Annam

[dedalus]

There is no life

and moving along, there is no laughter,

no happy song.

 

Let me look at you.

 

Over the skies of Singapore

fly fat Japanese bombers

who drop drop drop and miss.

 

Below we sit with our Singapore Slings

at the bar in the Raffles Hotel:

never mind, my darling, all is well!

 

These slant-eyed people,

these fools can never defeat us.

[fdelano]

Our history ignorant world seems destined to suffer the repetition. May be in our DNA. Please let me finish my champagne before you bite me in the ass. Well done. Depressing.

[tonyv]

I agree with Franklin's observation about the apathy, but I'm probably one of the deluded ones. I like the setting and would try to make the best of it. I'd probably hang in that hotel bar and party.

 

Tony

[Benjamin]

You've caught well the attitudes of 'the days of empire' which I believe have never left certain British people. T/v programmers in particular, persist in romanticizing an upstairs downstairs life-style which prevailed and is part of our history. The entertainment they serve up however, is like a gramophone record that refuses to move on; keeps jumping back to the time of Agatha Christie and her ilk. As if to numb a new generation into once more accepting the unacceptable.

A p.s. for Tony. Friends of mine visited Raffles a couple of years ago where a Singapore Sling cost around £25

[dr_con]

Yes- I can sense and feel the time and place. Well done!

 

Juris

[dedalus]

I stayed in the Raffles hotel in the early 90s with my wife and can attest that the bathroom attached to our room was nearly larger than our whole apartment back in Japan. Naturally, we had Singapore Slings in the spacious bar and took breakfast out on the lawn among parakeets, parrots and mynah birds. Those were the days!