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The PTM team |
From the PTM team
To all of you, who joined us on Prime Time Morning over the year, a big "thank you" for taking the time, braving the early hours and most of all, for telling your story. For who knows who you've touched on a brand new morning on a brand new show and left them feeling fortunate, just to be able to live, another day.
* Senior Executive Producer Susanna Kulatissa remembers the Morning, Madness and Magic
* For Senior Editor Audrey Ang It's all about teamwork
* Business Presenter Jennifer Alejandro looks back on Pele's Visit with much fondness
* Producer Deepika Shetty tips her hat to Captain Elmo Jayawardena
* Senior Producer Suzie Wong best remembers the Tata Young Effect on her male colleagues
* Producer Fiona Tan remembers her encounter with Francis Yip best this year
* For Senior Producer Lum Moe Sing, a day spent with stunt drive Russel Swift was an experience not to be forgotten
* Senior Producer Chua Chin Chye looks back at How Life Unfolds right before his eyes
* Producer Gamar Abdul Aziz remembers The Stars Who Shine in 2006
* Senior Producer Jennifer Ding sums up 2006 in a PTM Ditty
* For Senior Producer Nooraza Ismail, the PTM guest who stood out in 2006 was The Iconic Chef Wan in 2006
* Presenter Steven Chia says Meeting Josh Groban was the best experience in 2006. And he might even ask Josh out for a beer if their paths ever cross again.
* For Senior Producer Abdul Halim Mamsie, his encounter with Tata Young just proved that You can have your cake and eat it too.
Morning, Madness and Magic
By Susanna Kulatissa
There we are. At our respective posts. Holding our breath and watching -- as the long-hand on the wall-clock claps against the short one, registering six-thirty.
One fluid motion and we're pitched into a brand new morning and a brand new show.
Like clock-work, the studio slips into gear, shouting commands, calling up video, turning up sound. On the other side of the cameras, presenters straighten up and on cue, beam their morning smiles into thousands of homes across Asia.
Two years on, and the morning machinery is well-greased.
Predictable we'd like to think. Until ...
Four bombs go off in London killing 33 people.
Or seven others explode in a Mumbai train claiming 209 lives.
A coup here. An assassination there.
And the morning suddenly takes on a life of its own.
2006 was littered with such mornings -- when tragedy would grip the team with a quiet hysteria -- as somewhere else on the planet, the death-toll escalates ruthlessly. In the frenzy, news and guests would be frantically sought; stories shuffled and studio crew re-directed. A new line-up emerges almost miraculously and expert guests are waiting in the wings for their allotted time on the set.
Before long, the morning machinery clicks back into its normal hum.
The hum of our ordinary mornings, however, is never without its own throb of excitement. For our newsroom is like a revolving door, letting one guest in, just as another bids us farewell. Besides the huddle of staffers dressed for the graveyard shift, our space is shared with people from all walks of life.
This year alone, we met celebrities of every ilk -- from famed footballer Pele to singing sensation Tata Young; from music evergreens Boney M and The Drifters to popular conservationist Jane Goodall. From Nobel-winning scientists and best-selling authors to terror experts and NGO activists. Amidst all this, once in a while, a lone mother would walk onto our set -- nervous but stoic -- and relate her challenging journey with a cancer-stricken child.
Tragedy, illness, splendour, compassion -- for a while every morning, our office transforms into a fascinating microcosm of life. Suddenly, thrown into the mix of the news rush, are faces representing life in all its diversity.
It is these moments that silently hold the magic our mornings. For as we quickly lead a guest into the studio or hand them a cup of coffee, we make the briefest connection with the human being behind the testimony of tragedy or triumph.
And we are reminded that life brims all around us.
And that though ferocious her lashings may be, many still live to tell their tale.
It's all about teamwork
By Audrey Ang
So, what’s the best thing about working on Primetime Morning?
For me, it’s got to be the team I work with.
We’re a varied bunch of people – some of us don’t even share common interests – but it’s clear that on this team, for most of the time - consideration for each other has not gone the way of the dodo.
Then there’s the varied nature of the show itself – the next best thing about working on the programme.
In some of our blurbs, we like to say there’s “something for everyone” on Primetime Morning.
It’s true - not only for the viewer but for us, the people who work on the show.
