Forgive me for I have sinned on Wikipedia

I have a confession to make.

No, I’m not admitting to holding up the queue at the Redhill hawker centre on Thursday night and made Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wait 30 minutes for chicken wings.



I’m more a yong tau foo guy.

My confession has to do with something I did on Wikipedia that I shouldn’t have.

You know how last week, the Wikipedia page on the People’s Action Party (PAP) was vandalised?

It all started on Wednesday when someone with the user name AlikVesilev made a few changes on the page.

They include changing “People’s Action Party” to “Party Against People” and adding a long rant about how blogger Roy Ngerng was fired from his hospital job “because he had spoken against the Party Against People’s government ruling of CPF”.



Within a minute of AlikVesilev’s changes, they were automatically undone by a bot, citing “possible vandalism”.

Not so easily deterred, AlikVesilev reinstated his changes two minutes later. But eight minutes later, his changes were reversed by another user.

And so the PAP wiki page remained vandalism-free – for about 14 hours.

On Thursday, a user named Pomint (possibly AlikVesilev in disguise) reinstated all the Party Against People stuff, kicking off a flurry of edits by different users in a 90-minute span.

It became so messy and confusing that at one point, the bot, which had earlier removed the vandalism, actually reinstated the vandalism.

In the whole of last month, the PAP wiki page was edited six times. On Thursday alone, the page was edited 22 times – plus another 28 times on Friday.

One of the Friday edits was to include an entry about “an edit war between vandals and editors of Wikipedia” over the page, which started just a day earlier. How prompt. How meta.

The vandals have since been repelled (for now). No more “Party Against People”. The edit war is over (if you want it).



I didn’t have anything to do with any of that.

Although during the edit war, I thought about going into the PAP wiki page and type some nonsense like “World Cup referee kayu!” just to see what would happen, but then I realised I don’t really watch football.

But this Wikipedia saga has forced me to confront my own guilt, which is why I want to make this confession.

I have edited my own Wikipedia page.

This is a strict no-no because of the obvious conflict of interest. I had resisted doing so for a while until one day, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I created a Wikipedia account and just did it.

Forgive me, wikigods, for I have sinned.

Several times.

In my defence, I did not create the wiki page about myself myself and I couldn’t let the inaccuracies go uncorrected.

I didn’t want to be like my former New Paper colleague Sylvia Toh Paik Choo, whose wiki page still says that she lives in the Bahamas and she doesn’t. She lives in Farrer Park.



According to Wikipedia (what else?), my wiki page was created on Feb 12, 2012, by a retired assistant vice-principal of a US high school, who lives with his wife in a farmhouse in rural Pocahontas County, Iowa.

His name is Edgar Vekilnik, Jr.

I don’t know any Edgar Vekilnik, Jr. I have never been to Iowa. I don’t know how he knows me.

It was kind of disconcerting to discover some stranger living halfway around the world writing about you on one of the planet’s most visited websites.

I felt like I was losing control of my own identity. It was worse than losing my identity card, which I have also done.

Especially when the things written about me were not true, even if it was just little things.

Like me being “the writer and producer of Phua Chu Kang The Movie”.

The fact is I only wrote the script. I wasn’t the producer. And I’m not just saying that because of how poorly the movie was received.

So I went into my wiki page and deleted “and producer”.

Almost immediately, I had cold feet and in Singapore’s climate, that should be preventable.

I went back into my wiki page and undeleted my deletion.

Some time later, I changed my mind again and tried to undo my undeletion of my deletion, but I was blocked.

I had been flagged as a vandal for editing my own page. I was banned from editing anything on Wikipedia for six months.

After six months, I went in and made all the corrections I wanted to make, like the name of the show I wrote that won the Asian TV Award for best comedy in 2005. It was Daddy’s Girls, not Phua Chu Kang (although I was an executive producer of the latter show).

Conflict of interest be damned.

While I was at it, I considered moving my friend Paik Choo back to Singapore but decided she might actually prefer living in the Bahamas.

Then I waited to see if I would be banned again. I wasn’t.

Emboldened, I uploaded a nice picture of myself taken by my wife in 2011 at VivoCity to Wikipedia. It’s still there.

And so is the guilt.

Maybe some Redhill chicken wings will make me feel better. Uh... I mean yong tau foo.

