It’s here! … but I’d have to post more after this post so that this doesn’t remain as the first post on my blog! =P

I came across this quite some time, but didn’t have my camera with me. Now that I have it, I decided to record it down.

Do you know what’s wrong in the video clip?

After almost 1 month, I wonder how many people would have forgotten about it - the incident that got many Singaporeans furious; one that shamed the people involved in their home countries. Did you guess the Trishaw Man incident? Well, you are right.

Apparently, someone asked Bo Davis to write to the New Paper to get his apology published. I didn’t remember reading that article back then, so I really wonder how effective that was.

However, I didn’t manage to come across it in the end, and he’s willing to pay double of the fare. Is it time to forgive and forget?

And oh, they are still claiming that they did pay the Trishaw Man $10 before they left…

IT has been suggested to me by a Singapore resident that it would be a good idea to forward my apology to The New Paper.

I offer my sincerest apologies to Mr Lee, his son and everyone who has been offended.

It was very disrespectful and insensitive to make fun of an old man. If you knew us, you’d realise that we are actually nice guys.

On that night, we’d had a few beers, were slightly drunk and needed to get back to our hostel. So we began walking up the street looking for a taxi.

The trishaw rider was waiting at the side of the road and suggested we take his taxi.

At first, we declined as we wanted an actual car, but he insisted we get in.

I thought, okay, I’d never been on one before and told him our destination. He said $10, which was fine.

After setting off, I did start laughing. I was a little drunk and thought it was funny how slow we were going.

I did actually ask the driver if I could peddle before we got the camera out.

So after travelling hardly any of the distance agreed, I could see that it was stupid for us to continue and said we should get out.

We had only travelled around a quarter of the agreed distance so I, at that time, thought $5 was reasonable.

Bearing in mind that we’d just come from Thailand where drivers initially charge way over the odds and it’s customary to haggle.

I don’t know why Mr Lee said we didn’t pay, when in the end we gave him the $10.

I know I was laughing, but I wouldn’t dream of not paying for the ride. That would be unforgivable.

The camera cuts out before we actually leave the trishaw, but I can guarantee that we paid the $10 before we left.

I don’t mind paying Mr Lee an extra $10 as an apology via bank transfer.

My utmost apologies again to Mr Lee and his son. If it were my dad with three young guys laughing at him, I’d want to find out who they were and speak my mind.

But I just want to confirm again that we did pay.

Bonard Davies

Article obtained from The Electric New Paper dated 17th November 2007 on 23rd November 2007

I once spoke to a Malaysian Malay who told me that the Malays in his country are actually not lazy, but rather, they believe that the land was given to them (I think he mentioned that it was by Allah, but I am not sure) and that they do not need to work very hard, but instead will be able to harvest the crops that’s provided for them.

From him, I found out a few things:

• that the Malays were thought to be lazy
• that this supposedly resulted in Malaysia being not as economically competitive as its neighbour - Singapore
• that when Malaysian Malays come to Singapore, they start to work very hard and be very competitive

To me, it was something very new, partly because I have never considered Malaysian Malays to be lazy. I have always thought that because the country is big and that they have natural resource, they thus do not need to slog hard as Singaporeans, where the country is deprived of all other natural resources.

However, I came across this statement by someone who posted on RedCafe.net:

We’ve been put in our place by Singapore for years, simply because the Singaporean government know exactly what it takes to survive. The Malaysian government on the other hand, is interested in 2 things (i) how to enrich themselves at the country’s expense, and (ii) how to dispense patronage and exert influence to enrich their friends and relatives at the country’s expense.

We’ve turned into a country of lazy, stupid people who go to the government for handouts, which will run out pretty soon. It’s very sad for the minority who genuinely want to survive on their own two feet with a decent standard of living in 20 years time. I think in about 30 or so years, we’ll be in the same situation as Bangladesh and the Philippines are now - exporting our skilled labour to fill unskilled jobs, because the relative difference in wealth will be so great.

I’m not sure if the author of this post is a Malay, but even he/she also slams her own country on their supposed laziness. To further quote from my Malay friend, are people really meant to work this hard? Or are Malaysians really lazy?

For this, a Christian friend of mine shared his views - that everything that Christians have is provided by Jehovah Jireh - the Lord will provide. He believed that the moment he has to work extremely hard (read: long hours, no rest, etc), it is a sign from God that he has to move on (to another job) because God never meant for his children to slog.

