Great Rambles: Sunset Peak I

Lantau Peak and Nei Lak Shan (from the Wong Lung Hang Trail)

For this, the first in a weekly series of rambling ruminations, I will take the reader with me up Sunset Peak (literal translation "Big East Mountain"), the third highest peak in Hong Kong after Tai Mo Shan and Lantau Peak.

There are, as may be imagined, a number of ways to tackle this 869-metre hill. In the past, I've made the ascent on the Lantau Trail from the west (having done Lantau Peak and then crossed the Tung Chung Road) and from the east (from Nam Shan/Mui Wo). But the climbs from the other two compass points (well, from the north-west and the south-east, if you want to be pedantic) are a lot more challenging and a lot more fun.

When I was living in Pui O many moons ago, I took the path from there (this is the south-east climb). It was a foggy day and I remember feeling as remote from civilisation as I'd ever felt up to that moment in the colony, as the track disappeared in swirling mists worthy of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce on the trail of the Hound of the Baskervilles. (What a pointless story that is, by the way.)

The only time that I have since felt more isolated in Hong Kong was when I ran out of path in the north-east New Territories near a deserted village. Making one last attempt to break through to the coast and thus preserve my proud record of never having been forced back on the path by which I had come, I came face to face with a very large and very black snake which was coiled up on the seasonally overgrown path.

I have since made it one of my life goals to identify that serpent (all the other snakes I've come across locally being pretty unimpressive, to be honest – small and brown or green, and all looking uncannily like the rubber snakes I used to leave in my kid sister's bed), but I remain thwarted. It is, I now realise, a microcosm of life in general, the kind of lesson you can only learn by experience, like cutting your finger on the corned beef tin with the key opener that you can never get to go round the can in one go. I guess that's why they made the tins the shape they did – to build character and sell Elastoplasts. I suspect I will go to my grave not knowing whether it was a rat snake (harmless, I believe) or a Chinese black cobra (which specialises in sending people to their graves) or something else. When dining out, it is of course a cobra and this thick.

Back to this year's Sunset Peak trek and I decided to do a circular walk starting in Tung Chung – the new town that sought to rewrite the old saying "Build it and they will come" when the colonial Government decided to shoot enormous towers into the sky in arguably the most polluted place in the territory, a giant diesel particulate trap where all the muck from the Pearl River Delta is deposited after slamming against a wall of mountains that stand sentinel over the place with a look that seems to say, "You Chinese can claim all the credit you like for the airport, but we Brits have bequeathed you Tung Chung". As a result of which, large numbers of young couples who bought boxes in North Lantau have now upped sticks and moved back in with their parents in the Mid-levels Ghetto.

If you take a bus, you need to get off at the first stop after leaving the North Lantau Highway, just past the splendidly named Tung Chung Fire Station-cum-Ambulance Depot.

From here it's a twenty minute walk on pavements to the start of the walk proper near the end of Wong Lung Hang Road. (Walk back to the main road, take the bridge that crosses the dual carriageway, then hang a right followed by a left onto Wong Lung Hang Road.)

The Government should be congratulated for the construction of the Wong Lung Hang Trail, since it does all but the most Xtreme walker a great service by rendering an otherwise very steep and pretty treacherous ascent/descent accessible and safe by means of stone steps. (Note: rather than taking the path towards Sunset Peak, intrepid types can keep going and scramble over the rocks to the Wang Lung Waterfalls.)

One of the attractions of the trail is that it takes you through mature woodland, which means it's both shaded from the sun and very beautiful. You also cross many streams where you can enjoy a rinse and a drink. In one of these I disturbed a dark grey fish, about 4-5 inches in length, which darted around in his little pool before hiding under the rocks. All attempts to identify him using my Hills and Streams: an Ecology of Hong Kong, by HKU ecologists David Dudgeon (a freshwater specialist who even sounds like a fish) and Richard Corlett, have resulted in failure, which isn't really surprising, since my ichthyological knowledge is considerably less impressive than my ability to use long Greek words. The little fellow was also totally unimpressed with my attempts to lure him to perform in front of the camera by dropping bits of my cheese and pickle sandwich into his pool – but he wasn't going to get any of my hard-boiled free range egg or my Beddar Cheddar sausage. [to be continued]

Revolutions Evidence against Energy of a Nation

For some reason I was born the opposite of a revolutionary – whatever that should be called. One reason is undoubtedly that I am a coward; another, perhaps, that I hate violence. Third, the suspicion can never leave me that for revolutionaries – like for many of today's eco-warriors – it's usually all about themselves.