In one morning, we could do news stories ranging from the war in Iraq to bird flu in the region, and then an hour later, be talking to studio guests about nutrition or computer viruses, or to celebrities about their latest albums, concerts or movies.
Our programme has featured so many people, on so many topics, in the midst of so much news, that to remember each and every moment would be a stretch, but these are among the moments I remember:
Anthony Bourdain.
For this interview, a colleague, Noora, and I plotted hard, and racked our culinary imaginations, to think of unique foods to present to the palate of the ‘been-there and done-that’ New York chef. The idea was to let him sample some of those foods and have him guess what they were. At the end of our interview, he identified three of the five things we fed him. So much for our efforts.
Mannequin on the edge
We had studio guests in one morning talking about the latest fashionwear. They brought mannequins draped in the newest styles, as props for the interview. But one mannequin was so unstable that throughout the interview, we were on edge, expecting it to fall over head-first, into our presenter, Suzanne’s lap.
Breaking News
Every moment of big, breaking news we’ve ever experienced in the newsroom has been accompanied by an instant of controlled panic – at least for me. It’s a moment when your mind races, trying to pin down all the things that have to be done, the people who need to do it, to get that piece of breaking news accurately and quickly, to the viewer, and then how to keep on doing it – with latest pictures, news updates, expert analyses, eyewitness reports - through the next few hours as the news unfolds.
The panic quickly passes and within moments it’s all hands on deck as the team pulls together to do what has to be done, and then some more.
It’s not a job I’d recommend for the faint-hearted.
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| Pele and Jennifer Alejandro |
Pele and PTM
By Jennifer Alejandro
I believe one of the most memorable days for me for Prime Time Morning this year was when Soccer Legend Pele visited the studio on November 28. He was promoting his sports academy which is part of the attractions in the bid by consortium Eighth Wonder for Singapore's second integrated resort.
It was the first time I saw everyone; studio crew, engineering, video editors, reporters, producers and presenters queuing just to get a glimpse, get an autograph or take a picture with the superstar athlete like I did using my phone camera!
I remember he was very patient and polite with everyone. That's quite unique for someone of his status.
But alas, Eighth Wonder did not win the IR bid. Instead, it went to Genting International.
Nevertheless, it was a memorable day indeed; when everyone on Primetime Morning was simply a FAN.
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| AFLAC at sea |
Let there be light
By Deepika Shetty
There are stories and there are stories.
Some of the people behind those stories fade away, others remain etched in your memory forever. The story of the remarkable Captain Elmo Jayawardena is one of those - that you will never forget once you hear it, that is.
I first met him when my boss Susanna Kulatissa, as madly passionate about books as I am, told me to get serious about launching Prime Time Morning's book segment 'Off The Shelf.' We'd had enough conversations about it, now with a deadline thrust on my head, I was spending every semi-sleep and awake moment thinking about how it could be done. After all, writing about books for print is one thing, translating it for television quite another. And while I love flipping pages, could I even sustain it on a weekly basis? Thoughts like that troubled me on the one hand and got me to do something on the other.
Every weekend would see me scouring the papers for book news, book launches or just trips to the book store to stand behind the book shelves and hear what people were reading, talking about or wanted to read. I still do a lot of that, though in the initial days it was all keeping my ears but my feet firmly glued to the book ground. A lot has changed in the two years. Now, a lot of the book happenings flood my inbox and there always seems to be enough to fill up the next 'Off The Shelf'.
But I digress. Back to Captain Elmo. News of his book launch landed in my inbox. I'll be frank. I'd never heard of him or of his book 'Sam's Story' which had won the prestigious Graetian Prize, instituted by none-other than the Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje. The book had made waves internationally before being picked up Singapore-based publisher Marshall Cavendish. The press release also mentioned the fact that Elmo Jayawardena happens to be a full-time Singapore Airlines pilot who runs a humanitarian organisation when he is not flying planes or writing.
My curiosity to find out more about this man was adequately whetted. So on a rainy Saturday afternoon when I would have liked to be snug with a cup of coffee, I made my way to the book launch at the Library@Orchard. For a minute, I thought I had stepped into the wrong room. The room was packed. The seats were taken - not that I minded standing.