True enough, he changed from Company A to Company B then to Company C before going to Company D, where it got bought over and he took a break looking for a Company E before he eventually went back to Company A - with an overall pay increment!

If I were to take him as an example, then I would really believe that God does provide because he seemed to readily find a job every time. However, I am quite a pragmatic and realistic person where work is concerned because I don’t think my future boss will pay me if I just work in a mediocre fashion.

Perhaps it’s because this is Uniquely Singapore and not Israel? Hmm…

The last time when I had to change my address, I brought my family along, with their IDs and electricity bills and telephone bills and whatever other documents so that I can prove that I was indeed living with them and not a, ahem, fly-by-night tenant. It was almost a great event that involved everyone in the household.

However, the update process was very quick and easy and I’m not sure, but I don’t think any of the document that we brought down had to be used. It was as simply as filling up a form or two and signing some documents. They then printed some sticker so that it could be affixed over the old address on my ID.

It was as simple as that. So, whenever I shifted house, I’d just have to repeat the exercise all over again. It then occurred to me that it is also possible for someone to lie about their change of address, especially in Singapore where your address determines:

• bonuses from government - the kind of property that you stay in apparently determines how much you’d get in their last bonus payout exercise
• the points you get for hall application - because the further your address (in terms of postal code), the more points you get for hall application
• the school that you can send your kid to - because priority is given to residents staying nearer to the school
• your social standing - if you are one of the people who are conscientious about what your address in your ID says

Apparently, someone did lie to get his address changed and it had caught up with him 4 years later - and it was because of

• investigations into his sole proprietor legal firm
• someone else registering their children from the same address

So, did that “someone else” lie as well? No. Apparently, “someone” paid the owner of a place so that he becomes a legal tenant of sorts, but chose not to move in. However, I’m not sure if the tenure had expired, but the same unit was rented to “someone else”, whose kid is registered in the same, ahem, prestigious school.

I do pity the “someone” though because it shows the extent of things that Singaporean parents do for their children. Of course, I do not know the whole story yet but the poor kid may probably have to transfer out of the school into a new environment all over again. She’s in Primary 4 now and I’m not sure how well she’ll adapt for the next two years.

Hmm… all-girls’ school in Bukit Timah. Isn’t that either Raffles Girls’ Primary School (RGPS) or Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (SCGS)?

IT WAS that reputable all-girls’ school in Bukit Timah for his little girl or bust.

So a lawyer lied to get her in - first by making a false change-of-address report to a police officer that he had moved into the neighbourhood, and then by lying to the school’s vice-principal that the family was living within a kilometre of the school.

The lies, told in 2003, have now caught up with him.

But Tan Sok Ling, 40, has other problems. Suspended from legal practice this year for accounting irregularities in his firm, he was yesterday convicted in court of lying to a public servant and could face jail time.

It was during the hearing on this matter that his lies emerged.

The court heard that, to give weight to his story, Tan even paid $1,600 a month to use the address of a condominium apartment as his mailing address.

He might have got away with his lie too - had the owner of the apartment not rented it out to a couple who registered their daughter at the same school.

The girl and Tan’s daughter, who were in Primary 4 this year, are still in the school.

Tan is now likely to be struck off the rolls.

This has almost invariably been the fate of lawyers convicted of forgery and cheating when they face the Court of Three Judges, which rules in disciplinary cases involving lawyers, say those in legal circles.

Deputy Public Prosecutor James Lee told the court yesterday that Tan was suspended from practice in March this year for breaching accounting regulations at his now-defunct law firm, a sole proprietorship.

When he found a rental apartment in 2003, he told its owner he would not occupy it, but was willing to pay $1,600 every month for the use of the address of the unit.

He next went to the police to report his ‘change of address’, so he could use the new information to get his daughter into the school.

She got in.

However, unknown to Tan, the owner of the apartment rented it out to tenants who also put their daughter in that school.

This came to light after Tan was charged with forgery.

Separate investigations by the Commercial Affairs Department revealed that he had forged stamp duty certificates between September 2004 and February last year.

In order to make a quick buck from his clients, he inflated the amount of stamp duties payable on the certificates and pocketed the difference.

For example, he told one client to pay $13,500 when duty payable was $8,100.

His lawyer, Mr Peter Low of Colin Ng & Partners, yesterday pleaded for leniency on his behalf, saying that Tan, a first offender, was ‘extremely remorseful’ and had cooperated fully with the police.

