Well at least it’s not about my finger. But I was discussing with KK last night about something spooky that has been happening recently. Almost every day at least once I look at the clock and the time is significant, by that I mean like in this picture – or it’s 12.12, or 11.11… it seems to be happening more and more. Am I a superhero?

Or just a clock-watcher?

It’s been a while, so much has happened. In no particular order:

1. London

2. Mum

3. Work

4. Weight

5. Food

6. Friends

7. New York

8. Bali

9. Thailand (2 times!)

10. Suits.

The problem with sandwiches is that they are EVERYWHERE in airline lounges. I mean EVERYWHERE. Those little cling-film wrapped presents of white bread and spread are more obvious than an Ad Man trying to sell a PR idea (and trust me they are pretty obvious).

I can’t help it. I have all the constituent parts at home, the cucumber, the tuna, the lettuce. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is….Until today.

It’s the margerine. The oil based spread that’s probably hydrogenated to within an inch of its life. What do they make that stuff from – crack? I bet if you ate airline lounge sandwiches everyday for a year you’d lose all your teeth and end up on a law enforcement billboard.

I get to the lounge (on the basis of my gold card – not my ticketed class ye financiale peeple) and am tempted with the hokkien mee on display.

Then those little tarts of taste, those white futons of pleasure wrapped in their deviant cling film beckon me like a bad Kinder Beuno ad. I always thought it was a bit arrogant Kinder naming a chocolate bar as such – what if it’s not beuno? What if I’m allergic to children’s chocolate. There should be a name for people who like kiddy chocs. Pedo-candy-philes. I’m telling you, no one over 12 should be allowed to eat a chocolate biscuit in the shape of a hippo.

So I eat one. Then two. Then three. Then it’s flight time. I turn down peanuts and just eat the protein. And then the airline loo. And the burping begins. Like a collapsing road tunnel on the Amalfi coast my oesphegus omits noise and scent remiscent of Durian, dead rat and charcoal. It’s the spread.

Three hours later, my body is cased in a film of highly hydrogenated fats. I can, like a mouse, slide through a hole the size of the barrel of a bic pen. When my boyfriend meets me and hugs me I’m worried I’ll slip up out of his arms (like a suicide bombers head) up into the sky.

It’s the spread. The spread is dead baby.

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To sit here reading Morgan Spurlock’s “Don’t Eat This Book” after putting away $100 of food shopping to then want a McSpicy so much you’d give a kidney for it — which less face it, is actually a likely trade long term?

We are both feeling under the weather (KK and I) so bought a tonne of fresh salad for dinner, but now having realized that we are both salt and bgroup vitamin deficient – as diagnosed by Dr. Annes telephone observation of me eating 4 giant water biscuits topped with lashings of Marmite – we believe a high fat, high salt, hi! early grave! diet might just crack it.

United Square (the mall that is very close to where we live) is a lovely local mall for local people. In a good way that means you can get something in a carrier bag as opposed to buying a LV bag, and people smile at you as they serve you, not steal your mindfulness with evil temptations of all that is bad (buying shit, you know?)

So what with both of us feeling under the weather, we kept a low profile today and waited for the rain to come. What on EARTH am I on about I hear you say. Well, let me paint you a picture (and it will be of the quality of those poor people we saw on Blue Peter as a kid painting with a plunger stuck to their head – I expect).

I find rain really fucking romantic. I’m sorry to ‘f-bomb’ there. STOP. F-Bomb? What the HELL does that mean? I picked that up in the USA and much like H1N1 (the America’s latest present to the world) it’s a powerful irritant and needs to be quarantined like a group of happy sunburnt farang basking on the piss-stained deck of the inappropriately entitled ‘First Choice Cruise liner deeee-looks’ or whatever it is berthed off the coast of Costa Moron.

Laying in bed, with the rain and the man you love is quite something. We got the laying in bed bit COVERED, but sadly the rains didn’t come. Anyway, I digress (and as I sit here I also digest). We had to get out at some point to eat. As dear new Singapore client informed me gently on Friday ‘that’s not an adult’s fridge it’s a students fridge’. We live our lives via a just-in-time principle – you know REAL food that’s FRESH not canned or full of that comedy high fuck-you corn syrup.

ANYWHO… We pull our nimble torsos out of bed (one of our torsos being FAR nimbler than the other) and toodle over the road. Hunger strikes. And we find ourselves sat in the Food Court.

Now let’s be clear about what a Food Court isn’t:

1. There is no judgement and mostly no guilt *unless you really biff it*.

2. It is not like the BHS cafe in Crawley.

3. You cannot ‘hold court’ in a food court (egalite!)

The Food Court is the happy, uniquely Singaporean combination of infrastructure, culture and value.Great food, cooked to order served in moments in an environment that’s clean enough for open heart surgery (and indeed there’s probably a stall that will sell you that too).

