Camelot Schmamelot

Last week's poll showed that there's still a place for all those forests of fast-growing pines that prop up the Norwegian economy. Book buyers outnumbered borrowers by very nearly two and a half to one. (I think the half was Sham Shui Po Boy.)

This week, I cast my net a little further afield and ask you to travel in your imaginations to 1960 (Fumier can check his diaries), when Richard Nixon squared off against John Kennedy for the right to be called Mister President.

Who would you have cast your vote for? Would Homer Simpson have concurred?

Let Your Light Shine

Twice within a week I've come across motorists driving without lights. Not driving just with side lights, as taxi drivers and minibus drivers continue to do in contravention of the law, but without any lights at all, front or back.

The first time I flashed the fellow, came along side him and honked him, gesticulated, and mouthed (pretty clearly, I thought) "Your lights aren't working, mate!", but all to no avail. The problem with Hong Kong people is that if you try to communicate anything on the roads, they invariably think you're accusing them of something.

The second time, I managed to pass the Triad van driver I'd been flashing from behind. When we stopped at the traffic lights, I got out of my car, walked towards his lethal weapon and pointed at his lamps. A look of blank incomprehension settled deeper on his face and that of his sidekick who had his flip-flops on the dashboard and a Marlboro sticking out of the passenger window.

"Hoi dang!" I shouted, and this time he got the message. He even gave me a smile.

Unfortunately, by this time the lights had changed and I was forced to run the gauntlet of a cacophony of horns as I sprinted back to my vehicle.

"Why is it," I reflected as I passed through the Lion Rock Tunnel, "that their horns never don't work?"

Immunity to Pretentiousness

"A Classical education helps you from being fooled by pretentiousness." (Raymond Chandler)

Thank goodness it wasn't a total waste of time.

Match Made in Heaven?

Read my lips - no more taxes ... and no more jobs *

Included among the usual spring bumph from the Marylebone Cricket Club – advertisements for hotels and wine merchants in London, the club's rules and regulations for 2009, etc. – one particular leaflet caught my eye. This was the application form to buy tickets for "The Stanford Series for the Stanford Trophy".

As you may have guessed, this three-day tournament, to be played on 28-30 May 2009, is sponsored by a Mr Stanford. Indeed, not just a Mr Stanford, but the Mr Stanford, Allen Stanford of Stanford (there's that name again) International Bank fame, who was nabbed by the FBI last week and now stands charged by the American Securities and Exchange Commission with engaging in a "massive ongoing fraud" of "shocking magnitude". US$9.3 billion is one figure going the rounds.

The good folk of Antigua are understandably a bit worried, given that around about 5 percent of the working population is (was?) employed by Stanford. I suppose that's the flip side of operating as a tax haven in the Caribbean; you do tend to attract people looking for nice beaches and good laundry facilities.

Sounding like Corporal Jones from Dad's Army, Antigua's prime minister, Baldwin Spencer (a good name for a PM of a former British colony), sent a somewhat mixed message in a recent message to his nation:

"The fall-out threatens catastrophic and immediate consequences ... There is no need for panic."

But back to the MCC and the ground they operate, Lord's, "the home of cricket". In June last year Sir Allen (to give him his correct - no, I think "full" is a better word) landed on the sacred turf in London NW8 in a black helicopter bearing a plastic crateful of dollars to promote his Stanford Super Series. (Even his crates are tacky.)

On 26 October 2008, shortly before the first – and last – Stanford Super Series was played out in Antigua, Stephen Brenkley of The Independent wrote as follows:

"Of all the short-form matches currently being organised, the conclusion is easily reached that Stanford Superstars v England is the most offensive. It has no context as a proper sporting competition, it is neither country versus country, club versus club or invitation XI versus invitation XI. It is a rococo hybrid. It has money but nothing else going for it."

Now, of course, it just has the nothing else.

* Dark Knights: Sir Allen Stanford (l) and Michael Knighton (r)

Rock The Boat

"Our love is like a ship on the ocean
We've been sailing with a cargo full of love and devotion"

Some of the all-time great lyrics to accompany the world's largest sideburns.

