Friday, December 21, 2012

It's Unofficial!

I am in receipt of the Hong Kong Bar Association circular number 113/12, sent by one Frederick Chan "to all members and associate members".

Aside from the adoption of American spelling when referring to an award to the "Honorable" Justice Bokhary (my copy of the Oxford dictionary clearly refers to this as the American version of "honourable" - when did the Bar change over, and was it covered by a circular?), I am intrigued by the announcement of a "joint" and "unofficial" religious service which will be organised "as with (sic) previous years" to mark the opening of the legal year 2103 2013.

The jointness remains unexplained (with whom is the service being jointly organised?) as does the phenomenon of an unofficial service being announced officially, to wit under cover of an official Bar Association circular. And despite the circular being addressed to all members and associate members, only full members, albeit all of them, are invited to the unofficial service. Why are associate members being advised of the service only to be told that they are not invited? So many questions - so little time.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Walk A Mail In My Shoes

Has the Daily Mail been reading this blog? Or did it just take them longer to cut through the crap?

Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, has got in on the act, saying, "She clearly loved her job, loved her work, cared deeply about the health of her patients ...".

Err ... how is all that so clear to you, Dave? Maybe she did (love her job, etc.) and maybe she didn't. Or maybe she ckufing hated it - looking after toffs, being underpaid for it, and being berated by the hospital for the supposed slip-up even though she wasn't the one to give away any information. Or maybe she just thought life as an immigrant in Britain was sh1t generally. Even worse than living there is anyway.

Monday, December 10, 2012

A Bit Rich

There's nothing like a good old British bandwagon to jump onto, is there, especially when it involves the royals, and even better if there can be a bit of colonial-bashing thrown in for good measure.

So ... a couple of Aussie radio chatshow hosts made a prank call to, shock, horror, the hospital where Catherine Middleclass, Britain's most famous social climber, was feeling a bit poorly. The expensive private hospital had, unfortunately, not spent its high fees on training with the result that the nurse on reception was somewhat less well prepared to filter calls than the average Hong Kong secretary (or nurse) is. She therefore put the call through to someone else who spilled the detailed beans about how poorly Ms Middlebrow was, and much hilarity ensued. Three days later, the switchboard girl (note: not the person who divulged all the information) topped herself and hilarity was replaced by finger-pointing.

Being better versed in PR than in staff training, the hospital, the King Edward VII Hospital for Privileged Cnuts, got its defence out quickest, in fact too quickly to get all its tenses and punctuation right, thus :

“It is with very deep sadness that we confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff, Jacintha Saldanha. Jacintha has worked at the King Edward VII Hospital for more than four years, she was an excellent nurse and a well respected and popular member of staff with all her colleagues.
We can confirm that Jacintha was recently the victim of a hoax call to the hospital. The hospital had been supporting her throughout this difficult time.”

Note the cunning piece of linkage slipped in with the effect of suggesting the death was indeed caused by the hoax call (and not by, say, any lack of training by the hospital, or the hospital perhaps giving the nurse sh1t for the slip-up, or any personal factors that might have made the nurse take her life), and therefore, coincidentally, that the hospital was not to blame. Attack is the best form of defence, as they say.

Hmm... the hospital "had been supporting her throughout this difficult time". Clearly, they had been doing this about as well as they trained her in the first place. Or perhaps their support had consisted of telling her how badly she had screwed up and they were the ones to push her over the edge. We may never know.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Hello, Cheeky

Susan Boyle is making headlines again, with a fantastic new Twitter hashtag.

Well, you wouldn't want to look at the front, would you?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Old Bags


My avid reader has forwarded to me an electronic missive from the venerable Helena May hostel on Garden Road, otherwise known as the Virgins' Retreat.

Apparently, there is something known as the "Season of Goodwill" (must be one of those government-prescribed things for locals, like loving your family even as they suck the blood out of your veins). Somewhat more interestingly, at least at first glance, the Helena May has come up with something called the  “Love Bags Project”, for which they are asking for volunteers. Why is it that when I hear the words "love bags", I immediately think of Joycey?

However, the love bags in question are being prepared by the Welsh Male Voice Choir (some  mistake there, surely), a different matter altogether. I think I'll give it a miss.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

My Old Dutch

Jake van der Kamp, writing in the Sunday SCuM Post, has turned his sights on to the way the MPF system works here.

He asks "Why is it that bureacracies set up to serve the general public so often take the side of special interest groups against the public?" Then he goes on to mention two examples, bank and food regulators, in a list he descibes as "exhaustive", before discussing the MPF, which he describes as "prominent on the list".

"Exhaustive - examining, including or considering all elements or aspects, comprehensive." Do you see where I am going on this, Jake?

Friday, October 12, 2012

The Rich Have More Money

I don't get the deification of Clare Hollingsworth, and now I don't get the vilification of Gloria Chor.

Ms. Chor seems like a decent person whose husband happens to have a lot of money. Yes, she spends it, why TF not?, and the YouTube (or ThouTube as is was called in Ulie's day) video linked above tries to send her up with mocking background music, and editing to make her look as superficial as possible. It is obvious that the producers misled her and ended up doing a hatchet job on her. But, aside from having a lot of spondoolies, she is ordinary and unassuming.

Unlike say a braying Hooray Henry (whether the generic UK variety, or the local Tang Dy-Nasty), born with a silver spoon up his arse, she and her hubby have worked their way up. Everything they have is the result of their own work and, as far as we can see, they are not making money either from a rigged market or from exploiting people's misery in finding a roof to put over their heads. And if you jump to 4.59 on the clip, her daughter is seriously racked. Ooh err, Missus Chor!

