The Day's Takings - Finale.

So you see, the secret to happiness is really very simple: set yourself targets that are quite easy to reach, or so metaphysical no one can tell.

I've got the last batch of pictures up, and it's nowhere near the end of the month. Eh?

My next goal is to be born rich and achingly good looking.

But, yes, on with the show. The previous entry ended at about the early evening. The day's fringe activities were over and the performers had packed it up and gone. It was a little weird to see Butterfly Man without his wings. He was fantastic as Butterfly Man...so much that he even looked a bit bug-ish to me without the costume. Zero offence, merely observation. And hey, looking like a bug isn't at all a bad thing. I think.

And so, the beginning of the end -

5.30 pm: Main stage show.

This is where, through the video link on the huge array of screens I was telling you about, we had the Parade and performances at the Padang telecast LIVE OMG. The phrase "MAKE SOME NOISE" started on its arduous journey of abuse here. By the end of the night, it was in a shivering heap, muttering incoherently to itself.

So they switch from area to area - Padang, Marina, Tampines, Jurong and us. At each point, the MCs of the place would get everyone to MAKE SOME NOISE. The people of each venue also had to do that Singapore Workout-ish dance. The people of Yishun were quite good sports. Most gave it a shot.

The Ministers of Parliament for the divisions that were zoned for this celebration then arrived. On trishaws, no less. They were welcomed by many cute children waving flags.

Yes, the children were actually pretty cute. Specially selected for cuteness, you see.

We watched the President arrive at the Padang, and as is customary, all sang the National Anthem. It has been an observation of mine that, besides the schooling kids who have to sing it every morning, no one else seems to know it. Or willing to actually sing it, anyway.

This was followed by the usual slew of performances and song-singing. And then OMG TEH AIR DISPLAY. The MCs announcing it sounded very excited, you see. I am earnestly trying to get that across. What the air display was, though:


It was over in about three seconds. But it was a very exciting three seconds, mind.


7.15 pm: Ha. Ha.

The Mobile Column, that assortment of huge Army and Civil-Dee vehicles, starts driving past the Padang. We get to watch a little, but they're driving on to where we are anyway. So we watch a short video about the founding of Singapore, which is about the same material as what I covered in the Singapore entry but very much more proper. They had a cartoon of Sang Nila Utama sailing and seeing the shadow of a lion and everything.

Then we had...Laughter Therapy. This is where things got a bit weird. They invite some sort of qualified professional up on the stage, and she tries to lead the huge crowd there at Yishun through the various different types of laughter. There must have been about six or seven, but damned if I can remember any one. Her laughter was a bit forced, I felt. Sort of how it would be if someone told you to make laughing noises when your dog has just died.

But yes, the crowd was a sport. They...tried. I just retreated to my happy place when they were doing it.

You'll notice I haven't got many pictures up to this point. The crowd seated in front of the stage was about the size of a football field and a half you see. I'd been out at the perimetres all this time. Frustrated with the lack of opportunities to...shoot things, I hit upon the bright idea of going around looking for happy family/cute kid pictures. Those are always useful. Got space to fill? Put in a cute kid!

Not too many photogenic kids around there though. It could be my lack of skill but hey, what are the odds of that? I didn't get too many usable ones for publication I'm afraid. Some nice ones for my own collection, though...


I thought this was an awesome shot of a happy family. Notice, however, that the young boy is surreptitiously giving me the finger with his left hand. Must...resist...Photoshop...


And this gem. I just find this one unbearably adorable for some reason.

I found out one can get away with quite a lot if he walks around dressed all spiffy and has a camera on a string around his neck, with an official-type bag. Some sort of primal code in the DNA makes people automatically pose happily when confronted with the above conditions. The problem lies in the ones that aren't yet old enough for that to kick in. Quite depressing when a kid runs away from you screaming for his mommy.


Adults, though. No problem. I felt this was real sweet. They were just seated by themselves on a mat, quite content to let the young people do the screaming and shouting while they enjoyed each other's company.


I thought this made a meaningful picture, too. Little girl holding the book like that, with "The Future is Ours to Make". Very nice. As opposed to a picture of, say, some golden-haired ah beng holding it. Then it would be depressing. True, but depressing. Please to ignore the...simian-looking little boy.


It was a film camera, you see. And Mr Ancob had said earlier on I shouldn't need to worry about running out of film. We settled upon contacting each other via our mobile phones should we need anything, like updates, film and sanity.

Ah, so many things seem like such good ideas at the time.

Because at this point I'd run out of film going balistic on happy families, you see. And if you live in Singapore, you'll know how mobile networks tend to jam up on major occasions like Christmas and New Year's Eve, because everyone needs to tell everyone else to have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. It's like they'll forget to be Merry or Happy without being told to.

I wouldn't have imagined it. But apparently we also tell each other to have a Happy National Day, lah.

