Shiva's and Metta's Mother's Sutra

As someone who gave up the idea of the nation state - round about the same time as I gave up the idea of organised religion, which coincided with my discovery of feminism and the importance of mythos and story telling - I do find national days anachronistic. I also find things like founder days and class reunions and all the things which commemorate things which are clearly done to celebrate some accident of birth which singles you out as better than everyone else. Birthday are different though. They are about celebrating someone's arrival here, although I am also very bad at celebrating those. In fact, I am generally bad at celebrating anything. I'd like to say that life is a celebration day to day, but that would also be a lie. It was not always so, but I do think the longer you live the more these days flatten out until the terrain is just an endless one to death. It is a bit depressing, but also true. This is a roundabout way of me saying, I do not care for National Day at ...

The David Byrne yesterday was excellent. So near Singapore's annual fest of tired old tropes of nationalist fervour, often accompanied with some of the most contrived songs shoe horning patriotism into every quaver and demi semi quaver, his fantastic concert was a tribute to the human spirit. He covered fascism, ICE, celebrated the human condition, the contradictions and complications, repression and the thirst for freedom, animal rights, environmentalism and the destruction of forests, etc. There was impeccable choreography and instrumentalism, the musicians carried their instruments the whole time, the visuals and graphics were state of the art - it was utterly utterly inspiring. It was the perfect antidote to the constant blaring of Count on Me Singapore and other 45 year old propaganda which everyone is subjected to when all shopping centres and supermarkets are turned into our own personal Guantanamo Bay for two weeks at this time every year. I can't imagine what the Massi...

Well it has been a week and it is still not over. Monday - Returned from Johor Tuesday - Went to see exhibition in Asian Civilisations Museum Wednesday - Went to Changi and saw The Odyssey Thursday - A day of meals and then walked around in Chinatown after dusk Today we will head to see the David Byrne 'Who is the Sky?' gig. In between all of this there was lots of conversation and laughter. Like today I discovered that Jac used to tutor a child of someone I went to RJC with - and spent lots of time with in the Track and Field team. It's raining. Oisin is planning to head to Bali so I put him in touch with Deena who has a cousin who owns a place there. Then we chatted more about things in JC. Oisin then accused me of being a pick me and possibly a mean girl as well. Because I used to be in the Track and Field team. Was I? I said, and they all piled on and made fun of me. It was ...

Yesterday was moderately busy. I had lunch with Jac and Ma and then we went to Changi Hopsital to drop Oisin off for the VC event. Then Ghin and I went for a walk to Changi Village. At first we went to this place called Smoke and Barrel, which was beside this per-friendly container park which served food and was also an amusement arcade. Seems odd that people would come all the way here for an amusement arcade. It was like a fragment of Coney Island which was Asian had been transplanted to the edge of an airfield. It was also unkempt and run down but clearly awaiting for people to visit and there were a few punters on this hot Wednesday afternoon. It felt like I had stepped into the set The Crying of Lot 49. Anyway, after deciding this was not for us, we ended up at Changi Village and walking along the coastal path. Changi is now very done up - I remember when there were no cycling paths and it was just sand. Of course it makes it more accessible.  It was, a...

Listening to the set list for 2026's David Byrne tour. It starts off with Heaven. It kind of is my spirit animal. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.  So, the story of the saga with the DW next door, is that she is now leaving. Which is great. With her permission in contacted MOM and they escalated it. And the agent was involved and there was a meeting with the employer, my neighbour, and she is now allowed to go home. I also contacted HOME and they were also great. There is help out there - people just have to be able to ask for it. I wonder if the women get, as part of their training, what recourse they have should they encounter abuse and what they are entitled to. She told Yati to tell me thanks. I don't know what will happen to her now, but she is away from this demon. Honestly the scolding she was subjected to was brutal. And other things were even worse. It was mad.  But fair play to MOM and Home and ...

View from the hotel Ma made it to Malaysia! After years of saying she wouldn't go, Jac managed to strongarm her into going to Johor. Well, we made it. And we stayed at a super nice hotel - the Sheraton. Only that the hotel itself was surrounded on all side by construction and extreme disorganisation. Which was par of course for Johor. The place has always been a mess. The thing though is, if I was the government of Johor I would look at deindustrialising the place. Fixing one zone at a time. Getting it right. Finishing dead buildings. Honestly, the number of unfinished projects. Finish them ffs.  Then on the other side of Johor they have cleared so much forest that it is blazingly hot. Insanely hot. It's mad.  Malaysia is just a mess really. Well Johor is. I don't know any part of Malaysia where I could go to - like not a hotel - an enclave...