Novalis had this to say about revolutions (which were quite popular when he was living in the late nineteenth century):

"Revolutions are evidence more against than for the real energy of a nation. There is a kind of energy stemming from sickness and weakness – that has a more violent effect than the real kind – but which unfortunately ends in even more profound weakness."

Please Flee in an Orderly Manner

The Shenzhen Bus Company is always good for a laugh. Today, on the wires, I read:

"On hearing the noise generated from the leakage of air from air-bags, a woman screamed loudly and passengers fled from the bus by breaking the windows with the hammers. Five passengers were injured in the incident.

In a separate incident, the tyre of a Route 238 bus burst and three passengers were injured when they fled from the bus.

A spokesperson of Shenzhen Bus Group will give tips on how to flee from a bus in case of emergency."

Conspiracy Theory Title Sequence

One of the best of its kind:

Rambles in Hong Kong

One of the things I have in common with C S Lewis is my dislike of the word "hike", a word perhaps not coincidentally beloved of Hong Kong people.

Lewis objected to the use of the word on the grounds that its use for "something so simple as taking an ordinary 'walk'" was an instance of language abuse, of "the passion for making specialised and self-conscious stunts out of activities which have hitherto been as ordinary as shaving or playing with the kitten".

I'm not sure what he would have made of "ramble", but Rambles in Hong Kong is the title of a gem of a book originally written by G S P Heywood (civil servants didn't do Christian names in the 1930s) and given a new commentary by Richard Gee in the early 1990s. Published by OUP, my copy was bought at Cosmos bookshop in Wan Chai in 1995, and I note from the Hong Kong Public Libraries website that copies are available at branches around Hong Kong.

Most of the 12 chapters give details of walks in the New Territories, a place that was quite different 70-odd years ago. No Spanish-style villas, no used-car dumps, no returnees from Chinese takeaways in Nuneaton, no fruitcake "indigenous" village chiefs wagging the Government dog through the ludicrous Heung Yee Kuk. It was an exotic place to which chaps like Heywood would travel by sea of a Sunday morning with their burden of cucumber sandwiches, Thermos flasks of piping-hot coffee and hip flasks of the finest Scotch, as they walked the treacherous north-east face of Ma On Shan, something all but impossible these days, I fear, as the Marine and Country Parks Authority attempts to herd walkers onto the Maclehose, Wilson, Hong Kong and Lantau Trails.

Gee provides a parallel text to Heywood's (left-hand page: Heywood; right-hand page: Gee), which complements the older account by bringing it up to date, by, for instance, noting that what used to be a swamp is now a town of 600,000 people owned by the Brothers Kwok. For an accountant, Gee is surprisingly interesting, matching Heywood's unselfconscious colonialist discourse ("If your sampan is waiting for you at the jetty, you will be tempted to take a short cut to the left ...") with some wit of his own ("You don't need nailed boots for Kowloon Peak. My girlfriend did this walk wearing ballet shoes").

In the past month or so, I've been out in the hills most weekends, conquering the likes of Ma On Shan, Lantau Peak, Sunset Peak, Kowloon Peak and Grassy Hill. I've generally avoided the motorways, preferring to trail blaze what my vintage Countryside Series maps call, without any understatement, "seasonally overgrown paths". So, starting some time soon, I'll introduce what I hope will be a weekly series of accounts of great Hong Kong walks, some of which will be accompanied by spectacular shots captured by my Canon Powershot. Those with arachnophobia, you have been warned.

What Do They Teach Them at School These Days?

My wife passed me the following note written by our 13-year-old daughter at a family get-together at Sha Tin's very serviceable, recently refurbished "floating" restaurant (now with one chandelier per table). Once, apparently, when Natalie wanted an MP3, her mum asked her to write a proposal. Fast forward several years and she hasn't forgotten:

Yesterday when I passed by a sports shop in Tai Wo station, my eyes flickered to an all black back-pack.

