F and B Service Standards in London is really World Class

Ramen Joint at Embankment 

This post is to acknowledge the fact that the city of London has Food and Beverage service on the whole par excellence. Having travelled to many parts of the world, and eaten at fine dining as well as ordinary dining establishments, I have come to the conclusion that London's dining F and B establishments make every effort to provide the BEST service to the customer. Bravo to them.

Fusion Dining along the Embankment 

         For Singapore, with the exception of only the top 10% of restaurants, it is impossible to match the service standards in London. My wife and I were there for 5 days, and practically every dining establishment for a meal, the service staff would be polite, well informed and clear in diction and order processing. Even in an ordinary burger restaurant in Earl's Court, the waitress has to recover 3 clothes pegs from your table. This is part of the front of kitchen's staff's routine. Once you enter the restaurant and are ushered into a table, you will notice 3 clothes pegs. Upon ordering from the waitress, after an acceptable time of waiting, she will bring the order to you. She will then proceed to take the first clothes peg from the table once she has served you.

Brilliant afternoon along the Thames 

        Again, after some time, she will scan the table and make the effort to come over to retrieve the 2nd clothes peg. She then will ask you how is everything, the burger is cooked to your liking and anything else you would need. Once you are done, again, she will come and clear your table, engage in pleasantries and ask you and your dining partner if you want to order some dessert and coffee or tea. Depending on your response, she will then proceed to followup and serve the dessert, coffee tea and retrieve the third clothes peg. 

       The simplistic operational procedure to retrieve the clothes peg ensures that in a crowded diner such as this one, the waitress must go to each and every table using the clothes peg as an indicator of at what stage the dinner or lunch is progressing. A simple yet highly effective way of ensuring that everything is covered and every table is given the same amount of attention and access to service.

       London F and B service staff are mainly from the EU countries. I hope that with the Brexit around the corner that their livelihoods will be protected as tourism and good service standards are so important to the well being of any economy.     

Commuting in Southern China ; not so easy from my recent experience

The MRT Card for Guangzhou 

        The world is easy to maneuvre as a solo traveller ? Well, not exactly. My recent trip to Guangzhou and Dongguan is testament of this. I am fortunate to be able to speak passable Mandarin, thanks to the rigid training I had in school as well as usage of the language in business. My recent trip to Dong Guan, was a revisit to China, particularly the use of the mass prime movers such as high speed trains and the underground in big cities such as Guangzhou.

       The plan was to meet with some associates in DongGuan, South China. As that particular week (last week of April) coincided with the Canton Fair, many flights from Singapore to Hong Kong or Shenzhen were fully to capacity, I had to book a flight to Guangzhou which was some 2 hours plus by car to Dongguan. Rather than inconvenience my manufacturer to pick me up which would entail at least 5 hours to and fro, I agreed to (firstly) upon disembarking from the aeroplane to make my way to the subway (the term Mass Rapid Transit is used in Singapore) and head towards the station Guangzhou East where there is a link to the high speed trains either eastwards to Shenzhen or westwards to Dongguan, Chengdu, Chongqing or Changsha .

        The first part of the by- foot trip was easy. Upon disembarking, I made it to the terminal station at the basement of the airport. Then, I had to buy tickets from the automated ticketing machines which were primarily in Chinese. I had my first bout of confusion, as Guangzhou East station was finally located on the ticketing machine, but the damn machine did not accept 50 yuan notes ! Only small 5 yuan and 10 yuan notes. So, I had to get out of the queue, go the the 7 - 11 convenience store, and change my 50 yuan notes.

       I then decided to skip the queue altogether, and bought a stored value card (or so I thought) for 50 yuan (S$ 10 dollars equivalent). I made my way then to the platforms only to be turned away at the turnstiles. The reason ? My stored value card of 50 yuan had no money topped up inside ! The 50 yuan was just a deposit ! So I made my way to the same 7 -11 convenience store to top up another 50 yuan (S$ 10). Again I had to muddle my way in my broken Mandarin !

      Upon reaching the platforms, it was pretty easy to make the way to Guangzhou East station. It was 12 stops away from airport, and as can be seen by the free map, the words were printed in tiny Chinese and English ! Definately very difficult for people like me approaching early old age with long sightedness !! 

