It was so hot in the grassy Singapore park that when opposition politician Tan Soo Phuan began addressing a handful of curious bystanders about the lack of freedom in the city-state, one of his supporters had to stand behind with a fan to cool him down a little.
The space provided in Hong Lim Park for the first-ever Speakers' Corner in Singapore has no shade from the equatorial sun, nor any cold drink stalls nearby.
Nor was Mr Tan, or any of the other 19 voluntary performers who turned up on Friday morning when Speakers' Corner officially opened, allowed to use a bull horn or microphone, making it difficult to hear them against the noise of traffic.
The idea for a speakers' corner in Singapore was taken from its namesake in London's Hyde Park, where Karl Marx once preached against capitalism. The government says it is part of a plan to become more receptive to citizens' views, and to make people more responsive to change.
Speakers may talk about anything they like - within limits. Just as Singapore is a "managed democracy", where the People's Action Party has ruled for four decades, so Singapore's Speakers' Corner seems designed to be a model of managed free speech.
Orators must not say anything that contravenes the Penal Code, or the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, or the Sedition Act, which allows internment without trial. They must not comment on racial or religious matters in the tightly-ruled former British colony, where the 3.5 million population is 76 per cent ethnic Chinese, 15 per cent Malays and six per cent Indian.
They must not use amplifying equipment, display any posters or hand out leaflets, and before stepping up on a soap box they must register at the nearby police station with documents to prove they are Singaporean, and where their names will be kept on record for five years.
Moreover, Karl Marx would not be allowed to open his mouth at Singapore's "free-speech" forum today because foreigners, who constitute a quarter of the total resident population, are banned from using the facility.
The greatest inhibition to real freedom of expression however is the stipulation that speakers are subject to Singapore's strict defamation laws. Parliament was assured, when the idea was proposed, that a speaker who makes "slanderous remarks" can be sued.
The threat of a defamation action is also something not to be taken lightly in Singapore. Libel suits aggressively pursued by the government have bankrupted opposition politicians like Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, general secretary of the Workers' Party, drawing criticism from Amnesty International and foreign governments.
Senior Home Affairs Minister, Mr Wong Kan Seng, promised MPs, however, that police would follow a minimalist hands-off approach. Speakers should not be worried if they saw someone taping what they say, he said. "If you have something to say, don't be afraid to say it," he advised. "The police have a lot of other things better to do than to just carry a tape-recorder and tape speeches."
To laughter from MPs he added: "I think you shouldn't be suspicious if people turn up with a tape recorder . . . curious onlookers may carry a tape recorder . . . journalists will carry a tape recorder . . ."
Political researcher, James Gomez, author of Self-censorship, Singapore's Shame, might not see the joke. Since he set up a "Think Centre" as a publishing and event company last year, he has staged four political discussions, each of which, he said, was monitored by at least three police officers, though they were not closed down.
Singaporeans at least have a place now to air grievances, though just how keen they are to do so is another matter. People in Asia's most spectacularly successful city are by and large uncritical of their government and comfortable with their political culture.
There were only a couple of dozen spectators around on Friday to listen to citizen Lim Kian Heng criticising the police for illegal parking, taxi driver Ong Chin Guan holding forth about the low Chinese birth rate, and James Gomez arguing for microphones.
They also heard about the merits of free speech from Kevin May, president of the liberal discussion group Roundtable, which proposed the Speakers' Corner last year after the jailing for 12 days of Chee Soon Juan, secretary general of the opposition Democratic Party, for making public speeches in Raffles Place without a permit.
Mr Chee's defiance was designed to test the limits of political debate, but free speech is not an absolute right under Singapore's constitution.
Section 14 (2) provides that parliament by law may impose restrictions in the interests of security, international relations, public order or morality, to protect the privileges of parliament and to provide against contempt of court, defamation or incitement.
To its critics, Speakers' Corner is a PR exercise, and many observers feel that it will be largely irrelevant, not least because the Internet is now the world's soapbox. But, predicts James Gomez, in a year's time it could become "a sort of fun, entertaining, artistic, crazy kind of venue." It may be, but bring a sun umbrella.