It’s 1100 in my serviced apartment in downtown Singapore and
I haven’t switched on the air con yet, so must be getting acclimatised, and better
dressed for the occasion. Even by Singapore standards it’s both hot and humid –
88%+ normally. What some of the locals call three shirt weather. If dressed for
work, one walks slowly. Getting to my place of work is largely OK since there’s
a MRT (Tube) station just next to my building, but the last bit is by bus to
the University up the other end of the island. Then there’s a short stroll up
hill to the RSIS, during which all the previous good work is undone. Fortunately since I was
last there in pre-Covid times, there’s been some changes and a new Business
School has been built. It’s award-winning, environmentally very friendly and
largely constructed of wood. Fans not air con. Bearable, but not, by comparison
with the outside atmosphere, freezingly cold. Now I can walk though it, and
there’s even a small coffee shop in which to take a break. I did that a couple
of mornings ago, taking refuge from absolutely cascading rain. Over on the
right of the picture you can see water gushing down a gully that was dry minutes
before. My coffee cup in the foreground. A good time to catch up on the various emails pouring in almost as fast
as the rain coming down
I have been working my passage here, done a lot of teaching at their Staff College, had a lot of meetings and will have handled visits by and slated to speak to separate groups of students, academics and parliamentarians from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and, unexpectedly, Georgia. I have a starring role in the latter, presumably on the basis that I know where it is. That could be a tricky but interesting assignment given that the Government seems to be aligning itself with Mr Putin while the people want to join NATO and the EU. I had better not do my standard Ukraine pitch I suppose. The China group from a Beijing think-tank were absolutely typical of what’s known as Track I.5 diplomacy, urbane, impeccably dressed, suits and ties unless us their hosts, gracious words but inflexible attitudes, pained at so many unfounded suspicions. Lots of talk about what difference Trump could make. At the end they presented us all with boxes of posh brass book-markers. My neighbour, Singapore’s former ambassador to a host of different countries leaned my way and said ‘What was t they sad about Greeks bearing gifts ?’
That’s the kind of thing I shall miss
when not coming to Singapore any more. It’s a kind of watchtower over this part
of the world so everyone comes here. It makes life more interesting. I think I
get more out of these meetings than I put in, and anticipate that will
certainly be the case when I go to the British High Commission tomorrow for a briefing.
Or at least I hope so ! I’ve also done a lot of work I brought with me, largely
for the America trip at the end of the month, often with Radio 3 playing in the
background on my laptop. This is a recent discovery that I’ve never used before
and much like. Classic Radio without the adverts.
For all these reasons I haven’t
done much in Singapore tourist-wise yet, but this last week is easier so I should
get some opportunities. I did manage the Botanic Gardens and the orchid display
– in intermittent rain. I noticed that the orchid planted to commemorate the
visit of Festus Mogai former president of Botswana
and at College one of my rivals for Cherry’s affections, was no longer there. I'm sure that had nothing to do with her later love of the Alexander McCall Smith 'First Lady Detective Agency' crime novels set in that country that she liked so much ! If it was, wouldn't we have called when we went there ?
Lots of exotic foliage and bright flowers everywhere - plus a little path off into a rain forest section I think fascinating. Clumps of bamboo dotted about the size of which justify Nathan’s determination to dig it all out of the garden at Wansdyke.
I have been taken out for meals
quite a lot, nearly always to favoured Hawker Markets. Fortunately one of the
stalls with a particular speciality was closed for the evening. I’ve managed to
make use of both the Clubs in Singapore I can access for swims, library
consultations, drinks and meals, and of course made my regular pilgrimage to
the great Asian Civilisations Museum
revelling in its ceramics and religious art collections as usual. But that
really is about it, at the moment and in my off moments, I wonder about how the
tiling of the annex is going, back home. Soon I’ll be finding out !
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