Changi jailbirds' wrenching tell-all

THERE seems to be a popular belief among jailbirds that when you enter Changi Prison, it's best to stop thinking about Singapore altogether - its food, its places, its entertainment, its people. When the older ones catch a newcomer getting misty-eyed about life before prison, they chide him with: "Eh, don't Singapore, eh!" - a weirdly abbreviated, ungrammatical remark that seems to do the trick.

TV watching is controlled, magazines are hard to come by, and board games have to be invented from the torn pages of these magaz…