Who Would You Rather Hire?

 

When I first got my current job back in 2014, I was told that I should hold onto it for dear life. The reason was simple, I was turning 40, and given that it was my first time in an office in a full-time capacity, my first full time job was effectively my last. To put it crudely, ageism is probably the only ism that everyone finds acceptable and rife in Singapore. Anyone over 40 who loses their job can look forward to a career in entrepreneurship selling tissue paper.

I’ve actually experienced these phenomena. Kiddo once told me she found a job add for a restaurant claiming to be “desperate” for people. I wrote in with my date of birth and they politely told me they had enough people before reposting the same ad.

So, I got hired and I’ve spent the best part of my forties gainfully employed. Sure, I hadn’t planned on entering the industry but hey, I was steadily employed with no fear of losing my job when many of contemporaries were actually worried about losing theirs.

Life was ok. Paid my bills after struggling to do so after a decade of freelancing. Sometimes I overspent but there was a cheque end of the month. I could actually do what I loved to do – go out and drink, on a regular enough basis. However, since I was working two jobs for a long while, I didn’t really get into exercise. Walked at the Bistrot and tried to claim I was getting exercise from there. However, I never did any form of real exercise.

Didn’t notice it but I was beginning to balloon. Mum told me I was starting to look “gross” and stepmum told me that Dad was worried I’d get a stroke and wipe out his retirement funds. I nodded politely and continued as I was. Didn’t realise it until I looked at this photo from back then:

 

 A decade later, I’m in a different place. I only work one job but I move significantly more. I’m now 50, worried about being old, sick and broke. Doctors told me that my blood sugars were dangerously high and I’ve been doing what little I have been doing to ensure that I stay out of hospital. The two stays I’ve had were frustrating enough. So, lifestyle changes were easier than the prospect of having to spend what little I have on pills. This is me this morning:

 

 Since, we’re the age of AI, I asked an AI (Grok) to give its feedback on the comparison between the me of 2014 and the me of this morning. According to Grok, changing my lifestyle helped to age a decade younger. Chief amongst those lifestyle changes was cutting the booze (though admittedly I did backslide two weeks back when the conference organisers announced they were serving champagne) and moving more (hit work outs) and taking more protein.

 

 

So, here’s the thing, I am fitter. Back then, I’d feel tiered enough in the day to sleep in the office when the boss wasn’t looking. Even started dozing off in meetings. Whilst I have dozed off in very cozy airconditioned rooms on occasion, I generally don’t. My energy levels are simply higher than they were.

Yet, the reality is this – the puffy 2014 version of me, was more likely to get hired. At 40, I was still employable and yes, I did get employed. The reality is that I am now 50. The first two digest of my NRIC give my age away and employers “desperate” for people will tell me they have an abundance of people. I stay where I am and accept that nobody is going to look at my CV because I am the age that I am.

This is despite the fact that the version of me today has more energy than the me of a decade ago. I have a more focused mindset than I had a decade ago. I am less likely to take sick leave than I was back then. The problem remains this, at 40, I was already “pushing it” in terms of getting employed. I am now 50. My actual energy levels were never the issue. My perceived energy is.  

 

I Didn’t Really Mean It

 Someone posted an article on Linkedin which featured Ms. Sarah Pochin, a Member of Parliament for the UK’s Reform Party complaining about how adverts were filled with black and Asian people but not with “white” people:

 

 

 The comments have drawn a load of criticism and Ms. Pochin has been accused of being a racist and she has since apologized for her unfortunate remarks. Her party leader, the ever questionable, Mr. Nigel Farage, has come out to say that whilst her comments were “Ugly” the intention was not “racist.”

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78z4eyvnx1o  

 

This sentiment seemed to be very familiar. Then, I realized that I had this conversation with a young lady I was serving at the Bistrot back in 2016. Trump had his infamous Mexicans are rapist” remarks and I actually meet a young lady of colour (sorry, ethnic Chinese are considered people of colour in the Western world, however much they may deny it), telling me “Oh, what he really meant was and he didn’t say it very well.”

So, this leads to one fundamental question – why are people so eager to give politicians campaigning on the worst human instincts a free pass. If history has shown us anything, it is the fact that politicians who target ethnic or religious groups tend to be very open about their intentions and they’re actually pretty darn good at communicating their message loud and clear.

I think of my favourite Jewish lawyer who tells me that he got lucky in that his family had the sense to get out of what was then Czechoslovakia before Hitler rolled in the tanks. However, as my friend tells me, plenty of their friends did not flee because they “didn’t think he meant Jews like them, who had been part of the mainstream as far as anyone could remember.”

Say what you like about Adolf Hitler and the horrible things that he did but public speaking was not one of his faults. Adolf Hitler was very clear about what he wanted to do and he was very good at communicating his message. Let us never forget that he was democratically elected fair and square.