Don’t play, play with Wikipedia.

- Published in The New Paper, 15 June 2014



EARLIER: Thanks, Wikipedia, for giving me my own page, but...

Good cup, bad cup?

It's the end of an era. I'm finally retiring my office mug.



It was given to me by my friend Paik Choo five years ago. She got it as a gift at some event she was covering.

The words on the mug have faded off a bit, but apparently, the event was the 8th Forbes Global CEO Conference.

Fancy! Jet Li was there.

The mug even outlasted Paik Choo, who left the company in August last year.



When the bottom part rusted off a while ago, I scrapped off the rust and kept using it.



But last night, I had terrible diarrhoea and I'm not saying it was caused by the mug, but I decided not to take any more chances.

Actually, my "new" office mug is even older, but it's not metallic. So no rust.



In 1996, I received this mug with my name on it from a car workshop. I didn't even own a car then. My mother did.

I have been saving it for a special occasion and this is it.

I don't want any more diarrhoea.

'This is our fifth year, baby, and it feels like I'm in jail'

Any Little River Band fans out there?



This month marks my fifth anniversary at The New Paper. This is the longest I've ever stayed with one company.

Yes, I spent 10 years at MediaCorp, but that was over three separate stints.

I was at SBC (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation) for six months in 1994 where I was a research writer and appeared as a movie reviewer with Gurmit Singh on Live On 5.



I returned to TCS (Television Corporation Of Singapore) in 1997 for four years plus a few months where I worked on Shiver, Under One Roof and Phua Chu Kang seasons 2 and 3.



I returned again in 2004 to MediaCorp Studios for another 4+ years where I worked on Daddy's Girls, Living With Lydia, Maggi & Me, Lifeline and the final season of Phua Chu Kang.



So each time I joined (and rejoined) MediaCorp, I would work on a show with Gurmit Singh, which isn't really saying much since everyone at MediaCorp eventually works on a show with Gurmit Singh. But very few can say they worked on his first show, Live On 5.

Also, each time I was there, the company had a different name. So the only chance I'll go back is if it changes its name again, which makes it rather unlikely there will be a fourth time.

So chances are, I'll be staying at The New Paper for a while.

One thing I discovered at The New Paper is how similar it is to working for Channel 5.

Just as TNP is the lesser sibling to The Straits Times at SPH, Ch 5 is the lesser sibling to Ch 8 at MediaCorp Studios.

Because of the sheer volume of Ch 8 productions, they set the standard for production values for Ch 5 in-house productions as well.

Unfortunately, it's harder for local shows on Ch 5 to get away with Ch 8 production values as Ch 5 shows are shown alongside Hollywood productions and will always look like crap in comparison. That is also why some local shows by outside production houses look better than MediaCorp in-house productions.

Anyway, I no longer concern myself with such matters after joining The New Paper in 2008.

Five years later, the paper is now celebrating its 25th anniversary and has a different editor.

But the biggest difference for me personally is that my only real friend at the paper, Paik Choo, left last August.

We knew each other from my second stint at TCS when she was working as a "dialogue consultant" for Growing Up. She would help me get The New Paper job a decade later. She's now freelancing for InSing and others.

I miss seeing her around the newsroom.

Anyway, to commemorate my half decade at The New Paper, here's my first published article as a full-time staffer.



It's the little article on the right, a comment about Mas Selamat, who escaped right after I joined TNP, headlined "Nobody's perfect".

After the article came out, I was stunned to read in an online forum that I was an apologist for the Government. I had no idea.

It was weird to have other people attach some imagined motivation behind what you wrote to fit their conspiracy theories and being so convinced they're right.

Of course, since then, I've been too busy apologising for myself to be an apologist for anyone else.

So far, 17 of my columns have not been published because of political incorrectness and other reasons. One of those rejected columns is about my top five MediaCorp CEOs. You can read why Lee Cheok Yew is my all-time favourite MediaCorp CEO as a prelude to my "fool for stool" column.

Ah, memories.

With dread, I look forward to more columns being rejected at The New Paper for years to come.

Meanwhile, we'll go dancing in the dark, walking through the park and reminiscing.

Thanks, Wikipedia, for giving me my own page, but...

Dear Wikipedia,

I woke up last Sunday morning to shocking news.

