When Singaporeans take foreigners out for a night on the town one activity is usually to make them try durian.

You see all those lights across the water? That's not Indonesia, those are all oil tankers.

- Marlon to me, while we were on a beach in Singapore at night, looking out at hundreds of lights along the horizon.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

- Teddy Roosevelt

We shall now have tea and speak of absurdities.

- Third Uncle from "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955)

I have begun to view men wearing jackets/blazers with shoulder pads in the same way as women who wear padded bras or "cutlets" inside their bras.

For a long time men have been enhancing their masculinity and image with clothing and armor. It's the same as women wearing makeup and making other adjustments to their appearance.

These practices are baked into our culture. People who don't follow don't get the same level of treatment.

At a business trip earlier this year in Egypt a man was asked why he was wearing a suit and tie even though it was hot and we were by the sea. He said that he's English, and dressing casual just means not polishing your shoes. It's an extreme example, but illustrates how tied we are to visual enhancements.

Raise the bar, don't close the bar.

S.M.