got this in my mail. =D

Zoe Tay to Advise PM on Swallowing

The Singapore Union of Cockle-Keeping Enthusiasts and Restaurant Suppliers(SUCKERS) has engaged MediaCock celebrity, Zoe Tay, to provide advice to thePrime Minister on swallowing.

Ms Tay was engaged following a recent ad campaign for a skincare product which caused controversy because of its veiled hint at oral sex - the ad claimed that the secret to Zoe's beautiful skin was because she 'swallowed'.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister suffered a catastrophic public relations disaster, when, during his 2006 National Day Rally speech, his response toMr. Brown's bak chor mee prank was to say, 'mee siam mai hum'.

This puzzled many Singaporeans as the dish mee siam has never been servedwith 'hum' - the Hokkien name for cockles.

The attempt at sounding colloquial had in fact backfired greatly on PM Lee,reinforcing the view that he is out of touch with ordinary Singaporeans, andgiving Mr. Brown the ammunition to fire back with a hilarious spoof.

"But it wasn't just a PR disaster for him," said SUCKER president Mr. Loh Hum Sup. "It really backfired on the cockle industry. Hum began to be thebutt of jokes - it became really uncool to eat it. For years we had beenplanning to expand the use of hum with other dishes beyond laksa and charkway teow - yes, even mee siam - but the Prime Minister has set theseefforts back by decades. Why lai dat, PM Lee? What harm has the humble hum ever done to you?"

Members of SUCKERS called an emergency meeting to decide how to respond to the crisis. "The vote was unanimous," said Mr. Loh. "To rehabilitate the industry and also the PM's image, we needed to get him to eat mee siam WITHhum. But clearly, he has expressed a distaste for it. So how? Who could we get to do it?"

The answer was also unanimous - Zoe Tay.

"She swallows and looks good because of it," said Mr. Loh. "So I think she has a thing or two to teach the PM."

Ms Tay agreed immediately.

"Pill lah, hum lah, anything also I not scared to swallow," said the Queenof Caldecock, "Anything is better than the dialogue MediaCorp puts in my mouth."

While SUCKERS remains hopeful that PM Lee will accept Ms. Tay's tutorial,the Prime Minister's Orifice has denied all rumours that the event will proceed, saying, "We wish to state categorically that the rumour about thePrime Minister learning how to swallow from Zoe Tay is completely fallacious."

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by Cockle Doodledo

The reason for the Prime Minister's notorious and embarrassing gaffeduring his National Day Rally speech has been revealed.

In his 2006 National Day Rally speech, the Prem Binister had intended to deliver a withering, cogently argued response to those who saw the Gahmen's clampdown on Mr. Brown as heavy-handed. Instead, the argumentwas not only garbled, but he inadvertently revealed how out of touch he was with the average Singaporean's experiences.

By saying, 'mee siammai hum', he created the impression that either:

1. he had never eaten mee siam in his life, as mee siam never contains 'hum', or cockles;

2. he could not tell the difference between laksa or char kway teow (which does have cockles) and mee siam(which doesn't), which then raises questions about what he eats regularly, and how different his diet is from the average Singaporean;

3. he actually meant to say, 'mee siam mai hiam', which is possible. But by asking for no spice in a dish whose entire point is spiciness only suggests wimpiness;

4. he has never had to order food in a hawker centre in a long while, if at all, which again sets him apart from his constituents.

- all of which are not particularly flattering propositions.

However, the Prime Minister's Orifice has managed to uncover the truth- that the Prime Minister's 'mee siam mai hum' statement was not in fact a gaffe, but derived from personal experience.

Specifically, his experience during a pre-election walk about earlier thisyear at Bukit Gorblok Food Centre in Hong Kan GRC, where he sampled the wares of Mr. Hum Kah Chan, a tze char hawker whose speciality is serving cockles with everything.

"Yah lor," said Mr. Hum, whose stall is aptly named 'Humpalang Hawker Food'. "Prem Binister come to my stall, so I offer him my today's special, mah."

Which was - you guessed it - mee siam with cockles.

"I put hum in everything," he said proudly, with a hint of defensiveness. "Chicken rice with hum, nasi lemak with hum, bak kut teh with hum, prata with hum, even ice kacang with hum. I love hum. Hum, hum,hum, hum, lovely hum, wonderful hum."

"The Prime Minister consumed the dish," said Mr. Gerry Mandhir,an officer with the PMO. "And promptly had diarrhoea. Not the verbal variety that runs in certain geriatric members of his family, but from somewhere, um, lower down."

Mr. Hum subsequently had his licence suspended for unhygienic food practices.

"What to do? The hum was pai," said Mr. Hum ruefully, using the Hokkien word for 'bad', before chanting angrily, "Pai hum!Pai hum! Pai hum! Pai hum!"

Since then, the Prime Minister has had a phobia of foods containing cockles,and always asks that whatever is served to him does not contain the offending bivalves.

"This explains his statement. The hum was very harmful to him,"said Mr. Mandhir. "It was especially embarrassing because he waswearing white pants. You must understand - this incident is also why he just cannot stand the colour brown."