And I’m not talking about the death of Whitney Houston, although that was certainly shocking. (My first reaction was: “And Bobby Brown is still alive?”)

No, I’m talking about an unexpected message from a Facebook friend that included a link to a Wikipedia page.

After clicking on the link, I was shocked to discover that the Wikipedia page is about me!



How did this happen? Why and when did you create this page?

I mean, I Google myself regularly (but not too often, in case I go blind). How come I had never come across it before?

On the one hand, I'm a little spooked that someone had dug up some info about me and put it on the Web without my knowledge.

On the other hand, I’m flattered that someone bothered.

I have to admit that I'm more excited about this than that time I discovered I was being used in an English assignment question for a Secondary 2 class.

I know I'll never be a millionaire. I'll never win the $10 million Hongbao Draw. I'll never win a Grammy. I'll never play for the New York Knicks.

But, hey, I have my own Wikipedia page!

I had long been jealous of my friend and fellow The New Paper on Sunday columnist Sylvia Toh Paik Choo who had her own Wikipedia page way before I did.



Call it Wiki-envy.

This is despite Sylvia's page incorrectly stating that she lives in the Bahamas. In reality, she lives in Farrer Park.

When are you getting around to fixing that, by the way?

Regardless, I want to thank you for now making me one of (I think) only three people writing for The New Paper who has his or her own Wikipedia entry, the other two being Sylvia and Neil Humphreys.

Neil's entry is the longest (not that length matters), but I’m one up on both Sylvia and Neil because I also have my own IMDB page (again created without my knowledge), although it’s grossly incomplete.

Do you know anyone at IMDB who can fix that too?

I understand that Sylvia and Neil are in Wikipedia because both have authored bestselling books - but I haven’t.

My attention span is barely long enough for me to finish this letter, much less a whole book.

My sister at first accused me of "bribing” Wikipedia, but then remembered I'm too much of a "miser" (her word) to spend the money.

I know of course that you don't accept bribes, but despite what my sister said, I'm willing to make a "donation" if you could make my entry longer than Neil's.

Or at least a little more accurate than it is.

My Wikipedia entry says that I’m “best known as a producer and writer for the popular comedy show Phua Chu Kang". Really?

Since someone will likely refer to this for my obituary, I'd like to request a couple of minor corrections.

The entry also says that I “was the writer and producer of Phua Chu Kang The Movie”. Yes, guilty as charged, I wrote the movie - but I wasn't the producer. If I were, the movie would've turned out differently.

Also, although I wrote and maybe directed the Daddy's Girls episode that won the Asian Television Award for Best Comedy in 2005, it's inaccurate to say that I won the award. It was the show that won it.

(I’m tempted to make the changes myself since Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, but that would be too narcissistic, even for a fan of self-love like me.)

If you could update your Yaw Shin Leong page so swiftly last week to include his sudden expulsion from Workers' Party over “indiscretions in personal life”, I'm sure you can make these small amendments for me.



And if not, then maybe just add that I'm living in the Bahamas. I hear I have a friend there.

Gratitude,
S M Ong

- Published in The New Paper, 19 February 2012

UPDATE: My Wikipedia page has since been re-edited several times

Alamak! I’m up against Nicole Seah at Young Writers Media Festival

It’s my first time. So please be gentle.

I e-mailed the person I will be doing it with, fellow New Paper columnist Neil Humphreys, for guidance.

He wrote back: “Don’t worry about it. Do these all the time.”

I’m glad at least one of us has done something like this before. He reminded me that a third person will be there to make things easier.

As if it isn’t awkward enough that I’m a virgin at this, it’s going to be a threesome at a hotel with two other guys I’ve never met before.

And people will be paying to watch us do it.

And my parents thought I wouldn’t amount to anything.

Yes, my participation in next weekend’s All In! Young Writers Media Festival at Rendezvous Hotel has been confirmed. My picture is in the festival booklet and everything. So they’re stuck with me.

“Targeting aspiring/emerging young writers and tertiary students who have interest in writing and the literary arts”, the event is organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore, but those in the know just call it The Book Council, which sounds hipper and requires remarkably fewer keystrokes.

Since 2009, the annual event was known as the All In! Young Writers Seminar and lasted only one day. But this year, it has levelled up from seminar to media festival and is on both Saturday and Sunday.

