National Day

We won't be in Singapore for this year's National Day, which is a shame really, as it's a big event. I've mentioned before in the blog how much I think Singapore punches above its weight, and it's a fiercely proud nation/city/island/country - take your pick. This pride is much in evidence on National Day, and the effort that goes into rehearsal. National Day is celebrated on 9th August, the date Singapore gained its independence from Malaysia in 1965.

The National Day Parade is the grandest national event in Singapore. The celebrations finish with an amazing firework display and feature all sorts of exhibitions, including Singapore's equivalent of the Red Arrows, who practice their stuff for months in advance of the parade - mostly outside the windows of our apartment block it would appear.

For those of you who are regular readers, here are some facts about Singapore:

Singapore is among the 20 smallest countries in the world, with a total land area of only 682.7 square kilometres. The USA is about 15,000 times bigger.

Apart from Monaco, Singapore is the most densely populated country in the world.

The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore contains more species of trees than the entire North American continent.

The largest fountain in the world is located in Singapore at Suntec City. It cost an estimated US$6 million to build in 1997 (and it is very ugly, by the way!).

In 2003, Singapore's Changi Airport won the award for "Best Airport Worldwide" for the 16th consecutive year from the UK/Europe edition of the Business Traveller magazine.

The record for the biggest ever game of pass-the-parcel was set in Singapore on 28 February 1998. It involved 3,918 students removing 2,200 wrappers from a 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.5 m parcel.

British pop violinist Vanessa Mae Nicholson was born in Singapore and moved to England when she was four.

The most common Chinese surnames in Singapore are Tan, Lim and Lee.

8 in 10 people in Singapore own cell phones. In fact, telecom companies issue new numbers at the rate of 30,000 to 40,000 per month.

Singapore's best showing in the Olympic Games ever was a silver medal won by weightlifter Tan Howe Liang in Rome in 1960. Maybe they will have better luck in Beijing!

Shanghai'd

Just back from Shanghai - my second visit there since we moved to Singapore - and I was blown away. Funny really, since the first time I went, in August last year, it barely made an impression. What was different this time was that I had the chance to spend some time outside of offices and hotels, and have a look round the older part of Shanghai - called Puxi (pronounced Pusee). In fact, the newer part of Shanghai - Pudong - is very new indeed. What is now a thriving commercial centre, with state of the art buildings, was farmland 15 years ago. Since it now looks like this (above), it's hard to believe the transformation.


Whenever I travel to places like China, I tend to be a bit challenged by the food (those of you who have read my post on "slippy food" will know what I mean). I'm sure this means I miss out on some amazing culinary opportunities, but there you have it. Walking through the French Concession in Puxi (the area of Shanghai originally designed for the French, and full of lovely old buildings as well as being the home of Shanghai's cafe society and club scene),) I came across a restaurant in a small park (or large garden, depending on your point of view - make up your own mind from the picture below).



Luckily for me, there were plenty of prawn dishes as well as the restaurant specialities of marinated turnip skin, mustard marinated jellyfish and sliced whelk.


Back in Singapore, we are experiencing relatively poor weather, although I am loving the unusual sensation of feeling cool for a change. I'm sure it won't last. We are heading for France in August, and hosting a Langedocienne dinner for some of our Singapore friends just before we go, so next Friday Chris will be cooking duck confit with cassoulet and serving up goat's cheese with honey. If you're going to be in the neighbourhood, just let us know!

A gold class movie experience

Last night, we went to see The Incredible Hulk. Definitely a movie, rather than "cinema", but a fun experience nevertheless. Much of the fun came from the fact that we went to one of Singapore's Gold Class cinemas to watch the big green man in action. I'm not sure if these exist in UK multiplexes, but they are definitely the way to go for the ultimate movie experience unless, like my friend Eddie, you have your own cinema in the basement of your house, of course.


The tickets are about 3 times the price of a normal ticket in Singapore (therefore about the same as an ordinary ticket in London). For that, you get entry to the Gold Class lounge, where you can have something to eat or drink, or order it to be served at your table in the cinema while you are watching the movie. The cinema seats are in pairs, with a little table in between, and the seats recline almost fully, like really good business class seats in an aircraft. You are provided with a blanket, in case the air con is too much for you (or if you just fancy a ziz I suppose).


