Comfort Taxi Drivers Make Me Feel Terribly Uncomfortable

Some work at MBS today. I decided to go to the Promenade MRT station by taxi to go home by MRT from there as it should be convenient.

The first “Comfort” driver didn’t know where the station is and couldn’t pronounce “promenade.” “Near where?” said he, passing his road map to ask me to find the station. I refused to take the map.  I asked if he is Singaporean, and he said, “From Malaysia. I’m new.” I don’t care. After a few meters, I got out of the taxi, saying, “I’ll report you to your company.” Shaking my head, I returned to the taxi stand.

Because there was a long line of taxies, I had no problem finding another one. My second one, “Comfort” again, had no idea about “Promenade MRT” either. He also couldn’t pronounce the word. I told him to go to the nearest MRT station.” He suggested City Hall, which I believe is not the nearest. He insisted on making City Hall my destination and then I said, “You are not the one who decides. I decide.” I really didn’t understand what this Singaporean guy was saying in English (was it English?) to explain why he didn’t know the place.  When I found an MRT station sign, I asked him to stop. He said it was not possible and drove on. After about half a minute, I had to ask, “Where are you going?” He only mumbled and perhaps after another half a minute he stopped at an MRT station, which without his knowledge was Promenade. As I was getting out, I said to him, "I'll report you to your company."

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I finished a second reading of The Painted Veil I don’t remember when and I got and started Collected Short Stories Volume 3 of Maugham right away. This also done, I’m now reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy.

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Newt Gingrich: "Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman empire… I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic… Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists."