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Meatopia Mecca (okay one of my many "Mecca"s).

It's usually not long before people notice that I like food. And there are so many places around the world to which I feel I need to make a pilgrimage at least once in my life.

A friend in New York told me about Meatopia last year and yesterday it just randomly entered my mind. The site for this year's event is still under construction but I thought I'd give my American readers a heads up. (Or I suppose any brethren pilgrims from around the world). Speaking of which, it's probably time for another order from the Hunks in London. I've just noticed that they've added lamb to their offerings. Wooh Hooh!

If you have any thoughts of places that I should visit for the food, please drop me an email. Andrea@boileddown.me

Nigerian-Style scam letter - A physical letter complete with a self-adhered British stamp!

Last night I went back to my old flat to pick up my post and in amongst the boring bills and marketing bumpf was this marvellous letter. PDF version.

I thought these letters were long dead!(Or living as zombies in our junk email folders). But alas, I've now had the honour of receiving an old school scam. In 2012!

It's incredible that there are still enough greedy and gullible people to make it worthwhile for shady people to take the time and money (1st class stamps and nice envelopes) to do this. I mean "Brian" even personalised the letter...though I have to say it's strange choice of first name (Hamman) for the dude who supposedly shares the same last name with me.

Nigerian Style Scam Letter

How much does it cost to buy a car in Singapore? The permit alone now costs up to £45,000.

After being asked about chewing gum, caning and whether it is as clinically boring as everyone says it is, often the next thing people want to know about Singapore is how much does it cost to buy an average house or car. Well...

I found out last night that it now costs between £32,000 and £45,000 to buy the certificate (it expires after 10 years) that permits you to buy a car. Yes, you need a permit to be allowed to buy a car. And you then need another permit to keep your 10 year old car.

Singapore has one of the best public transport systems in the world (or so I heard from Top Gear). The problem is that heat and humidity Sinagpore often makes it difficult to get to the train station or bus stop in the afternoon without being soaked in sweat (at least for me). But I guess at these prices, it may be cheaper to take a taxi everywhere.

Anyway, here are the prices of the permits:

A	B	C	D	E
S$64,201	S$91,000	S$57,589	S$1,924	S$92,010

And here's a link if you're interested in finding out various car prices in Singapore.

For example a Toyota Prius is around S$168,988 and a Mini Cooper S Countryman appears to be S$190,800 (in the UK starts at £22,670 so even if you included all the trimmings and road tax etc., one would struggle to get anywhere close to that ridiculous price).

But the most ridiculous thing about buying a car with any speed or power in Sinagpore is that the speed limit is 55 miles per hour with nowhere to go.

Exchange rate today is about £1 = S$2, US$1 = S$1.25

Category

A (1600cc and below), taxi

B (1601cc and above)

C (Goods Vehicle and Bus)

D (Motorcycles)

E (Open)

The tenderness of juggling Kettlebells - Undermän by Cirkus Cirkör

Last week I went to a circus show that was a little different. It featured 3 strong guys (you know the "undermen" who usually lift the light agile acrobats) telling a sweet tale of how they found and lost love. It was a performance about dreams, loneliness and moving on with the help of some friends, all told with a warm and playful sense of humour.

But also they flipped kettlebells! I wondered a) how many people in the audience have used kettlebells and know that they are deceptively much heavier than they look b) Just how heavy these ones were

So I checked at the end of the show, 2 of the kettlebells were 32kg and 1 was a measely 28kg. You get the briefest glimpse of the flipping at the 1:12 mark of the trailer below. 

Here's the trailer:

And if you fancy watching the whole show on video (not sure how well it translates to the small screen) The Guardian has a recording of the show.

Are we what we choose? Perhaps not entirely, but nevertheless...

I like thinking about how we choose, why we choose and the impact of our choices. At some point I'll get round to commenting on a book I read last year called The Tyranny of Choice. But for now, here's something not just about our kinds of choices but the kindness of our choices.

Jeff Bezos speaks very slowly in this speech so here's an edited version of his speech: Full transcript here.

As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old.

At that age, I'd take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I'd calculate our gas mileage -- figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I'd been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can't remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I'd come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, "At two minutes per puff, you've taken nine years off your life!"

I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. "Jeff, you're so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division." That's not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!

Mwahahaha like mother, like daughter? The laughing infection.

I'm back! A combination of going to Nigeria (my first time in Africa) for work (sadly lots and lots of work and almost no play), moving house and just generally being away meant that I struggled to get enough motivation to blog. Then I suppose the old fears of expressing myself badly started to creep back...Anway, I've now once again extended the generosity I usually give to others to myself (see video).

After all, it seems that laughing is in my genes (a friend was incredulous when I told him that I almost never laugh at work, he was convinced that I was a permanent ball of tickled chuckles) because I found out yesterday that my mother won a laughing competition on the radio in Singapore! The DJs apparently played her giggle throughout the day - how hilarious. Go mum!

American Football: From a 1903 video of college football to today (literally).

Today was my second attempt at chucking a football about...my hands aren't exactly girly but they're still too small to grip the ball properly, which makes hurling the damn thing really quite difficult. I guess I'll never be Tom Brady; or a wide reciever either because while my hands aren't girly, my catch certainly is.

Nevermind, it was still a mighty fine sunny Sunday in London to be tossing balls around in the nearby park.

Here's a marvellous video of a game that looks more like Pile-On! than today's American football. 

via Kottke

Our legacy - how we change the lives of others without even knowing it.

I often struggle to sleep at night because of a deep fear that my existence has been, and will be, for nothing - that I have entered the world, contributed nothing significantly positive and then died - a mere consumer of the world's resources.

My head is frequently in overdrive trying to figure out solutions to the world's injustices, inequalities, inefficiencies...and every little ugh that I'm too ineffectual to solve (or just lazy to doing something about), I see as a personal failing. And of course most problems are far beyond my capabilities so I'm aware that what I'm doing is about as effective as chewing bubblegum to solve algebra equations.

And so how dare I take the time to lounge about with the ones I love when there's so many terrible plights to help fix?

Someone once very close to me screamed (softly and choked with tears) how hurt he was that I just couldn't see how I had changed his life so significantly and he added that he found it incredibly painful that I continue my neverending quest whilst oblivious to the gratitude from those around me.

You'd think that such a moment would have a profound impact on me. But it turns out my stubborness knows no bounds and I continued my pursuit of leaving a legacy. I heard his words and understood it rationally but I didn't feel what he meant.

I don't know why but watching this video by random chance whilst doing a menial task at work today was the nudge that finally made me feel those words from a few years ago.

Maybe we should take the time to thank those who have impacted our lives.

And remember that every tiny kind act that we do each day, which seems insignificant and forgettable, may have a further reaching impact than we will ever know.

A (quiet) bitter bray for Brady - Superbowl sadness.

I struggled to stay awake for my first live Superbowl last night and what a crushing finish - the last few minutes were almost too painful to watch.

I'm (rather worryingly?) morphing into a sports fan it seems. Anyway, hope the rest of the sporting year (other than the NFL) is more joyous.