Senior moments (Singapore)

My friend Valerio’s most recent email says: “Three days ago I really wanted to write some thoughts, and I am not even sure I still remember them all. But it had to do with my growing inability to keep track of my schedule. For some reason I associated it with the prosopagnosia at the time but I can no longer remember the reasoning.” 

This brings to mind my visit home in 1999.  

One evening, a group of us were sitting down chatting about various things, and somehow got round to the subject of forgetting things in the morning.  

I said my solution was to fetch the said item the very moment the thought occurred to me and put it just inside the front door, so that I would see it when leaving the flat the next day.  

My sister-in-law’s sister, Susan, said she’d tried that, too, but in her case, she’d find the item in the morning, think to herself, “Which stupid idiot has left this thing here, blocking the way?!?” and kick it out of the way.  

Halfway to her office, she’d then remember what the said item was doing sitting by the front door.  "Ah, the stupid idiot was me!"

(Singapore, 1999)

Car indicator lights (Singapore)

Back in the 60s, my mother had a Morris Minor which had bar indicators ending in a half arrow head.  They sat, vertically, inside a slot, one on each side of the car, between the front and back doors.  When she was going to make a left or right turn, my mother would activate some switch, and the appropriate bar indicator would swing out of its slot nest, from a vertical position inside the slot to a horizontal position protruding from the car.

In the early 70s, my brother-in-law’s new Nissan car had blinking indicator lights instead, just like the kind we have today.  One night, the car broke down when he was out on the road, so he switched on his hazard lights, another newly-introduced feature.  Behind him was an old man in his much older model (the type with the half arrow head bar indicators).  As the old man overtook my brother-in-law, he shouted out of his car window in great frustration, “Make up your mind whether you want to turn left or right, will you!??!”

(Singapore, 1960s/1970s)

How to make friends with a pair of army boots (Australia)

The notification about the reunion for the R.I. (Raffles Institution) 1972 batch, thirty years after we left as 18-year-olds, had come rather late, so I didn’t have time to pack properly for Australia, my next stop after the reunion in Singapore.  I was lucky to be able to scramble a ticket at all to Kuala Lumpur, the nearest destination to Singapore, given that it was the weekend of the World Cup Final (in Japan and Korea).  So it was that when I booked myself to go on two hiking trips — Tasmania and Ayers Rock/Uluru — I had to resort to my host in Sydney, Wilson, an ex-R.I. schoolmate, for some sturdier footwear than gym shoes.  With two pairs of thick socks, I managed to convert his ex-National Service boots into walking shoes.

The transport for the Ayers Rock tour, named Ayers Rock Unleashed (it was the “unleashed” bit that caught my eye), was a 14-seater mini-bus.  Two members of the group were from Israel, who totally blanked me on the first day.

When we were cooking dinner at the camping site on the first night, one of them suddenly asked me, a trifle tentatively and nervously, “Why are you wearing Israeli army boots?”  I said, “Oh, these are on loan from a Singapore friend — they were his army boots.  The Singapore army was trained by the Israeli army.”  

His facial expression softened considerably, and he went on to inform me that there were labels on the inside, in two different colours, one blue and one brown, signifying something I don’t remember now*.  He then looked inside my boots, and found they did, indeed, have a label in one of the two colours, which proved to him that they were kosher.  

The next day, he gave me a friendly "Good Morning", and for the rest of the trip, I no longer got the cold shoulder.  

In hindsight, if I’d been quick-witted enough, I should’ve told him, “Because I was trained by the Israeli army!” which might’ve scared the sh*t out of him, as payback for treating me as persona non grata.

(Australia, 2002)

*I think the brown is for tougher terrain.

Comment by Wilson, the owner of the boots (email of 030113): With your great wit n story telling abilities I am surprised u did not tell them that u won it in a fight from an Isreali soldier. You were trained by your uncle or master who was a Shaolin priest n an Isreali soldier who looked like both of them challenged u. Whoever lost had to hand over their boots n walk home barefooted n guess what, this little Shaolin Kung fu exponent beat the crab[sic] out of him. That would have shaken them a bit.

Watching a British film in Switzerland

Whenever it was the Gentle Giant’s turn to come over to London, I’d take him to places and/or events that they didn’t have in Zürich, one of which was the NFT (National Film Theatre) to see non-mainstream films from all over the world.  

When it was next my turn to go over to Zürich, he told me he’d just discovered they did have a sort of equivalent to our NFT, which was about to be shut down, so we went off to experience it before the opportunity was lost for good.  

The film was a 1988 British one, directed by Terence Davies, called Distant Voices, Still Lives, about a working class family in 1940s Liverpool.  

There were French and German subtitles for the Swiss audience.  

I had difficulty understanding the Liverpudlian accent, so we ended up with the bizarre situation of me, an English-speaker, watching a film in English but needing a Swiss to read the German subtitles and translate them back to English for me!

(Switzerland, 1988/9)

A helpful word of advice (Bangkok, Thailand)

My Cambodian friend’s father was a rich and successful businessman who was well-known in Cambodia during his time.  

One day back in the late 60s or early 70s, he was waiting in the departure lounge at the airport in Bangkok for a flight back to Cambodia when another passenger, also Cambodian Teochew, struck up a conversation with him.  He asked my friend’s father if he was Cambodian, to which came the answer “yes”.  

After a bit of small talk to break the ice, during which they’d got on well conversationally, the man then asked my friend’s father if he’d heard of the very rich and successful Cambodian businessman called So-and-So, which was my friend’s father himself.  My friend’s father replied with a simple “yes”, not wanting to identify himself out of modesty.  

The fellow Cambodian then said, “Well, let me give you a word of advice:  don’t ever do business with this man!  He’s absolutely ruthless and heartless! (無情無義! 无情无义! / wú qíng wú yì)”

Oops (London)

Last week, my Cambodian friend invited me round to her place for lunch sometime this week, as she’d brought back from her holiday there some dried fish for me and would like to show me how to cook it.  (I know this is really just an excuse to fatten me up.  She gets me over to her place once every few months ostensibly for lunch, which invariably stretches to include a late afternoon sweet snack, then extends to early dinner, before I’m allowed to waddle back to north London.)

On Saturday, I tried tentatively to move it forward from Tuesday to Monday, in an attempt to fit in my constantly-fluid appointments (which get cancelled or moved last minute quite a bit), sending her an email to ask how she’d be placed for Monday instead.  Got no reply by mid-day Sunday, after which I went off air.

A text arrived on Monday, an hour after lunch time, asking if I was all right, saying she’d cooked lots of food but no appearance on my part.  I texted back saying I’d not heard back, so I gave up on Monday, and couldn’t now make Tuesday after all.

Her email which arrived next reduced me to hysterical tears and had me in absolute stitches:

QUOTE

I checked my email on Saturday morning and I did not check my emails again until 10pm on Sunday as I was very busy getting my place ready for the carpet fitters. 

Just as well you were not here today as it was extremely noisy with the carpet fitters banging away all day long.  

UNQUOTE

My reply:

QUOTE

This reduced me to absolute tears and had me in stitches!!  Did you not know that the vulgar slang for "bang" is:  “an act of sexual intercourse”.  Hahahahahahahahaha, I'm still laughing hysterically nine hours after reading this!!

UNQUOTE

(London 2012)

Punning (London)

See Update of 051112 in blog entry: Born to pun