Vandal Me Good

There must be a blip in the cosmos. For the first time in weeks, I am at home before 10pm sitting in front of my beautiful MacBook (oh how I miss you!) and actually doing things that are not related to work. Okay, I admit I spent the past 45 minutes trying to sync my spanking new Twitter account with Facebook and almost gave up but that's solved now. Moving on...

So we all know about the two fellers who decided to come to Singapore and become vandals. If you haven't heard by now and I know some people who live under rocks where even Agence France-Presse can't reach, the ever reliable Singapore Police Force (ahem), has identified two males to be responsible for vandalizing a SMRT train in mid-May. The two males identified are 32-year-old business consultant, one Swiss Oliver Fricker and one British Lloyd Dane Alexander, age unknown but named after large canines and Greek kings no less.

Fricker was arrested on May 25 and has already been charged in court while his accomplice remains at large. Oi Lloyd! You're a bloody wanted man mate! You've got Interpol hunting your ass!
In any case, Fricker's passport has been impounded and his bail has been set at a ludicrous SGD100,000 and the Singapore courts have denied his appeal for a lower bail amount.

Now while everybody is flapping about wondering if the Swiss and British embassies are going to get involved and commenting on the extortionate bail amounts, no one seems to be answering the real questions that well, need answering.

What I really want to know is, how the hell did these guys get past the barbed wire fence of the train depot, go undetected by all the security cameras in place, spray paint not one but TWO train carriages, get out without being seen, get home safe and sound and NOT get caught until 7 days (in the case of Fricker) after their little adventure?

And secondly, how is it no one in the train depot noticed the nice little decoration on the side of the train and just let it rumble out onto the tracks onto its scheduled route? You could hardly call Fricker and Friend's artistic endeavor unnoticeable. For a full view, check out this YouTube clip filmed and posted by some quick-witted, camera-phone wielding passenger



Nice huh?

Needless to say that Fricker and Alexander's idea to trespass and vandalize public property in Singapore is probably the stupidest thing ever thought of since Michael Jackson decision's to be white. Should they be punished? I suppose so but it's not up to me to say whether they should be jailed or fined or caned. Although, I must say, I am surprised that the caning sentence - a remnant of colonial rule - still exists in today's jurisdiction. Whilst we're at it, why not we just chop the hands off of thieves and reinstate the guillotine for the mass murderers, rapists and Mas Selamat?

Let's face it. This train vandalizing fiasco only managed to get this far because a big, fat, whopping part of Singapore has become complacent. People like Fricker and Alexander come along about once every 15 years and pull a stunt like this and get everyone talking. Why? - Because people in Singapore generally don't break rules. We're not programmed to disobey. Period. I don't know what the security guard on duty at the train depot was up to when Fricker and Alexander broke in but he was probably on duty for the nth night on the job and no one had ever broken in before so he didn't notice two white guys scampering around the lot with cans of spray paint. Similarly, the train driver dragged himself to work the next morning for the umpteenth time of his life as a train operator and did not notice the bewildered stares of passengers who saw the fancy artwork on the side of his ride. And the Singaporeans who were waiting on the train platform for the gazillionth train ride to work that morning didn't think much of the odd design on the carriages as the train pulled in and if they did, perhaps they pondered "New advertising campaign by Tiger Beer ah?"

Just so you know, a report was only made to the police on 19 May at 4:00 pm TWO days after Fricker and Alexander had vandalized the train. The official statement from the SMRT spokesperson is that "Staff thought it was a commercial wrap."

... ... ... ... dot dot dot

Kudos Fricker and Alexander. Thanks for the wake-up smack across the head.

The World of Firsts

So last night turned out to be another series of firsts.

a) It was the first time I attended a professional 'awards ceremony'.
b) It was the first time I had ever seen that many marketing and PR people in the same room.
c) It was the first time I had to sit through such an excruciatingly boring event.
d) It was the first time I had encountered that many (inflated!) egos congregated at one place.

It wasn't all bad. The red wine was good and there were enough fashion disasters and bad presenters to keep me entertained. Alas, despite the 'Oscar Glam' dress-code, there wasn't much else that was glamorous about it. In fact, it felt a lot like sitting through a college graduation ceremony where there's a stream of convocation gowns shuffling across the stage as the emcee drones a list of names. But maybe I represent a minority because while I was out having a cigarette and everybody was slyly checking each other out while trying to remain uber cool, I heard this annoying voice quip, "I think we're the best-looking agency here!"

Like seriously mate, go look in the mirror again and can it.

You see, I completely support the initiative to recognize the industry's best. I applaud the idea and I urge the brilliant people who came up with the concept to keep it going. Alas, as much as we marketing and PR people like the sound of our own voices, we could occasionally use some entertainment. Give us something to talk about apart from griping about how Ogilvy wins everything.

Now, I'm not being a sore loser; not at all. In fact, I'm bloody proud to say that the little agency I work at got nominated to compete in the Public Relations Agency of the Year category for Best Media Relations Strategy -'Local Hero'. Kudos to the fine people at Fulford PR for walking away with the award. I'm sure it was a much deserved win. But hell, we got nominated and that's a huge enough feather in our caps considering that we've only been around for 2 years.

And so the night carried on in one main vein.
1. Overall emcee announces guest who is supposed to announce the winner of the upcoming category.
2. Guest arrives on stage at rostrum and either drones or bellows into the mike.
3. Nominees of award category are announced. (Cue: Gawk at the powerpoint screen.)
4. Guest grabs mike, does not wait for drumroll and announces bronze prize winner.
5. Winner arrives on stage, shakes hand with guest announcer, grabs trophy (it was a cube this year).
6. Guest and winner grin painfully for photo opp.
7. Winner lopes off stage as guest returns to rostrum.
8. Repeats steps 4 through 7 for the silver and gold awards.

Multiply the above by 3.5 hours interspersed with smoke breaks, toilet breaks, and a four-course dinner and you would have a pretty good idea of what last night was like.

The key takeaways from last night's experience were:
a) don't go there hoping to win unless you're from Ogilvy (I kid!),
b) enjoy the free flow of booze (hone your 'getting the waiting staff's attention' skills prior to this; I swear they ignore you on purpose),
c) eat your food,
d) make fun of people as much as you want and laugh,
e) pat yourself on the back for you have been invited to attend from amongst thousands of others in the same field of work,
f) and tell yourself, "Well, there's always next year."

:)

And well, yes, there's always next year.