December 2023 – theuncleflipsprata

What’s the story, Morning Glory? (#Oasis). This second half of the year, we are returning back to basics with some ABC(s), 123(s), minding our P’s and Q’s and some lessons in political science.

“A” is not for the American President that joined auto workers behind the picket lines (the first time a sitting US President has partake in a strike) but for that American soldier (#TravisKing) that ran from the border Panmunjon truce village in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) into North Korean territory. Private Travis King may have literally cross the demarcation line in entering North Korea but the line has certainly been crossed after Hamas sprung an unprecedented large-scale attack on Israel, slaughtering many and taking some hostages in the process.

Naturally, “B” is for the Bloodshed between Israel and Palestine after the conflict drove the wedge deeper between the two. The country and the state are technically at war but discontent apparently spilled over in Africa after the military interfered in the political arena. “C” is for the Coup in Niger and Gabon after the presidential guard commander detained President Mohamed Bazoum (#Niger) while President Ali Bongo (#Gabon) was placed under house arrest minutes after winning a contested election.

“D” is for the deteriorating Diplomatic ties between Canada and India over the alleged murder of a Silkh activist. Canada’s relations with India has reached an all time low and it’s a double whammy for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after his relationship with his wife hit rock bottom with their announced separation.

The alphabets are the building blocks and foundation to learning English but learning to roll your tongue to enunciate your “R” (s) is equally important. For Asia, it is a rite of Retire, Return, Resign, Replace, Remember and Release… Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha announced his Retirement from politics, paving the way for tycoon Srettha Thavisin from the Pheu Thai party to become the kingdom’s new prime minister after the election. This meant there could not be a better time for former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s Return from exile.

Elsewhere the Resignation of Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen is an affirmative nod to handing over power to his eldest son while the recall of ex-diplomat Wang Yi from retirement to Replace his successor Foreign Minister Qin Gang is a rare about-turn from Xin Jinping’s administration after they found out he had an extramarital affair and fathered a child in the US. Wang Yi will hold the fort for the moment but China will Remember former premier Li Keqiang for his more open market economy approach that advocated supply-side reforms. The deceased economist was also credited with improving Sino-Japanese relations but tensions with Japan have risen once again after the country Released Fukushima’s radioactive waste/water into the open sea.

We are done with the alphabets and enunciations…Now let us run through the numbers…

Super Serb Novak Djokovic clinched a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam at the US Open while Max Verstappen never gave his competitors any respite in winning his third F1 Championship* with an unassailable lead after 17 races.

*It also meant notching Red Bull’s second consecutive Constructor’s team title.

We have run out of superlatives for the domineering tennis ace and the unstoppable Dutchman but the Denver Nuggets led by mercurial centre Nikola Jokic and point guard Jamal Murray, won their very first NBA title after 58 years. The NBA may be the most-watched basketball tournament in the world but it was Germany that reigned supreme after they defeated Serbia in the finals to win their first FIBA Basketball World Cup. There was not just one World Cup this year, South Africa held their nerve to edge out arch-rivals New Zealand 12-11 to win the Rugby World Cup while the La Roja (Spain) were triumphant at the Women’s World Cup held in Australia after they beat fancied England. The Aussies not only hosted the Women’s World Cup but they also defeated another host and favorites India to become Cricket World Cup champions for a record sixth time.

The female English footballers may have left Australia empty-handed but the tributes poured in for England‘s greatest footballer and Manchester United legend Sir Bobby Charlton while homage was paid to Terry Venables who led England to the European Championship semi-finals in 1996 after their demise. Sir Bobby Charlton whose artistry and genius inspired England’s 1966 World Cup victory did his talking on the pitch but we will sorely miss the talking that comes from the commentary box on match days. Martin Tyler, the voice of the English Premier League, hangs up his mic after 30 years while it’s not the talking but rather listening to the body that prompted Mo Farah to run his last competitive race.

