Taiwanese Girl Band S.H.E. on Singapore Stamps?

When I first heard the news that the Taiwanese girl band S.H.E. will be featured on Singapore stamps, I thought it must be a joke. Later I found the news on Straits Times, dated 21 February 2009, so I guess that must be true to some extent. Quotes from the article:

Taiwanese girl band S.H.E's management are either shrewd or behind the times, depending on what you think of the state of snail mail.

The pop stars' record label has arranged for them to appear on local stamps.

S.H.E, consisting of Ella Chen, 28, Hebe Tien, 26, and Selina Jen, 28, are the first foreign artists to be featured on Singapore stamps.

I have always thought that the celebrities i.e. artists / actors...etc should not be featured on stamps until well, certain 'anniversaries' like the 50th years of Elvis. It is rare for living persons to be featured on stamps actually, unless they are the royalties (e.g. Queens, Kings, and Princes are featured on Royal Mail stamps while they are /were alive).

Oh well, when the actual stamps are published, let us see how the issue is done. Perhaps it's the 'My Stamps' concept where photos of the girl band are printed on 'a seperate tabs' adjunct to the actual postage stamps.

Afternote: I saw the stamps and picture of them could be found at this website, accompanied by more writeup about the S.H.E. stamp release.

'UOB' Cancellation on 1962 25cents definitive

Among the different stamps, I found this 1962 25 cents fish definitive with a cancellation of 'UOB Singapore' on it. Curiously I wonder what is this cancellation for. I understand some stamps have perforations within the bodies of the stamps, i.e. perfins with small holes in the stamps, because in the older days, stamps were a high value commodity and companies add perforations to prevent theft.

However, this 'UOB Singapore' cancellation on a 1962 definitive surely cannot be a perfins? UOB as a bank existed since the 1930s, while Singapore as a soverign country existed from August 1965. Moreover, the bank adopted the 'UOB' as its name only in 1965 (See article). So the 'UOB Singapore' cancellation on a 1962 may not make much sense, perhaps it is a 'cancellation' for other purposes? Anyone with any clue let me know ok?

Singapore's Submarine Cables & Stamps

Stamps and submarine cables are both tools of communications needed to transfer information around the world. So it is not surprising that Singapore has issued quite a number of stamps (three to be exact) to commemorate the installation of SEA-ME-WE (South East Asia - Middle East - West Europe) cables. Some of the stamps are shown below. These sets are attractive because they are the rare 'circular' stamps issued, compared to the traditional square / rectangular ones. The different sets are similar, but note the boldfaced white lines denoting the cables.

Due to the nature of such international communications tools, the installation of cables is celebrated not just by Singapore, but also by the other partners linked by the submarine cables. The last stamp in this picture below is by a middle-east country. So these are actually international events commemorated by different countries.

Other than the three sets of stamps, the events are captured when a set of 'Stamps in stamps' were issued for the BangKok International Stamp Exhibition 1983.

I'm not aware if there are other submarine cables events captured by stamps in Singapore. Going forward, I don't think there would be any more such events captured by stamps, since submarine cables installations are no longer special events in light of the wide networks of such cables around the world.