Katie Melua Stuns In Landmark Show At The Royal Albert Hall by Dnieper Cruz | Jun 7, 2023

Saturdays usually go like this for me:

1. I sleep in late, sometimes all the way to noon, resting well from the work week prior which often run to 10, 11pm each night

2. I would wake up to a cup of coffee or two and pop my pills (for my heart and hypertension)

3. I would skip lunch - keeping up with the intermittent diet, intermittently

4. I would walk the 4, sometimes 7km,  route to the Polo Club gym for my 2pm session with my long time trainer, S

5. It would conclude by 3pm with a good aided stretch and I would walk back.

6. Getting home by 4 or 5pm, I would help myself to a fruit and a cup of juice.

7. By evening, I would get a bit hangry (according to D). So, we would go for an early dinner.

This weekend, we had some Vietnamese pho, together with M as she wanted to shop. I did some shopping too. Two pairs of shoes - wide fit - for my broadening/aching feet. And a whole stack of records, ten in fact. Half of them meant as gift for M&J as they move into their apartment. The rest were for me, including a beautiful double LP from Katie Melua, which I am listening to now and searched the Internet for others who have heard her too, and found this article on RockMag.

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The last time I listened to a Katie Melua song I was probably giving a half-arsed attempt at getting decent grades in my GCSEs – so right about now some undisclosed number of years ago. Since then, I have wondered at which point her music left the mainstream. With eight consecutive studio albums reaching Top 10, I clearly just wasn’t paying attention. At the risk of sounding patronising, Melua’s music has always sounded mature, her lyrics wise, and her rendition of Lilac Wine evidence of her (warranted) confidence. I don’t know about you, but as a teenager I wasn’t trying to rival Jeff Buckley or Nina Simone.

In early May, Katie Melua embarked on a 12-day UK tour to celebrate her 9th studio album Love & Money. The tour is nearing the end and tonight’s gig is in London at the Royal Albert Hall, a 152-year-old, Grade I listed concert hall which has previously been host to the biggest names in music. There’s an announcement over the tannoy that the performance is about to begin and we all shuffle to our seats. Within five minutes, the singer-songwriter follows her four-piece band on stage right on cue. I have a feeling that tonight’s concert is going to run like clockwork, there’s no messing about at a venue which is fit for a king (literally) and if I squint hard enough, of the ~5,000 seats in the auditorium I can spot four (maybe five at a push) empty seats. 

As Katie opens the evening with Joy, a gentle song from Album no. 8, I take a sip of my small glass of house red, because a venue with ‘Royal’ in the name comes with royal prices. She’s wearing a silky golden floor-length gown and white trainers, and most in the audience do look very chic. I’ve obviously missed the memo, in my shacket and holey Vivos, but I should have known better. The stage design is understated and minimalist, hiding in its shadows 9,999 pipes from the second largest organ in the UK – fun fact. 

The 38-year-old thanks the audience for an “incredibly special show” as it’s the only one of this tour that is being recorded and she lets them know that “when it comes to making some noise, don’t be polite”. For the first time I notice considerable echo off the walls and it’s a little distracting. 

This is a tour to celebrate her brand-new record Love & Money and next is the fourth track from it, Lie In The Heat. She places hand on heart and smiles at the audience as she sings the words to the chorus. “It’s overwhelming to be here, I’m nervous and excited”, Katie announces before being handed an acoustic guitar for Nine Million Bicycles. The audience immediately recognises the first initial notes, and they respond with a resounding cheer and whistles. Written by Mike Batt, Nine Million Bicycles quicky became one of Katie’s best-known recordings, and it’s the one I remember fondly from her 2005 album Piece by Piece. By the end of the song, the lady sitting by my side is already be fed up with the whistling from the row behind. At the end of each song, she’ll now pre-empt it by using her hands as ear defenders.

Katie introduces her brother and guitarist Zurab Melua before reminiscing about their early childhood living in Georgia, when it was still part of the old Soviet Union. Plane Song tells the story of a time immediately following the disillusion of the Soviet Union’s grip on Georgia. Zurab steps forward and shares the limelight with Katie for the song. A beautiful number about a dark past and she sings it flawlessly; her contralto vocal range delighting the audience. It’s my favourite song so far this evening. 

