After-dinner thoughts

1. Objecting to the mandatory death penalty or drug trafficking in Singapore, or to the death penalty for any offence at all, isn't a matter of being idealism. It's a matter of human decency, of what we allow ourselves as a society to do to each other, of the compact by which we agree to live together and (a) not shit all over each other, as well as (b) make a better society to live in.

2. Urban planners in Singapore should not be allowed to get away with thinking at a 99-year leasehold on land is acceptable because "no building lasts for that long anyway", and eventually the government should have the right to decide what else to do with that land. If nothing else, it speaks of a person who lacks imagination and vision, a soulless, slavish dedication to what works right now, never mind that life is not always only about the right now.

3. Really interesting and lively people always make things happen.

4. Shophouses really trap the echoes and reverberations of conversation.