Cleo Most Eligible Bachelor 2005

I am so knackered.
My back is aching to the point of snapping into two, my legs are hurting and my shoulders are drooping.

Yes, as the title suggests, I just came back from the crowning of this year’s Cleo’s Most Eligible Bachelor (gasps), held at the Tent outside Ngee Ann City. 50 hunks parading in front of my very eyes should be a wet dream come true but all I want to do is to scream in frustration at the lousy management.

First of all, the time stated on the invite card was 8pm. I arrived outside the Tent at 7.50pm, only to be greeted by a snaking, stationary queue. I figured that the doors would open at 8 and decided to queue. Wrong. By 8.15pm, my companion still had not arrived and the queue was still immobile. I was getting pissed. Companion (finally!) arrived at 8.20pm and I only moved twice in all the time I was queueing. By 8.45pm, I was ready to throw in the towel and leave my friend to drool over the men alone. When she asked the organisers why the blardy show still had not started, she was answered by a curt “show starts at 9”, with no further explanation. SO WHY DID YOU BLARDY PRINT THE TIME AS 8PM, YOU FRIGGING LOUSE?

I finally got into the tent at 9.10pm and host Hossan Leong was already on stage, working the crowd. Cleo’s editor was invited on stage and her following statement made my blood boil, “I heard that there is a crowd of 200 still queueing outside five minutes ago. You guys are privileged to be here tonight because not everyone will get to come in due to venue constraints.”

WTF?! While in the queue, none of the organisers came to explain to the crowd what was happening and certainly, nobody said anything about not being able to enter the blardy tent. The only words anyone shouted were “Please move in front!” What if I were one of the few at the back of the queue who only found out, much later, that I couldn’t go in despite having queued for god knows how long?

So there I was, in the foulest mood ever. I could have slapped anyone who offended me to China. Plus, it was a standing event and my back was killing me. Thank goodness for Hossan Leong and his antics. Man, the dude is funny. He was actually cussing on stage (“Nabeh CCB!”) and flashing us his belly button at every chance he could. He was hilarious and I am so going for his stand up comedy performance if he has one in future.

I was also as pleased as a punch when someone from ACP (Cleo’s publishing house) approached me and asked if I wanted to go on stage and cavort play games with the bachelors. I was promised a limousine ride from Ngee Ann City to Brix at Hyatt Hotel (gasps) for the post-even bash. Being shy and demure, I declined (conservative me thought their games entailed licking and…). Later, I realised that some of the female “contestants” were actually quite good-looking and hey, that could have been me walking away with the Miss Sixty goody bag!

Okay, let’s get back to the main topic – the men.
What was hot: the oiled, defined, naked torsos (yummy!), the strip tease (ooh ooh ooooh…), the groovy moves and the gorgeous (female) models
What was not: the Bachelor Band (out of tune instruments, out of tune singers), the Bachelor rapper (dude, ya ain’t doin’ it right), the mumbly introductions (“I’m XX and mmph mmph mmph mmph…”), K*rl H* (stop acting zai just because you “write for a newspaper”)

Some of the men were delicious enough for me to contemplate “bumping” into them while others were just trying too hard (bouncing up and down on stage with an electric guitar does not automatically make you a rocker, I’m afraid). There was this fellow who had a slight paunch walking shirtless down the runway but because he had such a winsome charm about him, he easily scored over those who had six-packs and boobs. I, of course, had my favourites and became a paparazzi from afar.

This is one occasion where I am soooo glad that my camera has a 12x zoom function, while all the other girls around me were using itsy bitsy cameras and camera-phones (gasps). I squeezed out the juice of my battery trying to snap shots of taut abs so hang on! The photos will arrive here soon enough!