Each song has been carefully introduced by Katie, giving the audience access to her personal experiences when songwriting. She tells the audience that during her “mid-30s life crisis” she decided that her life needed a dramatic change, to build a family alongside making records. So as not one to compromise, her 6-month-old baby has also joined the tour. I love this, and so do the 5,000 other people in the Hall this evening. Golden Record is a song about witnessing your closest friends become distant as they “wake up before sunrise, looking after young lives”, whilst you continue a successful 20-year musical career. Katie makes gentle arms gestures and moves delicately across the stage.

Next is Perfect World and you can hear a pin drop. I’ve been to classical concerts where the audience was less well behaved than these lot. With Your Longing Is Gone the pace picks up and the drummer swaps his brushes for a pair of sticks – he’s been waiting for this moment. On a foggy stage she plays Darling Star from her latest record, before jumping onto Remind Me To Forget. Love And Money is the last song before the interval and one that was inspired by the “incredibly strong women in my family”. 

The first set seemed to end abruptly, and the 20-minute interval is just long enough to get a drink before returning to our seats. The second half begins with upbeat love-song A Love Like That, and a disco ball illuminates the Hall from the corner of the stage. During the first half of the show, I got used to Katie giving us a brief insight into most of the songs she has played so far tonight, but before we know it, she’s into Pick Me Up. A brief introduction of the band is followed by her brilliant rendition of Wonderful Life, plucking away at her acoustic guitar.

Katie plays tribute with 14 Windows to Dr Mike McPhillips, the psychiatrist who helped her with her own mental health crisis back in 2010 and who tragically took his own life last year. She can’t quite believe that 20 years has passed since her debut record Call Off The Search and I get the feeling that during those dark days in 2010 Katie wouldn’t have been so confident that she would be showcasing her ninth studio album today. We travel to 2003 with Tiger In The Night followed by the hit single from the same year The Closest Thing To Crazy – “the song that changed my life”. She performs solo, with her band stepping back into the shadows and the audience shows their biggest appreciation of the night.

At the end of Red Balloon she announces that it feels incredible to be on stage as a young mum. I bet! Quiet Moves, from her latest record, is the closest we got to getting the crowd up and moving. There are some serious nodding to the beat with this one and just like that we, “the gorgeous people of London”, are thanked and waved goodbye – a standing ovation slowly forms. A few (too many for my liking) concert-goers may have forgotten about encores and start to leave prematurely. Shocking!

Before the sound of applause dies down, we are greeted for the third time by Katie and her wonderful backing musicians for just two more songs. Call Off The Search gets those who have been fans for the entirety of her 20-year career excited again. The band leaves the stage before Katie and her guitar complete the evening with I Cried For You.

Katie Melua has laid bare her most personal thoughts tonight, an intimate show perfectly executed. Even in the presence of thousands of others it felt like she was confiding in you her deepest secrets. Shame Katie didn’t play Just Like Heaven (The Cure), though, I like that one.

8. After dinner, i would relax some more, usually watching TV in the den.

Tonight, I am using my ears more, listening to the record now and Katie Melua is indeed delicate and raw.

unhinged yet uplifting

I managed to watch two movies, one after another, in parts. As it happened, at the same time, i was trying to help my sister who is having a little bit of a mental breakdown. I see parallels between reel and real life in all three.

Poor Things is a little Alice in Wonderland, a little Wizard of Oz, a little Marquis de Sade and a whole lot of Frankenstein. It also has a lot in common with some of Yorgos Lanthimos' earlier films, like The Favourite and Dogtooth: transgressive sex, sadistic power games and grisly violence.

But if the movie is brutal, it's also extravagantly beautiful, extremely funny and, by the end, strangely touching, even uplifting. This may be Lanthimos' most unhinged movie, but it also has a joyous exuberance that I haven't felt in much of his earlier work.

