Here’s the Test – Here Are the Answers – Yay, Everyone Scored Full Marks

 

Since I’ve had a piece published on TRemeritus and had had the usual accusation of being part of the PAP Spin machinery, I thought I would start by giving kudos to one of the greatest banding exercises conducted by the Singapore government – namely using the name “Red Dot.” The inventor of the term was Indonesia’s third President, Mr. BJ Habibie, whom allegedly had used it in disparaging manner. We took this insult and turned it into a very successful brand.

I think of this branding exercise because the government recently tried to do something similar, only this time it was an effort to turn a common complaint about the Singapore government into a virtue. The leader of the opposition, Mr. Pritam Singh had coined the phrase “Ownself check ownself” when talking about the government’s disdain for opposition voices. The phrase caught on and is used consistently whenever someone wants to complain about the lack of alternative views in Singapore.

Given that the phrase had gathered something of a following, our minister of health, Mr. Ong Ye Kung, decided that it was time to turn the phrase around to the advantage of the government and so, at an event organized by the Institute of Policy Studies on 13 January 2022, Mr. Ong stated that he believed that “Ownself-check-ownself” as a virtue of the Singapore government. His arguments can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/ownself-check-ownself-virtue-spore-trouble-if-govt-cant-ensure-public-accountability-ong-ye-kung-1789921

 

I will leave the details of his arguments to the more intelligent. However, I will argue that Mr. Ong has a point when he says that there needs to be a system of checks and balances to keep the government of the day fairly honest. Mr. Ong talked about a “non-politicised” civil service, independent organs of state like the auditor general’s office, an independent judiciary and a public service commission that appoints civil servants.

As with many things said by the Singapore government, his claim is backed by the fact that we still rank pretty well in many international comparisons. I’ve often stated that whenever I’ve wanted to complain about things, I get people from the US and Europe looking at me and saying “What are you complaining about?” In a way, Covid amplifies this. Say what you like about the various lock downs and social restrictions but our Covid numbers are a darn sight better than most places, including the world leader in Covid infections and deaths – the USA.

Having said all of that, there are flaws in Mr. Ong’s arguments. The most glaring flaw is that his argument is self-serving. As he promoted “Ownself-check-ownself,” as a virtue, Mr. Ong proceeded to reiterate one of the government’s most used lines – namely the fact that Singapore is too small to have a two-party system.

https://mothership.sg/2022/01/ong-ye-kung-two-party-system-unlikely/

 

Mr. Ong’s argument betrays one of the biggest weaknesses in Singapore’s system – namely the fact that the ruling elite has lost touch with basic laws of nature, which state that in order to survive, species need to evolve and the only way they evolve is when they’re forced to by competition.

The ruling party and its various entities have been using Singapore’s smallness to justify their monopoly on just about everything. A two-party system won’t work because we are small is like saying there can only be one monopoly provider of services because the market is too small for competition (a phrase used when the media duopoly was losing money because they had to compete in each other’s markets).

Mr. Ong’s lack of understanding of the virtues of competition lead to the second major flaw in his argument, namely the assumption that the system will forever be perpetuated by good and wonderful people.

Sure, “ownself-check-ownself” is a virtue if the people running the system have a miraculous way of resisting the temptation of power, money and other external influences indefinitely. Unfortunately, this only happens in Confucian wet dreams.

Interestingly enough, the best reasoning can be found in our education system, where Singapore gets its kids to take O-Levels and A-Levels which aren’t even marked in Singapore. Why do we insist on sending our public exam papers to be marked in the UK despite being independent from the UK after nearly six-decades?

Could it be the fact that this ensures that the exams taken by Singapore’s students have a certain credibility because they’re marked by someone who has no possibility of knowing who our students are and having an interest in them passing an exam? Whatever the reason, we don’t seem to be in a rush to have “ownself-check-ownself” in our education system. Why isn’t anyone suggesting that Singapore is too small for school children to be measured against a common standard set on the global stage?

The other flaw in Mr. Ong’s argument is that he assumes that competition comes about because of size. It doesn’t. It comes about because the monopoly starts to get shoddy and takes its position of dominance for granted. It sees no need to evolve and slowly but surely other players start to form and chip away at the dominant players’ market.

The ruling party needs to look at what happened elsewhere. India’s Congress Party was pretty much THE political party in India. Same was true of the Kuomintang in Taiwan and the PRI in Mexico. These parties were dominant, got stagnant and blown into opposition because they lost touch with the voters, who found someone else who offered them what they wanted.

Ironically, as Mr. Ong was defending “Ownself-check-ownself,” the United Kingdom, was providing an example of what happens when a political party dominates for too long. The Conservative Party, which came into power in 2010 and won election after election, ended up with a Prime Minister who didn’t believe in “ownself-check-ownself” and proceeded to thrown parties in Downing Street while making it illegal for everyone else to have indoor gatherings. Just take a look at the following clips from the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, which are not bastions of liberalism by any means.

https://www.ft.com/content/3e81d26f-2902-458d-bb8c-a36fe6b59ddf ; and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iytKZKm3Jbs

We know that facing competition is healthy. We subject our kids to a competitive education system and measure their success based on exams that are also taken by kids from elsewhere. Nobody tells our kids that they can “ownself-check-ownself,” or that the market is too small for them. So, why the hell are we holding our adults to lesser standards than our kids and why do we think it’s a virtue for our adults to live up to lesser standards?

Sleazy T*** Part II – Or Why You Need to Understand Your PR Advisor isn’t a Trophy Mouthpiece

 

It’s hard not to have sympathy for Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom and the Realms of the Commonwealth. The woman, who will be making history as the first British monarch to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee (70-years) has dedicated her entire life to serving her people. She has avoided giving press interviews or commenting on any of the issues of the day, thus keeping the monarchy as a bastion of political neutrality and more importantly, she’s kept her private life pretty much to herself, thus being the perfect symbol for the nation. At the age of 95, she continues to meet with the Prime Minister of the Day on weekly basis and by all accounts has a very good grasp of what’s going on in both the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth.