Mr Low added that Tan, who has since returned the money to his client, did what he did because his firm was buckling under a ‘tight cashflow situation’.

Tan will return to court to be sentenced on Thursday.

For lying to the police, he could be jailed for up to six months. For forgery, he could be jailed for up to seven years.

cheekin@sph.com.sg

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 23rd November 2007

Do you complain about bad service? I know I do, but I don’t do it to get compensation. I do it so that they know what went wrong and won’t repeat the same mistake to the next customer.

This thing about being in the service line is that you have to always think from the customer perspective, but here’s where the trouble lies. Different customers have different expectations when they make a complain. Some customers expect a compensation, whereas others, like myself, expect them to acknowledge the issue and make corrections, where necessary, to ensure that the same mistake does not happen again - be it to me or to another customer.

For something such as finding a hair in the soup, I’d have just expected the restaurant to apologise and change the soup. I don’t think they should just tell the customer that it’s common to find hair in food. I’m sure it’d soon be common to find cut fingernails, nose droppings, ear wax and droplets of unidentifiable perspiration in the food too. However, I feel that the chef of the restaurant should take pride in the food that he prepared to be serve and not simply leave it to the floor people to do a shoddy job.

ALL she wanted was a sincere apology for a strand of hair found in a bowl of shark’s fin soup at her wedding dinner.

But the matter blew up into a month-long exchange between the bride, Mrs Wendy Scully, 29, and Starworth, the company which runs events at the Chijmes Hall.

When the public relations manager felt she was getting nowhere, she shot a letter to this newspaper on Tuesday.

By then, it was not just the 15cm strand of hair that riled her, but Starworth general manager K.K. Ng’s suggestion that it could have come from one of her guests.

‘He told me it is common to find hair in food,’ she told The Straits Times.

The VIP table’s guests, which included her husband’s parents and siblings, had not touched the serving bowl, so how could their hair have got in, she asked.

When contacted, Mr Ng said he had suggested it only as a possibility.

He added that none of the staff that night had long hair.

Another sticking point with Mrs Scully was that she had to wait almost a month - until Mr Ng returned from a month’s medical leave - before she could speak to him on the phone over this matter on Nov 15.

His reply scuttled the company’s earlier efforts to settle Mrs Scully’s unhappiness with an offer of a set dinner for four worth about $270, or a $300 dining voucher.

Mrs Scully had rebuffed the offer, saying she spent $20,000 on the dinner, and that she wanted an amount enough for her to take the table’s guests out to dinner again to make it up to them.

The company stuck to its initial offer until Mr Ng’s return, believing it was fair because only the bowl of shark’s fin soup was affected, and the staff had offered to change it right away.

Last week, Mr Ng even upped the offer to an eight-course meal for 10, but it was his refusal to accept full responsibility that made her decide to go public with her story.

A simple apology would have sufficed, said Mrs Scully, who said her in-laws keep asking her if the company has given an explanation.

‘At the very least, apologise for taking so long to call me back, accept responsibility for the incident and offer a sincere apology for upsetting me and my mother-in-law,’ she said.

A service consultant said Starworth should have acknowledged Mrs Scully’s anger and admitted to its fault immediately.

Said OTi Consulting Singapore’s chief executive Helen Lim-Yang: ‘When customers are angry, they don’t want to hear excuses or pushing of blame. All they want is for their emotions to be acknowledged and for someone, preferably senior management, to apologise profusely.’

And the apology should not come across as defensive, she added.

Mr Ng replied that an apology was made on the spot that night by the operations manager, and that the follow-ups with Mrs Scully focused on ‘dollar and cents compensation because we thought it was what she wanted’.

But he stopped short of accepting responsibility for the incident, saying that for something ‘debatable’ like this, it ‘may not be very fair to push everything to us’.

‘We are just saying hair was found in food. We do not know where it came from, but we would like to make it up to her by amicably solving this.’

With the current stalemate, Ms Lim-Yang suggested that Starworth set up a meeting to deal with it face-to-face.

‘Coupons or compensations are a quick fix. They still don’t take away the anger or replace a sincere action,’ she said.

marcelp@sph.com.sg

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 23rd November 2007

Singaporeans who are going for Lasik should be aware of the dangers behind the surgery. While it is considered to be a simply procedure, but it still involves removing a bodily part and letting it heal.

