Basket.

Just about everyone now has probably heard about the world-renowned pianist who dodged National Service to become just that, then returned 28 years later and got nothing more than a paltry (by his rich fuck standards) fine.

It is, of course, a ridiculously light punishment. Under the Enlistment Act, people who evade NS can be jailed up to two years and fined $5,000. Yet he gets off practically scot-free with only the fine, which I am absolutely sure he will have trouble paying, what with being a world-renowned pianist earning more money than I may ever see per year. It's horribly unfair to everyone who has ever had to serve, including the current lot. What kind of message, indeed, is the government sending here? Become someone with a valuable enough skill and you can be exempted from the full force of the law, in addition to being welcomed back to the country you so selfishly refused to serve as a national hero? Where is the meritocracy here?

I would be less harsh if he had a better reason for draft-dodging. But no, it was because he wanted to focus on his career without the two-and-a-half year disruption. Well, because all the successive 20,000 or so batches of NSFs are perfectly willing and happy to put everything they have planned on hold for two-and-a-half (or two) years and go to shitty Basic Military Training on shitty Pulau Tekong, after which they will be posted to some shitty camp or shitty command school where they will proceed to waste two shitty years! I'm perfectly content to be sitting here in my bloody office in camp using this fucked up computer to type a fucking blog entry all about this idiot because I have just about fuck-all to do! I completely have no wishes to go to university instead to further my education and develop my future career!

What an incredibly self-centred asshole. While 20,000 of his peers served their national obligations by going through all the hardship that military training entails, he stayed comfortably in England and made a fortune. While successive batches followed them, he made a global name for himself. Yes, I am sure the initial decision not to come back and serve was as "painful" as he said it was.

Please, throw the fucker in jail. For two years at least. Because if so many thousands have had to waste their time over the years, he bloody well has to as well. Or MINDEF will just be saying that they can be bought off with base coin.