So, good luck to her, and good luck to her hubby in getting this underhand video removed from the Tube.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Savile Row

Now then, guys and very young gals, there's nothing like a good old British bandwagon to jump onto, is there. So make room on top for me. Ooh err, Missus!

As a child of the sixties (as opposed to one who is in his sixties), I never liked Savile as a DJ for the simple reason that he got in the way of the music with his laboured attempts at being eccentric, and I never followed him in his later career as a general entertainer. I don't believe I saw a single episode of Jim'll Fix It. His "getting in the way", was of course the self-same thing as his genius for self-publicity and the man's other achievements were undoubtedly remarkable. Not quite as remarkable as he claimed (he didn't invent the twin turntable, for example), but that is partly my point. He was someone who bigged himself up and grasped opportunities. He was also, in a sense that is the source of much of the current kerfuffle, a man of his time.

So, I neither liked nor disliked the guy, even in retrospect; I just didn't "get" him. But those who are taking the opportunity to judge Savile in retrospect include on the one hand Chris Patten, someone for whom I have an enormous respect, and on the other hand Esther Rantzen.

Chris Patten, Chairman of the BBC Trust, has stated that Savile's activities could not be excused as behaviour from a time when "attitudes were different", and gave his backing to inquiries by police and the corporation. Of course, he would be unlikely to say anything else in his position, but is it reasonable? I think it depends exactly what he means. By which I mean, of course, that it doesn't.

There is a range of alleged behavour by Savile, which is getting tarred with a single brush. There is having sex with under-age girls, having sex with young but not under-age girls, having sex with mentally disturbed girls, and having non-consensual sex. (There is also an implied offence of getting more nookie than anyone else. We'd better come up with a law outlawing rich, charismatic, physically impressive people from getting more than their fair share. But not till I've gone, eh?)

Certainly two of the first four activities are unlikely to be regarded differently now than in the 60s, perhaps three depending on whether you think the age of consent is a moral issue or a legal artifice and whether one particularly mature fifteen year-old might be less vulnerable than the next vulnerable eighteen year-old. Does Patten mean that whatever seems wrong now should be regarded as having been wrong then? If so, I disagree. Or is he talking about legalities, in which case I make the same point, though the age of consent law hasn't changed as far as I know. (In which case, Patten is surely suggesting that we impose today's morals on the previous century.)

 I do doubt whether, as a general proposition, if you are talking about morality, you can impose one generation's morals on another. The question must be, was what Savile did wrong when he did it?

(I am pleased by the way to advise my avid reader in this respect that my own taste is for ladies over 40 - hello, Joycey - or even 50. You know who you are.)

Esther Rantzen's judgement (or do I mean her chance to get some publicity out of all this?) is tempered by her embarrassment that she herself heard rumours of Savile's Travels (geddit?) at the time but did nothing. This from the founder of a charity, ChildLine, set up in order to protect children. According to Rantzen, until now it had 'only been one single child's word against the word of a television icon'. Now it was 'five adult women' who had come forward it was easier. They are 'cool, credible, sensible women', who are 'convincing' to Rantzen, and so she has "started" to believe there is some truth to it all. Isn't that exactly what Rantzen has been making career capital out of  campaigning against most of her professional life? Has Rantzen's charity work, mirroring so closely Savile's own charity work, been  just another exercise in self-publicity, and like Savile's is now revealed as a self-serving sham? In my book, that makes her as bad as Savile.

As she now says, 'How I long to turn the clock back'. Yes, and not set up that damn charity.


Monday, October 1, 2012

An Apple A Day

Overheard this morning at Deep Water Bay, a British male in around his 30s, saying to his pal "I was talking on my i-Phone this morning ...". WTF sort of retarded thing is that for a grown man to say? It's a ckufing phone. What brand it is is redundant unless you are a teenager. Just saying you were on the phone is pretty much redundant already.

What next .. "I'm going to walk to my BMW in my Timberlands and go for a Haagen-Dazs"? Twat.

Wear what you want, drive what you want, buy what you want, but don't think any of the rest of us give Ckuf One.

This brand obsession extends to even having lists of which brands are "coolest". People are so stupid they have to have someone else decide for them which products will make them feel best about themselves. So, go ahead and buy your Apple phone and then write to the SCuM Post like the chap last week complaining that Apple had ckufed him royally in the arse with problems upgrading from the previous gadget to the i-Phone 5. How cool is that?

Friday, September 28, 2012

Silence Of The Prams

In the "About Ckufing Time" category, a move so blindingly obvious that its delay could have been choreographed by the Hong Kong government, Air Asia (following a similar move by Malaysia Airlines) is creating child-free zones on its flights.

Yes, please roll out the usual argument about the need for others to be tolerant (err ... why?) rather than the need for oneself to be considerate. Good, that's that dealt with.

Airlines have long been masters at differential pricing, and they already board passengers with yound children first, so there would be nothing new about simply allocating the seats at the back to people travelling with their delightful bundles of joy, just like they used to do with smokers (maybe stick a curtain up in front of the section), so they're all together, and charging a little less to those still willing to sit nearby and a little more to those of us who want to be nowhere near. That would fit in neatly with boarding them first, surely, and it would incidentally test their own tolerance. Or is that different?

Friday, September 14, 2012

Hear! Hear!

Excellent news for gerbils as they rush headlong into a weekend of heavy petting - your hearing problems are a thing of the past. I SAID YOUR HEARING PROBLEMS ... oh, never mind.

The ever-gripping Antrim Times reports that finally there is a cure for deafness in gerbils, but not in any other creatures, as a result of stem cell research. Although, confusingly, Wikipedia advises in respect of gerbils' deafness and inner ear problems that "A problem with the inner ear can be spotted by a gerbil leaning to one side quite obviously. The fluids in the ears affect balance. However, this does not appear to affect the gerbils too much, which have an aptitude of just getting on with things, and getting used to their conditions." In other words, it wasn't really much of a problem to start with, even for the gerbils.