Patients should always note that, as with any surgery, there are risks - which can involve temporal loss of vision to permanent loss. The patient should then consult the doctor on any questions that he or she has before making a decision. Remember, the patient should always weight the benefits and cost of going for such surgery. Real people have lost vision because of surgeries that didn’t go well - and it could happen to anyone.

THE Ministry of Health (MOH), concerned over misleading advertisements by some Lasik clinics, wants to meet eye surgeons tomorrow to discuss what can or cannot go into their ads.

A letter from MOH to all ophthalmologists doing Lasik said it has received feedback that some print and online advertisements have given the public ‘unrealistic expectations’ about what the procedure can fix.

Results are oversold, while the risks and possible side-effects are downplayed.

And some ads cite success rates for Lasik done elsewhere, said an MOH spokesman.

Several ophthalmologists in private practice told The Straits Times that they felt the ministry’s warning was a matter of time in coming.

After all, the market for the surgical treatment of myopia or near-sightedness is red hot. Thousands of people from here and overseas have been flocking to eye surgeons for the procedure.

With Lasik surgery being ‘cosmetic’, these patients do not get government subsidies; neither can they draw down on their Medisave funds for the operation, so people often go to ophthalmologists in private practice.

But even so, public sector hospitals have done more than 6,000 Lasik operations in the past year.

Private clinics and hospitals do not reveal their patient numbers, but one private clinic claims to do 1,600 Lasik procedures every month.

Competition is so stiff that some clinics offer ‘discounts’ to patients who sign up immediately or who are willing to do both eyes at the same time.

Some in medical circles are concerned that, in the race for the patient’s dollar, proper ‘before’ and ‘after’ care may be compromised, or that patients are not briefed on the risk of post-surgery complications. Worse, they fear some surgeons are taking on patients not suited for the treatment.

Dr Jerry Tan, an ophthalmologist in private practice, has been seeing more patients from other clinics who need ‘repair jobs’ - five to six such patients a week, up from three to four a year ago.

‘Most come because of poor night vision and over- or under-correction,’ he said. Some have more serious complications, like the one patient he has seen whose sight in one eye has been permanently damaged.

Dr Gerard Chuah, another private practitioner, says that on average, he tends to three complaints a month, mainly related to the side effects of Lasik.

Women in their 40s and up, for example, have a higher risk of getting permanently dry eyes.

One patient Dr Chuah came across now sees four of everything - the result of his previous surgeon not letting a badly-cut cornea flap heal first before going ahead with the Lasik procedure proper.

While doctors agree that Lasik is generally a very safe procedure, patients should know there are risks.

Precision is key in Lasik, he said, adding: ‘The distance between a good outcome and a mediocre or disastrous one is a fraction of a millimetre.’

The Singapore National Eye Centre has seen at least one patient who needed a corneal transplant after a botched Lasik job.

Dr Lee Hung Ming, the medical director of Parkway Eye Centre, had this piece of advice for patients: ‘Avoid the centre that hard-sells you the procedure or the surgeon who does not have time to see you for your most important pre-operative and post-operative consultations.’

salma@sph.com.sg

And here’s an account from a Lasik patient whose vision became worse after surgery. If necessary, always get a second opinion.

SALES executive Caroline Teo (picture), 43, was plagued by headaches, which she put down to one eye having better vision than the other. So she went to get Lasik surgery done on her bad eye.

Her eyesight did not improve. In fact, it got worse. The clinic assured her she only had dry eyes, and that it would get better over time.

A month after the surgery, she learnt from another doctor that her poor vision was caused by a well-developed cataract - not myopia or near-sightedness, which Lasik is designed for.

She said: ‘I cried. My eyesight is now even worse than before.’

She is now kicking herself for being ’stupid’ by picking a clinic based on price, and for going ahead with treatment by a doctor who only did a cursory check on her - she was examined by assistants before being declared suitable for Lasik, a judgment the doctor agreed with.

She has since filed a report against the doctor who operated on her with the Singapore Medical Council.

SALMA KHALIK

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 22nd November 2007

It’s not everyday that when you browse through your log that you see something like this:

91605

203.125.117.18 (F) (V)

2007-11-22 08:57:15

/2007/11/20/evidence-obtained- from-a-seemingly-fake-blog-to- present-to-court-evidence-incl uded/ (F)

http://www.straitstimes.com/Si ngapore/Story/STIStory_179210. html (F)

Opera 9.24 Windows Vista

Straitstimes.com? *gasp* Did they discover that I had been pulling their articles (but I did credit them and I don’t pull out all the articles - does this constitute fair use?) and placing them in my blog?