So the networks were jammed. Twenty thousand redials and all I get is a NETWORK BUSY KTHX signal each time. I was...stuck. I couldn't even go talk to people about the show, because I'd need pictures of them to use so you'll know they aren't figments of my imagination. I wandered around a bit trying to find the pink polo-tee and safari hat. No luck. I was just going to have to sit back and...absorb the atmosphere. Most of the subsequent pictures are Mr Ancob's.

A bit more of my sanity was ground away as they played "Reach out for the skies" again. Then, fireworks. Whee, fireworks. We've all seen them but we just can't get enough of the pretty pretty lights, can we?

This one was different, too. Because the firework cannons were in a cordoned area barely a hundred metres away from the crowd. You could see it shooting up from the ground, into the sky. The organizers were right bastards, too. No warning. And firework detonations, as I learned that night, are loud.


See, see. So close. When it started, the more skitterish kids also started crying. And you saw this wave of people scooting backwards. It really was quite loud. And at that distance, you also find out what goes up must come down. Wot, you thought the fireworks just disappeared nicely into the air? The spent magnesium fluttered down gently as grey, burnt-out flakes.

I actually watched with much amusement as a not burnt-out flake fluttered down onto somebody's back. Some furious swatting by her husband ensued.


They also produce a lot of smoke. Many a handkerchief was whipped out and fastened over nose, there.


Taking pictures of them is very tricky, Mr Ancob told me. You have to use a long shutter to get a nice effect instead of a blob of light. But then you'll also run the risk of getting these. Little fire-worm things which don't look very nice, do they?


A better example of the fireworks, which were really quite nice.


But of course, Mr Ancob, with 44 years experience in the industry, shines through. Those are just spectacular pictures. Front cover material.

AND I WAS OUT OF FILM.

But, yes. The fireworks were the end of the official concert. This was about 8.30 pm. They sang a few more songs, and the MCs closed the video link with the Padang. People started leaving, despite being told the concert wasn't over yet. There was still a sort of post-parade concert lined up, with fabulous artistes from all over, and the Mobile Column was on its way there.

They were still leaving, though.

A good many came back, however, once the post-parade concert started. Once again, NO FILM OMG. Let me try to do it justice.

"Yishun, do you want MOOOOORE?!", said the MCs. Very irritating. The crowd responded, but not all that enthusiastically, and heck, it wasn't like they were going to say, "Oh. You don't. Well we'll just call the whole thing off, then. Good night." .

Performer 1: Reshmonu
I gathered he's a huge thing in Malaysia. His segment was titled "Yishun Explosion" on the programme sheet. As cheesy as it sounds, it was quite explosive. He was this Indian chap with long dreadlocks and he rapped the crowd to rousing rhapsody. Very energetic, he was, and it rubbed off onto the crowd. He overdid the "tell the crowd they are wonderful people no matter what" bit a little, but he was one of the better ones. Everyone MADE SOME NOISE when he asked them to. They drew the line at PUT CHOOR HANDS UP IN DEE AIR, though.

Yes yes, we DO WANT MORE already. The MCs came out and asked again you see. Just to be sure. To verify that we did indeed want more, they actually went and divided the crowd into three sections, and got each one to MAKE SOME NOISE. Quite pleased with themselves, they then brought out the next performers.


Performer 2: Twins
The famous HongKong singers, yes. I thought they were quite horrible, but that's just me. Their selling point was sort of "hey, if one sweet-faced, young nubile girl singing bubblegum-pop can sell records, you can't go wrong with TWO". Maybe I'm just prejudiced, because I don't like that sort of music.

But they have no excuse for saying "Hello" about 17 times through their performance.

When they first came out onto the stage they said hello to the crowd you see. Screamscream, shoutshout. Said it about five times. Each. Then they start singing, and you know how there are little lapses in songs where it's just music and no singing? Some singers will takes the chance to smile and say a quick Thank You. Reshmonu had all kinds of things going on there. Well, damned if the Twins didn't fill each pause for breath with a Hello.

It was said very sweetly, of course. Wasn't sweet enough to take that stamp off their foreheads for me, though. Rhymes with "akimbo".

I'm not sure if it was me, the sound system, or the short Singaporean tongue which I am also occasionally guilty of. But I am prepared to swear that the female MC came out, effusively thanked them for their crap performance, and then declared that the Tits had a present for Singapore - a birthday song! Please, a round of applause for a birthday song from the Tits.

She'd meant Twins, of course. It was probably me. Not that it wouldn't have been just as appropriate, considering there were...

Ok, never mind.


Interlude: Mobile Column.
Remember that Mobile Column that was making its way down to the various Heartland venues from the Padang? Well, they were here! The on-screen camera panned to a view of the first vehicle, a jeep, pulling into the street with its hazard lights on.

...and stayed that way for about a half hour.

No kidding. This was one of the bigger screw-ups of the event. The huge column of Army and Civil-Dee vehicles stretching a few streets pulled up...and waited for about a half hour. The people got fidgety. Then they started leaving. And like the cliched domino effect, just about all of them started leaving. The traffic light junction to cross the street to get out was sardines-in-a-can packed. Traffic itself was backed up for two streets and counting. And this was all because?