So, whenever I listen to public figures make remarks about certain ethnic or religious groups, I panic and think, oh dear, this guy is bad news. Let’s bring things back to the current era – the last American election in 2024. Mr. Trump continued with his rhetoric about deporting black and brown people, accusing them of doing them of awful things, and guess what – his popularity amongst black and brown people soared. So, what did Mr. Trump do with all the support that he got from black and brown people? Well, to use a Trump phrase – “Promises man, promises kept.” He promised he’d drag brown and black people off the streets and guess what, he’s doing exactly what he said he’d do.

Here are two examples of people telling you what they’re going to do and actually doing them. The point in these examples is that the people who were to be their victims actually started giving these people a free pass. “No, they don’t really mean it,” or more frighteningly “they don’t mean….like us.”

We got to stop doing this and call out the public figures who go for certain groups. Ms. Pochin is only fortunate in that her views were about thinking there were too many Asians and Blacks on TV rather than what she thought was the solution. However, these views of her are worrying in that she was once a magistrate and one has to ask if she judged the black and brown people in the way she expressed her views about adverts?

Yes, we all have “ugly” opinions. I am guilty of having some ugly thoughts. However, I recognize my “ugliness” and try to kill it. I like to think that the people I chose to lead me, will not indulge in my ugliness and bring me to a better a place. So, when I choose (yes, voting is compulsory in Singapore), leaders, I become weary of those who encourage me to be ugly.

We need to hold our leaders and anyone seeking public office to higher standards because it’s the only way we become better. Making excuses is for losers and we don’t need to make losers out of our leaders.    

The Problem with Being a Dad

 

One of the most iconic women of my teenage years is an American actress called Kelly McGillis. Her most iconic role was Charlie Blackwood, the flight instructor in Top Gun, who was the love interest of Tom Cruise’s character, “Maverick.” The image of her golden locks on her fit body is imprinted on the minds of an entire generation. We all wanted to be Tom Cruise in that movie because he was the guy who got her (I mean what’s the point in being handsome unless you get the girl.) Ms. McGillis went on to star in many other things. Outside of Top Gun, her most iconic role was as “Rachel” the Amish mother in “Witness,” staring Harison Ford. The big thrill about watching Witness in England as opposed to Singapore, was that we got to see her breast.

For some reason, nobody thought of producing a sequel to Top Gun, despite its commercial success. It was only 36-years later, in 2022 when we got the sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.” Many of the old characters returned, played by the same acters. The most noticeable difference was that Ms. McGillis never returned to the series and they found a new character to play “Maverick’s” love interest. Many reasons were given for this. Yet, despite all the reasons that were coming out, there was one glaring fact that all of us could not help noticing – Ms. McGillis was now in her 60s, she was no longer the beautiful blonde of our teenage years:

https://www.facebook.com/MemoryLane80s/posts/happy-68th-birthday-to-actress-kelly-mcgillis-kelly-mcgillis-had-a-prominent-pre/1144881434346929/

 

I bring up this topic of Ms. McGillis’s aging because it reflects a harsh truth – our perceptions of beauty, particularly female beauty, are inherently centered around youth (though admittedly women are being more confident about expressing a desire for younger flesh too). My late Uncle Richard (Dad’s older brother), would tell me “Make sure your next wife is half your age – it’s unfair but there’s no such thing as a good-looking woman over 25 whereas men get better with age.” As much as many of us may not like to think about it – we tend to agree.

I look back to the 2012 sex scandal involving prominent businessman, Howard Shaw. There were enough of the male species who were actually sympathetic in a “come on, between a hot young thing and an old one, “kind of way. Let’s look at the current monarch on the British throne. Part of his image problem came from the fact that he was “a man who had a beautiful blonde in his bed and kicked out and replaced her with an old hag.”

As with much of my life, I’ve been a bit of an outlier. As I was growing up, I officially liked my women a bit older. The hottest woman in my life for much of my early years in the UK, was my friend, Charlotte, niece of Aunty Jane, Mum’s best friend. Yes, we were “Just friends,” but her looks were such that it tested the boundaries of whether men and women could actually be “just friends.” Charlotte was 14 at the time, whilst I was turning 12. So, my beauty icon for many years was inevitably older. Then came my return to Singapore where the person I’d end up playing tonsil hockey with, was Pam, who was 12-years older. I was 19 going on 20 – she was 32. To me, this felt like a jackpot (helped that she is black and given that I had come back from the West, where Asian men are not seen as sex symbols but black dudes are, it was a thrill to be an Asian guy with a black girl).

Pam and I would unite many years later. This time I was 30 and she was 42. Whilst we still got on, the age difference no longer held a cache for me. I had previously vowed that it would be nobody older than my mum and no body younger than my sister (who is five years younger).

However, I ended up meeting Huong, who is seven years younger (I was 32 and she was 25 when we met). She was by far and away the sexiest I had met and been with (she remains by far and away the best looking – even compared to significantly younger women). So, I finally accepted that it was OK to be with someone younger than my sister.

So, I accepted that it was OK for me to be attracted to and be with a younger woman. Given that I was in PR at the time, I was surrounded by young hot things that I liked looking at. To an extent, I find myself being a little more attractive as I get older.

