The $5 Serangoon Road belt to improvise a new handle for the shoulder bag turned out to be PVC, some kinda slightly better grade of the synthetic.
Not leather, the cobbler outside Peace Centre decided after a brief inspection.
Petroleum manufacture, same as for the plumbing pipes, wiring, cable insulation; &etc. (Petroleum had a great many side products, as we were reminded during this closure of Hormuz.)
Not as bad as it could have been. The fear had been the wise ol’ owl would dismiss the piece as completely inappropriate; unlikely to last more than a month. What was he supposed to do with that? What were you thinking, young fellow?
Third repair of the same item at this same chap’s post—a beach umbrella on the Selegie pavement, beneath which the man squatted on a five inch stool. A pocket rocket in his early, or even mid-80s. Say die? Never that breed. (The Americans would find them impossible to get around.)
Three visits was not too many to gain admittance to that little cave there and sit opposite the cobbler on a second 5 inch stool. Once an offer to fetch a coffee for the man while he worked had been declined.
Between jobs the chap read a Chinese broadsheet that filled out the whole of his interior. Occasionally, a light doze briefly overtook the man and on one visit a little touch on his knee was needed for rousing.
Most likely he had bypassed municipal regs; even in Sin’pore there were ways to slip past the authorities.
Five minutes later the succeeding generation appeared around the corner on Bras Basah Road. A young woman entering the foyer of the generic hotel that had been commandeered during the pandemic, for the foreign workers from the dorms, most likely.
The navy biz suit & heels sprang briskly up the steps, going back to her room it must have been. In a hurry and only slowing in her stride in order to snap the decorative plastic butterflies that had been mounted on a framed panel displayboard. Perhaps particle, or even some kind of PVC again here.
Singapore, 2022-26
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