Put Out More Flags

A quick check on my flagcounter showed that readers from a mind-boggling 112 countries visit this site. That's a whopping 58 percent of the world's 194 countries (195, if you include Taiwan, which I'm not inclined to do until they can a) find a politician who's smart enough to be a crook and get away with it and b) organise better fights in their parliament).

A quick check of keywords shows that the most popular searches bringing the masses to my blog are "hitler a study in tyranny" and "zheng jie sucking cock". Which shows, if it shows nothing else, the rich and varied diet that people can expect when they come to Ulaca.

Welcome to my brand new February countries: Trinidad and Tobago (I'm afraid that still only counts as one, as Gimli might say to Legolas), the Dominican Republic, Oman and Latvia.

Speaking of Riga, here's Peter Cook, a man noted for his Rigour:

"The Next Bus Arrives in Precisely 3 Hours and 30 Minutes"

To be fair, the minimum wait for Route 58 is an hour and twenty minutes.

If they set chairs out at bus stops on rural routes in Hong Kong, what do they put up in Wuxi? Tents? Portakabins? Office blocks?

Let Customer Say NO!

I received a missive recently from the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau of the Hong Kong Government. It contained the following motto, which beautifully encapsulates Hong Kong (from the proud stating and further restating of a negative message through the bad grammar down to the unintentional hilarity it produces for the reader):

Never say NO!
Let Customer say NO!

Ripping Yarns

Now that we've dealt with QP, can anyone tell me what TLA means? Evie won't let on and I'm all agog. (Though not quite so agog as I get when I read her tantalising bedtime stories.)

I've only come across Hong Kong's very own Bridget Jones quite recently, but I'm already hooked, even if I keep getting her mixed up with her fellow English Francophile blue-stocking Lola.

Stimulated by Evie, I've performed the long overdue task of updating my links, with both HKSAR Blog ("Reflections from Hong Kong with a dose of critical thinking") and architart ("Sketches from the other side") being added.

I didn't think it quite fair that only the house of whatever should be represented, so I've added the fellow from the other hong so that we could see two tie-pins going at it hammer and tongues.

Finally, a quick plug for the King Cnut of south-east Asian bloggers, whose efforts to push back the waves of world recession - the financial tsunami, in Donald Tsang speak - deserve some kind of reward.

Minding your QPs

What is it with abbreviations? And why do people insist on using "acronym" when they mean "abbreviation"? For goodness' sake, people, an acronym is a word – yes, a word – formed from the initial letters of words in a phrase. So NATO and scuba are acronyms, but SPQR is an abbreviation. I bet the bloody Romans never called it an acronym!

Another abbreviation I'm getting pretty fed up with is QP. Two reasons: first, the first word is "quality". Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against quality, that is, the quality. But the word is so horribly misused that it's become no more than a synonym for "something good". Worse than that, morons now use it as an adjective, to describe, say, a cross by David Beckham ("Becks put in a quality cross with his right peg because he's too fucking slow to beat his man on the outside").

The other reason I'm so angry about QP that I'm fit to blow a gasket is that no one can decide what the hell the P stands for. Thus, some people use is (use it, mind, never define it) as plan, other wankers as planning, still more tossers as procedure and a final bunch of retards as policy.

There's even quality probe, but I don't want to go there. This is a family blog.

Skimmed Milk

Milk, a film based on the life and loves of the United States' first "openly gay" elected official, Harvey Milk, stars Sean Penn with a lisp. As predictable as the lisp is, the rest of the film is even more predictable, almost as bad as Philadelphia, and therefore a virtual shoe-in for Best Film Oscar.

Like Philadelphia, it is overblown and earnest – even the kisses are earnest, making Milk a kind of gay Brokebank Mountain – light years away from the best movie with a gay subtext, the excellent HBO production And The Band Played On, where the reality of the true human condition was allowed to trump the fantasy of the self-anointed, phoney Hollywood vision of an "issue".

