The Benefits of Fratricide and the Problem with Tribal Loyalties

 

One of the funniest institutions in the British Commonwealth is the monarchy. The British monarchy has been around for the longest of times and its somehow survived revolutions, greatness and the loss of greatness. Whilst monarchies in Europe fell, the British kept theirs. The former Egyptian King Farouk is reported to have said, “The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left—the King of England, the King of Spades, the King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds".

The survival of the British Monarchy is amazing. How does an institution based on superiority by birth and ancient tradition survive in a world where technology is changing the way we do things in a matter of decades and meritocracy is becoming something that we understand as the natural order of things?

Part of the answer was best said in the Crown. The role of the monarchy is not to govern and to stay away from political squabbles. Prime Ministers could come and go but the monarch would endure. The line Crown attributes to the late Queen is to “Shut up and do nothing.” At her death countless Prime Ministers recounted how their meetings with the Queen would be the one meeting they knew would never get leaked.

The other is that the royal family understands that their survival depends on public good will and they act to ensure they keep it. The late Queen for example, made it down to Grenfell Tower to sympathise with the victims whilst her Prime Minister hid in Downing Street. King Charles, back when he was a Prince, said that he felt he needed to justify his existence. The most recent example of how the royals rushed to save themselves was when they ditched Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over his role in the Epstein Scandal. Despite his pleas, the former Prince has been arrested and is now out on bail. A man who grew up in the very definition of privilege was seen slinking away, hopping and failing to avoid a very public humiliation:

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

 

 

 The ability to turn on one of its own, isn’t limited to the Royal Family. British political parties have shown a remarkable ability to turn on successful leaders the moment they become toxic. Both Thatcher and Blair were brought down by their own party rather than the electorate. In the case of the Epstein scandal, its former Ambassador to the USA and former European Commissioner, Lord Peter Mandelson, who not only had to leave his posts but has also been arrested and now out on bail:

https://www.reutersconnect.com/item/former-british-ambassador-to-the-us-peter-mandelson-leaves-his-residence-in-london/dGFnOnJldXRlcnMuY29tLDIwMjY6bmV3c21sX1JDMlBUSkFLVEpGTQ

 

 Let’s me clear, neither the former Prince or former Ambassador have been charged with anything sexual. The grounds for arrest in both cases is suspicions of “misconduct in public office.” Whilst neither has been formally charged, the facts are clear. Instead of serving the public, they served the interest of a very rich person who was, it turns out a master of creating corruption.

Yet, the point is two powerful men have been publicly called to account. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will never enjoy the life he once had a Prince Andrew. Peter Mandelson will never get the chance to play shadow manipulator the way he did under Blair.

While the situation in the UK is not great, it compares very well with what’s going on in the USA, which is where most of the saga has taken place. Here, you see a case of tribal loyalties running everything. You have the current president being close to Epstein and being mentioned many times over in the files. You also have the former president pictured with him and mentioned a number of times.

Both men don’t have a history of marital fidelity. Their elections and presidencies have been plagued with scandals off inappropriate behavior. Yet its virtually impossible to say anything about them without their supporters jumping all over you and social media is filled with commentators on both sides trying to out do each other in the dirt swinging contest.

Whilst everyone makes noise over Epstein, the ground facts remain – crimes were committed. Nobody has been held to account. If anything, there have been public declarations that doing something would make the system collapse.

The world’s autocrats are loving every moment of the squabbles in America. Every time US politicians lecture about “rule of law” and “open and honest” societies, the autocrats just shrug and say “yeah, pot calling the kettle black,” with each passing moment of the Epstein scandal. That would not happen if the American institutions had some fratricidal instincts and allowed a few of the rich and powerful to be dragged out in public.  

It’s OK to Rape Kids as Long as The Rapist is Rich

 

I discovered I was meant to be Kiddo’s father around 13-years ago, when she moved here. The incident that made our bond came curtesy of one of her cousin’s boyfriends, who was an older dude in his 50s. He had shown himself to be a generous chap and I had a good impression. However, on that day, something changed. He had come to the house and seen Kiddo in her school uniform. He started chatting to her and then said “Give me your number, you can call me when you want to buy things.” I was pretty pissed off and when Kiddo said “It’s OK, he’s not a stranger,” I replied “That’s not the point – he’s over 50 and you’re a 13-year-old girl.” Translation, if he tries anything funny, I will do horrible things to him and yes, I am well aware that the penalty in Singapore is the gallows.

That particular moment has stayed with me, especially now that I am single and “free to mingle” as they say. Yes, I am a 51-year-old man, which is an age where being horny is a sign of good health. Like most heterosexual men, I do get turned on by nice bodies, which inevitably belong to younger women. So, yes, if a sexy thing in a short skirt and tight tank top comes by, I’m going to notice.

However, as much as I have my needs, I’m also a dad and that actually makes me look at things in a different way. Sure, there are lots of 26-year-old girls who I find very attractive. However, I’m brought back to the point that this could be my kid. Would I like my kid being with someone my age? Answer is – ew…..For the record, my current girlfriend is 13-years younger – young but not kiddy young.

I also assess young men through the eyes of being a dad to a young lady. The basic question is, would I like this guy anywhere near my kid? If the answer is yes, I become chill. My Godson actually asked “can I marry your daughter and then I can really call you dad?” I choaked and nearly vomited. He’s nice guy but my kid would run rings around him it wouldn’t be funny.

