F1 and Men in the Street of Singapore

If it did not come from the horse's mouth, you'd thought that a out-of-touch-high-faluting soul said it.

Extracted from Straits Times [Link]: Pointing out that F1 was far from being an elite race, Mr Goh said that those who cannot afford the $8,500 Paddock Club seats have access as well via the general walkabout tickets, which went for as low as $28. 'So that way, the organisers have made a special provision for the man in the street,' he noted.

The walkabout tickets let a person stand at designated areas to watch the race and this year, for the first time, about 7,500 were sold at the discounted early-bird price of $28.

It's a bloody shame that the discounted early-bird price of $28 entitles one to watch nothing but merely hear engines roar. Pity the poor guy who wrote to ST Forum to complain that he's been conned.

No, F1 is not an elite race. Neither is football a gentlemen's game played by ruffians and rugby a ruffians' game played by gentlemen. Or is it? I'm of the opinion that there are gentlemen and ruffians in almost every sports and hypocrites in many politicians.


Living within my means and not having the luxury of SM Goh's connection and salary, I'm lucky to catch some of the F1 action at a coffeeshop TV by just buying a 90 cents kopi-c-siew-tai (black coffee with evaporated milk and not much sugar).

Yes, the man in the street did get a chance to watch the elites' sports but to use the $28 example was kinda dumb. To me, the live telecast would have been a better example.

I enjoyed the race. However, I find it odd that the PM of Singapore had the pathetic role of presenting the trophy to the winner. He looked as uncomfortable as he he did delivering the National Day Speech (with weird gesticulation). Wouldn't it be more appropriate if Vivian Balakrishnan or Teo Ser Luk did the job instead. At least they are sports related and look the part. Or like many others, has the PM's Office (highest office in the land?) sold out to commercialism too? F1 now. What next? Gambling dens? IRs?

Singapore's men in the street are getting confused with lots of things lately. They are trying hard to understand:

• Why income has stood still? Reduced with pay cut?
  
• Why cost of living is shooting through the roof? From food to HDB flat to transportation . . .
• Why lately, the embarrassing self-congratulatory news in msm of Temasek & GIC caliming to recover Singapore's lost treasures ( as in Citigroup, Barclays, ShinCorp, ABC, etc.)?
• Why foreign talents are no longer talents but victims of greedy employers and despots who refuse to let go?
• Why we can hardly breathe with a 4.9 million population that we did not have the pleasure to screw for?
  
• Why we continue to get skewed responses from MP where salary increase is highlighted without comparison to cost of living [UBS Survey Link]
  

  Not quite, says MP Seah Kian Peng, who also chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Community Development, Youth and Sports.
  'The figures may be right, but the conclusion could be wrong,' he notes.
  Rather than look at prices and wages in isolation, he says the key considerations should be: Do Singaporeans lead a better life than they did in the past, and are the poor taken care of?
  'If the answer to both is yes, then moving up or down two notches becomes mere semantics,' he says.
  He cites a recent government report which found that the salaries of the bottom 20 per cent of wage earners have risen. Their monthly wages increased from $1,200 in 2006 to $1,310 last year.

So why are men in the street so disillusioned?

Or is it just me?

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