The story, loosely adapted from a 1992 novel by the Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, follows a most unusual character named Bella Baxter, played by a mesmerizing Emma Stone. When we first meet Bella in 19th-century London, she looks like an adult woman but has the awkward gait, unformed speech and anarchic spirit of a very young child.

As we learn early on, she's the product of a back-from-the-dead mad science experiment, in which she was implanted with the brain of the child she was carrying at the time of her death. Bella, in other words, is both her mother and her daughter — and, in a weird way, neither.

Inevitably, Bella discovers sex, first exploring her own adult body with childlike curiosity, and then having a passionate fling with a rogue named Duncan Wedderburn — a hilariously over-the-top Mark Ruffalo. When they have sex for the first time, the movie, which until now has mostly been filmed in black-and-white, explodes into wild, rapturous color.

Like an especially bawdy riff on Voltaire's Candide, Poor Things becomes the story of Bella's sexual odyssey. Ever since the movie's Venice Film Festival premiere, much of the reaction has focused on its many frenzied sex scenes, in which the bodies of Stone and Ruffalo, among others, are on abundant display. But the movie is after something more than mere titillation; much of the time, it emphasizes the absurdity rather than the ecstasy of sex.

Before long, Bella grows bored — and disillusioned. She learns that men are mostly horrible, and that the world is full of suffering and poverty. Soon, she begins making new friends, reading Emerson and nourishing her mind. At one point, while they're on a European boat cruise, Duncan becomes jealous, accusing Bella of spending too much time with two other travelers, who are having an engrossing intellectual debate. Bella responds, as she often does, by referring to herself in the third person: "These two are fighting and ideas are banging around in Bella's head and heart like lights in a storm."

Some admirers of Poor Things have argued that it's a feminist work, in which Bella's erotic awakening becomes the key to her liberation. The movie's detractors have dismissed it as just a superficially empowering girlboss narrative. I'm hardly the only one to have noticed that it's basically the un-family-friendly version of Barbie, in which a woman's childlike naiveté becomes a surprisingly effective weapon against the patriarchy. I guess that makes Ruffalo's greasy-haired Duncan a Ken, though you might say the same for the men played by Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott, all of whom try, in their own ways, to manipulate Bella's destiny.

But Bella won't be controlled, and she's much too brilliant a character to be reduced to a symbol or archetype. Stone gives a great, audacious performance; her Bella can be ignorant, selfish, impulsive and cruel, but also fiercely intelligent, witty, thoughtful and kind. Lanthimos has seldom expressed much affection for his characters, but he clearly loves this one to pieces. He's made a movie that, even at its most outlandish, has its heart in the right place, even if its brains are not.

Justin Chang

“Where are you, Grace?”

“I’m right here. You just can’t see me.”

Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love is of the most viscerally stressful and deeply upsetting films I have ever seen; it’s also frequently beautiful, at times wryly funny, and always aching with a palpable, compelling humanity. Based on the 2012 Argentinian novel by Ariana Harwicz (Matate, Amor, or Die, My Love – Ramsay removed the comma), the film stars Jennifer Lawrence (also producing through her own company, Excellent Cadaver) as a new mother, Grace, struggling with postpartum depression; though saying it that matter-of-factly sounds overly pat for how Ramsay approaches her subject matter. This isn’t so much a film about postpartum depression as it is a film told of and through this state of mental distress. I would compare it to what Lars Von Trier did for depression in 2011’s Melancholia – forcing the viewer to experience the mindset and sensations of living with the disorder, rather than merely ‘depicting’ it – except that Die My Love is an even more abrasive and forthrightly avant-garde film than Von Trier’s.