According to an e-mail I received from The Book Council, “the two-day event will bring together established practitioners in their respective fields to discuss interesting current topics and also educate and inspire these young writers”.

Hey, I’m an “established practitioner”! I want that engraved on my tombstone, along with “Earned three stars on all Angry Birds Rio levels”.



So how did a joker like me get involved in something as well-meaning as this?

According to that same e-mail, it was another fellow New Paper columnist who recommended me - Sylvia Toh Paik Choo.

My guess is that the Book Council asked her first and she fobbed it off on me.

So I wasn’t the first choice. I’m just a second-string substitute. Was Mr Brown unavailable?

To quote the great Smokey Robinson: “Now there's some sad things known to man, but ain't too much sadder than the tears of a clown.” (No copyright infringement intended.)



My only consolation is that the festival booklet said there will be a lunch-time special featuring a “stunning lunch buffet”. Did you read that? “Stunning”. The lunch buffet will stun you. I want to be stunned by my food.

The “stunning lunch buffet” alone should be worth the festival registration fee of $30 for a two-day pass and $20 for a one-day pass, which I don’t have to pay, I hope. The things I do for free food.

I believe I don’t have to pay because I’m part of a one-hour panel on Saturday with Neil Humphreys called “Pun intended or unintended - should everyone attempt humour in writing?”.

The third wheel in our threesome is moderator Desmond Kon.

I have never met both these men. I’ve seen Neil around but have never spoken to him even though we both write for the same paper.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid our threesome will be upstaged by another panel at the festival held concurrently in another hotel ballroom.

That panel is called “Using new media to reach and engage the community”.

And you know who will be at that panel?

Ms Nicole Seah. Yes, that Nicole Seah.



How can two not-so-young guys like Neil and me hope to compete with the Opposition Sweetheart of General Election 2011?

Maybe I can talk Neil into wearing some make-up.

And you know who else will be at that panel with Ms Seah?

Mr Yee Jenn Jong, the new Workers' Party treasurer, who last week replaced Hougang MP Yaw Shin Leong.

The latter is dogged by allegations of an affair with another married party member.

If I could, I would skip my own panel and attend the other panel just to grill Mr Yee for some gossip. (And perhaps check out what Ms Seah is wearing.)

Maybe you should do the same. Anything is better than watching me pop my cherry.

- Published in The New Paper, 12 February 2012

He gave me the finger & didn't even buy me dinner

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

I know this may be hard to believe, but I don’t really enjoy writing about going naked.

Granted, three of my last five columns have been on that overexposed subject - the naked McDonald’s guy, half naked ‘hunkle’ Zheng Geping and making a sex video like ‘Gary Ng’.

In my defence, I managed to avoid any mention of nudity last week when I wrote about my colleague Sylvia Toh Paik Choo’s new book, The Complete Eh Goondu.

And considering that Sylvia is 63 years old, I’m sure everyone is grateful to be spared that mental image of associating nudity with her. (Er... until now - sorry.)

Keep in mind that last week, I could’ve easily gone to town with the guy who posed naked at Marina Bay Sands and called it art. Well, not literally "gone to town" with him, but you know what I mean.

He was reportedly charging people $250 to have a picture taken with him. For that kind of money, I would've also expected dinner and a movie with a happy ending (which I might have gotten if I had literally gone to town with him).

Lest I’m accused of being body-obsessed, I abstained from ruminating on that meaty topic in last week’s column. No more “naked” columns, I promised myself.

But I can’t resist it. I’m only human. I’m breaking my promise.

On Wednesday, The New Paper reported that a prominent plastic surgeon was being sued by a 17-year-old girl because she claimed she was traumatised after he forced her to take off her underwear and then took nude pictures of her.

I was also recently traumatised by a visit to a doctor, though it wasn’t a plastic surgeon. What I have is natural beauty.

Being a man of certain age, I’m required by my employer to go for annual health screenings. It was my first such check-up.

The doctor was a genial older man. Because it was my first time, I felt awkward as I wasn’t sure what to expect. We chatted a while about my medical history, but I sensed we weren’t clicking. The chemistry just wasn’t there.

I was also nervous because I knew sooner or later, he was going to ask me to strip. My pulse was racing. I hoped it didn’t affect my blood pressure reading.