When Captain stepped on the podium, uttered his first line, it drew instant laughs. The first volley was about his best pal's tennis game and it was advantage Elmo. From there he went on to talk about how everyone in the room mattered, how they had in one way or another contributed to AFLAC - the Association For Lighting A Candle - an organisation he had formed to reach out to the less fortunate in Sri Lanka. In fact, all the proceeds from the sale of his book 'Sam's Story' were also to go back to the charity. Speaking of publishing dollars, he told a rapt audience. "I leave the issue of royalties, entirely to my publisher's conscience."
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| Captain Elmo speaks |
Just why does he do that? That question led me to unravel Elmo's life. 'Sam's Story', which had opened so many literary doors for him was only a small part of the bigger story that Elmo was telling the world. And what a story it turned out to be.
Elmo was born into a reasonably wealthy family. His father was a Sri Lankan fighter pilot who went on to work as a senior captain at Air Ceylon. But at 12, life dealt a cruel blow. His father lost his job and the Jayawardena world collapsed. By the time he was 14, he became the breadwinner, while attending school at the same time. All that was left of the family fortune was a small property where he plucked coconuts.
At the age of 17, he was making fan blades for the Brown's Company. A minor break came when he was working as an accounts clerk and someone showed him a newspaper advertisement calling for air stewards for Air Ceylon. Elmo applied and got the job. Though finding a suitcase for his first flight turned out to be a challenge. After walking through his hometown, he and his mother could only find a big canvas one that had to be filled up with his and his brother's clothes for his first flight to Bombay. The suitcase turned out to be the butt of all the cabin crew's jokes. For Elmo, those jokes only turned out to be another one of life's many lessons that taught him never to look down on anyone.
Despite those leg-pulling sessions, kindness showed up in strange forms. When a senior colleague who had developed a fondness for Elmo suggested he take flying lessons, he dutifully followed. He went on to clear the prestigious Flying Nine exams and landed a job with Singapore Airlines.
The next couple of years were focused on raising his two children with his wife Dil. In 1995, when their children were older, Elmo and Dil decided it was payback time. Driven by a sense of purpose, but no clear idea of how it would all work, they formed AFLAC. Like all good things, it started small. Backed by funds from foreign and local donors, health and education were and still remain AFLAC's key priority. Since its formation the group has also diversified into the field of shelter, clothing and food.
People came forward from all parts of the world to help and AFLAC grew over the years reaching out to students, cancer patients and anyone in need. That was till the deadly tsunami waves lashed the coastal belt of Sri Lanka. Galle alone had over 5,000 displaced families. Given the enormity of the disaster that faced them, within days, a new direction was charted.
Post-tsunami initiatives included a housing project, a pre-school in the south of Sri Lanka, stipends for students, boats for fishermen.
Today, the charity stands out with the reach that only a gifted writer and an international pilot's connections can bring. While the work may be local, the donors who support it come from all parts of the world. Perhaps what draws them to it, is Elmo and Dil's belief in the proverbial saying : "It's better to light a solitary candle than to curse the darkness."
To think he does all of this between flying passengers on 747s to all parts of the world and writing. I have often asked him about it. "There is no secret formula," he always tells me, "it's all very simple, it's about linking one person's generosity to another person's need."
I know all of this is easier said than done, which is why as AFLAC's 'Swim for Safety' project takes off on the second anniversary of the tsunami, I tip my hat to this remarkable Captain.
For more on AFLAC's work and how you can be a part of it visit www.aflacinternational.com
Deepika is a Producer with Prime Time Morning and also takes care of the book segment Off The Shelf
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| Producer Suzie Wong, attempting to hide from the 'paparazzi' |
The Tata Young Effect
By Suzie Wong
Things that come to mind this year ... the question -- "how soon can I get back to bed?" -- that pops into my head every weekday morning, sometimes at 12.30am, sometimes at 2am.
Chancing on Corinne May practising a chorus in the stairwell.
And the Tata Young effect on male colleagues - they twittered and twitched before and after her interview. During it, they were mesmerised.
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| PTM Producer Fiona Tan rubs shoulders with Francis Yip |
Let there be music
By Fiona Tan
You know it when you hear it.
The voice is undeniably hers.