Yet, despite her dedicated service to the nation, her children have been something of a letdown. Her heir, Prince Charles was involved in the soap opera of the century with his ex-wife Diana and has a way of voicing his opinions in public, which doesn’t always sit will with the politicians he will be expected to deal with. Her favorite grandson, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, married a TV star and proceeded to leave the family for life as a Champion of Wokedom in California. Now, there’s the story of her second son, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, whom a judge in New York, has decided, should face a legal suite for sexual abuse of a minor. It should have come as no surprise that the Queen had to strip him of his military ranks, patronages and more importantly the “HRH” (His Royal Highness).

It’s this simple, the Queen had no choice in the matter. It was the choice of her favourite child or the institution of monarchy and given her history of service to the institution and the nation, she chose the latter. More details can be found at:

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3163493/calls-prince-andrew-pay-security-bill-lose-dukedom-monarchy-casts

 

 Photo -EPA-EFE

While the Prince has yet to be convicted in a court of law, he’s behaved in a way that has led him to be convicted in the Court of Public Opinion. He has been dangerously loyal to known criminals in the public domain. He has been famously uncooperative with law enforcement and most recently, he tried to hide behind a legal technicality, which failed spectacularly. Try as he might, Prince Andrew will most certainly never be forgotten for the disastrous 2019 interview he gave with the BBC, where he claimed he was unable to sweat because of his experiences in the Falklands War:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtBS8COhhhM

 

 In a sense, its easy to understand where Prince Andrew is coming from. He’s born into a situation where he doesn’t have to worry about how he’s going to pay his bills. However, unlike his older brother, he has no purpose and he is pushed further down the line of succession with each child that his nephews produce. So, I guess you could say he’s bound to get up to some mischief since there’s nothing for him to do.

However, that is actually not true. His older sister, Anne who is even further away from the throne (Anne being born in the era when women only sniffed at the throne when there were no male heirs) is famous for working hard at her royal duties and using her position to do good. She’s also kept her children away from the limelight, thus allowing them to have “normal” lives.

Then there’s the fact that while people might forgive a little mischief, a shifty criminal is a different story and in his PR efforts, the Duke of York has been a walking disaster. This should be a surprise because when you are born into the Royal Family, you are born with the very idea that your very existence depends on public goodwill and that goodwill comes from having a good working relationship with the media.

You would imagine that PR savvy is part of the territory of being in the public eye 24/7 and if you are not by nature, PR savvy, you have the means to hire the best. In places where the press is paid to dig and ask questions, being able to mange PR is essential for public figures.

Whatever is said of the institution of monarchy around the world, many of the world’s royals have become media savvy. Princess Diana was exceedingly good at it (even if she moaned about how the paparazzi made her life miserable). Amongst the Gen X monarchs, one of the best in King Abdullah of Jordan, who has cultivated an image of a dynamic “warrior.” Then there’s the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum and the Prince Azim of Brunei who have become social media stars.

https://www.businessinsider.com/king-abduallh-of-jordan-is-a-total-badass-2015-2

 

  The comparisons in his own family and with other monarchs around the world, make Prince Andrew’s lack of PR savvy worse.

Let’s face it, one of the golden rules in PR is to tell your story first. If you tell your story first, you’re more likely to come across as being upfront and honest. You also set the other side of the defensive when you get tell your story first.

Then, there’s the issue of “appearing” confident and credible. Now, there are people who are natural on television. If I look at the people I’ve worked with, one of the best is the chairman of Apex-Avalon, Mr. Girija Pande, who relishes live TV interviews. In all of his interviews, Mr.Pande has come across as exceedingly knowledgeable and dynamic interview subject.

However, there are people, particularly in the local Singapore corporate scene, who are not comfortable with live television. I’ve had clients who were very specific about keeping their interactions to the print media.

The other thing is that you need to know your audience when engaging the media. Think of every media interview as having a chat with a mate.

You would have believed that Prince Andrew would have had the type of people who would have understood these basic facts. However, as seen from the BBC interview, he did not. So, who was on the team that allowed him to screw himself on live TV?

Well, it turns out that the PR consultant was quashed by a gang who were more interested in helping the prince hide from the news than in making the news:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10384053/Prince-Andrews-expensive-team-advisers-including-solicitor-nicknamed-Good-News-Gary.html

The actual PR advisor, who got overruled, could have saved him a lot of grief. However, when you would rather take advice from someone called “Good News” rather than “News” it shows that you are not living in reality because all you hear is the stuff you want to hear rather than the stuff you need to hear.

It goes without saying that his actual PR advisor quit after the disaster of the BBC interview.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2019/11/17/prince-andrews-pr-adviser-reportedly-quit-over-jeffery-epstein-bbc-interview/?sh=2bfa40ec777f

Anyone who wants to be a public figure, needs to understand that they need to have a degree of control on things. They need to understand that the media’s job, as was so eloquently put by Fox News host, Neil Cavuto is to “Cover them” not to “Fawn” over them. Survival depends on communicating with the public via the media. PR advisors are not expensive trophies but a necessary part of survival.

Pitchforks

 

The great story on the 11^th day of 2022 concerns a car and a school. A Bentley driver was denied entry into a school because his car did not have the permit to enter. Instead of parking outside and trying to walk into the school, the driver of the said Bentley decided to ram his way into the school even though the security officer was standing in front of the car. A more complete report of what happened and has happened since can be found at:

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/moe-probe-bentley-driver-security-officer-red-swastika-075610443.html

 

This story could not come at a worse time for the government, as people worry about their livelihoods due to the uncertainty caused by Covid restrictions. The stark image of a very rich person (the Bentley is not cheap wherever in the world you are – it’s particularly expensive in Singapore where there are all sorts of costs to car ownership to ensure Singapore’s car owners pay at least three times what everyone else pays) trying to mow down a vulnerable person (security officer in Singapore is seen as a job of last resort) could not get any worse. This very image must have been particularly tough for a government that has struggled in recent memories to prove that it isn’t “anti-poor.”

