Online Thoughts

The smell of roasting pork is one of the great sensory delights and a common one in Singapore. So it is no surprise to learn that  the owner of Kay Lee Roast Meat Joint has her enterprise on the market for around $1.8 million.

For this sum you get all the secret recipes as the aging owner no longer feels capable of carrying on; a great pity but one that is all too common in Singapore as the hawkers age and have no one in the family to take over.

I figure that if Coca Cola and KFC can have their secret recipes under lock and key in large safes then there is no reason why the recipes for these delectable dishes can't attract a premium price as well.

In a less positive vein I get fed up at some with the snide comments made about Singapore by people who have never lived there or have there own personal axe to grind..

The ongoing Yale NUS saga being a case in point, with a bunch of American academics trying to stymie what appears to me to be a perfectly sensible partnership between two global universities which will benefit both, and foster dialogue.

Much also has been made of the freedom or otherwise of the press in the Republic. Some may therefore see a slight irony in Associate Professor Tan Tin Wee's elevation to the Internet Hall of Fame; the Net being one of the free-est forms of expression around. Personally I congratulate him on his elevation. A Biochemist by profession, Professor Tan was one of the staunchest advocates for the development of the Internet in Singapore.

Singapore's high-speed broadband initiative is something that impresses me greatly - how I wish we had such advocacy in New Zealand.

Yes Coke Yes

Cocoa Cola has been noticeable for its clever choice of marketing slogans to promote its sales to target markets.  In 1886 the text was simple, "Drink Coca Cola".

By 1924 this had turned into "Refresh Yourself" and in the year of my birth it was "Where there's Coke there's hospitality".

Each year they trot out a new slogan and the current one is (believe it or not) "Life Begins Here".

Now this piece of information is clearly something that a substantial proportion of Singaporeans are not aware of. According to Today Online, 3% of the population copulate in the profound belief that washing their genitals with Coca Cola will prevent pregnancy.

Presumably this application happens before rather than after, giving new meaning to the expression "putting some fizz into your sex life".

I can just see the Cocoa Cola advertising gurus in the USA adopting this slogan for their 2012 campaign.

There are regional variations of the company's slogans as well. In 1980's Japan (a country not always known for its rigid translation of English) the thought of the day was "Yes Coke Yes", which seems strangely in context with the current Singaporean situation.

Mind you, another 3% from the Republic believes that "staying upside down for two hours" after sex has the same effect as Coke.

So I look forward seeing what rival Pepsi come up with. " The cola that makes you stand on your head" perhaps?

You might also think that given Singapore's push (and I use this word advisedly) to increase its population, the government would not worried by this misplaced belief in home-spun contraception.  Not so, there is a more serious side, the rising incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in the country.