Our previous convivial-cycle having been forsaken, W, H, L and I finally regroup for the first time in at least six months. L, nothing if not well-shod, is wearing woven heels which make crumpled squeaks with each step. It is skin-flaying at first, but I slowly become inured to the noise. We promenade down to One Fullerton. I cannot help thinking Waterloo Sunset ("dirty old river/must you keep rolling/rolling into the night/people so busy/make me feel dizzy/taxi lights shine so bright"), but this is another milieu entirely, engineered to complex specifications. Our urban dichotomies are no longer as distinct as concrete jungle vs. green-belt/space, frenzy vs. tranquility. The tension no longer consists in infrastructural sprawl encroaching on the preserves of feral Nature. We now demand an extrapolation of Fallingwater, a seamless integration of the wrought and the elemental. But there is Junkspace everywhere threatening to annex the entirety of our built landscape. Shining example: the polished subterranean sterility of the underpass linking the Fullerton and One Fullerton. It is a horrendous vacancy, a strictly utilitarian structure stylised for its own sake. Automatic travellators which move slower than even the pace of an ancient crone. The One Fullerton stretch itself, however, is Boat Quay all grown up and gentrified (if that word even carries legitimate meaning anymore), a waterfront runway of subtle bustle and balmy calm. Commercial coffee-franchise and steakhouse nestle amid destination dining and clubbing. High-toned socialites poise themselves appropriately at the pierside/Pierside tables. Extended families stroll along, watching the ships go by, oblivious to the teeming droves of fashionistas and gastronauts reposing in their not-so-exclusive domain (neo-socialist state that we are, delineations of class, territorial or otherwise, are next to nonexistent): Embargo, incandescent lights murmuring in the dark, lustrous surfaces, ergonomic sofas. But they too have made the concession to unabashed pop culture: screening the World Cup.

We settle on Pierside. Sipping iced water while seated outside (preprandial cocktail menu is too extensive), awaiting the conclusion of a private function. At some point I swear the soundtrack to a nature documentary started playing. Then it segued, possibly hugely embarrassed, into the usual "chillout" aural wallpaper which everyone is so fond of nowadays. Bar-snacks: saucisson with mustard (turgid), cumin-spiced crab rolls (glorified spring rolls, but very good). We devour three (two repeat-requests) large homemade loaves of ciabatta with three deceptively austere-looking condiments: basil cream cheese, olive oil, sea salt. My potato-crusted Chilean seabass with blue crab broth and clams is another triumph. Silky and delicate, as lubricious as cod but with a purer texture, wrapped tightly in crispy tuber-tendrils, sitting on a clambankment. L's wild mushroom risotto is eagerly anticipated (only by myself) after previous proven glory of squid ink version, but it disappoints. Still, this mild excitement is nothing compared to the wildly throbbing prospect of being able to taste the legendary basil crepes with banana (they refused to show when I was here last), which J proclaimed possibly the best dessert ever! I regret to report that it was merely excellent. I am beginning, I think, to be stupefied by the uniformly awesome magic of desserts which seem to be everywhere. Either that or my sweet teeth are not acute enough to tell the difference.

The usual desultory roving and chronic indecision after dinner. Embargo on Embargo and similar outfits because we have had enough of being sedentary. I spot H's feet itching to get their groove on. Following a round of fruitless ferreting, L departs in her usual fashion, and the three left behind end up at a louche KTV lounge which should have a documentary made about it. This really is sleazy Singapore. It is the absolute nadir of crassness. It looks like a remaindered piece of Bugis Street at its lurid height, except that you wouldn't find framed and spotlighted replicas of the Mona Lisa and Van Gogh's Sunflowers in reality. I have previously avowed never to squander my time and money at such an establishment ever again, but this time I gave in, and I feel perversely compelled to return. It will assuredly unsettle all your notions of what it means to "have no taste". Beyond a certain point, undercurrents of the surreal begin to intervene. Your sensibilities are so utterly revolted that no measured, rational response is possible. If we had not been outrageously charged $10 for the compulsory bowl of canned longans, bringing me back to the real world of commercial skulduggery and sneakily tacked-on cutthroat charges, I might have been lost in la-la land forever.

Potential attractions of Iceland (in descending order)
1. Whale sashimi
2. Reindeer-riding
3. Large smörgåsbord of Nordic wildlife: elk, moose, puffin, walrus
4. Glacier-abseiling
5. Seal-petting

Nasi padang lunch with S, L, E and J at Hotel Rendezvous. Prices inflated, and I am anxious that the heyday home-cooked goodness and glamour of an erstwhile era has vanished. Beef rendang too salty, sambal telur insipid, kangkong agreeably crunchy. S, E and J cannot recall having autographed the bra. Later I am shown a treasure by L at a secondhand bookshop in Bras Basah Complex. It is beautiful, but astonishingly useless: a Dutch-Japanese dictionary. Scouring the shelves, I disinter monographs on Qi Baishi (Union), Schiele (Popular) and "Modern Art" (Book Off). I would like also a copy of Harvard Design School's Project on the City 2, featuring Rem Koolhaas' giddy, logorrhoeic ramble on the death of design, Junkspace, but it really is too heavy to read safely without spraining a wrist, too expensive ($89.90 at Indian-run graphic book shop; however, perhaps I can spend a few otiose afternoons aslant on my favourite chair at Space perusing their browsing copy); and besides I have already found an online version.

Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house.
...
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
...
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
-T.S. Eliot, Gerontion

Having blundered through these two and a half years with near-perfect emotional detachment, my response on leaving camp for the last time is remarkably uncomplex, and expectedly bleak: a torpid vacancy finally dissipated, a stupor dispelled, a somnambulist snapping out of it, jumping up and ruffling his hair, a player dismissed from the charade, as the backdrop and properties creak and crumble (weather was instrumental to staging: scattered leaves whirling in the wind, rainclouds coagulating menacingly, portentous thunderclaps reverberating throughout the theatre). G wraps it up with absolute poise and cordiality, plays the game right through to its whimpering conclusion, while I stutter and stumble through the formalities, staunchly laconic to the end. I had not even the pensiveness which one expects would be appropriate on just such an occasion as I tottered along with lopsided gait, lugging back helmet, SBO, bloated field pack, the works. I would recount those moments (not as few as you'd think) when I voluntarily suspended the persona for the people who mattered, but, as usual, my memory is treacherously selective.

H was robbed by a crockery-crook while unattended at table! That dastardly daisy! And about Saint Pierre: it's a tired neo-fusion stunt, aflutter with vain flourishes and candy-bright party-favours, patronised by conspicuously silly cows who audibly and pointedly announce to everyone within earshot that they attended the film festival. Emmanuel is a slightly loony enfant terrible lionised on account of outlandish novelties and a reckless culinary adventurism, Edina a graceless ditz of a socialite, a darling flake. I must revisit to gather grist for the caustic re-review which I have been contemplating. Issued warm recommendations and grave warnings to H re: Silk Road...Snowflake must try, dao1 xiao1 mian4 like congealed ectoplasm, zha4 jiang4 mian4 soupy. Feeling rash and garrulous, I paint Prague as cohabitation and copulation haven for Yale homosexuals, to be rebuked rather rationally by Y. I feel I must be forgiven, for the only specific and memorable depiction of Prague I have encountered is Philip Roth's The Prague Orgy.

"But this is a classless society," she says. "This is socialism. What good is socialism if when I want to nobody will fuck me? All the great international figures come to Prague to see our oppression, but none of them will ever fuck me. Why is that? Sartre was here and he would not fuck me. Simone de Beauvoir came with him and she would not fuck me. Heinrich Böll, Carlos Fuentes, Graham Greene - and none of them will fuck me. Now you, and it is the same thing. You think to sign a petition will save Czechoslovakia, but what will save Czechoslovakia would be to fuck Olga."

Grilled fennel/radicchio a pleasure, other verdures a little arid and devitalised. Penne alla polpa di granchio pleasant but not quite up to snuff. Brownie and pistachio gelato excellent. Tiramisu was not its usual delectable self. Coffee arrived prematurely. Waiter harried and brusque. Perhaps it's this buy-3-get-1-free deal that's responsible for this tardiness. En route to languishing Salut, The Eighties Woman shimmies past us, in her customary white pumps and retro bowl-bob hairdo! Y thinks she looks like a Metro salesgirl; all heartily concur. In and out of Savoir-subordinate Baker's Inn (horrible sour-creamed pasta, no lemon tart, no apple-pistachio-lime [but this is moot; why can't I remember] cake) and on to Millenia Walk's magical-macaroon-factory Baker's Inn. We snap up the last two lemon tarts. The meringue squidges have been disswirled, and they taste of marshmallows. Y says lemon-gouache is too granular, but that is precisely its attraction! H's Gran Couva has a mini-macaroon perched on top and another ensconced within. Then, still unsated, he devours an ill-named brioche with warm creamy egg-mulch and Parma ham.

Some enchanted evening. Lumbered alcove with plush plenitude of cushions, truncated table, pendulous lamp of self-variable radiance; overhead, a sonic-shaft for eavesdropping on neighbours. Preliminary "bar-snack": toasted gingko nuts, shells fractured for our convenience. Pleasantly acrid, although an unfortunate minority of errant nuts tasted of mussels and charcoal. Cold tofu, century egg and wakame salad, a quivering silken shape strewn with dark debris, encircled by fluttery greens wet with sesame oil and soya sauce (and maybe mirin?). Duck, breast of, smoked: more east than west, beautifully blushed. Chicken, thigh of, boneless, aromatically roasted; beef, grass-fed, steak of, medium-medium: both done to a turn.