Yes – you guessed it. I hereby use this "proposal" to try and convince you to kindly purchase this useful book-carrier.

Firstly, I know you'll say "why should I get another bag, since I've bought two in the past eleven months?" The answer to that is only simple, as I'll demonstrate the usage of all the possible back-packs I could use but can't use.

 Exhibit A: DKNY; May's birthday gift to me; my former school-bag
Not only is it too small, it's also a bit too fancy for school – food stains, dirty floors, colour paints ...
Main Reason: Too small

 Exhibit B: Ah Kei's former school bag; the bag I used to use during P5-P6
After so many years of usage, not only does it smell funky, it's also close to breaking. The zipper has encountered multiple break-downs.
Main Reason: Close to breaking

 Exhibit C: Nike khaki cross-bag; my first Secondary school-bag; your gift
Yes – there's nothing wrong with that bag, I actually like it a lot. Though carrying books of a massive weight on one shoulder is actually very bad for my growth. That bag will not be of waste – what you most concern – as I'll use it/have been using it to go out.
Main Reason: Leads to bad health

 Exhibit D: Converse camping back-pack
This bag was only bought for camping purposes. I've always planed to use it during camps and holidays. It is – like you once said – too big for school. It has lots of compartments, and is most suitable for camping/holiday purposes.
Main Reason: Too bulky

I hope you understand why all the above bags aren't suitable for school, and that I would be much, much obliged if you would purchase this practical, everyday item at the cost of $299 with 10% off.

Guess who ended up stumping up the cash?

I am Not a Number, I am a Free Singaporean

Yesterday evening a visitor from the Lion City came by after making a Google search for "Lee Kuan Yew Minister Mental".

I admire your guts but don't blame me, mate, when you get the knock on the door in the middle of the night. I only ever say nice things about the daft old git.

Fubou Is Back

In case you're wondering what Fubou means, it's the Cantonese for the HK Standard, Fumie's source in chief.

By the way, it's Spanish week at the moment.

No More Waiting for Robert De Niro

More than 35 years after he first caught the public eye with performances in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, Robert De Niro is still strutting his stuff. A string of very watchable movies, including Godfather II, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, followed as he built up an impressive CV with fellow "Italian-American" directors, Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola. (De Niro himself is only Italian – part Italian at that - on his father's side, although that hasn't stopped the Italians claiming him as one of their own as reward for portraying the more colourful elements of their society to such good effect.)

Indeed, he became so famous that a group of secretaries turned singers (well, almost) called Bananarama had their biggest hit when they cashed in on the star's name in their "Robert De Niro's Waiting", even if they originally called it "Al Pacino's Waiting" before discovering that five syllables worked better than four.

When he's not taking the money for sad sequels like Meet the Fockers and Analyze That, De Niro has shown what a fine comedic actor he is in such pictures as Midnight Run and Meet the Parents. He began branching out into comedy in his early forties, when he was by far the best thing in Terry Gilliam's over-rated dystopic fantasy Brazil.

I watched this movie for the first time recently, without having read any reviews, and was interested to note that my views were essentially shared by Roger Ebert. (We don't always agree; he gave zero stars to The Life of David Gale, a film I would give three stars to.) Having sat through the full 2 hours and 22 minutes of the director's cut, it is evident that the cult status the film has achieved has more to do with the legends surrounding its release (Gilliam took on and beat the studio suits) and with Gilliam being a member of the holy cult of Python than with the material itself. Gilliam himself seems implicitly to acknowledge this, giving more and prominence to the relationship between Jonathan Pryce and Kim Greist as the film grinds on towards its end.

I'm no great fan of George Orwell's 1984 (Animal Farm is his masterpiece, with Homage to Catalonia, arguably the best book about the Spanish Civil War, not far behind), but – take away the hype – and Brazil, Gilliam's homage to Orwell, is little more than a poor imitation of 1984 ... with Michael Palin.

Permanent Realm of Crisis (PRC)

Writing more than two hundred years ago, Novalis might have been talking about China, Burma or a number of other countries when he refers to the tendency of "febrile states" to create permanent crises:

"How nonsensical it would be to create a permanent crisis, and to believe the febrile state to be the true, healthy state, the preservation of which is all-important for the person. But otherwise, who could doubt its necessity, its beneficial effect."

