20 grams of cocaine, a loaded Glock, $3,534 in cash found on drug runner

As I have mentioned before, I lost my cousin to drugs and that is why I have no remorse for drug suppliers, couriers, runners or whatever you call them. I read this article here where this fella was arrested for peddling meth and other illegal substances. Besides that, he was armed and most definitely dangerous. I hope this person is locked up for years to come so that he will think twice about this life of crime.

Deta bathroom exhaust fan

When I was in the UK, I noticed that many bathrooms, especially in the hotels I stayed in, had exhaust fans. These exhaust fans had a 20 minute timer built in them, meaning that they would come on after you put the light on and would go off 20 minutes after switching off the light…presumably after you had finished using the bathroom. I want to find a fan like this that has such a timer for my bathroom here. An exhaust fan would be excellent in removing moisture from the bathroom and getting my shower curtain dried faster. Time to start looking!

Brompton bike on a Singapore public bus

In Singapore, we are blessed with a very efficient public transport system. I have travelled to quite a few places with my folded Brompton bicycle. Look at the picture above. All SBS Transit buses come with a special bracket clamp that is used for prams. I have found out that after extending my seatpost, I can also clamp my Brompton bike into it. It sure beats standing next to the Brompton to prevent it rolling around.

Viocil blackcurrant lozenges

It was just my luck earlier this week to have the flu. I think I knew who I got it from as my wife and I both developed it after the CNY visit to his house. In any case, I went to the doctor the day before yesterday and he prescribed some medicine for this flu. These lozenges made by Viocil were included, along with some antihistamines and a foul-tasting cough mixture. As far as the lozenges were concerned, I find them quite pleasant to eat and the blackcurrant flavour really makes it tasty. I plan on getting some of these lozenges to keep at home that will help with sore throats and the like.

Multi-point natural gas water heaters

When I was in the United Kingdom about a week back, it was in full winter. Temperatures hovered around 0 degrees Celcius most of the time. That is why I was very grateful to these multipoint water heater that was in the place we lived in. These natural gas water heaters are similar to the on we have at home, except that this heater supplies hot water not only to the showers but to the water radiators located throughout the house. This water heater is a constant burning type and we activated it via a control panel on the wall adjacent to it. There is also a vent or flue that is connected to the outside of the house, letting the exhaust escape. Whenever we passed a house and saw steam coming out of a flue on the outside wall, we knew that the occupants were nice and warm inside!

Mira 723 shower mixer

While in the United Kingdom, I stayed in a hotel that had this shower mixer in the bathroom. I have never seen a shower mixer like this before and I was pretty intrigued. It was made by a company named Mira and it was quite old. Lots of places in the UK had very hot water supplied to the rooms (for the heaters and such) and the shower was very hot as well. You can see in this picture that the cold water was turned on to full but the water was still hot. At first, given its age, I thought that this shower mixer was faulty but it is just the supply of very hot water to the room. Interesting device. I wonder of they made iupdated versions to this model?

Passengers in India miss Scoot flight to Singapore that departed earlier

I read this article yesterday and I am not surprised about Scoot and their last minute changes. You can read something similar that happened to me when I took a bloody Scoot flight. The following is a copy from that article.

SINGAPORE — A Scoot flight that was headed towards Singapore from Amritsar, India, on Wednesday (Jan 18) departed four hours earlier, leaving 29 passengers behind.

Scoot said in reply to TODAY’s queries on Thursday that due to “inclement weather conditions affecting departures”, the flight was rescheduled to depart the Amritsar airport earlier at 3.45pm, instead of the original departure timing of 7.55pm, both in Amritsar’s time.

“Scoot is aware of an incident involving some passengers missing their Scoot flight, TR509, which operated from Amritsar to Singapore on Jan 18, 2023,” the airline added, saying 29 people were affected.

The subsidiary of Singapore Airlines also said that the 282 passengers who were booked for the flight were notified on Jan 15 through email or SMS, or both, where possible based on the contact details provided by the passengers.

However, an airport official told Asian News International, an Indian news agency, that a travel agent — who booked tickets for 30 people in a group — had not informed the passengers about the change in flight timings and the plane flew with the passengers who had reported on time.

Totally irresponsible by Scoot. The stranded passengers were probably texted at the very last minute, like we were!

3 or Three Networks prepaid card in the UK

When my wife and I landed in the UK last week, we installed the ICC cards that we bought in Singapore. Those ICC cards were on the 3 or Three Networks. Since I bought two of them, I installed one of them in my wife’s phone and the other one I installed in my TP-LINK 4G router. Imagine my surprise in the airport at Heathrow that I could not get a signal. Realising that I may have issues with the card I bought at ICC, I parted with 30 pounds and bought another prepaid card from a vending machine. When I installed that one in my 4G router, I had the same result…no signal.

Going into the web-page of the 4G router, I realised that I had a WCDMA signal which means that I was on 3G, and a very weak 3G reception at that. I was surprised. I thought that the airport, of all places, would have a strong 3G signal. I guess I was wrong. So what I did was to install the ICC 3 Networks SIM card in my phone and I was good to go. I guess that 4G router is not very good in dealing with WCDMA signals but I thought that since I had bought that card, I would leave it in my 4G router. So that is what we had: my wife’s phone and mine with the 3 Networks ICC card in our phones and the 3 Networks card I bought from the vending machine in the airport arrival hall installed in my 4G router.

Now here comes the funny part. Out of the airport and driving up to The Cotswolds, the signal in my router switched to 4G. I suppose that this 3 Networks card is really spotty in some places. I guess their 99% coverage that they tout is true but mostly 3G in country towns. But in the airport?

Drinking warm mulled wine on a winter evening

While staying in The Cotswolds, we went to the bar of our hotel. I saw that they were selling mulled wine. My wife and I have never tried it before so we decided to order a glass each and tried it. We immediately fell in love with it. We decided that we would make some for our own use when we got home. There are lots of recipes on the internet so I found one. Check it out here.

Prepaid power at the house I was staying in

I posted earlier that I stayed at my wife’s friends place, which was an ex-Council house, in the outskirts of London. When we stayed there, we told our friend that we would contribute in some way to the electricity of the house. He told us it was not needed but we insisted till he relented. So when I went to check on the meter to find out what the reading was, I found out that the house was using prepaid power. You can see the slot to the right of the meter where we insert a “key” to top up. What we did was to take the key and looked for an authorised agent that can insert credit into the key. In our case, it was a convenience store very close to the house that was an authorised top-up centre. Then we took the key back, plugged it into the meter and the credits transferred to the key at the shop were transferred into the meter, topping it up. It works in a similar fashion to topping up a prepaid SIM card on a phone.

The wiring there was pretty messy. I do not think that it would pass the strict standards here in Singapore as far as wiring is concerned. But it was an interesting experience as I had never topped up a prepaid meter before!