Reports filtering in from the furthest heartlands speak of a terrible new plague. The first victims have barely three years left to enjoy the premium views from their condo windows and can do nothing but bitch and moan as construction sites erupt like buboes around them, as mature trees are felled to make space for…whisper it…mature people. Rumors are spreading of marauding hordes of the elderly descending on remote hawker centers and sitting there for upwards of an hour, just talking. The horror of it all!How long it will be before the sickness spreads we can only guess. Six months?

You ever think Singapore’s standards might be just a little too high? In a country that tops out at six inches above sea level we understand the need to get high somehow, someway. But this really isn’t the way to go about it. If it’s not a temporary and entirely ordinary subway breakdown causing nationwide tut-tutting, it’s a crisp packet somewhere in the heartlands being held up as an example of how the whole country is going to the dogs.

Less than two months into 2012 and already there’s been more fascinating news items than bodies in Bedok. But how closely have you been paying attention?*1. According to the Wall Street Journal, four out of five visitors to Marina Bay Sands’ casino are now:(a) Spies for RWS(b) Tragic cab drivers who need help breaking their addiction(c) Foreigners2.

Hey guys (and I do mean guys),It’s been a while, huh? Y’all thought I’d grown up, got a job, bought a longer skirt? Put down that fancy-ass bespoke cocktail and think again. I’m back, and the only thing that’s gotten longer is my list of pet grievances against you. This being Valentine’s season and all, I thought I’d get the big one off my chest (and yes, honey, it is still mine, whatever that Marymount surgeon might say).Picking up girls. I’ve just two questions for you, fellas: why are you so bad at it, and why are you so effing bad at it?

Right now, everyone’s busy wishing everyone else a prosperous new year. But in these cheerful days of reunions, slap-up banquets and fond reminiscences, spare a thought for the marginalized, disenchanted few; our politicians.

Let’s start planning now. Because if 11½ months from now we have to slog through another season of tedious, tepid, yawn-inducing “What a year it was!” roundups, we swear we’re going to find a cave somewhere in MacRitchie Reservoir, crawl in, and never come back out.What we’re lobbying for is a little excitement, a little conflict, a little intrigue. Something that’s actually worth talking about, as opposed to the usual bitching about the queues in front of nightclubs or taxi drivers not being able to make change for a fifty.Take dying. We suck at it.

Woah, what was that!? 2011, was that you whizzing by just now? Three hundred and sixty five days gone in 60 seconds. We barely knew you, fella. Everything moves so fast in Singapore—rents, taxi fares, the door policy at Avalon. Fast, fast, fast. Everyone and everything on speed. Everyone and everything on speed except that goddamn SMRT—man, what a ride! Now we’re not calling for the lady’s head on a stick or anything radical like that—let’s be reasonable about this—but we’ve got to tell you just how awful it was down there, just awful.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and across the red dot,Not a creature was stirring—’cept on Ed Saverin’s yacht.Brokers, jokers and models partying away on the tide,And more than a few throwing up over the side.An elite social network just back from Pangaea,Where they’d bought all the bottles (Champagne not beer...).All of them wasted, seasonally drunk and so jolly,And who’s that girl there?

It’s official. Singapore is now too expensive for human habitation, with a new survey pegging it as the sixth most expensive city in Asia. Japan took the top four slots (fuel prices having skyrocketed after every last tree was felled to print the new Murakami book), Seoul scooped fifth (with total annual spending on hairgel standing in for GDP). But Singapore was the shock, leapfrogging Hong Kong into sixth. Taxi fares are going up, Causeway fares are going up, stamp duty is going up, the price of the paper you buy to read about prices going up is going up.

So the Standard Chartered Marathon has been and gone for another year, leaving torn energy gel wrappers, blistered feet and 65,000 smug grins in its wake. What lessons did we learn this time around?1. We need a new sponsor. Forget all the talk of an efficient, innovative event. Fact is that their blue and green kit is terribly passé. It used to be a kind of trophy; now half the people in the gym are wearing it. You want to be a fashion-forward city, Singapore? Then your running kit needs to make a statement, too.