But, if my reader were thinking of getting a gerbil this weekend, for whatever purpose, here is a handy tip (again from Wikipedia): "Gerbils with 'extreme white spotting' colouring are susceptible to deafness; this is thought to be due to the lack of pigmentation in and around the ear." So remember to talk loudly to this kind just as you would to a foreigner. No need to thank me.

Friday, September 7, 2012

A Paucity Of Plods

What's going on with Asia's Finest, the Hong Kong Police? The term has always been a little tongue in cheek, referring to the lack of competition in the region but they seem to be acting less and less like  public servants these days.

Some of it, my highly placed source in the Justice Department tells me, is due to having too few porcine peeps, leading to a marked (but documented by my other sources) unwillingness to even accept a report for theft-related offences.

But then why are they pissing away their resources on non-essential stuff? I'm not talking about the occasional diversion of large numbers of personnel to act as escorts to visiting Mainlanders, or to take photos of demonstrators, or to close a chunk of the road network around Causeway Bay the other weekend so that a coach containing people who can run or swim fast, or point airguns at pieces of cardboard, could drive from A to B without having to slow down for other vehicles.

No, it's other stuff, like the two dummies who stand chatting with each other at Shittibank Plaza opposite the US Consulate on Garden Road all day, every day, never doing anything about vehicles dawdling at the drop-off point and causing a blockage at this known traffic black spot. 

Or Li Ka Shing, spotted today in his car getting a motorbike escort through Central. Hang on a minute - now I get it. It was the 'public' bit I got wrong.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Snapple

With reference to Apple's recent victory over Samsung in Apple's local court (American justice - the best that money can buy), in which the rectangle with rounded corners, coincidentally the same shape as my 20-year-old coffee table, was deemed Apple's proprietary design, I am wondering why Apple haven't claimed a patent for phones which are ckufing heavy.

Monday, August 27, 2012

A Bit Rich

Those privileged young rascals, "Prince" Harry amongst them, who got themselves into the papers last week, are complaining. Arthur Landon, whose US$350 million fortune derives from his father's arms trading, apparently sees no irony in accusing someone without an unearned blood-money fortune of "despicable" behaviour just because she took some pictures of his friend, whose fortune has a similar taint if you go back far enough, and sold them. Perhaps money making activities only cease to be despicable when people are killed as a result.

Apparently, it put "a real dampener" on their holiday, some of which they paid for themselves. How awful. I wonder how much of a dampener all those lovely arms caused.

And one Rosa Monckton, who prefers to use her maiden, peerage-linked name, and who has (perhaps not coincidentally) made something of a career out of being a "close friend" of Diana, the Latter Day Whore of Babylon "Princess" of Wales, "insisted" that the ginga Prince had done nothing “immoral or wrong”. Herself an offspring of a "viscount" and therefore by definition almost 'honourable', and again it seems with no intended irony, she told the Evening Standard: “His mother always thought that there should be a distinction between her private life and her public life" (except when being interviewed by the BBC and talking about Camilla) ...... "The same should apply to her sons, both of whom are serving their country." (that's funny, I didn't see them amongst the soldiers providing security at the Olympics. Weren't they both enjoying free tickets to the best seats?). "He isn’t married" (unlike his mother who was shagging his father, ginga James Hewitt, while married to "Prince" Charles). "He has the absolute right to privacy in his private time” (except when he is taking the taxpayer's money to do it).

Yes, Rosie, and you have the absolute right to get a bit of free publicity out of it yourself. (Or did you get a fee?)

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Blo Job

From Henry Blofeld, a cricket commentator, during the recent test series between the ever-lovable South Africans and England:

"If England do hand over 'the number one in the world rankings' title after this Test, I do think they will be handing it to the best side in the world."

Err ... that's what number one means, isn't it, Hen?
 
 
 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Fat Of The Land

Is Gu Kailai the first person to put on weight in a Chinese prison, or does she have a body double in more ways than one (geddit)?


Gu's death sentence may be commuted to life in prison which could then be commuted to 7 to 9 years, according to some reports. It is not reported whether she might then revert to receiving immunity from the law and a personal share of state assets, or merely national honours for killing a foreigner. Her prison time is likely to be spent in Qincheng, outside Peking, where standard cells are about 20 square metres, each with a toilet and a bed. Walls of cells for major criminals were padded with rubber to prevent them from harming themselves, it is said.

20 square metres is more than most Hong Kongers have per person, but without the rubber walls.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Car Wash


Manila - the Venice of the East.     Hang on a minute .....

Monday, July 30, 2012

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Tish?

China claims that the Spratleys are and always have been part of China, yet its navy can't even find its way around them without running aground; Britain reserves special routes for the Olympics, yet the athletes' coach drivers get lost on the way to the Olympic village; the Olympics organisers can't find enough people for physical security, yet they can find people to police small businesses and prevent them from using words like "summer" in order to protect McDonalds and Coca-Cola.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Unequal Strokes For Unequal Folks

I noticed this morning that the Wikipedia page for Roger Federer stated that he had already beaten Andy Murray in today's Wimbledon final. Looking again now, I see that this statement has been removed, but I hope to see it back tomorrow.

Talking of Murray, he has at least contributed something sensible to the debate about whether women tennis players should be paid the same as men, on top of the obvious observations made by everyone except women tennis players that women's tennis is about as exciting as watching men's golf, and that the only excitement is whether they will actually have to play the same number of sets that men play as a minimum. Realistically, people only watch women's tennis either because they want to see short-skirted totty showing off their skanks or a bit of nip or because they want to watch a freak show, such as a Williams Brother playing an East European shotputting type.

