Christmas.

London.

Let me paint you the dismal picture. By December, all the leaves have fallen. The bare trees straggle up the streets like hairs in an unshaven armpit. London, denuded, becomes just row upon row of tall and tense tenements, cheek-to-jowl, shoulders hunched against the cold. By 3.30, it’s already getting dark. The wan grey light gives the whole of London a washed-out sepia look. It’s like being in a pre-war photograph. Pedestrians, shrunken and cringing and kitted up like members of Scott’s Antartica team, trudge past the pigeon-poo-speckled busts of broken-nosed monarchs nobody remembers. Flurries of snow settle onto their shoulders, like God’s dandruff…Although the English are more His Frozen than His Chosen People. Was I really going to have to spend the festive season in this mangy, stingy, armpit-odorous, dead-as-a-dodo, dull-as-a-ditch-water, grey and unpleasant little island? If life is a bed of roses, why did I have to stay in the compost?

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Kathy Lette

New York.

Christmas in New York.

But the city is seductive for more than the images massaged by Hollywood. Check out, the gigantic Christmas trees that seem to pop up in front of every monumental public building. The Rockefellar Center tree, casting an imposing shadow over an ice-skating rink, is by far the most famous. Traditionally culled from some generous soul’s backyard somewhere in New Jersey, the epic evergreen even comes with its charming-against-the-odds Christmas show, which generally features an American Idol winner and lots of tourists from the Midwest. Add to that the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, where the famed Rockettes kick up their heels to illegal heights, or for the more high falutin’, The Nutcracker Suite, twirled gorgeously every year by the New York City Ballet. Or perhaps Christmas in NewYork is so cool merely because of the fact that a white Christmas is possible.

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Laura Brown

It’s a Sunday evenin’, the bugs are buzzing around like there’s no tomoro. And I’m still in a post sleepy daze. It’s 7.37 pm, I still 23 mins for another menthol before sa pek & sa mm appears at 8. Ah mah, ku kong n the rest hv gone to The Ambassador for dinner. It’s a luxuy to hv time to myself. The wk has been so hectic, I’m grateful to be able to breathe. Menthol is fantastic. Especially wif strawberries, David Tao’s acoustic cd playin in the background, ice-cold water & Bazaar, dec issue. I couldn’t resist putting those 2 pieces up…Christmas is so close. And gosh, am absolutely ready for Christmas. The Christina Aguilera carols are gonna be playin on moi WMP soon enuf.

Had a talk wif mummy semalam. Am so lucky to hv such an open-minded, understanding mother. She rocks I tell ya!!

A big congrats to the ISC Executive committee for surviving this yr. We’ve all learnt so much and been thru so much, in a sense, I’m sad yet glad it’s over.

I am so glad to have discovered a family member of mine who’s on the same wavelength as I am!!! So, I am not that much of an outsider after all. Ku Kong (my grandma’s brother) is one of the most distinguished, intelligent, curious, open-minded people in my family that I have met. He’s about 70 plus and he can bloody speak jp, use the internet wif the ease & speed of a 16 yr old, understand the ideology of the young and is so witty; always throwing proverbs left & rite. Also, he’s my personal translator. Gosh, it’s awesome. I’ll be talking to ah mah (my grandma) and explaining to her I’m next yr’s isc convenor but um…as per usual I can’t find the rite words n ah mah’s pretty deaf so i’d be like ‘ku kong, how do u say president in mandarin, wat abt scholarship? Economy?’ hehe..it’s jus brilliant. The best part? He’s so encouraging…which is awesome cos my dad looks up to him…and I reckon ku kong is pretty cool wif me so, hehe, I now hv another positive opinion of the course I’m doing.

Oh man…close call!!thot I had another 23 mins for my menthol but they arrived home earlier than expected!! Freakin hell. Burnt my fingers in the process of clearing the ashtray & stubbing out the freshly lit one...this is indeed the grrr factor. Close call I tell ya. Good thing they were all partially drunk so everyone was in a happie mood. Ai ya.

Don Corleone: Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter's wedding day. - The Godfather

Current fave ads: Miu Miu (feat. Maggie Gyllenhaal), Calvin Klein collection (sigh, Natalia Vodianova always looks soo good) & Hugo Boss

Listenin' to: Confessions Part 2 & Over& Over