However, Huong came with Kiddo, who grew from a cute little seven-year-old, into a nubile 25-year-old. Whilst I never planned on being a dad to a girl, Kiddo was sort of a strange awakening. It started out when an older dude we knew started asking her for her phone number when she was 13. I was visibly upset and when she tried to assure me that he wasn’t a stranger, I told her that it wasn’t the point and also made the point that I am well aware that the penalty for ending someone’s life is hanging and I’d proudly go to the gallows if anyone thought of touching her.

So, I guess you could say that this natural that I’d take the dad role in her life. She, keeps me in check. She once asked me when talking about a houseguest, “You really want to f**** her don’t you?” When I said that the houseguest looked nice, her reply was “Whether she looks nice or not is none of your business – you’re born 197o something, she’s born 1990 something – old enough to be your daughter, you disgusting old man”

So, here it is – I’m normal dude with the usual set of functioning hormones. I would be lying if I said that the trouser snake is totally subservient to the grey matter. I like looking at nubile young things as much as the next guy. I’m also not the type of guy who thinks morality is equivalent to the bedroom as long two consenting adults are involved.

However, I took on the role of being a dad to a young woman and that tends to cloud how I see issues relating to the opposite sex. Met one of Kiddo’s friends once and I noticed that she had what I like physically (nice breast etc). Had to stop myself and remind myself that this was someone old enough to be my kid. Didn’t want the poor girl to think that I was the old guy into molesting young girls – ik factor.

Then, you look at sex scandals. If you look at the Epstein case, you’ll notice that the one “powerful” man that’s faced any form of heat is Prince Andrew, who recently was pushed to relinquish use of his royal titles. It’s clear from available reports that it’s the Prince and Princess of Wales who are pushing him out:

 https://sg.news.yahoo.com/kate-middleton-not-thrilled-prince-123300778.html

 

 It should be pointed out that the Prince and Princess of Wales are parents to a young daughter. What is probably going through their minds is that the things Prince Andrew is accused of doing to other young girls, are things that could easily happen to their little girl. Yes, there’s an argument of who wouldn’t choose a sweet young thing over frumpy 60-year-old Fergie. However, that should be subordinate to the thought of, somebody could be doing this to my kid. How does a parent accept doing things that they wouldn’t allow someone to do their kid.

Kiddo has been a consenting adult for a while. My current girlfriend is 13-years younger. I still enjoy the view of beautiful bodies that are around the places I hang out. Yet what governs my thinking is pretty much, would I accept someone doing this with my kid.  

 

 

 

 

Drawbridges – Never Assume Your Own Kind has Your Interest

 

I spent my formative years as an ethnic minority. Whilst I never really encountered “racism” at its worst (I did into a punch up over being called a “Chink” and I did kick some kid in the ribs a couple of times for continuing with Mr. Miyagi jokes when I told him to stop), I was always aware that I wasn’t part of mainstream Anglo-Saxon society. Those formative years made me a proud ethnic minority and dare I say, very “pro-migrant.” I looked at Chinatown with pride, because in my mind, “my people” were going to a foreign land with nothing, in many cases not being able to speak the language, and still survived, whereas the Westerners could only come to “my country” because we spoke their language and accepted them as part of a multinational corporation.

So, when I came back to Singapore, I had a shock because I was no longer an ethnic minority. I was now part of the majority and by extension, I was part of the mainstream. One of my biggest shocks was seeing how friends from minority groups who were in so many ways desperate to be part of the majority. I think the number of Tamil chaps who speak several Chinese dialects fluently and can’t speak a word of Tamil. More amusingly, I think of little Malay boys imitating “skinheads” and somehow not realizing that “skinhead” gangs in the Western world would proudly turn them into mincemeat for merely being a darker shade of pink.

This desire to be part of the majority even extends to the point where ethnic minorities actively justify discrimination against their own, I remember an Indian security guard at my dad’s condo telling me that management had a policy of not hiring Indians, except him. Then, when I said that it was a very racist and offensive thing, the Indian security guard proceeded to tell me why Indians should never be hired in any job.

So, it becomes quite funny when you come across the “racist” parts of the internet, where you have white folk in the West going on about how their country is going to hell because someone darker than them just got elected. I think of the time when John McCain had to explain to his voters that Barak Obama was actually an American. I think of someone who called up a radio station worried that Rishi Sunak wasn’t white. These days the favourite target is Shabana Mahmood, the UK’s home secretary. If you believe the online critics, Ms. Mahmood is on a mission to impose Sharia Law on the UK and replace the existing population with Pakistan’s:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aAo6JYtVbs

 

  

This paranoia against the “brown” and “black” politicians is quite funny because the biggest ally to anyone worried about the “darkening” of the population are actually brown and black politicians.

Let’s look at the record of brown and black politicians, when it comes to keeping society free of migrants – specifically darker ones. Under the Conservative government, you found that the home secretaries who came up with the most stringent immigration laws were ladies of colour – namely Priti Patel and Suella Braverman. Ms. Patel went as far as to admit that her own parents would not have been allowed into the UK under the rules she imposed.