Here I am talking about Frances Yip, surely one of the best known performers in the Asian entertainment scene.
And one of the longest survivors - 37 years in the industry.
She dropped by Prime Time Morning's studios for a chat in April.
I was the producer in the studio that day and was looking forward to meeting her.
I've only seen her in person once before. That was many years ago. Too many to count actually.
Point is, she did not look a day older despite the passage of time.
And despite having had to deal with breast cancer and depression.
During the 58-year-old singer's interview on Prime Time Morning, she was cheerful and easy-going.
And then to everyone's pleasant surprise, she broke into song, with the familiar chorus from the "Shanghai Beach" theme, throwing in some running commentary along the way.
It's hard to describe it. Somehow, when she sings, it puts you at ease immediately. It's warm, it's friendly.
It was the same when my colleagues and I went up to thank her for coming by for the show.
She was all smiles and agreeable to requests for autographs and photo-taking.
Sure, some might say that's how celebrities behave during the fleeting moments they have with fans.
But then, she could have easily refused our requests. After all, this was probably the umpteenth meeting with her fans.
Why was it a best moment for me?
Besides the fact that it was a rare opportunity to meet a musical legend, it also brought back memories of the more pleasant moments in my life, when things were simpler and purer.
More than once during her career, Ms Yip described herself as "merely a housewife who occasionally sings".
It's a basic, fundamental and more importantly, grounded approach to life.
All in all, Frances Yip proved, and is still proving, that you don't need a fancy moniker and fancy moves to succeed and endure in the finicky world of entertainment.
EP's note: Fiona is a true-blue music lover. In her personal collection, time stands still. Disc, tape and vinyl rub shoulders amicably; and you are just as likely to pick up a Marilyn Manson as you are an old Boney M. But we can only imagine. We still wait to be invited for a peek...
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| Producer Lum Moe Sing (in striped t-shirt) with Russel Swift and presenter Steven Chia |
Need for speed
By Lum Moe Sing
As motorshows go, Singapore doesn't rank among the best.
True, for Singaporeans, it offers a glance of what's coming, and perhaps a chance to get a good deal on a set of wheels.
But compared with the big wig shows like Paris, Frankfurt , Detroit and Tokyo, it's small to say the least.
So it was with some trepidation that I, along with Steven Chia (our presenter), headed down to Suntec City for a preview of the 8th Singapore Motorshow.
Besides the sexy gals, who did their best to distract us, there were some sexy models to gaze at.
Ferrari displayed the mighty 599 Fiorano, Lamborghini the stylish Gallardo, while niche manufacturers like Rinspeed showed us how a Porsche could be tastefully modified.
Yet, we somehow felt unfulfilled, and quickly realized why - Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, Renault, Mitsubishi - all big guns in the industry, were no where to be found!
Why? Beats me. But we felt their absence.
Nevertheless, we trotted through the two halls of Suntec where the show was held, taking down notes and noting the latest by putting it on tape.
It wasn't until we arrived at the Subaru booth that our spirits shifted into high gear…cause waiting for us was renowned stunt driver - Russell Swift.
This is the man who holds three world records for stunts with cars.
Among them, the most spins within a given time, which incidentally, he broke again while in Singapore.
Lucky Steven got to sit in the car with Russell, while I directed the shoot with our camera and soundman.
Russell, with Steven, performed three stunts - executing a hand-brake turn and parallel parking the car between two cars; spinning the car on an axis, and driving on two wheels!
Bravely, Steven got in with Russell and together they sped off in a Subaru WRX to the staging point, waiting for our signal to start the first stunt.
We set up at the far end of a track that measured about a 100 meters or more. When we were ready, I gave the thumbs up, and vroooooom!
In a cloud of smoke, the Subaru ploughed its way towards us at breakneck speed, and as it neared the camera, Russell pulled hard on the hand-brake and sharply yanked the wheel, swinging the WRX just past us, with the car's front bumper missing the cameraman and myself by inches! The shot, to say the least, turned out fantastic, but it was a little too close for comfort!
So we decided to curb the risks, and pulled a little further back, making more space between the WRX and us.
Stunt by stunt, Russell moved through the paces with precision.
And as we got used to the acrid smell of burning rubber, and the sound of screeching tires, we meticulously documented, shot by shot, Russell's talent behind the wheel.