If I were to review the movie in the Haiku style I would say the following:

Lovely Liv Tyler
excels as always. Edward
Norton good and green.

Musings on a Sunday morning

There is no particular subject for this post, it's just a collection of reflections on life in this part of the world. Like having to keep almost everything in the fridge because of the heat. In Singapore keeping bananas in the fridge (normally a big no-no) means they spoil less quickly than if you keep them on the work surface. I learned this from my sister Alison - one of my regular readers - who lives in Oz, where fruit faces similar climactic challenges. Thanks, Ali.

Staying with the fruit theme, we are now in durian season. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the delights (or horrors, depending on your point of view) of the durian. I found this great piece written by a Singapore expat, in which he describes his love affair with the durian. http://web.singnet.com.sg/~tonym/durian.html. I do not share his enthusiasm, I'm afraid, having so far been put off by the smell. The durian is banned from all forms of public transport, for good reason. My Singapore friends keep encouraging me to try it in dessert or cake form, but I'm still not convinced.

Last night we went out to eat at Halia, one of the restaurants in the Botanic Gardens. It is set quite far inside the gardens, and the walk from the entrance is full of atmosphere and romance. It is up a wide path, bordered by trees and beautifully lit. There is a picture of the restaurant at the top of the post.

Unfortunately, the food was not as great as the place. The first course of black pepper soft shell crab was delicious (although the black pepper was a bit subtle for my palate, which is used to fierce amounts of chilli), but the lobster and mushroom risotto was really disappointing. There was no depth of flavour; it tasted as if the rice and stock had not spent all their life in the same pan, growing together and gradually becoming one, but more as if they had been introduced to each other halfway through the process. If that sounds a bit poncy I apologise, but those of you who cook will know what I am talking about. The restaurant made the mistake of leaving one of those happy sheets with the bill, the little card that asks for your comments on the meal. Wrong table to choose!

That said, as we walked back through the gardens to the car, we sat down on one of the wooden benches overlooking the lake and reflected again on how fortunate we are to be living here. This thought strikes me every day that I spend here, for one reason or another, but never more so than when I am travelling in other parts of Asia. People say that Singapore is "Asia 101" - the Asian experience for beginners. It is clean and prosperous, everything works, there is very little crime and none of its citizens seem (to me at least) to be living in poverty. The same cannot be said of much of the rest of the continent, and travelling in India, for example, really brings home to me the lottery that is the accident of birth. If the cost of rice goes up a few percent, it is still a very inexpensive commodity to us, but it becomes an unaffordable staple for some.

When I last wrote about India, the post featured a piece on mangoes. I have recently learned that mangoes are considered a "heatie" food, in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. Heatie (yang) foods, like ginger, red and green peppers, chicken, cherries, coconut, coffee, eel (yes, eel), garlic and of course mangoes, are said to create "hot" energy in the body, while "cooling" (yin) foods, like bananas, crab, grapefruit, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber, pears, radishes and yoghurt create cold energy. As with so much of life, it's all about balance, and eating the right balance of yin and yang foods for your own particular circumstances - taking into account metabolism and lifestyle for example - is apparently the thing to do. I wonder whether pizza is yin or yang..........

An apple a day

Strange as it may seem to my gadget loving friends - Eddie and Steve, you know who you are - I have never owned an MP3 player, until a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure why, when I think about it, but there it is. So I decided to open the door and now I can't believe what I was missing. Now the proud possessor of a mint green iPod nano, I listen to it all the time and have to remember not to sing out loud and dance along when I'm in public places - or at work early in the morning. Then again, what the hell!

Chris is not an MP3 sort of a guy, but he has been seduced by the MacBook Air (http://www.apple.com/macbookair/) - Apple's latest laptop which is as thin as a New York socialite, and just possibly slightly lighter at under 1.5 kilos.


As it happens, I am writing this post listening to music on my PC - another revelation! Current favourite is Duffy. I had forgotten what a powerful influence music is on mood, and on memory. Listening to some songs brings back the moments that I associate with them so strongly that I feel as if I am right back there in the moment. I can't listen to Paul Simon singing "Diamonds on the soles of her shoes", Roberta Flack singing "The first time ever I saw your face" or Everything but the girl singing "Tougher than the rest" without being transported back in time. Magic.

