If you're Singaporean and heading to the UK for postgraduate study

And if you're looking for funding, you should go take a look at the Chevening Scholarship. It's offered by the UK government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (i.e. the equivalent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and applications for the 2012/2013 academic year are now open. There's no bond of the Singapore government variety, although Chevening scholarship recipients are expected to return to their home country and contribute in some significant way to its "social and economic development".

I was one of three Chevening Scholarship recipients in 2010 and the scholarship very kindly paid for my tuition fees at Goldsmiths, airfare to the UK and some miscellaneous expenses. My scholarship interview was also one of the most interesting, rigorous and thoughtful interviews I've ever had. The interviewers struck me as being very smart and very interested in people who wanted to go and do something different (I was planning to go do cultural studies, of all things). They had definitely read my scholarship application from cover to cover, and asked very good questions about what I'd written in there. Plus we talked for close to an hour in a very energetic, friendly way --- how often does that happen at any interview?

So yeah, if it fits your bill, go for it. The application deadline for Singapore is 10 April 2011 3 February 2012. [Date corrected on 12 December 2011; thanks, @dangerrabbit, for spotting a typo in an earlier version of this post.]