hank quock endless love

entertaining. recording and sound system, not so good.

"we want gay! we want gay!"

black and white photos from national archives

i was with two senior friends who were talking about their school-days in their alma mater in the late 50s and early 60s. while reminiscing about the old times, they mentioned something interesting which happened in their school in 1960. i had heard about schools like the chinese high and even nanyang girls' where the students were instigated to go on strike but not an english-medium school going on strike.

the strike involved about 500 students. the day had begun normally with the students attending the 7.45 morning service in the school hall.

at 8.30 a.m. the students took our banners and placards which they had carefully hidden, unfurled the banners and displayed the placards all over the school premises. according to one of my friends, the school brass band led the demonstration by playing marching tunes. the protesting students kept shouting "we want gay! we want gay!" .

the students even barricaded the school gates using their classroom's desks and chairs.

it seemed their grievance was with the board of governors for their decision to replace the then principal mr gay wan guay with another teacher in the same school. mr gay had been with the school for more than 20 years and he was credited with bringing about improvements to the school and in moulding the boys' brigade into one of the best units in singapore.

the striking students eventually agreed to end their protest when promised that mr gay's position would be reconsidered.

my friends even took me to koon seng road to look at the site where their former school once stood. today, haig girls' school sits on a piece of land adjacent to the site of the former presbyterian boys' school.

erp gantry quiz

one way to make sure motorists cannot escape paying erp charges during the operational hours is to have two gantries located 150m apart along the same stretch of road. if the first one fails to 'catch' the motorist, then there is the second one to act as a 'safely catch'.

also those who time themselves to reach the gantry just seconds before it is activated will have a surprise awaiting them.

1 along which stretch of road are these gantries located?

2 what is the real reason for erecting the second gantry?

queuing for a car permit at queensway

photo from national archives of s'pore

back in the late 70s or early 80s, i remember making a trip to the malaysian transport department office at queensway to queue for either a car permit or a motorcycle permit. i was told by a friend that subsequently they did away with the permit for motorcycles.

when it was first implemented in 1967, the car-permit was issued free of charge. you had only to go through the inconvenience of queuing for it at the malaysian high commission at goodwood hill. all you needed were your identity card and a copy of your vehicle log book.

there were other changes related to the application for a car-permit. because of the perpetual queues, they extended the hours of application. the transport office was open in the night - from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. - in an attempt to ease the congestion in the day. this counter was closed on sundays and public holidays.

another time, frustrated applicants were told that they needed their passport instead of just their identity card - in those days we had the blue restricted passport just for travel to malaysia - to support their application.

initially, the car-permit was valid from between six months and one year. the cost of a six-month permit was $30 and $90 for a one-year permit. this was later changed to a free permit which allowed you not more than 14 days in west malaysia.

as a result of this ruling, when we made driving trips to places in west malaysia, we made sure that we did not exceed the two weeks' allowance.

in a way, the need for a car-permit was a good thing. when the scheme was scrapped in 1986, it led to massive, girdlock kind of jams at the causeway, especially on the malaysian side.

bob hayes versus usain bolt

in 1963, bob hayes set a world record of 9.1 sec in the 100-yard dash at an aau meet in st louis.

at the 2008 beijing olympics, usain bolt established a world record in the 100-metre sprint, with a time of 9.69 sec.

if we were to pit the late bob hayes against the current world champion sprinter usain bolt, who would emerge the winner?

today, sprint distances are measured in metres, not yards, and 100 metres = 109.361 yards. as bob hayes in his record-breaking effort ran 1 yard every .91 seconds, his time for 100 metres would have been at least 9.95 seconds, or more than 1/4-second (.26 seconds) slower than the record set by usain bolt in 2008.

when i was still a student in secondary school in the early 60s, the 100-metre race was not in our school's track and field programme. instead, we had the 100-yard dash, held on the school field. measurements for running, throwing and jumping events were in imperial units. the height of the high jump was in feet and inches, not in metres and centimetres.

up to today, some older folks are still more perceptive if you tell them your height in feet and inches or your weight in pounds. even in the kitchen, some housewives are more comfortable using katties and tahils or pounds and ounces than with kilograms and grams.

when i rode my first motor-cycle, the speedometer showed the speed in miles per hour (mph), not kilometres per hour (kph). reminder of our former use of the imperial unit can be found in the names of places like 7th mile upper bukit timah road and 10 mile junction.

timesofmylife has blogged about this topic before.