My kind of town

My regular readers will know that Singapore is my kind of town - well, my kind of city, island, state and country really, to give this wonderful place its due.  I'm conscious of the fact that I haven't shared very many pictures with you over the blogging years, but that is about to change.  I was lucky enough to have secured the services of an ace photographer a couple of weekends ago - the lovely Saffron, eldest daughter of the equally lovely Chris, so we took the lid off the convertible and went on a photographic spree around the sights and delights of Singapore, armed with a bagful of fancy lenses.

Those of you who have seen my own photographs, mostly taken with my trusty iPhone, will have gained some idea of what life is like here, albeit a blurry sort of idea, but this blog is now going high def!  Saff's new camera is a beast of a thing, a wonderful Canon digital SLR - so join me now in marvelling at its - and her - abilities.

View from the piano balcony 

First up, the divine Divine.  The Divine is a wine bar in the most amazing, art deco inspired building in Singapore, called Parkview Square.  The name does nothing to describe either the outside of the building or what awaits you inside.  The ground whole of the ground floor is devoted to the wine bar, which, as you can see, is a complete homage to art deco style.  The wine chiller is gigantic (it's the thing that looks like a huge church organ in the photo below) and is reached by a waitress, dressed like an angel, who is hoisted up to the right the right level to access the bottle of your choice.  Really.  I'm not joking. Honestly.  If you don't believe me, have a look at the video link below.  In fact, have a look at it anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75UWIVU4a6


If you live in Singapore, or are thinking of visiting the Divine make sure you go in the evening, as the flying angel waitress persons don't take flight till night.  As the ceiling is 15 metres high, and the wine chiller is 3 stories high, you may have to wait a moment or two for your drink to arrive.  The details are absolutely spectacular - like the bronze plaque at the bottom of this post.  Not surprisingly, the Parkview was the most expensive office building in Singapore when it was built as the last major project of a Taiwanese tycoon.  He wanted it to be imposing and monumental, yet stylish and elegant.  In my view, he succeeded on all counts.  Make sure you have a look outside as well, in the central plaza, on which a huge amount of attention to detail has also been lavished.  To my mind, this is more classical in nature and features a number of statues of famous people from the world of the arts, science and politics - Mozart, Dali, Picasso, Plato, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Plato, Dante and Einstein to name just a few.

The wine chiller

I'm conscious that It's been a while since I shared a film review with you in haiku form.  I've see a few movies recently (sorry, Steve, I quite liked Black Swan) but nothing reached out, grabbed me by the throat and insisted that |I review it in seventeen pithy syllables.  Last night though, I went to see Red Riding Hood - one weird film idea - which inspired me to comment.  So here goes. 

What were you thinking
Julie Christie, Bella's dad
Amanda Seyfried?

And there you have it - all that needs to be said on the subject.  Bella's dad, by the way, is the actor who plays the police chief in the town of Forks in the Twilight films.  And yes, Steve, I liked those too (apart from the second one, which was pants).