       When I finally reached the Guangzhou East station, again I had to ask people exactly where the tickets were being sold for the trains going to Dongguan. I was fortunate there was a kind lady cleaner who escorted me to exactly the counter which sold those tickets (there are many ticketing machines and counters to all parts of China) and this part was really tricky. The trains heading to Dongguan were plentiful and there were trains departing every 15 minutes (Dongguan is along the way to many other cities east of Guangzhou)

      Getting to the right platform was also something of a challenge, again my Mandarin helped me tremendously. So, for an English only speaking person to travel around alone in China would be a major challenge even today.  

     Therefore the challenges to overcome upon arriving at Guangzhou airport ;

a) locate the MRT station at B2

b) Buy tickets or Stored value cards from either the ticketing machine (ensure you have 
    small 5 or 10 yuan notes) or the 7-11 ; Stops are written mainly in Chinese

c) Upon reaching Guangzhou East station, make your way to the High Speed railway 
    network above ground

d) Purchase the tickets from the obscure ticketing office - Chinese reading and writing 
    is a must. 

e) Get onto the right platform at the right time. 

     So, I finally hopped on the 2 :35 pm train to Chanping which is a suburb of Dongguan.I finally reached my destination at 3: 15 pm after having touched down and cleared customs by 12.30 pm. 

     It took me all of 2 hours 45 minutes. If I had the future know how of the use of the Card and  the location of where to purchase the all the tickets and board accordingly, I would be able to shorten the time to easily 1 hour 45 minutes or less. 

          

The Sad Plight of the Working Poor in Singapore

           With each passing year, Singapore keeps on getting world class scores in all kinds of things, Our National University is top Asian University in the World University Rankings, the PISA International results for maths and science puts Singapore at No. 1 in the world rankings for secondary and primary school levels. Our per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 4th highest in the world, we have the world's busiest transhipment port in Tanjung Pagar, expatriates find this island really easy to acclimatise, and amongst the best in Asia to live, work and play.

           The glaring underbelly is that Singapore has a very high GINI coefficient, that means the top 10% is many many times richer than the bottom 30%.  It is apparent, from the numbers of people I meet in my daily commute and having my breakfast, lunch or stroll amongst the Housing Board estates and I see the elderly working people cleaning tables, toilets and the like.I know I am only scratching the surface, but the truth of the matter is that there are numerous elderly people in Singapore have to work, many times, in back breaking and demeaning jobs till they are bed-ridden. Many elderly have depleted their savings and depend on their families, or downgrade their housing to live in smaller units, or even stay in rental flats. The young - old pyramid is fast becoming top heavy and our citizen population is under producing due to myriad of reasons, but top of the list is the hectic pace of life coupled with high cost of living.  

           This is very sad. The foreign talent scheme to attract foreign companies and the foreign influx has improved Singapore's total GDP, but overall productivity has taken a hit and has been sliding these past 10 odd years. 

           Singaporeans had climbed up the socio economic ladder quickly through their educational qualifications during the boom years followed first from the 60s - mid 80s there   was a tremendous boom. From 1985 till 1987 there was a deep V shaped recession..Then it was all systems go from 1988 till 1997, when the Asian crisis hit for 2 odd years Things rebounded from 2000. SARS crisis hit our economy hard in 2003. There were good paying jobs and even short term windfalls like the property boom of the '90s, the dot com fever and the huge stock market rise which went on until the 1st Asian crisis. People left their jobs for the 'quick bucks'. When the crisis came, all the fast bucks turned into smoke. In 2008, there was the American Financial Crisis (Lehman brothers and AIG) but Singapore had tightened its credit lending so much so its economy was relatively unscathed.  

          From 2004 till current day, Singapore has seen year on year growth slowing down. What has happened in the last 15 - 17 years is that the economy was in a transformation mode first moving from basic manufacturing, to high end manufacturing, to Research and Development of bricks and mortar (hardware) red and white goods. The banking sector was liberalised and banks were greatly expanding, there were the entry of many high performance managed funds as well as many foreign law firms came in to compete. With the paradigm shift of internet banking, finance, broking and IT, there were plenty of foreign professionals coming to work. Those were heady days, and our economy was further boosted by the opening of 2 integrated resorts or casinos in 2010. The F1 circuit came and is still here. But the new businesses were in value creating apps - jobs like writing code or software security were in high demand. Only a talented few good be trained in those disciplines. 

