I’ve put together some shots of the grassy field at Marina South, that faces the Esplanade and Fullerton Hotel. I don’t know the actual name of the field. The photos were taken over a few months last year, all at sunset with light coming from the wrong direction.

Here’s the album

The field was quite a unique spot on the landscape, a spacious and undeveloped area, dropped right next to the city. Built on reclaimed land, it was destined for great things, but the regional financial crisis of 1997 postponed development.

Time has passed and now the area is under full development; much of what you see in the pictures has already been transformed. Almost all of the trees have been taken out, and the entire area has been fenced off to the water’s edge.

What’s being built? A large portion will become an extension to Singapore’s financial district. The rest will become an Integrated Resort, AKA a casino, God forbid. An underground rail link between Chinatown station and Promenade station on the upcoming Circle Line will ply straight through the middle.

On the theme of weather, here are two photos of the fairly new NTUC building. I kind of like how the dirt track leads to the city. Click the pics for larger versions.

The photo on the right was taken during the rainy season.

The photo on the left was taken less than seven weeks later; the ground dries up amazingly quickly once the rain stops in Singapore.

I used to enjoy walking home via the grass fields at Marina South, a surprisingingly quiet walk home despite being close to the centre of the city.

The area’s now being redeveloped as an extension to the CBD combined with an Integrated Resort (read big freaking Casino) .

It’s land-clearing time in Indonesia again. Farmer’s have lit hundreds or fires in Sumatra to clear the land, and the smoke has blown over to Singapore and Malaysia.

The photo on the left is from the balcony on a clear day.

On the right is what the city view looks like today. It’s been like this on-and-off for the last few weeks. It’s definitely the worst in the six years that I’ve been here, but apparently it was much worse in 1997.

I was trying to find the inner-sleeve artwork to Prince’s Purple Rain LP, to use as a new background to Something Changed (it’s looking really very white right now, after I sucumbed to a plague of criticism about that flower background and shades of green. What to do?) The inner sleave is that backdrop of flowers laying on white if you know it. Yeah, more flowers. Couldn’t find a good sample of it though.

In my quest I decided to put together all the album artwork I have in my Prince collection, or at least that which has made to my MP3 player. So here’s a page of covers .

That’s not the full set though. It’s missing quite a few boots, some tapes, and most of the 7” vinyl covers. All in all my collection consists of some 180 official releases and 700 unreleased studio tracks. Here’s an almost up-to-date list of my whole collection. It’s only a fraction the size of some of the real nutters out there (Serge?), and I really mean a small fraction.

I largely collected stuff for the sake of new music rather that different album art or pressings. So just about all of my discs include music you can’t find anywhere else. I’m not all that interested in collecting boots, videos, t-shirts or posters.. It’s just the music that matters.

The most prized possessions in the collection would have to be the Sexy Dancer 12” and Pope 12”, and The Family CD. I got them all for a song and they’re worth a bomb, especially Pope. The most sought-after items I don’t have are the Madhouse 8 CD, the I Wish U Heaven CD, the Apolonia CD and the Gett Off birthday promo.. I’ve come across them but heck if I’m going to pay hundreds of dollars for a disc. All good things have a limit I suppose.