Bwief Encounter Meets Bwideshead

Atonement, based on the novel by Ian McEwan, is a film so bad that it is almost good. Watching it on DVD on a Tuesday evening after returning from St John's Cathedral was the perfect way to relax after unbelievably melodious renditions of a Hungarian folk song and a Mandarin classic by Teresa Teng. If anyone hasn't seen the film, wants to and doesn't want to know what happened, they should turn away now. If anyone doesn't like the word "cunt", which is this film's MacGuffin, they might also like to give it a miss.

The film centres on the relationship between Keira Knightley, a posh girl (or "gal" as they call it in 1930s movies) living in an enormous pile in Sussex, and her lover James McAvoy. As you might already have guessed, James is Keira's bit of rough, the housekeeper's boy. This is Lady Chatterley without wheelchairs and annoying Nottinghamshire dialect.

Keira and James's immature behaviour, bordering on the idiotic, is explained early on by the fact that they are both Cambridge graduates. It's not clear what they studied but he got a First and wants to be a doctor. In the meantime, he's doing the gap year he never got the chance to do before going up, doing Keira's garden while dreaming of doing Keira. Dreaming specifically of filling her gap, or "cunt", as he refers to it in a tribute he types in his room over in the servants' quarters. It is the era of Eliot and Pound, but even so "I dream of your sweet wet cunt" seems to be taking minimalist aesthetics the extra mile they were never meant to travel.

Personally, I'd be more likely to have nightmares about Keira's eyebrows, which dominate the first half of the picture before being swept aside by one of the most appalling hairstyles even seen on the silver screen, as she attempts to get over James, now missing in action after getting himself detached from the British Expeditionary Force in "the northern sector of the western front" as the Pathé newsreel fellow calls it (has he in turn been detached from his Michelin map of France?) by becoming a nurse.

Not only is James lost, he's unlucky enough to have for company two dimwits to rival Baldrick and George. Both are "Cockneys". We know this because they keep saying things like "Blimey!" and calling James "Guv" or "Guv'nor", even though he blithely tells them he's not upper crust.

"You must be, guv," the little white one retorts (yes, the other one's black, apparently mute and looks as out of place as Forest Whitaker in The Crying Game), "on account of the fact that you speaks French with these foreigners."

"They help us ... they give us food," James muses abstractedly in response, still clearly thinking about Keira's cunt, "but they don't like us."

One up for the Froggies, says I.

Meanwhile, Keira's little sis, Briony, is a right little bitch who is of course despwatly in love with James and terbly jealous of big sis. She's also a fwustrated playwright, whose insuffwable scwipt no one wants to perform. In fact, two of the houseguests, 8-year-old twins, take such fwight at the thought of being cast in her play that they wun away while the others are having dinner.

James finds them and brings them home (giving them each shoulder rides – he's such a brick), but not before Whiny Bwiny has destroyed his life by telling the coppers that she saw him sexually assault Lola. (Lola is the twins' older sis, even more annoying than Bwiny, and already at 13 a sexual predator to rank with Sharon Stone.)

But in fact Bwiny knew all along that it wasn't James who was touching up our redheaded Lolita. It couldn't have been, as she has seen James having it off with Keira in the library, and she's old enough and smart enough to know one todge from another.

It was ... Paul, the chinless wonder. Yes, every 1930s film about English upper-class twits must have its inbred toff and Paul, the chocolate heir who gets to meet the Queen Mum in his own Pathé newsreel, fits the bill so perfectly that the director even gives us a prolonged profile shot so we can see that it's a straight line down from his limp moustache to his concave chest.

So how do they deal with all the terble things they've done to each other? Well, James buys it in France, driven to distraction by being called "guv", Keira gets herself drowned by a burst water main in Balham High Street (some things never change), Bwiny seeks atonement (we're there at last) by becoming first a nurse (like big sis, who is by now a real sister) and then, mortified when the French soldier she tries to speak to en français dies when she tells him she loves him, a best-selling (naturally, is there any other kind in the movies?) author. Like Ian McEwan.