Singapore has never been the most equal of places. We were set up to be a trading port by the British and many of our forefathers came to Singapore for the sole purpose of making their fortune. Most remained in poverty but a few great fortunes were made. Singapore is one of the great success stories of modern capitalist economy and if you dig deep enough, we were the example of a place where the rich got richer and the poor also got richer. Inequality was never an issue until recently. Why was that?

I believe that one of the key issues of inequality is not so much the disparity of wealth but the disparity of power. Its relatively easy to accept that if I am a truck driver, I am going to earn significantly less than the owner of the trucking company I work for. Its relatively easy to accept that because the other chap has more money than me, he’s going to have certain advantages in life. For example, I will go to the polyclinic and government hospitals whilst he will go to a private one. His kids will probably have a head start over mine because his wealth allows him to send them to elite schools. However, I accept that because that’s the way things are and if things turn out well, my kid could end up owning the truck company and his could end up driving trucks for mine.

What people find harder to accept is a situation where the rich don’t play by the same rules. The analogy is simple – think of someone ridding a two-cylinder moped everyday getting a speeding ticket but seeing the cops ignoring the Ferrari speeding past him every day. What makes this particularly hard for many people is the fact that this situation has been “intellectualized” into the national fabric. The intellectual argument is that because the Ferrari drivers have more money to spend on their vehicles, they are making the roads better for the rest of us and so, we need to give the Ferrari drivers some leeway and flexibility when it comes to enforcing the rules. Sure, I expect the Ferrari driver to pass me on the road, he’s in a Ferrari and I’m in a moped. However, I do expect the cops to enforce the same speed limits on the Ferrari as they do on me.

Now, in this case the Bentley driver has been arrested for obvious criminal behavior and the Minister of Education, Mr. Chan Chun Sing had a field day slamming the Bentley Driver for “unacceptable” behavior. One can only ask – what else could the police and the minister do. This was as they say, a little too obvious and any sign of the Bentley driver would get the pitchforks coming out.

However, one can argue that the Bentley driver got the idea that he could push his way despite the obvious rules, from the fact that there has been a growing example of proverbial Ferrari drivers being allowed to speed past the traffic police. Let’s start with National Service, the supposed “great equalizer” of Singapore. Here you have the concept of the “White Horse” system where sons of the famous are, in the words of Mr. Cedric Foo “Marked out so as to ensure nobody gives them special treatment.” I think one of a national service colleague who had been “disrupted” from an earlier batch who had admitted that he never did a single push up as punishment during his basic military treatment. Why was that? Well, he belonged to a “scholar platoon” that had been marked out to prevent “preferential” treatment. The chap got himself posted out quickly when he noticed that the guys in the unit were actually expected to do physical work.

There was TT Durai, who wrote his own appraisals, awarded himself a generous bonus and got the board of directors to sanction them at Singapore’s largest charity. For committing what most people would consider fraud, Mr. Durai was told to quietly sit in jail for three months and was then given an equally lucrative job in Dubai.

Then we can look at our policy on drugs. We proudly tell the world that we are strict and it works. We hang traffickers no questions asked. It’s just that by some coincidence, the traffickers are inevitably dark-skinned people from “s***hole” countries or countries that don’t protest when we hang their citizens.

There was Dr. Waffles Wu, cosmetic surgeon who actually got someone to take the fall for something that he did and despite the outcry, the Dr. Wu remained as free as a bird.

Let’s go back to the outbreak of Covid and our initial circuit breaker in 2020. The government could not move faster than to subsidise the people who had grown rich by housing people in Covid causing conditions and the only real benefit for the victims was a few noises of sympathy and they were then confined to the same places where the disease had spread. 

Not long after, we had the Parti Liyani case where the police were quick to lock up a maid earning less than $1,000 a month because her multimillionaire boss didn’t want to pay her for illegally giving her more work. If it were not for a dedicated lawyer working pro-bono, the police and the attorney general’s office

In fact, the only time where a rich person seems to get hit by the rules is when they have the audacity to take on anyone richer. I think of Dr. Susan Lim who sent a S$12 million bill for devoting her entire $30 million a year practice to the care of a single patient from Brunei for over four years. What was Dr. Lim’s sin in the issue? She sent a big bill to the one patient on the planet who could afford it. Somehow that was wrong and Dr. Lim, who managed to keep a woman with stage four cancer alive for four years, lost her medical license.

These instances of their own are isolated instances and I guess you could say the things that could happen anywhere in the world. However, if you start to look at them in a pattern, you can’t help but get the impression that there is a set of rules for the guys who are in the proverbial Ferraris and for guys in the mopeds on life’s proverbial roads. Are we surprised that the 61-year-old Bentley driver thought he was untouchable because, well he was a Bentley and how dare the plebs expect him to follow the rules?

You don’t need a situation like in China where all the Ferrari drivers are being made to drive with tires of three wheels. However, you don’t need a situation like in India or America where the Ferrari drivers are lifted off the road by the guys on mopeds so that the guys in the Ferraris don’t need to face on coming traffic.

What you do need is for the rules to be applied fairly. The guys in the Ferrari’s and the guys in the mopeds can co-exist on the same road as long as the rules are there and applied as they should be applied.

  

Can’t You See I’m Busy? (Doing What is another matter).

 I make no secret of the fact that I dislike being in an office. In the years that I’ve been around the work force, the least productive moments were inevitably away from an office. From what I’ve noticed, offices are places where counterproductive people gather to hinder others to justify their sense of superiority regardless of whether their actions benefit the organization they are working for.