Would Ms. Mahmood be any different from Ms. Patel and Ms. Braverman. Well, she’s been a little more subtle but the evidence suggests that certain groups have had to tell her that her focus on migrants is overreaching into the realms of silly:

 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/29/stop-blaming-migrants-and-tackle-uks-real-problems-100-charities-tell-home-secretary

 

 

 It’s not just on immigration too. Ms. Mahmood even went as far as to call people protesting the Israeli bombardment of Gaza as “Un-British.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/03/home-secretary-shabana-mahmood-says-pro-palestine-protests-in-wake-of-manchester-attack-are-un-british

 

So where is the “Anti-White,” “Pro-Sharia” law stance in Ms. Mahmood’s actions? If anything, Ms. Mahmood, just like her predecessors, Ms. Braverman and Ms. Patel, has been tough of immigration – specifically the brown Muslim kind.

It isn’t limited to the UK. Think of the USA where we have Vivek Ramaswamy, who was one of Mr. Trump’s greatest cheerleaders. Mr. Ramaswamy is a good “coconut,” who is not only culturally white – he is as white establishment as it gets (Wall Street). The only difference between Mr. Ramaswamy and Ms. Mahmood is that Mr. Ramaswamy recently got a dose of what the group he so desperately wants to pander to him actually thinks of him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4liErm6uEFk

 

So, the last thing anyone worried about immigration should worry about is having a someone of a different skin tone in charge of immigration. That person is likely to be the most enthusiastic executioner of policies against their own.

You look at the last election in the USA where Trump did well amongst Latino voters, even though he was very explicit about what he planned to do. The common refrain was “he doesn’t mean Latino’s like us.” Incidentally, a Jewish friend of mine who is tracing his family history tells me that in 1930s, lots of Jews ended up being killed because they thought Hitler did not mean “Jews like them.”

In an ideal world, things like race and religion shouldn’t matter. However, we don’t live in an ideal world. One will ultimately deal with people who don’t like you simply for being who you are. One should always be friends with “nice” people “regardless of race, language or religion.” In many ways, we gravitate towards people who look like us, speak like us etc.

However, we should always be careful not to make certain assumptions. Never assume that the guy who looks like you have your interest at heart. Sometimes your own kind are the happiest to kill you off because you look like you are encroaching on their place in the majority. I think of the times I traveled to the US. In the years of going to the US, I’ve only had two problematic encounters. Both times were with ethnic Chinese (the first guy gleefully told us could take away our Green Cards – I was 16 at the time and tempted to tell him to shove it). You will be surprised as to how quickly people can turn on their own.

Women’s Day

 Kiddo calls me up last night (20 October) asking if I knew what day it was? Her hook was simple, it was National Woman’s Day in Vietnam and she wanted Daddy to contribute to her partying. I told her that although I’m a bit of a soft touch, trying to pull another woman’s day on me was stretching it a bit too far – International Woman’s Day is March 8. Anyway, got away with not contributing to the party but Kiddo is correct. Vietnam stands out as a place that celebrates women not once but twice. There’s the International Day of Women and the National Day for Women in October – and well Vietnam should celebrate its women.

In the 13-years I was married to a Vietnamese girl, I made about five trips back to visit. I saw Hanoi (twice), Ho Chi Minh (twice) and Hai Phong (once). What becomes clear is that women are essential to economy. Walk on the streets of the three cities I’ve mentioned and you will notice that it’s the women who have turned every corner and every hole in the street into an enterprise of sorts (mainly selling food).

 

This wasn’t just my observation. A nephew by marriage at the time mentioned that the bank he worked for once hired a girl and a couple of guys. At the end of the month, they had to fire the guys and they kept the girl – she was the one who showed up consistently.

In South East Asia, Vietnam has the second highest rate of women participating in the work force, even ahead of Singapore, which is famous for its high level of female participation in the work force:

https://seasia.co/infographic/women-workforce-rates-in-southeast-asia-2023

 

 This isn’t just in the region. Vietnam’s rates of women participating in the workforce are comparable to many advanced economies, including the USA and UK.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS

 

 What does this all mean? Well, for a start, if you look at the data provided by the World Bank, you’ll notice that the places that complain about too many people coming in (the advanced economies of the US and Western Europe), also happen to be places with a relatively high portion of women in the workforce. By contrast, places where people are running away from (places where Donald Trump called “s***holes), tend to be places where the participation of women in the workforce is low.

Given that I could be a person of limited intelligence, I can’t tell you why the correlation between development and female participation in the workforce exists but I will point out to the James Bond movie “Die Another Day” when an Admiral tells M, played by Judy Dench “You haven’t got the balls for this” and M replies “I don’t think with them.”

This quip from a movie, is reflected in Covid statistics. If you look at the Covid statistics, you’ll find that the three countries where the most people died from Covid were at the time led by the “wannabe macho men,” namely Donald Trump of the USA, Narendra Modi of India and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. By contrast, places led by women did better. Germany, led by Angela Merkel at the time, had a similar number of reported cases to Brazil (both around 38,000) but significantly less deaths (183,000 vs 711,000).

