Starting the Year

First week of the year has come and gone and it feels like before I know it the year will be over. However, it's not been a bad start to the year. On the second day of the year I started out by persuading Agnes that it was time to part company. The straw that broke the camel's back so to speak was her acting as if I was cheating her of major amounts of money when I asked for $19 back. I had enough, the bloody woman couldn't say thank you when I paid off a legal bill of $500 and the last thing I wanted to do was to place more pennies in her hand. Finally told her that I had enough of her ingratitude and that if she spent more time talking about her kids instead of the rich people trying to bed her instead of the usual group of 20-year olds, she might find people more inclined to deal with her.

So, there you have it, I started on a healthy note to removing a major parasite from my life and I think things are starting to clear. I now have a talented half in my life who comes with an intelligent attachment. The Talented Half needs encouragement to exhibit her talents and I am doing what I can to encourage her. My regular readers should actually read hers and even comment on the things that she says. She has what you would call a refreshingly honest style of writing that we don't seem to get in Singapore. I mean our national writer is obsessed with women with bound feet and some sentimental age (though to be fair she seems to have more balls than all the men combined when it comes to political commentary) and ghost stories. So it's nice to read about someone or read someone's thoughts about the going ons in life.

Anyway, the year 2010 is starting out like 2009, just as 2009 started out like 2008. Am in the process of collecting money and trying to negotiate new contracts. I hope this is the year where I start doing things like litigation support and a bit more crisis management. Started out the year by getting interviewed in a tabloid about a publicity stunt organised by SingPost, the national mail carrier. Don't think I'll make too many friends with their corporate communications people, but do think PR people forget that the job is called "PUBLIC RELATIONS" and not "PUBLICITY."

I do agree with the fact that 90 percent of the job seems to be about chasing reporters for stories but I think we forget that getting the story published is only part of the game. The game is called "Public Relations" because our objectives are to build relations and not just publicity for the sake of it. I remember reading someone who described Donald Trump as being well known - but a well known idiot. PR consultants sometimes have this terrible habit of being so focused on the publicity aspect of the job, they forget that there are times when the client should not be in the media shouting things out.

Anyway, this should be an interesting year. By tradition the Year of the Tiger is turbulent. If you look at it this way:

1 - Both World Wars Started in Year of the Tiger.

2 - US Presidents have had lousy luck in the Tiger Year:

a - Nixon resigned in 74

b - Regan had to face inquiries into IranContra in 86

c - Clinton got impeached in 98.

If you look at the patterns, Barak Obama might be consulting a Fung Shui master just as Nancy Regan used to consult astrologers.

For me, the Tiger Year is usually volatile too. I got born in 74, 86 was a lousy year in academic performance and 98 was a year I was in-love with another parasite called Adelene, a Malaysian Chinese girl who stayed in with me in Dean Street for a while. OK, to be fair to Adelene, a few Caucasians found her attractive (as opposed to Agnes whom nobody found interesting) and the girl had a talent for cooking up good French food. It's amazing how much shit one can put up with when one is well feed.

I mean the French have a talent for making politics in the Western World more interesting. The Americans assume leadership, the Brits follow blindly and the French have a panache for throwing a spanner into the works. But you have to hand it to them. French is spoken by very few people in the world but somehow it's accepted as the world's second language and while people assume you speak English, they assume you are educated if you can speak French. But we put up with the French because they have one incredible talent - food and wine. I mean, learning a few basic phrases of the language is no issue if you get to savor the cheeses they make.

Having said that, I think the same is said of the Chinese. I mean I found Taiwan and Taipei in particular to be a dirty, crowded city but so what when you get to deal with people who have enough imagination to come up with 20 varieties of ice tea, each of them tasting spectacular. I'm Westernised in a lot of ways but I still go back to Chinese, particularly Cantonese cuisine as home food. Having said that I do love Italian and Indian food amongst other cuisine ...at one stage I was even munch suji with the African boys down in Little India. The Nigerians could never quite figure me out. No right thinking Chinese would sit with them and enjoy a good meal. In the end I think they figured it was something sexual - they would always say,"You like our food! Get Power like African!" I think they may have a point. There must obviously be enough Chinamen eating Suji and Obusi soup - more and more scam mails seem to come from China as opposed to Africa. Before you know it, I'll be inviting the lot of you to invest in this blog....

Still one should not be too mean to those who scam people. I mean, we have Citizens of Caucasia coming over here because, well there are plenty of idiots willing to give them the time of the day. So what does it say about the rest of us?