Remember your mobile phone! Why?

 Remember your mobile phone when you leave home, or leave a restaurant or the car. Why?

If you leave it at home, as a member of my family did yesterday:

1 You cannot phone the family when you are out to say when you will be back.

2 You cannot phone your meeting to tell them you will be late, but are on your way.

3 You cannot take photos for holiday souvenirs or business records, eg visiting a tenant's flat to do an inventory.

4 You cannot pay car parking charges at a train station or UK street which are set up to let you pay by phone and are decreasingly allowing pay with physical money such as notes of coins. (They must have found it too much trouble to pay somebody to go round collecting the money. Or had theft by the empolyeee. Or theft from the machine.

I googled and on Reddit I found three suggestions for those who forget their phone when it is set up in a car for receiving mesages and using it for Satnav.

Leaving Phones In Cars - Remedies/Reminders

1 Place your phone on the driver's door side in a car rather than in the centre.

2 Connect to your Apple watch.

3 Use Wave to alert you to check for a child when getting out of a car.

Leaving Phone On Desks/Tables

Have a bright phone cover or lanyard.

Leaving phone at home

Photograph your phone with another phone. If you have two phones this can be done wuickly. Send it to your laptop or office computer.

Print a picture of your phone and stick it on the back of the front door.

Useful Websites

Please share links to your favourite posts on this blog and my other blogs. 

Come to Singapore in August And Take Pictures - Singapore's National Day Flags are still Flying

Flag of Singapore.

Singapore's National Day is August 9th but a Singaporean told me that the flags and banners are up until the end of the month. That is good news, for fun and photography. So you can enjoy all the flags and banners throughout August, this year, next year, every year. Many people visit Singapore in August, which is peak travel time because in the UK, Europe and worldwide it is summer holiday from schools and colleges and universities. Singapore is a popular stopover between the UK and Australia and New Zealand and the reverse direction.

I left Singapore for England the day before National Day, but the flags had been on sale and I bought some in Daeso, the Japanese shop where everything costs only two dollars, for the meeting of my Toastmasters club, Braddell Heights Advanced speakers' club, where I am the President.




Here are some of my favourite photos:
Flags galore from a housing estate (HDB - Housing Development Board), opposite Redhill MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station.


Rows of flags on bunting.

The white crescent and five white stars.

The Merlion, head of a lion, a symbol of Singapore. The name Singapore is derived from Singa pura, lion city. Lion or tiger?  But there are no longer any lions. The last lion, or tiger, the story goes, was shot under the table in Raffles Hotel.

I saw more flags in a private condo, Cashew Heights, where residents own or rent apartments around a central swimming pool. The main clubhouse building has flags on both sides of the balconies.


Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Around the condo pool, even the little barbecue buildings are decorated. Each one has its own flag.

BBQ with Singapore flag in August after National Day.

What you will see on the internet or next time you visit:
1 The parade past the padang (central grassy area, like the city's bigger version of the old village green). Patriotic residents waving flags and children and adults with their faces painted with the flag.
2 Fly-past of aircraft creating red and white of the Singapore flag in the sky. Watch the Mexican wave - in Singapore known as the Padang wave, created by each line of people standing and sitting down in turn creating a visual wave effect.
3 Speeches by VIPs.
4 Fireworks displays.


Singapore Flag On A Car, for National Day, August 9 and all August. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

All August
You will see the flags flying, fluttering in the breeze, on public and private buildings. If you take a bus you will pass huge signs on the huge community housing estates.

Even the cars are flying flags from the wing mirrors. The flags can be attached to the window or wing mirror.

Buy Singapore flags from Daeso.
Or online from Ebay.

My Singapore hat was bought from the YWCA for only five Singapore dollars.

Useful Websites
singaporeair.com
daeso.com
ebay.com
amazon.com
ywca
Toastmasters International find a club
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/national-day-parade-1966-10-things-about-the-inaugural-parade
https://www.wiki+singapore+national+day
National Day song on Youtube with many singers of different ages and races.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZyiSEyx_Kg

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is English, British, and has family in the UK and Singapore.

What You Learn At Swanwick Writers' Summer School

Problem
The Swanwick Writer's Summer School week is over and time to look back at what we have learned and what to do differently.

Other people at a conference often seem to be in groups of friends. Don't sit alone. Ask if you can join a group. If they are saving a chair for a friend, find another group.

Answers
If you are in the main house, work out how the showers operate. The pull cord, which in most places brings the emergency warden to open the door and rush into the shower to rescue you, at Swanwick turns on the shower which I thought had broken.

Tips
If there's no shower gel in the shower, but a dispenser by the wash basins, use an empty shower gel bottle to fill up with soap from the wash basin area for your shower.

If you are a speaker, or part of a group putting on a play or musical, practise:
1 Voice projection - can every member of your group be heard at the back of the hall.
2 In a cabaret type performance, plan to bow at the end - even if other acting groups do not.
3 Make sure all speakers repeat questions from the audience before answering.
4 Take photos and names and addresses of those with whom you share the stage.

For story tips, see next post.
http://www.swanwickwritersschool.org.uk
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have more posts on Swanwick Writers Summer School. Please share links to your favourite posts.