Slides That Follow Your Voice: Singaporean Accent News Read

Slide 1: The Evening Bulletin

0:17Good evening, it is seven o'clock, and this is the evening bulletin. I am Priya Nathan. Our top stories tonight: the new reservoir park at Tanjong Mera opens to the public after four years of construction, a local logistics company reports its best quarter on record, and the weather, which, if you have looked out of a window today, you already know about. [chuckles]

0:40First, Tanjong Mera. The reservoir park, thirty-eight hectares of wetland, boardwalk and cycling track built around the old water catchment, opened at six this morning, and by ten the car park was full. The project cost two hundred and forty, sorry, two hundred and fourteen million dollars, eleven percent over its original budget, which the planning authority puts down to the decision in twenty twenty-three to reroute the boardwalk around a heron colony rather than through it.

Slide 2: Tanjong Mera reservoir park opens

1:08The herons, we are told, have stayed. Visitor numbers on the first day were estimated at nineteen thousand. I'm told that is now twenty-one thousand. The number keeps moving. Our reporter spoke to a seventy-four-year-old man who had cycled there from Bukit Ara, and who said the climb on the north side was uh, unnecessary and that he would be writing a letter. The park authority says it welcomes letters. [laughs]

1:35My producer is telling me the letter has already arrived. It is four pages. There is a diagram. We will not be reading the diagram on air. Now, business.

1:46In business, Meridian Freight, the logistics firm based at the western port, reported quarterly revenue of four hundred and eighty-two million dollars, up seventeen percent on last year, and a net profit of sixty-one million. The company credits a new cold-chain terminal, which opened in March and handles about two thousand four hundred containers of fresh produce a week. This afternoon the chief executive told analysts the terminal is at eighty-eight percent of capacity and a second is under consideration. Shares closed up four point two percent.

Slide 3: Meridian Freight: best quarter on record

2:20Transport. The eastern line will run a reduced service this weekend between Kallis Junction and the airport for track renewal, with shuttle buses every eight minutes. Passengers are advised to allow an extra twenty minutes, and to be patient with the drivers. The operator says the work is the last of a three-year programme and that the line should see no further weekend closures until at least twenty twenty-eight. We will believe that, as our producer says, when we see it, when we see it.

Slide 4: Eastern line, this weekend

2:49Sport. No. Education first, sorry, the order has changed on me. Education. Education. The results of the national mathematics competition were announced today, and the winning team came from a neighbourhood secondary school in Woodvale, defeating one hundred and forty-two other schools, including four that had won in each of the previous five years. Their teacher, Mr Lim, who has taught at the school for twenty-nine years, said the secret was that he did not have one, and that the students had simply refused to go home at five. The students, asked for comment, said he had locked the door. [laughs]

Slide 5: National mathematics competition

3:27I should declare an interest. Mr Lim taught me. He did not lock the door in my day. He stood in front of it, which, legally, I think is different. I passed. Anyway.

3:39Sport. In football, Harbour Rovers drew two all with Northgate at the stadium this evening, in a match that saw three penalties, two of them missed, and a uh... a dog on the pitch for about ninety seconds in the second half. The dog has been reunited with its owner. The points have been shared.

Slide 6: Football: 2-2

3:58And finally, the weather. Tomorrow will be hot, with a high of thirty-three degrees, humid, with thunderstorms likely in the late afternoon, which is the same forecast as today, yesterday, and most days this month. [sighs] The weather service asks us to remind you that an umbrella is useful in both directions.

Slide 7: Tomorrow: 33 degrees

4:19I have read this forecast for eleven years. I once asked whether we could record it in advance. The answer was no, because one day it will be different and we will want to be live for it. I wanted to say something else about that, but it has gone.

Slide 8: The late edition is at 11

4:35That is the bulletin. The late edition is at eleven. From all of us here, good night.