We were helped in no small part by a small remote camera which we cleverly mounted onto the car's dashboard. So every move by Russell, and every grimace on Steven's face, was captured on tape.
The final stunt, the two-wheeler, proved the most exciting and from my point of view, probably the hardest to perform.
As Russell told us himself, it requires him to tip the car almost over, to find that pivotal point of balance on the car's tire wall which would allow him to drive on just two wheels.
What a thrill! When it was all done, and Steven had gotten out and regained his composure, the thought flashed across my mind to ask Russell to take me for a ride.
But with time running short, and the crew tired, it was not to be.
Still, with my passion for driving re-ignited and great footage in the bag, we packed-up our gear and headed back to Caldecott.
The Motorshow might not have offered the most in terms of variety, but it sure made up for it in terms of thrill - thanks to Russell Swift.
And incidentally, the package we put together on the stunt segment drew some compliments from the motor industry folks, which, at the end of the day, made our job all that much more worth while.
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| Chin Chye, in deep slumber until its time to wake up at 2.30am. |
How life unfolds
By Chua Chin Chye
To wake up in the middle of the night, not just to answer Nature's call, but to work ... can be a pain in the neck.
But torture can be mollified, after half a year, and even lead to a source of delight -- when you get first-hand accounts of what has just happened in the world...while others slumber.
The most poignant moment, perhaps, was during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... where after relentless attacks, that killed thousands of men, women and children.... the carnage led Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to cry out loud, "Are we children of a lesser God?"
Indeed, to kill - in the thousands - of women and children -- in the name of protecting one's own women and children.. It was hard to miss the irony.
Tit for tat, love and hate, joy and sorrow, rich and poor, mighty and weak... the range of human frailties, emotions, all play out... each day, at work.
Events that remind me, of the imperfect world we live in...
Imperfect because hard truths, apparently, no longer ring a bell, at least not readily.
Just as I had to once write about the US Invasion of Iraq, I now file news reports about the disappointment and disapproval surrounding that same invasion.
Kofi Annan, in his last days as UN chief, laments his failure to stop the US from invading Iraq...without UN authorisation.
Americans too registered their displeasure regarding the invasion. After countless reports about faulty intelligence and non-existent weapons of mass destruction...they were hard-pressed to tell truth from fiction. After all, half truths can constitute a lie.
American voters protested by voting in the Democrats.
Cause and effect.
Producing the news is constant reminder that what goes around, comes around -- pretty fast, too.
Each morning, scrolling through the news wires and videos, you see pictures and sounds, of the crises and chaos, big and small, that grip our world.
On any given day, Iran could be trying to muscle its way into the nuclear club; while North Korea shows it is a tough nut to crack, and all the while, violence in the Middle-East, Africa, and various parts of Europe rage endlessly.
Against this backdrop, wage earners fight for worker rights; governments scratch their heads over a widening rich-poor divide; whole cities slowly wilt from AIDS and millions of disaster victims still await aid, years after the calamity struck.
On the economic front, the divides keep getting wider.
As prices of high-end properties soar in many cities, most mass market properties remain flat, still mired in negative equity.
The stock market hits all-time highs... but the credit card roll-over debt continues to snowball.
And the list goes on..
There is beauty too, but it seems, not as much.
In any case, not everything gets on air. The happenings of the world, trials and triumphs, sometimes reduced to a few paragraphs on a morning bulletin. Or nothing, at all.
All too soon, when the bulletins have ended, and the studio crew goes for their break... you realise it is nearing lunch time already.
Soon, it is time to take an afternoon nap.
I have to get up again at 2.30 am, in the morning. Right in the middle of what could have been a good night's sleep.
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Stars Who Shine
By Gamar Abdul Aziz
It’s hard to be star-gazing in the presence of well-known names when you’re a Producer preparing for an interview on Prime Time Morning.
Sure it hits you that this is someone very important and it’s a privilege to be in the same room as they are, when you have to play traffic warden and keep away the screaming fans, or when your friends and colleagues beg and bribe you to allow them to enter the room to get a glance of the star or when you have to put a limit to friends/colleagues/relatives-turned autograph hunters, or when you have to negotiate with the security officers. When the interview begins, you go into working mode immediately.
