Accolades For The Gifts Of "Nature" And Sports Plus Other Asides (New)

The French, The Italians, The British, The Americans, The Swiss And Now The Spaniards
When a sports journalist wrote about the possibilty of the rise of a La Liga power in world soccer, it set me thinking about how the Spaniards are already a force to reckon with on the retail scene. After all Barcelona and Real Madrid are notables in the world soccer league.

Mango and Zara have long fronted many of our retail malls. Zara's Inditex Group, however, has gone many steps ahead, pulling in its other brand names like Pull And Bear, Massimo Dutti and now Bershka will soon grace Ion Orchard, the iconic retail mall on Singapore's swankiest and ritziest shopping belt.

To me it is just another exciting entree to a buffet of different countries' menus, just as the Major League Soccer is, in addition to the Premier League.

A New And Exciting Gateway To The Garden Of Eden
I am not raving for the sake of raving. I always give due credit when something truly deserves credit. Though criticiscms are all part and parcel of the improvement and change processes.

Like the completed Phase I revamp of what is termed the "Gateway" to MacRitchie Reservoir. Look what some ingenious planning can really do to our much revered and cherished impounding reservoir of old.

For one, taking away all that open-air public car parking lots and replacing them with a two-storey one just frees up more space for nature. The tree-lined returfed pathways. The wooden platforms and stage area. The hanging gardens from overhead. The sprouting ground-level water fountains. A new cafe. And above all new shower facilities.

Though I find the powerful straight line jet sprays of the indoor showerheads a tad irritating and hurtful (and the faucets had to be continously pumped for the sprays to keep squirting and there were no toiletries holders), I had an enjoyable time with the pull-ring al-fresco ones.

Water was warm enough for a pleasant shower on a hot day like the day I visited it. And it was the whole novel experience of it all. However, it can do with a few more silvered benches strewn around the four shower pads for bathers to place their personal belongings.

And yes, mirrors to line the wash-basins instead of just one big solitary full-length mirror located near the lockers.

Even the overhead pedestrian bridge bordering Lornie and Thomson Road is not spared. It looks set to rival the grey-steeled arches and waves of the few iconic linkways of the Southern Ridges Parks.

Well done PUB! I can't wait for Phase 2 to begin.

A Revamped Bishan Stadium
The track has been returfed. And yes, it is now a pristinely manicured lawn-grassed soccer pitch. No more messy grass cutting, trimming and watering.

Visibly missing are the exercise stations and the thick green blanket that used to shroud its perimeter. The spectator arena has been retrofitted with spanking new seats that are only segregated by their colors.

The floor and doors have been repainted with coats of grey and yellow respectively. The floor oustide has been retiled. The showers are now bright and airy with new light-colored wall and floor tiles, wall-mounted rotating fans and there are recessed areas for holding your personal toiletries plus new tiltable shower taps .

Question now is, will the Sports Hall or the gym get a similar make-over? And in time for the YOG too?

All the same, well-done SSC!

If You Are Truer Than True, Then Which Is The Truest?
Incidentally, this reminds me of some of the churches' names I have come across. Some claiming to be the "True Jesus Christ" Church with another claiming to be truer than true.

Like True Or False questions, I suppose if there is truism, there must also be falsity?

In fact when you study the timeline when Christianity began to split, starting with the Reformation of the 16th Century, your mind boggles with all its new offshoots like the charismatic movement for example and all the rest.

So at the end of the day, I just wanna ask which is the "Truest"? Is that too much to ask?

Another Popular Gay Myth And More SingleHood Mythology
The day people stop spreading and perpetrating myths about GLBTs in general and singles in particular and assigning gender/marital status roles thenceforth is the day the world will be a better, more egalitarian and equal society.

Even among my counsellor lecturers, like Richard for instance, the myth about a woman trapped in a man's body (and that is derogatorily referring to gays) is still popular.

The old world of an either-or dichotomy just does not seem to go away. You are either a man or you are transgendered. And transgendered means "transvestism and transsexualism".

There seems to be a huge chunk of the gay population who is neither but who loves and engages in sex with other similar men that somehow seems to elude the general population.

Unless we can address and redress this, don't expect the rest of us to be sitting tight and looking pretty without a riposte every now and then.

Nevertheless great strides have been made and there is a gradual move towards recognising a multicultural worldview. And that means taking up a continental, national, ethnic, socio-economic, gender and/or sexual orientation perspectives. Not just an all-male, white-dominated approach as it used to be.

I just hope the issue of singlehood is researched and looked into more often than it is now.