Murray's point, echoed later by John McEnroe, is that women's tennis is so undemanding that the top women players can enter the doubles tournaments with no threat of either entry being detrimented by the other. For example, one of the Williams Brothers skipped off after the women's final yesterday to the women's doubles final, thus picking up two almost meaningless Wimbledon titles in a single day and more money than either Federer or Murray will earn today.

Take any period and compare the number of women who have won both their Grand Slam singles title and the women's doubles title at the same tournament with the number of men who have done the same; the former outnumber the latter by around 10 to 1. The result of this is that the top women get paid more than men in total, not just more per set. See here for Murray's comments and the stats.

The simple answer, of course, is to make women play 5 sets at slams. But, apart from the fact that this would make it difficult to complete a tournament in the traditional 2 weeks (perhaps they could have a women only first week before the main event started - see how many show up to watch that!), I don't think anyone could bear watching 5 sets of women's pitty-patty anyway.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Test Tube Babes

The initial video in a campaign by the European Commission to encourage women to consider a career in science has generated some heat amongst the politically correct. Using normal advertising techniques in what is effectively an advertisement (imagine that!), they decline to portray women scientists in the usual stereotypical way (plain looking, mousey, wearing non-branded glasses) and instead show some more glamourous specimens. The message is that women need not be labelled unattractive by becoming scientists.

Naturally, people have mouthed off about this, including  a number of women quoted by the Daily Telegraph, that bastion of feminism. For example,Victoria Herridge, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, complained that the 56-second video did not give a "proper representation of what it means to be a scientist". She obviously thinks that 56 seconds is enough to achieve that, which shows what she thinks of her chosen field. She added, in the face of the scientific evidence to the contrary, that "you could not make it up." Err ... Vickie ... someone did.

Another lab babe, one Lisa-Marie (named after Elvis's daughter?) Mayne, a postgraduate student (of something), complained "as a woman of science" that the ad was "garish". Oh dear. Did it offend your fashion sense, Lisa?

And to top it all, a  "Dr." Petra (named after the Blue Peter dog?) Boynton, a social psychologist (no, I don't know what that is either) at University College London, wrote: "For the love of all things holy what is this ****?" Aside from the asterisked out coarse language (ooh, how liberated you are, doctor!), I cannot imagine this said in anything other than a broad southern Irish accent. Yes, that's what the campaign needs, a bead-fiddling fish wife.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Tangled Webs

"Every man is entitled if he can to order his affairs so as that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it otherwise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure this result, then, however unappreciative the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or his fellow taxpayers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be compelled to pay an increased tax." So said Lord Tomlin in the 1936 Duke of Westminster case.


Likewise, the Revenue can try to arm itself with as many weapons as it can, with legislation and in the courts: "substance over form", the Ramsay Principle, General Anti-Avoidance Rules, and so on.


So, if someone can engineeer a tax planning scheme which passes muster with the tax chappies and results in paying only 1% income tax, such as the one used by alleged comedian Jimmie Carr, I say good luck to them, especially as I pay only one tenth as much myself. There will always be those who have some sort of issue with this, but that is just sour grapes.


However, in Mr. Carr's case, he had made considerable mileage (i.e. money) taking the piss out of Barclays Bank and others for, you guessed it, only paying 1% tax on its earnings. The dilemma for Mr. Carr, who naturally blamed his accountant for his negligence in saving him money, was whether to carry on paying only 1% tax but to lose his credibility as a comic and therefore some of his future earning power, perhaps even to become the butt of others' jokes himself, or to opt out of the tax saving scheme and keep raking it in. In the end, claiming the moral high ground, i.e. choosing to avoid having the piss taken out of him and becoming redundant, he has opted out of the tax saving plan, but has not gone so far as to repay the tax saved so far. (And nor would I.)


In the meantime, however, one David Cameron, whose family wealth has not been harmed by the odd structure along the way, saw a populist opportunity and slammed Mr. Carr for his "morally wrong" behaviour, this just after he had told the French that their millionaires were welcome to move to Britian to save tax. His apparent hypocrisy was compounded when he went all schtumm after Tory supporters such as Gary Barlow (no, I hadn't heard of him either) were found to have used the exact same scheme as Jimmie Carr. The FT sums it up here.


But Mr. Cameron's troubles for the week did not end there. The supreme arbiter, albeit self-appointed and state-subsidised, in the UK of moral rightness and wrongness, the Church of England, or at least its leader, Rowan somebody, has said in his new book that Mr. Cameron's "Big Society" idea is mere "aspirational waffle". One has to wonder, however, whether someone whose employer has been peddling the idea of an invisible friend for centuries, and doing very nicely out of it, thank you, is best placed to make that particular criticism.


It would also be a reasonable question how the 30 pieces of silver this Rowan somebody-or-other will make out of his book, which ventures into secular issues, are any different from the 30 pieces of silver the "Bishop" of Southwark, aka Mervyn something, sneered about the Monty Python team making all those years ago when they dared to venture into "his" territory with the still hilarious Life of Brian.


Perhaps, after all, Cameron should take being criticised by Rowan, Merv and their ilk as a compliment. It may be the only one he will get.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Nosey Parker

How refreshing it is to come across a decent car park in Hong Kong. So many - virtually all - of them have just enough space for a good driver to park his (OK, or her) car, leaving little room for error in actually getting the car in the middle of the bay. And there are precious few drivers in Hong Kong capable of pointing their cars forwards accurately, let along reversing. Combine this with the usual passive aggressive behaviour, and you end up with a cnut who parks right on the edge of his space effectively rendering the adjacent space unusable.