This can be put down to what I’ve called the “Cult of Busy,” where people become so busy with their station in life that they don’t actually do anything. Being busy is no longer about having a lot of things to do but about showing people how important you are. This cult like worship of busy is particularly bad in bureaucracies, where profit and loss are a minor part of the organisation’s purpose and unfortunately, small time enterprises are not immune from this symptom either. This is particularly in enterprises where the entrepreneur has reached a stage where the enterprise needs a few employees and the presence of those employees serves more as a boost to the founder’s ego rather than to get work done.

What happens when you get an enterprise that is part of the cult of busy? Well, you end up with a situation where very little actually gets done or whatever gets done is actually the arse covering work rather than the actual work.

This was brought home to me when I had to post some letters and walked past an escalator, which was not functioning.

 

 It was clear that whoever was in charge had covered their behinds by ensuring that the public knew that “maintenance works” were in progress. However, there was no maintenance work taking place at all. This was at around four in the afternoon, which is a time when people can still do maintenance work. Yet, there was not a soul in sight and the escalator in question hadn’t been touched at all.

This is, unfortunately, not the only time I’ve seen a sign for maintenance work put up without any visible sign of maintenance work actually being done.

How does the cult of busy fit in? Well, if you were to call up the people in charge of the situation, there is a good chance that you will find yourself being put through a very long line of options before you get to speak to someone who might pretend to attend to the issue of hand. The best part is that the busy people hiding behind a million options don’t have direct phone lines or emails, so should you require them again, you have to go through the whole process again. One of the worst offenders of such modern efficiency are our local telcos, who have lots of physical shops where you can buy phones and phone lines but have no ability to solve basic issues – you have to call the hotline. You’re left wonder what exactly the people in the shops doing?

One of the best or worst examples of the cult of busy was the Land Transport Authority (LTA). During the pandemic, they made it clear that they would not entertain anyone at their headquarters unless they had made an appointment. However, to make an appointment with the officer I needed to see, I needed to go through a hotline and common email. Somehow the best you could do was to wait for the officer to receive the message that you had called or emailed the hotline but because the officer in question was so busy, I ended up having to go to their headquarters to demand to see him. Even then, I was informed that the security guards didn’t have the access to the officer inside the building they were guarding. They had to call the hotline.

We live in an age where most things can be done with a push of a button. Part of the reason for this high level of development was done to save us time. I do most of whatever research I do on a laptop. Thanks to Google, I just search for things and filter through what I need. Process can take me a few hours. In the days before the internet, I would have had to spend days in a library or even interviewing people.

Yet, despite all these advances to save us time, we’re finding ways to become busier. Instead of freeing us up to focus on getting the job done, we find reasons not to do the job. Posting letters for example can be a very strenuous task when you involve “busy” people.

If Covid has done anything for us, it should be to show us how valuable our time is. Instead of trying to return to “normal” of being busy for the sake of being busy, let’s refocus and look at how we can finish the job in the quickest possible way. Let us fix the damn escalators instead of focusing on telling people that the escalators are under maintenance. If we do that, we might actually make progress and be the smart futuristic city that we’re claiming to be.  

God Save the Queen – From her Son

 

Lads can be a lot of fun – however, just because you can relate to the guy doesn’t mean you should want him running things

Now that Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of sex trafficking, the single most pressing question on everyone’s lips is whether she will go quietly or whether she’s going to spill the beans on some of the most powerful people around. The most prominent name on the list is Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who is also the second and reportedly favorite son of Queen Elizabeth.

The Duke of York is what you’d call the Covid-Virus of British Diplomacy. Whilst he’s not in the direct line for the British Throne, he is a prominent member of the royal family or at least one of the ones that makes the news. As such, everything he says or does is open to public scrutiny. Both monarchy and government are screwed by whatever he does. Nobody is quite sure what will come up should he stand trial and his avoidance of court makes it look like he’s being protected because of his status.

Prince Andrew has also not helped himself. Nobody will ever forget his infamous interview with the BBC on the matter where he appeared shifty and guilty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtBS8COhhhM

 

 The nicest thing you can say about him is that his infamous remarks about his inability to sweat due to his time in the Falklands War have created lots of jokes on the internet. He has become the living example of “deadwood” in business case studies:

https://ianwhitworth.net/how-to-spot-the-deadwood-in-your-business/

 

To be fair to the Duke of York he isn’t the only royal in history to have been a problem. The Queen got her job because her uncle abdicated the throne to marry a divorcee and he was known to be a Nazi sympathizer Her sister, the late Princes Margaret was as colourful as she was dutiful. Nobody can forge the scandals that Prince Charles got involved in over his affairs with Camilla Parker Bowels (now is wife). He was, as my Finnish friend reminded us, “The weird man who kicked a beautiful blonde out of his bed for an old hag.” The said Beautiful Blonde, Diana, Princes of Wales also had no qualms actively portraying the Royal Family as wealthier version of EastEnders and that activity has now been passed onto her latest daughter-in-law who is on a mission to remind us how “unwoke” the Royal Family is.

However, whilst all these previous scandals were “embarrassing” they were not actually criminal. Sure, nobody wants their intimate conversations out in the public domain. It’s humiliating for people to know your ambition is to be your girlfriend’s tampon but its not criminal. Wondering about your grandchild’s skin tone might show you up to be out of touch – but it isn’t criminal.

Having sex with an underaged girl who has now made a case that she was trafficked into having sex with you, is, unfortunately for the Duke York, a criminal offense. It’s called “statutory rape” and in the hierarchy of crimes, it ranks somewhere near the bottom.

