Last month (May), I was in Langkawi and checked out the new Four Seasons Resort there because visiting upmarket hotels to savour their ambience � and food of course! -- is my favourite holiday activity.

As I strolled around the grounds, stopping to snap a picture here and there, I ran into a bell-hop on his way to some errand. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked his confirmation that the Malaysian Prime Minister would be opening the hotel that very Friday -- information I had been given by others when I arrived on the island.

�Yes, ma�am, the Prime Minister will be doing that,� the bell-hop replied.

We chatted about various aspects of the new resort till we reached a fork in the path. In the politest of tones, he said, �Now if you�ll excuse me ma�am�, bowed slightly and was on his way.

I was thoroughly impressed. He answered most of my questions in complete sentences. He spoke clearly. He gave just the right amount of information but was not garrulous. If he were in Singapore, he would have made the perfect poster boy for Singapore�s current Speak Good English Campaign.

But guess what? While his command of English was remarkable, I was more struck by his service orientated attitude and product knowledge. That he also spoke good English was a bonus.

It may be politically incorrect to declare, in the face our SGE campaign, I really don�t care if service staff, in Singapore or elsewhere, spoke good or bad English.

Yet in all honesty, I have to state just that. Whatever brand of English they speak is fine with me, so long as they understand what I say. After all, I�ve no wish to discuss eternal verities with the waiter or the sales girl.

What I care about and demand is prompt, courteous and thoughtful service, with good eye contact. An occasional smile would be a plus. If these basic expectations are met, then service staff and other front line people can use fake American or British accents with fractured syntax to boot and utter as many lahs and lehs as they like.

In any case, �lahs� and �mehs� at the end of sentences aren�t any more irritating than those who speak impeccable English but have this tendency to end practically every utterance they make with �You know?� or worse, with an affected �J�en sais pas� .

What I found truly appalling about the salesgirl with the inimitable �You see there got, got. Not there, no got� � a story told by Prof Koh Tai Ann to show why service staff here need to speak better English -- was not her spoken English, awful though it was, but her attitude. She needs training in good service more than she needs to improve her grammar!

Instead of dissipating their efforts by including service people in their net, I think our SGE campaigners should concentrate their efforts on people here who hold positions where they should speak or write better English --- but, alas, don�t always. A few examples come to mind.

Putting pressure on this influential coterie to clean up their act will likely yield better results than a shot-gun approach of trying to get everyone who has a passing acquaintance with English to speak an acceptable form of English.

This is because given their visibility and their credible platforms, VIPs are intuitively our role models. If this group could be persuaded to use English closer to the ideal Singapore model, then the rest of us stand a better chance of improving our English too.

And who is the ideal Singapore model?

No, not someone who could, at the drop of a hat, recite the complete set of grammar rules. For that, we can learn all we ever want to know about conjugation, gerunds, infinitives, conditional tenses, prepositions and the whole caboodle with a click of the mouse to this excellent grammar site called Grammar Bytes -- http://www.chompchomp.com -- by an American teacher.

Rather, the Singapore model, in my view, is epitomised by the likes of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Prof Tommy Koh and Chief Justice Yong Pung How. Their well-modulated tones and nuanced way of speaking English can put in the shade even those in Westminster. And they will never mangle idioms. A vicious circle will never become a vicious cycle in their vocabulary!

The SGE Movement can do no worse than cull from the texts this august group has written as well as from their taped speeches, and then use the material to motivate our captains of industry, politicians, civil servants, media personalities and such like to emulate Singapore�s star English speakers. This way, improvements will cascade to others down the social chain.

It is only when the Phua Chu Kangs here become convinced that good English is as necessary as brass, condo and country club in the climb up from rags to riches, that Singapore will finally be rid of its Singlish problem.

By then, those who can speak good English will not resort to Singlish just to get laughs, as it will reflect a complete lack of upbringing to make fun of those who are still climbing the ladder.

IN recent years, three concerns appear to be taking up a disproportionate part of Singaporeans' chat time, including the people running the country.

The first is that Singaporeans, despite a world-class standard of living and dying, don't get to taste free expression, assembly and demonstration which even those at the bottom of the global economic heap -- like the Afghans -- enjoy.

At least this is what a vocal, well-connected minority with fashionably liberal ideas keeps harping about. "Give us liberty and you can keep your CPF top-ups," they seem to be saying.

The second is that Singapore has become a world-class frumps-ville. No fun and totally un-hip. Our country is so well run that everything is predictable, with no surprises or shocks to pump up the adrenalin of its people or that of the tourists.