So, when I look at the Jeffrey Epstein case unfurl, I ask myself the question – how could you do this to someone who could be your kid? Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor comes to mind. You look at the guy and want to say “Ya, I know you have your needs – but really, are you really – how would you like it if someone did that with your girls.” I mean, I get that blue-blood doesn’t make you immune to being horny. I get that the monarchy can be seen as an archaic institution – but as a dad, how is that you never stopped to imagine what it would be like if someone did what you did to your girls?

To be fair to the British system, there’s been some form of accountability. The King has rightfully stripped him of the “Prince” title and has effectively told the cops to do the necessary. The British monarchy for all its faults, is actually doing something.

Britain’s unelected King is doing a way lot better than say, the elected politicians across the pond. Yes, America has had “sleazy” politicians before. I’m old enough to remember when Bad Boy Bill got his dick sucked in the White House and got impeached.

The point being Bad Boy Bill got impeached and whilst Monica got allot of unwanted attention, she was legally a consenting adult. Everyone said Bad Boy Bill was “Immoral” but what he did wasn’t not illegal.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a case of a silly young woman wanting to keep the most powerful man on the planet happy. Epstein is about selling children to the rich and powerful. The current occupant of the White House is enjoying his moment of being the “sleaziest politician alive” and as questionable as he is, the defense that that his attorney general, Pam Bondi gave was a master class in showing of your worth as a crappy human being.

Ms. Bondi, who is the nation’s highest legal officer, proceeded to go on the attacked when questioned by Congress. Her line of attack being “The stock market is up.” You’re being asked about kids being raped and you’re only reply is “the stock market us up,” or “rich people are making money – what are you worried about.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7yv4fpfDbs

 

 I get that the trade of young ladies selling them selves is as old as human history itself. However, the operational word is young ladies with the capacity to consent and exchange not young kids. I get it that men have needs but I also get that men have responsibilities.  

I’m sorry if you think its OK for kids to get rapped as long as the rich rapist are making money, I’m not sure if I can see you as a human being.

The Director of Por Lampa Services

 Many years ago, my mentor, “PN Balji,” once alerted me to the fact that he had written an article. The company I was with at the time, had told me, “He wants to be buttered up, so call him.” So, I read the article and then called him to say “I really liked your article.” The reply was “What did you like about my article.”

I remember this story because its one of the greatest lessons that anyone who moves up in life needs to learn – “Praise is often meaningless, unless the one giving the praise is giving it for a specific reason.”

Here’s the thing, many of us are worried about being “talked about.” We’re especially worried that people will be “talking bad” about us and having a good bitch. I remember someone once threatened me with “I’ll talk bad about you,” and I just thought, “sure, who haven’t you talked bad about?” If you’ve moved anywhere in life beyond snail, chances are people will have something to say about you and more often than not it’s going to be negative. Sure, there’s a chance that what they’re saying has truth to it but then there’s a chance that you’ve become an important person in their life.

Being talked about in a negative way is part and parcel of life. Sure, most of us don’t like the negative stuff about us but sometimes it can actually be helpful. I used to remember the comments about me on TRE – where I was accused of giving head around the ruling party and had huge condominiums in Sentosa Cove. Unfortunately, I’m still looking for a broom space in an HDB flat, so I’m not sure where those Sentosa Cove properties are.

While nobody likes hearing the “negative” news, the good stuff can be more dangerous. Let’s start with the obvious – we all like the good things said about us because, well, who doesn’t like hearing the good stuff? It’s like food – the modern problem is no longer starvation but obesity and diabetes. Why? There is no longer an absence of food (let alone tasty food), but an abundance of it. Who actually wants to count calories of that chocolate chip cookie and cream flavoured cake?

So, just as we tend to give into temptation to take that slice of cookie and cream cake, we tend to place ourselves in echo chambers where people will tell us the things that we want to hear. While praise is addictive as chocolate cake, it comes with its own costs, only its not calories affecting your mid-section but distorting your brain where you think you’re God’s gift to the world. The problem that most of us have is that we’re not actually god’s gift to anything in particular and our judgement gets skewered towards what we want rather than what we need.

One of the funniest ones I’ve had was talking to an ex-colleague about how the boss never hired a “hunky” looking guy. Suddenly I heard a soft little voice saying “except you.” My reaction was “what the hell – what would you know – you’re taste in men is fat.” My sister had to remind me that “hunky” was not a word associated with men over 40, I should just be grateful that someone gave an indication that I matched the word.

Here's the reality, whilst I don’t look that “unpresentable” I mean, I am by no means as “interesting” looking as this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-CaC_43cZI

 

 However, I am not exactly anyone’s great definition of a male model. I definitely would get rejected if I tried to applied to join this particular team:

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

 

 The truth is, I am just a simple 51-year-old with a diabetic dad-bod trying to ensure that I am as functional for as long as the body allows. Physical training is non-negotiable not because it makes me better looking but because it stops the metabolic condition from affecting my ability to earn a living and minimizes my need to take pills.

Everything is relative and whilst praise is nice to listen to, I tend to look at who is doing the praising. The Neurotic Angel once dubbed me her “Macho-Man,” and had praised my ability to jump. I felt chuffed when she called me “Macho” and “Hunky.” Then, since she was supposed to meet my mother, I thought, “Oh dear, if she announces that, my mum will think she’s got a weakness for effeminate ones if I’m the standard of high testosterone.” Had a similar experience recently when someone I do find attractive, let slip that she finds me attractive.” Sure, it’s nice to know but let’s put things into perspective, most of the guys she hangs out with are grandfather age.  

