Bloggus Interruptus

Three days ago there was a massive undersea earthquake near the southern tip of Taiwan. Sadly this was the very date that most people were remembering the tidal wave destruction of Boxing Day 2004.

Apart from a hurried Tsunami alert no one here thought too much about the wider consequences of this natural event.

What has transpired is a major disruption to commerce and communications in South East Asia, thanks largely to damage undersea cables and our increasing reliance on the Internet as the vehicle for most of these transactions.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost through the inability of regional share markets and banks to conduct their business and similarly large sums have been lost by budget airlines whose business is showing a decline of 20%.

Even far more modest communications such as this blog have suffered as the result of very slow web speeds.

All this goes to prove two things:

• it is very unwise strategically to rely on one fibre optic cable route and
• just how reliant we are in modern society on conducting our daily lives through the medium of the Net.

As the Melbourne Age reports this morning, this is "a sign of the vulnerability the world's telecommunications network, which was frenetically built out at the height of the internet boom but has since attracted little investment"

Xmas Plus Plus

Today is Christmas Day and late morning we embarked upon the time honoured ritual of locating a good Christmas lunch.

We do this because on the eve of our first Xmas together, some twenty years ago, it transpired that my wife had no plans to enjoy the traditional feast the next day and we ended up dining on sandwiches.

This was the first and last time that we did this. We have an unwritten agreement that this is the one day where we will have a slap-up buffet, even though neither of us actually follow the religious observances of the festival.

For the past decade in New Zealand we did our utmost to escape the deathly sloth of the season as most of the shops and services came to a grinding halt. We usually flew "Across the Ditch" (as the trans-Tasman flight is affectionately known) and alternated our destinations between Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and on one solitary occasion, Adelaide.

This being our first Xmas in Singapore we opted to explore the buffet options in the local hotels and happened upon a splendid spread at Le Meridien, reasonably priced at $35 plus, plus.

"Plus, Plus" is used to describe the two taxes that are added to your bill. The first being GST and the second, a tourism tax.

Today's menu included a combination of East and West with such delicacies as Goose with Chinese pears, turkey with all the trimmings and other 'weight watchers delights'. All beautifully prepared and we shall return next year for more of the same.

Post-lunch we went for a jaunt down Orchard Road as there was meant to be entertainment. Lots of Filipino maids enjoying their day off and not much else to see except a brace of "Chinese Josephs" and one oversized "Herod". I should add that to be photographed with one of the aforementioned 'Josephs' cost one a donation of $5 - for charity of course.

Other events of interest today: Arnold Schwarzenegger broke his leg and a childhood comic hero of mine, Charlie Drake, died.