Penn plays photography shop owner turned politician Milk as Robin Williams in bad clothes. As the brief video of the real Mr Milk shows, when he finally appears in a newsreel at the closing credits, this was a part that was tailor-made for the goggle-eyed Marty Feldman. Milk was Jewish, after all, a fact glossed over by the film makers.

Besides being long and overblown – it covers the years 1970 to 1978, when Mr Milk was murdered (by a sheep in wolf's clothing, naturally enough – a fellow politico who according to the film at any rate was a closet homosexual) – Milk is ultimately a rather thin film. The standout performance is given by Heath Ledger look-alike James Franco, who plays the sanest of Milk's boyfriends. His transformation from late 60s Golliwog look to late 70s Burt Reynolds with moustache look testifies eloquently to the power of a pair of scissors and a bottle of shampoo. No wonder Harvey still had the hots for him even as he prepared to face his final slo-mo moments.

Sinopecking Order

Thanks to Denise in IT for the inside track on Hong Kong fuel prices, with Sinopec leading the way again with a net price of $11.69 per litre on offer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Invaluable for all local car owners.

Full list of Sinopec service stations here.

Culturally Insensitive Ad Has Morris Dancers up in Arms and Making Funny Tinkling Noises

I find this deeply offensive.



Foster's: Australian for Coors Light.

Learning to Think Like a Girl

From the magnificent Matt Dillon driven There's Something About Mary. Never play with a loaded gun.

Maoris Dancing

That cultural icon of New Zealand, the one where 15 guys line up for the New Zealand Maoris rugby team (there's always a token blond fellow rather improbably claiming Maori blood) and before they kick the ball about they slap their thighs and stick their tongue out while the 15 blokes they're meant to be playing a rugby match against form a huddle or do a little jig of their own, is being copyrighted.

Or, sort of, since not even Kevin Egan could manage to convince a judge to copyright a dance, especially the haka, a dance which changes every time it's rolled out for TV.

Having bored us for so long on the box, it's only fair and proper (forgive me descending for a moment into legal language) that advertisers have got in on the act. First, there's this one for the New Zealand Bakery of the Year Challenge (WARNING: not for the very sensitive, as it's pretty insulting to gingerbread persons):



Then, there's this one from Italy, where some (by Italian standards) tasty looking birds slap themselves about a bit (maybe I should call them "slappers"?) in a last desperate effort by the Agnelli family to flog its motors:

Fuc Q

According to a member of Hong Kong's optimistically named Liberal Party, Lily Chiang's problems all stem from a lack of EQ: "she is only in trouble because she has made too many enemies".

Like many bullshit notions, no on can actually agree on what EQ stands for. Some say emotional intelligence, others emotional intelligence quotient, still others emotional quotient.

So, recently when a member of staff said he would be away for the next morning attending a seminar on AQ, I asked him what AQ stood for. He didn't know – the seminar was in Cantonese and the flyer from HR was in Chinese.

Just before he left that evening, he dropped by to my office to tell me that he'd checked with HR and AQ meant attitudinal quotient. I had to say I had nothing to say – which is unusual.

When he came back from the seminar, I asked Ah Tak how it had gone.

"It wasn't attitudinal quotient – it was adversity quotient," he replied earnestly.

"So, what did you learn?"

"I didn't understand it," he said.

He left me to ponder this strange, yet rather Hong Kongish conversation. I wondered if not understanding wasn't the point; whether attending a 3-hour seminar which made no sense to you and which was a complete waste of time wasn't the crucible in which your capacity to withstand adversity was put to the test.

*********************************************************

Last week's poll drew an incredible 25 votes, just short of the record number who, in a shock to rival that of a Taiwanese politician who's not on the make, reckoned that the Toyota Hiace is less hazardous to the health of Hong Kong's other road users than a motorbike.

This week's survey retains the political theme, seeking to determine whether you're an Emily Lau person or a Christine Loh person.

Inoculating Oneself Against the Nonsense of the Age

"Most of all, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age."

