National Stadium memories

Last July I went on a National Stadium farewell tour hosted by May and other friends at the Sport Museum. At the time Kenneth (who had attended an earlier public tour by May) had compiled the lovely series of articles featured in Today. In addition, there were several articles in the blogosphere and many photo albums. The depth and diversity of my own memories surprised me, let alone those of others. I shared all of this with May during the tour and she was excited that people had so many stories to share.

Being Friends of Yesterday.sg, we suggested we invite blog posts which could eventually be compiled and permanently hosted by the Sports Museum on their new webpage. The material could be drawn upon for the new museum when it re-opens. For once this wasn’t a mad rush and seemed like a feasible idea.

The Sports Museum staff eventually moved out to a location nearby and last December, May wrote me to catch up. I enthusiastically responded with a five section outline and we eventually decided to meet in the New Year. Kenneth served up a reminder and now I have to step up. Since Yesterday.sg’s NHB staff just finished their “media luncheon” yesterday, I suggested we all meet today at 9.30am.

So I’m going to hop on to bus number 16 at Orchard Road (Brash Basah – Nicoll Highway – Stadium Road/Walk/Crescent) and hope I find that warehouse-looking temporary office of theirs behind McDonald’s. You can see I’m a bit vague as to where exactly it is

If that meeting finishes in an hour or so, I will have time to prepare for my talk in the afternoon at SMU…on heritage. I think I should be suitably inspired.

Life in Cold Blood – UK Release date is 4th February 2008

James Brickell, one of the BBC producer/directors who filmed snakes here in 2006, prior to David Attenborough’s visit emailed to say the UK release date of “Life in Cold Blood” is 4th February 2008. Coincidentally, I had just emailed TV12 this morning to bug them about acquiring the series after reading the press pack.

Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve was honoured to host David’s visit in 2006 and I’ll feature a story about the man, his wonderful crew and the incredibly supportive Singaporean hosts in Habitatnews before the series is aired in Singapore.

Amongst the “firsts” in the series is the footage of a snake jumping, something we discovered on the Kranji mudflat one rainy morning. It’ll be nice to finally be able to release footage of that filming when the series is aired. And in episode four, “Sophisticated Serpents”, it is said “crab-eating snakes are thought to be the only snakes that will dismember their prey.” This research finding of Bruce Jayne during the era of the 2001 Snakehunters is what originally drew the crew here.

I imagine Joelle will be one of the first in Singapore to order the DVD!

Earlier this month, UK’s Telegraph featured “David Attenborough: a wild life”:

Now 81, Sir David Attenborough has spent most of the past 50 years ‘getting the behaviour of animals’, as they used to call it in the Natural History Unit of the BBC. Here, he looks back at significant moments from more than five decades of definitive natural history programmes, beginning with Zoo Quest in 1954, and ending with his forthcoming series on reptiles, Life in Cold Blood, the final chapter of his overview of life on Earth.