Talking Cock

A comedy about the lives of ordinary Singaporeans that celebrates Singlish culture.
"Talking cock" is the act of engaging in idle banter or perhaps more literally "talking nonsense"; a common phrase in Singlish.

 

Almost two hundred years ago, an Englishman by the name of Stamford Raffles landed on the shores of Singapore and the rest, shall we say, is history. A decade ago, another Englishman came to Singapore and left behind a wholly different kind of legacy.

"Notes from an even Smaller Island", "Scribbles from the Same Island" and "Final Notes from a Great Island" are three widely-acclaimed offerings by Neil Humphreys detailing his own Singapore story of a man who came, who saw and who fell in love with the tiny tropical nation.

 

Neil Humphreys left Dagenham, England, in 1996. He got as far as Toa Payoh, Singapore, and decided the rest of the world could wait. He has published three best-selling works: Notes from an Even Smaller Island (2001), Scribbles from the Same Island (2003) and Final Notes from a Great Island: A Farewell Tour of Singapore (2006). You can read all three in this omnibus edition.

 

But that's not all: he even made a movie, "Talking Cock", which, thanks to YouTube, you can enjoy full-length right here but, please, read the book's foreword first.

 

If one thing is perfect in Singapore, it's the government's surveillance system which seems to have driven www.TalkingCock.com off the internet; however, some pages are preserved at web.archive.org.

 

But why stop with three books? After five years chasing echidnas and platypuses in Australia, Neil Humphreys returns to Singapore to see if the rumours are true that the island has transformed itself and got sexier while he's been away. The result is "Return to a Sexy Island: Notes from a New Singapore".

 

 

I've always had a soft spot for Singapore ever since those halcyon days when my Saudi boss would send me off to spend Christmas and New Year in Singapore's most famous hotel, the Raffles, which, as W. Somerset Maugham wrote, "stands for all the fables of the exotic East.".

 

Reading Somerset Maugham in the Palm Court

Rutsch ins Neue Jahr

Ensconced in the Somerset Maugham Suite

Yours truly downing the first of many Singapore Slings at the Raffles

 

How better to celebrate than with Ngiam Tong Boon's Singapore Sling?

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. Can't get enough of it? Here's another great movie set in Singapore of the 1970s: "Saint Jack". To read the book by Paul Theroux, click here.