Prince Andrew as is reported, seems to be unaware of the problem that he is. The royal family have seen to it that he has stepped back from Royal Duties (effectively told to disappear). It’s been reported that the person pushing out of the limelight is his brother, the Prince of Wales, who is pushing to have a slimmed down monarchy:

https://pagesix.com/2021/04/28/prince-charles-is-making-sure-prince-andrew-stays-out-of-public-eye/

However, whilst the Prince of Wales has become more active in the running of the monarchy, he is still not yet the monarch and it is said that his mother continues to have a lot of affection for him. As my mother once said, “A mother’s natural instincts are to protect her children no matter how awful they are:”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9989621/Queen-wont-overrule-Prince-Charles-plan-Prince-Andrew-away-public-duties.html

Whilst it’s clear that the Prince has become “deadwood” for the Royal Family, its actually not that long ago when he was regarded as the fun-loving, relatable one, a little like his nephew, Prince Harry. Unlike his brother, Prince Charles, he was relatable (who do you think makes better company – the guy who talks to plants or the guy who chases skirt?) and unlike his younger brother, Prince Edward, who dropped out of the Royal Marines and got into the theater, Prince Andrew was a “real man” who had a real military career, including active service in the Falklands War (nothing puffy about “Randy-Andy”).

He was, in many ways, the story book prince, who cut a dashing figure in his military uniform.

 

Which girl wouldn’t fall for a handsome prince? – Copyright, The Daily Mail

Unfortunately, like his nephew, the fun, loveable phase didn’t last very long. Harry has evolved from a loveable rogue into a “woke-twat,” who spends his time bitching about how hard he has it because he’s not getting perks of being in the monarchy since he stepped back from being an active-duty royal.

Prince Andrew, however, has become something worse. He’s evolved from handsome prince into a sleazy, entitled old man who refuses to give back. Randy-Andy, who was a loveable rogue became “Airmiles Andy” who saw no problem with jetting around the world at the tax payers’ expense (Unlike his older brother who has always felt the need to justify his existence and as was highlighted in 1992, he alone of the Royal Family handed over a portion of his income earned independently of the tax payer to the government’s coffers, even though he was under no legal obligation to pay tax).

 

 The handsome prince got a little too used to the high life and never questioned if his friends were good for him.-Copyright The Straits Times

If you leave aside the issues with their respective wives, Charles was the “boring-strange” one who was actually using his “privileged” status to ensure that the less privileged would actually have a better shot in life. The Prince’s Trust is one of the more active organisations in the United Kingdom doing good for poor people:

https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/

 

 Andy was the fun one who grew to believe that it was his right to party at other people’s expense. If he wasn’t being funded by his mother or the tax payer, he found dodgy friends who were willing to pay for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/16/questions-persist-over-how-prince-andrew-funded-luxury-lifestyle

Whatever is said of Prince Charles, you cannot fault him for trying to use his position to make life better for people The same cannot be said for Andrew and in a funny way, he is the person proving his brother right in as much as there is a need to slim down the monarchy.

The best part is the fact that the man seems unable to recognize the problems he caused or the crap that he’s in. He’s been relieved of all royal duties for a good reason. Yet, he chooses to start a row about wearing an admiral’s uniform at his father’s funeral. Why do that?

In way, the person who shoulders the most blame is the Queen, who has worked tirelessly for her people. Her fault came from a good place – the desire to be the mother that she wasn’t with her older children, as is reported below:

https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a35093734/the-crown-prince-andrew-queen-elizabeth-favorite-child/

Still, there’s so much you can blame on a person’s parents. The man is 60 and he’s got access to all the advice that he can get. Surely, you’d imagine that he would be able to sort his own mess out by now? His siblings seem to have managed?

 

Handsome Prince Liked to Party too Much and Now He’s a Sad Old man – Copyright Hello

There’s nothing wrong with being a “party-boy” or hanging out with “party-boys.” However, there comes a moment when you got to notice if the party boys are willing to clean up after the party is over. If you notice that the party boy only wants to party and expects you to clean up the crap, its time to move on and find actual friends.

Freak Elections

 

This time last year (January 6, 2021) the world was treated to the sight of hundreds of people storming the Capital Building in Washington DC. America’s Congress came under attack and its legislators were forced to flee.  However, unlike September 11, 2001, the attack on the US Capital was not the work of a “Mad Freedom Hating Muslim” extremist hiding in the caves of Afghanistan. The attacks were committed by Americans, who were for the records, mostly the ones of European decent (You could say they were as mainstream as it gets).

Like the terrorist who flew the jets into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon, the people who attacked the capital had a grievance.  They believed that they had been robbed because the candidate they had voted for, former US President Donald Trump, had lost. As far as they were concerned, this was a fraudulent and freaky election and something had to be done about it:

 

Copyright Aljazeera – This is what happens in S***hole countries  

For a world used to America as a global champion of competence, these images were shocking. From 15 December 1788 onwards, America had been the global example of how to transfer power peacefully. Elections were held. The winner celebrated but more importantly, the loser conceded peacefully. As with the case of the 2000 election, disputes were settled through the court system rather than through mob violence.

In very simple terms, it was news when Goodluck Jonathan handed over power peacefully to Muhammadu Buhari after losing the 2015 election in Nigeria because it had never happened before. However, this was not Nigeria (a country which the then President labeled as an S***hole) but America. Nobody should have imagined that a losing candidate would ever “not concede” when the results were clear (Fox News was very clear that there was no evidence of voter fraud despite what Fox Commentators were trying to tell them) let alone bring the mob into the picture.

I will leave a more detailed discussion on what happened a year ago to the better qualified. I will however, argue that the then occupant of the White House had presented his case to his base of voters that his losing would be a “freak” election. His case was simple – it was inconceivable for him to lose in normal circumstances and any “freak” result would be the result of some nefarious plotting and therefore bad.

Now, here’s the interesting question, how would Mr. Trump get the idea of painting any election defeat as a “freak” and therefore bad event? Well, I guess many things are going to be said about Mr. Trump, but I will argue that there is a possibility that the great snake oil salesman got his ideas from a self-appointed Chinese sage who was enjoying a second career as an international consultant on how to build a nation.