Sure, I like being told I am physically attractive. However, I can’t let that get to me and become lazy about training. That’s the surest way to become the old, broke and sick. The same is true in an organization when the guy on top only promotes those who tell him what he wants to hear. Jobs no longer become about who can actually do the job but who can “suck up.” The worst case is when you punish people who tell you ground realities. If you create a culture where you cannot listen to critics within your team, how the hell do you expect to produce stuff that dazzles customers all the time? Sure, sugar plum cakes taste wonderful and sure, exercise can be painful but you believe that sugar plum cake gives you everything you need and exercise is evil, should you be surprised when you lose the ability to get out of bed?  

Didn’t God Give You Brains.”

 

If battles in a war were like the score of a sporting event, the Battle Agincourt fought in 1415 would be as close as the term “whitewash” would get. The battle essentially saw 6,000-8,100 Englishmen take on a larger army of French of around 25,000 (including of servants.) By the end of the battle, 6,000 Frenchmen, who were mainly from the nobility lay dead, whereas only 600 Englishmen died that day. The result was so dramatic that in Shakespeare’s version of events, the King ended up dedicating the entire battle to God and making it an offence punishable by death to boast of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ZJTwmiw2I&list=RDV1ZJTwmiw2I&start_radio=1

 

 While Henry V was an undoubtedly religious man and the results of the battle were seemingly miraculous, the evidence that later day historians would suggests that this was not so much a miracle granted by God but the development of a new era of man’s development. The French army was filled with knights or the “elite” of warriors. They were heavily armoured and rode on horse. It was a case of the knights were the main show and everyone else was a side show.

Whilst the English did have the King and the Duke of York, this was an army made up primarily of peasants, or the type of people who ranked so low on the medieval scale of things, butchering them was a sport of sorts for the knights. However, these peasants were armed with a peculiar technology that evened the score – the longbow which allowed them to hit people at a distance and they could load their arrows very quickly when compared to the cross bow.

There are two very clear points to this battle. Firstly, the key lesson is the question of arrogance. As is often said “Nemesis” is the natural consequence of “Hubris,” or “pride” before the “fall.”

The knights simply assumed they would wipe the floor with the peasants. It had been that way in medieval battlefields for the longest of times. Knights were dedicated warriors who had spent the better of their life training for the battle. The peasants by contrast were barely able to feed themselves. As far as the French army at Agincourt was concerned, there was no reason to suggests that this wouldn’t be just another day on the “playing fields.”

This assumption was held so strongly that nobody bothered to question whether the peasants had anything up their sleeves. In this case it was a new technology that evened the odds. No point being fully armoured and on horseback if you got hit by an arrow whilst you were a couple hundred metres away.

Sure, certain opponents may appear weak but sometimes those who appear weak end up developing tools that help them even up the odds. We talk about martial arts and which style gives you the best hand-to-hand combat. However, as much as a martial arts fan hates to admit it, no martial art has to date been able to beat a firearm.

The third point that this battle teaches us is that miracles are often based on getting the basics right. In the case of Agincourt, the French didn’t have the basics on their side whereas the English did.

We have become so hooked onto the idea of sudden miracles that too many of us end up falling for promises of miraculous cures or instant fortunes. I’m not saying that luck doesn’t have a role to play in things but depending on luck alone is usually a guaranteed way to stay broke and often sick.

Just look at the number of people who cue up outside the lottery every single day. The facts are thus – you have a higher chance of getting struck by lightning than you do of winning the lottery. Apparently, the odds being struck by lightning in a lifetime are around one in 15,300 whereas winning a power ball in a lottery is one in two hundred million. If anything, it’s more plausible to fix the odds of getting struck by lightning and winning a life altering sum on that bet than it is to win the power ball. Yet, despite these obvious points, people still line up to spend their savings on lottery tickets and it goes without saying that the people who play the lottery often are usually from the less enhanced social classes. This is all before you consider the fact that those who beat the odds and win, usually end up broke.

The most secure form of wealth is pretty boring and unsexy. Leaving aside Bill Gates’s formula of getting stock options in a dominant tech company, wealth accumulation is usually is the simple strategy of living below your means and putting your extra funds in something as boring as a mutual fund paying less than 10 percent a year. Takes time and requires work but it actually works.

The same is truth of health. Everyone is looking for a magic pill that will cure them of this and that and whilst medical science has been miraculous. We do much better now than we did in the dark ages. However, pills can only go so far. I think of my fellow diabetics who take their pills but refuse to move and continue drinks (booze and soda). Good health is as simple as moving a bit more, sleeping properly, getting sunlight and not pumping shit into your body.

Changing your lifestyle has a very record track record of actually working. Far better than pills. Yet people continue to buy all sorts of pills promising to enhance their health and vitality whilst screwing over the basics. All credit to Cristiano Ronaldo for telling everyone he drinks plain water and not Coke (even if that remark was bad for Coke share price). Scientifically true – Ronaldo is still playing competitive football at the age of 40, the age of looking a nursing home in the world of professional sports.

Miracles are called that for a reason – they are miraculous. Real results are found in getting the basics right. I think of a Malay taxi driver who once said his community has cast him as “not believing in God,” when he talks about his personal financial planning. His retort is “God gave you brains.”  

One Hit Wonder and the Pig’s Heart

 One of the most shocking moments of my youth came on 11 February 1990. This was the day Mike Tyson, who was officially the “badest man” on the planet at the time tasted defeat for the first time in his entire career.

Tyson, was ferocious. He was and remains the type of guy you really don’t want to meet in broad daylight let alone at night because, well, if you did anything that p***ed him off remotely you would probably end up on life support. It’s not an exaggeration to say that when he exploded onto television screens in February 1986, he made the sport of boxing explode along with it. Fights that lasted 90s seconds were not uncommon. It reached a stage where the results were more predictable than a Singapore General Election – we just wanted to see how long the other guy would last.