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

 Simply put, the men at the moment of crisis led by ego and emotion. The women did not. So, I guess you could argue that having a higher level of female participation in the workforce actually takes out allot of ego and emotion in decision making.

Women, also tend to be a little more law abiding. I make this argument as someone who has crossed the Causeway on a number of occasions. Once in a while, Singaporeans get shaken down for bribes. It’s inevitably the men who shake you down – never the women.

What does this mean for Vietnam? Well, it would indicate that while Vietnam faces many challenges in the area of physical and legal infrastructure, it’s got the most basic element of development in place – namely the type of culture where most people are not afraid to go out and making a living for themselves. Then, there’s the case to be made that when women earn the money, it gets spent on things like education, which in turn uplifts family incomes and on the national level, it means the quality of future workers improves.

Vietnam is a country that has made huge progress. Vietnam only moved into its current economic development phase in 1986 and today is in the top 15 of Asia’s largest economies, making it larger than even Malaysia, which has had the advantage of a longer development period and rule under British Common Law:

https://vietnamlawmagazine.vn/vietnam-among-asias-15-largest-economies-73213.html 

A good part of this success comes from a culture that allows women to play a very active role in making things happen.

It’s Not Your Kid

 

Call it a coincidence if you will but after attending the Singapore Insolvency Conference hosted in the ParkRoyal Collection MarinaBay, an old friend of mine, whom I had once worked for, called me up to ask about liquidating a business of his.

 

 What struck me about this conversation was the fact that this friend of mine seemed relatively at ease with what he wanted to get done. If anything, talking about liquidation seemed like a relief. His once successful enterprise had been bleeding and he pumped in his own personal funds into the business to keep things afloat and he had reached the point of no return. Enough was enough.

I described this entire conversation with my friend as being “unusual” because I’ve found that in the last decade of being in the insolvency trade; I’ve found that many business owners tend to leave closing down a business to late and liquidation is forced upon them.

I’ve noticed that it’s usually the Asian business owners, specifically the Chinese ones in the old-fashioned business-like retail and construction who tend to leave it late. I guess a good part of the reason for this is cultural. For the traditional Chinese businessman, the business is inevitably more than a vehicle to make money – its part of the family legacy. Hence, liquidation is a taboo topic because you’re not talking about ending an entity but your very existence in the community. I still remember Gina’s father being upset with me for taking the PPO against her for the simple reason that the court sent someone to serve her and when he opened the door it was “people think I owe money.”

So, I get the reason why people fight tooth and nail to keep things afloat even when the signs are clearly obvious. However, the sad reality that economic waters are increasingly choppy. Despite the “rosy” image of entrepreneurship that gets sold to every young person these days, the statistics for being successful and staying successful as an entrepreneur are pretty grim. According to Clarify Capital, some 80 percent of businesses fail within 20 years:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Chances+of+succeeding+in+business

 

 This basic fact is before you take into account the current geopolitical climate where governments go out of their way to make things difficult for businesses to function, let alone make money.

Everyone loves venture capitalist. They threw glamorous parties and everyone sucks up to them in the belief that they hold the keys to a glorious future. By contrast, insolvency practitioners (IP) tend to stick to their own kind, mixing occasionally with insolvency lawyers. Let’s just look at the medical analogy of gynecologists (my stepfather being one) being more socially acceptable than morticians.

Yet beneath the glitz of new business launches, the truth is more nuanced. The rough statistic is that venture capitalist lose money in nine of ten ventures backed – it’s just that the one that succeeds does so in a manner that covers the losses of the other nine and ensures the venture capitalists success. The IPs whilst occupying a less glamorous space have a more consistent flow of work.

If you take the statistics about business failure, the one key element of a successful entrepreneur is inevitably one who can accept failure. Successful entrepreneurs view failure as part of the learning curve and will look at the IP as a source of knowledge rather than a person to be avoided. The very nature of being in the insolvency trade means one is going to see a lot of business failure and develop certain insights that most would not have. Its one of the reasons why prominent characters in our judicial system are being invited to speak at insolvency conferences:

 

 One of the key insights that the average IP should have, is that the business is not your baby. It’s merely the vehicle from which you operate. Allot of business owners get attached to the company like it’s a family member. It’s not, it’s something you use. Think of the company and the business like a car. It gets you to where you want to go.

Its this simple, when things turn south and look like they’re never going to get better, it’s best to cut one’s losses.

Firstly, there are laws against insolvent trading. In layman terms, when the hole is getting deeper – stop digging. This is something that few if any outside the insolvency business will be aware of. However, just because one isn’t aware, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Secondly, there’s the fact that I’ve often said to a few bankrupts – you still have your brains and contacts. Business failure provides one with the opportunity to understand one’s weaknesses. Hence, the adage that one not starts from nothing but from experience. Letting go of an old business gives one more time to work on starting again.