Indeed, despite the presence of two major movie stars (Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, playing Grace’s husband Jackson), Die My Love has much less in common with anything moviegoers will see in a commercial multiplex than it does the experimental films of Stan Brakhage, which feel like an immense influence here. Scenes of the central couple negotiating the intangible space between them across their new home reminded me of Wedlock House; images of and within the forest – and the images and sensations that forest brings out in Grace – recall the sylvan odyssey of Dog Star Man; and one of the film’s most distressing subplots, about a dog neither Grace nor Jackson will take responsibility for, ultimately felt in communion with Sirius Remembered, where Brakhage photographed the decomposition of a deceased pet in his yard over many months. In short, Die My Love feels like something of a stylistic or spiritual descendent to any film where Brakhage weaved his camera through a home, a yard, or the woods, and/or where he turned bodies into spectral dancers on screen. Director of Photography Seamus McGarvey (a great and deeply underrated cinematographer) moves his camera in similar ways, capturing spaces in similarly ethereal, liminal fashion, and allowing light to bounce off his lens in similarly striking, ghostly patterns. And Ramsay directs and blocks her actors much more like interpretive dancers than traditional movie performances. It’s a little like Terrence Malick, but with less twirling; the ‘dances’ here are more visceral, less symbolic, and confrontationally vulnerable.

This is not an “enjoyable” film, except in the sense that it is always enjoyable to watch great artists do great work and push at perceived boundaries. It is a harrowing watch, and one I can’t imagine myself coming back to often. There is nothing even approaching catharsis waiting for viewers at the end, let alone ‘answers.’ And my only nagging worry throughout was that the film might try for that, out of a feeling the audience was owed a ‘neater’ takeaway after two hours of challenge. But Ramsay is smarter and more uncompromising than that. This is a film about subjective experience, and specifically the subjective experience of feeling lost, adrift, angry, and confused, at war with one’s body, mind, and surroundings. Humans can work through all that and come out on the other side intact, of course; but sometimes they don’t. And either way, the story of recovery is a separate one to what is being chronicled here. Ramsay is right to leave us where she does, on the edge of a knife balanced precariously between hope and despair. The film stands as a remarkable testament to cinema’s power of expression: how the camera can take indescribable internal realities and externalize them on a giant screen.

Jonathan Lack

As for my sister, I...

Advised her if she can bring herself to accept his flaws. Advised her to think of the good in her life and not just the bad.

 

Advised her to think a few steps ahead if indeed she is divorcing him (and not go from frying pan into the fire).

Advised her to understand his poor health situation. 

And finally, advised her to take up meditation or other calming therapies.

If she cannot accept her husband's flaws, everytime he does that, she will get upset

If she cannot break her mind out of negativity especially when there is so much positivity around her, she will always be feeling low

If she leaves him now as he is dying, and when he dies soon all alone, the guilt may eat at her for the rest of her life

It is sad. In many ways, her situation is like mother's.... and of women of previous generation where husbands treat their wives as second class. 

I wish her well.

Easter in a time of fear and fracture

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We gather at Easter not in a perfect world, but in a wounded one.

The first Easter was not peaceful or certain. It unfolded in confusion, grief, and fear. The disciples were hiding. They had lost hope. The world, as they knew it, had collapsed.

And it is precisely there—in that darkness—that the Resurrection happened.

Not as an escape from reality, but as a transformation within it.

Today, we too live in turbulent times. There is war, division, anxiety about the future, and a quiet exhaustion many carry inside. It can feel as though hope is fragile—or even naïve.

But Easter tells us something radical:

Hope is not the absence of suffering.

Hope is the defiance of it.

[Photo Credit: Onkamon Buasorn, Getty Images]

The Resurrection of Christ is not just a past event; it is a present possibility. It is the insistence that:

 • Life can emerge from loss

 • Meaning can rise from confusion

 • Love is stronger than fear

When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He did not return with vengeance or power. He came with peace: “Do not be afraid.”

That message is not soft—it is revolutionary.

In a world that profits from outrage and division, choosing peace is resistance.

In a culture of despair, choosing hope is courage.

In times of uncertainty, choosing love is strength.

Good Friday 2026

On Thursday, I had a late call with some colleagues from Europe and US and since it was the last working day of the week before the Paschal Triduum weekend break, I had the meeting with a glass of red wine. 

Once in a while, I get rather peckish late at night. It happened to me on around midnight and I headed to the kitchen and made myself peanut butter kaya sandwiches. I couldn't sleep well because my Synovitis (Runners' Toe) condition has recurred... after consecutive (and happy) days of 2hr long walking with D followed by a full day of wearing pointy leather shoes at the office. My body is clearly signalling something to me and it reads, "handle with care". 