So, what joy to chance upon the CC Wu Building in Wanchai (the one near Hopewell - I think there is another one closer to CWB) and find larger spaces in a nicely maintained facility, with additional spaces between the spaces for door-opening and alighting (and delighting?). And the staff are friendly, too.


Obviously the featured car, being a Japanese model, is not your correspondent's. And it can't be Ulie's either: there are two letters missing from the number plate.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Sham Pain

If I had a dollar for every time I had been called an "English gentleman", I would have, let me see, several dollars by now. If there ever were such  creature, if would perhaps be defined as having grass stains on its elbows, if you get my drift, but - even so - I have my doubts.

The closest anyone might come to showing gentlemanly conduct these days would be some Johnny Foreigner such as the luckless David Nalbandian, an Argentine yet with a distinctly unswarthy name.

Cruising towards a win at a minor English tennis tournament yesterday, he lost his serve and kicked a hoarding advertising French fizzy wine. The poor British workmanship meant that the hoarding sprang loose and caught the linesman duffer on the leg. The resulting scratch bled - the horror! - the linesman whinged, and Nalbandian was disqualified for a code violation.

Did Nalbers complain? Did he blame anyone but himself? Did he even suggest that if some cnut had taken the trouble to do his job properly then there would have been no problem? Thrice no.

Poor old Britain. It even has to import gentlemen these days.


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Parthian Shot

Good on you, York Chow. Hong Kong's only minister ('secretary") either qualified for his position or worthy of it, has spoken out questioning the Mainland authorities' claim that Li Wangyang killed himself, the first senior official to do so, or indeed to do anything like this.

As an orthopaedic doctor with a particular involvement with the disabled, his words have an additional authority which the Mainland government can hardly gainsay. As a reluctant politician, sometimes the target of internal struggles but never an instigator, and as a modest and decent man who must have been revulsed by the death of a disabled man, his words will make the Chinese very uncomfortable.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Selling England By The Pound

As the Diamond Jubilee wankfest in the UK shudders to a sputtering climax amid all the usual back slapping ("No one does this better than the Brits", "Everything that's great about Britain", "Proud to be British"), the usual headlines about fathers of sixteen kids being charged with murder after a pub brawl (no one does this better than the Brits), thuggish footballers arrested for affray following a night club brawl (everything that's great about Britain), and corrupt white politicians close to the prime minister escaping investigation whilst Muslim politicians are investigated straight away (proud to be British) confirm that it's business as usual for high and low life alike in the modern UK.

As part of the excessive hype celebrations, the 153-year-old clock tower (strictly the bell inside the clock tower) formerly known as Big Ben is likely to be renamed the Elizabeth Tower. Those supporting the proposal admit that Big Ben will still be known colloquially as Big Ben and I suppose that 60 years' service merits a gong. And at least it keeps it within the family, the clock at the other side of Parliament having been renamed Victoria Tower in honour of the only previous 60-year time-server in the post.

However, this reminds me of a less justifiable renaming of a piece of UK history from a few months ago. Flamboyant and not-yet-tainted-by-arrest local tycoon, purveyor of overpriced baubles to the rich and stupid, Dickson Poon has made a £20m donation to the 173-year-old King's College, London's law faculty, ranked in the top 25 law schools in the world (QS 2011 rankings). The law faculty is to be renamed the Dickson Poon School of Law, apparently in gratitude rather than as part of the deal, although a nod and a wink before the cheque was signed would have amounted to the same thing. Whilst it is said to be the largest single donation by an individual to a British or European faculty (at least in nominal terms), and whilst Mr. Poon is an undoubted Anglophile and his intentions are surely genuine, to get such an institution renamed for about 1% of his net worth, or the price of one of his houses, is surely tantamount to a gift ... by King's.

Recognising the gaffe they have made concerns of alumni, I see that those who have sold the family silver, primarily "Professor Sir Richard Trainor, Principal and President of King’s College London" (clearly a man who likes his titles, especially if they don't contain the words "Dickson" and "Poon"), have issued a statement that degree certificates will not bear the name Dickson Poon. I think that says it all save to remark that it could have been worse. Suppose Mr. Poon had acted in concert with Henry Tang (poontang - geddit? Oh, never mind.)?

Friday, May 18, 2012

Tanks A Lot

Here we go again! Amidst another untalent show fixing scandal, this time about synchronised underwater breathing, we are told by the Daily Mail that four swimmers, (Zoe Cooper, 28, Emily Kuhl, 22, Beth Smith, 22, and 23-year-old Jazmine Stanberry), who  "amazed" Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams at their audition, perform in a "human-sized" fish tank.
If the tank is the same size as a human, how can they get 4 people into it?

Monday, May 14, 2012

Banana Armour

A Plus, or A +, the slim and slimy organ of the HKICPA, has insinuated its oozing, suppurating way onto my desk with the news (on page 4) that there was a thing called a Beat the Banana charity run on 4th March in which a bunch (geddit?) of accountants took part. Despite the name, this is not a specifically accountant-oriented event, but is part of the World Cancer Research Fund's worldwide fundraising programme.

According to the WCRF's Hong Kong website, the run is based on participants chasing a life-sized banana with the aim of beating it across the finish line. So, not beating the banana in the sense that my reader would have first thought of. (Admit it, Joycey.) And, curiously, by "life-sized", they mean a human dressed as a banana, i.e. the same size as a human being. In other words, not life-sized at all.

(That's enough about bananas - Ed.)

