Curling is a very very old game and was invented by bored Scottish weavers throwing their loom stones down frozen lochs in the 16th century. One can only assume alcohol was involved.

Today it is a serious sport with important championships, a place at the Olympics, and a miasma of rules and regulations. Not as sexy as hockey, it is its laconic little brother. As I write, the World Curling Federation ranks Canada first in both teams. Not to worry: Switzerland holds a totally respectable 2nd place (women) and 5th place (men). This is entirely due to the lack of Scottish roots in Switzerland.

One memorable winter I was skip of my high school curling team. I wore my stretchy nylon ski-pants, snow boots with lots of socks, and a thick woolen sweater knit by my grandmother back in the Old Country. It even had a maple-leaf motif. Training took place at the local skating rink. The ice was smooth–chipped here and there from a previous hockey match or free-skating session.

Men Curling in Toronto 1909
The broom back then was not the straw broom of pioneer days, but a special curling broom made with a bunch of long stiff hairs. For me, it was entirely a fashion accessory, as everyone knew that it did absolutely nothing except get bits of powdered ice or the occasional cigarette butt or bottle cap out of the way of the majestically moving unstoppable stone.

Years later the broom was replaced by the legendary Rink Rat, and then a sort of floor scrubber, and now, as I’m sure you are aware, high technology has invaded the pitch, and controversy is swirling in the curling world.

This concerns the new-fangled specialized IcePad broom being made by two Canadian companies. It contains directional fabric, and really helps control the path of the stone. The players who dislike it (or are jealous of it) say that it takes away from the skill of the thrower and the athletic brushing techniques of the conventional sweepers.

As the winter 2016 curling season begins, the World Curling Federation has been asked to take a stand and has recently brought in a few tough new rules concerning championship curling brooms: They cannot be waterproof, they cannot contain stiffening inserts, and you have to be able to buy them at your local hardware store.

At the moment it’s Rocket Science 0 / The Luddites 1.

On Friday November 13th a few hours before the Paris massacre a more innocent me wrote the text that follows. Then, I had thought Singapore’s social fears and archaic laws to be both naïve and ludicrous.
As the world weeps for Paris, a shift has occurred, and this little island’s formula for order – extreme cultural and religious tolerance combined with outlandishly draconian laws – now strikes me as considerably less foolish than it did two days ago.

Diwali began a few days back in Singapore. What a lovely surprise. Who would have thought that the Indian Festival of Lights would be a national holiday here? I’ve checked and Buddha’s birthday, Christmas, Good Friday, the end of Ramadan and the end of the Hajj are also official days off work. Chinese New Year gets two days off, normal New Year one, and there is Labour Day, National Day, Election Day and any other days the President wants. How lovely that a panoply of gods is appeased.

However, on such loose and unshaped days other rules apply, and one must be very very careful out and about in public places.

False urban legends abound. For example, it is commonly thought that the act of chewing gum is prohibited in Singapore. This is not true. Smuggling gum into the country gets you a year in jail and a $5,500 fine. If you can fashion your own gum in situ, then, in theory, you can chew away.

Vandalism is another no-no. And thank goodness. No graffiti, no litter, no cigarette butts, no unsightly signs on public property. However, if your cat wanders off and in sentimental shock you post his photo, an explanation, and your telephone number in your local park, you are looking at a potential $2,000-fine, 3-8 strokes of the cane and three years in prison. Fortunately, those of us over-50s are exempt from the flogging bit.

And then there’s the public transportation system with its no-drinking, no-eating, no breast-feeding rules. This is so no one slips and hurts themselves on spilled victuals. Probably best to keep the very young and the very old at home as spitting, vomiting, and forgetting to flush the toilet are also punishable public blunders.

In a popular restaurant at the tail-end of the Diwali holiday I overheard a conversation somehow connecting Singapore and North Korea. At that specific moment the man had in front of him a giant Häagen Dazs concoction—a tower of crêpes, ice-cream balls, whipped cream, sticky sauces, and sprinkles.

What a silly pudding! Everyone knows that they don’t have fancy ice cream parlours in North Korea. And if the Treason Police had overheard him he could have been detained without trial indefinitely.

I really do love this brave new world that is Singapore. With nary a cop in sight, I have a feeling that the dramatic laws are there to keep any potential tourist louts in line and to add a frisson of excitement for the rest of us. My Swiss half is in thrall at the litter-less streets, the spic-and-span sidewalks, and the graffiti-free walls. It was truly shocked when a very small dog on a rhinestone leash publicly peed in the botanical garden under the canna leaves.