When he finally popped the question, it was a relief. I tried to be adult about it, but after I took off my shirt, he wanted to see more.

Because I wanted him to like me, I complied. He was, after all, a doctor.

And then he asked to insert his finger into my rectum to examine my prostate.

I had never had anyone insert his or her finger (or anything else) into my rectum before – and if I did, I have blocked it out of my memory.

The doctor appeared as embarrassed asking it as I was embarrassed being asked it, which wasn’t very reassuring.

He said I could decline the prostate exam if I wasn’t comfortable. He didn’t seem to look forward to it himself.

I said that since we had already come this far, we might as well just go all the way.

At least he used protection.

Being the professional that he was, he put on a rubber glove, lubricated a finger and professionally inserted it into my anus. He then wriggled his cold latexed finger around my rectum before pulling out.

I tried to act cool during the whole process, but I had never felt more violated in my life.

For the rest of the day, I could still feel the impression left by the finger in my rectum long after I fled the doctor’s office.

And I didn’t even get dinner or a movie out of it - just the unhappy ending.

One small consolation is that apparently, I have a healthy prostate, whatever that is.

Now please excuse me while I take a long cold shower and wash this column from my memory.

- Published in The New Paper, 23 January 2011

Don't be so goondu and republish the books already!

Launched a month ago, The Complete Eh Goondu is a reprint of two books, Eh Goondu and Lagi Goondu, in a single volume, written by my colleague at The New Paper, Sylvia Toh Paik Choo.

The Complete Eh Goondu is now flying off the shelves (possibly because someone bumped into the bookcase – maybe Sylvia herself).

I paid full price for the book, which is an outrage. Why? Because The Complete Eh Goondu wouldn’t exist if not for me. And for that, shouldn’t I at least get a discount?

It all started back in mid-2009. Sylvia was buying me sardine puffs in the SPH News Centre canteen when she mentioned that a publisher had wanted to reprint her Goondu books.

I was more excited by the news than she was. Sylvia wasn’t so keen because she felt publishing a book in this age of YouTube and Twitter just seemed so embarrassingly old-fashioned.

I said, who cares? That was the book publisher’s problem. The books were already written, so it’s not like she had to do anything – except sit back and watch the royalties roll in. It was like free money! She should do it!

Sylvia reluctantly agreed, but said she felt obliged to at least update the books for the new millennium. After all, they were over 20 years old.

Sure, I said, that was a good idea. I was wrong.

Fast forward to August last year. Once again, I was mooching off Sylvia in the SPH canteen.

I mentioned seeing a Straits Times article about old local books, like Philip Jeyaretnam’s First Loves, being “re-issued”, which led me to ask her about the status of Goondu.

Oh, she said she never got around to writing the update and decided to just let the project die.

Alamak! How could she be so goondu?!

I said forget about the update. The publisher never asked for the update. It was Sylvia who wanted it. You think now big-time lawyer Jeyaretnam bothered to update First Loves? Ha!

All those old local books were probably republished without updates. Why should Goondu be left out?

Free money!

To her credit, Sylvia immediately saw the wisdom of my words. She called the publisher, who was so happy to hear from her again that mere four months later, The Complete Eh Goondu was in the bookstores just in time for Christmas.

And it was all thanks to me. Previously, one of the few places you could buy Eh Goondu was at Amazon.com where it was once listed for as much as US$77.

So is it right for me to pay the full price of $19.99 (including GST) for a book that I made possible?

Granted, Sylvia autographed my copy, but I’m not sure how much that’s worth on eBay.

All I know is that she’s going to have to buy me many, many, many more sardine puffs.

- Published in The New Paper, 16 January 2011

Dear Goondu, why you so blur like sotong?

It was a little joke that took on a life of its own.

Imagine my horror last Friday when I opened The Straits Times and saw a caricature of me labelled “Dear Sotong”. How did this come about?



A few days earlier, my New Paper colleague Sylvia Toh Paik Choo surprised me with news that she and I are going to be writing an advice column in The New Paper on Sunday for a new section called Family Matters.

Naturally, my first reaction was to act blur, although as many have surmised, I’m not acting.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about this earlier? I could’ve prepared for it by re-watching all the Oprah Winfrey episodes where Dr Phil was a guest.