 

 

With Friends Like These; You Better Get Some Enemies

 Let’s give credit where credit is due. Donald Trump looks like he might actually have stopped the fighting in the Unholy Land. Yes, there is undoubtedly much to criticize about his peace plan but for the moment, we should just be grateful that there’s been an end of the mindless slaughter. Israel’s hostages are being released and everyone seems happy. How long this happy state of affairs last is anyone’s guess but at least we have the moments of peace that we have.

What’s become clear though is that this entire war should never have happened in the first place. The entire Israeli justification of “self-defense” was anything but to anyone with the good fortune of not being a Western politician. Yes, Hamas was horrible in executing its actions of October 7, 2023. However, an inconvenient truth came out on October 8, 2023 in the Israeli press that Hamas would never have had the capabilities to do what it did were it not for its convenient backer – Israel’s perpetual Prime Minister, Mr. Benyamin Nethanyahu:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

 

 Let’s face it, Mr. Netanyahu built his entire political brand on ensuring that there would be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He was an opponent of the Oslo Accords and the underlying principle of “Land for Peace.” Since, Oslo was signed with the more moderate Palestinian Authority, Mr. Netanyahu found ways to back Hamas with the sole purpose of weakening the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Netanyahu turned a blind eye to the car loads of cash being funneled to Hamas.

It's not like Hamas were very subtle about their intentions. Hamas’s charter clearly calls for the destruction of Israel, even if its more moderate members tried to reframe it as “recognizing the reality of Israel.”

So, why would a man selling himself as the only one strong enough to keep Israel safe, support a group that clearly calls for the destruction of Israel? The answer lies in an unfortunate truism that extremist need their polar opposites to survive. The opposite number justifies their existence. Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant need Hamas as much Hamas needs them. The Netanyahu-Gallant end of Israeli politics represses the Palestinian territories in the name of security whereas Hamas attacks Israel in the name of stopped repression. The cycle is inevitably endless.

It's not that nobody tried to change. Unfortunately, every leader in the region has seen what happens when you try and break the cycle. Your “own side” will end up gunning you down. Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who signed the Camp David Accords in 1978, making the Arab world’s most populous nation the first to achieve peace with Israel was gunned down by the Muslim Brotherhood:

https://en.topwar.ru/101653-pokushenie-na-prezidenta-kak-tridcat-pyat-let-nazad-ubili-anvara-sadata.html

 

 

Then, fast forward nearly two decades to 1994. An Israeli Prime Minister, who had spent his whole life fighting for Israel’s peace reached out to his life long enemy in the PLO, Yasir Arafat and signed the Oslo Accords. Yitzhak Rabin found that swopping land brought peace and security and after he signed peace with the Palestinians, he reached out to the late King Hussain of Jordan and signed the second ever peace treaty with an Arab Nation that Israel once fought.

Rabin’s reward for giving peace and security to Israel was to be assassinated by an Israeli extremist settler, whose brother shows no remorse for his role in the murder:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9245468/Accomplice-to-killer-of-Israeli-leader-Yitzhak-Rabin-defiant-after-release-from-prison.html

 

So, the lesson is clear, change results in death – specifically your own. In a land that the Abrahamic Faiths call Holy, nobody with power worries about the afterlife and everyone focuses on the here and now. Mr. Netanyahu knows that stepping down means a corruption trial. Hamas’s leaders know that being reasonable will get them shot.

The war had two clear winners. Mr. Netanyahu wins in as much as he’s going to stay in power. Israel’s increasing international isolation is just an unfortunate price to be paid. The extremist in Hamas also wins. Now, they have plenty of recruits, angry at the nation that kept them down and blew their lives away.

Compare what happens in Gaza with what happened in Northern Ireland. There, extremists were not allowed to win. The Ulster Unionist were pushed by the British Government to sign peace agreements and America stopped allowed Sinn Fein and the IRA to get gun money. The Irish Government made it clear that it was in no rush to take over. All parties fought for compromise and today, the “troubles” are left in comedy series like “Derry Girls” as Northern Ireland looks for things like fintech investment.

A Chat to my Younger Self

 As I approach what is effectively the twilight of my working years, I find myself often reflecting on things. I ask myself if I would have done things differently. Let’s face it, I’m a far cry from where I wanted to be when I first started. I had this vision of hot shot banker (Assistant vice-president at Citibank by the time I hit thirty) living a glamorous life.

Instead, I found myself in the SME/ Micro enterprise end of the industry everyone thought I’d be a rock star in and then, I found myself working for a firm in an industry that I never imagined myself in for over a decade. Although I’ve since overcome the stigma of not working anywhere for more than a year (celebrated 11 years with my current employer this year) and I have a fancy title (Director of Business Development) I’m still not where most would have imagined me to be at.

So given that many would argue that my lack of a career is suffering from youthful mishaps, my advice to the kids should be – don’t be like me. Stick in a place long enough for people to recognize that you have a skill and build a track record. Then look at doing your own thing.

