Archive for April, 2006
Jitters, Smiles And Gender Ticks
SINGAPORE: The day’s overall results may have thrown up no real surprises, but there was drama, colour and confusion to spare as the political parties filed their nomination papers on Thursday.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s arrival at Bendemeer Primary School at 11am, when nominations opened, sparked off a chanting match between People’s Action Party (PAP) supporters and those of Potong Pasir MP Chiam See Tong - whose ward shared the Nomination Centre with Mr Lee’s Tanjong Pagar GRC.
At Tao Nan Primary, there was a minor fuss as Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) candidate Sin Kek Tong arrived at 10.15am in a gold Mazda - and was told by a police officer to remove his car from the school’s carpark as no parking was allowed.
Mr Sin only relented when told Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Macpherson opponent Matthias Yao were also not allowed to park there.
Over at Ngee Ann Secondary, Hougang MP Low Thia Khiang and his Workers Party (WP) supporters arrived close to 11am in a blue bus. In good spirits and energised by a breakfast of “eggs and bacon”, Mr Low wisecracked with reporters as he walked up the steps: “Hey, you never wish me all the best?”
There was some early tension at the centre, as word went around that one of the four original assenters for the SDA’s Tampines GRC team had pulled out.
Speculation was rife, as the team filled in the nomination forms only that morning. Candidate Abdul Rahman said: “We were worried because we don’t know if people might crack up. None have.”
The team’s principal election agent, Mr Ken Sunn, later clarified that the person in question had “last minute” affairs to attend to. “We had more than enough assenters for backup - seven or eight,” he added.
At Bedok View Secondary, the SDA team for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC had a closer shave - and got an offer of help from an unexpected source.
The team had not brought a duplicate of their nomination form and PAP candidate Michael Palmer offered them a spare form. But in the end, the team got to use the centre’s photocopier.
There were more tense moments at a few centres, as the noon deadline passed and the minutes ticked by without results being announced.
At Fajar Secondary School, Singapore Democratic Party’s candidate for Bukit Panjang, Mr Ling How Doong, and incumbent PAP MP Teo Ho Pin stepped out of the Nomination Room only at 12.50pm.
With reporters speculating about a possible problem with the forms - Mr Ling’s form showed a faint tick over “F” in the category for gender, instead of the answer being circled as instructed - the relieved SDP candidate said he didn’t know the reason for the delay.
The veteran of previous contests said: “I have never seen such a long delay. I was surprised, I sat there waiting. I was scared I would be disqualified I was thinking: Was there any glitch? But cannot be an objection, because the objection deadline (12.30pm) is over.”
Mr Teo, however, said the delay was because both candidates had to unpack a “goodie bag” of 10 sealed items - including forms and posters - to be checked.
Over at Bukit Panjang Government High, it was Minister of State for Education and Manpower Gan Kim Yong who had a minor scare.
Outside the nomination centre with his PAP supporters, he received a phone call at close to 1pm and went back into the nomination room. He spent about 15 minutes inside. The fuss, it transpired, was over a “missing” form that turned out to be with the election officers after all.
Following the announcement of the results, some candidates buckled down to work almost immediately.
Mr Teo Ho Pin’s block visits began straight after lunch, lasting into the night.
One surprise was new PAP candidate Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew, 44, who handled his first interview as an elected MP - following a walkover - with what some described as the aplomb of a seasoned minister.
Ignoring a determined heckler, and speaking in both Mandarin and English, he said: “Even though Tanjong Pagar GRC had no competitor today, the PAP will not take this victory for granted.”
“As your MPs, we will do our best to upgrade and improve the facilities in the GRC we will speak up in Parliament and assist the Government to implement policies that will benefit the people and the nation,” he added, before rallying supporters in a rousing cry of “Majulah PAP!” - TODAY /dt
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Golf: Miracle Man Fernandez-Castano Wins BMW Asian Open
SHANGHAI : An overjoyed Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano capitalised on a disastrous triple bogey by Sweden’s Henrik Stenson to win the BMW Asian Open in a play-off, calling his victory “a miracle”.
The Swede looked to be coasting with a three stroke cushion when his ball hit a tree on the ninth and bounced into the water.
It cost him three shots and opened the door to a chasing pack that also included Colin Montgomerie, who ended the tournament joint third after a gritty 68, alongside Jose-Filipe Lima of Portugal.
Aside from the horror ninth Sunday, the turning point came on the 16th when Spain’s Fernandez-Castano holed a 30-yard chip from the sand as Stenson dropped a shot.
It helped push the showdown into a play-off which the Spaniard won on the first extra hole to take the 300,000 dollars winners cheque with a seven-under par total of 281.
“Winning the Asian Open is a great thing but when I look at the leaderboard and see who is on it, it is unbelievable — a dream come true, a miracle,” said the 25-year-old of his second European Tour win.
His first was at the Dutch Open last year.
“It’s been a great round. I was steady on the front nine and the putts started dropping on the back nine. It is a day I won’t forget.”
It has been a profitable fortnight in China for the Madrid native, who finished second behind India’s Jeev Milkha Singh at last week’s Volvo China Open.
He said he would use the money to buy a ring for his girlfriend Alethea whom he wants to marry.
“I think I’ll get married, although I haven’t asked her yet,” he said, adding that “the whole weekend has been beautiful for me.”
