Yes indeed, here are two photos of me in Singapore.
Actually Singapore is a very pleasant place: extremely safe, clean and unpolluted, with incredibly well-organised public transport;
an astounding range of very good, affordable restaurants and eating places: it is very easy to find top-quality Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Western food (and apparently Indian style food as well, although I don't eat that), for well under 3 pounds as I recall; as well as "luxury" restaurants for rich people;
reasonably cheap and plentiful high-quality hotel rooms (well under 30 pounds a night walk-in rates in some places, for a pretty good room with TV, bathroom, etc. etc.);
[UPDATES Feb. 2009 - due to the collapse of the GBP, for which I'll blame Gordon Brown and New Labour even though it's not their fault {although practically everything else is}, it's now a lot more expensive in pounds - but the same price in most Asian currencies I think.]
(and despite all this, still a very high GDP per capita and low levels of poverty).
nice, warm sunny weather most of the time;
plenty of nice countryside, nature reserves and public parks;
and excellent medical facilities.
In other words, Singapore has almost everything that England doesn't...(well, OK, England does have nice countryside too).
...as a strong bonus (particularly noticeable to someone like me who lives in Thailand) EVERYTHING is in English, well-organised, and with no tedious hassle. Almost everyone speaks English very well.
(I don't regard harsh punishments for genuine criminals as a negative [in fact that should be on the positives list!]; I am not a liberal. Well, OK, some non-criminals do sometimes get persecuted, but only political dissidents from what I understand...at least the government there is honestly undemocratic, unlike the evil, sleazy and dishonest UK Labour Party, which I detest intensely).
RANTING: I'm not a big fan of democracy anyway, not that many countries are truly democratic. In England, many [or maybe most] voters are barely literate, totally innumerate, and probably just vote for the same party their parents did without any idea WHY; so what's the point of democracy with voters like that?
