The Big Smoke and Kebab Automata

It is fairly well known now that in 2010 Singapore will open not one, but two casinos.

It had been my hope that they would follow the enlightened lead of New Zealand and ban smoking from their gaming floors but alas, in today's paper we learn that they have given into the tobacco lobby and smoking will be permitted.

No doubt the government were lobbied hard and told of 'dire consequences' of failing to attract gamblers if smoking was banned, as it is elsewhere in Singapore.

This supposition is a fallacy but it is one that casino management and the tobacco lobby trot out whenever possible.

The biggest casino in New Zealand (Sky City) started out as a smoking establishment and the environment was foul. A few years later NZ's smoke-free legislation saw smoking banned in pubs, clubs and casinos.

Did the casino business plummet as a result? No it did not. There was an initial dip but the profits soon rebounded.

So Singapore had a golden opportunity to promote public health and set up the 'integrated resorts' as completely smoke-free attractions right from the outset. It is a great pity that they passed on this opportunity and they will rue the day when it starts to impact on their health budget.

To use Genting's so-called 'segregated smoking' and non-smoking zones as an example to be followed is quite frankly a joke!

The same can be said for the Australian casinos which were also held up as good examples in the press, of how smoking and non-smoking could be segregated.

I can say from personal experience in Australia and in Genting that such a policy simply doesn't work. Passive smoking in these places makes life hell for non-smokers as they involuntary ingest second hand smoke.

There is still time for the Singapore government to revoke this smoking policy and I truly hope they do for the long term good of visitors and their citizenry.

I am an ex-smoker who gave up in the early 1980's so I know how addictive, selfish and pervasive the smoking habit is. It is quite literally a dying habit.


In a totally different vein we had a very good Yum Cha (dim sum) lunch at Xin Fu Yum Cha which is on the second floor of the International Building at 360 Orchard Road.

They had several old favourites such as Phoenix Claws (chicken's feet to the uninitiated) and glutinous rice which comes wrapped in a large leaf.

What made their fare standout was the quality of the cooking, the generosity of their fillings and piquancy of their sauces.

There were some new offerings to try such as the 'Goldfish Dumplings' (pictured). These were not actually filled with minced goldfish - they had a prawn filling.

Another small dumpling that was excellent was their vegetarian variety which was filled with roughly chopped vegetables. Another new favourite is their chicken and abalone bao (steamed bun).

I spent a few minutes in Basement 2 of the Takashemaya department store this afternoon being bemused by a clever (Japanese?) invention - the automated kebab machine. See the video below.

What will they think of next?

Mini Bar Blues & the Hostess With The Mostest

In today's Straits Times there is an article on the hotel of the future.

One of the reasons for the feature is the Food & Hotel Asia trade show that is currently on in the Expo Centre at Changi.

In the paper the article details some of the innovative features that one might expect to find, one of which I have recently experienced in the USA.

When I say "experienced" I should qualify this by stating that the experience was not that positive. I am of course referring to the computerised mini-bar which in theory automatically logs every drink removed from it and directly charges it to your bill.

In practice, it charges you if you so much as shift a single item of its contents to make way for your own items (which you may wish to cool down).

The computerised minibar is a classic example of an IT technology that no one really needs and which actually alienates its users. No doubt the rationale behind its introduction is that the concierge can quickly replace items that have been used.

What ever happened to walking into the room, opening the fridge door and looking?

Hostess-slapping also recently featured permanently in the local media.

No, this is not a new form of the Survivor game. It records a recent incident on a Singapore Airlines plane, where the wife of a local tycoon, one Madame Tan, apparently took exception to the attention that a hostess was lavishing on her husband (although the detail of what provoked this incident has never been fully explained in public).

Md. Tan has settled a civil suit out of court and in the past 24 hours the police prosecutor has dropped the case against her for 'voluntarily causing hurt', an assault-related charge.

This decision has not gone well with some Singaporeans who have seen employers being imprisoned for slapping their maids. A also questioned the dropping of charges on local television last night.

But there's a happy outcome for the hostess. She has received a payout from a very wealthy Singapore family and is soon to be married to her fiancée.

Mas Escape

The long awaited report into the breakout of JI member Mas Selamat was released in the Singaporean parliament yesterday and the Minister's statement make interesting reading.

There was clearly a major breakdown in security vigilance at the detention centre and the officers responsible have been "removed" which, in the case of the two Gurkhas involved, probably means a one-way ticket back to Nepal on the first available flight.

The detainee was able to lull his captors into a false sense of security and when he visited the toilet, put his trousers over the cubicle door and left via an unsecured and un-barred side window. Presumably he had another pair of trousers under his top ones and if he hadn't, then I guess he would not have died of exposure in the Singapore climate.

It took 11 minutes for the guards to realise that something was wrong and raise the alarm giving Mas Selamat ample time to scale (?) a nearby perimeter fence and hot foot it.

The reports all state that it was unlikely he had any outside assistance in the planning and execution of this escape. Singaporeans I have spoken to find this difficult to accept and it may or may not be an accurate assumption. Either way his luck was in and he has vanished into the ether.

It also begs the question, where is he now?

Opinion is evenly divided between his rapid transit to the nearby Indonesian archipelago or that he is laying low in someone's HDB flat and waiting for the public and security personnel's focus to wane.

To undertake either of these options he must be getting, or have got, outside help. I guess only time will reveal the real story but in the meantime Singapore's security credibility has received a severe jolt. To the government's credit they have been as candid as they can in this matter and clearly security is going to be a lot tougher for detainees from this point on.

One other interesting point from a westerner's perspective is that the Minister responsible for Homeland security, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng, is not being pressured to stand down. In New Zealand there would be an immediate baying for blood from the opposition benches.

Not so in Singapore. In fact the Prime Minister responded to such suggestions today by stating that he believed that public officials and ministers should not automatically be removed as a result of a lapses from their subordinates. I have to say that this appears a more balanced approach to me. After all a Minister's overall performance should be judged across his or her whole portfolio, over time.

Any lapses in matter of integrity are treated entirely differently and dismissal on these grounds will and do happen, no matter what the status of the individual is.