Tiger Airways would consider offering a 'standing-only' option

Source: Today

Budget airline Tiger Airways would consider introducing a "standing-only" option for passengers in a bid to lower airfares, according to reports.

The carrier said it could follow in the footsteps of United Kingdom budget airline Ryanair and introduce "vertical seating", reported news.com.au, an Australian news website. "We continue to look at ways of making our operation more efficient so we can offer even lower fares than we do now," Tiger Airways director Steve Burns was quoted as saying.

"Everything we do is about offering the lowest possible fare then allowing our customers to choose what, if any, extras they wish to pay for."

Mr Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, has proposed ideas include charging customers £1 ($2.10) to use the loo.

A standing area with "vertical seats" will be introduced at the back of its fleet of 250 planes, The Daily Telegraph has reported.

However, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said the plans would struggle to meet safety requirements.

Spokesman Simon Westaway for another airline, Jetstar, said the airline would never contemplate vertical seating or charging passengers to use the bathroom, news.com.au reported. "A lot of Jetstar destinations are over two hours and longer, so the stand up seating idea doesn't register on our radar. We have a completely different business model to Ryanair," he was quoted as saying.

"It's an interesting concept but I can't see how this would fly in our part of the world."

Capello and numbers

England were utterly destroyed, and personally im least surprised. although i was impressed by their qualifying campaign, which was nowhere like the disastrous one for Euro 08, England never looked like it was in South Africa to win. they were ridiculous in the warmup friendlies, played almost amateur football against Algeria, and rarely communicated to the world they had a teamsheet boasting Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson.

quoting an AFP story:

"Germany's pace, fitness and energy levels were key to their last-16 victory in Bloemfontein, with manager Joachim Loew speculating later that younger players were better able to recover from a long season.

Now England must search out new, young, talent...

The view in the camp is that only a handful of [U-21] players are anywhere near ready for promotion and England's best hopes lie in the under-17 squad which recently beat Spain in the European Championships but are years away from selection for the senior squad.

Quite what Capello can do until those players miraculously arrive is hard to fathom."

in that same story, this was what Fabio Capello claimed:

"The big problem for us is only 38 percent of players in the Premier League are English. In other countries it is 68, 69 or 70 per cent.

Clubs do produce young players. But some are Welsh, some are Irish, some are the others. They are not English but they play in the Premier League.

It can happen suddenly, though. When I was director of the academy at Milan we produced seven players who played for AC Milan. Now, no-one. It is the same for Manchester United. You have to be lucky sometimes. At some moments players come, at others nothing.

Against us Germany played four foreign players. Double passports. And they did not produce good players for a long time.

We hope to find the same in England. But you have to understand in Germany there are 80 million people."

that was terrible judgment, Signore Capello. maybe it was your PR manager, i dont know. you see, Euro champs Spain has about the same population as England, albeit less. semi-finalists Holland, which have won its last 13 competitive matches, only has 16 million. the other semi-finalists Uruguay has a mere 3.5 million, while the minnows you beat 1-0 seems like a kampong at just 2 million.

Interview with local actress Chen Liping for Channel 8 drama Unriddle

<br /> <a href="http://video.xin.msn.com/?mkt=en-sg&vid=&from=sp&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Chen Liping loses weight for new action show 陈莉萍为动作戏减肥">Video: Chen Liping loses weight for new action show 陈莉萍为动作戏减肥</a>

Two buses and a 12-hour shift to be part of history

the best YOG story from Alan Harris, the IOC Young Reporter from Barbados and also winner of the Steve Parry Prize.
 
SINGAPORE - He takes two buses every morning to keep the Youth Olympic Village clean.

Cheng Chuan, a Malaysian, journeys daily from his home country to the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore to sweep, mop and pick up the garbage left by the more than 5,000 athletes and officials of the first-ever Youth Olympic Games.

He rises at 2:30 a.m., seven days a week, without fail.