Other favourites: anything from the dance scenes in Dirty Dancing, Peter Gabriel "The book of love", the Corries and the Proclaimers. You can take the girl out of Scotland...........................................

Why not share your favourites? All you have to do is leave a comment.

Mercifully, I took the iPod with me to Malacca last weekend. I say "mercifully" because the trip - all of 290 km - took almost 6 hours each way. Almost half the time was spent in the queue for border controls - out of Singapore and into Malaysia. So, was it worth it? Just about. Malacca is both a town and a state - one of the oldest in Malaysia. It was originally a sultanate (as some of the Malaysian states still are) and a very prosperous trading port. Malacca was ruled by the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries and many of the public buildings were built during this time. We stayed in a small hotel in the historic heart, close to Chinatown, which had been converted from an original Peranakan house. Regular readers may remember previous references to the Peranakan culture in the blog - Peranakans are the descendants of the very early Chinese immigrants to Malaysia. At the time, it was illegal for Chinese women to leave China which meant that male emigrants had to marry non-Chinese women and so Peranakans were born.

Another connection to a previous post (the one about mangoes) is Alfonso de Albuquerque, who was there in the early 16th century. Malacca seems to have spent much of its past being occupied by one European nation or another; we were a greedy lot in those days, weren't we?

This weekend we are resting up, catching up and - in my case - listening to music. Have a good one.

Not all mangoes are created equal

I'm not that big a fan of the mango to tell the truth; I'm more of a papaya person, so the vexed question of which is the best variety of mango has largely passed me by - until last week that is. I was in Chennai (aka Madras for those of you missed the reclaiming of the traditional name) and in Mumbai (Bombay as was) last week, and found myself drawn into a heated debate about mangoes. Who would have thought?

It turns out that the Alphonso mango (named after Alfonso De Albuquerque, a 15th century Portuguese nobleman) - see picture on the right - is deemed by most mango lovers in India to be the daddy. It is orange skinned and fleshed, and tastes - to my palate - like sweet toffee flavoured soap. My vote goes to the honey mango, shaped like a large teardrop, with pale yellow skin and flesh, which tastes like toffee pure and simple, without the soap.

Those of you who are regular readers will know that I found my first trip to India (Delhi and Agra last year) pretty challenging. This trip was quite different, and I can see myself being seduced by India over time, although I would like that seduction to take place in luxury hotels please!

Time for a short history lesson: Mumbai is the commercial capital of India and the second biggest city in the world. Its original name "Bombay" emerged from the Portuguese term "Bom Bahai" meaning "good bay "or "harbour". My hotel room overlooked the harbour and the Gateway to India - a ceremonial arch built in 1927 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. The Gateway holds historical significance as the last of the British troops leaving the newly independent independent India by sea, marched through its portals.

It's been a while since my last film review, but last weekend we saw "The Notebook " at the Tanglin Club. It was released in 2005, but it never crossed my path till now, and it was both delightful and heart-rending - a great combination for a movie. My friend Steve (who introduced me to blogging - check out his blog at blogfromthebarn.blogspot.com) has taken to writing movie reviews in the form of haikus - 17 sylable 3 line poems - so here goes with ours for The Notebook. This is Chris's:

Young love thwarted, thrives
Mem'ry fades but not passion
Oh, my aching heart

and mine:

Young lovers grown old
She cannot remember but
His love is enough

Just in case the haiku was not enough detail, here's the story:

The film is a love story which centres around a man in his seventies (James Garner) who reads aloud to a woman (whom we later discover is suffering from Alzheimers). From a faded notebook, his words bring to life the story about a young couple separated by her parents (she is posh, he is not) and then passionately reunited, seven years later, after they have taken different paths in life. It sounds sad, and it is, but really worth seeing. This weekend it's a bit of Sex in the City and Indiana Jones, so watch out for more movie reviews.......

Sleepless in Singapore

It's not like me to have difficulty sleeping, but tonight was an exception, so you find me sharing my thoughts with you at 5am Sing time on Sunday morning. That's 10 pm and 5 pm on Saturday for my UK and US readers respectively, and 8 am on Sunday for my sister in Oz.

