to go to school.” And I said, crying, “But I went to school yesterday.”

– V. S. Naipaul, Half a Life, p. 22 (my emphasis).

rmb call me. i scare cannot hear alarm thankies

A translation is as follows:

Please remember to give me a call (at the presumably pre-specified time). I’m worried I might not be able to hear the alarm when it goes off. Thank you.

I don’t know who this person is as I don’t have her/his number in my phone book.

Nevertheless, I responded, saying:

Hi, just to let you know that you sent your wake-up call request to the wrong number.

This was uncharacteristically un-snarky of me; I wanted to add:

Just in case this has any bearing on whether or not you get any in the future. Cheers.

However, it did occur to me that the recipient might’ve been an ex-student – in which case, it would’ve been hard to explain my humour if I needed to do so – hence my decision to err on the side of caution.

Then again, it could’ve been Jun Liang – to which, coincidentally, it’s three years to the day!