However, as a look at myself, I believe the advice that I’d give myself would be – embrace who you really are as soon as you can. I was so focused on wanting to be part of the banking-corporate crowd that I never took time to recognize that this wasn’t me. I didn’t actually like being in an office and sitting in front of a screen. I remain dreadful at administration and the nitty gritty of processes.

As such, I failed in PR agencies but somehow, when I had to work on my own, I did work that I was proud of. I was, as a Chairman of an Academic Body I once pitched to, a proud one-man show. Never worked for the big multinationals like Webber Shandwick but managed to do government-to-government work (Saudi Embassy during the visit of the late Crown Prince Sultan to Singapore), covered the entire IMF Conference in 2006 (got my byline in Arab News 16 times that month) and met some of the more brilliant minds around (Raghuram Rajan former RBI Governor comes to mind).

Sure, I struggled financially for allot of those moments and I do wish I had discovered restaurant work earlier and it would probably have made me a bit more stable. However, despite the financial uncertainty, I was actually happiest then. It’s not that moving into restructuring and insolvency was a bad thing. The job came at a time when Kiddo was coming into my life and I needed the stability. However, I should have accepted way back that I was never meant for a normal career path.

I think of this after seeing a post by Standard Chartered’ s Global CEO Bill Winters on Linkedin, where he talked about encouraging people starting out to grab the chances for riskier moves if the rewards were higher. Mr. Winters has a degree in “International Relations” and by his own admission, thought he would be a diplomat but ended up in banking instead:

https://www.sc.com/en/campaigns/now-is-your-time/

 

 I had ambitions despite being a freelancer. They were not to be anything in an official PR agency but I believed I could grow my relationship with people in the Saudi Government and media that I had worked with. I never dared go beyond sending the odd greetings and after Jamal Merdad left, my connection with the Saudi embassy faded.

I do regret allowing myself moments of complacency, where I let go of relationships after a job. When Bruno’s came into the picture, my restaurant and PR work complimented each other. Yet, I never got round to selling myself and delivering more aggressively. It was only when I moved into liquidations that I realized that I could cross the class divides and get things done.

It took a while for me to find my talents. I’ve been a disaster at monetizing them and now, as I approach the final years of my working life, I’m now at a situation where that’s become something I need to do urgently (hence, do subscribe to my Substack). My advice for anyone starting out – find out who you really are early – go and fail often until you find your talents and milk them for all their worth.

I Love W******* in a Suite

 

When I first started working as an intern back in 1999, I looked forward to office life. Going into the office felt like I had a purpose and I actually looked forward to meetings. As an intern, still learning the ways of the world, being in a meeting felt like I was important enough to be look important.

Now that I’ve been around the corporate scene for over two decades, I’ve come to realise that what I once felt about corporate was utterly correct. Things like offices and meetings are, more often than not, all about the look and feeling important. Its not that looking good and feeling good aren’t important. Now that I’m focused on fitness, I realise that when you feel and look good, you tend to perform better.

I also recognise that gatherings are important. There is a reason why “solitary” is the worst punishment in prison. So, yes things like gatherings and dare I say, meetings have their uses in the economic system that we function in.

Yet, there’s also a point where we have to ask ourselves whether allot of the meetings we attend are about social connection for the sake of looking good or are they actually necessary. I think of the phrase “mental masturbation” when it comes to allot of corporate meetings and conventions. Let’s ask ourselves why are certain things meetings and not, say, emails. More often than not, allot of gatherings are more about the show and the feelings of certain individuals in the given organisation than they are about anything that’s actually productive.

Case in point, the recent meeting between the Secretary of War and his generals, which took place on Tuesday, 30 September 2025 to every four-star officer in the US military. The very act of summoning every four-star officer and their advisors to a single location was a major talking point. Everyone was asking why was this done. What was the importance of this meeting that the officers had to drop everything?

This meeting turned out to be a session of what can only be called “mental masturbation” where the Secretary of War and the President got to ramble on about their favourite topics.

I’ll leave the deep heavy analysis of what was said to intelligent people. The point here is that we have to ask ourselves if anything was actually achieved. Could this “meeting” actually have to be a meeting at all? Neither Trump or Hegseth said anything that they hadn’t said before. The point was not so much what was said but the fact that everyone was gathered in one place to listen. The emphasis was on fact that the gathering was made rather than why.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000010430095/senior-military-officers-meeting-quantico-virginia.html

 

Much was being made of the silence in room. There was on applause and every picture of the audience that we’ve been shown, shows a group of men looking exceedingly p***** off. Even Trump couldn’t help but notice the silence and tried to get people to react:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqJ1ChZnTI

 

 Let’s face it, how many of us like being summoned to listen to people talk about themselves? You can’t blame the generals and admirals for being silent. Would anything they said have made a difference? To make matters worse for the generals and admirals, this was a case of having to attend a lecture by two people with no subject matter expertise on the very subject you are an expert in. This being a case where you endure in silence because its your boss talking and there’s no way you can tell him that he’s an idiot.

For Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth, this was a grand moment. Two men who had never fought anything tougher than a Marshmallow had the chance to lecture a group of people who had fought a number of wars each. Given that the military is one of the more respected institutions in the USA, this was undoubtedly a great opportunity.