So I clicked on the URL with trembling fingers and and heart palpitating - so fast that it nearly jumped out from my mouth. Then… I saw it:

Blog with disputed photo lifted Wiki content

Netizens hit out at KL legal team in Pedra Branca case after plagiarism is uncovered

By Lydia Lim, Senior Political Correspondent

IN THE HAGUE (NETHERLANDS) - A PICTURE Malaysia produced to argue its case in the Pedra Branca dispute has sparked a controversy on the Internet.

Several netizens, notably Malaysian bloggers, are chiding the country’s legal eagles for relying on an anonymous blog that has been shown up for plagiarism.

Some have also gone onto the blog to post harsh criticisms of the author, who pleaded with them yesterday not to use four-letter words.

‘My younger sibling, who is 11 years old, also visits my blog and these words are not appropriate for her,” he wrote in a posting titled ‘Why the anger?’.

Malaysia had cited the blog as the source of a photograph it produced last week in an international court, to show Pedra Branca’s supposed closeness to Johor.

Singapore, in its response, raised questions about the blog and this was reported in The Straits Times on Tuesday.

The report led the writer of a Singapore blog called Simplyjean to analyse the blog.

Simplyjean found its author had lifted chunks of text from Wikipedia, whose contents can be edited by anyone.

The discovery fired up several Singaporean and Malaysian blogs.

One blogger, Malaysian Jeff Ooi, yesterday bemoaned in a post his country’s use of a suspect photo from an anonymous blog containing plagiarised content to ‘present its case at all places, the International Court of Justice’.

Another Malaysian Tony Yew said on his website muststopthis.blogspot.com: ‘How lame can our guys be?

‘Putting up an argument with plagiarised work from Wikipedia! Sheesh…there goes Pulau Batu Puteh!’

Pulau Batu Puteh is Malaysia’s name for Pedra Branca.

Singapore and Malaysia are appearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to resolve their dispute over the sovereignty of Pedra Branca, an island 40km east of Singapore and which stands at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Strait.

On Monday, Singapore’s Attorney-General Chao Hick Tin said the photo Malaysia produced was shot using a camera with a telephoto lens, which exaggerated the closeness of Pedra Branca to the Johor coast.

In questioning the blog, Mr Chao saidthe photo had been put up just four days before the start of the ICJ hearing.

In the blog, its author claims to be a lover of lighthouses and ‘leuchtturm’ is the German word for lighthouse.

Simplyjean found the following sentence on the design of lighthouses was lifted from Wikipedia: ‘Often these are cylindrical to reduce the effect of wind on a tall structure on less stable soil. An example of this is Pulau Batu Puteh Lighthouse.’

The only change the author of leuchtturm3 had made was to use Pulau Batu Puteh Lighthouse in place of Cape May Lighthouse. But it was done in a way that anyone who clicks on the hyperlinked words Pulau Batu Puteh is led to a page on Cape May Lighthouse in Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, some netizens posted criticisms on the leuchtturm3 blog of what they called the ‘doctored picture’.

Yesterday, its author confessed he knew little about Singapore or Malaysia and hoped to visit the region one day when he had the money.

As for Simplyjean, its writer confessed in a post that the Pedra Branca case held little interest initially. ‘But when they decided to bring the blogosphere into the news, then I felt that I had to do some justification for the community.’

Simplyjean has this message for the person behind the leuchtturm3 blog: ‘To the author (and all other implied parties), you suck.’

lydia@sph.com.sg

And additional reporting here too

What the case is about

SINGAPORE and Malaysia have a dispute over who owns Pedra Branca and two outcrops - the Middle Rocks and South Ledge. Pedra Branca, which the Malaysians call Pulau Batu Puteh, is an island the size of a football field located some 40km east of Singapore.

Singapore has exercised sovereignty over it since 1847 when the British colonial government built the Horsburgh Lighthouse there. But in 1979, Malaysia staked a claim to the island when it published a new map of its territories and placed the island in its waters.

In 2003, the two countries signed a Special Agreement referring the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Legal teams from both sides are appearing before the court over three weeks until tomorrow, to argue their case. A judgment is expected next year.