Britain’s running great was evidently on his last legs at the tail-end of his athletic career and in the same vein, Italy’s legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianlugi Buffon, Belgian and ex-Chelsea winger Eden Hazard and US female football icon Megan Rapinoe will not feature in a starting eleven again after they call time on their playing time. For Paul Pogba and Simona Halep, their playing time were further curtailed after both of them were found guilty of doping. A doping ban for the former World Cup winner and 2-time Grand Slam winner could effectively be a death knell on their sporting careers. The shelf life of an athlete is notably limited and life can also be unfortunately ephemeral for cyclist Gino Madera after his fatal fall into a ravine on the Tour of Switzerland while professional ice hockey player Adam Johnson’s neck was slit by an opponent’s skating shoe blade.

Two lives lost to sports is a lot to take in and for Angela Lee (the youngest MMA world champion in 2016) who confessed to attempting to take her own life, it speaks volumes about the toll professional sports can heap on your mental well-being. We are sad that she has announced her retirement from MMA but at the same time relieved to hear she is taking the fight away from the arena to her non-profit charity Fightstory which is dedicated to those struggling with mental health.

Angela Lee’s brief flirtation with death was alarming but Luis Rubiales’s unsolicited kiss on Jenni Hermoso’s lips during the FIFA Woman’s World Cup prize presentation was profoundly damning. Taking advantage of a situation and kissing the opposite sex without her consent overshadowed Spain’s World Cup victory and inadvertently spelled the end of Rubiales’s tenure as the President of the Spanish Football Federation. In fact, he has since been banned from football for 3 years and faces criminal charges for that moment of folly.

Rubiales’s disgraceful act could be a prevalent pattern of behaviour for people in an authoritative position but the West have set many a precedents with the latest being comedian and actor Russell Brand’s transgressions and Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter facing his third lawsuit on sexual assault. Their counterparts in the far East are not too far off as Taiwan’s #MeToo movement just got underway after alleged victims of Mickey Huang (黃子佼), Ex-Fahrenheit member Aaron Yan (炎亚纶), Nono (陳宣裕) and Blackie Chen (陈建州) came forward with their stories/experiences. The quartet will plead their case before the police now as investigations are ongoing but Danny Masterson from The 70’s Show has started doing his time after being sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for raping two women.

We really need to respect women and their rights but for Britney Spears, insult was probably added to injury after she was slapped by the bodyguard of NBA star Victor Wembanyama. The Oops…I Did it Again singer did file a police report after the incident but law enforcement officers are clearly more interested in investigating K-pop star G-Dragon of Bigbang and Lee Sun-kyun (the male lead in Oscar winner Parasite) for alleged drug abuse. Meanwhile Model Gigi Hadid must be thanking her lucky stars after she was arrested and only fined for marijuana possession in Cayman Islands.

The US$1,000 fine is a slap on the wrist for Gigi Hadid but it is a slap in the face for the whole of Hollywood as the writers’ (Writers Guild of America-WGA) and actors’ (SAG-AFTRA) strike sent the entire industry into a grinding halt. While Hollywood productions have stalled and the 2023 Emmy Awards got postponed to 2024, Harrison Ford is calling it a day in his swansong as Indiana Jones. We will miss the octogenarian wearing that distinguishable fedora with a final crack of that whip and we must also respect 90-year old veteran actor Michael Caine’s retirement from acting.

It’s high time for Michael Caine to start enjoying his retired life and it will also be the last time we got to witness Elton John’s flamboyance in his farewell concert while American rock band KISS closed out their farewell tour at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden. The Hollywood strike and Harrison Ford’s exit is a double whammy for the film industry but we were served a double billing this year with a biographical film about the physicist that invented the atomic bomb (#Oppenheimer #ChristopherNolan) and another on a plastic bombshell mortalized in flesh and blood (#Barbie).

Good news is on the horizon after the writers (WGA) reached an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) after 5 months while a tentative deal for the actors (SAG-AFTRA) to end the strike likewise is in the works. We are glad work has partially resumed in Hollywood but a toxic and hostile work environment is not the way to go after Lizzo and Jimmy Fallon were accused by their former and current employees of creating or facilitating one.

