Definition of "Motherhood Statement"

I do not know how many of you get yourself in a situation where you are presenting a project or some idea that you have conceptualised. You start with the scope before going on to detail on the aims and objectives. Normally the audience will be made up of your superiors. Having eaten more salt than you have eaten rice (I hope they die from hypertension or something), they dissect your presentation and ideas. They tell you that you're making motherhood statements they don't amount to anything at all.

Here is an example:

"If we can give our teachers the room, the space, the environment in which they can spend time inspiring the students, leaving a little bit of themselves behind, then I think we would have gone so way further in wanting to develop this first-class education system."

I showed it to a teacher friend. And she said she don't understand the statement as it was too cheem. And she's the supposed target audience.

I told her she'd given a very profound insight. Profound in that she had penetrated beyond the superficial or obvious.

What It Is Looking Like Now

Home Zero 7
Destiny Zero 7
Goodbye Pisces Tori Amos
Ribbons Undone Tori Amos
Sleeps with Butterflies Tori Amos
You Belong To Me Tori Amos
Oh Yeah (On The Radio) Tom McRae
When We Dance Sting
It Might Be You Stephen Bishop
Cafe De Flore (Charles Webster's Latin Lover Mix) Dr Rockit
Begin the Beguine Sheryl Crow
Never Felt Like This Before Shaznay Lewis
In Space Röyksopp
More Than This Norah Jones & Charlie Hunter
Humble Me Norah Jones
Be Here To Love Me Norah Jones
Those Sweet Words Norah Jones
What Am I To You? Norah Jones
Sunrise Norah Jones
Nightingale Norah Jones
Lonestar Norah Jones
Shoot the Moon Norah Jones
Come Away With Me Norah Jones
Northern Sky Nick Drake
All I Want Natalie Merchant
Christina Mr Hermano
Northern Lights Lux
As Time Goes By Louis Armstrong
I Saw The Light Lori Carson
Angelica Lamb
Slip into Something More Comfortable Kinobe
Thirteen Kathryn Williams
Swimming Places (Original Mix) Julien Jabre
Lock & Key Julia Fordham
Heartbeats José González
Your Body Is a Wonderland John Mayer
No Such Thing John Mayer
Ordinary People John Legend
Air on the G string Johann Sebastian Bach
Such Great Heights Iron And Wine
No More Sweet Music Hooverphonic
Moon River Frank Sinatra
Across The Universe Fiona Apple
I Didn't Know I Was Looking For Love Everything But The Girl
Drowning In Your Eyes Ephraim Lewis
Just One of Those Things Diana Krall
I Will Follow You Into The Dark Death Cab For Cutie
This Love Craig Armstrong Feat. Elisabeth Fraser
Dreams The Corrs
If Bread
Someone's Daughter Beth Orton
Safe In Your Arms Beth Orton
A Place Aside Beth Orton
Absinthe Beth Orton
Conceived Beth Orton
Comfort Of Strangers Beth Orton
Swollen Bent
Moonlight Sonata Beethoven
Air on the G string (shorter version) Bach
Corcovado (Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars) Astrud Gilberto
Fly Me To The Moon Astrud Gilberto
The Girl From Ipanema Astrud Gilberto
Can't Take My Eyes Off You Andy Williams
You And Me (Tonight) Alistair Griffin


The colour codes are for personal use. I thought it's quite a challenging playlist. Might do a great re-shuffle. Too much Beth Orton and Tori Amos. Norah Jones, well, she's forgiveable. I reckon there are only two distinct portions. One is the pre-dinner and the other, obviously, is the dinner itself. There are other bits like "the entrance" and "the entrance (of food)" but, I'll leave them out first.

Lasuppe updates

Some observations.

1) Three hours worth of music isn't very long. about 50 titles worth will be more than sufficient.

2) As much as you would like to put Julien Jabre, Dr Rockit, Mr Hermano, Royksopp and Zero 7 (people throwing off the flair factor), Death Cab For Cutie, Jose Gonzalez, Kathryn Williams, Tom McRae (sideshows giving the twist element), Astrud Gilberto, Diana Krall and Frank Sinatra (standards ensuring it all feels familiar) all together in a lounge mix, if it doesn't work, you gotta compromise compromise compromise....

3) Turntablist works of art (DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, DJ Food) will typically not work for a crowd comprising of 1 to 80 year olds.

4) Bossa Nova in a ballroom setting is too over-rated.