Friday, May 11, 2012

FuCCed Up

Hong Kong is a place of extremes, where inequality thrives, as a result either of intense competition and the possibility of succeeding by your own efforts, or of unlevel playing fields, according to your taste. Once successful, it is only natural to want to preserve one's position, through lobbying, official or unofficial, by treating Chief Executives to little luxuries, and so on. Or even, once there. to try and push the envelope a little.

One place where the privileged gather is in the clubs of Hong Kong, from the grand old Hong Kong Club, full of pre-handover relics, the Jockey Club whose governing members' ethics have been well covered, or uncovered, by Ulie, another old relic, and the Ladies' Recreation Club, full of English wives from Surbiton who lady it over their maids and who don't even notice how bad the food is.

However, who would have thought that the supposedly egalitarian FCC, self-appointed guardian of our freedoms (at least, they print off a letter to the Chinese government every time one of their journalist members is roughed up, always remembering to change the names and dates) could be a hotbed of privilege, official and assumed.

My mole there, who occasionally allows me to sample their fine shepherds pie and down a swift half, tells me that the FCC is in the thick of its annual elections. That should be nice and democratic, you might think, especially since journos are always talking the democratic talk. But, if you look closely, you will see that none of the governing body, except for a token lone voice of Associate Member Governor, can be associate members, or even voted for by associate members who, I am told, make up 90% of the membership and without whom the club would not exist as it would not be financially viable.

Apparently, it's enshrined in the constiution, or something, like in China, so cannot be changed. (Do you see what I did there? I drew an analogy between a one party dictatorship and the Chinese government.) And, anyway, it's a journalists' club, so they get to run it and if you don't like it you can join one of the many other clubs in Central which get a 3-storey stand-alone building (four, if you count the 30-chef kitchen below the basement bar) for next to nothing from the government. But, whatever, this is Hong Kong, and my mole is happy to be a member of a nice club. It works for him.

However, it seems that this built-in privilege is having a little extension added to it. An illegal structure if you will. Look at the ballot paper again, and the unopposed candidate for the position of President is one Doug Wong, who works for Bloomberg, an upstart American news organisation. It says in his manifesto that he is a Liverpool supporter - so much so, according to my mole, that for the recent FA Cup final he 'reserved', Germans-by-the-pool-style, a whole section of the bar, then disappeared for 2 hours till the match started. The staff, knowing that he was the shoe-in for prez, did not dare allow anyone else to sit in the bank of reserved seats, even though they would have actually put money in the club's coffers whilst occupying the seats. Doug's self interest over the commonweal of the members? Does Doug sound just a little bit like Donald? Answers on a postcard, please.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Tales of Hoffman

I liked this put-down of a particularly daft comment in the Guardian.

Here's the Guardian comment:

In praise of ... Dustin Hoffman

The star saved a jogger in Hyde Park who had collapsed with heart problems

Monday, May 7, 2012

Hong Kong Driving Lesson Number One

When driving in Hong Kong, please remember to get your left and your right completely mixed up, as the following, typical Hong Kong drivers do. Failure to do so and, for example, to indicate right when you are turning right could cause no end of confusion. And remember, if a road sign shows that you have to turn right, turn right by all means, but signal left. All clear?






Thursday, May 3, 2012

Letsby Avenue

The Hong Kong police force, Asia's finest (or in Hong Kong English, "Asia's most finest"), have appointed themselves arbiters of matters sexual, according to the SubStandard.
A Hong Kong teenage lad was persuaded while chatting online with a Philippino woman to strip off (presumably thinking he was talking to his mother) and play with himself and - imagine his surprise - was then told that the encounter had been recorded and would be posted online unless he coughed up HK$3,000. The matter was reported to the police who, the Subbie reports, confirm that "their video chat degenerated into profane exchanges and bad internet sex".

"Bad internet sex"? What are the criteria for deciding this? Too fast? Too slow? Not enough bandwidth? And how did the police become such experts? Does this mean that, next time someone asks my reader "How was it for you"?, the response should be "I don't know. Let me ask a policeman"?

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Golden Shower


Passing through the Landmark the other day, after purchasing a pair of Thomas Pink boxers (it's the personal fitting that I like), I noticed that the fountain has been cordoned off. For decades, the public has been able to park their bums on the marble edge while waiting for their loved, or at least tolerated, ones. But no more.

Could this be intended, I wonder, to stop our Mainland friends and their delightful offspring from performing  gross acts in the fountain? Surely not.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Middle Of The Road

Waiting in Wanchai market the other day, I spotted this piece of Hong Kong-style parking. Yes, I know it looks as though CC 1953 is driving through, but he really is parked like that.

I was almost tempted to park between him and the kerb!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Heung On A Minute

As it becomes increasingly obvious that the Heung Yee Kuk in particular, so-called indigenous Dark Siders in slightly less particular, and Dark Siders in general consider themselves as above the law as tycoons and entertainers, can any right-minded island folk seriously oppose Article 23-style legisaltion any longer?

Pull down those illegal structures, Mr. Leung, and set free the dogs of war.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Great Smell Of Fish

I am not a big fan of reality TV, preferring to experience the real thing. However, I have been moderately gripped (by which I mean looking up from time to time from whatever is in my lap) by TVB's Bride  Wannabes.

The idea of the show, which is half-way through its 10 programmes (or programs, as the SubStandard would have it, or them), is to take five available over-30 ladies and to groom them to improve their chances of marriage.

There are a number of givens about using this concept. One is that the ladies must be thought to need improvement, i.e. that they are, in the local parlance, pork chops, or verging on porcine, but with redeeming qualities such that they can be raised to tottydom. For example, one of the five is called Gobby, pronounced Gobi, who, apart from having teeth (until they were fixed) like a Victorian graveyard, is - in my view - quite tasty. Nice figure, lips that could likely get life out of even the most jaded todger, and a certain quirkiness verging on sex appeal.