I've been feeling exhausted. Yesterday, the boys and I went to Marine Parade. It was so nice. The place was not busy. The day was - well, you see what it was like. We dithered about taking bikes or not. All the bike places had closed and I was exasperated to see that I now had to download an app to hire a bike. There was something which was lost. So we walked until I realised we couldn't walk any more to where I thought we should go and we came upon the McDonalds which had been renovated. Now the area had a few other outlets. Oisin chose a really nice Indian Muslim place. I had the murtabak which was massive. Ghin and he had tandoori chicken with briyani.  It was sooo nice. Then after that we walked back to the car - not having taken the bikes. But in really good spirits. Laughing and joking and just enjoying the wonderful weather, bellies full and happy with leftovers for later. It was a searingly hot day - one of the...

Sometimes I think, hey Singapore is heading in the right direction and then like buses things come around which say to you, no, you are still living the totalitarian dream. Like the leader of the opposition who has been harried relentlessly, just like his predecessor before him, so the point where he can will no longer be able to practise law in Singapore any longer. JBJ was reduced to standing outside hawker centres distributing The Hammer. The remaining forests are now under threat. It is unlikely that the voices of the people will be heard and the forests saved. That Massive Attack is told that they are under investigation for flying the Palestinian flag. I mean the list does go on. A cool band like MA performs here - in all honesty I was astounded they were allowed to perform. I was wow, Singapore is maybe getting to be a bit cool. But no, no, the sun has risen, the spell is broken and the actual form of the beast is revealed. And there it stands...

Well, I think, I believe, in likelihood, I will have lost most of the belly fat - and possibly be toned at the end of these 18 days. I THINK. It is now the last few pounds - possibly 6 or 7, and I am just doing what I've been doing over the past 3 and something months. I will also start reducing my calorie intake and stop eating at 7 pm at night. I think that 10 hour fast is a good one.  Ma cooked yesterday - making white radish soup with pork bone. A simple, hearty meal which has a light broth with a musky taste. I love it when she cooks. I am always astonished how good it tastes. I am in awe of it. It makes me happy to no end that I am almost at the end of the line. When this last bit all goes, just continuing up keep with be easy and I would have done something with the past 4 months - as well as up ended my entire life. The pool was closed yesterday for maintenance. How was I to know?  We got Ma's Singpass sorted and then we will get the...

Perhaps the only thing that I have done with any consistency, apart from look after Ma, has been the exercising. The running, sit ups, stretching and swimming. In 19 days, I will have hit the 4 month or 16 week target. Why is the 4 month target important? Because that is when the body has taken the weeks of effort you have put in and it has bedded in. I am now aware that it will not be the revelation which I hoped it would be. I won't have the physical appearance which I had hoped 16 weeks would bring, but I am also aware that, as I have said a million times in the past 14 weeks, that it is correcting decades of neglect. I did not understand how much I had neglected my body - especially during the Covid lockdown.  I was thinking, as I plunged into the pool yesterday, and as I took in the silence and the peace and the luxury and the wonder of the place... that - well, first this is my usual holiday - well, not entirely usual - but that for decades too, I struggled with my own story....

Over the last few outings we have been braver and going further afield. The Rollator has really opened up possibilities and we have now gone to two great places in the last two days. Today it was Geneo. Amazing vaulted ceilings reminiscent of gothic cathedrals. It was genuinely impressive. And we had a really nice meal at the Great Nanyang outlet. I don't know what you can call it. It isn't a restaurant. Cafe I guess? After that, I had a nap and then went for a swim. Then we went to Sheng Siong. Ma made dinner. It rained loads.  Ma is doing well. After a tough week last week, she seems to have come round a bit. It rained loads today. I have just decided I will start cutting down on the amount I eat to help with the last bits of the weight loss. But its going really well. Just very content with everything.  I watched The Royal Tennanbaums  and I have no memory of it at all. I fo...

Well, I just listened to an hour long talk about the most current up to date science of aging and I did learn new things. Like how the epigenetic markers work. That as we get older, these get more confused and the more confused these get the more dysfunction takes place in cell, until it gets very garbled and the cell stops functioning like a cell. But I also learned that aging cannot be stopped as such. We haven't been able to reverse the age of cells in a living organism, especially one which is as complex as a human being. But what we can do is we can compress the disease part and we can get it to take place as close as possible to death itself.  It was interesting. And the old standards which have been observed and repeated through the millennia - diet, exercise, meaning, stress and sleep. All of these are contributors to a better, healthier form of aging. I was watching this for Ma, but then I realised this is also useful for myself. Some time along the way, I also did think a...