All that came to a crashing halt on that night in Tokyo when the 42-1 underdog scored a knockout win over someone the world regarded as unbeatable. This literally shocked the world. We were probably less shocked by the fall of the Soviet Union a year later than by this boxing defeat and that’s considering the fact that the Soviet Union was a superpower that had enough nukes to destroy the world.

James “Buster” Douglas shocked the world by beating the unbeatable. You would have imagined that the man who beat the unbeatable would have remained unbeatable for a while. That didn’t happen. He took the money, got fat and when he had to defend his title to Evander Holyfield, who was at the time a “blow up” cruiser weight making his way up the heavyweight ranks, he happily fell, collected even more money and disappeared from the public eye. I’ve read that he made a comeback but that didn’t last long and nobody really cared enough to give him another major payday.

https://www.thestar.com/sports/buster-douglas-loving-life-25-years-after-tyson-upset/article_31d40db6-b938-5b1a-85d6-aaa86b8fb776.html

 

 

 By contrast, Tyson actually made a comeback of sorts. He beat the living poo out of several people. Then went to prison and then came out and beat the poo out of even more people. He did get stopped by Evander Holyfield and Lenox Lewis and eventually retired but we still cared enough to pay to watch him. When he came out to fight Jake Paul, he was nearly 60 and whilst Jake Paul, aged 27 got the split decision, plenty of us thought it was rigged and even at “Grandpa” age, Jake couldn’t put him down.

Not everyone is cut out to be a superstar. Some of us are quite happy for a quiet “family” life and it’s good to see that the man who shocked the world is enjoying his quiet life.

However, the story of that fight and what happened provides a lesson. The moral is simple – success can become a problem and defeat can be very instructive. In his book “Undisputable Truth” Mike Tyson puts his defeat down to this – Buster Douglas was training all the way whilst he partied the night before the fight. Douglas lost his title for doing exactly the opposite of what he was doing when he won.

Let’s start with Mr. Tyson. He was at that point considered “unbeatable.” He had everything. Money was “insane” A 90 second fight was a ten million payday. Success in the ring fattened the bank account. It attracted an entourage that expected to be fed and that entourage wasn’t expecting cheap burger meals. Each 90 second destruction was step in establishing that he was indestructible – which meant that there was no need to train. He could party and still beat the other guy. Then he met Mr. Douglas and that changed overnight. After that defeat Mr. Tyson trained like he once did. He went to prison and continued to train. So, by the time he left prison, he was close to his devastating best. That defeat was a wakeup call.

For Mr. Douglas it was an ironically similar story. The man had hit rock bottom. His mum died 23-days earlier and as is often said, rock bottom is the ground is rock solid to head back up. Nobody gave him a chance and so he trained like he never did before and boxed intelligently. He gave his heart and won.

However, when he won, he sat on top of the world. He enjoyed the success and the easy money and by the time he faced the first challenge he was out of shape. Success had clearly taken the edge he had in the Tyson fight. So, you could say that the victory over Tyson was his undoing as much as it was his moment in history.

Success is not permanent. Too many people assume that reaching the top is the pinnacle. They forget that you actually have to stay at the top and that requires the same amount of work if not more that you put in on the way up.

Defeat is also not permanent, especially if you learn from it. Too many people break apart when they taste defeat and they never pick themselves up and slink away. Unfortunately, the path of any form of success will be filled with setbacks. People often quit when they’re on the verge of “making it” because they fell after a setback. 

 

Hiding Problems.

 Ever since I ended up with my current partner, I’ve become a fan of an online cartoon series called “Bubu and Dudu,” a bear and panda couple. Stories are usually around everyday themes in love and romance. I love them because they bring out the “cute” that I find so important to existence.

Anyway, the reason why I mentioned these two characters is because I recently saw a cartoon of them with their tummies talking about how they would avoid the things that would make them fat – things like scales and mirrors.

 

 

 While the cartoon is cute and funny, there’s a serious point – namely the fact that many of us, myself included, work on the premise of “if I don’t know it, it’s not a problem.”

I think of my current obsession with my fitness. As I look back at things, I realise that I was already warned about the possibility of ending up diabetic when I was in my 30s. Never looked at another blood test and continued to eat, booze and sleep badly until I needed to take a blood test to get alopurinol for gout and discovered that my blood sugars were way off and the idea of being sick and by extension broke in my later years suddenly became real. Hence, I’m talking non-stop about eating less carbs and moving more.

What is true of personal health is often also true of finances and business. After a decade in the insolvency business, I’ve run into more than a fair share of cases where there were warning signs that things were about to take a turn for the worse. I’ve actually heard the phrase “he signed blindly” more than once when it comes to people who run what is a seemingly successful business.

So, here’s the thing, one shouldn’t go out of his or her way to read depressing things. However, one should not work on the premise of ignorance being bliss. A problem only vanishes when its actually solved rather than when it is ignored. Hence, individuals should listen to their doctors when they’re told that they have an issue. Business leaders should actually listen to the accounts department when they’re told that certain bills are too high.

If you’re not happy with the way you look, the answer is, work on what you’re not happy about. Hire a personal trainer or stylist. Work on your body and dressing. That sends you on a path to looking better. You will not get better looking better by avoiding the mirror.   

Never Bluff

 

You got to hand it to Donald Trump for having a genius for grabbing attention. As the first full working week of 2026 begins, all of us are focused on the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela by US Special forces over the weekend.

