I covered and voted in all nine General Elections since 1979 and am no longer amazed, only now more amused by the ease with which ‘Looshans’ can blindly elect to become colour-blind or to keep shifting selective amnesia into higher gear as Election Days approach.
Take the following latest personal experiences…
I’ve never got any negative comment about my attire on my long-running weekly Sunday TV show (Earl@Large on DBS); but on the day in May when I took my second COVID jab, an elderly fan quietly told me from behind her mask: ‘You had a red shirt last Sunday, so I hope you put a yellow one for this Sunday…’
I laughed and pointed out that ‘The shirt was Red-and-Black…’, but she quickly replied, ‘I’m talking about the Red…’
During last week’s show, another viewer noted online in the Chat: ‘I see your Red Drum behind you…’
I thought of asking whether she saw ‘the drum’ or ‘the Red’, but decided to let that beat pass…
A friend told me on Tuesday: ‘My brother said you chose Ricky T’s song about how the government say to keep your mask on, just because he’s wearing a red shirt…’
And a fisher friend on Wednesday asked whether I’d noticed that ‘The rude guy that went to disturb the prime minister right at his home last Sunday morning was wearing a red shirt…’
This being the start of what ‘Revolucian’ host Christopher Hunte describes as ‘the beginning of the sixth year of the UWP government’s five-year term’, colours don’t seem to matter anymore, talk show hosts with accumulated bile on their chests no longer choking on their spit or vomit and now just spitting-it-out loud…
My most memorable experience with this red-and-yellow blues was in 2010, going to the Electoral Department to renew my ID Card ahead of the 2011General Elections wearing a shirt with a neutral color – only to discover, days later, that someone (who I now know) had had taken ultra-partisan pleasure to electronically suit me with a bright yellow shirt on my National ID Card.
As fate would have it, after ten years with my ID photo sporting a yellow shirt I never had, I returned to the department on July 1, 2020 to replace the now-expired one.
But, Lo and Behold, bound in a wheelchair following a near-tragic accident two months earlier and unable to enter the building under COVID Lockdown rules, I was advised: ‘The easiest way out is to use the same photo…’
The color of my shirt on my ID card not changing how I will vote and not wishing to have to ‘Wheel-and-come-again’, I agreed…
Now I’ll spend another ten years — and vote in at least two more General Elections until my 74th birthday in 2030 — with another ID card sporting the same yellow shirt I never had.
Now, that’s something to live for…
Isn’t it?