Success

 

This new, improved poison was doing the trick. On Crane Road coming out for supper a bird with slightly ruffled feathers was not resting or pecking at crumbs. On the next corner at the former Joo Chiat Hotel, another, this time on its back. A Saturday evening between shifts perhaps responsible here. It was unlikely the enviro guys were not going 24/7 with this more concerted campaign. How could the hotel cope like that, or the shopkeepers on Crane. At the kopi shop opposite on Crane there were numerous diners at the tables. Both the hotel and the kopi had re-vamped and renovated over the last few years, in the case of the hotel, extensively. Rates at the latter might be $200 plus now, richer than Tristar around on Onan. Reception would need to send their cleaners out before too long. Oddly, some kind of upscale meat products, deeply veined, hung in the second window of A Hotel now. Two days ago Darts Man Jamaal had pointed out the dead bird in the gutter of Mr T. T.’s front veranda. (Always first with death notices in the community – on one notable occasion erroneously – Jamaal could not let even a birdie pass him by.) Despite sitting directly beneath the dead pigeon mornings over the teh & newspaper, it had completely passed notice. This morning was now four days unattended. Without someone’s report it might stay there many more days still. Drawing attention to it, Jam had also commented on the old Malay who cycled over daily and illegally fed the birds. No good talking to suchlike, Jam suggested.