There’s no way of saying this but this was totally illegal and yet totally brilliant. Whatever is said of Mr. Maduro (by no means a candidate for sainthood), he was a sitting Head of State, who had not threatened any of his neighbours in particular. His main mistake was sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves and deciding to sell it to people he wanted to sell oil to. He was effectively kidnapped because he got on the wrong side of the USA and as far as I know, kidnapping is illegal in just about every jurisdiction of the planet.

At the same time, the move was brilliant. The US has now gotten rid of an ally of two of its largest rivals and now has its most meaningful chance to reducing the trade surplus with oil-hungry China by selling it Venezuela’s oil. From an operational perspective, Delta Force (which is modeled on the British SAS) did a brilliant job by capturing Mr. Maduro without a single casualty.

Questions remain. At the time of writing, Mr. Maduro’s vice-president is telling everyone that she’s now in charge, thus contradicting Mr. Trump’s claim that Venezuela is now run by the USA. Then there’s the point that capturing Mr. Maduro is easy, keeping Venezuela steady and reliable less so. If history is anything to go by, Mr. Trump may have opened up a can of worms by taking military action against another country – who is to say that Venezuela won’t end up like Iraq or Afghanistan, which costs the US treasury 20 trillion dollars (larger than the GDP of every country except the USA itself), countless of US lives and only to see the return of the people the initial invasion was supposed to remove.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/nicolas-maduro-captured-who-is-in-charge-of-venezuela-now-trump-says-us-will-run-the-country/articleshow/126330267.cms

 

 

Leaving aside all the possible outcomes, Mr. Trump could not resist “swinging his d***” around. Upon capturing Mr. Maduro, he went onto “threaten” and “warn” other world leaders like Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum to get their act together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNApC_O36AM

 

Leaving aside the legality or even the effectiveness of such threats, there was something noticeable. All the countries mentioned are in what the USA has traditionally felt was its own backyard and more importantly none of them have any capacity to hurt the USA in any form. The USA remains their main market and provider of military hardware and training.

As we talked about Mr. Maduro’s capture, there was another country that did something that should have made itself noticeable but thanks to Mr. Trump didn’t. This country is a “nasty” dictatorship that is now in its third generation and more importantly, it actually has nukes and shown the willingness to use those nukes. That country has happily sold weapons to terrorist groups, attacked America and its allies in cyberspace and via criminal activities like circulating forged currencies. This country has the capability to hurt South Korea and Japan (two US allies that actually create economic benefits for the USA) and whilst nobody doubts the USA could flatten this country, this little country does have the capability to inflict serious damage on parts of the USA before it gets destroyed.

Yet, despite the obvious threat to stability that this country possesses to America and her allies, nobody was even thinking of capturing its leader. If anything, Mr. Kim has been sitting comfortably in North Korea ever since Mr. Trump returned to the White House. As a Singaporean, it was fun to see how Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim went from “d*** swinging” to Mr. Kim becoming the longed-for Asian son that Mr. Trump wished for – and all happened in Singapore.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-test-fires-hypersonic-missiles-kcna-says-2026-01-04/

 

 Why is it such that Mr. Trump and all of his predecessors have been happy to bomb and capture the likes of Saddam and Maduro, but when it comes to the Kim family generations of American presidents have all rushed to “negotiate.”

You could say that part of the reason why North Korea stays around is because it has a big brother in the shape of China. Only time China and the USA went to war was the Korean War – China simply didn’t want an American satellite at its door. However, with China modernizing its economy and filling up leadership vacuums, North Korea becomes something of an embarrassment.

So North Korea looks for an alternative emergency and that is nukes. The Kim family that runs North Korea has seen what happens to dictators that can’t fight back. Saddam got invaded because he “may have had weapons of mass destruction.” Maduro doesn’t have an army that can challenge the USA (nobody does). Noriega didn’t have weapons. Fidel Castro managed to give American training forces a bop on the nose during the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion and Castro ended up dying of ripe old age outlasting eight US presidents.

The lesson is not lost on the Kims of North Korea. International Law is meaningless if the world’s enforcer of such laws decides to go against you. The only way to prevent that is having the means of hurting back. Ironically, this is the very point that American gun control activist has used – small guys no matter how nasty need the means of fighting back should the government go rogue and trample on individual liberties. That point is not lost on the world’s nastiest dictators.   

Snake Bite

 The year is going to end in the next 24-hours and given that I have been strangely busy, I thought I would try and bash out my usual piece to summarise the year. It’s the Chinese Year of the snake, and based on the last snake year (2013), it was similar in substance. In 2013, I had my last great working highlight, which was the IIM Alumni job (IIMPact 2013), where I had the distinct privilege of arranging interviews for Dr. Raghuram Rajan before he became governor of RBI. I would then, end that year with a crisis of dealing with one of my ex-wife’s ventures.

This snake year was slightly different. If 2013 was dealing with a cobra that blessed and bit, this year was more like a subtle grass snake reminding me that I was a very blessed person but also reminding me life has downs as well as ups.

On the surface, it was a pretty darn good year. For the first time since 2006, I actually end the year with assets. Somehow in previous moments of blessings, I never seemed able to hold a dollar. This year, I actually end the year with money in funds that are the seeds to “passive” income. Still need to work for a living but it looks like I might actually be able to afford a bowl of noodles from time to time.

I had the good fortune of regular payouts on top of my weekly pay. Since I am no longer a “property owner,” I actually qualified for a decent amount of government generosity.