Wow! When I started this (seemingly brief) investigative work, all I wanted to do was to ensure that the reputation of bloggers would not be smeared by fly-by-night blogs (I’m sure there are a lot out there which are not malicious in nature), especially when there’s one where pictures are taken from it to be presented - in all places - the International Court of Justice (ICJ). As with all drama serials and movies with a crime and legal theme, I wanted to make sure that the evidence was bona fide - that whatever source it came from, it had to be “independent” as claimed.

Besides the Cape May Lighthouse hyperlink that gave the game away, there were far too many links in just a particular entry - and being an avid Wikipedia user and author (of just 1 article in Wiki), this all looked too familiar. While searching for “lighthouse” in Wikipedia may have produced the results I needed to prove my point, I decided to just Google it, since it may sometimes reveal more than 1 source.

Once the results were out, it was confirmed that the source had to be from Wikipedia - and zooming in on the spot where “Pulau Batu Puteh Lighthouse” was supposed to be revealed “Cape May Lighthouse”; and the rest is all history.

Also, thanks to reader Alfred who pointed out the media attention.

And oh, I think the Straits Times team did a great job in highlighting the differences. I should either learn from them or take a 101 on publishing. =P

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 22nd November 2007 (here)

I don’t think the 2 photos from the previous post are really doctored, but they are indeed taken with cameras of different F-stop. I am not really a photography person, but this is what I can do with my Sony T9 camera:

This is the “normal view” that we see usually.

And this simulates a camera with a different F-stop. I’m not sure if it’s higher or lower. Haha… sorry, very unprofessional ya? But that’s about all that I can do. The first picture makes the 2 objects look very far apart, but the second one makes them look very close together - and the objects are not moved.

So if you look at this:

And this:

It’s probably the same effects as what I was trying to achieve - by playing with the F-stop; so there really isn’t really any doctored photos. Yet. =)

I’m not quite sure what kind of chaos my previous entry generated, but I suspected that the blogger of http://www.leuchtturm3.blogspot.com/ could have been badly flamed, judging from his last entry:

Dear Fellow Bloggers,
I am surprised that my blog has seen harsh and four letter word comments from some bloggers. And the problem is that I don’t really know which part of my blog has resulted in these comments. If any of you think that my blog is offending , please be specific in your comments on parts which you think is offending. Please do not use four letter words in the comment section as my younger sibling, who is 11 years old, also visits my blog and these words are not appropriate for her.

By the way, I have to admit that I do not know well the region where Singapore and Malaysia are located. Maybe some of the bloggers would want to educate me a little of the region and its people. I am always thrilled to meet new friends from all parts of the world and to learn their culture and history. Maybe someday when I have enough money, I can visit Singapore and Malaysia.

I would appreciate positive, constructive and civil comments from all of you out there.

Leuchtturm3

Really, the only thing questionable were:

• the first post of just a picture of Pedra Branca
• the now not so recent post of “Pulau Batu Puteh Lighthouse”
• plagiarism from wikipedia (which really isn’t so bad… yet)
• changing the name from Cape May Lighthouse to Pulau Batu Puteh but forgetting to change the hyperlink (that’s how I knew it was Cape May Lighthouse)
• the timing of the blog, which started just before the court hearing

Actually, it could all jolly well be a coincidence. It could be… bad timing. The blogger could jolly well be an innocent party in this entire event; which reminded me of this Just-for-Laughs snippet where the cashier (one of the actors) took out the cash till and handed over to an unsuspecting customer and when the latter turns around, there was a policeman (an actor too) and when the customer turns around to face the cashier, the cashier’s hands were raised as if he was being robbed.

So the blogger (Leuchtturm3) could jolly well be the customer, the policeman could be the courts and the cashier… erm… better not say.

However, if the blogger’s sister really read the comments, then I would really feel bad. Nonetheless, despite all these “harsh and four letter word comments from some bloggers”, I am quite surprised at his composure. I think this is something that I should learn from him.

By the way, have you seen:

• http://leuchtturm3.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-have-been-interested-in-lighthouses.html#comments; and
• http://www.blogger.com/profile/09585189645991820549; and
• http://pulaubatuputeh.blogspot.com/?

Hmm… come to think of it, how many people knows that Pedra Branca is also known as Pulau Batu Puteh? Or am I a frog in a well?