Every year, I try to catch the National Day Parade on TV. This year is no exception. What is new this year is Vanessa joining in to watch the show. It’s really funny that, at the start, Vanessa was pretty engrossed with the show, starting with the free fall jumps by the Red Lions. Her eyes were glued onto the TV just like when she watches her Barney DVD. I thought this will be good, let’s see if she can watch the entire 2+ hour show with me.

Well, she got bored eventually, and started to ask for her Pocoyo DVD. (Thank goodness it’s not Barney again…) Occasionally there would be some dance performance or some music rhythm that would catch her fancy, and she’ll stop fussing. She would even break out in her own dance occasionally.

Every year, the NDP show has about the same format, and had about the same features. This year, I must say that it is quite different and unusual. This can sometimes be a refreshing change. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite like what they did with this year’s show. The story-telling and acting, I thought, was rather cheesy and not in good taste. Maybe I’m not the right target audience. Did anyone find the breaking news of terrorist attacks, bomb threats, mine disposal, etc, the right flavour for a NDP show?

Somehow, I thought the NDP show deserved something more dignified than that. But I guess if this can be cleared through by the NDP organizers, well, I suppose enough of other people thought it was a bright idea. Yeah, like I said, perhaps I’m not the right audience.

This year’s show had not much of an air display. No aerobatics. Just a simple fly past salute. I already knew that, so I guess I was not disappointed. I would much have preferred to see a display by the Black Knights.

I loved the part where a little boy declared: “I want to be the President of Singapore, yes!” And our President S R Nathan smiled. Very good to have his goals so clearly defined at such an early age!

Happy 44th birthday, Singapore!

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Table tennis wins over the National Day Rally. The live telecast of Singapore’s National Day Rally is postponed to the next day, because the timing clashes with the live telecast of the finals of the Olympics women’s team table tennis match. Singapore’s Prime Minister decided on this arrangement so that Singaporeans could tune in to watch the live telecast of the match.

I’ll bet, even if the live telecast of the National Day Rally was not postponed, Singaporeans will probably still tune in to the table tennis match. So he might as well give way to the Olympics match.

When I first heard of the postponement of the live telecast, I thought it was the National Day Rally event itself that had been postponed. But I guess the National Day Rally has to go on as scheduled, otherwise it would be really telling where our priorities are. Furthermore, it is only the English speech that will be telecast the next day. The Malay and Mandarin speeches will continue to be telecast live.

By the time the English speech is telecast, the contents of the speech will be all out in the news. It would seem the significance of the telecast would have been diminished. I will probably just read the reports in the news.

Singapore is a bit unlucky. The opening of the Olympics happened just a day before our National Day. Then, the finals of the women’s team table tennis match fell on the same day and same time as the National Day  Rally.

Anyway, I wish Singapore all the best in our dreams to win the gold medal. I’m watching the match now. It looks like a tough match. Li Jia Wei lost to Zhang Yining.

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This is Vanessa celebrating National Day. This is her 2nd National Day, but the first she is celebrating since she was too little to be involved in anyway with the 1st. This year, the cashier at Cold Storage gave Vanessa a little Singapore flag, and she was happily waving it around (and chewing the plastic stick too later!).

We’re watching the NDP ‘08 show on TV now. Interestingly, she’s quite engrossed with the pre-show musical and dance items. In fact, so much so that she’s ignoring her dinner. (But I think actually she’s sleepy…)

Watching NDP on TV is fun. You know exactly what to look at, because the camera will point that way. There is commentary to help you understand what is going on. This year in particular, seeing the heavy drizzle on TV now, I feel so lucky to be in the comfort of my armchair. I’m seeing that most people have donned their raincoats.

The main thing I probably like to see with my own eyes rather than on TV is the Black Knights aerial display. (On the other hand, you’re not guaranteed unobstructed view at the NDP spectator stand anyway.) I’ve actually seen many Black Knights performances, many air manoeuvres, etc, first-hand… since I spent my NS at Tengah Air Base. But still, it’s nice to watch aircraft.

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