It wasn’t just about money. I managed to get seen in the right place with the right people. At the inaugural TMA-Asia Pacific Conference, I actually got to post with the Minister who was giving a speech (In Singapore speak, Ministers are like celebrities):

 

 

Life wasn’t just about being in the right place at the right time or dare I say money. This was a year of travel. The Loveable Pillow got to moving to Johor with her and then decided that we needed to spend a long weekend in Batam, a place that I hadn’t been to for a while. Most interestingly, she got to me to Bangkok, where I managed to catch up with Dad in his home town for a change. Hadn’t been to Bangkok to see him since 2009, when Max flew out to meet us.

 

 You could say I am finding a groove. Life is pretty much about maintaining physical discipline to train. Diabetes ensures that physical fitness is something that is no longer negotiable. Structuring intense exercise into the week, planning meals around training and minimising alcohol are part and parcel of life. As I try to work physical discipline, I also try to work financial discipline. I’m probably past the age of thinking of a great high earning career, but I have an idea of how to put money aside and where to put it. Staying “boring” for the time being. At 51, you realise that frailty is a real part of your life and you shouldn’t allow it to happen to you as far as you can.

So, whilst it looks like I may be finally settling into something resembling normalcy, it looks like I will be missing some important people. My ex-colleague from Citibank, Ms. Dawn Pereira died of a heart attack. She was, 47 at the time of her death. Although I hadn’t spoken to her in years, I’ll always remember her as a wonder bubbly person who could always light up the place with her presence.

The other, was perhaps harder hitting. Bryan Ng Lee Heng or “Bear,” died a week before my birthday. Along with Joe Phua, we formed a trio of “The Short, the Fat and the Bald.” Our army bond made us brothers from different parents. Life made it such that our meetings post army were few and far between. Yet each meeting was special, even if all it was, was meeting for a kopi or kway teow. Like two old men, we’d talk about our partners and kids. Family struggles were a good topic. We often joked about being old grumpy men sitting in a park.

The last time I saw him was in October. He had lost allot of weight and looked weak. Doctors couldn’t tell him why but he did strike an optimistic note, talking about eating wings and drinking beer at Hooters like we did back in the army (something I will have to do in the new year since Hooters is shutting down after three decades). He last visited me in Marine Parade in October. We had kopi and when it was time to go, I got him to take a selfie.

 

 If I had known that this was the last time, I hang with him, I’d have snapped a few more. Whilst he was ill, I’m still missing him. I won’t have a “grumble-buddy” in the old age park. He was a guy who gave him heart and soul to the people he cared for and life is simply emptier without him around. So, whilst I did enjoy a successful year and if you believe in horoscopes, I should have a good one next year, I’ll be doing without the friend who stood by me for so long.

Reality Hits Hard

 

Whatever you think of Jake Paul, you have to give him credit for making boxing interesting again. The YouTube influencer turned boxing professional who uses the moniker “Problem Child” has made himself the guy that everyone wants to see get punched, which in turn gets them to tune in.

You could say that Mr. Paul is a “disruptor,” the type of person that revives his or her chosen field by doing things differently. In the field of sports, the disruptor is inevitably not the greatest player but the greatest showman. The showman stirs emotions and watching him or her in action brings out something within us. The showman is inevitably bigger than the sport. Think of the apparent bitch exchange between Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova, when Ms Hingis said “I beat you so easily,” and Ms. Kournikova replied “But I’m so much more marketable.” Ms. Hingis could win grand slams. Most of us preferred to watch Ms. Kournikova.

Mr. Paul is a showman and for all that has been said about him, he has made boxing very interesting. He’s the living example of the saying that the it’s never the best person who gets the job but the person who sells him or herself best.

However, whilst being able to sell yourself is a vastly overlooked skill, it should never erase from the fact that there needs to be a foundation of competence somewhere beneath the hype. I think of advertising legend Bill Burnbach (the B is DDB) who said “"A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it's bad".

His point was simple; you cannot make people believe a bad product is good – you can only enhance the virtues of a good product. Back when I worked in marketing, I always believed that marketing didn’t begin in marketing but in product development. When they talk about the person who sells him or herself best rather than being the best person, they’re not saying that he or she is “crap” at the job. Yes, Pete Sampras was on record the better player than Andre Agassi, even Agassi was the showman who drew us in to watch tennis. That doesn’t mean that Andre Agassi was a bad tennis player. His record shows that he was up there with the greats.

That’s where Mr. Paul fell short. He is annoying. He compels us to watch boxing but here’s the truth – he’s more of a YouTuber than a boxer. Yes, he did win fights but they were never against people in his age range. Many were retired MMA fighters. Yes, he did beat Mike Tyson in an eight-round split decision but let’s be clear, Mr. Tyson had long retired and close to 60 and not the force that he was in his 20s. Even then, Mr. Paul could only win by split decision (as much as he claims he decided to “go easy.”)

The problem for Mr. Paul was he never really invested in making sure he was ready to be challenged and when he faced Anthony Joshua, things took a painful turn. Yes, there are those who said he finally faced a “real” boxer and a “real” champion and should be respected for that. You can say that he’s made a criminal amount of money. Yet, one has to ask, was he delusional.

Let’s face it, Mr. Joshua is everything his previous opponents was not. He is physically larger (weight classes exists for a reason) and more importantly, he is in the top leagues. He’s a former Olympic Gold Medalist and two times heavy weight champion. You could say that the result was inevitable. Then, when you talk about show Mr. Paul should be credited for lasting six-rounds, one should note that Mr. Paul was constantly on his knees – not exactly the place one expects of a person bravely taking a pounding:

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/20/sport/boxing-jake-paul-anthony-joshua

 

 One would say that Mr. Paul had started to believe his own hype. One has to look at his training videos, where he made his beer belly rather obvious. Ironically, he was like another of his opponents – Mike Tyson, who made the point that he lost to Buster Douglas because he was partying but Douglas was training. The difference is, Tyson had earned his championship and beaten credible opponents like Michael Spinx and Frank Bruno. His “hubris” was based on something. Mr. Douglas was at the time a 42-1 underdog fighting to prove people wrong. As the underdog, Mr. Paul wasn’t even trying to prove a point. By contrast, Mr. Joshua took the fight seriously enough to train.