As a Producer, you do everything really…the coordination, research and booking of rooms and of course, the security, to name a few of the tasks. So when you have to ensure that the vehicle enters the right gate at the right time, that the correct lighting equipment is in place and everyone’s in the correct attire, by the time the big star enters the room, you just get to work. All at the same time, you keep the duration, check the flow of conversation as it happens, check your recording and plan how to edit the piece, which usually takes place almost immediately after the recording.
Most times, the minute you see your subject, you quickly compare the star you see in front of you with the pictures and videos you’ve pored through before the interview. Almost always, you’re not disappointed, sometimes you’re dismayed because they don’t look like anything you expected them to, and then there are rare occasions when the stars take your breath away.
These personalities are generally obliging individuals; they don’t know you but they know you can make them look terrific or terrible. This is why my vote goes to those who are totally comfortable at being who they really are, not a personality being interviewed on television. How can you tell? When interviewing becomes your daily task, you can tell, trust me.
These are the people who are forthcoming with their answers (yes, we give them an idea of what we’ll be asking them); most have been interviewed many times before, even under much harder circumstances.
I formulate an opinion about whether I like the interviewee when they’re giving their answers. These are legends in their own right, even if they may seem a little less glamorous in person. Your research tells you so. Your journalistic instincts agree. The session proceeds smoothly…except on the few occasions when you have to deal with attitudes.
The difficulty usually is not with the stars themselves but their managers or coordinators, who more often than not, are so eager to “protect” their clients that they do their clients a disservice and at the same time, leave a bad taste in the mouths of the people they deal with. Take that artiste manager who wanted to know if the DVD we’d asked a star to autograph was an original copy (yes, it was original, thank you!). The same manager also wanted to vet a one-liner New Year greeting we’d asked the star to read for our programme.
The star in question was a very nice person, genuinely nice and not just PR-nice. He was obliging when we made our requests and his answers were heartfelt. Which is why when his artist manager came into the picture, she came out, let’s just say, not very nice. Granted, there was a language barrier but still, I don’t think you need to speak the same language to smile or have eye contact. All the time, she only spoke to her client and the coordinator who had made the arrangements. As hosts, it seems, we did not exist. Never mind the fact that we made special arrangements to have the interviewee outside our normal hours.
Another coordinator probably loved writing emails a little too much. He wrote a one-liner email on the date his client was available, another email on the time his client was available, yet another email proposing an alternative date when I explained our constraints in not being able to accept his initial proposal. A public relations executive came into the picture to apologise for this behaviour and took over the coordination. After several phone conversations, it was clear the star’s schedule didn’t allow for her coordinator to fit us in. The coordinator wrote another one-liner to affirm that he’s in charge and no PR should come into the picture. Needless to say, we didn’t proceed with the interview. The star in question was really no one to die for in the first place, which is a pity because she really could have used some publicity and definitely not an inefficient coordinator with an attitude.
I don’t think it takes super skills to match what you’d like to offer with what we need, to get the interview going. Most times, if the topic and personality is appropriate for the show, we arrange the date and time and discuss the topic. Both sides come to an agreement and the interview proceeds. We do this several times a day, every week day. Sometimes, our line up simply cannot accommodate the interviewee’s schedule, even after trying to move the segments around. In most cases, even when the interview cannot proceed, the process had allowed us to establish contacts with the coordinators who almost immediately, work with us on another project. The process usually matters just as much if not more, than the end result. This is also why many of the coordinators have become our friends.
My mission as a Producer is clear - to give our viewers a chance to get to know these stars a little better, for who they really are and not for whom their fans think them to be from what they heard, read, researched or dreamt of. Watching and listening to their idol talk, I believe, does give them a better idea of his or her personality. Still, different people take different things from the same interview.
The real stars in my eyes are those who’ve charmed their way into my book of “much, much more than what I expected”. Three of them have left a great impression on me – Football legend Pele, King of Indian Cinema Shahrukh Khan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Pele is famous the world over but you almost forget this when he looks at every individual in the crowd in the eye, smiles and thanks us for hosting him. Pele was rushed by his publicists the day of his interview on Prime Time Morning, but in the commotion, he stopped to thank my colleague for offering him a seat. You could say, it’s the little things that he did.