Perhaps it was the excitement of last night's Murder Mystery Dinner at the Tanglin Club (it was Rupert, the long-lost son who dunnit) or the effect of dessert (the largest creme brulee I have ever seen) giving me a sugar buzz, but being awake with time on my hands gives me the opportunity to tell you about the Great Singapore Sale. This is an annual event and for two months from the end of May to the end of July (it's not called "great" for nothing) there are bargains to be had island-wide.

I have shared with you before the Singaporeans' love of shopping, so you can imagine the effect on the national psyche of discounts of up to 70 per cent on just about anything. The sale is actually organised by the Singapore tourist board in order to promote tourism, and visitors get special privileges on shopping, dining and various tourist attractions.

The sale begins with the Great Singapore Shopping Challenge - an event which seeks to elevate shopping to the status of a sport. This activity, now in its 5th year, involves teams of two (27 in total, with only a third of them from Singapore, so it's clearly an international sport), each of which is given S$1,000 and three hours to bag the best bargains from selected categories. The winning team is the one that manages to achieve the biggest savings in the time, and they get to keep their purchases as well as trousering a bucketload of shopping vouchers. Hmm, I wonder if my friend Kerry fancies entering next year...........

Neat things about Singapore

Chris and I were chatting the other night and thought it would be fun to share with you some of the really neat things about Singapore - the things that make living here really easy and fun.

Travel

Lots of the really neat things fall into this category, and we should definitely start with Changi airport - absolutely the best airport in the world. If you have not had the good fortune to pass through Changi (more like "glide through" really, since it's so easy), think of the horror that is JFK, then its complete opposite, and that is Changi. The staff are charming, everything works smoothly and efficiently, they have wonderful shops, restaurants and public spaces, you get through immigration in a matter of minutes - in and out of the country - and by the (short) time you get from the aircraft to the baggage hall, your luggage is waiting for you. Class!

Moving on to cars. All cars that you buy in Singapore are fitted with am IU - an in-car unit, which is equipped with a smart card, which you load with cash and from which money is automatically deducted when you pass into the ERP (electronic road pricing) zone. The ERP is a form of congestion charging, but better in my view (differential pricing according to time of day; hence three or four times as much during rush hours). The result is that, for the most part, the roads are remarkably quiet and free flowing. The smart card also works in virtually all car parks, so the appropriate amount of money (a pittance by UK standards) is deducted at the leaving barrier. Clever stuff. Car parks themselves are pretty clever: there are signs at the entrance telling you how many spaces are available on each level, and in some car parks, a green or red light above the actual space will indicate whether it is occupied or not, so cruising for an available spot is made easy.

We have a car here, although I have decided not to drive in Singapore, so I have the pleasure of being driven to work and picked up most days by the lovely Chris. Now that is one of the really neat things for me about living in Singapore! When we get back to the apartment block, there is an LCD sign next to the security barrier that lights up with the words "Welcome home SGV 7085" (the number plate). I smile every time I see it.

And we drive on the left

And taxis are a fraction of the prices in London

Anf plugs are the same as in the UK

Leisure

It's fair to say that leisure opportunities are limited somewhat by Singapore's size, but it punches above its weight in this department, as in many others. Worth a special mention are the Botanic Gardens (http://www.sbg.org.sg/) which are centrally situated (within walking distance for us, although it's a half hour walk and if we attempted it most days in the heat of Singapore we'd be little more than a puddle of sweat by the time we got there), extensive, and free. You can see individuals and groups doing Tai Chi (and line dancing, bizarrely, on weekends), there is a concert stage set on the water and two fabulous restaurants inside.

Worth an extra special mention is the orchid garden set within the Botanic Gardens. It is absolutely amazing, and all the visitors we have taken to see it have been blown away. They began an orchid breeding programme in 1928 and today there are over 1000 species and 2,000 hybrids in the collection, displayed in the most beautiful tropical setting. Did you know that there are two basic types of orchid - terrestrial and epiphyte? The terrestrial grows on the ground, naturally enough, and the epiphyte establishes itself on trees. Just thought I'd let you know.


If that's not enough outside space for you, how about the MacRitchie reservoir? Named after James MacRitchie, one of the engineers involved in its construction, this was Singapore's first reservoir and today, as well as fulfilling its water catchment role, it has more than one square kilometre of primary forest that includes rubber trees dating back to the 19th century, acres of secondary forest, turtles in abundance, frolicking baby monkeys and a tree top walk which gives stunning views of the island.

