It is the view out of what was my office window overlooking the two lane Napier Road, near the junction with Tanglin Mall.
The tropical deluge that created this flood is not uncommon and the coming of the rains brings welcome respite from the June heat. It is also a time of danger as people have been knwon to get washed into culverts, so one has to be very careful when crossing flooded areas.
As I discovered, even the strongest umbrella couldn't stop you getting soaked when the heavens opened in this manner. It is best to site it out and wait for the storm to pass, which they usually do within an hour.
Shoes in Singapore do not last as the soles often separate from the uppers due to the constant wetness. A change of shoes in the office is also a wise move.
The above video is Tanglin Mall which is just down the road from the British Council and where my colleagues and I often took our lunch, in the foodcourt on the lower level.
A resident caught up in the Queensland floods has described the flash flood that hit Toowoomba as "biblical".
It was at 500m wide torrent and travelling at least 80 or 90 miles an hour, tossing cars and other man-made objects about like matchsticks.
Some of these cars still had people in them which shows the frailty of human life and how powerless we really are against the fundamental forces of nature.
Flooding is a common occurrence in Queensland and its more benign for is known as "The Big Wet" . It is looked forward to by farmers as a welcome respite from the drought conditions that blight much of inland Australia.
This week's event though is something else and makes the seasonal flooding of Singapore looks like a child's paddling pool compared to the ocean. The flooding of the basement levels of Lucky Plaza in Orchard Road is nothing compared to whole suburbs of Australias third largest city being submerged.
The flood has just peaked in Brisbane; a city which is well known to Kiwis as many of us either live in Queensland, visit regularly, or retire there.
Flooding is not uncommon in New Zealand but never on this scale. We regard the Aussies as kin (even though we may say otherwise on the sporting field) so we are all deeply concerned about the fate of the thousands of Queenslanders affected by these floods.
The other thing to remember is that once the floods dissipate, the state then faces a massive task of cleaning up. I do not know the situation with the state museum and also the library on the South Bank of the Brisbane river but their plight must be dire.
Parks, roads and suburbs which are currently one big lake will become firstly a mud bath and then a dust bowl once the Queensland sun starts to dry things out.
Queensland Fashion - There is always someone on the Net with a sense of humour
(although probably not appreciated by the residents of the state)
It is not uncommon to see young Singaporeans getting on the bus or MRT clutching a paddle.
I was of the belief that this item was to do with dragon boat racing or some other water sport, but given the recent spate of flooding in Singapore perhaps mine was an incorrect assumption?
Maybe they are simply preparing for the Great Flood?
In the above video MM once again makes an astute observation; it is simply not possible for Singapore to become flood free.
One only has to look at the enormous volume of water that roars through the canals during a heavy tropical rainstorm to realise that it is impossible to engineer for every eventuality.
Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim (pictured above) is getting a lot of stick in the blogosphere regarding his previous statement that Orchard Road flooding was a "once in 50 year" event.
If you think things are bad in Singapore spare a thought for China where more than 6 million people have been displaced by recent flooding.
No doubt the authorities are keeping their fingers crossed that the next deluge does not coincide with the soon to be staged Youth Olympics. The highways are already being prepared for the YOG and motorists will be expected to be especially observant of blinking lights and YOG number plates.
There is evidently a Plan B according to the chairman of bus operations at the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (Syogoc). Here's hoping they won't need to use it.
The is a report today about an ancient tribal language that has become extinct; its last speaker has just died. What a sad indictment that a 65,000-year link to one of the world's oldest cultures has been broken.
It does however remind one just how important language is to a culture; once it becomes extinct so does the culture itself.
The modern generation of Singaporean's have largely lost the ability to speak in their dialects and for a couple of generations the focus promoted by the government has been on both Mandarin and latterly, the up-skilling of English.
I can't help but think that something of the richness and diversity of Singapore culture of old Singapore has been lost as a result?
To try and revive aspects of a culture once much of the old traditions have been lost is extremely difficult.
For example, the retirement of of the old hawkers often means that the original recipes are not handed down. The modern imitations of classic South East asian cusines found in the food court chains somehow never live up to the original.
In neighbouring Malaysia the Orang Asli (original peoples) are suffering as a result of the all pervasive oil palm industry. Maha Meri art is recognised as part of the world's heritage and can fetch thousands of US dollars but the tribe's access to the rare woods they need for carving has been increasingly cut off.
There is more to these ancestral spirit carving than making money. Through them the culture of the tribe survives.
I saw similar trade and spirit cultures in the Sepik region of Papua New Guina when I lived there in the early 1980's.
In our rush for modernity let us not lose the cultural traditions and practices that made us what we are today. If you don't know where you have come from you will not know where you are going.
Passport photos track the descent of man. My latest travel document proves the point and replaced the older version as it had only a few months left before the expiry date.
I had reached the stage where airport security were spending an increasing amount of time looking back and forth from my face to the passport. It was definitely time for a change.
So for the past three months I have been a 'stateless' person. My old passport was transported to Wellington in the diplomatic bag along with my documentation for the replacement.
Being captive in Singapore for the duration has been no hard task as I would not have wanted to venture through Changi during the height of the recent APEC gathering.
There has been a steady parade of dignitaries visiting Singapore this past month; President Obama and the Chinese Premier Hu amongst them. By all accounts the meeting appears to have been a great success, with the possible exception of two South American countries whose home-grown spying spat saw them depart early.
I digress.
My new passport arrived yesterday resplendent with embedded chip in the back section. The somewhat chunky appearance of this embedded technology belies its sophistication, although nowhere in the accompanying pamphlet does it explain what exactly this chip does?
For all I know, my every waking moment could be being tracked by some minor official in the New Zealand capital, via satellite. This is not as far fetched as one might think as a whole industry has sprung up around microchips and tracking.
Parents in the UK now have the ability to use a tracking service which maps the movements of their children, through the location of their mobile phone, as can be seen in this promotional video.
The only drawback to this 'intelligent' passport is that the chip section is easily damaged so you would not want to have in in your back pocket in the middle of a Singaporean deluge; such as that which submerged sections of Bukit Timah last week.
Half a month's rain fell in an afternoon and the canal overflowed causing major flooding; a 50 year event according to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim.
Some bloggers are blaming a "third world standard of drainage system" but this criticism is unfair. Forty or fifty years ago such street flooding was commonplace, with the local children rushing out to 'net' fish, crabs and vegetables that had floated away from the nearby wet market stalls.
This time around there were some washed out prestige vehicles but few if any fish were caught.