The fact that air-conditioning, telephones, taps and TV sets work here might have been a big deal two decades ago, but not any more when every big city -- and even smaller watering holes -- can boast the same.

The third concern was first articulated by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew years ago when he was less mellow. He said if he knew what he knew by the time he was Singapore's senior statesman, he would have concentrated on making money, not serving Singaporeans, especially those who thought nothing was good enough for them.

Today, there are clearly still Singaporeans who think nothing is good enough, judging by how hard PAP politicians have to work to win their hearts.

Building rapport with this impossible-to-please crowd is of course essential, because as an elected Government, the PAP must connect with its voters. At the same time, it must encourage the silent majority to be more forthcoming with their approval other than at the ballot box, vital though that might be.

So just like the performers at charity shows take on more and more dangerous acts to nudge donors into greater generosity, I see our Government almost bending over backwards to be most things to please most Singaporeans.

I guess like most human beings, PAP politicians would like bouquets whenever they are due, instead of brickbats when things go a little wrong and a deafening silence when things go swimmingly.

Although the three concerns I've cited may appear disparate and require quite different answers, I know one approach which, like the proverbial stone, can kill two birds at one go. Indeed, three birds? where we are concerned.

And the magical stone? I have in mind is for the Government to let a hundred demonstrations bloom, and let another hundred strikes contend.

This will give our society now metaphorically waltzing to the strains of the Blue Danube the chance to move to the discordant beats of acid rock and so fulfil the wishes of those advocating more robust political expression.

The result will be much needed fresh buzz and screaming headlines, as Singaporeans settle down to co-exist with the forgotten sounds of shrill ambulance and police car sirens and shattering glass. Suddenly, Singapore will be right up there with the cool nations where people march, wave banners and attack police trying to contain their exuberance.

Of course, wild-cat strikes and violent demonstrations will inconvenience those who can't live without creature comforts or who get irritated by the slightest traffic snarl, let alone be kept away from office, social engagements and theatre trysts because mobs block their way.

However, I am confident those who press for Singapore to allow mobs to express their views are sophisticated enough not to let a little messiness change their views about street unrest being a good fertiliser for democracy.

It's been 41 years since I found myself in a car with other teenagers rushing home from the University of Singapore's Bukit Timah campus. It was August 1964. There had been another racial clash.

At 11am, lectures were cancelled. A curfew had been declared from 2pm. All Singapore was homeward bound, with vehicles moving at a snail's pace. It took me more than three hours to make the journey of no more than 5km. The relief on my mother's face is unforgettable, as are her words. "I thought you were never going to get back," she said, looking at the wall-clock. It was 1.45pm.

It has been decades since anyone here has tasted similar high anxiety or perverse excitement ? at least when they are in Singapore. At my age, I don't care for a repetition of what I once went through. Still, I don't wish to deprive younger folk the experience. That way, they can judge for themselves whether what they are told is mere Scotch mist or a truly volatile cocktail of raw emotions unleashed.

And what is there in it for the Government if it caved in to calls to liberalise street protests and impromptu rallies?

Those who make the calls believe political liberalisation will create a more politically mature, knowledgeable and engaged nation which will then add up to better quality political leadership.

Even if the prescription doesn't work, I daresay our Government could still be the richer for it. For example, our home team would be able to test their water cannons and mob control contingencies in real life situations that no amount of exercises could simulate fully.

New jobs will be created in ways that none, if any, of the economic promotion agencies dreamed of. There will be more demand for law enforcers, cleaning and repair crews, doctors and nurses to tend to the injured and others needed to tidy things up after every set of demonstrators have had their say? in public places. Perhaps daring entrepreneurs will find money-making opportunities by offering cover against civil unrest at exorbitant premiums. Also, maybe, just maybe, the coterie of difficult to please Singaporeans will grow nostalgic for the days before the flood.

The list of plus possibilities is so long that I wonder how the Government could have overlooked mass protest when it pinpointed the casino and pop as essential ingredients for remaking Singapore!

Too bad in the real world the people who invest in Singapore, those who come here for holidays, those who run the country and an overwhelming majority of those who make this place their home will think I am talking cock. And they would not be wrong.

I have to confess that this column has been written just for a giggle because if the PAP Government ceased to govern well, then Singaporeans will not be asking for permission to protest. We will just do it.

IN RECENT days, these words based on an old Beatles' song which I've altered for myself keep looping in my mind.

It used to be 'when I am 84', but with the years rolling away faster than I could find a new theme song, I decided it is easier just to raise the numbers - from 84 to 94 - as I accumulated more birthdays under my belt.