So there you have it: bread and wine and feet that has been through much. I have not merely celebrated Maundy Thursday but made the themes a lived experience. And with pain in my foot and bread and wine in my belly, I attended the Good Friday service with Dawn. 

The service was preceded by Stations of the Cross where we parishioners recall 14 significant stations from the point He was sentenced by Pilate to the moment He was laid in the tomb. At each station, the priest would describe the circumstance, we would all then consider our involvement in the moment with a short pause for a personal silent reflection.

Three stations were most significant for me:

Station 1: Jesus is condemned. How many times have I (whether out of convenience, fear or self interest) ignored the evil wrought by others. 

Station 8: the women of Jerusalem weep for Jesus. Caught up in my own cycles of ups and downs, how have I picked myself up, and yet be interested in the condition of others and of the future

Station 12: Jesus dies. There is no crown without thorns, no healing without wounds and no resurrection without death. Its a profound truth of life that ups and downs are inevitable and in fact, the rock bottom in one's life would become he place to launch us firmly back up. 

As we prepare for a jubilant Easter Sunday, I wanted to share the thoughts above. 

About men and megalomania

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” 

Thucydides

In the Chinese language the number 4 phonetically sounds like death. It has been now 4 weeks since Israel & US waged war against Iran and 4 years since Russian invaded Ukraine. Seems like a good time to comment on the selfish nature of man and his base instinct to wage wars.

So often in this media wrapped world we live in, someone somewhere has an interpretation that resonates with us, so even if we lack original thought, there is a good chance we will find our voice.

In my case, I had called out the similarities of the megalomaniacs today especially the one in US to the one who from Austria who terrorised Europe nearly a century ago. I said it without fear at a business leadership meeting, much to the discomfort of colleagues there but bad events are not mea see nt to be easy. 

As it happened, on my way to Hanoi, the capital of a country that has risen well from the ashes of war half a century ago, I watched Nuremberg Trails. In this case, I didn’t need the movie to think for me. I would just channel the words of the brave men who lived through the horrors of World War 2.

In particular, we must all pay heed to the views of Justice Jackson at Nuremberg trails and of Dr Douglas Kelley, the psychiatrist assigned to assess the mental health of the 22 prisoners there facing trial and judgment. 

"The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. It asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude—committed by men who possessed great power and used it deliberately to destroy peace, to enslave peoples, and to exterminate millions.

We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.

If these crimes are not punished, they will be repeated. If they are not condemned, then the law itself will be brought into contempt.

This trial is part of the great effort to make the law—not war—the governing force among nations.

And so, the question before this Tribunal is not merely the guilt of these men. It is whether the rule of law can prevail over the rule of force."

Justice Robert Jackson

Photo from IMDB

"I had in my charge the purest known Nazi “virus cultures”—twenty-two men. These men were not insane. They were not psychotic. They were, for the most part, within the normal range of intelligence. Nor were they, in any simple sense, abnormal personalities. They were not radically different from the average individual. Insanity is no explanation for their behavior.

The fact is that these men were able to commit their crimes not because they were mad, but because they were human.

Their acts were the product of a situation in which moral controls were weakened, authority was absolute, and responsibility was diffused. Under such conditions, many men can be led to commit acts which, in other circumstances, they would regard as unthinkable.

The danger is not that such men exist, but that they are ordinary. What happened in Germany could happen elsewhere, if similar conditions were to arise."

Dr Douglas Kelley

All these unnecessary deaths could be prevented. We need good humans to speak up and stop the evil ones.

“The only clue to what man can do is what he has done” 

Collingwood

About Time

 Imagine if you will, three buckets. One is called Time, the second Health and the last one Wealth. Everyone is born with all three, with the first bucket at its fullest, the second half full and the final one empty. At the start of all our lives we are given the choice how to optimise the filling/emptying of these buckets... the combination thereof would deliver happiness and often also sadness.