Back in 2008/2009, Mr. Lee actually raised the possibility that military intervention might have been necessary in the event of a “freak” election which would see the People’s Action Party (PAP) lose power. Whilst were noises of discontent on the ground, Mr. Lee’s party was in no danger of losing power and even with the loss of four seats in the 2011 election, his party’s dominance remains absolute by most standards.

Furthermore, Singapore along with Malaysia remained unusual for the region because both nations had a history of keeping out politics. Singapore’s selling point to the foreign investor community was the fact that power was decided by the ballot box rather than by the generals unlike say Thailand, Indonesia or Burma.

So, why would Mr. Lee who had done so much to “sell Singapore” to the foreign investor community raise the specter of something that had never happened before? Was it even possible for the military to play a role in politics? An analysis of the specter of military intervention can be found at:

http://kentridgecommon.com/military-action-in-the-event-of-a-freak-election-result-a-contemplation-of-such-a-scenario/  

Mr. Lee did distance himself from the specter of military intervention when questioned about it by the author Catherine Lim. He even mentioned that the system did provide “opposition” parties with every opportunity to succeed and even mentioned that if the PAP deserved to lose because it got incompetent or corrupt, it would deserve to lose.

A more comprehensive report on Mr. Lee’s remarks can be found in the following report:

https://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20090904-165691.html

Whilst the 2 September 2009 remarks did distance Mr. Lee from raising specter of the possibility of military intervention, it was very clear that he believed that a “freak” election result meant “non-PAP” government and the automatic assumption was that it would inevitably be incompetent – as was very clear in his remarks several months earlier:

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2008/06/27/lky-one-freak-election-result-is-all-it-takes-to-wipe-spore-out  

As a rule of thumb, Singapore’s elections are as certain as death and taxes. The electorate has shown that it does want the government run by the PAP but it wants the government to understand that it is ultimately responsible to the electorate. So, for years, the electorate kept Mr. Low Thia Khiang in Hougang and Mr. Chiam See Tong in Potong Pasir despite the best efforts of the government to unseat them. However, in 2011, the electorate showed that even with two unshakeable opposition politicians, the PAP wasn’t listening to its bosses and so, they sacked the PAP team in Aljunied and gave Mr. Low’s Worker’s Party the seeds of being an actual effective opposition voice.

What happened? Once again, much has been said about the 2011 election but what is clear was that whilst the people still respected Mr. Lee as an elder statesman, they were tiered of the “self-serving sermons.” A party that had done so much to build the nation should have remembered that the way to ensure that a “freak” election would no happen would be by ensuring that the voters would never have a reason to create one. Scaring voters with talk about a “freak” election backfired because instead of focusing on why one would take place, they focused on the negatives of what would happen if they were not in power.

In all fairness, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew did many good things for Singapore and it was good that he was able to share much of his wisdom with the world. His success in the shape of a shinning Singapore was his calling card. However, while it is ironic, if Mr. Lee’s greatest contribution to the world might come from his last disappointment where politicians get the idea that scaring voters away from kicking them out of power backfires, thus forcing them to do their jobs to ensure that the voters will not have a reason to remove them.

The Miracle of Laughing at Yourself

 

A few days after writing about the friendship between the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, (As it Should Be) I received a lovely snippet of the interaction between these two old men from my mother. The video clip is below:

 

What becomes very clear about the relationship is that the friendship between the two men is genuine and if you forget the fact that both men (or in the case of the archbishop was) were very old (over 80) and representing two different faiths, you would imagine that they were school boys or at least trying to relive their school days. They spend a good portion of the clip ribbing each other in the way that only real friends can (think of the way that they both call each other mischievous and when asked about how they see death, the archbishop says that the Dalai Lama doesn’t worry because he can always reincarnate).

The banter and the obvious pleasure that they take in each other’s company is part and parcel of what makes these men so great. Both the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama fought for their respective people against forces that were far more “powerful” in the material sense of the word and have not only survived but become glorified as a result.

Like it or not, we live in a world where might is inevitably right. Why, for example, does the world turn a blind eye when American troops march into Middle Eastern countries? Does anyone seriously think that the world is actually going to do anything meaningful about China’s mistreatment of its ethnic minorities? The answer is obvious – nobody is going to risk getting on the wrong side of the big elephant of geopolitics.

We can talk all we want about “World Order” and the “Rules based System,” but when the elephants want to do something that contravenes the rules, nobody is going to stop them. American military and economic protection are often vital to the survival of nations. Being able to access the Chinese market and getting Chinese investment are increasingly vital to nations too, so damn the rules-based system because, might is inevitably right. As Stalin is reported to have once said when talking about the Pope – “How many divisions does the Pope have?”  Apartheid was brought to an end for a simple reason – nobody wanted to deal with a rogue regime on the Southern tip of Africa. Unfortunately for Tibetans and Uighurs, China is an economic powerhouse and its military is getting stronger. Even American Presidents keep conflicts with China to the verbal.

However, whilst might (military and economic) counts, its not everything and simple morality has a way of twisting the mightiest of beings and showing up their limits. Let’s remember, India got its independence from the Empire that the sun never set on because “A hundred thousand Englishmen cannot rule 300 million Indians, if the Indians simply refuse to be ruled.” Whilst Indian independence was not free of violence, it was actually remarkably peaceful.

Both Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have become figures of reverence because they were willing to take on the far more powerful adversaries without turning nasty. These men are like Aikido masters in combat in as much as they are the non-aggressive guys who make a mockery of their more powerful adversaries (it pains me to admit it as a former karate student, but Aikido masters have a way of making mockery of Karate techniques).

Take the Dalai Lama is an example. Whilst he is acknowledged as the leader of the Tibetan government in exile, he is to all intents and purposes a refuge. Whilst his circumstances are better than the average refugee, you could argue that his actual geopolitical clout is zero. Yet, he is regarded as one of the great modern-day saints. Part of his stature is due to the fact that he is who is. However, another part of his stature is due to his “opponents” in the Communist Party in the People’s Republic of China. If there’s anyone whom the Chinese Communist Party hates more than the any particular democratically elected president of Taiwan, it is the Dalai Lama, whom they’ve gone so far as to describe as a “Wolf Wrapped in Monks Cloths.”

