When all that glitters is gold!

Here are some shots I took at my sis's jewellery showcase event at Shangri-la last Thursday while I was helping with the logistics.

Anyway, it was fun playing the "unofficial" photographer for that day and refining the pictures further with Photoshop (which works wonders, I tell you).

(Click to enlarge)

Here's the model who strutted her - eh - stuff, along with the jewellery pieces

My sis presenting and describing the various jewellery pieces to the customers

That's Miss Bernise Wong, Miss Singapore Universe 2003, giving a talk on matching jewellery pieces with the appropriate fashion

That's Baz, the HSBC Business Development Manager who brought many of the customers. The event itself was fully sponsored by HSBC as it catered fully to the expatriate crowd.

Some of the jewellery pieces and precious stones on display. Not all of the glitters displayed are for girls. The watches above are catered exclusively to the male crowd.

Where speed is king

The biker in the distance leapt off the hump before executing a sharp turn round the bend of the muddy track, all the while fending off muderous G-forces.

Decked out in striking red riding gear and a helmet, he then negotiated a muddy slope before blazing through the finish line with an air of authority of someone who knows the roads.

Scenes like this are a common sight at last Friday and Saturday's Channel U Motocross Challenge 2007 which is jointly organised by Channel U and the Motorcycle Safety and Sports Club (MSSC).

The event featured pit biking where bikers have to race through an uneven terrain marked by bends and artificial obstacles. The bikes used, known as scramblers, differ in capacity (70cc onwards) and wheel size (10 - 21 inches).

I was covering the event for The Straits Times and I had the chance to try out the bikes and do a few trial runs on the track. Surprisingly, it is not that difficult to ride a motorcycle. It is like cycling, with the brakes and all, except that the bike is much heavier and you can control the speed with a throttle using the right wrist, rather than pedalling.

It is a relatively safe sport but accidents do happen when one does not observe the proper safety procedures - like when I accelerated when moving round a bend and collided with the road markers. My bike toppled over and the engine died. Luckily, I was wearing jeans which prevented any scratches.

I had the chance to talk to a couple of the Channel U stars there for my story. One of the more familiar ones there was Miss Cui Fang, the winner of last year's Superhost (I didn't catch that show unfortunately). She is a surprisingly warm and friendly person, without putting on any airs or pretensions, who looks you straight in the eye and stands (very) close to you when she speaks. Very eloquent and sharp-witted. Little wonder she won the hosting competition.

It's times like this that makes the job so much more fun. Here are some pictures I took of the event:

A row of gleaming scramblers by the organisers' tent. These are off-road bikes specially designed for pit-bike racing. Their structure ensures uniformity in aerodynamics and an in-built recoil spring helps to absorb the impact during high-altitude maneuvers.

The terrain can be rather uneven and muddy due to the previous day's rain. That makes racing up slopes like this rather tricky.

A biker leaping off one of the humps. Some humps can go as high as a few metres. Notice how the biker slightly stands up during the leap. This allows his knees, rather than his back, to cushion the impact when the bike touches ground again.

Britain Wakes Up to a New Era

This week's news that Mr Tony Blair is stepping down in June was not surprising, neither was it cause for celebration. In my opinion, his resignation speech should be considered one of the best political speeches in recent history and it is befitting of a great statesman that he is. The first part of his speech can be viewed here, while shown below is the second half of it (I know it takes a while to load but it's worth the wait).



I am always amazed by politicians and leaders like Mr Blair. For 10 years, as Prime Minister of the world's fifth-largest economy, he was a symbol of change and progress.

He presided over Britain's resurgence as a world leader via Britain's leadership of the EU and as a leading advocate for poverty reduction in the developing world. Likewise, the Britain today owes much to the "painful" economic reforms of the Labour party (although some credit goes to the previous Thatcherite administration): privatisation of state industries, trimming of pensions, fiscal prudence, opening the country to the forces of globalisation, keeping the Sterling out of the Euro zone, etc.

Today's Britain is now a sharp contrast to the Britain in the 1980s - strong and confident of the future.

What really makes Mr Blair special is his iron-strong will and his tough-as-nails determination to do what he thinks is right, regardless of public opinion. Yes, he did sent troops to Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Afghanistan but when Iraq came, the public turned against him. Even his own Labour party members rebelled and called for his resignation.

In the face of such hostility, he blinked but he never faltered. In his speech, he said that "putting the country first does not mean doing the right thing according to conventional wisdom, or the prevailing consensus, or the latest snapshot of opinion. It means doing what you genuinely believe to be right."

And today, British soldiers fight and die alongside their American counterparts in Iraq, rightly or wrongly, in defence of a future. Love him or loathe him, one should admit that he certainly has the guts to do something so distinctly unpopular with the electorate. Where others would have pulled back immediately, Mr Blair proceeded with a vision and knowingly took the hammer to the face, in defence of his ideals and beliefs.

I particularly find this line of his very meaningful - "The vision is painted in the colours of the rainbow and the reality is sketched in the duller tones of black, and white, and grey."

And this line as well - "Decision-making is hard. You know what everyone says about politics "listen to the people". The trouble is, they don't always agree. " (Note: Isn't this true in today's mass politics? =I )

So while Mr Blair brought "politics of conviction" to Britain, I do hope that his successors will have as much vision and passion as he is for Britain. And for the sake of the world too.