It may interest some readers who commented on my first article to know that I was very conscious of Coleridge’s poem when choosing my pen-name because a few years after the events described here, whilst [more…]
‘Harry’ Lee Kuan Yew was born in 1923 into a comfortably off Straits family, resident in the Reservoir Road area of Singapore. His father was a Shell Oil company executive, his mother the author or [more…]
The High Commissioner’s Private Office. Upstairs. The British High Commissioner’s Residence. Eden Hall. Nassim Road. Singapore. I have let myself into the High Commissioner’s office and sat myself in the naughty corner. There are footsteps [more…]
This article is the first of what may become a series if it attracts enough interest. It’s title has been inspired by a song performed by the Everly Brothers that was Number One on the [more…]
The first rule of diplomacy is to be nice to everybody all of the time, especially at Singapore’s social event of the season, the British High Commissioner’s annual bash. Even when cornered by North Korea’s [more…]
Ordinarily, the High Commissioner’s residence looks like a two-tiered colonial wedding cake, all Wedgwood coloured walls and white embellishments. Especially so when seen by moon and burning torch light during the British Mission’s much anticipated [more…]
Singapore being a Commonwealth country the British Embassy was really a High Commission and the Ambassador, a High Commissioner. Since both high commissioners and ambassadors are addressed as ‘Your Excellency’, myself, my wife Nicole and [more…]
Singapore. Forward Singapore! Everybody’s favourite piece of squashed diamond real estate, 31 miles by 17 miles, lies fashionably 200 miles south-east of Kuala Lumpur and 70 north of Sumatra. Here Malays, Chinese, South Asians, and [more…]
By the time I’d returned to my room, paddling up the dripping steps, Emile had curled up on her end of my bed and had fallen asleep. Wept herself to sleep even, after overhearing me [more…]
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