We should maintain good working relationships with our superiors or colleagues but maintaining a relationship with the spouse is a tad challenging after singer Joe Jonas filed for divorce against actress Sophie Turner (#GameofThrones) after 4 years of marriage while the union of actress Sofia Vergara and actor husband Joe Manganeillo could not make it past the 7-year mark. Their counterparts in the East have followed their cue after Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi and Taiwanese singer Vivian Hsu filed for divorce from their respective partners. Even couples with a long-standing relationship have not stood the test of time after actress Karena Lam and Director Steve Yuen splitted after 12 years of marriage while questions are asked as to why Hugh Jackman parted ways with Deborah-Lee Furness after 27-years. For popstar Ariana Grande and Taiwan host Makiyo, marriage could just be a piece of legal document after both ended their marriages in a span of less than two years.

Metaphorically, a marriage certificate is a piece of paper and the time-consuming paperwork put the marriage of Michelle Yeoh and Jean Todt on the backburner for 19 years while Taiwanese singer Jam Hsiao (萧敬腾) weds long-time manager Summer Lin who has been working with him since he made his debut 16 years ago. It is amazing the Oscar winner and Jean Todt are enjoying life as newly-weds 19 years after they got engaged but thankfully, Chris Evans did not need to wait long as he and his girlfriend Alba Baptista got hitched after dating since 2021 while Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell started a new life with single mom Tish Cyrus (aka Miley Cyrus’s mum).

Don’t let a former Avenger or an ex-convict distract you because actress Naomi Watts has decided to hunker down with fellow actor Billy Crudup while Kissing Booth star Joey King married the director of one of the movies she starred in (#TheAct #StevenPiet). It’s probably a good time now to sing the praises of your wedded partner and Charlie Puth should be well-poised to sing his wedding vows after he got engaged to Brooke Sansone while former TVB actress Jacqueline Wong has emerged from her scandalous affair with Andy Hui to walk the aisle with musician Lai Man Wang (drummer for Cantopop band RubberBand).

Congratulations to Jacqueline Wong and her drummer husband but all our condolences were centered on members that fronted their bands. Singing their hearts out would be apt as bassist Randy Meisner, a founding member of iconic band Eagles co-wrote and sang lead vocal on “Take It to the Limit” while Smash Mouth’s former lead singer Steve Harwell gave us that catchy hit “All Star” for the movie Shrek. Meanwhile, American jazz and traditional pop singer Tony Bennett and Irish singer Sinead O’Connor deserve to be inducted into the pantheon of the all-time greats after bidding goodbye while the late pop diva Coco Lee was a tortured soul who had been battling her medical condition, depression and her then-husband’s extramarital affair.

The singing legends may have made their mark in life but life can take a drastic turn after Korean actress Park Soo Ryun (#Snowdrop) and American actor Angus Cloud (#Euphoria) were taken from us at the age of 29 and 25 respectively. Losing someone so young is akin to losing a friend and we can relate to that after F.R.I.E.N.D.S star Matthew Perry was found dead in a bathtub. The suspected cause of his death was drowning and we could do with drowning our sorrows after Paul Reubens, the actor who played Pee-wee Herman died at 70 while the passing of Michael Gambon (Dumbledore actor in Harry Potter movies) was due to a bout of pneumonia.

Michael Gambon hails from the UK and accompanying him six feet down under is former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed whose son (Dodi) perished with Princess Diana in that fateful car crash in 1997. The Egyptian businessman once made his vast fortune in England but Jane Birkin was the British actress, singer and style icon who famously had a bag that cost a fortune named after her. The bag is sold today at a variety of price points upwards of $10,000 depending on the make and style but “The Price is Right” and duly so when we reminisce about the good old days of Bob Barker hosting the American game show.