Except – and here's the sting in the tail – not exactly like Ian McEwan. First, of course, she's female. But, second and more significantly, I feel, in terms of the film's underlying message, she gets taller as she gets older. Not many characters are allowed to do this, but rather than becoming bent and shrunken, Bwiny becomes first tall and statuesque, then a radical socialist and finally Vanessa Redgrave.

Oh, and does Lolita marry the chinless wonder and live in deception for the rest of her life?

Rather!

Cleese Shagged out by Squaw

Have you read my book Families and How to Survive Them?
No, but I'm getting the royalties.

Top Tapas at Tapeo

Located at 19 Hollywood Road near the Mid-levels Travellator, Tapeo has just celebrated its first anniversary. How many more it will be celebrating I'm not sure, such is the transient nature of F&B outlets in Hong Kong.

Every restaurant – like every blogger – needs to find its niche. It needn't be that good – like a blogger – but it needs to have a bunch of people who will identify with it, will start to see it as part of their life, something they can't do without.

Part of Tapeo's appeal lies in the way your order is prepared in front of you, as you perch on your stool at the bar (there is no other type of seating). Warning – the seating is not designed for your average Spaniard. Part again in the quality of the food itself. We ordered two dishes: a special from the blackboard, calamares with chorizo, pork belly and chickpea purée – which was excellent – and one from the menu, clams, ham and sherry. Throw in a crema catalana and three glasses of a decent rosé and the bill came to HK$450.

The problem with Tapeo is whether it's the sort of place you'd want to go back to again and again, given that you are going to spend a lot of your time staring at the stainless steel cooking area. Granted, this can be a bonus when you're on a David Brent style blind date, but I wasn't surprised to learn that their busiest time is weekday early evenings, when people on their way to other places pop in for a bite. That is what tapas in Spain is all about, of course, but whether it's a sustainable business model in high rent Hong Kong remains to be seen.

Joining Hands to Respect the Inmates

My in-laws live in a building administered by the Hong Kong Housing Society, which may be why this morning I arrived at work to find a copy of their monthly magazine, Housing Society Today, in my office.

My eye was taken by an article called "Care and Respect for the Elderly" on page 14. Having scanned the photos for a glimpse of Fumier – there was one old fellow leering at a middle-aged Chinese woman – I turned to page 15 where there was a picture of a bemasked volunteers educating some old folk about how to make rice dumplings.

The old dears looked a bit confused. They wore those looks that seemed to be saying "I was making these things before you were born" and "If you got rid of your Filipina servants, you'd be able to make the damn things without our help".

The caption seemed to be as confused as the old biddies, asserting against all the photographic evidence that the "volunteers and the elderly joined hands to make more than 200 rice dumplings".

As any self-respecting elderly will tell you, it's pretty difficult to make a dumpling when you're holding hands with someone who's disturbed your peace of a Saturday afternoon.

Maybe I'm being too cynical, too ethnocentric. Maybe I don't appreciate what people who've lived a long and useful life appreciate as they enter their twilight years.

The Hong Kong Housing Society is in no doubt as to the value of their "Dragon Boat Fun Day elderly visitation", even if their audience was more captive than captivated:

"The activities brought festive joy to both the elderly inmates and the volunteers."

Best TV Ad Ever?

From Spain’s “BBC”, TVE:



I remember watching this on one of Clive James’s 1980s programmes showing the best and the weirdest telly from around the world. Finally found it on YouTube. Surprisingly, it has only 1,252 hits.

Of course, that is about to change …

One Untruth Gives Birth to Countless Others

I am currently reading The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes. Novalis aptly sums up the destruction wrought by that man and his supporters in the following extract from his philosophical writings:

"From a higher point of view, untruth has a much worse side than the usual one. It is the foundation of a false world – the foundation of a chain of errors and confusions that cannot be undone. Untruth is the source of all wickedness and evil. Absolute positing of the false. Eternal error. One untruth gives birth to countless others."

You must forgive the elliptical style – Novalis was just 28 when he died and didn't have time to revise his notes. This gem is from his "Logological fragments II".

Quizmeisters

The Carpetbaggers shrugged off the opposition at the FCC quiz last night, beating Hong Kong Mensa by a massive margin (4 points) after being behind for most of the evening.

