Category Archives: Singapore

Opinion – Unmissable adventures around the world – Lonely Planet

August 25, 2017 By in Amalfi Coast, Anghor Wat, Architecture, Art, Assisi, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bratislava, Brugge, Budapest, Burma, California, Cambodia, Canada, Cargo, Cargo cruise, China, Croatia, Cruise, Cyprus, Czech Rep, Dubai, Florence, Food, France, Frankfurt, Freight cruise, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Himalayas, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Naples, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Palinuro, Photography, Prague, Rome, Scotland, Siena, Singapore, Slovakia, Sorrento, South Africa, Southern Europe, Spain, Spoleto, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tibet, Travel, Turkey, Tuscany, Umbria, US, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Vietnam, Wildlife, Zagreb Leave a comment

Lonely Planet proposes hiking,  climbing, cycling, surfing, canoeing, as a few of the countless ways to explore a country, if you’ve got a taste for adventure. Then it answers the question, ‘But which of these pulse-quickening experiences fall into the ‘don’t-leave-without’ category?’

Source: Unmissable adventures around the world

To my surprise, we’ve done four of the nineteen proposed adventures – not bad for a couple of seniors.

What about you?

Of course, there are different types of travel, for example:

  • Independent travellers
  • Adventurous independent travellers
  • Group travellers
  • Cruise lovers

Much depends upon your passion, fitness, interests, available time, budget, independence and risk profile.

Marilyn and I are passionate independent travellers with a controlled taste for adventure. For example, one of our most previleged travel experiences was working with Giant Pandas in Sechuan, China (our blog was translated in Mandarin and Japanese to share with others lovers of Giant Pandas)

For more of our adventures, see our travel blogs:

Discover the Orient & the Pacific

Taking the Slow Road to Cyprus

But many people of our age prefer group travel or cruises – good luck to them but it’s not for us.

Thoughts?

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Opinion – Singapore Challenges the Idea That Democracy Is the Best Form of Governance – Harvard – Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs – John Gelmini

August 20, 2015 By in Democracy, People, Politics, Singapore, Society Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
A model of the GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham

A model of the GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr Alf raises some interesting questions.

Democracy is supposed to mean that you have personal freedom, that you can say what you like within the limits of laws on obscenity, official secrets, the Equality Laws, Race Relations Laws and in the case of the UK the Blasphemy laws.

We have no privacy in any of the so-called democratic countries in that we are photographed 300 times a day, sometimes by facial recognition cameras and that data is stored for ever.

Every telephone call, social media interaction and every keystroke is logged and stored for later analysis by GCHQ and the NSA and the 5 Eyes and French equivalents.

Modern Samsung televisions have a recording feature which can be remotely triggered which allows the security services to watch a person inside their home and listen to every word they say.

A democracy should mean that single woman can travel about alone, unaccompanied and not be pestered, raped or subjected to danger. This is true in Singapore but not in English or American cities late at night with the possible exception of Manhattan before midnight.

In the UK, there are many truths which are never broadcast whilst sedition, acts of treason by extremists and other inflammatory statements made by them go unchallenged.

If you are white and middle class, you need to watch what you say, and if you use force against criminals you find in your house, in the UK you are liable to arrest and imprisonment, whereas in several American states you can use deadly force and have an adequate defence.

Democracy should mean that you have reasonable confidence that politicians and civil servants are not allowing the Exchequer to be plundered and that your taxes can be accounted for and that the police will investigate criminals and keep the streets safe.

In the UK, I have no such confidence any more.

Democracy is therefore an interesting concept brought to us from ancient Greece but it no longer truly exists in the UK and is in danger of being subverted elsewhere.

Singapore has a better model and it delivers more equality of outcome too.

John Gelmini

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