Bugis Street re-visited

The name Bugis Street brings backs memories to those who were in Singapore many years ago. For those in the forces serving in Singapore Bugis Street was always the last call on a run ashore. Wherever one was in town on the way home there was always some annoying person in a group who would insist in a final beer at Bugis. What was the attraction?

In the ‘good old days’ the street was full of colourful street bars with beautiful transvestites, known as kaitais out to trick visiting over tired sailors and others. In fairness to those who were fooled the Kaitais were identified by their superficial beauty. The story went that you could tell them from the genuine women by their Adam’s Apple or the size of their hands. The classic call by those tricked was ‘Bloody Hell – it’s got a meat and two veg!

World adventurer Martin Read, a former Royal Marine who served in Singapore, asks ‘Are the Kaitais and three legged dogs scavenging in the monsoon drains still there? Is Fatties now really a five story posh restaurant?!’

Well Martin I am afraid Bugis Street is a respectable street market now and even has a MRT (Tube) station named after it. The Kaitais have to moved out of town but I am told are very much in existence. Lack of time has precluded further research.

Excuses, Excuses

By Thumper de Mowbray
Great News! A real grumpy complaint has just come in from a dedicated Colin’s Place fan, called Queenie. This is my first proper complaint and therefore I will enjoy handling it with the diligence, respect and the utter contempt that it deserves ……

Dear Thumper
I am extremely concerned that your Master is not updating his Blog as often as he should, thus not taking care of those poor unfortunate people who have actually fallen to the addiction of such a site.

If for some reason - and it ought to be a good one - this has just been an oversight, that can be accepted - as long as it is not due to bone idleness or total disregard for those that have supported him so loyally up to now.

I therefore trust you, Thumper, to get things sorted forthwith and accept only the strongest and most plausible excuses from the Master himself. I shall be patient and await your reply with great anticipation – but little expectation of satisfaction.

Warmest regards - and bunches of carrots
Queen of Grumps

Colin‘s Reply
Thumper, thanks for passing on the note from the Queen of Grumps (QOGs). The explanation is simple. I placed one entry on the Blogsite in China and then the authorities swooped and closed me down. I was unable to get onto the site on any computer – I was totally ‘Shanghaied’ even though I was in Qingdao. I quickly moved hotels and then changed my flight and hid in Beijing. What a shame as I was about to tell the story about my new Dinner Jacket and suit (cost £70 total) which were supplied without buttons - I had to go to anther stall to get these! So much to tell, so little time to blog. I am now in Singapore and getting back to normal.

Please pass on my apologies to QOGs, and I will find a way to beat the 1,313,973,713 Chinese who seemed to get one over me this time.
Colin

Gambi Benromach

Location: Qingdao
Occasion: Signing of Qingdao Clipper
Guests: Vice Mayor Ms Zang
Toast: Benromach Single malt http://www.gordonandmacphail.com/op_brandsBenromach.html

As we have come to expect in Qingdao when the hosts here stage a function they do it well, extremely well. After the official meeting and speeches Madam Zang, the Vice Mayor of Qingdao, hosted a superb banquet to celebrate the event.

The banquets hosted by the City and the Olympic Sailing Committee are not only grand affairs but also fun. I took the opportunity to present Madam Zang with a bottle of Benromack malt whiskey from Glasgow's sponsors Gordon MacPhail. The bottle was duly passed around and enjoyed with various cries of ‘Gambi’ – or bottoms up …. one of the few Chinese words in my vocabulary.

Knuckling down to it

Sir Robin, now just over 2,000 miles from Norfolk, Va. would be the first to agree when Ian Burns said he was going to ‘roll up his sleeves and get stuck in’. Ian, runs the Red Star and Red Sail magazines in Qingdao and played a major part in the last Clipper visit to Qingdao in March 2006.

His current project is a groundbreaking Arts and Music Festival in Qingdao due to open in an old warehouse in ten days time. While setting up the exhibition space he was using an electric plane without a proper safety guard and badly injured the knuckle on one finger. He is now in Qingdao General Hospital making a good recovery although ‘Excused guitar playing’ for a while. As can be seen he is receiving visitors, in this case the famous Julia from the Olympic Sailing Committee and Colin de Mowbray, who is currently visiting Qingdao.

Ian took part in the final part of the last Clipper race. All his many friends in Clipper wish him a speedy recovery and suggest that next time he employs one of the 330 million carpenters in China to shorten the bit of wood.

Junk Sailing

This picture needs little explanation. It is Hong Kong Clipper departing from Hong Kong in April 2003. Up until the 2000 race the Clipper yachts were named after famous Clipper ships such as Arial, Serica, Thermopile, Mermerus, Chrysolite and so on, which meant a lot to nautical historians, but little to most other people. These names were in general quite difficult to spell correctly and almost impossible to pass over radio circuits to Chinese radio operators … and many others!

