http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/leo_lewis/article6920756.ece
Barking enough to join the big boys
Singapore’s newspaper stories about dogs must have puzzled world leaders
For Singapore, always desperate for recognition, it was its biggest speaking part in the global drama: the “little red dot” was still small but the leaders descending on it last weekend were the biggest in the world. President Obama, President Hu and 19 other heads of state hit town for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum. Issues up for debate included averting financial and environmental apocalypse.
As the summit ended Singapore’s status as a global player was assured. “Designer pooches are the nation’s top dogs,” barked a two-page spread in the local press, capping three consecutive days of prominent dog stories during the global summit.
This article was fascinating for anyone interested in obtaining the correct licence for a Labradoodle, but a bit embarrassing, I suspect, for a country bursting to be taken as a serious global financial centre. In real global financial centres, three-legged schnauzers are often edged out of the paper by trillion-dollar debt crises and megamergers.
But Singapore has already established one of the firmest cornerstones of a great financial centre: that slight estrangement from sanity that allows everyone to spin an invisible ball of wool and calculate the value of an argyle jumper that won’t be knitted until 2018.
Lottery-related superstitions are always a good place to look for signs of madness. In Singapore death in especially gory, headline-grabbing circumstances creates an aura of good luck, according to local belief.
All you have to do is note down the licence plates of the hearse and cars bearing mourners at the funeral, enter them on your lottery card and wait for the winnings to pour in. It is marginally saner than trading bonds, a bond trader tells me, but more than enough to qualify Singapore as a global financial centre.
Wrestling with protocol
As the curtain fell on the Apec meeting, leaders posed for the obligatory summit shot with everyone in dire “local” clothes. Singapore had run up special mandarin smocks that made the most powerful men in the world look like towel-bearers at a downmarket spa. As the great show rumbled out of town, speeches looked forward to next year’s jamboree in Tokyo. Somewhere, in the protocol department of the Japanese Cabinet office, preparations are already taking place.
Ministry drone #1: “Singapore has set the bar high and we only have a year to work out how to make Obama and Hu look even more ridiculous. The Americans have done cowboy hats and someone else did ponchos. I hope you understand the huge responsibility. It has to be traditional, Japanese and fit badly. Any ideas?”
Ministry drone #2: “Sumo outfit?”
Barking enough to join the big boys
Singapore’s newspaper stories about dogs must have puzzled world leaders
For Singapore, always desperate for recognition, it was its biggest speaking part in the global drama: the “little red dot” was still small but the leaders descending on it last weekend were the biggest in the world. President Obama, President Hu and 19 other heads of state hit town for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum. Issues up for debate included averting financial and environmental apocalypse.
As the summit ended Singapore’s status as a global player was assured. “Designer pooches are the nation’s top dogs,” barked a two-page spread in the local press, capping three consecutive days of prominent dog stories during the global summit.
This article was fascinating for anyone interested in obtaining the correct licence for a Labradoodle, but a bit embarrassing, I suspect, for a country bursting to be taken as a serious global financial centre. In real global financial centres, three-legged schnauzers are often edged out of the paper by trillion-dollar debt crises and megamergers.
But Singapore has already established one of the firmest cornerstones of a great financial centre: that slight estrangement from sanity that allows everyone to spin an invisible ball of wool and calculate the value of an argyle jumper that won’t be knitted until 2018.
Lottery-related superstitions are always a good place to look for signs of madness. In Singapore death in especially gory, headline-grabbing circumstances creates an aura of good luck, according to local belief.
All you have to do is note down the licence plates of the hearse and cars bearing mourners at the funeral, enter them on your lottery card and wait for the winnings to pour in. It is marginally saner than trading bonds, a bond trader tells me, but more than enough to qualify Singapore as a global financial centre.
Wrestling with protocol
As the curtain fell on the Apec meeting, leaders posed for the obligatory summit shot with everyone in dire “local” clothes. Singapore had run up special mandarin smocks that made the most powerful men in the world look like towel-bearers at a downmarket spa. As the great show rumbled out of town, speeches looked forward to next year’s jamboree in Tokyo. Somewhere, in the protocol department of the Japanese Cabinet office, preparations are already taking place.
Ministry drone #1: “Singapore has set the bar high and we only have a year to work out how to make Obama and Hu look even more ridiculous. The Americans have done cowboy hats and someone else did ponchos. I hope you understand the huge responsibility. It has to be traditional, Japanese and fit badly. Any ideas?”
Ministry drone #2: “Sumo outfit?”