It isn't surprising that I should currently be exercised by the possibility of being snuffed out before my time - by impatient relatives or, worse, by a state choosing expedience when confronted with the seemingly intractable twin problem of an exponential growth in the number of old people and an even faster growth in the aged disabled.

The numbing wake-up call has come by way of the high-profile exit of Mrs Terri Schiavo from this world at the end of last month.

The way she was trundled into eternity stirred many in Singapore (and elsewhere) to declare publicly or privately that they want their plug pulled out - if they become so ill that prolonging life will be tantamount to prolonging their own agony and the agony of their loved ones.

The Advance Medical Directive (AMD) offers Singaporeans a way out as it is a legal document telling the doctor that if the signatory becomes terminally ill and unconscious, he or she does not want any extraordinary life-sustaining treatment.

I have no problem with people supporting the AMD, verbally or in writing. After all, who wants to go like Mrs Schiavo, even if one discounts the ugly 15-year-long legal war between her husband and her parents, one side pressing hard to let her die, while the other side was adamant about keeping her alive.

Mrs Schiavo's plight also highlighted another horror. After her feeding tube was disconnected, she lived for another 13 awful days - with food and water withheld from her by order of the courts in the United States to make sure she went to her maker.

As someone somewhere said, if a notorious criminal were condemned to die by starvation and dehydration, all decent-minded people would be up in arms to demand swifter deliverance for the wretch.

Naturally, the desire to hasten death will be twice as strong when it concerns a person whose only crime is to continue to breathe, although she is supposed to go, once the artificial life props are withdrawn.

Hence, even as support for AMD here has gone up, so too has support for the idea of taking proactive steps to speed up the dying process of an AMD signatory at death's door who is so unlucky as not to make the transition swiftly.

And this is what I find most frightening. Euthanasia may, thanks to what happened to Mrs Schiavo, become, like homosexuality, no more taboo but just another acceptable lifestyle choice. Or, to put it more accurately and crudely, a death-style choice.

I am frightened because I am not convinced that this way of embracing death really stems from choice.

Readers' letters on the Schiavo case suggest that foremost among the many considerations going into the 'choice' is not to be a burden to one's family or loved ones.

The perceived burden encompasses both the financial and emotional.

Some doctors who commented have pointed to the scarcity of resources in a hospital setting, leading to the obvious conclusion that in apportioning a finite pie, the least able to survive deserves less.

The subtext running through all this is the quality of life, ignoring that how quality is defined is always subjective, variable and vacillating.

Two decades ago, a dying friend in her youth used to believe life not worth living if her waist disqualified her for XS clothes. Yet, in her final days, she was delirious just to be able to keep down her favourite starfruit juice drink for longer than 30 minutes before throwing it all up.

I suffered terrible vicarious pain whenever I visited her and saw her stubbornly refusing to acknowledge any pain, even though the huge beads of sweat on her face told me otherwise.

This memory of Jenny reminds me constantly of how dear staying alive is and how for those whose health has collapsed completely, the minimum quality is acceptable. So, those who are hale and hearty know nothing about what quality of life a dying person will accept.

Of course, what I have extrapolated from the letters and interviews may reflect more about my own bias than what the readers have actually conveyed.

Still, based on my interpretation that public opinion is veering increasingly to the side of legal euthanasia, I want to say, please let's stop before we get railroaded into thinking that it's the only option for those at death's door, yet unable to enter it fast enough to suit economic or emotional imperatives.

Let the Schiavo tragedy provoke another response. Let all who love all the faces and phases of life state categorically, while still healthy, that we expect, no demand, that our families leave no stone unturned to keep us alive, if we should fall unexpectedly into a catastrophic twilight between life and death.

Such a 'will to live' isn't new, and is one of the measures promoted by supporters of Mrs Schiavo's parents to provide a counterpoint to the living will which, ironically, is really a euphemism for what is, in effect, a 'will to die'.

Of course, the will to live may prove burdensome to the families of some signatories and the state. But heck, if we can't at least trouble our families - and in the last resort, the Government - in our last days, then we might as well be the offspring of stone like Jia Bao Yu, the tragic hero in the Chinese classic Hong Lou Meng, or The Dream Of The Red Chamber.

Alternatively, we should reject all family life and national loyalty when we are still healthy so that we don't discover too late that families and perhaps even the state can be fair-weather friends that reject us in our hour of real need.

Where I am concerned, my extended family know my feelings but have mostly been noncommittal about honouring my wishes. Since I am single, the only certainty I have for support is my Government, which I hope will one day soon provide a legally enforceable alternative to the AMD. And that is the will to live.