Another given is that some people will hate the programme (or program as the SubStandard would have it) and bleat on about exploitation, adverse effects, and so on. So there is already a Faeces Book page protesting about (drop the 'about' if you are American) the show with 2,000 bandwagon jumpers having said they like the page (not the show). One of the protesters is a Mr. Tsang Fan-kwong, who claims to be a psychiatrist and who says that some of the suggestions from the groomers, such as sitting angles, being offered to the ladies shouldn't be made because he hasn't heard of them. The implication is that he thinks he knows everything and that he, being a psychiatrist, is in the same business as the groomers or, at least, that psychiatrists have a monopoly on knowing how people think.

Not being a psychiatrist, I wouldn't dare comment on Mr. Tsang's own thoughts, but I am sure he spends a lot of time in bars studying the angles at which people sit and which positions work best for chicks on the pull. I am sure it is not simply a case of resentment by one set of snake oil peddlers against another set.

According to the Subbie, Mr. Tsang added "with a snort" (yes, that will endear you to the ladies, Tsangie) that a market fish hawker could offer better advice than the life coaches. Given the rigour with which Mr. Tsang surely holds out that his chosen field operates under, this likely means either that Mr. Tsang has formally compared the advice given by fish sellers and professional groomers respectively, or that he has compared the socio-economic status of fishwives and the rest of the population and found that, as a demonstrable fact, fishwives have married significantly above their station. Perhaps Mr. Tsang is himself married to a fishwife?

The ultimate underlying premise for the show is that there are many Hong Kong women who have not found a Hong Kong man good enough to be their mate. Oh, there you are again, Mr. Tsang.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Losing Count

They say if you shake hands with a Dutchman you should count your fingers afterwards. If you shake hands with a Liverpudlian, you should count your ckufing arms. Give them an inch and they'll steal a mile.

The self-indulgence masquerading as sensitivity (typical scouse behaviour, along with shop-lifting) which caused Liverpool to refuse to play their FA Cup semi-final yesterday, on the 23rd anniversary (what's the next big one, then, boys - the 46th anniversary? Then the 69th [ooh-err!]?) of the Hillsborough incident, reached even more ridiculous proportions.

Even though Liverpool had reserved Sunday for their remembrance jag, they still took a minute's silence before their rearranged game on Saturday. Wrong ckufing day, in case you forgot, scouse mongs. And then the FA imposed a minute's silence before the second semi-final on Sunday, which by now was the wrong day (they did the silence thing the day before, remember?) in which Liverpool were not playing, but in which a team which was seriously inconvenienced by the rearrangment was playing. Talk about having your cake, eating it, and wanting to sell it back to the shop the scouses stole it from in the first place.

Fortunately, the Chelsea fans were having none of it and the minute's silence was abandoned given that, err, it was too noisy. According to the BBC, Chelsea's thrashing of Spurs was "marred" by this. But then that is what you would exepct the BBC to say, becasue that is what the BBC thinks people expect them to say.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Kim Jong Un-Done

North Korea's long range rocket seems to have redefined the term - 'long range', that is, having stayed up for only 90 seconds before falling into the sea, A brief period of rigidity before a longer one of flaccidity, so to speak.

It seems also to have redefined the word 'rocket', as the Japanese defence minister Naoki Tanaka said "We have the information some sort of flying object had been launched from North Korea".

"Some sort of flying object"! That will please young Mr. Kim.

Talking of which, this means that PAL can get back to throwing their own some sorts of flying object into the air in only the 4th most dangerous fashion in the world. Fortunately, the North Koreans's long range missile has not yet managed to demote them to 5th.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

It's An Unfair Kop, Gov'nor

Anyone who upsets a scouse git can't be all bad, and if they manage to upset the whole of Liverpool, or at least the non-Everton bit, then more power to their elbow.

One Alan Davies, an alleged comedian of whom I had not previously heard, has ssiped off fans of Liverpool "Football" Club by questioning the club's refusal to play an FA Cup match on the anniversary of the Hillsborough incident.

Aside from the intrinsic merit in upsetting the incoherent, shell suit-wearing thieves, he has a good case. Why do they refuse to play on the Hillsborough anniversary and not on the anniversary of the Heysel disaster? Perhaps because the latter was caused by Liverpool fans? Or perhaps it is just the usual scouse self-pity, dressed up as caring. As Davies points out, Man U don't refuse to play on the anniversary of Munich; they just get on with business.

As a result of Liverpool's self-indulgence, another English club, Chelski, has to play their FA Cup tie one day later, and one day closer to a Champions League semi-final, but of course not having another English club have a decent shot at the Champions League would never enter the heads of the scouse tribe. The thought that someone else not winning something is the closest you will get to winning something yourself? Oh, no.

So, what are the Liverpool fans going to do on the inauspicious day? Sit weeping at home? I doubt it. They will be either down the pub getting wrecked on their dole money, or shoplifting from their local supermarket, as usual. Ckufing scouse gits.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Hard Graft

As Uncle Wen, looking increasingly as though he is suffering from dementia (or are we the ones suffering as he labours to get every word out?), lectures CE-elect CY Leung on the need to make Hong Kong corruption-free by leading by example, the implication being that this is what the incumbent has not done, Tiny himself has said that the ICAC's probe into his best friend will be fair and independent, the implication being that this, under his governance, is not something that could have been taken for granted.