(C S Lewis, "Learning in war-time")

Lily in Limbo

As widely expected, judge Alan Wright decided yesterday in the Court of First Instance that former chairwoman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, Lily Chiang Lai Lei, would have to stand trial before one of his peers – a judge – rather than before seven of her peers – a jury – which she'd been holding out for.

The SCMP article by Peter Brieger notes wryly that it's "unclear why she preferred a jury trial", as she faces charges including allegations of fraud relating to share options granted to staff at Pacific Challenge Holdings.

A law professor at Hong Kong University, Simon Young Ngai Man, sheds some light on Lily's wish that findings of fact be made by laypeople rather than by legal experts. "They [the jury] might see the alleged crimes as just competitive business rather than dishonesty."

In other words, the sort of thing they'd do themselves if they had the chance ... and the money! I can't believe this is what Lily meant when she was reported in the Apple Daily in March 2008 as saying she believed she'd get a "fairer" trial at the High Court.

Having dealt with local jurors, Professor Young, an expert in white collar crime and a former prosecutor in Ontario, offers further interesting insights into the psychology of local judicial officers.

"Although judges might stick to the letter of the law, many District Court judges [Lily's case was originally assigned to the District Court], are former magistrates who don't have much time for 'high-priced lawyers and legal niceties'."

And endless attempts to delay things, I would imagine.

Strangely, Alan Wright himself is a former magistrate, who graduated through the ranks to become first a District Court judge and then, a couple of years ago, a High Court judge.

The Pacific Century Holdings story has already claimed one victim, Brenda Lui Yee Man, one of the founders of the company, who drowned in Deep Water Bay in May 2000. All the more reason for hoping, as I said to Lily's husband Gino Yu last year, that justice is done in his wife's case.

Premises Premises

Local estate agent Douglas K.T. Lau has got in on the act of trying to sell The Cullinan, the block of flats Sun Hung Kai Properties have put up next to the motorway on reclaimed land not far from the old Jordan Road ferry.

You know an estate agent is having problems flogging his product when the major selling point is that it is the "the tallest residential building in Hong Kong". You know he didn't major in logic or English when he writes that "the said premise will be a world-wide supreme luxury residence".

By a remarkable coincidence, K.T.'s message arrived on the same day as the latest edition of SHKP Quarterly landed on my desk. Unusually for such an upbeat magazine with its enhanced photos and artist's impressions, the editors are honest enough to admit to previous shortcomings in the security guard department by offering potential buyers the lure of "intelligent building management".

Sadly, though, the person charged with naming Sun Hung Kai's skyscrapers has returned to the well only to discover a creaky pump handle. After giving us such memorable names as Kelletteria, The Belcher's and La Maison Vineyard, is it any surprise that the inspiration has finally dried up? Still, you'd have thought he'd have come up with something better than The Latitude for its new building in Kowloon.

Then again, what else do you call your latest high-rise when you're plonking it next to the infamous Kai Tak nullah? The Ponger's?

Who needs Harold Robbins when you've got the real thing?

... and other classic lines from the "Waldorf Salad" epsiode of Fawlty Towers, including "I think we're just out of Waldorfs".

The last two minutes (5.20 to the end) are especially good.

Professional Scotsman

To mark the latest edition of the northern version of the southern hemisphere's Tri-Nations rugby tournament, featuring twice the number of teams but half the quality, Little Britain at its best:

Tune in tomorrow for a bonus Sunday post - vintage comedy from 1975.

Mr Smith's Replacement Goes to Washington

It doesn't take long for being the most powerful man in the world (after the Head of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Joseph Yam Chi Kwong, of course) to go to your head, even if, according to Ricky Gervais, you're "a man of grace and integrity, who would never shirk responsibility". Testimonials don't come much higher than that.

Now, it was clear at the inauguration a fortnight ago that Bush's speechwriters were still doing the rounds in Washington, but you'd have expected them to do more than merely dust off old scripts when the new broom swept through the White House with her husband Barack.

