GETTING MY DISNEYLAND ON IN HONG KONG

I'm a rational grown-up.

I know marketing. I know when I'm having my emotional buttons cunningly pushed. I know that there are many things from my childhood that have faded out of memory. Things that, if I encountered them now, I'd probably just pass right by.

I also know that I should find the prospect of crowds and queues annoying. Yet somehow the night before a visit to Hong Kong Disneyland I can hardly sleep. I feel a tangle of excitement coiling up, butterflies even. It shouldn't affect me like this. How do they do it?

As a kid, just about the most exciting thing I could imagine was a trip to Disneyland. Occasionally a posh friend might head to California during school holidays, returning with mountains of astonishingly flavoured bubble gum (Grape! What will they think of next?) and mesmerising tales of a day or two at Disneyland. It was too much for this kid.

ON SPLENDOUR. AND WORDSWORTH.

So, Splendour 2016 has been and gone. Tip: Whatever you do, don’t refer to it by its full name: Splendour in the Grass.

It’s Splendour. Just Splendour. Are you Splendouring? Did you Splendour? Verb and proper noun. And an absolute monster of a thing.

I splendoured for the first time this year and I'm still processing it. There are, for sure, bigger festivals out there - bigger crowds, bigger acts and buzz. But this thing takes place in a tucked-away haven of coastal hinterland, invisible from the nearest road. For all you know as you drive north from Byron Bay, the adjacent bush is a tranquil national park inhabited by whip birds and marsupials who graze the grassland under a dappled canopy of Eucaplypts.

But you’d be wrong.

FEEDING THE FAMILY IN SINGAPORE

Food is serious business in Singapore.

There are tiny, hole-in-the-wall kitchens that have operated for eons serving a single specialty dish. Literally one dish.

When Singapore's Changi Airport opened 'Singapore Food Street' in Terminal 3 all hell broke loose after The Straits Times newspaper revealed that seven of the 13 food stalls in the terminal bore no direct links to the famous stalls referenced in their names.

The report stated that, Jalan Tua Kong Minced Pork Noodles at the airport food street is not an offshoot of the famed 132 Meepok in Marine Terrace, which was located in Jalan Tua Kong in the 1990s. It is also not related to Jalan Tua Kong Lau Lim Mee Pok Kway Teow Mee in Bedok Road.