Tiny goes on to say "Over the past 30 years, a clean government and a clean society have become one of our core values, which is deep-rooted in Hong Kong." Err, that's two, Tiny. No wonder you've never been accountable. (Geddit? Account-able. Oh, please yourselves.)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Flip, Flop And Fly

Philippine Airlines, which emerged from receivership in 2007, after a mere 9 years (perhaps hoping that enough of its creditors would have died by then, even if they weren't flying with PAL), is to be commended on changing the paths of some of its flights to reduce the chance of being hit by North Korea's next long range missile test satellite launch.

Currently ranked only the 4th most dangerous airline in the world, PAL are not resting on their laurels, and clearly believe the only way is up.

Monday, April 2, 2012

The Buck Stops ... Over There

I was browsing a copy of the SCuM Post this morning as I waited in my local HSBC Premier branch, and came across an article by Mike Rowse, sometimes referred to as Donald Tsang’s bag boy. Who'da thunk it, that the Boy from Deptford, or Isleworth, or whichever flat-vowelled suburb, would have his own column? Mike obviously knows a thing or two about punctuation; perhaps one day he will know three things. Know wo' I mean, mate? 
The article, a mere week after the CE election, consists of several statements of the obvious about the election and the electoral system, of the type that I must have heard from half the taxi drivers in Hong Kong, combined with a side-swipe at Henry Tang who, before an enquiry into the ill-conceived HarbourFest of 2003, tried to retract his statement that Mike hadn’t stuffed up the boondoggle, or at least that he had an excuse (namely, that it was too hard for him) for so doing. Mike would surely be thriving on having bested Hong Kong's favourite equine punchbag, if only it weren't for that Friend of Donald tag of his own.

The last I remember Mike himself saying about the Fest, apart from every time I see him in person, was in the SCuM Post letters page where he said that he had at his elbow a spreadsheet that “proved” that HarbourWank was going to make money. Whatever happened to that proof, Mikey? Or was it just smoke and mirrors?  

In case it’s not forthcoming, 8 years later, I happen to have a Word document at my side that “proves”, if proof were needed ... well, you can probably guess.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Atonement

I saw that Tony Miller chappie scuttling into the Sun Hung Kai building today, beard-a-bristling and pate a-glow. Maybe my reader remembers him? If memory serves, he was the ex-government housing secretary who didn't resign over some housing scandal that took place on his watch (sinking pilings or similar?) but who let one of his underlings resign for him, and who now rakes it in with SHK. But I could be wrong. Perhaps the boys want to call in their chips.

Isn't delegation a wonderful thing?

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Boy From Altrincham

There seems to have been a bit of a kerfuffle about whom CY visited on the day after his election, and for how long. One of the people he visited was my old mate Geoff Ma, or Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma as he is styled these days.

I have no issue with CY meeting Geoff, even for the 60 minutes he gave him, but I do have a slight gripe with Geoff himself. Astute readers of the previous incarnation of this organ, if there ever were any, will recall that Geoff's last words to me, back in Blighty in the seventies, were "I'll give you a call". I should have been suspicious since he didn't have my number, but still, he has now had a third of a century to find it. Thirty ckufing years, Geoff!

And by the way, you haven't half piled on the weight, you porker.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Leung And Short Of It

The unofficial poll for the election of a CE for Hong Kong, organised by an academic, was illuminating in a couple of respects.

Firstly, even though it was unofficial, no one had the imagination to come up with anyone but the official candidates! Secondly, even though there was a non-pro-establishment candidate, he came last of the 3 candidates (and way behind the block of spoiled votes cast by retards in unconscious parody of the same Beijing stooges the poll was trying to present an alternative to).

And yesterday, the Univerity of Hong Kong's student union, which two weeks ago spent HK$400,000 on  8 newspaper adverts which were critical of eventual winner CY Leung, apologised and said they hadn't meant to say what they had for two weeks been happy for everyone to believe they had meant to say, now that the person they were criticising was in power.

Turning to CY himself ... setting aside my own direct experiences with him over more than 10 years (when I found him very open, pleasant and approachable), the devil (or whichever other invisible friend or enemy you prefer) is in the details. Mr. Leung attended Bristol Polytechnic and, unlike some cnuts around Hong Kong I could mention, has not retroactively relabelled this as the University of the West of England. None of these unsubstantiated masters degrees in bullshit subjects, either. And, it may seem a small thing, but he actually manages to open a car door for himself, something I have never seen Tiny or Henry do. Although perhaps Tiny just couldn't reach the handle.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Going Dutch

Dubious advertising of the week comes from Philips, the once-great Dutch manufacturer of electrical stuff. Visitors to this organ's previous incarnation will remember that their shoddy goods got the dreaded fumie thumbs-down, but now they are preying on the average consumer's innumeracy to sell their tat.

Shopping for an electric toothbrush on Saturday, I found the Philips display in one of Mr. Li's fine emporia. Next to the tooth brushes themselves were a thing called a water pic and then  an "AirFloss". In large type on the AirFloss's card the number "99%" leapt out. Jolly good, I thought, as a casual reader might, they must be claiming to remove 99% of everything between your teeeth. Not so.

In smaller print, it said that it would remove "99% more" plaque than normal brushing, which in old money means less than twice as much. Still not too bad, though, if those Sonic toothbrushes (not to be confused with the hedgehog of the same name), which one assumes that Philips intend to be used with their AirFloss, are so good. The Sonic gets rid of a lot and the AirFloss gets rid of twice as much again. Again, not so.

In even smaller print, it says that they are only comparing the results with a manual toothbrush which, since Philips have for years been saying how much better their electric toothbrushes are than the manual ones, must do ckuf-all.

To recap, using the AirFlow will get rid of less than two times ckuf-all plaque. Why didn't the Dutchies say so in the first place?

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Whit's It All About?

With lyrics like these,

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way

I prefer the other Whitney any day.