On paper, the Chinese have won hands down. Geographic Tibet is theirs. Thanks to mass migration, native Tibetans are now a minority in their own country. Tibetans have reached a stage where they not only a minority but an annoying minority in their own country. China has money and as mentioned earlier, not even American Presidents will take their “conflicts” with China between the talk stage. More importantly, the Dalai Lama no longer calls for “independence” for Tibet but for “autonomy” within the People’s Republic (a case of – since you call us “autonomous,” give us real autonomy).

So, on paper, China is winning. However, despite its apparent victory, the Dalai Lama has uncanny ability to annoy China’s leadership. If China is a school yard bully, the Dalai Lama is the annoying kid that gets smacked down but bounces us to continue annoying you. The best part is that his ability to annoy is based on nothing more than an ability not to be intimidated. Just look at this interview he gave to the comedian John Oliver as an example of how the Dalai Lama is the living example of “Word never hurt me.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLY45o6rHm0

 

 Let’s go back to Stalin’s “How many divisions does the Pope have.” You have the Dalai Lama with no divisions (even as an independent country, the Tibetans never really have an army to speak of) and you have President Xi Jinping, who is China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. President Xi commands the world’s second largest economy, and the world’s largest army, which is getting ever more advanced. Yet it’s the guy with no divisions to speak of, who sits down with an interviewer who calls him “arrogant” at one stage who is scaring the guy with so much more. President Xi, despite all his power (rated in the top three of the world’s most powerful people year after year) bans “Winnie the Poh” from China because someone on the internet said he looked like Winnie.

How badly has China’s almighty machine been scared? Well, as John Oliver argues, its at a stage where they’re trying to create knock off lamas the way they create knock off handbags. Given that they Dalai Lama is at an age where dying is an expectation, they CCP is going to the ridiculous stage of trying to control the reincarnation – or to get the Dalai Lama beyond the grave. Just look at the following link:

http://m.tibet.cn/eng/culture/tibetan/201512/t20151203_5775742.html

The nail got a good whack on the head in 2016 when the Chinese Communist party went and decried the Dalai Lama for disrespecting …. wait till you hear it – “Buddhist Tradition as seen in the following report from the Daily Mail.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3512583/High-ranking-Chinese-official-says-Dalai-Lama-making-fool-Buddhism-suggested-reincarnated-bee-mischievous-blond-girl.html

 

 The irony being that he managed to turn a Communist regime which is set up on the premise of destroying anything resembling the supernatural into a defender of the belief in reincarnation.

Think about it, this old man has got under the skin of one of the most powerful regimes on the planet in a way that no one else has by not taking them too seriously and in the process making them look ridiculous.

Think of the Stephen King novel and movie “It” where the kids finally defeat the alien monster by laughing at it. Nothing else worked except laughter.

Nothing hurts a bully more than ridicule. The China-Dalai Lama is one example. In the Western World one of the most prominent forces in keeping the powerful in check has been comedians, as was most prominently underscored during the Trump Administration had a field day.

Nothing exposes weakness more than the inability to laugh at one’s self. I think of Singaporean politicians who become so in love with being politicians that they sue at anyone who “hurts” their feelings. The only beneficiaries being the lawyers and newspapers. Why does the machinery of state need to be involved in solving hurt feelings? How strong are you if you need to bring so much money and power to get over having your feelings hurt? BY contrast, the man who can laugh at himself can take on the world.

Time to Remove the Cult of Busy

 

It’s the second day of the year and I’m about to start work tomorrow. Unfortunately, it looks like Singapore will, in the new year, aim towards getting people back to the office and the concept of nine-to-six will be back. I describe this is an “unfortunate” event because everyone else will be celebrating the “return to normal,” when the fact of the matter was that normal was actually unnatural and instead of using the pandemic to create a new and more sustainable normal, we’ve merely been trying to ride things out so that things could get back to normal.

I make no secret of the fact that I detest the office as an institution. The very thought of sitting in an office, looking at files and attending meetings fills me with a powerful sense of self-loathing.  If we are truly honest with ourselves, we will realise that the office is a place for the worst forms of social congregation masquerading as a place of work. If I look at my own experiences, I have achieved nothing note worthy in an office. Everything that I take pride in was done when I was a freelancer. If I am honest, the only thing I achieved in seven years of an office job in the financial district was not ramming my forehead into the noses of the species that thrives in an office.

One of the things I detest most about the office and all things associated with the office is the fact that they are part of a cult – namely the “Cult of Busy.” This is an insane cult which worships “being busy” as if it were the be all and end all of existence.

Now, I have nothing against being busy. If you look at certain things like the activity on a ship or an aircraft, you’ll realise that being busy is a good thing. It genuinely requires a lot of activity to keep a ship moving at sea or a plane moving in the air. In the restaurant, being busy was a good thing because it meant that you had plenty of customers, which meant that there was revenue coming in for the day and that in turn means that the boss has the money to pay your salary.

What I’m against, is when “busy” becomes a cult. This particularly rife in the professional fields like law and accountancy where staff are expected to work 12 hours a day and 365 days a year. Now, to an extent, this is understandable. If you are a lawyer going for trial, you do need to prepare vast amounts of documents and quite often, it’s the juniors who have to pull “all-nighters” because its part of the learning curve.

However, you know something is wrong when people whom you would assume are capable of intelligence start bragging about the hours they put in and how they don’t sleep and don’t have time for other facets of life. If you walk around any given office, you’ll find that the one who gets praised is the guy who comes in “early” and leaves “late.”