My Canadian half, on the other hand, has a bit of a hankering after a spot of j-walking over to the 7/11 with a chewing tobacco chunk in my cheek. In this orderly, prosperous, utopic city state I have a small theory that John Savage might be lurking somewhere in the lilies.

Things are definitely looking up. I’ve just received an invitation to go to a Hallowe’en party. Well, not exactly a personal invitation; it is taped onto the garbage container over the road and invites the whole entire village. Not only will there be an exciting costumed ball, but also a Canadian buffet.

Hallowe’en is a new invention in Switzerland. When I arrived in 1977 there was not a Candy Kiss in sight, and hollow Jack o’ Lantern pumpkins were not available. I had to buy an entire solid cooking pumpkin that weighed about 15 kilos and scrape it out. There were no witches, goblins, or ghosts roaming the streets. We had to do it all in-house with a select Japanese friend from the local primary school and some bed sheets. The pumpkin was carved with great care and difficulty and the candle lit to keep the spooks away for another year.

I rather enjoyed the exclusivity of my own cultural identity. I made the connection to All Saints Day of November 1st and the chrysanthemums on family tombstones—which I considered a much more sober and mature soothing of the spirits. However, I perked up with Escalade just a few weeks later, which fulfilled the Hallowe’en ritual entirely – a child’s event celebrated with disguise, ringing the neighbours’ doorbells, a song, and candy treats.

Now the second element of the tempting village Hallowe’en party invitation, the “buffet Canadien,” is quite another matter. When I first encountered this in Switzerland, I thought it was some sort of delightful smorgasbord of Canadian foods – pancakes with maple syrup, moose-burgers, and boxes of fresh Tim Horton doughnuts. Well, this is not the case. It’s the old dreaded pot-luck supper which is traditionally a wicked thing.

Back in Canada, my father’s church would run a “pot-luck social” every now and then to cheer everyone up in the wintertime, and hungry as I always was, you had to be very very careful. My mother had an ingrained fear of casseroles (you never knew what was in them) and a pot-luck supper was Casserole City: spam, tuna, corned beef, cabbage, and potato were all there featuring confusingly differing colours and textures. Vegetables were salads with peas hanging suspended in lime-green jelly. Pies were raisin and apple and lemon meringue. The adults drank weak coffee and the children drank milk.

I met my first olive at a pot-luck social and was horrified at the unfriendly unknown taste. I thought my mother’s predictions were going to come true and death was imminent.

If I go to the village Hallowe’en party, I sure know what I’m going to take. And it won’t be olives.

I’ve just been asked to prove that I am alive. I have until the end of the month.

I thought I had done this at the beginning of the summer by signing a form with my very own signature swearing I was alive, dating the document, putting my return address on the back of the envelope, and mailing it back. Any run-of-the-mill forensics expert could have checked the DNA and fingerprints. Don’t these people watch NCIS? Anyway, spit and handwriting were not good enough; they need official civic proof—a witnessed signature, a passport, and the village/community stamp.

My husband (who is much much older than I) was smugly satisfied with this nasty turn of events. He has NEVER been asked to prove that he was alive. He says it is to prevent dishonest relatives of dead people from collecting their pensions.

Well, I don’t know who would want my tiny little miniscule early-retirement pension (I am nowhere near old enough for the proper state pension), but it has caught someone’s administrative eye, and I feel a bit like Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral though I don’t quite know why.

However, upon checking, I see that there are some grizzly shenanigans going on all around us—hundreds of thousands of ghost pensioners have been dug up, so to speak, in southern Europe, Uganda, and Pakistan. I wonder where they put all the bodies? There are only so many closets to be sealed off, walls to be doubled, freezers to be filled, or compost heaps to be plumped up. Don’t doctors miss their elderly patients? I found myself in a medical waiting room yesterday and everyone seemed to be about 120 years old, wearing hand-knit sweaters, fumbling with canes, glasses, and elevator buttons.

So, anyway, wishing to remain in the land of the officially living for a while yet, I went round to the village hall and got an official Life Certificate. I asked the secretary if she wanted to touch my arm to make sure I wasn’t a Whitney Houston-type hologram. She didn’t think I was funny and gave me an elaborate hand-written receipt for my 5 francs.

A small price to pay for living proof.