The annotated budak

A hole of history

While wandering around unsavoury parts of the city, my duck came across this remnant of a more glorious time when men ruled the earth and women swooned with the spiritual joy of sexual subjection. The subject of my interest was a raised chamber of secrets with a little pit as dark as night.

In the not too distant past, nameless men of mean constitutions patrolled the streets of Singapore, stalking cubicles of suspicion to swipe freshly-filled buckets under the very noses of restless depositors. It's said that they could insert a new container in the time it took for an average fellow to reload and discharge another bombshell. The teams even had special vehicles, sadly unavailable in action-figure size, fitted with 80-neat compartments for slotting in buckets. These chariots of manure must have been the bane of drivers within reach of their sloshing payload. Back at the processing stations, which were located at Park Road, Jalan Afifi and Albert Street, the contents were emptied into sewers and washed before a new day of duty.

It was a trade steeped in family values, with fathers passing the motion to sons who learnt to battle the stench by chain-smoking and who'd never pass up an opportunity to shake the hands of friends, foes and visiting ministry officials. The bureaucrats thus touched by this tradition were probably relieved when the practice kicked the bucket in January 1987, flushing these custodians of soiled nights down the drains of sanitised history.

Three signs of relief

Come unto me all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you the restroom.

Let it fly

The recent Volvo Ocean Race at Sentosa Cove gave my duck a chance to sample the spanking facilities of an exclusive marina. There were disappointingly no boat babes in bikinis in sight; hence, my duck waddled off to the WC to seek relief. Peering closely at the porcelain as is my duck's wont, I discovered that the washroom boasts a life-size two-dimensional fly on each urinal. The image of a pesky insect is thought to induce an instinctual urge to shower the bug with a spray of manly gold. Unfortunately my shaky duck suffers from poor aim and so missed the sweet spot by a wide margin. A few young scouts who entered the loo were also visibly disturbed to see my duck whipping out a camera amidst an intimate act. It'd be nice though if more lavatories on the mainland were to boast such a feature. Spillage and sanitation rates would probably fall and operators could even swap the insect for more pleasant images of open orifices that'd stimulate daring displays of peenile marksmanship.

Handle this

The walls and ceiling of the throne rooms of the Handle Bar are made to please, with green bottles of booze, smooth pipes of chrome and fawning figures in fulsome poses who stare with two-dimensional earnestness, whether you are seated in repose or astride above the cold hard hotspot. I couldn't take a better shot as some guy was outside the cubicle waiting to water his pony and making impatient grunts for his turn.

After he made his way in, I stuck my duck in the corner for a wide angle view of the outer chamber with its mosaic of mirrors. Riders in the dark growled through the thoroughfare right outside as they navigated the dining tables outside to a cozy corner of stammtisches beyond the pool table. The man who emerged sated of his urges seemed disturbed to find a fully grown fowl crouching behind his door. Thankfully his belly was full and appetite dimmed, or he might have had a crack at my butt before he took a bike...

Beefuddled

The approaching storm sent us scurrying from the shore at Changi Point back to the boardwalk and washing area last Saturday. In this quarter transected by Nethevaron Road and Cranwell Road, crumbling bungalows converted into holiday chalets, haunted hospitals and derelict army barracks lie low amidst rich copses of mature trees. Even without the rain, a hazy dampness bathes the morning air, covering the coastal hillocks with a dewy cloud. Few cars disturb the windy roads here, so the loudest sounds of the dawn are the bubbles and whistles of bulbuls and koels that flit over our heads. On some days, the hornbills reveal themselves as swift phantoms who lord over the canopy in their search for a breakfast of figs and other fleshy pericarps.

The sun had already risen, but some insects were still sluggish and probably remained so, given the impending deluge. A green baron clung to a banana leaf with unusual patience, while at the porch by the tap, a few workers were milling about listlessly, allowing rare portraits of the bees at rest. Did they spend the night away from their hive or were they lost or simply outcasts at the end of their effective tenure? Or were they misfits rendered homeless by acts of human mindlessness that focus only on the stings but forget the vital services and sweet syrup that bees render to mankind with no thought of compensation? Surely it is no mean feat to coexist in peace with these essential pollinators and symbols of selfless industry that outnumber tetrapods in diversity? In Phuket, we landed one fine morning this March and were ferried to a little house that serves as both headquarters and home to a family who rents out vehicles for a living. After settling the paperwork, I took the chosen Suzuki out for a test drive with two happy riders who unfortunately didn't come with the package. Back from the spin, a toilet break brought us into a breezy chamber at the back of the dwelling, where a massive hive hung from the upper corner facing the hole in the ground. The bees could venture out via an adjacent window, and it was evident that they were tolerated tenants, as fresh paintwork had been applied to the walls which narrowly circumvented the insects' home. Clearly, the family sees and suffers no harm from sharing their halls with this hive. So why can't the fine folk on this buzzing island do likewise?

On the sunny shores of Semakau
where mud and mosquitoes abound
the sky is blue the grass is brown
you wish you'd never left the town

And when you from the mangroves fly
all red and itchy toe to thigh
there's no cover on the road to hide
save one box blue for your backside

Step right up ladies and guys
don't matter if you're naughty or nice
at K&W we aim to please
but bear with us if it smells like cheese