some things never change

Singapore, A Biography, p141-142:

In addition, as Singapore grew in size after 1870, it began to offer its European arrivals a considerably improved social life. Even by the 1860s, John Cameron, editor of the Straits Times, had written of a colonial lifestyle that 'may be set down as luxurious, and this to a degree that could not well be indulged at home on similar means'. The problem with this lifestyle, as Cameron went on to observe, was that it so completely lacked variety. European life in Singapore revolved around an eternal consumption of food and drink: dawn coffee and biscuits; the nine o'clock breakfast of curry and rice; tiffin-time around midday and the first glass of beer or claret; then finally more curry, wine or beer, throughout the dinner hour from six o'clock. On the completion of their working day, many younger members of the European community did 'resort to the fives-court or the cricket ground on the esplanade', while on Tuesday and Friday nights the whole community turned out for Esplanade band nights. Nonetheless, in the 1860s Cameron still yearned for a more sophisticated social intercourse as was 'usual at home, and in most other parts of the world'. It was a source of some regret to him 'that the people of Singapore so determinedly set their faces against every sort of entertainment which does not include a dinner'.