Elderly Ice Cream Man 

         In real terms, many Singaporeans only got a little leg up financially through from the integrated resorts, the work there were mainly  for housekeeping, car jockeys, security and concierge. It wwas work to just get by. The economy continued to flounder after the US debt crisis in 2008 and Singapore again had more unemployed.   

         Fast forward to 2017, the global economy is  still sputtering, oil prices are diving down again, bricks and mortar plus all physical shopping at all levels are hit in a massive way. Shipping, oil and gas industries are in the doldrums and manufacturing is ,well, almost gone.

        Singaporeans who missed the upward growth and dips of the last 40 years have watched with disbelief and wondered why they missed the boat. Globalisation was meant only for the smart , privileged, lucky and daring few. Many of us are doing 2 jobs like Uber drivers and Food Panda. Its work which pays reasonably well but its work for the young and able-bodied.   

        So the current situation in Singapore is challenging. We are considered lucky having had a good and prudent government who does things in a practical way. They do not spend unnecessarily and save for a 'rainy day'.  But the elderly have few precious years left to live.

       Their plight is more important than all the accolades from all over the world. 

       Spare and thought for them.       

Canberra 2 ; Houses of Parliament ; House of Representatives and Senators

Bob Hawke

      Singapore's Government is founded on the principles and models of British Parliamentary democracy. Hence there are similarities in our parliament compared to the Australian parliament. Australia has 2 tiers of government, the first one, the House of Representatives, who are elected members of their constituencies. These members hold office only with the support of their electorates and they must retain support from their electorate at each General Election, much like Singapore's. 

    Unlike Singapore, Australia's is a federal Government based on states and the state administration provides the basis for rule of law, funding and the adherence to the constitution. So the constituents constantly put views to members of parliament on matters of government policy or seek their assistance with their various problems living in a fast paced and modern society. The MPs then raise the matter higher up to the relevant Ministers and their ministries. 

John Howard

       Matters dealt with helping their constituents in areas which include industry problems, immigration, taxation, social welfare, family law, postal and even the tasks of filling complex Government forms.  MPs have to attend Commonwealth (of which Singapore is a member) and State functions. When these occur,  opportunities abound for the MPs to discuss matters with the Senators regarding federal issues and the cross boundary issues. 

Houses of Parliament 

         At a larger level, Senators are elected by the common citizenry to each state of Australia to represent the interests of the state as a whole in the Commonwealth Parliament. With some restrictions, the Senate is an equal partner to the House of Representatives in hthe law making process. The main difference between a senator and a member of the House of Representative stems from the fact that each represents a different kind of constituency and serves a different kind of term. While the House of Representatives are elected from Single Member Constituencies for a maximum of 3 years (Singapore's a little longer about 4 odd years), groups of senators represent either whole states for a maximum of 6 years or territories for the duration of the term of the House of Representatives. 

Canberra University, Sports Science Division

         Senators tend to have greater freedom from electoral demands, and are able to give more of their attention to those aspects of the work of the Senate which fall within its scope as a house of review. Senators frequently become involved in examining the details of proposed legislation, whether it has been initiated in their own chamber or comes after it has been passed by the House of Representatives. This is very similar to the US Senate and House of Representatives system. 

      Not all the work of senators is confined to activities within the chamber. From their offices in Parliament House, or their electorate offices in their own states, senators receive representations from individuals or groups, answer correspondences and prepare speeches. Most activities by their political parties are attended and followed closely by the senators from their own party.

      Australia practices proportional representation voting system used for electing the Senate.  This has ensured parliamentary representation of a range of small political partiesand independent senators. Singapore has its own system of Non Constituency MPs who are independent of any political party and raise views according to their interest groups.

     Most senators are members of a number of the Senate's standing or select committee. This work involves calling for submissions,examining witnesses and writing reports for subsequent presentation to Parliament.

