An unexpectedly nice, enjoyable and pleasant day today (April 15, 2021)

 Today is a cloudy day and quite cool inside my house. It did not however, turn out to be a dreary day as most days during this Covid pandemic. It has been great till now!

Spoke to one of my best friends in India this morning

Got three nice books from the library and started one last night and continuing it today.

Discovered two great shows on Tubi and saw three episodes today of one of them (This is Wonderland...a show based in Toronto and depicts court in Toronto and cases)

Seeing an episode of another great show (Case histories)  now in the afternoon and the first show I am seeing which is set in Edinburgh. I have visited Edinburgh and loved it!

The banana I had for dessert after lunch was delicious and not overripe as it happens often in my home.

I am having pizza for dinner which is a welcome change from the chapatis I make and eat daily.

No one-and-half hour long, boring office meetings on zoom today.

I weigh the same but don't 'think I look fat today'.

All in all a good mood day...Can't explain how or why. I hope I have more of these good mood days during this dreadful pandemic.

Crime fiction set in Singapore

 I discovered 2 crime fiction books set in 'colonial' Singapore, that is over a 100 years ago in Toronto public library and enjoying reading them now during this dreadful pandemic.

Singapore is considered by both the citizens there and visitors to be a 'crime-free' country with a strict government and so it is of interest to find crime fiction set in Singapore. Of course, people are people, even in Singapore...they are good, bad and ugly. Not 'pure and lily-white' just because they are in Singapore!

Both books below are by A.M.Stuart. These novels are from the era of British colonial times and not modern Singapore of today. (Both are available in Toronto public library)

1)Singapore sapphire (2019)

2)Revenge rubies (2020)

Another crime fiction set in Singapore is the " Inspector Singh investigates-Singapore school of villainy by Shamini Flint. This is 3rd in the series of inspector Singh. Singh solves crimes in other countries in the other books. ((available in Toronto public library))

Six books in a series(I have not yet read) about an inspector from Singapore by author Jake Needham are listed below. Unfortunately for me, they are not in the Toronto Public library and  I don't see myself buying these books anytime soon.

1)The ambassador's wife

2)The umbrella man

3)The dead american

4)The girl in the window

5)And brother it's starting to rain

6)Mongkok station

Apparently the books by Needham have been banned in Singapore by the Singapore government and he has been threatened with arrest if he returns to Singapore! If you go to this link and read his interview, he talks about his books being banned and the threats of arrest. https://simonduringer.com/simons-10-q-interviews/crime/jake-needham-2019/

Apparently Alan Shadrake, the British author of "Once a jolly hangman: Singapore justice in the dock" was jailed for a few weeks in Singapore for this book. This book is NOT fiction. Jake Needham mentioned the arrest of this author (who was in his 70s at time of arrest!) in Singapore and it definitely scares me about visiting Singapore with this type of a draconian democracy! 

For those interested in crime fiction set in far east Asian countries , read other books by Jake Needham.

A crime fiction with a female protagonist with a part of the story set in Singapore is Ian Hamilton's The diamond queen of Singapore (2020)  (available in Toronto public library)

Below are two books with crime fiction in the form of short stories. 

Crime scene Singapore: the best of crime fiction is a multi-author anthology set in Singapore. (not in Toronto public library)

Singapore noir: 2014 (available in Toronto public library)

As I come across more crime fiction books set in Singapore, I will  add them to this article. 

To my surprise, the few residents of Singapore I know are not at all critical of Singapore and full of praise! It's only the visitors to Singapore who comment about the lack of freedom (choice of school for their kids) and so on.

Anyone recalls the delicious sponge cake of University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bangalore from the 70s?

 My dad worked in the university of agricultural sciences, Bangalore. He would on rare occasions get home a delicious sponge cake from the bakery in this university. That was the best sponge cake I ever tasted in my life! The cake was very mild ...very mildly sweet, soft and very mild essence...it was like eating an 'upper class bread' than a cake if you know what I mean...It was much less sweet, less vanilla flavoured than the usual bakery cakes and had no icing at all which is how I like my cake.

I wonder if they are still producing the same type of cake now? I am baking cake in Canada but my cakes cannot hold a candle the the UAS cakes! I have eaten cakes made in Bangalore, USA & Canada...from Indian, 'Canadian', Chinese, 'American' bakeries but none of the cakes come close to the cake of the UAS bakery. I do hope I get a chance to visit the UAS bakery during my next visit to Bangalore and check out their cake. 

Eating out (at Vaughan's Bombay Touch) on the last day before lockdown started ! April 2, 2021

 

I was tolerating the annoyance of long hair while waiting eagerly for the hair salons to open in Toronto on April 12th. Then we realized that  not only are the hair saloons not going to open but even the ones outside the grey zone were shutting down! I fled to Richmond hill to get my hair cut. After being turned down by 3 which were fully booked, I got my hair cut at the 4th hair salon. 

Hungry after the long drive and after going from one salon to another, we stopped here at Bombay Touch to have our last restaurant meal before the lockdown! I had Naan and saag chicken with an Indian beer (which Indians in India have not even heard of!) called cheetah beer. (Saag is spinach)

One dirty incident which happened there while we ate....a lady walked into this restaurant which was empty except for me and my husband, picked a food bag and walked out. The restaurant staff who had stepped into the kitchen came out and was furious as the person had walked out not only with a food bag meant for another customer but without paying! She was calling, presumably that person on the phone and asking her to come back with the money or the food and apparently the person at the other end of the phone was refusing!

I was really disgusted that someone can do this, when the restaurants are already dealing with the huge loss to their business caused by Covid.  I do hope that restaurant staff managed to recover her money. 

This incident ruined our lunch.