Let’s look at Mr. Paul’s broken jaw as a reminder that although salesmanship gets you the job, you need to be prepared. You actually need to do the job and have some level of competence. Hype, without the foundation of competence has a way of knocking you down even if it takes a while to hit back and hit hard.

Staple People.

 

It’s been a while since I blogged or sent anyone anything. I’ve been, as they say, tied up and joined the cult of busy. I’ve reached the stage where I stopped taking back my laptop because life is about standing in the office and doing scanning (part of providence job we’re involved in) daily and then doing home.

However, since its Christmas in two days, I thought I’d bash out something to tie my recent activity with Christmas. So, amidst the Christmas festivities, I usually focus on the birth of the man we’re celebrating. The man we call Jesus of Nazareth is attributed with being the source and reason for Christianity. In Islam, he is regarded as one of God’s great prophets. The Dalai Lama calls him a “Boddhisatva.” Leaving aside the subtleties of Christian theology, I believe that we need to keep reminding ourselves of what Jesus wanted.

Which brings me to the point of my current activity – scanning documents for examination. It sounds simple, but turning paper into digital is probably one of the great acts of bridging generations. In theory it sounds simple, you just run a document through a machine and hey presto, you have it in digital.

Sounds simple enough. Sounds like a “no-brainer” task, until you discover the art of wrestling with staples. I’m dealing with accounting records of a construction company, so there’s lots of paper held together by a staple and if you don’t remove a stapler, the entire process of running things into the scanner gets jammed.

 

 On the scale of things, staples are small and insignificant. They do the job of holding things together and nobody really cares about them. They’re annoying bits of metal at times but let’s face it, nobody cares – that is until you miss a hidden one and your efforts to run something through a copier and the entire process gets jammed. The staple suddenly becomes like the joke about the body parts arguing who should be boss until the “a***hole” shuts down and everyone begs the “a***hole” to open up and allow it to be the boss.

Jesus, contrary to what “prosperity theology” teaches you, spoke for the staples of society. He told us that the “least” amongst us would be the “first” in the Kingdom of heaven. Yet, despite all of that, we refuse to listen. We focus on being “important,” and climbing up in the world. We look at sucking up and spending money to impress people we deem as important whilst ignoring those we deem beneath us.

I’ve argued and still that COVID was one of the biggest missed opportunities. We’re rushing back to “normal” without understanding that “normal” was actually screwed up. Big corporate wants us back in the office and we’re so desperate to be part of big corporate that we’re rushing back to comply and be “normal.”

We want to be paper living and doing “important” sounding things and looking like we’re “up there,” which happens to be a place nobody has actually defined. We forget the lesson of COVID, which was this – when the “paper people,” (people like me sitting in an office) were less essential to our well being than the staples (people living in dormitories and clearing our crap.)

We ignore small people because, well, they’re small and we deem them as such. Yet, when they’re gone, we suddenly get jammed. Just look at the average corporation. Everyone loves the sales guys because they “bring in the money.”  Nobody cares about corporate secretarial or compliance – if anything, we find them annoying because they’re asking about this or that piece of paper. Yet, when they go, we get fines and slaps by regulators.

I’m reminded of one of my military instructors, who talked about how fighter gets avoided getting too close to infantry men because “a 30-cent bullet can damage a two-billion-dollar jet).

I get the attraction to glamour. Yet, at Christmas, I would urge all of us to remember the “little people,” or the people doing the “s*** jobs,” because the truth is, these are the guys who hold everything together for us, making our good life possible.

 

 

We Don’t Know What is Really Going on!

 

Especially when the facts are there in front of us.

You got to love the Israeli government’s ability to turn the Western World upside down and pervert every value espoused by the West into a joke. This is a shame because as much as colonialism and imperialism were detestable things, the West (defined as America and Western Europe) have actually led the world in trying to be a better place in the last 50-years. Things like rule of law, rules-based order and human rights were concepts championed by the West.

As a rule of thumb, Westerners (White People) are decent and see indecency better than dare I say, many Asians. In the last sixteen years of running this blog, I find myself getting more understanding from Westerners than Asians when I talk about things like foreign labour. I think of the Englishman who told me, “Your economy is run on slave labour,” and the French investor who talks about “The Slaves” whenever the topic of foreign labour comes up. In Singapore, the general attitude is “It’s better than where they’ve come from.”

There’s one exception that, comes in the case of Israel and its actions against the Palestinian people. In a way, I get it, when it comes from anyone in my parent’s generation. Israel sold itself like an old Western movie, where the cowboys were always the heroes and the Indians were the bad guys. However, this shouldn’t play out for my generation, where things like “international law” and “rules-based-order” were normal. It becomes painful to watch otherwise decent people start defending the indefensible.

We’ve heard the lines. “Israel has a right to defend itself,” and “Hamas shouldn’t have attacked on October 7 2023.” Whilst these arguments are often used, the one that really strikes is “We don’t know what is going on.”

How does one come up with the idea that we don’t know what is going on when things are being played out on TV? As one Irish guy I met said, “You can’t see those kids dying on TV and not feel anything.”