I admit that I was part of this cult. My first job for a small agency worked me 24/7. Ex-wife hated it and threw regular tantrums. I loved the job. Saw a great future and threw myself into the 24/7 cult believing that I would grow as a professional and a person. To be fair to my ex, she actually had a point. After five months on the job, I quit because I reached a stage where I could no longer string a sentence when writing copy and I lost the ability to service clients properly.

However, I was proud of my ability to “work the hours,” that I actually mentioned it in the interview when I was offered a two-week internship at RappCollins DDB. The reply from the boss was “That’s great because sometimes we can get insanely busy but I’m more interested in the work in the hours rather than the hours you work.”

Those words of wisdom have stuck with me. When I left the agency world to be a freelancer at the end of 2005, I suddenly appreciated that many of my “busy” hours were actually wasted. As a freelancer I tried to move away from billing for my time and charging for the results that I achieved because I had no name and therefore my time had no value, so I had to show the world that I could get results. For the record, I still believe that you should charge for results rather than time spent.

When I entered the semi-legal profession of liquidations, I started becoming “busy” again. It was important to be busy because revenue was dependent on being busy. Time-sheets were a mantra of being “professional.” I remember a lawyer from a big firm telling me, “Spending time is not a problem for us – time is what we sell you.”

That truism is one of the biggest issues with “professionalism.” Instead of encouraging “professionals” to solve problems, it encourages the “professional” to blow problems out of proportion because, as this lawyer pointed out – they are selling you their time rather than their expertise. “Professionals” are not experts who can achieve better outcomes than a client but very busy people.” Since they’re paid to be busy, they become good at being busy.

What nobody questions whether that “busy” is actually going towards achieving the outcome that the client needs. So, you have a situation where people brag about how many hours, they spent in the office rather than what they actually do.

For me, the productivity killing powers at the office or the church to the cult of busy were reinforced by the lock down in April 2020. I managed to produce things free of interruptions, ego management and the challenges of having the post letters. I’ve done my best to avoid entering the office since then and avoid any opportunity to brag about being busy because as long as I was out of the office, I actually managed to do things. As someone on Linkedin pointed out:

 

 Normal wasn’t healthy and in an age where we have advanced so far, there is no reason to be stuck at the Church of the Cult of Busy. We have the necessary tools to be productive at work and still have time for the important things in life. Isn’t time we stopped being slaves to a pointless cult?

Will a Wet End Lead to Greener Beginnings?

 

I’ve got about an hour to bash out my usual blog summary about the year 2021. This year, is the first year that I spent the better part of the eve at home. Didn’t have a restaurant gig to earn me a few extra bucks and there are no parties for me to go to. What I do have, however, is a comfortable home and I’m enjoying a glass of an apricot liquor that I took from the clearance of a Central Asian restaurant a few days back.

So, when you consider that this year was pretty much dominated by various forms of Covid and various restrictions, I guess I should be thankful that I am in the position where I can sit at home and bash out a blog piece with a glass of liquor and Oreo cookies. Whilst towards the latter half of the year, I was limited to one source of income, I actually had a steady source of income, which is more than what many people had.

I guess you could say that things on the global front improved a little with the arrival of an American President who actually treated the pandemic seriously. However, whilst Mr. Bidden has provided much needed sanity, the nation remains exceedingly divided and tribal. One has to ask; can a single 78-year-old heal the gap in less than four years? Furthermore, the other geopolitical elephant hasn’t done much better. Whilst its tempting to enjoy watching billionaires being taken down a peg in the name of “shared prosperity,” it’s been at a cost. Whatever growing freedoms Chinese citizens were starting to enjoy have been curtailed and the businessmen that the Chinese government has gone after were maverick innovators that the modern economy needs in order to move. Sure, China was showing that it was tackling inequality but are its methods going to make the problem worse? The world as comedian Bill Mahr argues is trapped between democracies that can’t get things done and autocracies that are downright nasty. The rest of us, can only look for a balance.

Just as nations need to look for a geopolitical balance between democratic but ineffectual America and effective but nasty China, individuals also need to look for balance. For me, I’ve accepted that the “corporate career” I fantasised about was not meant for me. I’ve come to accept that I am not meant to be a major part of the “working professional” class. Yet, it’s a path I can’t quite abandon in as much as it pays me enough to get by and at the same time allows me the time to look for things to keep me occupied.

So, I stay in my existence in the insolvency trade. I hate looking at files and documents and I avoid looking at anything remotely legalistic in nature. However, I do what I can to spend time with traders of assets. Always thought trading in scrap had a certain nobility to it. We live in a world where we are encouraged to waste and create rubbish, so what can be better than making a living from getting people to waste less. One of my great friends from this side of the business takes pride in the fact that he hasn’t bought a t-shirt for over a decade because he’s picked up his cloths from liquidation asset sales.

The Evil Young Lady is still trying to find her feet and to get her life sorted. I’ve told her that I have two major tasks in life. One, I need to see that she’s secured onto a path or at least made the effort to look for what she wants out of life. The other, is to prepare for old age – not that I think I am particularly old but now that I am over 45 and rushing towards 50, I have to accept that certain things will be denied to me and I have to find some way of ensuring I head into the twilight in some comfort.

Interestingly enough, the hero of the year, is the Vietnamese girl that I entered into a “life-partnership” with a decade ago. Huong took a friend’s shop and is now working hard to build up a business. I do what I can to help her out particularly in the area of managing government stakeholders and managing compliance issues. I’ve also managed to use her business to polish up copywriting skills as I help to edit her post on Facebook. This is a woman whom many would have said was “wrong” for me but then I decided to take the chance on something that might have been so wrong that it would actually turn out right. I am glad to say that her hunger and drive to make a better life for people around her have proved my bet to be thus far correct:

 

A sample of what Sky H Beauty Singapore does – visit our Facebook page at - https://www.facebook.com/skyhbeauty.sg or come down to be treated like royalty.

In a few moments, this wet end of 2021 will be over and we will start 2022. I hope that what we experienced in 2021 will only get us ready for 2022 to be a better year in every sense of the word.