If you're into music, you can have the indoor stadium experience minus all the hassle of getting to and getting from a venue like Wembley. Singapore Indoor Stadium is a 15 minute drive for us and while it's obviously a whole lot smaller than the big UK venues, it's just the right size for Singapore and you can get into and out of the car park in 10 minutes flat.

Sticking with the cultural side of life,the Singapore Arts Festival starts this weekend and we went to the launch event last night, which was an amazing piece of water theatre on the Singapore river. The picture below gives the teensiest flavour of what was going on. It's a show called Water Fools, by a French street theatre company, and the "plot" begins with a man driving a mini and towing a caravan (on the water). His car breaks down, so he gets out and reads a newspaper (not clear whether he was waiting for the AA to arrive in a speedboat). A cyclist passes by and sprays water into the man's face and then his head bursts into flames.

Surrounding this activity, there is a woman in a big red frock (she of the piccy below) sat atop a giant hamster wheel being driven around the river by a (seriously perspiring, I imagine) young man. Fireworks are going off, there's a giant four poster bed occupied by a young woman with pigtails (don't ask) a woman with a bicycle and coloured balloons and all manner of strange goings on. Ah, the whimsical French.....

And finally - the prices. Apart from housing, cars and cheese (no cows on Singapore), pretty much everything here costs less than a half of its UK equivalent. Hot lunch at a hawker centre can be had for a couple of quid and the taxi ride from Changi airport (about the same distance as Heathrow to the West End) is about 20% of the price of a black cab. Go figure.

Skiing in Dubai

It's a natural high!

A couple of months ago, I set myself the target of having at least one new experience every month. Last month was the trip to Bali, which included some new experiencettes, like having lunch at the rim of a volcano, but this month is set to wipe the floor with March. First up, dune bashing in the desert. For those of you who are new to this sport(?), it is the name given to a roller coaster ride up and down the sand dunes in Dubai in a 4 x 4. It was great fun - although best undertaken on an empty stomach, especially if you are sitting in the back seat! Apparently you can also engage in a spot of sandboarding on the dunes, but that will have to wait for the next trip. I also fitted in a camel ride - more of a lurch really - and saw the palest sunset I have ever experienced. It was so white, it was like watching the moon set.

But the piece de resistance was the skiing. My friend Steve - he of the super cheffing skills - is also a huge fan of taking your life in your hands on the powdery white stuff, but has never been able to persuade me that this was a sensible use of my limbs. How wrong I was! Now you are probably wondering if the Dubai I was camel riding in is the same Dubai I went skiing in. Can there be two Dubais, one existing in a parallel universe, as cold as the other is hot? Not quite, but close, since the ski slopes (there are 5 of them) exist in a huge shopping mall - the Mall of the Emirates - and I consider all giant shopping malls to be part of a parallel universe. But enough of my shopping prejudices and on to the skiing.....

My only previous experience of skiing was on the nursery slopes at Aviemore, in north east Scotland one rainy February many moons ago. In fact, I never actually got to ski, although I did do a fair bit of falling over. I had to borrow the skiing instructor's skis because they had run out of skis the right length for me, the nursery slopes had almost no snow on them (remember, I did say that this was a rainy February) and the instructor was an impatient sort, with no gift whatsoever for teaching beginners. Not the perfect mix of ingredients you will admit, for an inspiring introduction to the sport. Suffice to say that after falling over a few times I did actually manage to ski a few yards downhill, but not to stop. Fortunately (my opinion, not shared by Mr Nasty who was more worried about his skis than me - imagine!), there was a picket fence at the bottom of the slope, with gaps the width of a ski between the fence posts and my skis, swiftly followed by my legs, slid through and stopped when I sat down on my (by now extremely damp) bottom. So, not a great start. After that, I gave up and have never really fancied trying again, but there was something so surreal about the thought of snow skiing in the desert that I had to give it a go.

There was a group of us, several of whom were beginners, and we had two really great instructors. I managed to get the hang of the snow plough (the action that makes you slow down and stop) early on, and after that there was no stopping me. I came flying down the hill (well maybe I had not entirely mastered the snow plough) screaming and laughing and didn't fall over once. Magic!

