Does he swing? Listen, bud

So while walking about town I spotted a curious dashboard on a car stopped for a red light. On the passenger's side -- which still disrupts my mental processes by being on the left -- was a bobble head doll-sized Spider-Man doll. (The head didn't bobble, but that was the size of it.) And then lining hte rest of the dashboard were more Spider-Man figurines, each of these about the size of a chess piece. They weren't all the same figure, either; that would be silly.

Some of them were little Spider-Men standing up, or holding out their arms, or whatever. Some had oversized heads. One was just the Spider-Man head, with something I couldn't make out behind his head. The result was that it looked like a Spider-Man-faced fish, which is just silly. Altogether the car's owner had 12 Spider-Men watching over his driving skills, which ought to be plenty for ordinary driving conditions, or the occasional confrontation with Mysterio.

Farther down the street there was some promotional display for I haven't got the faintest idea. But it involved a bunch of people standing around a little plastic tent, with the person on stage exhorting the audience to express their preference between a couple of options. The speaker said, ``I know you're all feeling blur'' -- Singlish, meaning confused or disoriented, though I encounter it more in books about Singlish than from actual Singaporean speakers -- ``but you have to applaud for it to work.'' Thus chastised, the audience went on to not applaud. I hope they weren't choosing between performers; if I were on stage to that kind of response I'd just die.

In other news Singapore is going ahead with a Presidential Election -- I lost the threads of this in all the activity the past few weeks -- although it's likely to be a walkover. Nomination day is Wednesday; to date, the only candidate to have gotten a certificate of eligibility is incumbent President SR Nathan.

Trivia: By the end of 1865 the Central Pacific Railroad had 54 miles of working track. Source: Nothing Like It In The World, Stephen E Ambrose.

Currently Reading: Interstellar Empire, John Brunner.