Singapore recently celebrated its National Day: every residents’ association spent July providing decorations and bunting and exhorting residents to deck their parapets with ordered rows of red-and-white flags. There was a parade, rehearsed for weeks beforehand, and by the time it took place the novelty of the aircraft and the fireworks must have worn off, though you wouldn’t have known it from the applause. I really enjoyed it. Here’s a video:

(A week later they hosted the Youth Olympic Games opening ceremony. Watch the last three minutes or so: amazing set, Speer-like, shades of Metropolis, drifting in the half-shadow of Marina Bay, a place that’s no less artificial or considered than a stage)

This sort of thing is a reminder that in lots of ways Singapore is a made-up country, one created suddenly and with a sense of urgency only a generation or so ago. The patriotism that is encouraged here is genuine, of course, and there are very real threats to the island’s security which demand a sense of loyalty, but there’s an untested quality to it that draws your attention to the way it’s been made up, in schools and workplaces and televised events.

They make up other countries as well. These pictures were taken in the IKEA cafeteria, after eating meatballs and boiled potatoes.

“Dalarna. It is mythical. It is summer. Midsummer. An enchanting hilly landscape. A picture painted by famous artists. The sound of a happy violin. Folklore. Culture. Traditions. Bright nights. Breath-taking light. It is the most Swedish in Sweden. It is Dalarna.”

Sweden, mystical home of sensible interior planning and refreshing attitudes to public bathing. Of course, we do the same thing, and not just to Sweden: there’s a distance of a couple of thousand miles at which any country is more easily understood through the ways it’s made up than through any actual experience. People in the UK did it with various countries now in the Commonwealth, Americans did it with Japan, and now Singaporeans romanticise Northern European countries and the parts of the culture they like. The Swiss are used in a similar way: the highest quality butchers, embroiderers, dry cleaners and health food suppliers all have “Swiss” in their name. The British aren’t treated the same way, being a much more real part of recent history here.

None of this is a criticism. But all this making up other countries has made it more obvious to me how I choose the parts of England that I miss, how I make up my own country to be nostalgic about. Since I arrived I’ve been listening to Dave Swarbrick and Alistair Anderson, and to groups that imagine their own village more obviously: the Moon Wiring Club, Belbury Poly, the Focus Group and others on the Ghost Box label. When I miss home now, after watching other people construct their own ideas of countries, I feel much more aware that I’m missing somewhere I made up, and take more pleasure in populating it on purpose: old Children’s Film Foundation programmes, Greater London Council lettering on country roadsigns, AA badges, muted, textured countryside, Puffin books and Alan Garner countrysides, morris dancing, public works in rollling hills from Dacorum and Milton Keynes borough councils, long barrows and neolithic landscapes, greaseproof paper and boxes of orange juice, whimsical acts of principled civil disobedience, well-spoken male voices in children’s radio programmes, village flotsam from the Festival of Britain, electronic engineering, and further away the Channel and the North Sea and stories of smuggling and secrecy.

Ages ago I was thinking about what it must be like to be a crane driver, in a rather romantic and, it turned out, inaccurate way. Now Channel 4 have made 28 minutes of television about what the world looks like from the cab of a crane, and I can’t wait to watch it.

The Solitary Life of Cranes (via Phil Gyford on haddock)

Huizinga, writing in 1938:

Modern social life is being dominated to an ever-increasing extent by a quality that has something in common with play and yields the illusion of a strongly-developed play-factor. This quality I have ventured to call Puerilism, as being the most appropriate appellation for that blend of adolescence and barbarity which has been rampant all over the world for the past two or three decades
Homo Ludens (1945), p205

Later, he describes “walking in marching order or at a special pace” and “the wearing of badges and sundry items of political haberdashery” as “puerilism of the lowest order”, before remarking that

We have seen great nations losing every shred of honour, all sense of humour, the very idea of decency and fair play.

He was writing in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, and not surprisingly was locked up soon after writing this. Seen from the present-day, a lot of his views seem reactionary and at odds with current orthodoxies: for example, he thought the 18th century represented the pinnacle of civilisation and that the Boy Scouts were a “great innovation”, neither of which are fashionable opinions outside the offices of the Spectator. But there’s something inspiring and noble in this way of calling the Third Reich uncivilised. At around the same time I suppose Wodehouse must have been mocking Spode and his fascistic Black Shorts.

Distinguishing between genuine play and things that merely appear play-like is still important today. I’m grateful that, unlike Huizinga, I don’t have to think very hard about Nazis. But there are still large parts of my life that have been colonised by political and commercial interests who pretend to a kind of playful intimacy — “My Computer”, “the Big Conversation”, the kind of copywriting pioneered by Innocent — and it’s just as vital to call attention to the false nature of this ersatz playfulness.

The recent turn towards “gameifying” user experiences has engendered more of a backlash than just my “points are stupid” rant of last week. Here’s a quick round-up of people pointing out what should be obvious but will probably be ignored.

Russell Davies suggests we need to steal other things from games than leaderboards:

…we’re going to encounter a bunch of crappy sorta-games foisted on us. Those rudimentary game schemes are going to be rolled out by everyone with a rewards card, CRM system, loyalty scheme or something that can be plotted on a graph. And they’re going to be no fun. They’re going to drive us all mad

Caroline McCarthy on “Social-media games: Badges or badgering?”

“Game mechanics,” as this sort of points-and-achievements gimmick is called, is tough to get right: Turning everything into a contest may grab some extra attention at first, but it can easily veer into the annoying

David Hayward at Gamasutra: “System Fatigue”

Mechanics and meta-game systems applied to everyday life are at risk of being so repetitive they never achieve any kind of worthwhile structure, let alone a peak.

Brad Hargreaves on “Cargo Cult Game Design“:

Ultimately, you’re better served by building something from the ground up. Start with the basic principles of psychology and game design and build them into your product at a fundamental level. Otherwise, it’s just an elaborate cargo cult ritual that mimics the process but fails to understand the underlying truths.

And there’s a really comprehensive round-up of critical responses to Jesse Schell’s talk (the one that set me off in the first place) from David Carlton here: “Critical Compilation: Jesse Schell, ‘Design outside the Box’“.

Really cheers me up to see so many people taking the time to respond thoughtfully: makes it easier to make the case that games are interesting not because of the technology or number-crunching, but because they let you play.

Singapore is pretty good for snacks, nibbles, bites, little somethings and all sorts of treats. I bought the three things above from Tiong Bahru Pau, just round the corner. The one in the middle is a pork pau (also bau – basically means ‘bun’ as far as I can see): the case is light and soft from being steamed rather than baked, slightly sticky to the touch, and inside is a few wedges of pork, with gravy. Was lovely. On the right is something that I’ve never had before and don’t know the name of, but it turned out to be a sort of super-powered Scotch egg: the batter case contained half an egg and some lighter slices of pork or ham. Both delicious.

And the thing on the left is another thing I don’t have a name for, but it made a good dessert. Sesame donut with red bean sauce inside, just the right blend of sweet and savoury. I got these from the kitchen shop on Outram Road, but they’ve got a stall in the hawker centre that’s on my list now.