A simple email from Marshall Cavendish to the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Library turned into a public talk by Neil Humphreys at NTU School of Communication and Information before he left Singapore for Geelong, Australia.

Jointly organized by the NTU Library and the School of Communication and Information, Neil’s Tour of Singapore … in 60 minutes was held on 29 August 2006. More than 200 people packed the lecture hall to catch Neil. Besides staff and students from the School of Communication and Information, people from Engineering, Science, Business and Humanities and Social Sciences also made their way down to the talk.

Neil shared some of the highlights of his ten-year stay in Singapore, his observations about the local media, and why he thought being a journalist in Singapore was still worth the while.

We laughed with him when he mistook a void-deck funeral for a coffee-shop, when he was called Mr “Coo-Coo Bird” by his young students and when he was nicknamed “tam pui” which means a spittoon by his ex-colleagues at the language school.

Addressing the Communication students in the audience, he offered both the pros and the cons of being a journalist in Singapore. He felt that the pros outweighed the cons. For pros, he listed making a difference, enjoying perks like movie junkets, and getting ample opportunities to grow. As for cons, it would be the thin line journalists walk in trying to decide what’s acceptable and what’s not.

After the talk, he spent the next hour signing books and posing for pictures with fans – his reward to fans for queuing patiently for their turn. He may be heading down to Australia in mid-September but, who knows, we might be seeing Neil back in Singapore in the near future, poking around with his pen and notepad. After all, he is now an honorary permanent resident of Singapore.

Contributed by Phoebe Lim Choon Lan, NTU Library