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Weekend in Singapore
St Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore
There's something reassuring for a Brit about landing in a former British colony like Singapore. Somehow, the footprint remains almost half a century after the Union Flag came down.
Not only are there evocatively British street names (Clive, Kitchener, Mountbatten), but the traffic drives on the left, the car-registration plates are distinctly British in shape and dimensions (mostly with the white characters on a black background that died out in the UK in the 1970s) and – most useful and endearing of all – the power-sockets are British square-pin standard, so there's no need to fiddle about with adaptors.
It's fascinating to discover, patched in between the mainly undistinguished post-war buildings, vestiges of the colonial past.
St Andrew's Cathedral, for example, is an immediately recognisable, rather blocky Commissioner's-Gothic Anglican church with a squat English-cathedral spire, painted in brilliant white, designed by Colonel Ronald MacPherson, a military engineer who could clearly turn his hand to any constructional task, and built by Indian convict labourers. Â Opened in 1862, it became a cathedral in 1870. Â Its aisles are dotted with generous memorials to men, women and children who spent their lives in this sticky, remote and dangerous place: Â some died here;Â others died back in Britain but were memorialised by the colonial community.
Rather more surprising is the Armenian Apostolic Church of St Gregory the Illuminator, a compact cruciform classical design of 1835, its original onion dome replaced by a gothic spire that sits incongruously on top of a pediment. Â Its churchyard is littered with modern statuary, and the church itself is a compact circular space, with doorways open to breezes on three sides.
Elsewhere, British eyes lock on to the 1930s central fire-station which would look entirely at home in Birmingham and a Masonic hall, bristling with compass-and-square symbols.  A half-day city tour showed me that there's much more to see than can fit into a jet-lagged weekend – every possible kind of place of worship, a carefully conserved Chinatown and a thriving Little India, all reflecting the polyglot energy of the place.
Singapore is a very comfortable place to be, if you can cope with the climate.  The only delinquency I saw was economic – touts trying to lure people into shops.  The policemen smile and greet visitors: the only time I saw a policeman act aggressively was when a woman tried to cross the road instead of using an underpass.  The police apparently hand out tickets for good driving, with rewards a bit like air miles.
Posters exhort Singapore citizens to promote "graciousness", and there are notices at the top of escalators reminding people to use the escalator "correctly". Â The Straits Times has the language and attitudes of a 1960s grammar-school magazine.
When I walked into the headquarters of the Singapore Cricket Club at eight o'clock on Sunday morning and asked, as is my habit, for a restroom, I was treated promptly and courteously – and it was an exceptionally fine restroom.  I wonder if I'd get away with that at Lord's or the Oval.  I hope so.
Singaporeans are notoriously picky about litter: Â in the hotel, a magnificent lady reception greeter in a split skirt and full make-up picked up specks from the carpet and fetched a cloth to wipe smears from the marble floor; Â I even saw two men in a small boat sweeping the harbour.
And, they disapprove of tipping.
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