In 2000 the boats were named after UK cities as part of The Times millennium project. In 2002 three of the boat become international, namely Cape Town, New York and Hong Kong. This has set the stamp on the current race format.

Here Hong Kong Clipper’s local supporters club had got together and chartered one of the few traditional junks remaining in Hong Kong. Even today racing round the world in a relatively small yacht is still a great achievement. To think that the Chinese sailed their junks everywhere is an amazing thought, especially on the windward legs!

T-Shirt Dirty Nelly’s

This is one of my rarest and most treasured T-shirts modelled here by Nurse Lucy. Fullers, known as Dirty Nelly’s, was a wonderful example of a true ‘All American Diner’ in Phoebus which is in Newport News, Occasionally we would go there from the US Naval Air Station at just across the water in Norfolk, Virginia. The portions at Fullers were enormous (as were the staff and all the diners) and it was extremely reasonable – hence the logo on the back ‘EAT DIRT CHEAP AT FULLERS’

The main reason why I am so attached to this T-shirt is because it became one of my main cycling shirts and so has seen gallant service and many thousands of miles in France, Spain and New Zealand …. a true friend that has absorbed gallons of sweat in its time.

The VELUX 5 OCEANS yachts are in the process of arriving in Norfolk Virginia at present and I am sure all those involved will be sampling some American Dinners, but none will come close to matching Fullers. As my experience is now 25 years old I suspect that, if food poisoning did not get Dirty Nelly, then the cholesterol will have. My money is on the T-shirt being the sole survivor!

SARS Scare Patient Catches GDL*

This picture was a real scoop! In April 2003 the Clipper Race arrived in Hong Kong at the start of the SARS crisis. For those with short memories this stood for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. In the end there were 8,096 known cases reported of the disease and 774 deaths (a mortality rate of 9.6%). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS

The acronym in this context was new to me, and I think everyone else. SAR of course is Search and Rescue but I had worked in Hong Kong before the turn over to China where it was agreed the ex-colony would be known as an SAR, or Special Administrative Region of the PRC. If you live in South Africa you know SARS as the SA Revenue Service, in other words the Tax Man. Conversely surgeons would think of the Society of Academic & Research Surgery.

Back to the photo ….. Just before dawn on the day the Clipper Race was finally going to depart from Hong Kong for Singapore I received a report that one crew member was suffering from a high temperature and a fever. Immediately the affected crew member was taken to a local hospital for all the thorough checks. The all clear was finally given but not before the South China Morning Post hit the street with a front page exclusive of ‘Clipper Race Crew Contracts SARS’. It then went on to say that the crew member was in fact their special correspondent, Anna Wardley who was now quarantined in her room at the Excelsior Hotel.

Before the paper was published there were only five of the 450 rooms occupied. Immediately the paper was published the other four guests checked out. Anna was the sole guest and forbidden to leave her room. The staff, who drew the short straw to look after her, wore masks and full protective clothing. They pushed trays of room service along the floor to her from the door with long bamboo poles.

The effect of SARS during this visit was that all tourists left and the relations and friends of the crew members at home imagined it was like the Great Plague in London in 1665 with everyone stepping over dead bodies in the street. For us, we were annoyed that the Rolling Stone Concert was cancelled but the Rugby 7s were not and enjoyed even more.

I would not pretend it was not a challenging time but all was finally overcome and Anna eventually re-joined the race in Singapore once her Bronchitis was better!

Anna Wardley finished the Clipper Race and after running the PR for the RNLI joined Clipper Ventures before the last race. She is currently Head of Communications and presently recovering from a nasty dose of GDL* which, we trust, is not as serious as her previous deceases. We hope she will be better soon.

* Gosport Dreaded Lurgi …..

Galapagos - Christmas 1996

In 1996 the eight Clipper yachts and their crews celebrated Christmas in the Galapagos Islands. With no travelling staff and few concrete arrangements made beforehand, a great deal of trust was put on the rumour that the Naval Captain, who ran the Port, was a whisky drinker. He was! The result was that after a very protracted system of clearing us in we all have an excellent visit.

No establishment was able to take all 120 crew and so we dived between two super restaurants in the hills. Unfortunately by this stage in the race various friendships within the Fleet made splitting the party across straight boat lines virtually impossible. Anyway, most people had a Christmas to remember, especially the restaurant owners and the giant tortoise who said that he had celebrated the occasion a 104 times before.

The T-shirt picture shows one of my crew members wearing her mystery present from her skipper. It was taken with a fast exposure – she did not wear it more than a thousandth of a second. I suspect when she sees it on the blog it will not stay up for too long …. so enjoy it now.

Art, fresh from Africa

Listen carefully; I say this only o n c e ….

I have just discovered a website with a whole lot of very colourful and original painted designs of tablecloths – they are all done by a South African artist called Alexa (know to all as Fuff) Kirsten and are really fantastic!

Now Colin’s Place is not here to sell things so all I will do is put you in touch with the website at www.coloursrsa.co.za and let you take it from there.