With a victory under his belt and a glint in his eye, Fernandez-Castano heads back to Spain on Monday to prepare for the Spanish Open next week where he is expecting plenty of pressure to do well.
“Everyone will be expecting me to win but I’m really tired after being in contention on both Sunday’s over the past two weeks,” he said.
“If it wasn’t the Spanish Open, I’d withdraw and rest.”
Stenson was left to rue a glorious missed opportunity after holding an outright lead since his opening 67 on Thursday until his game was undone by the tree.
“The ninth hole blew it for me,” he admitted.
“It was unfortunate but that’s the way these things go sometimes. It’s easy to feel I let it slip away but I didn’t really do that. I’m happy with the way I kept trying after the triple bogey.
“I can’t knock my performance. I just wasn’t getting the breaks.”
And despite the agony of losing, his performance reinforced his growing reputation as a new force in the game after announcing himself to the world in 2005 with a series of impressive performances in the year’s biggest events.
He carried his form into 2006, winning the Qatar Masters in January and finishing third at The Players Championship in Florida last month, an event billed as the unofficial fifth major.
For Monty, it was a welcome return to form and he was unlucky not to be in the playoff.
It was the big Scot’s best round in months and ended a miserable run of five missed cuts that included the US Masters and Players Championships.
Englishmen Paul Casey and Simon Dyson, along with New Zealand’s Mahal Pearce finished joint fifth.
Terry Pilkadaris of Australia, his compatriots David Brandson and Peter O’Malley, along with Paul Lawrie of Scotland ended a shot further adrift.
- AFP/ms
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What’s ‘Inside’ Clive Owen’s Head?
If Clive Owen has yet to join the ranks of Hollywood’s top leading men, it’s fair to say he’s well on his way.
In 20 years as an actor, the 41-year-old Briton has drawn critical praise and popular acclaim while moving from walk-on parts in little-seen British TV dramas to starring roles in intense action-thrillers such as Derailed (2005), Sin City (2005) and Inside Man, a heist film that opens in Singapore on Thursday.
Still, even after two-dozen movies, countless TV shows, the starring role as “The Driver” in a popular series of BMW adverts and a flirtation with the title role in the James Bond movies, Owen’s two biggest fans have yet to see even one of his films.
Which is understandable considering the two fans in question - daughters Hannah and Eve - are just nine and six years old, respectively.
“They’re getting a bit annoyed with me because they can’t see any of my movies,” a smiling and relaxed-looking Owen told a roomful of reporters recently in New York.
“I’m doing this lunatic action film at the moment and they say: ‘What are you doing, dad?’ And I find it really difficult trying to explain away all the guns.”
The actor will have less explaining to do when it comes to Inside Man - in which guns take a backseat to a tense cat-andmouse game between an enigmatic bank robber (Owen) and a wise-cracking hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) -though, in light of the fact his character spends most of the movie behind a mask and dark glasses, he’d be lucky if his daughters even knew it was him onscreen.
While Owen admitted to having initial concerns about the role - saying with a sly smile that he had told director Spike Lee to “get someone else to play it and I’ll do a voiceover for you” - he soon came to terms with the idea thanks to his desire to work with Lee and the fact that he “didn’t have to spend much time in make-up”.
Witty in person, though not known for comic roles - aside from a clever cameo as Agent 006 in the recent Pink Panther remake - Owen said his fondest wish was to appear in a romantic comedy.
Not that it’s likely to be a conventional one if his dream comes true.
“Mikael Hafstrom, who I did Derailed with, said we should do a comedy together,” the actor said with obvious glee.
“He came up with the idea of finding a really bad thriller script and just doing it for laughs. Start with something that has very serious intentions and then just twist it beyond all recognition.”
While Owen’s fans might have a long wait ahead of them before that movie arrives, they can take solace in the fact his next project - the “lunatic action film” mentioned above - sounds as eccentric as they come.
“It’s a crazy, crazy WAS it mass support that prevented Campus SuperStar finalist Renfred Ng from winning the MediaCorp TV Channel U singing quest on Sunday? After all, his family was rumoured to be trying very hard to generate votes for him.
Such speculation intensified when Renfred managed to remain in the competition even as other arguably better-performing ones were eliminated.
Last week, TODAY even received an email from someone claiming to be an acquaintance of Renfred’s family who had helped in the voting.
She wanted to “confirm the speculation” as she “felt very bad that Renfred will be the Campus SuperStar because we decided that he should be there.”
And until the end of the second round of the guys’ finals, it was indeed Renfred who led in the number of phone votes, despite the fact the judges’ nod had gone to competitor Ng Chee Yang.
But Chee Yang eventually emerged as the guys’ champ, taking 53.7 per cent of the vote. He then went on to trump female champ Teresa Tseng with an even bigger margin of 61 per cent.
When asked about the speculation and how much he had spent on voting through action movie where a guy’s in an alleyway delivering a baby in the opening scene and everyone’s shooting at him,” he said.
“And she gets it and he ends up with a baby that everybody’s after. “Paul Giamatti is the chief baddie on my case and Monica Bellucci” - Owen paused while vainly attempting to suppress laughter - “is a lactating hooker that I hook up with along the way.”
Will Owen’s daughters be getting a look at that one? “Not a chance,” he said with a wry smile.
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