Shahrukh Khan was one interviewee who didn’t need a list of questions before hand yet each answer he gave was well thought out. He was diplomatic and left you thinking long after the interview ended. All this, despite the fact that he had back-to-back interviews. He also signed a DVD for my mom.
Shaukat Aziz is the former banker who helped transform his country’s economy. He is also a politician who survived a suicide attack during campaigning. Yet when he met us, this man had his own way of making US feel important. He spoke well, was charming in his manners and showed respect to everyone during the interview, including the crew and the butler. That attitude translated to each team in his entourage.
So the stars who shine in my eyes are those who give their personal attention to others around them and leave a lasting impression on me not just for what they say, but how they behave from the minute they enter the room to the point they leave us and thank us, for our time.
The PTM Ditty
By Jennifer Ding
While you are having your best dreams,
we at Prime Time Morning are up and about.
A flurry of activity that starts at 2am.
Surviving on cups and cups of coffee,
we work our way through to 11am.
And we survive another day of frenzy!
Thanks to the camaraderie,
we turn obstacles into stepping stones.
Deadlines, breaking news, no-show of guests
Prime Time Morning takes it in all its stride!
The Iconic Chef Wan
By Nooraza Ismail
His flamboyant shirt, his acid tongue and his infectious laughter; the iconic Chef Wan is one of my all-time favourite guests on PTM.
He never fails to crack us up everytime he's on the show and we can never get enough of this livewire of a foodie.
Really admire him for his grit and determination to pursue what he loves best ... to cook, even when he's armed with an accountant's degree.
I reckon it must have been a difficult decision for a well-educated young Malay man from a traditional Malaysian family to want to abandon what could have been a profitable corporate life, for an apron and a life mostly in the kitchen!
That certainly was his secret ingredient to his culinary success today.
Having been in the business for more than 15 years, he's chalked up more than 5000 cooking shows, penned numerous cook books, earned himself a gamut of culinary awards, and most recently, was chosen to be the resident chef at the Asian Food Channel.
And he REALLY can cook; his "rendang" recipe is simply the best!
But it will take ME a LOT more practice in the kitchen before I can make a similar career switch.
So for now, savouring his food ... if not his success ... will have to suffice.
Meeting Josh Groban
By Steven Chia
Whenever you meet a celebrity, you're not quite sure what to expect. Some of them turn out to be real nice, others...well, there's a reason why the media isn't their greatest friend.
This past year, I have to say Josh Groban was the most friendly and down to earth of all the celebrities I met.
They flew me to London where I had to interview him twice, once for our radio channels and then for Channel NewsAsia itself. So I was around that day for quite a bit and boy oh boy, did he have a full day of interviews.
So when he found the time in between to just hang out and chat with us, it really said something. Usually these chaps are getting their makeup done again or changing or just doing their "own thing".
Josh on the other hand, had no airs about being a celebrity. Meaning, you felt like you were actually a friend and more than just a "work thing". He came across as the sort of guy you could have a beer with and you had the feeling that he'd actually remember you if paths crossed once again.
Well, I'm not sure if and when our paths will cross again, but if it does, I think I'll actually ask him out for a beer!
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Have your cake and eat it too
By Abdul Halim Mamsie
Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too!
After seeing and meeting Thai singer and babe Tata Young in the flesh - that's how I felt
The 25 year-old pop superstar was in our Prime Time Morning studios in late November to talk all about her life as a singer and role model.
That's no denying she sets "temperatures rising" wherever she goes..and true enough she was making it hot for most of the men in our studios when she arrived for the interview.
Tata Young was so charming and wonderful to talk to and she chatted about her life and what she was doing in Singapore as I entertained her as the guest relation officer.
She was also more than willing when I requested a photo with her after the studio interview.
And what a wonderful interview it was!
No hesitation, no airs about her, Tata Young was the ever charming professional.
And after the interview - from the studio crew to our ENG editors, they came to get their 30 seconds of fame with Tata Young - the superstar.
I was one of those privileged enough to get a photo with Tata, one-on-one !
And what a feeling it was - to be in such proximity to the star!
See me grin from ear to ear!!!
Enjoy guys! Please dont be jealous. Tata has great taste in her men.
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