      The visit to ACT's Parliament House was a good learning lesson for me. 

   

Canberra Australian Capital Territory 19 - 21st April 2017

Breakfast along Franklin Street, Canberra 

     
       This was my first ever trip to the Australian Capital Territory and I was pleasantly surprised at how large the ACT was with only about 350,000 residents living in the area. The day we arrived, Wednesday 19th April was a very pleasantly sunny and refreshingly cool morning. I had arranged for a car hire from the airport and it was a very seamless experience. With the GPS, it was very easy to get around. It took us all told about 20 minutes to get into the city centre, and our hotel was in the Forrest neighbourhood.   

Franklin Street, Canberra

       ACT is a very well laid out city, a small town actually and really great for a slower pace of life. The people residing there are mainly white Australians with a smattering of  people of other races. The town centre of Manuka is quite lovely, boasting Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese and European cuisines. There is the ubiquitous MacDonalds at the edge of the centre, and a Coles supermarket too. In the evenings apart from the dining and several drinking pubs, the place is placid , quiet and rather dark. There are few and far between street lamps along the housing estates.

Perfect Weather for a Stroll to the Shops

      The houses are well spaced out and the scenery is in one word, lovely. Since there are no direct flights to Canberra, we had to first fly in to Sydney and then take a small propeller plane flight of about 1 hour into the Canberra airport.There is a huge lake beside the Parliament House and I guess during the summer and autumn months there would be plenty of water sports. Its indeed very liveable, and the climate is quite temperate. 

      Most people coming here would make a day trip from Sydney or Melbourne, though I am told that it is easy to drive from Sydney - approximately 3 hours by car. Since this was a targetted business trip, I decided to go for the shortest time to customer location and return.

Lovely colours beside the townhouses

                           Here's hoping my project kicks off in the ACT !! 

Queen's Guards (Irish Guards) Video at the Tower of London - Dec 13th 2016

I had a free afternoon and visited the Tower of London ; here is the video of the Irish Guards, who are typically the elite guardsmen and women of the British Army. They have a fearsome reputation for being no nonsense, and will scold any uncouth tourists who disturb their 'line' or marching formation. Dressed in grey (I believe due to the rainy weather), they are stationed in the Tower of London to guard the Crown Jewels.

Enjoy this brief video. 

Che - Part 1 ; the Argentine who fought the revolution of Cuba in 1957

       Born in 1929 to a wealthy Argentine family, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was training to be a doctor, when a trip around the Americas led him to see the poverty and suffering of his neighbouring countries like Chile, Bolivia and Venenzuela. Together with his dentist friend, they finally made it to the leper colony in Venezuela, and with their life experience, found out how exactly the rich industrialists were teaming up with corrupt governments to grab the lands off poor farmers for uranium, tin and other rare earth mining. Many illiterate farmers were thrown off their lands belonging to their ancestors because of some land 'title' crafted by a greedy Government and the rich landowners. This was in the early 1930s to 1940s.  

          He felt that the United States of South America free from corruption and cronysim to the USA was a collective dream of all South Americans. 
     
       He then decided to join Fidel Castro in the July 1955 meeting in Mexico and then went on to fight in the Cuban revolution of 1957. His iconic standing as the eternal revlutionary with rare principals of justice, rule of law and strict discipline in the field of combat, together with a rare compassion for the Cuban people made him the beloved "Commandate Che (Mr.) Guevara.

       He went on to be Castro's right hand man, as the Minister of Industry, as well as Foreign Minister, culminating in a visit to the United Nations in 1964 to address the Security Council which included the United States.

      He then went and participated in the unsucessful theatre of Congo and then on to the Bolivian conquest to overthrow the then Government. He was captured by Government troops backed by the (OSA formerly the CIA) and killed.

     His reputation is world-wide as the principled revolutionary eschewing the riches that go to the victors of war (in his case the Cuban civil war) and was most comfortable donning the combat fatigues with his trademark black beret, Cuban cigar and full beard.

     His standing as the eternal anti-establishment icon against all things imperialist will be for a long long time. 

      Enjoy the film.