His commitment to his job, be it of necessity, is simply unwavering.

After a quick cup of tea, he leaves his wife of 25 years and his teenage daughter in bed in their one bedroom wooden dwelling in Jahar Bharu, Batu Pahat – a small province in the southeast of Malaysia.

At 3:45 a.m., he takes a bus to Singapore where on his arrival, he spends one hour, never less, in Singaporean customs.

At 5:45 a.m., he then takes another bus to the YOV where he reports to work, never late, for a shift starting at 7.

Cheng, 48, is a small man in stature but a great man within.

He is often, almost always, bypassed in the chaos which is the YOV. Nevertheless, he sees his job as one of importance. “You want to hear my story?” he said, ashamed of his broken English.

"[This is]... my first time working at [the] university but it is a good experience for me. I can see a lot of friends and they are very good to me.”

He said that despite being obscure in the realm of the Olympic movement, he was honored to be part of sporting history.

"My job is the same as everyone else,” he said as he broke into a smile, clearly happy that someone had taken the time to ask.

"This is the first time that [the Youth Olympic] Games are in Singapore and I am glad to be here. I come, do my job, and I am part of history.”

The job he speaks of lasts 12 hours.

He leaves the hustle and bustle of the YOV at 7 p.m. and repeats the journey back to Malaysia, to his beloved wife and daughter.

Rest assured, he will be back again tomorrow morning – mopping, sweeping and cleaning, doing it all with a smile.

When the Youth Olympic Games have passed, there is a good chance that not a soul will remember Cheng Chuan. However, he will remember them, and for him, that is justice served.

Safe travels, Cheng.

Young Reporter brouhaha

thoughts from Day 10, at the Youth Olympic Village.

1. my profile feature on Yelena Isinbayeva was presented to her to bring back to Russia woohoo! and i thanked her personally on behalf of the Young Reporters Program for coming to speak to us.
2. i utterly hate it when im treated like a second-class citizen in my own country. the retarded yog-ers check my (and only my) accreditation at almost every roadblock simply because i (1) look local and (2) am not doing their lousy job.
3. among the YRs are Africa's 4th-ranked badminton player, a former national tennis player for India, a national handball player of Latvia, and France's 400m runner at Beijing 2008. smlj. 
4. one of the most enduring and cross-boundary moments this YOG for me was being in a YOG bus full of Africans from Equatorial Guinea while the bus uncle had 958FM's retro Mandopop hits playing the whole way. 
5. as much as he appreciates it, four-time Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks of Namibia doesn't like people coming up to say he's already a champion despite everything. respect and honour the real winner, he said, it's their time now, they worked even harder to get that gold. coming from countries like USA doesn't make them less deserving - Namibia has 2 million people, USA has 310. 
6. Tracey called me "a gifted writer". :)
7. like ive told some of the rest, maybe YRP should have tribal councils like Survivor.
8. football choked again. lost 2-0 to underdogs Haiti, who were whipped 9-0 by Bolivia.
9. unwell and sick of YOG, i finally went home today, and did two of the things i had most looked forward to - eat some real Singapore food, and cut my nails.

Young Reporter brouhaha

thoughts from Day 2, at the Youth Olympic Village.

1. im trying to be a good host. i hope the foreign Young Reporters open up more. 
2. it seems like other than Luke and Nick, every other Young Reporter speaks at least two languages.
3. Journalism Mentors: Alan Abrahamson, award-winning sports and investigative journalist, and co-author of Michael Phelps' 2008 bestseller. Lucia Montanarella, head, ONS, Torino 2006, and first female press chief, Vancouver 2010.
   
4. Photography Mentor: Peter Charles, veteran of eleven Olympics, and winner of multiple world photography awards.
5. Broadcast Mentors: Richard Palfreyman, press chief, Sydney 2000, and press consultant, Athens 2004, Torino 2006, Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010. Tracey Holmes, veteran of eight Olympics, and Australia's first female host of a national sports programme.
   
