Remember last Sunday, I wrote about how on social media, every day is like April Fool’s Day even when it’s not April. I woke up that morning to see on my Facebook timeline what I thought was another out-of-season April Fool’s joke.
The headline was “Look who has stolen Sylvia Lim’s heart”.
My first reaction was I hoped she made a police report.
So who was this thief who had made away with a vital organ of the Workers’ Party (WP) chairman?
Below the headline was a small photo of Ms Lim with an old lady. Oh, how sweet. That must be Ms Lim’s mother.
I clicked on the link and read that Ms Lim is now dating former football hero Quah Kim Song.
Wait, that’s no old lady. That’s Quah Kim Song!
I couldn’t be more surprised if Nicole Seah were dating Samad Allapitchay.
But it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. According to The Sunday Times, Ms Lim and Quah became close after he sang at a WP fundraising concert in January.
Wow, another shocker. Quah Kim Song can sing?
I searched “Quah Kim Song can sing?” in YouTube and found a video called “Asian Mosaics - Singapore: Unplugged Quah Kim Song”, where he performs a pitch-adequate though somewhat lyrics-deficient cover of Harry Belafonte’s Jamaica Farewell. As the song goes, the nights were indeed quite gay.
But for the WP concert, he reportedly sang Simon and Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa and “ended up twirling Ms Lim across the stage”.
The choice of El Condor Pasa was pretty savvy as the song contains the line “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail” and the WP logo is a hammer.I believe it was this clever musical reference that swept Ms Lim off her feet and not this “twirling across the stage” stuff.
Have you ever been twirled across the stage? Gives me a headache.
Sure, Quah could’ve sung Peter, Paul And Mary’s If I Had A Hammer, but that would’ve been too obvious.
Another choice would be U Can’t Touch This by - that’s right - MC Hammer, but harem pants would make Quah look even more like an old woman. My, my, my, my...
He could’ve also done Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines even though it does not mention hammers all. It’s just such a hot song.
But music is not the only thing that Ms Lim said she and Quah enjoyed when asked what they had in common. The others are food, drinks and sports.
By that criteria, Ms Lim could be dating the entire New Paper sports desk. I’m not sure if Godfrey Robert is single.Too bad for me, I don’t drink and I’m not that into sports. Oh yah, my wife just reminded me that I’m also married. To her.
But you know what surprises me most about Ms Lim and Quah being together?
It’s not that he’s 61, since advances in pharmacology now allow men to, uh, score well into extra time.
It’s not that she’s 13 years younger than him and was probably worrying about her PSLE when Quah headed in the winning goal for Singapore against Penang in the historic 1977 Malaysia Cup final.And it’s not because one is in a profession where it’s all about beating the other team, and the other used to be a footballer.
No, what I find most surprising is that despite all that, fate has managed to bring together these two very famous but very different Singaporeans to show us that love knows no politics or age gap.
To the left, Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. We have a new even cuter celebrity couple to gossip about.
The comparison of the two famous couples is not as facetious as you may think. Ms Lim also peformed at the January concert. Everyone’s a singer.
Last week, the National Family Council unveiled the Family Pledge, a new initiative “to encourage Singaporeans to take a collective stand on their commitment to family”. Inspired by Ms Lim and Quah, I decided to write my own Love Pledge just in time for National Day:
“We, the couples of Singapore, pledge to love each other, regardless of date of birth, political party or rumoured third party, to build a lasting relationship based on food, drinks, music and sports, so as to achieve happiness, property co-ownership and progress for our nation.”
I would be very disappointed if there’s a wedding and Mr Low Thia Khiang doesn’t give the bride away.And that’s not a joke.
- Published in The New Paper, 4 Aug 2013
Hi
Love today's piece. Hope the couple does too!
Jeanne Lim