Once again, let’s leave the speeches aside and focus on the event. It was at its core, a meeting designed for the boss to feel good. Did costs money? Undoubtedly did. Generals and Admirals had to be flown in from various parts of the world and accommodated for at least a day. Did it do anything productive? That is highly debateable (only if you redefine the term productive). Everything that was said could have been said in a memo or an email.

Here in lies the truism of the modern work place. People are increasingly busy yet productivity remains dreadfully low. A good part of the problem comes from dealing with people in positions of power who are focused on ego rather than on actually doing anything useful.

The Only Way to Beat a Bad Idea

 

It goes without saying that the murder of the American activist, Charlie Kirk on 10 September 2025, was horrible. Mr. Kirk, who was only 31 at the time of his death (only two-years younger than my youngest brother) leaves behind a wife and two children, who will undoubtedly live with severe trauma of seeing their father shot before their very eyes.

Mr. Kirk was a polarizing figure in death as he was in life. The President of the USA ordered that all flags should fly at half-mast (an honour usually reserved for figures whose contributions to a nation are undeniable) and the political right rushed to deify him as the political left rushed to do the opposite.

Allot has bee said about Mr. Kirk and whatever I say will not make a difference. I will however, say that Mr. Kirk’s murder, was a classic case in how not to deal with bad ideas.

With all due respect to Mr. Kirk, what you’d call the rational voice of allot of the “isms” that civilized people avoid indulging in. He most famously argued that the Civil Rights movement, which gave “Africa Americans” equal rights was mistake and that the leader, Dr. Martin Luther King wasn’t the saint that everyone made him out to be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGo7ogLHTTs

 

Mr. Kirk was masterful in espousing his views with an air of authority. He would travel around America’s campuses and swat away anyone who questioned him. He was a natural darling of the political right and whatever “isms” he may have displayed, always sounded almost like a stated fact.

So, it’s probably no surprise that the political right started trying to pin Mr. Kirk’s murder on the political left (even if the current suspect isn’t from the political left). Mr. Kirk is being turned into an icon of free speech who was murdered by an “illiberal-liberal” establishment that couldn’t handle the truth.

While the current suspect in custody isn’t exactly the model of a “liberal-murderer,” there were a number of commentators who mentioned that they didn’t feel sorry for Mr. Kirk based on the ideas he espoused, which was a polite way of saying he had it coming to him.

Well, while Mr. Kirk was prone to making some “interesting remarks,” his murder should lead to ask some fundamental questions about the notion of freedom of speech. If you will talk to enough people, you’ll find that people are often very “pro” freedom of speech, until someone comes up with something offensive. Then, you’ll have voices denouncing whatever they disagree with, and there will be calls to make that speech into a criminal act.

Yes, I’m not going to say that all speech is good. However, short of inciting horrible things, people should be able to say what they want, even if we disagree with it. I do believe in the concept of “I hate what you say but I will die defending your right to say it.”

We’re too often bound by the need to only be with people who agree with us. This isn’t freedom of speech. It’s freedom of being a robot. America in the era of Trump is a classic example, where people are either Red States or Blue States. In Singapore, it’s a case of “everything the government does is right” and “everything the government does is wrong.”

As someone who creates content, I will say that extremist views are fun. People are drawn to extreme positions. It gives them, dare I say, a sense of belonging. The reality is different. Outside Imperial Science (1+1 is always 2), life actually happens somewhere in between. Yes, I have been very critical of the government in Singapore but at the same time, I’m not critical for the sake of it. As a result, I’m branded as “anti-establishment” by the “government is always right crowd” and I’ve been accused of being a “b*** s***** of the ruling party by the “government is evil crowd.”

Which leads me the next point – how do you deal with “bad speech,” and “bad ideas,” two things which Mr. Kirk was filled with. The answer is inevitably by debating those ideas and showing them up for what they are; which is what happened to Mr. Kirk when he went to Cambridge to debate students who knew their stuff and not intimidated by Mr. Kirk’s moralistic debating style. Here, he found people who weren’t just not intimidated – they actually ran rings around him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3liIXGJXNs

 

The only way to beat bad ideas and bad speech is by presenting them with better ideas and better speech. I take the issue of the Nazi Holocaust denial as an example. In Germany and other parts of Europe, its actually illegal to publicly question to existence of the Holocaust. As bad as the Holocaust was, I believe that making the questioning of its existence illegal is not the way to go. At best, you make a martyr out of the holocaust denier and give credence to their views. The real way to deal with these people is to openly challenge them in a debate and present the evidence.

I think of the fact that the best commentary in America at the moment comes from comedians. The news commentators on both sides are busy preaching to the converted. The comedians are telling us things that we can relate to and getting the point across.

I think of characters like Medhi Hassan who actually go and challenge the people they disagree with and put the facts on the table:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S-WJN3L5eo

 

 The record of bans and murders as a means of keeping “bad” speech ad “bad” ideas at bay is pretty grim. Challenge and debate have a much better track record.