Paik Choo told me to relax. She said the fact that she and I were asked to do it and not, say, someone with actual qualifications or at least capable of appearing to give a damn meant that our joint advice column was not intended to be taken seriously.

Now that stung. Who says I’m not qualified?

Having been married twice, in therapy, retrenched, a country music fan and arrested for violating a restraining order, I can certainly give advice on what not to do.

But I saw Paik Choo’s point. After all, my current column in The New Paper on Sunday is called Act Blur. How can I expect anyone to take me seriously?

When I told my wife about the new advice column, she immediately told me she had the perfect name for it. “Dear Sotong,” she said excitedly.

Oh, as in “blur like sotong”. A great idea except that I wasn’t keen on being named after a squid.

But when Paik Choo asked me to come up with a name for the advice column the next day, I made the mistake of telling her what my wife suggested – as a joke.

“And I can be Dear Goondu!” Paik Choo said excitedly, referring to her decades-old bestseller Eh, Goondu!

Huh?

Before I knew it, e-mails were sent, caricatures were drawn and there I was in the newspaper as “Dear Sotong”. It was part of a blurb inviting readers to write in about their problems to Paik Choo and me.

But who in their right minds would write to seafood for advice, serious or otherwise?

If the answer is you, please send your problems tnpshow@sph.com.sg.

The Goondu and I await your mail with dread.

- Published in The New Paper, 2 May 2010

Dear Goondu, Dear Sotong column: My teacher sister behaves like a kid

Who wants to be the richest guy in the cemetery?

Is death really the great leveller?

When Singapore's richest man Ng Teng Fong died on Tuesday, it was front page news.

Three days earlier, Tan Eng Yoon, who represented our country in the 1956 Olympics, was killed in a road accident and also made the news, but the coverage was nothing compared to what Ng's death was getting.

When I die, no one besides my immediate family will know because I won't be able to update my Facebook status. Maybe I'll tweet something.

Coincidentally, on the night before I learned of the death of Singapore's richest man, I chanced upon YouTube video of a 2007 joint interview with two great business rivals, Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates.



The latter, of course, has been the world's richest man for the past two decades or so, occasionally giving up the top spot to stock picker extraordinaire Warren Buffett, depending on the vagaries of the stock market.

Asked if he envied Mr Gates, Mr Jobs replied in the video: "I think the world is a better place because Bill realised that his goal isn’t to be the richest guy in the cemetery."

Mr Jobs was referring to Mr Gate's 2006 announcement that the Microsoft founder would relinquish his day-to-day role at the company to focus on philanthropy and giving away some of the billions he made through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr Jobs, on the other hand, was more focused on launching a new Apple product, the iPad, last week. Judging by its name, I'm guessing it's a revolutionary digital feminine hygiene device.



Maybe Mr Gates was heeding the words of another iconic entrepreneur who said: “There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.”

That iconic entrepreneur was Colonel Harlan Sanders. Yes, that Colonel Sanders.



Anyway, the day after I saw the video, my colleague Paik Choo mentioned that she had been assigned to cover Mr Ng's wake and I thought of what Mr Jobs said.

Whether it was his goal or not, Mr Ng will probably be the richest guy in the cemetery.

According to reports, he was a reclusive man, but a generous boss. No mention of any philanthropy though. However, that could just mean he donated millions to charity but chose not to send press releases about it.

Where does that leave the rest of us who have yet to make our first billion? What will be our legacy?

Like Bill Gates, I can never get a good haircut and my goal also isn't to be the richest guy in the cemetery.

No, my goal is to be the wealthiest pile of ash in the columbarium. And the world is a better place for it.

But for now, I just want some fried chicken. Extra crispy.

- Published in The New Paper, 7 February 2010

UPDATE: Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died on Oct 5, 2011. He was 56.

Googling Paik Choo: The Bahamas? Oh, mama!

Tomorrow is my friend and colleague Paik Choo's last day of her contract with The New Paper. So naturally, I decided to Google her.

According to Wikipedia, on which my knowledge of the universe is based, Paik Choo “now lives in the Bahamas”. This came as a shock to me.



For the last 20 months since I joined this publication, I've seen Paik Choo in The New Paper newsroom several times a week. The commute from the Bahamas to Toa Payoh must be a nightmare.

