Tuesday night’s fire in the control room of the Singapore Flyer shut down the 42-storey high observation wheel, leaving visitors stuck for six hours before power was restored. Some visitors had to be lowered in a sling-like device on a rope from one of the observation capsules to get out.

Meta Hartono, an Indonesian visitor, said trapped passengers resorted to urinating in plastic bags while they were hanging in the air. “I love Singapore but I don’t think I’ll come to the Flyer again,” she said.

The news has made it to the UK, and picked up by the early morning tabloid, The Sun. Dubbing the Flyer the Big Wheel, it is no surprise the Brits aren’t too happy we have The Singapore Flyer – which is 30m higher than the London Eye … well they did build theirs 1st, we just made ours bigger.

The Singapore Flyer is worth about S$240 million, and is a private venture backed mainly by German investors and built by Mitsubishi Corp and Takenaka Corp of Japan.

‘There is no MRT track beneath turn 13. The nearest MRT tunnel is about 200 metres away, with a depth of about 10 metres,’ a SMRT spokesperson said on Wednesday.

‘In addition, train wheels and running rails are made of metal and therefore do not generate static electricity charges during train operations.’

Seems like it is a trend to blame the first ever night race for all the hiccups and glitches when a team loses. Especially the bosses from Ferrari who dubbed it a circus. Bernie Ecclestone was in more jovial mood at the success of the first night race held in a street circuit.

“If the Ferrari president is right about the Singapore Grand Prix being a circus, then we have to be grateful to him for providing the clowns.”

I would have to say the glitches were at a bare minimal, and the setup was generally good, with no jams at the entry/exit points. Sore losers anyone?

What do you do with a government that raises fees for wards in the very beds we would reside in when we fall ill?

What do you do with a government that draws more bus lanes to encourage people to take public transport, then ups the transport fees by 6%?

Of course, that fare increase is to pay for the yellow paint.

Public transport firms like SBS Transit, made a profit of $50 million last year.

We complain, rant and rave, and then we continue breathing.

I wonder what the bonuses look like at Temasek or GIC.

“We have these fake queues at front of 20 stores around the country to drum up interest in the iPhone,” a spokesman said.

In Singapore, a certain Mr. Joel Pan actually started queuing up nearly 12 hours before the launch of the iPhone at SingTel’s Comcentre building. Kiasu-ism? Not really, he would probably be able to find a job in Poland.

Nearly a decade ago, he was part of a group of dedicated individuals enlightening teenagers enroute to confirmation. I was part of the teenage group. He was a no-nonsense disciplinarian as compared to the rest, but inspite of his seriousness when it matters, you could always feel his dedication to the cause, and as serious as he was, there were always the lighthearted moments with him.

Furthermore, reading on, I couldn’t but feel a sense of culpability, here was a lawyer, going out of his way and time (which would probably be worth lots more) to help strangers, but sadly in the cruelty of the draw, his life was taken away at such a young age. On the other end of the pole, a dissimilar myself has done nothing of the magnitude and yet still breathe to write this. Such is the way of life.

Rest in peace, Colin.

However, with even basic commodities like flour rising (resulting in more expensive bread and noodles!), and the cost of chickens (chicken is like my staple food!), I wouldn’t bet against inflation hitting those rates. Furthermore, with the price of oil set to break the US$100 per barrel anytime this week or next, nothing else would be deemed surprising anymore.

Now, I have nothing against making a worthwhile investment for religious beliefs, but when you start mixing it with business, something is definitely not right here. Commercial building to generate income? Means plenty of money rolling in, now when an organization gets rich, where does the money flow? Let’s reflect on the NKF saga. Started out as a charitable organization and does extremely well, generating lots of inflows. Directors get tempted by the swelling bank account, and then decide to spend it all for their own purposes. Why am I seeing a similar scenario building up here?

Its perturbing to know that some people willingly donate 10% of their hard-earned income, but who actually knows what comes of their earnings? Pardon my ignorance, but never have I once read somewhere in the bible that we need to give a fixed amount to the church, or neither was I thought growing up. When a church is taking in more than necessary for their upkeep, then you are potentially inviting a similar NKF-like scenario. Yes, the church cannot survive without these donations, but it was the same with the NKF, that was what they preached, that they needed constant money flowing in so that they have ample reserves for a rainy day, but when the coffers constantly swelled, temptation sets in – and we all know the end result.

Little wonder you hear pastors owning a couple of properties and insisting that they bought it legally. Yeah right, like since when did pastors make 6 figure sums annually?  When an advocate of the church or religion has the need to earn so much money, perhaps someone should start questioning. However, it seems the devoted people are mostly oblivious to all these doubts, and its more a case of the chinese proverb “Sometimes outsiders can see a situation clearer than who is directly involved in it.”

Then again at the end of the day, who can you blame but the naivety of the people who give their all to their religious beliefs (monetary loss included). Typically explains why there is an influx of foreign conmen coming in to dress as monks and beg for alms.

I’ve gone from the Starhub sports package being free, packaged in their basic tier, all the way to when their introductory Sports package of $8 and subsequently $15 in a decade.

I wrote a letter in the new paper last year with regards to live EPL rights, after the EU competition law removed the exclusive rights by Sky Sports.

The main response by their Corporate Communications executive Huang Shu Yin was this “We would like to assure our customers that StarHub is constantly mindful of the need to weigh the value of what we offer, and provide an attractive package of programmes at a price that will be reasonable to loyal customers.”

Loyal is never a word when it comes to maximizing profits for a company with a monopoly of an entire country’s pay television. Furthermore, the Singapore market is too small to see any competitors being able to take on Starhub.

The suggestion that Starhub should provide more Italian and other league football coverage is non-forthcoming, with Italian clubs negotiating their own individual exclusive deals. (The likes of Catania and Torino did a cheap collective deal, which allowed Starhub to purchase rights to the group’s home games) Going for the rights of the prominent Italian clubs would certainly cost a bomb, all thanks to AC Milan’s Silvio Berlusconi great law when he was prime minister that Italian clubs should do individual sale of their rights.

The price hike is inevitable (otherwise where are they gona get their S$250 million back from?), but my plea is that there should be a freeze on price hikes for the next 3 years. When they do their maths, and realized their price increase has left them down on numbers, they will be raising prices even more to make up for the shortfall. Ultimately, the game cannot survive without the fans. (as many EPL clubs have realized and have all frozen ticket price hikes for next season)

Related:

• Starhub press release
• TNP Postman