This mess we're in

Pool can be a social spot.

Some while ago, I met someone who built sports jets in his garage, those cute ones that take no more than one passenger. I used to know a man whose father was a shipwright in the navy who was most versatile and could handle nearly any household maintenance tasks in a British house. And indeed, I had seen him doing marvellous jobs at his spare time, including laying cork tiles in the kitchen, buidling a deck in the garden, preparing soil for a new garden, and assembling all of Ikea furniture. But building a jet as a hobby is a different matter.

We had a lovely chat and when I told him that I had cycled twice all the way to Changi Village Park, he asked who did I cycle with. 'My iPod', I said. 'I take it everywhere I go'.

Around that time though, cycling was no longer an activity in order to spend time with someone, and besides, I was starting to feel more confident in the pool and cycling was reduced to a secondary option. The journey I take with my bike along the east coast, though pleasant and breezy, is getting shorter. My iPod is more of a daily company while I am commuting to work.

Such a wonderful device it is: once it is on, you are in your own world no matter where and who your fellow passengers are, and as long as the music is loud enough, you can shut your eyes and be carried far away to a secret island of music and imagination.

Because of the relative lack of distraction though, the choice of music, or the mood of it, becomes ever more crucial than when you are playing at home on a hi-fi, because it kind of hits you more intimately. I have found to my happy surprise some long direlicted albums which sound better than I could remember, though there are also equal numbers of good ones which do not seem to play well on iPod.

Every now and then, my iPod will be playing the same tune or album, again and again. Sometimes it is because of the beautiful tune, sometimes it is one particular line, or just the mood. But most of the time, it is combination of all of those: the mood, and the story. Lately, the following have been played rather frequently:

1 One of us cannot be wrong (Leonard Cohen, in fact all of his first three albums), Leonard presents a case that can never be solved in human history
2 Adieu, alma (Dominique A), I have returned nearly all of my French to my teacher, but his voice tells all
3 Strange melody (Jane Birkin)
4 The mess we're in (PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke), a sad song with a sexy performance by Thom. He had never sounded so human, fragile and helpless.

Surprisingly, they are all about the love that should not have been ignited.