Famous People That Know People We Know,
or Our Two Degrees of Separation From Various Household Names
One night Glor and I were watching Singapore Idol when Gloria mentioned that her friend Jenny knew long-haired braces guy, and various other not-so-obviously-noticeable contestants. Seems it's true that there are only 2 degrees of separation between Singaporeans. For fun, Glor and me decided to make a list of all the famous people that know people that we know. It's actually quite a respectable list.
We've only included famous people who would actually recognise the name of the person that we know; as in, if you said, 'Do you know Jonathon Lim?' to Hossan Leong, he would say, 'Of course! How is he, anyway?', hopefully with a smile. I've taken 'two degrees' to mean 'friend of a friend/relative' such that there is only one person who is the intermediary between the famous person, and us ('Glor, Tor and Family').
The threshold of famousity we've used for this list is name-recognition by the average person on the street. Therefore, worthy candidates such as 'guy from Electrico' (our friend KC's friend) have been rejected in favour of Cheryl Fox, and people who I believe to be flashes in the pan like Joanne Peh (my friend Sheena's ex-coursemate) have been left out to make space for old stalwarts like Patricia Mok. However, people who have been in the news recently for some reason or other have also been included, based on the assumption that the man on the street reads The Straits Times headlines on most days. In other words, if I've never heard of them, they're not famous.
These days, every young singaporean who has appeared however briefly on some TV programme or commercial considers themselves famous! Why has fame become desirable in itself? Surely it can and should only be the result of being particularly oustanding in your chosen field? I know that's an old-fashioned view. I'm sure that it was possible, even before the advent of reality TV, to get (in)famous without being talented. Many generations of young starlets have proved this. But due to the phenomenon of programmes like Big Brother, people have been able to 'get famous' by doing absolutely nothing, on TV. We all know that is the sensationalism that sells. Everytime someone has sex in front of the camera they get famous. What is this celebration of the lowest common denominator, and why is it suddenly ok to be a voyeur? But enough of this rant, let's look at the list.
In no particular order, Famous People etc.:
1. Paul Twohill
Is Gloria's friend, Jenny's friend. Paul is a contestant on Singapore Idol and although he has not proved his staying power yet, he is included on the list since he's the one who started this whole thing.
2. Eunice Olsen
Is our aunt's friend's niece. She is a Nominated Member of Parliament, and the former co-host of the Singapore version of Wheel of Fortune. She was also Miss Singapore Universe 2000.
3. Patricia Mok
Is Gloria's friend's aunt. She is a Mediacorp actress who often appears in comedies. She used to be on Channel 8 (Chinese language channel) quite a lot but has now crossed over to Channel 5 (English language channel) and can be seen in the sitcom My Sassy Neighbour.
4. David Rasif
Sorry I can't find a picture.
Who? The local lawyer who absconded with S$10mil of his clients' money! The man whose actions, in my own opinion, was behind the comment MM LKY made in an interview for a Law Society publication, reported in the papers around National Day. He stressed that lawyers must safeguard their clients' money. Seems obvious, but does this spell a more thorough professional conduct syllabus for PLCers? Haha!
Q1. You have a million dollars of clients' money. What do you do with it?
A. Hold it on behalf of your client
B. Run away with it to a country which does not have an extradition treaty with SG.
C. Nothing because one million Sing dollars is too little and not worth the potential punishment if you are caught.
He used to live in the same kampung as our grandparents. This ostensibly passes our 'two degrees' test because I asked my grandmother if he would know who she is and she said yes. Anyway she knows his parents.
5. Chee Soon Juan
Is Gloria's friend's cousin. Dr Chee Soon Juan of the Singapore Democratic Party gained notoriety in the 2001 general election when he made defamatory remarks about then Prime Minister Goh and Senior Minister Lee. Not smart. He has been declared bankrupt (couldn't pay the damages) and we (Singaporeans as a whole) haven't really heard from him since then.
6. Hossan Leong
Knows a director I've worked for before, Jonathon Lim. I know they definitely know each other because they shared a stage for 'Hark the Jingle Red-Nosed Chestnuts', an annual christmas musical-parody. I worked for Chestnuts when I was in VJ and then when I was bumming around, waiting to go to Uni. But Sean, one half of the stage duo of Sean and Jon, left the show and was replaced by Hossan Leong in one of he productions that I didn't get to watch. But Chestnuts still holds a special place in my heart. One year the centrepiece was a nativity play according to a soundtrack of Madonna's 80s hits, like Like A Prayer, Like A Virgin, Papa Don't Preach and Lucky Star. You can imagine.
Who can forget the deliciously irreverant one-liners! Though now admittedly dated, at the time they were genius.
From the makers of Titanic: (sung to the central tune of Les Miserables, "Do you hear the people sing?") Do You Hear The People Sink?
And,
[Jon knew the actual actor who played the Architect in the Matrix and got him to do a video cameo, so this really was the Architect]
Architect: Neo, you are the One. (pause) Ring To Rule Them All.
Architect: You are the One, Nemo (picture of disney clownfish).
7. Neil Humphreys
Taught me (TOR) speech and drama when I was in IJ. Maybe he won't recognise me anymore, but I'm sure he'll pretend to. He was a columnist for Today and has written a series of books about his experiences in Singapore including, Notes from an Even Smaller Island, and Scribbles from the Same Island. The Bill Bryson allusion is apt since Humphreys is an Englishman who lived in Toa Payoh, deep in the heartlands of Singapore, much like Bryson in middle America.
Here is a sample of his writing:http://www.wildsingapore.org/news/20050506/050618-1.htm
8. Cheryl Fox
Is Gloria's friend Vanessa's cousin. She was a TV news presenter on Channel News Asia and also does other stuff for Mediacorp.
9. Sylvia Toh Paik Choo
knows my grandmother. They used to live in the same housing estate. She's a writer for The New Paper and has written several funny books.
10. Adrian Lim
was a neighbour of our grandmother's cousin. He was a psychotic murderer who lived in Toa Payoh and killed a lot of vulnerable sweet young things in the 80s. Hence my mother's unwillingness to let me walk around Toa Payoh by myself even after he was safely caught.
I was going to put pictures on this post but can't make it work so you just have to imagine. It worked when I did a draft of this but suddenly all the pictures went away. I think it's the Blogger Ju On causing havoc the only way it knows how.
