How Cecilia Sue buried Code Of Law

Dear producers of Code Of Law,

My condolences on your new Channel 5 drama series. As a former TV producer for Channel 5 myself, I sympathise.

At least you had a good run for ...what was it? One episode?

Then along came Ms Cecilia Sue Siew Nang – and it’s game over.



The only way the “star witness” can get more attention is if she suddenly starts dancing Gangnam Style outside the courthouse.

After all, Ms Sue and her back-up dancers... I mean “bodyguards” already have the sunglasses for it. Heyyyyyy, sexy lady!



The good will you get for Code Of Law being a spin-off of the overrated lawyer show The Pupil can get you only so far. Even The Pupil’s ratings tanked in the second season.

In terms of entertainment value, whatever fictional court cases you can concoct for your rip-off ...I mean Singapore version of the US series Law & Order can’t compete with the real-life abbreviation-filled court testimony by Ms Sue which started last week.

But it’s not from lack of trying on your part.

You hired the pretty Joanne Peh and the even prettier Keagan Kang as your Code Of Law leads – but they’re no Cecilia Sue.



(As an aside, didn’t Kang use to date former weather girl and Triple Nine actress Chong Chia Suan? She’s a teacher in UK now and speaks with a seriously hardcore angmoh accent. I always thought he was too petite for her.)

Besides hewing to Law & Order’s rigid cops-and-lawyers split format, you’re also emulating the cancelled US show’s reliance on “ripped from the headlines” storylines.

Your first episode was based on an actual case ripped from local headlines. Unfortunately, those local headlines are about six years old.

Not exactly timely, are you?

In the opening scene of the series which premiered two weeks ago, a woman’s severed head was found in Orchard Road.

The woman turned out to be a Filipino maid who was killed by another Filipino maid because the dead maid owed the killer maid money. The killer maid was caught, put on trial and was sentenced to 10 years’ jail by the end of the episode.

Back in 2006, Filipino maid Guen Garlejo Aguilar was sentenced to 10 years’ jail for manslaughter after strangling and dismembering fellow Filipino maid Jane Parangan La Puebla.

So by re-enacting this case six years later, Code Of Law is also like Crimewatch except much tardier and with better acting but the same cheesy music.

Of course, the names and some of the circumstances of the case were changed in Code Of Law as I don’t think Aguilar’s lawyers were as gorgeous as Joanne Peh and Keagan Kang because, come on, no one can be.

But that was just the first episode. Even though it was only less than a fortnight ago, it was a different time back then.

Those were simpler days when a severed woman’s head was more shocking than a woman’s head being forced into a man’s crotch.

It was a time when DIY still meant home improvement and SP still meant the place where I got my diploma in electronics engineering.

By the second episode of Code Of Law on Thursday, the nation’s collective innocence had been shattered by Ms Sue’s testimony – and the honeymoon was over for your show.

Code Of Law was upstaged by another programme on Channel 5.

That programme was News 5 Tonight.

In that second episode of Code Of Law, the case involved two gang members accused of killing a rival gang member in a gang fight.

On News 5 Tonight that same night after the episode, oral sex was mentioned three times in a two-minute report on Ms Sue’s court testimony in the sex-for-contracts case against former Central Narcotics Bureau head Ng Boon Gay.



Make-believe gang violence versus oral sex – what do you think viewers would be talking about the next day?

No fight, man.

As consolation, maybe six years from now, you could re-enact Ms Sue’s testimony for an episode of Code Of Law (although by then, the bigger shock would be that Code Of Law is still on the air).

I just hope Crimewatch won’t beat you to it.

- Published in The New Paper, 30 September 2012

2018 UPDATE: I’m shocked that six years later, Code Of Law was back on the air for a fourth season



2015 UPDATE: What happened to Joanne Peh in Code Of Law 3?

SEQUEL: Darinne Ko is no Cecilia Sue

Never mind the haunted former prison - there was a cemetery!

Two things caught my eye in today's Sunday Times.

First was this feature on Queenstown ("home, sweet home") that was almost like a rebuttal to my column "Why would anyone pay $1 million to live in Queenstown?" a week ago.



But thanks to this story, I found out something - there was once a cemetery where I used to live in Mei Ling Street, also where the million-dollar HDB flat is.

I was going on and on in my column about the nearby haunted former Queenstown Remand Prison and I didn't even know about the cemetery!

So you paid $1 million to live at a former cemetery. Have you seen Poltergeist? ("You only moved the headstones!")



The other thing that I thought was interesting in the paper was this column by Lee Wei Ling on private tuition.



She wrote:

"Throughout our school years, when someone from the BBC was available, my parents would arrange an informal tutorial for us. The tutor I remember best is a Mrs Dinnes, a motherly Scottish woman who spoke English with a slight and pleasant Scottish burr...

