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Showing posts from June, 2012

Hotel New World Disaster

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Singapore is well known for its efficiency in everything including safety. You get electricity without breakdown and you  can drink water from the tap since a long time ago. These are things we take for granted. I didn't know it until I served National Service as a Policeman and when I was posted for a year to the airport. I get many passengers at the then Paya Lebar Airport asking me if they could drink direct from the tap. I thought it strange and when I said "yes, of course" they were all very puzzled and yet amazed. I still think that Singaporeans still take things for granted. I have read about buildings that collapsed like a pack of cards in other countries as well but never in Singapore. So, like all Singaporeans, we got the rudest shock of our lives when we got news that the Hotel New World had collapsed! It was 15 March 1986. It came down like a pack of cards exactly at 11.15am. This was Singapore's first civil disaster post war. It was a building ow

Euro 2012 - The Climax

I paid for it! I confessed and even though I paid for it I am still paying the price. I am now thinking about the future. Should I quit? It's not about sex scandals that you read about everyday! It is more serious than that. It's soccer and the Euro 2012. I did not really think I could survive this ordeal and on a few days took leave and even played some golf. There was a 26 year-old guy in China who watched the Euro every night and then went to work. He probably didn't sleep at all. He died unfortunately.  It is not about life and death, it is more serious than that!  That was what Shankly once said and Brian Clough once said that if football was meant to be played in the sky and the clouds than God would have put grass there. England must reinvent using the wisdom of Shankly and Clough. 1st Semi-Final - Spain v Portugal The match promised much but delivered little. If you just think of the skills of the players and most people were thinking it would be end to

Euro 2012 - Semi-Finals

Quarter-Finals Portugal v Czech - The Czechs played only for 10-15 minutes and then were largely defensive. With last than half an hour left Portugal had 11 shots against the Czechs 2. That summed up the game. Meantime, Cristiano Ronaldo finally came on top of his game clipping the post a couple of times and finally nodded an unstoppable header past Cech who made numerous good saves. I was right that it boiled down to these two players. Portugal was the deserving winner. Germany v Greece - Joachim Loew had the guts to make changes to a winning team bringing back Miroslav Klose to replace Mario Gomes. Reus was also introduced. Greece as expected proved a tough nut to crack but when the Germans were leading 1-0, Greece had the cheek to come back with a stunning reply from a counter attack. Suddenly, Germany looked vulnerable. What happened when you hit a great team? They hit you back three more times but gave away a penalty for handling in the box. The Germans can score with var

Fish Book

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We have face book. If we were all fish, then what? Fish book anyone? I last wrote about fish behaviour. http://gforce-guru.blogspot.com/2012/03/fishy-behaviour.html It is actually mind boggling and frightening if you look at the species of fish everywhere and it keeps you wondering if they were creation or evolution. I keep telling myself that it is creation as only in creation that life and things can be beautiful and super functional. Just look at this puffer fish.  A Giant Snakehead (Toman) and Mayan Cichlid living together. It is obvious which is the more aggressive fish but they have no problem and only on some days, the smaller cichlid would irritate the bigger one.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q--2qzk8UQ So this is what it got. A few light bites to put him in place but the cichlid has attacked other fish even bigger than it is. It is in its nature. What is your nature? The Toman is a voracious eater. My son reared them from small frys

Principles

Principles are professed or accepted rules of action or conduct like a person of good moral principles. It is a fundamental doctrine. A personal and specific basis of conduct. A person of principle is one with a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct. As I have said before, if you are not kind , you can't have empathy.  If you don't have principles, how to be honest?  If you are not grateful, can you have humility? Can one be fair without an open mind? Practise spirituality without exhibiting self control? Will you forgive more easily if you have more spirituality and a greater sense of humour? If you are a grateful person, you will see and appreciate beauty in all things. Curiosity will keep you asking questions in your mind to discover the truths of all these things mentioned and when you have all these, it shall empowered you with tremendous courage come what may.  "It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more st

Euro 2012 - Quarters And Semi-Final.

The stage has been set. Upheavals to the Netherlands, upset on Russia, failure to qualify by the hosts Poland and the Ukraine and a much needed break for suffering from too much soccer. Is it easier to play or to watch at God-forsaken hours? Remember how they used an octopus to predict World Cup scores? Well, the Octopus has died. Singapore used a parakeet once and today they use a fish, an arowana called Ah Huat. I use the Xbox to depict the teams by playing Winning Eleven with these results: Czech Republic 0 Portugal 2, Germany 1 Greece 0, Spain 3 France 1, England 4 Italy 0. The eventual results would be quite different. First of all, a dossier on the teams in the last eight.  Czech Republic v Portugal The Czechs were humiliated 1-4 by Russia in the opener but they showed great character to bounce back to beat Greece with two early goals to win 2-1 and then beat Poland 1-0 in a difficult match. They are playing in their fifth straight Euro tournament. They have beate