Then I realised “The Bahamas” could be the name of her condo in Singapore, which makes perfect sense – except for the inconvenient detail that she lives in an HDB flat in Farrer Park, which I've visited.

This leads me to the unavoidable conclusion – reality is wrong.

Otherwise, the implication is that Wikipedia is wrong and that’s just plain silly.

Wikipedia is on the Internet and everyone knows that everything on the Internet is true. Even Paik Choo knows that.

A few weeks ago, she told me a publisher wanted to reprint her two Goondu books from the ’80s.

But in this age of the World Wide Web and the 140-character Twitter tweet, she wondered whether the whole idea of publishing a book is somewhat quaint, if not embarrassingly obsolete.

That is why millions around the world nowadays don’t publish books, but blogs. Even I have a quasi-blog at smong.net.

Heck, even my wife has a blog called Projects By Jane where she blathers on and on about her oh-so-exciting hobby - sewing bags.

But to my chagrin, she gets more page views than I do – not that we’re competing or anything like that. (Just between you and me - yes, we are.)

The most addictive thing about having your own blog is finding out how many visitors you get each day and how they end up on your website.

To my chagrin again, the stats reveal that most of my visitors found my site not because they Googled “handsome gloriously-maned New Paper On Sunday columnist”, but “ladyboy breasts” and the search results would include a link to an article I wrote in February about a transsexual I met in Thailand. I'm not proud.



Paik Choo doesn’t have a blog, so she is spared such humiliation.

At the risk of unravelling the fabric of space and time, I bit the bullet and asked her if she really lives in the Bahamas as stated in Wikipedia.

She replied: “In my mind, I do.”

- Published in The New Paper, 30 August 2009

UPDATE: Paik Choo's New Paper contract was renewed after the publication of this column. She finally retired from the paper at the end of August 2012.

I want to be a radio DJ for the interesting love life

Two radio DJs, two break-ups. One with his second wife, the other with what seems like his 98th radio station.

On Valentine's eve, Glenn Ong announced his separation from Jamie Yeo, a former DJ herself, after divorcing another DJ, Kate Reyes, in 2003.

Three days before Glenn's bombshell, Joe Augustin was fired from Power98FM eight months after getting fired from Radio 91.3FM after having worked at practically every English-language radio station in the country.

These guys get around.

Still, I wish I could be like them - talented, funny and crazy rich from all those emcee-ing gigs. That's where the money is, you know.

Plus local DJs have such interesting love lives.

Daniel Ong dated fellow DJ Jean Danker before marrying a former Miss Singapore, Jamie Teo.

Mark Richmond married and divorced fellow DJ Vernetta Lopez before marrying someone closer to his height, Beatrice Chia.



Hoping to get in on the action, I once actually auditioned to be a radio DJ. I figured, hey, I liked music, I spoke English - what other qualifications do I need?

During the voice test - don't ask me why - I decided that the way to impress was to sound like Patrick Stewart from Star Trek: The Next Generation.



Needless to say, I didn't get the job, although I'm not sure if it was because I sounded like a Federation starship captain or because I tried and failed to sound like one. Maybe I should've gone for William Shatner instead.

Imagine my confusion years later, when I met Glenn for the first time, he said he was a fan of mine. For what, I don't know. My bad Patrick Stewart impression? The encounter was so strange that I've avoided him ever since.

And now that he's separated from Jamie Yeo, whom I've worked with on a TV show, bumping into him would be even more awkward.

I would also be uncomfortable around around Mark and Vernetta because of their divorce. Their wedding dinner was the funnest I've ever attended, if for no other reason than I was seated at the same table as Paik Choo.

But after Mark and Vernetta broke up, my fond memory of that dinner has been somewhat tainted and I feel this odd tension like I should break up with Paik Choo too.

Fortunately, I have no such issue with Joe, who, despite his job-hopping, sometimes not by choice, at least didn't marry (and divorce) another DJ.

But it's hard to feel sorry for Joe because unlike me, I know this is a guy won't have trouble landing another job even in these tough times.

And I can't wait to see who Glenn marries next.

As Captain Jean-Luc Picard would say: "Engage."

- Published in The New Paper, 22 February 2009

UPDATE: Glenn Ong to marry Jean Danker and Joe Augustin has rejoined MediaCorp Radio

UPDATE UPDATE: Who is 'B' in Vernetta Lopez's new book?