Instead, this is what Obama drooled when Tony Blair pitched up in town:

"I want to thank my good friend Tony Blair for coming today, somebody who did it first and perhaps did it better than I will do. He has been an example for so many people around the world of what dedicated leadership can accomplish. And we are very grateful to him."

Blair, who once averred through his Rottweiler Alastair Campbell that he didn't "do God", took the opportunity to speak "passionately" of his own faith while in Washington. Faith in himself, one assumes – the one person he does "do" rather well.

Happy Waitangi Day to All My Kiwi Readers

... including Auntie Marj from Mount Maunganui.

My favourite New Zealand joke has got to be the one that goes, "New Zealand is a country with 50 million sheep, four million of which think they're human beings".

I'm not sure if it's up there with Billy Connolly's one about the Australians being the best balanced people in the world – "a chip on both shoulders" – but it's got to better than David Walliams dressing up as a woman.

However, when he dresses up as a Scotsman, the results can be pretty funny:

Golly! There's More

Carol Thatcher was apparently referring to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga when she used the word "golliwog", although you could argue, like Anonymous, that, if she had known her tennis better, she should have been referring to Monfils (no "t", by the way, Nonnie):

Tsonga

Monfils

People are comparing Ms Thatcher's faux pas with Jonathan Ross's "prank call" to actor Andrew Sachs, best known as Manuel in Fawlty Towers. Here's a sample of what Ross (and his mate Russell Brand) said on air in a BBC radio programme:

Jonathan Ross: "He [Brand] fucked your granddaughter! ... I'm sorry I apologise. Andrew, I apologise ... I got excited, what can I say? It just came out."

Russell Brand: "Andrew Sachs, I did not do nothing with Georgina - oh no I've revealed I know her name! Oh no it's a disaster."

Sachs seems to be one person associated with the BBC still in possession of their judgement:

"It doesn't deserve this attention. Her comments were not aired so who really was offended, apart from the BBC? It is a much more minor offence than that committed by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. I'm lost for words. It is bloody stupid."

The BBC has retained Ross.

Good Golly!

The daughter of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once memorably dubbed Attila the Hen by Norman St John Stevas, has whipped up a fair old storm by calling a male tennis player a golliwog. The remark was made in conversation with the show's host over drinks after the show had been recorded and was then reported to the Beeb's top brass.

License fee payers in Scotland are said to be up in arms about the comment, believing it was a deliberate attempt to rub saltire into the wounds after Dunblane's favourite son and pre-tournament favourite, the charismatic Andy Murray, was sent packing in the fourth round.

Personally, I can't see much similarity between the famous Robertson's marmalade mascot and the surly Scot. It is rumoured that the golliwog is considering legal action.

Meanwhile, as this storm in a tea cup dies down, the real debate is just starting and is likely to go on and on, a bit like a BBC chat show.

Just who is uglier, Carol Thatcher or the little man who snitched on her, Adrian Chiles?

That's this week's poll sorted, then.

(It was a tie between Monet and Van Gogh, by the way, for those who follow these things.)

Wrong Kind of Snow Brings Britain to Standstill

ALL BUS SERVICES CANCELLED AS STREETS GET SPRINKLING OF WHITE POWDER

LONDON MAYOR INVOKES SPIRIT OF CHURCHILL

"Give us a tool and he will finish the job"

MILKMEN EVOKE DUNKIRK SPIRIT

"It's Benny Hill wot inspires me"

That Time of Year

Once a humble account of the financial results for the preceding twelve months, the Annual Report has now grown into a slick PR vehicle. Okay, they're still as dull as dishwater, but so many award programmes (and "programs" - even the Yanks are at it) have mushroomed so organisations can slap one another on the back that they now require hordes of people to concoct. And of course someone has to undertake the tough task of overseeing such creative endeavour, including, naturally, the site visits necessary to ensure that the reports being sent in from the different areas of the Group's international operations are absolutely accurate and compliant.

Which is all by way of saying that posting will be light for the rest of this week, while I perform my role with due diligence.