There is little one can do with time. It keeps emptying from the moment we are born and will run out sometimes between our 80th and 90th year (based on the national average life expectancy). The other two buckets require deliberate, intentional efforts. At home, first our parents then ourselves take care of our health and our abilities to grow wealth. In school, the balance tilts more to knowledge acquisition for work. At work, careers are structured to help us grow wealth. 

So, there comes a point in all our lives when we need to make a decision how much of each bucket we will continue to grow and which ones we must focus on before it empties out. 

I captioned to a photo in our family album: "There is a season for everything, all with good reason. Because we are looking forward to 2026 being a pivot year for gliding into our next act. J & N got wedded last year. My parents celebrate their 60th anniversary and M & J will wed next year - in a dream location too! "

Indeed, this year marks the optimising point. It's the year D retires from her executive role and I retire from three non-executives boards & committees. Its also going to be my final year in full time employment... as I will take a 2-month sabbatical next year to celebrate a dream wedding and take a dream European trip with my parents. All four parents are in their eighties and clearly every moment spent with them will be worthwhile, especially on a momentous occasion like a granddaughter's wedding!

Truth be told my health bucket is emptying a little faster nowadays... the last being a case of runners' toe or synovitis. Plus I do feel sensation along my re-attached humerus every so often. That said, I was happy to know that the cardiologist and urologist gave me a cleaner bill of health than reports the last few years. 

Yes, we can always have more wealth... in the immortal words of a greedy investment banker immortalised by Hollywood. We have set aside some for the next generation including helping them with properties and cars - the two most priciest assets in Singapore. 

So, I guess the time for optimising is indeed here. About time too. :-) 

On Colonisation

The Venezuelans I am most acquainted with are the Miss Universe winners. I dont know any personally. No, I am not some dirty old man leering at beauty queens. But like it or not, Ms Universe winners make front page news, complete with photos, in colour. Venezuela, I recall have produced more winners of this pageant that most other countries.

So, they have outwardly beautiful people. I have met only one Venezuelan and she struck me as someone with a beautiful soul inside too for she was mostly talking about her family especially her young daughter even though we were trying to crack the case.

Their land is also blessed with resources and I just learned that they have the largest reserves of oil in the world.

Beautiful people, rich resources… must be really attractive to the greedy. It’s a story as old as time. The greedy needs to be sated. But they dress their ugly desire in high faulting themes: Gold, Glory, God! 

The most honest description is Gold. They want more. More valuable things. For this, they wage wars. From ancient days to megalomaniac warriors like Alexander, Caesar and Temujin, the greedy conquered new lands. Then the game became more sophisticated. It is not necessary to spill blood. Just ink. Cunning agreements, often made to flatter the vain, meant lands are exchanged for puppet roles. 

So, with the stroke of a pen, within half a millennia, the greedy evolved from military colonisation to administrative colonisation. Under the guise of merchants, it was companies, not countries who did the deed of colonisation... persuading local ignorant chieftains to sign away their rights in exchange for puppet thrones.

A quarter of a millennia later, another form emerged. So sophisticated, it even had a tinge of good: economic development. Investors from rich and powerful countries would put up cash and in return own valuable assets in resource rich countries and extract them. All legally and all in the name of enriching the locals. This was the era I had grown up in: a time of economic colonisation. 

So for thousands of years, we have been colonising each other… but in ever more peaceful ways, until recently when the President of Venezuela (not a good man himself) was removed by another country who was lusting after Venezuela’s resources. That same country had earlier last year tore up the playbook on economic colonisation and launched trade wars against the rest of the world. This new year, barely a few days old, it has ventured into a more hostile form of colonisation.

I had always wondered about the people who were in power in the world barely a century ago... why didnt they stop a bad hateful man like Hitler. How did his own countrymen found it right to follow him. 

Then I think of the US today. And I think of the over 70million Americans who voted him into office and even more now who (outwardly) not approve of his tactics but (inwardly) dont mind making their country rich again (from resources of another). Indeed, while their previous mistakes, like Vietnam are still recovering and this is one of the better stories.

What a wicked web we weave. History repeats itself and may we learn from it.