6. press conference with one of the biggest figures in sports, Jacques Rogge. mindblowing.
7. witnessed Alan interview Seb Coe 'live'. mindblowing.
8. to my surprise, for an assignment i messed up, Alan told me im a good writer. not just in the writing sense, but journalistic sense, he said. among others, he described me as fluid, fluent and vivid. he added those are "super compliments" (for all his journalistic prowess, he's extremely fond of the cliched "super"). i am deeply honoured.
   
9. Richard and Tracey liked my radio story. :)
10. im starting to really really respect the YOG volunteers. no joke.

Young Reporter brouhaha

thoughts from Day -2, and my first day, at the Youth Olympic Village:

1. i had always imagined how it would be like to live in the Grad Hall. now it's become reality. single room, aircon and personal toilet. some more got housekeeping. like hotel sia.
2. a trip on the village shuttle bus is a mindfuck cos got so many different languages and smells.
3. Western Europe and Central Asia produce the most beautiful people in the world. France, Italy, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Egypt. ah, why was i born here.
4. angmoh girls always seem to look good on tv but not in person. nope i no longer believe in that.
5. Uruguayans take 38 (freaking) hours to reach here.
6. excuse me you guys dont look 14, 15, 16, 17 or 18.
7. sports makes you hot, period.
8. today i was led around a campus i know better by an angmoh IOC guy. wtf.
9. the international cuisine buffet dining hall is overrated. fabian, GG lah. ok but at least there's infinite coca cola and 100plus.
10. ive seen half a dozen Michael Phelps-lookalikes.
11. American blacks behave like hiphop artistes, Caucasians are noisy in a group, Russians look too serious, and Italians really speak like how we think they do, hand gestures all.
12. Singapore as an event organiser is not as efficient as we think. and many of the volunteers are inept. or maybe it's just NTU. fuck.
13. today i made friends from Senegal, Latvia, Fiji, Mauritius, the US, Israel, Taiwan, Qatar, Canada, Thailand and the omnipresent China.

by a twist of fate, i only received your postcard from vietnam a few days back.

apparently, it belonged to the fateful month of May. it is now August and things are very different.

when i held it, there was such a surreal myriad of emotions. i was transported back to a time - now already a distant blur - when we were still together. when love was a constant and a given, when i called you girlfriend and 女朋友, when you could hold my hand, lie on my shoulder, and pout to me.

it lasted for all of a minute or two. but it was (very) surreal, and real. maybe it's testament to our relationship and the love shared. that was it. good memories. that's how i remember it by.

thank you, mabel. :)

Interview with local actress-model Paige Chua for Channel 8 drama Unriddle

<br/><a href="http://video.xin.msn.com/watch/video/another-paige-in-her-story/tne926tj?fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Another Paige in her story">Video: Another Paige in her story</a>

three

after a long time of a non-existent cinema-going habit, three movies in three straight days, and with the best company i could ask for, i never felt tired through the hours sitting there.

Salt, in JB, with the CS bros + danielle. what a fantastic seafood dinner there too!

Au Revoir Taipei, with jang dear.

Inception (finally), with Jagerbomb.

Interview with local actress Rui En for Channel 8 drama With You

<br/><a href="http://video.xin.msn.com/?mkt=en-sg&vid=&from=&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Rui En felt like throwing up from crying too much! 瑞恩&#65306;拍哭戏拍到想要吐">Video: Rui En felt like throwing up from crying too much! 瑞恩&#65306;拍哭戏拍到想要吐</a>

Interview with local actor Chen Hanwei for Channel 8 drama With You

<br/><a href="http://video.xin.msn.com/?mkt=en-sg&vid=&from=&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Chen Han Wei wants to be a director! 陈汉玮想退幕后导演">Video: Chen Han Wei wants to be a director! 陈汉玮想退幕后导演</a>