5) Foreign language may be a good thing but like accessories, less is more.

6)Too much of the same thing is an overkill - cut down on Astrud Gilberto.

7) Dropping popular baroque pieces can be nice (Bach, Mozart and Beethoven) or like what shyuechou says, Debussy and maybe Chopin as well. But coming from shyuechou, all I can thinkof is "Che Guevera and Debussy to a disco beat". I'm sure he knows what I mean.

8) Avoid sad sounding tracks Jackson! It's a wedding not a god damn funeral! Strictly no trespassing to the following: Ryan Adams, Feist, Aqualung, Unbelieveable Truth.

9)Ultimately, not many will pay attention to it. So don't tear your hair out.

10) There isn't technically a point number ten.

Alright. First draft to be out soon.

Who would have known? - you don't want to read this

Memories can be an indulgence. An inconvenience. A necessity.

I found myself wanting to look at my photos today. Photos from the time I left junior college right through to the time I return to Singapore after studies. Since I didn't take much photos (at least I don't own them) during army days, I wasn't thinking about them so much. There were a couple of albums when I was in midshipman school. Mostly pictures of the overseas ports I visited as part of a training deployment of which I went twice. They were mostly regional ports. I can remember calling at Manila (The Philippines), Kure (Japan), Pusan (South Korea), Chinhae (South Korea), Bangkok (Thailand), Sattahip (Thailand), Qingdao (China), Kaohsiung (Taiwan, ROC), Manado (N. Sulawesi Indonesia) and that's about all. By the time I completed my midshipman school, I have never sailed through the Malacca Straits. Since I started serving my bond, I have revisited Sattahip, stopped by Panjang (Indonesia) while en-route back from Timor Leste, Penang (Malaysia - my one and only port west of Singapore Straits). The geographically savvy ones would have noticed that all the ports are around South China Sea, Celebes Sea, Karimata Straits, Sunda Straits, Sulu Sea, Java Sea, Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, Formosa Straits, Gulf of Thailand, Flores Sea.... By now I have gone through that particular straits about 4 times. There are lapses, parts which I simply cannot remember. While some of the memories could be nothing more than a confabulation of imagined memories I have convinced myself that actually happened. Memories are an indulgence because you cannot have much proper use of it except to reminisce, perhaps crinkling a smile but what else is there?

My first flight was 14 hours long. Thereabouts. Took me from Changi Airport to Heathrow. That was where I started uni life. And while there, definitely took the chance to visit surrounding cities, towns and places. Many of them in the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales, Edinburgh, cities around England but never venturing into Wales. Dublin, Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Siena, Pisa, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Berlin, Cologne, Dresden (I think), Leipzig, island hopping (not in Greece) Mallorca, Ibiza, Formentera, Malta and I think that's that. During the summer holidays I went backpacking in Vietnam (Hue, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Danang, Nha Trang), went down East Coast Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane). I was looking at the pictures, at the travel companions, the people I took photos with, the tricycle man, fellow Japanese travelers (hahaha!), my uni friends, the places, the sites (some of which I have revisited - mostly Spanish ones), my room in uni, my graduation, the first time I was in London, the people I was close to, the people I have grown closer to (none) and the people that have drifted out of my life, single-serving friends (aplenty), the last picnic I ever had in uni....and I start to realise that memories can be an inconvenience. Especially fond memories, memories you immediately know you will treasure for life, memories that are good. These memories form so sort of a baseline with which all good memories must meet. It is also inconvenient because they become part of you and you can only live with it. They remain with you till you die. Sometimes a person's present standing is based on his past. Impressions are created from the immediate past. Memories are thus inconvenient because you are unwittingly defined by them, and that may not be a good thing all the time.

I cannot imagine myself not having any memories. Neither can I imagine that on anyone else. But what I can do is to be less judgmental about others' past. Including my own. Perhaps reminisce a little less, indulge less frequently, don't be inconvenienced by it. Life, and living live, necessitates memories. Without which, there isn't much of life to talk of.

Silly Cocks

The French national bird is the Cockerel.

I posted a while ago about the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976.

Well, they had a rematch last week.

Guess who won?

Again.

30 years to the day. Re-enactment.
Same story, different players.


The previous post, I made an error. I stand corrected, Steven Spurrier, the wineseller who staged the first taste test in 1976 , an Englishman, wanted to pit the US wines with the French wines not to disgrace the former. It was to mark the bicentennial celebration of the American Revolution. He expected the French wines to win.