I do in fact know the artist and have visited her studio in Wellington, just over an hour out of Cape Town. We have several examples of her work at home including a Millennium T-shirt calendar. Her work might be of interest on an individual basis or, conversely, I am sure there are some very good business opportunities in selling her work outside Africa. Do look at the website or contact her at: stapole@mweb.co.za

Sunday's Blonde Joke

A plane is on its way to Toranto when a blonde with tight red trousers in economy class gets up and moves to the first class section and sits down.

The flight attendant watches her do this and asks to see her ticket. She then tells the blonde that she paid for economy class and that she (and her tight red trousers) will have to sit in the back.

The blonde replies: "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, I'm going to Toronto and I'm staying right here."
The flight attendant goes into the cockpit and tells the pilot and the co-pilot that there is a blonde bimbo sitting in first class that belongs in economy and won't move back to her seat.

The co-pilot goes back to the blonde and tries to explain that because she only paid for economy, she will have to leave and return to her seat.

The blonde replies: "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, I'm going to Toronto and I'm staying right here."

The co-pilot tells the pilot that he probably should have the police waiting when they land to arrest this blonde woman who won't listen to reason.

The pilot says: "you say she is a blonde? I'll handle this. I'm married to a blonde. I speak blonde." he goes back to the blonde and whispers in her ear, and she says: "Oh, I'm sorry." and she gets up and goes back to her seat in economy.

The flight attendant and co-pilot are amazed and ask him what he said to make her move without any fuss. "I told her, first class isn't going to Toronto."

T-Shirt: Glasgow 2014 Bid

I heard rumours about Glasgow bidding for the 2014 Commonwealth Games while I was in Singapore at a reception in given by the British High Commission to parade the Games baton on its way to Melbourne for the 2006 Games. The batten has a very busy programme as it visits all the competing Commonwealth countries in the four years between the Games – looking after it must be a fun job!

Since these whispers Glasgow has pulled out the stops and must now be one of the favourites for the Games. I was given this T-shirt in Jamaica where the Glasgow 2014 Bid Team visited to make their case to Jamaica and the other Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean. They based their presentation on Glasgow Clipper and the Clipper Race; an inspired and highly successful bit of promotion. Only when one becomes involved in these bids does one realise the scale of commitment by all the Candidate Cities.

The spirit and passion behind the Glasgow bid is infectious. Many of us now feel personally involved and I would love to see them win. …. and all they gave me was the T-shirt, which I briefly lent to Lucy for the photo.

Heroes in Bulgaria

There was tense drama in the Bulgarian mountains earlier this week in two completely separate, and spectacular incidents, both of which could have had fatal endings.

Beads had just completed the journey to the popular Bulgarian ski slopes from her beach home in Mombassa (by way of Holland, Somerset, Scotland and Beachy Head). She hired her snow board and made her way to the highest chairlift. Snapping into her binding she set off down the savage mountain. With crisp and elegant movements she stood out as a natural. Other boarders stopped and marvelled at her skill.

Ahead was a 90 year old snow boarding Granny resting before the descent. To Beads' horror she spied a pack of lean, hungry and fierce wolves to her side. The situation was desperate … without a moment’s thought for her safety, Beads veered towards the predators making ear screeching howls (they were very scared!) With a quick wiggle she whooshed back, bundled up the Granny and, with a triumphant shout of ‘Chicken-out-of Hell’, headed directly down the Black run with ‘Lucky Gran’.

……..It took several minutes for the spectators to dig them out of the drift. When they emerged, the Granny was safe – HURRAY – the wolves had fled – HURRAY – and Beads was a local hero – HURRAY – and when Beads tried to wave it was apparent she had broken her right wrist less than 20 minutes into her holiday – BOO HOO.

Later that morning Bead’s boyfriend, Sander – known as Jaap – was fairing better. Taking a well earned rest, he was marveling at the skill of the young school children on their skis. Bobbing here and bobbing there, the class then stopped to regroup as their instructor handed out some Bulgarian biscuits. To his horror, out of the corner of his eye, Jaap saw the giant driverless piste -basher start to roll down the hill out of control towards the helpless children. With no thought for his safety he chased the run away machine until able to climb into the cabin over the thrashing tracks. He lunged for the control levers and pulled with all his might. The force brought the machine around – it had stopped a metre from the terrified children.

……..it took several minutes for the spectators to dig Jaap out of the drift. When he emerged he saw the children were safe – HURRAY – he was a local hero – HURRAY – and when Jaap tried to wave it was apparent he had broken his right wrist less than two hours into his holiday – BOO HOO.

Editor’s notes:

1. The outcome of these events (that happened to Sarah de Mowbray and Sander Den Haring) is accurate, we are not yet in a position to confirm the factual accuracy of the rest of the account!
2. Please note that as a Dutchman Japp chooses to wear this orange Sentosa Island T-Shirt presented to Colin in Singapore!