Why, because the column had gotten there too early, of course. And we all know utter chaos might ensue from not following the time-table, so there really is not other choice than to sit and wait. With "Reach out for the skies" slowly grinding...

I think the song was the real reason for the mass exodus. Ugh.

To be fair, it was the only major hiccup that day. And as an unintended side effect, it showed the real National Day spirit, at least to me. Because in that ghastly, half-hour pile up of people and traffic, not a single car horn sounded. We're talking about Singaporean drivers who will flip you off for cutting into their lane, sometimes. I thought the lack of even one horn was quite amazing.

It was entirely possible that they simply weren't quite sure about horning a tank, or a five-ton truck full of soldier with guns. But let's be positive, here.

Finally, the time-slot was up, and they started moving. Good stuff, really.


You car. Me tank. You horn, me make small error in driving and crush you like insect. Questions?


The Army's Dial-A-Missile delivery service.


The Army's very advanced remote detonation machine. They placed a mine, then got the machine out to go detonate it you see. The MC warned the people to cover their ears, because there would be a very loud explosion.

What actually happened sort of went like this:

Machine comes out. Trundles to the mine. Carefully, they get it into position. zrrrnk zrrrnk.
Then it is time for it to detonate the mine omg. zrrnk zrrrrrrrrnk. poke.

Nothing.

zrrrnk zrrrrrrrrnk. poke.

Nothing.

zrrrrrrrrrrrrnk zrrrrrrrrrrrrrnk. POKE.

Awkward pause. And then the man in the bomb suit comes out and collects both the machine and the mine and they speed off. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

The Civil Defence team was not to be outdone! They actually put up a mock building and set the thing on fire.


Using advanced fire-fighting technology, the MC tells us, they will rush in, rescue hostages, and then put out the fire!

What actually happened:

Fwoom. Fire.

Bee borr bee borr bee borr evacuate poor hapless sod very good now put out the fire.

Pssssssssst. Burnburn. Psssssst. Burn. Pssssssssst Burnburnburn.

...burnburnburn.

They never actually put the thing out. The MC happily announced that they'd rescued two hostages and put out the fire as the Civil-Dee team sped off on their scooters, leaving the construct to burn itself out.


Performer 3: Tanya Chua
She's a bit of a local celebrity. In fact, the only local celebrity that was in the post-parade concert. For National Day. A bit of an irony, I felt. Not many people were left by the time she came on. They'd all buggered off during that half-hour holdup, you see. But she bravely went on and sang some lovely songs, followed by a short dialogue session with the MCs.

This second bit reaffirms my belief that something was wrong with the sound system. Once again, I am prepared to swear this is what I heard.

MC: "So Tanya, we hear you're picking up a new instrument. What is it?"

Tanya: "Drugs."

MC: "Ah! That's very exciting! So you'll be doing it for your future recordings?"

Tanya: "Yes, I'll be playing the drugs. It's very new to me."

She meant drums, but it took a bit of figuring out for me. Perhaps I need an ear exam.


Performer 3: Nicholas Tse
For those not in the know, Nicholas is a pretty major-league HongKong celebrity. My theory is he's immensely popular because he has a kick-ass Chinese name. Xie Ting Feng. It just radiates cool, if you speak the language.

Doesn't hurt that he's achingly cute, too.

But he was wonderful. The organizers, the canny bastards, kept him for last so they'd be guranteed at least a crowd of fanboys. Or girls, as the case might be. I don't normally hold with mainstream popularity, as in the case of the Ti...I mean, Twins. But I could see why he's so well received. He was gracious, spoke English and Chinese equally well, and knew how to please the crowd. Many a shed item of undergarment was flung that night. And not all of them female ones.

One bit was quite well done. Obviously scripted, but quite well done.

MC: "So Nicholas, since it's your first time in Singapore in quite a number of years, we want to quiz you on something."

Nicholas: "Aiyayai. Well sure, but don't make it too difficult!"

MC: "Oh, we're sure you won't know this one. It's very difficult. Now, what we want to ask you is, what area of Singapore are you performing in right now?"

NIcholas: "Oh, come on. You must be kidding. How could I not know THE PEOPLE OF YISHUN?!"

It's a little hard to bring across in text, but he started off his answer soft and nonchalant, then turned it into a nice roar towards the end. It got a great response, of course. His voice was the sort that could carry it off. If I'd tried that, there would have been a squeak somewhere in the roaring bit. Zao siah, as we call it. And everyone would look at me stupidly instead of swooning like they did for Nicholas.


So that's the end of my series of little unofficial reports. Each one took me a little short of three hours including sorting, re-sizing and uploading. It was a fun and well-done, if tiring day for me, and I hope I've managed to convey some of that to you.

Plus, I have to write several reports about it soon, so I have to keep it fresh in my mind.

Wot, you thought this was all about you?