Price of desserts has risen by a third. Boysenberry terrine in place of blueberry cheese tart. Baked tau-huay crowned with bread-crusts in place of bread-and-butter pudding. Erroneous taxonomy in menu cozens diner into expecting something fairly routine, then the surprise of the unannounced modification is sprung with full force. A dishonest tactic, but astonishingly effective. Poached pear too large and therefore disrespectful of hierarchy; ginger pudding with toffee sauce sublime as usual. A deliriously stupid person in the first alcove on the left loudly averred that nothing was easier than poaching a pear: "just boil it in water". Even a boiled egg, done to various stages of coalescence for various purposes, is notoriously difficult to perfect.

Shocking appearance of G, who came to dine with a person I only now retroactively recognise as D, his ex-conscript-colleague, from a year ago; before this glimpse of truth is allowed to me, we (persons at my table) had to hazard various hazy conjectures: might he be DL (the resemblance is more uncanny than usual, more than all those times when you drew a spurious connection just to impress your companions), whom L knows and did BMT with, although that G would know DL is unlikely even though he (DL) lived one floor up from G for close to three months. Ah, but might he not then be DL's brother? This is classed initially as fairly plausible. We thought ourselves vindicated when, eavesdropping helplessly on the adjoining chamber, we heard DL's first name mentioned. Surely this is the clincher then? It would be, had the-D-in-DL not, by a further sinister ripple of coincidence, also been the name (albeit a variant spelling) of G's and D's former department head, a phonetic-D-in-DL whom J also knows from his senior-class. However, only I am cognisant of all the discrete pieces of the puzzle, and have triumphantly solved the mystery.

Deformity to Anthropomorphology: An Introduction to Peanut Sculpture. Some of the most precious pieces in the collection have been damaged by damp, carelessly handled and dropped into water glasses, but the majority are still available for viewing at the Kacang Conservatory. All the installations are interactive, and alterations are encouraged, although the artists request that there be no carnal dealings or politically-inflammatory intercourse between person and peanut.

Brief exposition of exhibits:
Our star attraction, designed by Philippe Starck, is a writhing, disemboweled elver, freeze-framed and aged 1,000 years. Several pieces of Inuit art, imitation Easter Island statuettes, miniature Fabergé-style thrones and rollercoaster cars complete with shelled-peanut queen- or passenger-dolls, Wiener Werkstätte moccasins and clogs, delineations of sexual positions from the Kama Sutra, South Park action figures (the whole set was destroyed by a flood: only Kenny survived, as expected.)

Another priceless piece disinterred and preserved. Other persons present: L, J & J.

Paolo & Ping's, c. 1998

1. Entrance is pleasurable to behold; possesses correct influences.
2. Olive oil bottle lacks womanly curves; this will displease Oedipal customers.
3. Minimalist candle is self-defeating and dissonant with surroundings.
4. Yellow lights in semi-Chinese establishment suggest racist opinions.
5. Noisy traffic passing by premises cannot be heard. This is good.
6. The intercurrents of air are harmonious and recommend themselves gently to our senses.
7. Retail corner is vulgar and emanates an unwholesome presence replete with indolent propensities.
8. The waitresses' faux-cheongsam tops with obscene décolletages are offensive to the moral sensibilities of conservative Chinese diners. Moreover, they (the waitresses) lack the seasonings of insouciance to carry it off.
9. Attempt to blend Sino-Italian into an agreeable mélange results in a confused puddle of miry, dissociated scallops and petrified mozzarella.
10. Music no good.
...and who is that familiar-looking lady over there?

1st of June. Adam Road hawker centre rewelcomes eager habitués after lengthy renovation. Doughnut-shaped seating area thronging with convocations of senior citizens (one leg vertically-akimbo, like a chicken wing precisely poised, on the citrus-coloured furniture; past repast before them, landfills of disembodied cockle- and clam-shells), au fait expatriates, bewildered tourists, healthy nuclear-family foursomes. In the centre, gazebo-dining, stupidly sheltered by large umbrellas from the skylight which is there to beautify!

Half the tenants sell the same things: I was not aware that this was an Islamic-gastronomic ghetto. Embittered fruit-juice factions, situated next to each other, jostle and clamour for patronage. If you do not buy from the one on the right, a horrible weaselly old man shoots looks of extreme rancour in your direction every five minutes. On this occasion Mrs. Weasel joined the heckling campaign by "accidentally" spilling green apple froth-and-juice down my back. Forgotten stingray order inflamed already fraying nerves. The rojak stall is a fraudulent establishment; there was no mango in the mango rojak. Hokkien mee was guilty of three misdemeanours. In descending order of uncountenanceability:

1. Wrong type of chilli
2. Use of chu1 mi3 fen3
3. Discoloured crab-sticks