For Tapestry (the parent company of Coach and Kate Spade), the Price is Right for an entirely different reason at $8.5 billion after they acquired Capri, the parent company of Michael Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo. A parent company buying another parent company is serious business but Brazilian cosmetics maker Natura & Co selling its subsidiary The Body Shop to private equity group Aurelius for US$254 million is a sign of paring their losses. There is still a lifeline for The Body Shop but the pandemic probably spelled Wework’s doom with WFH being the new norm while the adage that “you can’t eat your cake and have it” is true after Australian confectionary company Sara Lee went into voluntary administration amid high operating cost and supply chain issues.

Hitherto, for the second half of this year, we have recited our ABC-s, rolled our tongues with the R-s, familiarized ourselves with the 123-s and even mind our P’s and Q’s. We were also schooled in Political Science after Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s resounding victory, garnering 70.4% of the votes cast in the country’s first contested Presidential Election in 12 years. Singaporeans were glad that there was no walkover but it proved to be a no-contest after about 2.5 million voters made clear their choice in a closely-watched election among three candidates.

In fact, before the political hustlings got underway, the pretender to the throne (#GeorgeGoh) was blowing his own trumpet and thumping his chest with such gusto and bravado. Catastrophically, he did not even make it to the starting line. In the mix was former GIC chief investment officer Ng Kok Song who had a fiance young enough to be his daughter while ex-NTUC Income CEO Tan Kin Lian upped the antics with his “pretty girls” postings on social media. After the battle lines were drawn, the fangs were bared, the venom was out, the mud slinging and swipes taken at each other’s claims about a true “independent” President was par for course. Interestingly, the takeaway from the election result is that a pineapple or “Ong Lai” is vital to win the hearts of the people.

Tharman’s presidential campaign tagline was “Respect for All” but all respect was thrown out of the window after ex-MP Tan Chuan Jin uttered the F-word (the offensive words: “f***king populist”) in Parliament. The ex-Speaker of Parliament was probably a f***king populist himself after his affair with fellow MP Cheng Li Hui came to light. The adulterous pair continued their affair even after PM Lee’s intervention while Leon Perrara and Nicole Seah (#WP) were consenting adults as well after a leaked video made its rounds online at an opportune time. We can’t tell for sure the odds of two extramarital scandals involving political office holders outed in the same instance but their resignations indicate there is no room for error in squeaky clean Singapore.

The Prime Minister had the unenviable task of washing the dirty linen of Tan Chuan-Jin and Cheng Li Hui at a press conference broadcasted on national TV but little did we know this island also housed the biggest laundromat…In the country’s worst money laundering case to date, $2.8 billion worth of assets were seized or issued with a prohibitive order. These consist:

-152 properties and 62 vehicles with a combined worth of $1.24 billion,

-more than $1.45 billion in bank accounts,

-cash amounting to more than $76 million,

-cryptocurrency worth more than $38 million,

-68 gold bars,

-294 luxury bags,

-164 luxury watches,

-546 pieces of jewellery and

-thousands of bottles of liquor and wine

The sheer numbers themselves are staggering and we are further perturbed how 10 ordinary individuals from China manage to park their ill-gotten gains here since 2017 and even paid for some of the properties in cold hard cash.

Questions still remain on Singapore’s safeguards against illicit money flowing into the financial hub but more shock was installed for us after one of our own, a Minister, was embroiled in a corruption probe. The suspended Transport Minister and billionaire property tycoon Ong Beng Seng were arrested on 11 July as part of the investigation process. Mr Ong is known as the man who brought Formula One to Singapore while Iswaran was then the Minister for Trade & Industry and had been involved in government engagements involving Formula One since 2008.

Fast cars, burnt rubber, all that hobnobbing between VIPs in the VIP lounges and a night circuit illuminated by those megawatt floodlights…unfortunately, the F1 Singapore Grand Prix will now be enshrouded in impropriety with that tinge of susceptibility as the probe drags on.