I had a delicious chinese dry chilli chicken dish and KK had, well, KK having felt a bit low and a bit ill, settled for a health giving McDonald’s tableau. Naturally I tested the fries…

Next up – what the hell really is Milo?

I haven’t always been a big museum person, apart from the Science Museum in London that is. I used to like the permanent exhibition about the human body, in particular the ‘what smell is this’ section.

Clearly as you get older you miss the museums less but oddly you can still find ways to play ‘what smell is this’.

Well, whilst my dear friend was hear a week or so ago we thought we would act like proper grown-ups and hit the Museum of Singapore.

What a stinkingly pleasant surprise! A beautiful building on Stamford Road that obviously benefited from the same architects that created Mr Lewis’s bedroom furniture (although no fur coats).

The place is huge, beautifully laid out – courteously managed and doesn’t have ugly hoody kids picking their noses and nicking leaflets.

What it does have however is a really rather good exhibition schedule.

Including an AMAZING Christian Lacroix installation – showing his majestic abilities in theater and opera – and a wonderful narrative that permanently refers to his passion for designing clothes the look like they’ve been pulled out of an old trunk.

I can only think therefore that must clearly secretly dress many of my advertising colleagues.

There was also a vibrant (which is incorrect seeing as you needed a flashlight and sonar to see your way around) Verner Panton exhibition.It’s quite something to watch a German promotional film for sectional seating that can only really be described as watching a furniture snuff movie.

But the most amazing thing to view was the effort and facilities that are laid on for the exceptionally WELL-BEHAVED children. Shoes in a row, hand sanitizer but a sense of fun and calm happiness flowed over our spirits. As opposed to the usual fear as some trog comes toward you with Stacy and Neil in a Maclaren buggy thinking a happy meal from McDonald’s  is a kids activity pack.

I know that might sound like a euphonium (that’s a brass instrument that actually implies something much worse) but to burn rice is to love food.

I often wondered how our Asian friends (and in particular the double-windsor Thai bunch) could make food have this earthy flavour and texture — without actually cooking with mud that is.

I know I’ve cracked it. It’s about dry roasting rice in a hot pan until it starts to smoke. Then grabbing the wok with a wet tea-towel, allowing the heat (similar to that of the surface of the sun) to transfer to your hands allowing you to scream like a girl as you race outside before setting of the smoke alarm.

Then once cool you grind those little mice-poos of flavour in a coffee grinder. Giving you 2 immediate benefits: Firstly, a flavour and texture that is sublime in Thai food; secondly, a sure fire way to sample bad Turkish coffee if you forget to wash the grinder afterwards.

Today, thanks to our friend Anne (who has committed a crime so severe – to relocate to England – it gives me lion hands) we have turned our little balcony and open air shower into a Banyan Tree Resort. Well kind of. It’s close enough.

Trust me, there’s something invigorating, fun and downright sexy about having a shower that’s open to the elements and yet protects your dignity *and people leaping from adjacent buildings* whilst you build up a lather.

It’s reminiscent of being at a hotel in the Maldives, showering under the elements and washing away the stress of the day (or the sweat of unpacking 123413 books) whilst feeling a breeze and hearing the gentle tippy tapping of water on foliage.

To have plants on the balcony excites me in a way that not only reconfirms that, yes, as we get older we DO become our parents, but also because there’s something so wonderful about sitting near plants. God knows I’ve worked with some pretty inanimate creatures – but at the opposite end of the happy spectrum, sipping a cup of teh tarik whilst hearing the wind rustle through your greenery is indeed cathartic.

Long may the green stuff reign, not only as a wonderfully calming addition to our flat, but as a reminder of Anne and her wonderful generosity.

4pm today was not my finest hour. Since I moved here, and due to the wonderful wisdom of KK I have tried, and mostly succeeded in managing both my temper and my stress. A lot of this is to do with knowing that we must live in the NOW not then or what may be. There is little point freaking out about something that may or may not happen.

Not today. Today I had a call, a call that I thought would bring people together, make them happy – show unification and positivity.

I can only blame myself, but the call was NOT a resounding success, in fact quite the opposite and I felt quite awful after it. Realising that the only person responsible for my anger was me I circled into a virtual ring of doom – getting ever angrier and ever more upset.

It took sometime to mentally sit myself down and have a word. It’s life. Things work and things don’t. They don’t always go your way. Looking back I’m proud because I realised, unlike before, my anger was directed purely at me. I could have handled the situation better and understood that words are powerful and easily misunderstood.

The only person I was shouting at was, me.