Fumie had an absolute blinder, bringing along a chap with a quiz pedigree that had the Mensaites digging into their anoraks to find space in their train spotting notebooks for his details. Too late – we've signed him up for three seasons on a Michael Owen style pay-as-you-play basis.

Besides unveiling our secret weapon, the Fumiegator managed to trawl up the answer to the following question after three minutes of pained cogitation.

Which film featured the song "Hey big spender"?

Fumie may even let you have a peek at the sleeveless FCC flak jacket he won for his efforts if you get it right.

Keep Dry the SCMP Way by Playing Underwater Hockey

"Underwater hockey promises thorough exercise without the drenching effects of playing in the city heat" is the bemusing advice in today's "Life" section of the South China Morning Post.

Do those safety-conscious types at the Leisure and Cultural Services Department drain the water out first before letting watersports fans into the swimming pool?

Tolkien on Bleeding Hearts

From a letter written to his youngest son – and soulmate – Christopher, when the latter was stationed in South Africa during the Second World War:

"The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfortunately not many retain that generous sentiment for long."

Indeed, Tollers – they join Amnesty and Greenpeace.

Browsing Tolkien's letters, it's instructive to read his own verdict on Lord of the Rings, which he writes about copiously during its 17-year gestation period: "good in parts" – which seems about right.

That judgement was passed towards the end of his life, when he was 72. Interesting to compare then with an earlier assessment made when he was reading the galley-proofs of the Fellowship of the Ring in 1953, as he exchanged his authorial hat for that of reader: " ... it seems, I must confess, very long-winded in parts".

Two bits of trivia. Frodo son of Drogo was originally called Bingo until vetoed by Christopher; and Strider (Aragorn son of Megayawn) was originally called Trotter.

Son of Delboy ... naturally.

Opposites Repel?

Next to the government pig flu poster ("Maintain cough manners", "Do not self-medicate"), a new notice has gone up in the lift lobby, this one from Human Resources informing employees that the Race Discrimination Ordinance came into effect on 10 July.

Facing off across from a list of "Do's" ("Be fair to everyone" – that'll be the day – and "Be harmonious" – a dictum they borrowed shamelessly and without acknowledgment from Madasahattir Mohamad, "Harmony is the Malaysee-an way; it is as Malaysee-an as the Proton Saga") is a list of "Don'ts".

Together with a prohibition against committing "acts of harassment, insult or vilification" – final confirmation that the Australian cricket team will never be allowed to grace these shores – is the injunction not to "Repel others".

It's not that I'm taking this personally, but I just want to put it on record that I'm damned well going to carry on just as I've happily been doing for the past decade.

Flight of the Conchords

Overwhelming public demand meant it was just a matter of time before I brought back my poll.

So, your starter for ten. What do you make of the two Kiwis who look like the blokes in Wayne's World?

As Torrents in Summer

The Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir is adding this song by Edward Elgar to our repertoire.

Here it is sung SATB by a group from Brazil:

Ashes Make Strauss's Blood Boil

Radley-educated England captain Andrew Strauss on the case for replacing Broad with Sidebottom for the fourth Test in Leeds: "There is always a case for igniting new blood".

The legacy of those first six incendiary years growing up in South Africa?

Sze Who Has Ezes to Sze Let Her Sze

Cynthia Sze - Kraking Us Up

A couple of days ago, Spike (click "Show original post") wrote about a Ms Cynthia Sze. Ms Sze purports to live, or work, in Quarry Bay, but to judge from her all too frequent fulminations in the letters page of the South China Morning Post, she is in fact an alien from the planet Zog whose spacecraft is periodically jarred out of its orbit by a meteorite storm, radioactive fallout from which has reduced her brain to the consistency of tinned Polish ham covered in gelatin. The type you have to open with a key that leaves a razor-sharp edge guaranteed to cut the finger of the poor sod who has to empty the bin.

Over the past couple of years, our Cyn has fumed about the "colonial FILTH" at the Hong Kong Government's revered Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA), while lionising crooner Jacky Cheung Hok Yau for his "moral courage" in obtaining a six-month prison sentence for his Filipino servant for nicking three passport photos and an unopened letter. Apparently, the multi-millionaire's courage was a pillar of strength to disempowered Chinese employers like Ms Sze, who had been "quietly suffering helpers' misbehaviour".