I really thought the trip couldn't get any better, but a couple of days later I learned African drumming as part of a team building event. It was totally and absolutely the business! I have attached the drumming and skiing links so that you can see for yourself. Next month's new experience is Tai Chi, and I'm hoping to persuade Chris to come along, since he has a bit of catching up to do.

http://www.dubaidrums.com/about.html

http://www.skidxb.com/English/default.aspx

War on Buffet (geddit?)

Not a mis-spelt reference to the sage of Omaha, but a comment on the prevalence of buffet deals in Singapore restaurants. I don't know about you, but buffets are generally anathema to me ( I will make an exception for the Sunday Champagne brunch at the Four Seasons and my sister would insist that I exclude the chocolate buffet at the Fullerton), but the attraction of the all-you-can-eat offerings so beloved of Singaporeans passes me by. That said, I think you would like to hear about some of the more exotic buffet choices on offer - at pretty knockdown prices by comparison with most UK dining opportunities. So here goes:

Sunday brunch (a favourite pastime here) first. How about a Taiwan Porridge Buffet? This is rice porridge, of course, not hot oatmeal as eaten by men in kilts, and comes with a variety of "toppings", I suppose you would call them - like sweet potato (atop the rice in the picture to the left), roast chicken, duck, silverfish ( a sort of teeny weeny whitebait), carrot cake (it's carrot cake, but not as we know it), fried wontons, fish cake, mushrooms, stewed peanuts (yes, really), bamboo shoots and black fungus, to name a few. I'd like to say that the black fungus tastes better than it sounds, but since I have never plucked up the necessary courage to put any in my mouth, I'm afraid I can offer no opinion. I am sorry to say that this is true of many of the items considered a delicacy in Asia, and quite frankly, I blame my upbringing. This has nothing to do with my mother's cooking; she hated cooking as it happens, but that's beside the point. It has to do with custard. Now I am sure you must be asking yourself the question, "How so? How can an innocent substance like custard be responsible for my culinary cowardliness?" Allow me to enlighten you.

Those of you who know me well may already have encountered my aversion to "slippy pudding", by which I mean anything sweet and gelatinous, like cold custard, tapioca, blancmange and jelly, for example. This aversion also extends to savoury slippiness, like aspic jelly and gravy, and emanates from a meal I ate about 45 years ago, every detail of which I remember as if it were yesterday. It was a weekend lunch, and pudding was tinned peaches (slippiness epitomised) and custard, which started out hot and therefore not too slippy, but when cold and congealed was gag inducingly so. It became cold and congealed because I refused to eat it - because of the slippy peaches - and I was made to sit at the table when everyone else had left until I did. Of course, every time I tried to get it past my throat, I would gag. To this day I come close to hyperventilating whenever I come across a tin of Bird's custard powder, and since many Asian dishes are fairly slippy (innately so, like shark's fin soup and some of the fungi, or made so, like many of the sauces), I tend to interrogate the waiting staff and insist on "dry" food, whenever I go out. But enough of my phobias; back to buffets. There are seafood buffets, dim sum buffets, high tea buffets, Thai buffets, Japanese buffets, and Indian champagne brunch buffets (the food is Indian and the champagne, fortunately, French).

I mentioned the chocolate buffet at the Fullerton Hotel earlier, which is served from 8 to 11 pm on week nights. Just the thing for a stressed chocolate lover after a hard day at work.

Movie news

I'm conscious of the fact that I haven't contributed any movie reviews to the blog recently, so let's rectify that right away. First up, "The Other Boleyn Girl". I saw this yesterday, having read the book when we were in Bali, and I am in two minds, If I'd not read the book, the film would probably have impressed me more, and to be fair, I was mightily impressed by Eric Bana as Henry (yum!), but because the book was able to develop several plot lines by virtue of its being a book, and a pretty long one at that, the film seemed rather superficial by comparison. That said, definitely worth seeing, if it's just to wonder how they managed to disappear Scarlett Johansson's bosom in those frocks.

A book that I have not read is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which has now been made into a film of the same name. It describes the life of the writer - Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a massive stroke when he was 43, which left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome - completely paralysed apart from the ability to blink his left eyelid. He managed to dictate his book by dint of blinking his eyelid when the relevant letter of the alaphet had been reached. The film makes for quite harrowing viewing, but it is quite brilliant.