<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>The avoid deck
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Mark Featherstone
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My condo is bounded on three sides by HDB flats, and a morning walk will sometimes take me past a void deck bustling with much unloading, cooking and arranging in preparation for a wedding reception or some other celebration. I've noticed that the sound system is set up and tested early, reflecting the importance of music for the festivities.
Something similar happens at West Mall when the floor of the cavernous central core is turned over to a stage from which one man - a lone, sadistic singer - attempts to render hundreds of shoppers permanently deaf. I'm never sure what the occasion is, though I suspect there is at least one national 'Make the Customer Suffer Day'.
Mark Featherstone is a Canadian and a professor at the School of Biological Sciences at Nanyang Technological University. He will come to your wedding if you let him sing.