"When she left Singapore, my father arranged for the daughter of the then British High Commissioner to tutor me. He did not want his children speaking Singlish."

So her English tutor was the British High Commissioner's daughter.

You know who my English tutor was? Sesame Street.

(In case you're unaware, Ms Lee's father is former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and her brother is current PM Lee Hsien Loong.)

But what really got my attention was below her column - a headline for another story which could also serve as a commentary on her column:

"Out of touch, out of time?"

How apt. Thank you, Mitt Romney. (And the sub-editor who wrote this headline.)

I wonder if Sesame Street was also built over a cemetery.

Why I'm not the first person in Singapore to get the iPhone 5

There’s been a lot of talk recently about what we should talk about in the Singapore Conversation.

Cost of living? Foreigners? Education? Clearing your tray at the hawker centre? Alex Au? Xiaxue’s pregnancy?

Of course, you and I know what Singaporeans really want to talk about.

The greatest product the world has ever known was launched on Friday to long queues around the globe including Singapore – and I’m not talking about chendol ice cream mooncake.

It’s the iPhone 5!

Even I, who have yet to succumb to the temptation of buying a mooncake no matter how many crazy flavours there are, wasn’t safe from the hype.

I received the SMS at 8.42pm on Wednesday.

For once, it wasn’t from a mysterious number informing me of the newest freehold development just minutes away from an MRT station. Call now for VVIP preview! UN to unsub.

Instead, it was from the “SingTel iPhone Team”.

The message: “The Appointment Booking Site will open tonight, 19 Sept from 10pm. Visit https://m.singtelshop.com/iphone5apptbooking to make your appointment to purchase the iPhone 5 at the launch event. Appointment slots are limited.”

Suddenly, my life changed. Suddenly, my pointless pathetic existence on this planet had meaning. Suddenly, I had a purpose.

I decided I would be the first person in Singapore to get the iPhone 5.

I would be famous.

My picture would be on the front page of The Straits Times. (And not just in a little blurb buried somewhere in the corner on an inside page.)



Singapore Grand Prix? What Singapore Grand Prix?

Katy Perry would be dedicating Firework to me tonight at the Padang stage. I love you too, Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, and I won’t be the one that got away.

Men would want to be me. Women would want to sleep with me. And so would muscular men in V-neck T-shirts carrying large handbags.

My quest for epicness would begin at 10pm on Wednesday – one hour and 18 minutes after I got the SMS. It would be the longest one hour and 18 minutes of my life.

I received the SMS because two days earlier, I had “registered my interest” for the iPhone 5 at the SingTel website. I later learnt I was among a record 68,000 people to have done so.

When I registered, I wasn’t planning on getting the new phone so soon because I mistakenly thought I wasn’t eligible to recontract until the end of the year. But after registering, I checked and discovered I had been eligible since July!

And so the seed of my “first person in Singapore to get the iPhone 5” ambition was sown.

I set the alarm on my museum-ready iPhone 4 for 10pm.

No, to play it safe, I changed it to 9.59pm.

What the heck, let’s make it 9.55.

Before 9.55pm, I was already at my desktop computer watching the clock. I prematurely went to the SingTel iPhone 5 page and all I got was a message to check the “bulletin board” for updates.

(Not the first time I’ve been premature if you know what I mean.)

Then at 9.57pm, my stomach felt strange. Alamak. What did I eat?

I really needed to go to the toilet. Why now at this critical moment? Should I stay or should I go? This indecision was bugging me.

I thought of Katy Perry and forced myself to hold it for a few more minutes.



The pain …the pain …and I didn’t even eat any chendol ice cream mooncake.

At 10pm (finally!), I went to the SingTel iPhone 5 page – but still got the “bulletin board” message.

The same thing happened at 10.01pm. And 10.02pm. And 10.03pm. Ahhhhhh!

I rushed to the toilet with my iPhone 4. The Wi-Fi in the toilet sucked, but at least I could get a connection.

After some pain-relieving diarrhoea, I managed to tap my way to the SingTel iPhone 5 page on my phone a few times and eventually got a new message: The appointment booking site was open, but due to overwhelming response, blah blah blah, try again.

And so I tried again and again and again, left the toilet, returned to the computer and tried again and again and again …until 11.35pm.

That was when I got another message: “Thank you for your overwhelming support for the iPhone 5 with SingTel. All appointment slots for the launch event are now fully booked. Stay tuned to SingTel iPhone 5 bulletin board for updates!”

And just like that, my dream was over.

I didn’t get any of the 10,000 appointment slots.

No more first person in Singapore to get the iPhone 5. No more Straits Times front page. No more Katy Perry. No more muscular men in V-neck T-shirts.

My life has no meaning again.

It’s enough to drive a guy to chendol ice cream mooncake.

- Published in The New Paper, 23 September 2012