“The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service… “I’ll wear my badge: a vinyl sticker with big block letters adherent to my chest, that tells your new friends I am a visitor here. I am not permanent…”

Yesterday I decided to do a spot of local shopping in one of the next towns across from mine. Isn’t it weird how when you cross certain boundaries, things seem to change drastically? People may appear to think differently and talk differently. I know from experience that people were more posh in the next town but I realised it had been a good while since I’d stepped foot there when most of the store clerks I was served by had perfect enunciation. They would pronounce every syllable in our exchange of words, to the point where it almost made me feel like I myself was speaking a bastardised form of the Queen’s English.

The lack of Asians in their town also made me stick out like a sore thumb, being the glancing attention of every person that passed me, especially from those who shared my continental motherland. I’d consider myself a friendly person. If you stare or glance at me, I’m not going to do the same in return. I’ll flash you a discreet smile or an acknowledging nod, unless you happen to be wearing a bandana proudly emblazoned with gang colours. I will however, never wink at you unless I know you or if it’s a result of an accident. Case in point: I was crossing the road at a junction with a Starbucks on the opposite corner. I had something in my eye which caused me to squint for a moment and wink my right eye a few times to try to dislodge any offending traces of dirt. I thought the winking action had removed the piece of dust from my eye and looked into Starbucks to check out how packed it was and upon my eyes making contact with the eyes of a bored looking girl working behind the counter, the dust kicked my eye into a reflex wink! So there was this girl serving at the till in Starbucks, wondering why some strange guy was giving her the eye. I would have shockingly lifted my gaze to the sky if she had not smiled and nodded in return. Phew, because the last thing I wanted then was someone thinking I was some sort of friendly pervert from out of town. I fancied a tall cup of gingerbread latte but decided not to waltz into that particular branch and have to embarrassingly make contact again with said Starbucks girl. Anyway, there were two other Starbuckses within about 50 metres on either side of this one. I kid you not. Even posh people need overpriced coffee.

It was a nice walk through someone else’s local high street for once. The air was frigid and temperatures must have been hitting the minuses (not to mention the sinuses), but it was welcoming in its own way. We are all comfortable when we’re around familiar environments and individuals but sometimes hearing the unfamiliar banter of market stall workers selling Christmas trees and breathing in the wonderful tepid air of someone else’s local bakery has a kind of comfort in itself. The scenic bus ride home was nice too, but unfortunately took much longer than usual. When a journey that should last about twenty minutes lasts for near an hour, one cannot help but wonder if something had gone wrong in the road somewhere ahead. I got off the bus at the stop after it made a sudden detour off its usual route. I walked home along the high street, observing the increasing line of traffic. I heard on a nearby Police officer’s muffled radio something that sounded like “khhrrrshhhbomb.” I continued walking till I saw the front of the jam and a clearing in front of it which led to police barriers. I spoke to the bus driver of the first bus leading the whole jam, asking him if the incident was a bomb scare or something else. He replied that it was not a bomb scare, but a traffic accident. I said it was odd for a traffic accident to occur where a whole section of a main road had to be closed off for traffic in both directions. Shortly after saying this, in a moment of surrealism, a car just to the left of me collided into the back of the car waiting to turn at the junction, completely removing its headlights on one side.

It’s strange for police to cordon off three lanes and put a halt to traffic on a main road. There’s no way that they’d do that unless there was some sort of grave danger or unless a really nasty accident had gone down. Usually, as you might have seen on occasions, the protocol in minor accidents and incidents is to close off part of the road, allowing traffic to pass the disruption by sharing lanes. I walked up to the police barrier but couldn’t see past the turn in the road about a hundred metres away from the barrier. I neither saw nor smelt smoke in the air and I didn’t hear fire engines, making me arrive at the conclusion that it was not a conventional traffic accident. Could have been some sort of tanker spill on the road or as suggested earlier, a bomb scare. Either way, it was not good.

From web browsing around I noticed an “Adam Sandler reunited with Drew Barrymore” film in post-production called 50 First Dates. I read the story synopsis and found that it was about a guy who falls in love with a woman who has short-term memory loss. She never remembers who the guy is so he has to win her affections back every day. I realised that an idea of mine for a movie back when I was in University should have been pursued and its screenplay written and pitched to Hollywood. I originally thought of this concept in my second year of University, incidentally when I was taking a neuroscience course and also having watched Groundhog Day. It was a brilliant idea (if I may say so) that was unconventional and quirky, and I even wrote a few pages of it. Unfortunately during University other things got in the way, like Mammalian Development Biology, Advanced Molecular Genetics and other such courses that had assessments at the end of the year (i.e. all of them). The script was relegated to the back of the drawer and there it sat whilst someone else wrote it for me. Only difference is I shan’t be getting any credit or fat cheques. The only thing that would rub it in now is for the film to feature the exact same scenes I conceived. Damn you opportunity for knocking on someone else’s door! {Shakes fist in the air}

Also saw an amusing show on TV yesterday called Bedsitcom. I didn’t quite catch the premise of the whole setup, but it appeared that it was a reality show about a bunch of housemates. The catch was that three of the six were unaware that the others were actors, doing the deeds of the show’s writers, who were in the basement. Real life soap operas with a twist indeed, especially when additional actors claiming to be friends and family of the housemate-cum-actors are thrown into the mix. One of the funniest characters I’ve seen lately was on that show: Rufus, one of the actors who plays the role of an unassuming and naive, slow archetypal ex-public schoolboy. Very few TV shows make me literally LOL, but I couldn’t help it as his mannerisms and some of the stuff he said cracked me up big time, e.g. on a date with one of the other housemate’s mother (don’t forget his posh vernacular): “King’s Cross is well known for two things: whores and crackheads. So if you want either whores or crack.. or even whores and crackheads, you should go to King’s Cross.” Ah, doesn’t translate so well in writing, but it’s on again tonight so will definitely be catching that, forgetting for a moment that British TV is truly dire(bolical).

I also finally got Singaporean starlet/singer Stella Huang’s Mandarin cover version of The Brilliant Green’s Japanese hit “Rainy Days Never Stays” from Leonard. He’d been telling/teasing me about it for ages and he finally delivered, booyah! Sorry, about my enthusiasm. I’d been patiently waiting a while and can’t help it that I’m a big sucker for cute girls that play guitar. And after eating a near whole (one and a quarter kilogram) crispy aromatic duck with pancakes for dinner, washed down with some malt liquor, I was a very happy bunny.