Politicians will now tread with caution not because of the spate of scandals but because the multifaceted nature of their jobs has affected their health. MP Liang Eng Hwa was diagnosed with early-stage nose cancer while his counterpart in Tampines GRC had his benign polyps removed after discovering them during a colonoscopy screening for colorectal cancer. For Edwin Tong and WP’s Faisal Manap, matters of the heart do matter after the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth underwent angioplasty while the opposition party member was warded in the ICU due to cardiac issues. Warding off infirmities is logically better than hospitalization or any surgical procedures and it is probably timely that “Healthier SG” was launched this year as healthcare shifts to a preventive care model.

A preventive care model means embracing a healthy lifestyle and that entails cutting down on the caffeine, sugar and cream. Reducing your daily coffee intake will be more poignant after coffee chain Spinelli‘s announcement of their impending closure while Flash Coffee’s brief stay in Singapore was marred by a strike. If we were to forgo our dessert, it would have to be local ice-cream brand Merely which has shuttered its outlets after 11 years. When one F & B venture exits, another one readily takes its place… Pastry lovers made a beeline for French pastry chef Cedric Grolet’s very first store at COMO Orchard as it debuted to much fanfare.

I can’t differentiate Cedric Grolet’s Au Pan (which costs $11 per piece) from the croissant but we have to watch what we eat because our central kitchens (#Proofer), caterers (#Shiok Kitchen) and multi-chain F&B outlets (Ex:Spize, Yakun) are not up to the mark. The deploring standards of our F&B sector is not unexpected but an unexpected and unannounced guest (#rat) did turn up in the Tangs foodcourt operated by the Fei Siong Group while cockroaches and raw beef could be mainstays at our fastfood outlets (#McDonalds).

It might be better to order our lunch/dinner online but it is not necessarily safer after a man had his CPF savings wiped out overnight after he tried to buy seafood online (#Scams). From Mao Shan Wang durians to mooncakes to tingkat carrier meals, many unsuspecting victims have fallen prey to the click-bait modus operandi of scammers that lured them to download malware-laden applications into their mobile phones. It can be traumatic to lose your life savings in such a manner but your savings managed by Temasek Holdings remains intact after the sovereign wealth fund posted a $7.3 billion net loss for the 2023 financial year. Maybe it might be better off to put your savings in a tin can after banking outages hit the 3 local banks and Citibank, resulting in widespread disruption to businesses and consumers. It’s not only the banking system that came under fire, public hospitals and polyclinics came under siege after a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack caused a web service outage at the said healthcare institutions.

No heads will roll for the banking lapse and the cyberattack on our healthcare sector but accountability is found wanting after Cordlife did a botched job of preserving or storing their customers’ cord blood units. Till date, 2,150 of their clients’ cord blood are now rendered unusable and the data leak of some 665,000 members of a Marina Bay Sands (MBS) shoppers’ rewards programme is another setback in our digital defence against hackers. The data breach has probably raised a stink on the MBS brand name but none as pungent as compared to the guy taking a dump right in the building itself.

The only recourse for the affected Cordlife customers may be to take legal action but the high Court has already granted default judgement in favour of K.Shanmugam and Vivan Balakrishnan after Mr Lee Hsien Yang failed to respond to their defamation suits. In light of the High Court’s judgement, it might be a pyrrhic victory for the two Ministers considering that Mr Lee is now a “fugitive” but getai performer and digital content creator Wang Lei certainly courted controversy after Chan Brothers Travel decided to sue him for false allegations made about a private Europe tour. Wang Lei might have gone overboard by airing his dissatisfaction with the tour on his live-stream but an elderly woman unfortunately did fall overboard a Spectrum of the Seas cruise ship.

The 64-year-old cruise passenger is still lost at sea but 16-year-old kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder is steering in the right direction after being crowned world champion at the Sail World Championships held in the Netherlands. In fact, what a year it has been for him as he kicked off a flying season with a World Cup Series title in April followed by winning the Formula Kite Youth World Championship in July. He has not put a foot wrong since with a gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games in China and became overall winner of the KiteFoil World Series after top finishes in Zhuhai, Austria and Italy. On top of that, the accolades keep coming after he was nominated for World Sailing’s “Male Sailor of the Year” while the icing on the cake is that he has qualified for the Olympics (Paris 2024) with his stellar showing.