Yet, despite everything being played out on our TV screens, the line “We don’t know what is going on, “continues amongst those who would want us to believe that Israel is fighting a just war in a just manner. The most popular argument is that the media is biased and lies about everything.

Yet, the truth is that the media isn’t the only thing telling us a story of that’s going on. The United Nations, Human Rights’ Commission has stated that Israel is committing a genocide. This being the same body that condemned Russia for committing crimes against humanity, a concept which many Westerners accept as true:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds

Then there’s the issue of the fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu for war crimes. In case one tries to argue that the ICC is riddled with Anti-Semitism and thus irrationally hates Israel, the fact remains the ICC has found both Hamas commanders and Israeli government officials guilty of crimes against humanity.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/11/1157286

 

 

 So, the logical train of thought here is that the ICC has found Hamas commanders to be guilty of criminally starting something and the Israeli government officials to be guilty of waging a war in a criminal fashion. Where exactly is the anti-Israel bias here? Given that America, the world’s preeminent power has sanctioned the ICC as a result of this verdict, the message seems to imply that bias is acceptable as long as its bias in favour of “chosen people.”

Yet, the “we don’t know what’s going on,” debate will ultimately argue that the ICC also doesn’t know what’s going on. So, what can we do?

The answer might be to look at Israel and Israeli organisations themselves. One of them, B’Tselem clearly states that what Israel is doing is called genocide:

 https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20250728_our_genocide

 

 Hard to call B’Tselem anti-Israeli or “antisemitic,” when it is an Israeli organisation. If that was not enough, Genocide Scholars, including Israeli ones are calling it such to an extent that Israel’s foreign ministry has condemned their findings as based on “Hamas Lies.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/genocide-scholars-say-idf-committing-genocide-in-gaza-israel-based-on-hamas-lies/

 

So, how is it such that people still argue “We don’t know what’s going on,” when events are well documented by a variety of globally recognised organisations? Perhaps it’s a case of people will believe what they want to believe regardless of facts. As such, one might say that universities should teach courses on how to make people believe what you want them to believe regardless of the facts.

Do We Actually Make a Difference?

 It’s been something of a surreal week. It started on Tuesday when I had the chance to meet Tom Wright, the investigative journalist who co-authored the book “Billion Dollar Whale,” about the 1MDB saga in Malaysia, which eventually lead to the historical defeat of Najib Razak and the BN coalition that had ruled Malaysia since independence.

 

 

 The week then ended when I received a call from the wife of one of my best friends to inform me that he had died. My friend was what you’d call a “decent” bloke in every sense of the word. Unlike me, he avoided the vices of drinking and women. His life was dedicated to ensuring that his mum, his wife and four kids got what they could out of life. Yet, his reward was a pacemaker in his forties and departure from life just as he entered his fifties.

I think of these two events because, during my meeting with Mr. Wright, he asked me and colleague who was with me, “Do we make a difference?” I think of this question because it’s the basic question of why do we do what we do? Is being a good guy worth it? My friend was a good guy who was devoted to his family yet he died at 51. I’ve known less honourable characters (the type who happily screw over their own kids) who are alive, healthy and doing quite nicely thank you very much.

It’s what you call the frustration of being in the investigation business, where you do a task that’s often dull and yet dangerous. While the criminals have “criminal loot,” the investigators (think people like investigative journalist, forensic accountants, public prosecutors and defenders, whistleblowers and so on), barely get a pat of the back when all is said and done.  

Take Mr. Wright as an example. His book, Billion Dollar Whale, exposed the scam at 1MDB and how a sitting Prime Minister was part of an embezzlement of the Malaysian people. That Prime Minister is now in jail and the party that supported him got thrown out of power but has corruption in Malaysia been lessened? The answer is probably a depressing no.

If you want to take things onto the global stage, there’s the example of Watergate. We celebrated the courage of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in bringing down a president. Yet, we continue to have things like Iran Contra under Regan, White Water under Clinton and now there’s Trump who blatantly oversaw the deaths of a multitude of Americans due to his incompetent handling of Covid.  

Like it or not, does appear that despite the efforts of the “good guys,” the bad guys continue and even thrive. It doesn’t help that the side with more money inevitably has the power to change the goal post.

So, why bother being a good guy when the bad guys seem so many steps ahead? Why bother fighting if you know you’ll end up losing right? Funnily enough I do get that allot from Singaporeans who think that things like protest are pointless (I had people who could not see why Burmese protested the Military Coup or things like Black Lives Matter. Many even tell me I should be grateful for Colonialism.).

The answer is inevitably this – rolling over and accepting bad things leads to worse outcomes. If you allow fraud to take place without trying to stop it, you are inevitably condoning it. If you don’t speak up about genocides against certain people, you are effectively condoning genocide. Now, you could argue that it doesn’t affect me – who cares?

However, as history has shown, a guy who cheats other people will one day cheat you. A guy who thinks of murdering one ethnic group is likely to turn around and start on yours. I go back to my Jewish friend’s observations of his family history and how many Jews in Europe through Hitler didn’t mean Jews like them. You hear allot of the same rhetoric in America from Hispanics who talk about ICE dragging people off the streets as “Its not people like us.” Hitler didn’t mean people like them – until he did.

So, why do we do what we do? I like to think that when we catch crooks and protest tyrants, we do our part to ensure that we don’t rot completely. Think of it as, I do my part to ensure it doesn’t happen to me, which is again, idealistic but the message is there. You are just an individual but you have the power to inspire others and a collective becomes very powerful. People who think, I’m just a nobody so why bother set themselves up to be steamrollered by the scum.