Now, Sze's at it again, foaming about the "predominance of the English language" and prophesying the imminent demise of English as an international language in Hong Kong. But, as often with this lady, she leaves the best till last, calling upon Whitey to "learn from Spencer Johnson's Who Moved my Cheese? where it is stated: 'If you do not change, you can become extinct'."

In that case, Cyn, please, don't change.

Monarchs Carrying the Dignity of The People They Rule

Interesting observations on monarchy as a form of government and social organisation from a couple of Friedrichs, Reck-Malleczewen and von Hardenberg, better known as Novalis.

First, the poet, philosopher and novelist Novalis, writing in 1798 shortly after the ascension of Friedrich Wilhelm III to the Prussian throne:

"A born king is better than one who is made. The best of people will not be able to support an elevation of this kind without being altered. He who is born so is not overcome by giddiness, he is not excessively stimulated by such a situation. And, in the end, is not birth the original kind of choice?"

Interestingly, Novalis was something of a constitutional monarchist, seeing no contradiction between a monarchy and republican government, where the people have a share in the affairs of state.

Then there's Reck-Malleczewen, ultimately a victim of Hitler's terror, who described the classless society preached by Hitler as a "limbless organism", while asserting his belief that "Nature, which in its very beginnings was form itself, abhors nothing as much as the amorphous."

A few years later, in 1940, he reflects on monarchs' "importance in the scheme of things", as they maintain the tradition of duty and obedience:

"They carry the dignity of the people they rule like a cloak around their shoulders."

If Only Heath Ledger Were Still Around ...

... we could ask the man himself who he would pass the mantle of Greatest Joker Ever on to.

In the red corner we have Dubya (as displayed on the cover of Vanity Fair last year– thank God for small mercies, at least that meant no nude photos of a pregnant Demi Moore):

and in the blue corner, Obama (as displayed on some telegraph poles in L.A. this month):

Best comment so far on the backlash to the president's attempts to force through his $1 trillion health care programme comes from one Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who thundered: "Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery".

Got to love Americans.

Petrol More Harmful Than Alcohol?

In his book Diary of a Man in Despair, Fritz Reck-Malleczewen talks about the harm done by the car as a symbol of the machine age on people's thinking and memory. He illustrates this by means of newsreels shown in the cinema:

"... I am certain that three weeks from now not one of the eight hundred people who were in that movie house with me will be able to associate the names of the places with the battles they saw. It is an old theory of mine that gasoline has done far more harm to mankind than alcohol, and I am sure that the masses in the United States or England react just as little to what happens to them as the Germans."

Taken Intern

I'm not sure this would have any significance to anyone but an onomastician or Fumier, but our summer intern Fanny has just been replaced by Cherry.

Did someone pop the question?

Government U-turn Signals 15% Increase in Bus Fares

It wasn't long ago that bus companies in Hong Kong were ordered by the government to extend the life of their beaten-up old Leyland buses from 14 to 17 years. The reason was to protect the environment by having to scrap less metal.

Fast forward ten years, and the government has decreed that, to protect the same environment, Citybus, KMB and New World First Bus should replace all Euro I, Euro II and Euro III standard buses by 2014 (presumably with Euro V buses, or whatever Roman numeral has been reached by then).

The only problem with this "solution" – besides a huge increase in steel hulks to dispose of – is that it is predicted to lead to a 15% increase in bus fares, as the public transport operators are forced to replace their double-deckers.

Let's hope that traditional second-hand bus markets such as the People's Republic of China, India and South Africa are still sufficiently undeveloped in five years' time to take the rusting behemoths off our hands. Out of sight ...

Fighting On

For this Monday morning, a little culture, in the form of lines from Coventry Patmore, described by no less an authority than Wikipedia as "one of the least known, but best-regarded Victorian poets".

This from arguably his finest work, "The Unknown Eros":

"Thus I: then God, in pleasant speech and strong,
(Which soon I shall forget):
'The man who, though his fights be all defeats,
Still fights,
Enters at last
The heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets
With glory more, and more triumphant rites
Than always-conquering Joshua's, when his blast
The frighted walls of Jericho down cast;
And, lo, the glad surprise
Of peace beyond surmise,
More than in common Saints, for ever in his eyes'."