The Storm

There was a big storm last night. The rain fell hard and loud. Reaching out to pull the windows shut, my right arm was all wet and cold from the 3am downpour. It wasn't long before the lightning and thunder came. I kept the windows in your old room slightly ajar, and the door open, to allow the cool, rain-fresh air flow through, and carry with it the sound of the drops on the leaves outside.

I love listening to and watching storms.

The last one I had a chance to enjoy was on Tuesday lunchtime. Obama had just stormed into the White House as president elect. I needed to go somewhere quiet to recover from the excitement of the morning, and Colbar in Portsdown was the place.

I don't think you've been there before, but Colbar is a relic from the times the British forces were still in Singapore. There were many places like this in Changi and Seletar. Restaurants run by locals, made of plank that ended 3 feet short of the ceiling, with the difference made up by a lattice of sticks or a wire grid so that the air could flow through. The Colbar building is like the houses and shops of old. It's easy to imagine the geckos hiding in the corners, emerging when insects roam too close to the naked flourescent tubes. It's easy to imagine leaks in the roof, with pails and rags placed to catch the drops that inevitably come through when the rains come.

And come they did. A nice, good downpour that made the sky dark and created quite a din as it hit the roof. I glanced at the number plate I'd brought along from the ordering counter that would tell the servers which dish belonged to me. (I'd ordered a rice and beef curry)

It was number 44.

A nice coincidence, because the gentleman who has just won the election was to become the 44th president of the USA.

A thought about Obama's victory.
Should we thank George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the Neo-Cons for doing such a bang up job of destroying the US' image abroad, it's own economy and bringing the global financial system to the edge of collapse to the extent that America would be willing to vote in a black man for the nation's top job?

Would that would be like saying it's good that Hitler perpertrated the evil that he did, so that men like Oskar Schindler and Maximillian Kolbe could demonstrate their heroism to a world badly in need of heroes?