Flipping Through My Collection

Was just talking to WK the other day about jazz music and suddenly recalled that I had a Jacintha album somewhere.

Managed to find it after a search. Nice, sultry voice. Almost quite forgotten how the tracks sound like.

One of the reasons why I bought the album years ago was because of the song Pennies From Heaven by Bing Crosby. A search on its lyrics yielded an interesting nugget of information on the song:


PENNIES FROM HEAVEN(Burke, Johnston)
Bing introduced "Pennies from Heaven" in his movie of the same name. The movie was okay, the song won an Oscar. Bing recorded "Pennies from Heaven" August 17, 1936 with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. By the end of the year the recording had rocketed to the top of the charts, where it stayed for an incredible 10 weeks. It was Bing's only No. 1 recording of 1936, but for Bing it was megabucks from Heaven!


A long time ago
A million years BC
The best things in life
Were absolutely free.
But no one appreciated
A sky that was always blue.
And no one congratulated
A moon that was always new.
So it was planned that they would vanish now and them
And you must pay before you get them back again.
That's what storms were made for
And you shouldn't be afraid for

Every time it rains it rains
Pennies from heaven.
Don't you know each cloud contains
Pennies from heaven.
You'll find your fortune falling
All over town.
Be sure that your umbrella is upside down.
Trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers.
If you want the things you love
You must have showers.
So when you hear it thunder
Don't run under a tree.
There'll be pennies from heaven for you and me.

http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/~crosby/lyrics.html

Jacintha's version was a whole lot shorter, but it was full of swing and class. In fact, the first time I heard it was when Adrian sang it (he the rabid Frank Sinatra fan) at a colleague's birthday party.

This song certainly brought back a lot of warm memories... :)

Brawl Over Tissue

Well, almost.

Case 1: Hong Lim Hawker Centre

Was lining up behind this Ah Chek for bak chor noodles. Not too far next to me, was this table of 6 seats that were occupied by diners happily slurping, munching and sipping away.

When the 6 seater was vacated, a gaggle of 6 office girls spotted the suddenly-vacated table and was about to zoom in on it with their tissue packs. Of course, you know the protocol - if you see a tissue pack or an umbrella over some seats, they are taken. Choped. Occupied.

Simple logic, isn't it? As easy as ABC, 123.

It's just the territorial nature of homo sapiens, you see. Nothing wrong. Afterall, it's our culture.

Before the girls could even inch a little closer to the table to lay claims, the Ah Chek in front of me suddenly whipped out a pack of tissue from his breast pocket. With a swift flick of his wrist, the pack flew inches past my nose and landed neatly on one of the chairs.

He then turned back to order his mee pok tah nonchalently. The girls backed off, and one of them was seen muttering to her girlfriend on how kiasu the Ah Chek was.

A subsequent recounting of the story to my colleagues led to all of us busy practicing our skills in our cubicles...

Hey, you never know when such skills are in need.

Case 2: Golden Shoe

SA and I decided to meet for lunch and spotted this 4 seater that was seemingly unoccupied.

Having practicsed due dilligence whereby we checked if there were any personal belongings (re: tissue packs, umbrellas, magazines, newspapers, bags etc) on the chairs, SA promptly fished out her tissue pack and placed it neatly on the stool.

Immediately, a 30-ish looking Office Lady bearing a plate of char siew rice from the famous Tiong Bahru stall snarled at us, insinuating that the table was hers and the aforementioned tissue pack was hers, too.

While we politely pointed out that she was in error and that when we came to the table, there was no tissue pack in sight, she promptly changed tack and said that probably somebody removed her pack.

While still hanging on to my friend's tissue. Despite my pointed remark that it was ours.

This could have gone on forever. And I'm hungry. And somewhat annoyed by this pestilential woman. And I would have vacated to another spot if not for the fact that there're no seats and this woman was making a fuss.

I offered to share a table with her, while she still insisted that it was her table. Then, all of a sudden, something seem to struck her, she looked into her handbag, closed it and returned the pack to us.

A forced smile came to my lips and I said we could still share seats.

She promptly sat down with nary a whimper and began digging into her char siew rice.

SA grumbled and said that this woman was making it all up, and began to share her past experiences involving tissue louts who insisted that it was their seats at crowded food courts.

Oh yes, louts indeed.