Maximilian Maeder wasn’t the only one earning the plaudits, Shanti Pereira ended Singapore’s 49-year wait for an Asian Games gold medal in athletics by winning the women’s 200m final while 18-year-old Zeanne Law is now a world champion after emerging victorious in women’s taijiquan at the World Wushu Championships in Texas, USA. Max, Shanti and Zeanne certainly put Singapore on the world map and Singapore athletes are going places after 18-year-old Danelle Tan became the country’s first female footballer to join German team Borussia Dortmund while Kohei Wong is the first Singaporean to join a professional Japanese baseball team (#Ibaraki Astro Planets).

The only damper on the country’s fruitful year in sports is that the CEO of Singapore Silat Federation was arrested for suspected criminal breach of trust. The former two-time Silat world champion was not the only one that ran afoul of the law, Goh Jin Hian (aka the son of former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong) was charged with false trading offences and handed 39 charges under the Securities and Futures Act. The wayward son has evidently brought his family name into disrepute but lineage is top priority for others after Project SUPERSTAR alumnus Kelly Poon (潘嘉丽) welcomed a baby boy with her music producer husband Roger Yeo while Mediacorp’s Rebecca Lim and Desmond Tan are prepping themselves to be a mother and father respectively.

More babies could be in the pipeline after Mediacorp artiste Jernelle Oh got engaged while her colleagues Nick Teo and Hong Ling are finally pronounced as husband and wife. Its double happiness for the said artistes but Zhu Houren (朱厚任) was the happiest man on earth after he welcomed another daughter-in-law for his son Joel Chew (an ex-Mediacorp artiste) into the family. Having kids may liven or enrich their marriage but precautions should be taken after Kinderland preschool teachers were charged for abusing or mistreating the children under their care.

We are glad that the Mediacorp artistes have taken the first step in starting their own families and home is where the heart is or rather where the kids’ education will be after Yvonne Lim announced she will be relocating back to Singapore after being based in Taiwan with her family since 2015. Thankfully she does not have to contend with the problematic centralized cooling system (the first in a HDB estate) in the supposedly vaunted Tengah estate while a house with a sea view is out of the question now after plans to build a “long-island” seawall opposite the East Coast Park coastline to fight against rising sea levels was unveiled.

Together with her former Taiwanese boyband husband (#AlexTien #B.A.D), they will be busy with house-hunting and liaising with property agents. Fortunately, she will not be confounded with the nomenclature of “Standard”, “Plus” and “Prime” after the country re-categorized the pigeon holes for flat dwellers. Other than looking for a place of abode, Yvonne Lim will bask in the elation of winning the Best First Time Filmmaker (Short Film) award at the Cannes Film Festival in her first directorial debut (#Hope). Her win is a boost to local film makers but it’s a pity that Disney’s Lucasfilm will shut down their operations here after nearly two decades.

All in all, it has been a dramatic and at times traumatic second half of this year and we probably have much to look forward to with Lawrence Wong poised to be handed the baton of leading the country by November 2024. Yet, as it stands, the “house” that LKY built is not in order; politicians that betrayed your trust and faith, a Minister investigated for corruption and a slew of other contentious issues…it is blow after blow for the ruling party heading into the polls in the next two years. Interestingly, amid all that mayhem, we still had the temerity and time to celebrate LKY’s 100th birth anniversary; a non-event by itself because he didn’t live up to or beyond that age and most importantly, the man himself stated explicitly during his lifetime he abhor hagiography.

LKY’s name and legacy is milked ad nauseam at any given opportunity possibly for extending political mileage and the $7 billion Majulah Package is surely a warm welcome for another generation (in their 50’s and early 60’s) of Singaporeans. Payouts for a generation in a “sandwiched” phase of their lives are due recognition for their contributions to the country but the stop-gap measure can only go so far as woes surrounding daily cost of living remain unabated. It looks set that we will be paying through the teeth as we continue into the new year and all eyes will be on Budget 2024.