End the Senseless Slaughter of Seal Hubs

We know what you're mind was on, mate:

Peaceful BJ

I just noted that the hotel where we minstrels will be staying in Beijing has the email address novotel@novotelpeacebj.com.

Sounds promising ....

Even William Morris Cannot Save Time Traveler's Wife

On Saturday I went to the library to collect The Time Traveler's Wife, a book my daughter has been wanting to read for some time. The previous evening, we had been to Festival Walk to see the cinematic version of the novel by Audrey Niffenegger – a name that sounds as if it were made for a Steve Martin routine. Needless to say, my teenager loved it, while my wife and I were rather less enamoured of what is essentially a one-trick pony of a movie – a Ghost for the pseudo-cultured of the Noughties, where the Righteous Brothers have been replaced by the old German advent carol Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen ("Lo! How a Rose E'er Blooming"), better known to C of E types as the tune to which the hymn "A Great and Mighty Wonder" is set.

The key to the inspiration of the latest in the Fordist production line of American fairy tales comes early in the movie, when the titular time traveller, research librarian Henry (played by a post-Troy Eric Bana, looking more and more like Christopher Reeve as the film progreses until the transformation is finally complete when he appears in a wheelchair after contracting frostbite), overhears arty student Clare (Rachel McAdams) ask another librarian for a book about paper making at Kelmscott.

Now, not many people will have read the monumental 300,000-plus word Earthly Paradise by Victorian poet William Morris, but I am a fair bristling with pride to report that I have a mere 90 pages more to go before I can say that I have, as part of my ongoing C S Lewis project. Interestingly, of all Lewis's major influences – Virgil, Boethius, Dante, Herbert, Milton, Morris, Chesterton, George MacDonald chief among them – Morris stands out as one who appears to have grown colder towards Christianity as he grew older: although he studied Theology at Oxford, he decided not to become ordained but to dedicate his life to art. (Virgil gets on the list as a kind of "proto-Christian".)

Although none of the 24 tales that make up The Earthly Paradise is drawn on directly in the film, Henry's fate (the theme of the last third of the movie – "If only he would hurry up and die!", as my wife succintly put it) could have been drawn staight from the pages of Morris's retellings of Greek and Northern myths that constitute his best known work.

More broadly, the influence of the life and work of William Morris on The Time Traveler's Wife is difficult to overestimate. The film's central figure, Clare, is an artist with a penchant for handicrafts; Morris was virtually synonymous with the English Arts and Crafts Movement. The significance of "Kelmscott" is that it refers to the Kelmscott Press, which was founded by Morris in 1891 and to which he devoted the remaining five years of his life. Like "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane, the word works to set the tone for the whole piece, to evoke a desired atmosphere.

In The Time Traveler's Wife, it evokes a longing for a vanished and irrecoverable pre-industrialised era through the romantic idealisation of a craftswoman taking pride in her personal handiwork – marrried to a half-baked fatalism. My advice is to stick with Morris. Poet, novelist, architect, artist, furniture and textile designer, this man was the real deal. If The Earthly Paradise is too long for your taste, try Sigurd the Volsung, rated the best of his poems by many readers, including himself.

Cinematically, I await District 9 and Matt Damon resurfacing in nerd mode in The Informant.

Chance to Hear Piano Prodigy Rachel Cheung in Concert

The autumn promises to be a veritable feast of music in Hong Kong, with Mozart's best-loved opera, Haydn's best known oratorio, Rachmaninov's biggest potboiler of a piano concerto (actually, the only Rachmaninov piano concerto most people knew until that dreadful show-off Helfgott chuntered his way into our unwilling consciousness), and, last, but by no means least – or, at any rate, as Gweipo would say, the best of the least – Hong Kong's greatest, indeed, only, Welsh Male Voice Choir.

Rachel Cheung may not be a name familiar to most readers, but chances are that will change if the 17-year-old's musical development continues apace. A product of Maryknoll Convent School (the Catholics' answer to DGS), Cheung is a pianist of great talent and immense promise. The promotional banner on the Mid-Levels Travelator may herald her as runner-up in last year's Alessandro Casagrande International Piano Competition in Italy, but more impressive than that is her placing fifth earlier this month in the Leeds Leeds International Piano Competition, a competition whose previous winners include Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia.

Cheung will be performing Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto at the City Hall on Friday 23 October, but, unless you're in a wheelchair (or know a friend who's got one), you won't be able to hear her performing under the baton of the great Vladimir Ashkenazy as the show's sold out. To give you some idea of the daunting prospect facing Cheung, you would have to imagine Gweipo performing under Rostropovich, or Sarah Palin granted an audience with Donald Tsang – or Michael Palin working with a comedian who's actually funny.

If you're thinking that I've built you up, like a buttercup, just to let you down, think again. For you can listen to Rachel on Sunday 1 November at the Academy of Performing Arts in Wan Chai. Not only that, you'll get the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir thrown in for free (after you've shelled out a mere $180, or $250 for the posh seats). Besides Welsh favourites, such as Myfanwy and Gwahoddiad, we'll be taking our audience on an exotic musical tour, traversing the Russian steppes (The Silver Birch – Tchaikovsky liked the tune so much he nicked it for the final movement of his 4th Symphony), the Hungarian plains (Dana Dana), the fabulous land of Cathay (The Moon Represents My Heart) and the Salford cotton mills (Jerusalem).

If you can't wait until All Saints' Day, then come along to St John's Cathedral on Tuesday 13 October, when the Welsh Choir will be sharing the stage with the South Island School Orchestra and Choir in a concert to raise funds for the St John's HIV Education Centre. Admission to the concert is "free", but a donation of $180 will enable you to listen to Duke Ellington numbers performed by the students, Nessun Dorma performed by not one, not three, but 40 Pavarotti lookalikes, and a joint rendition of the African Trilogy (Siyahamba, Shosholoza and the National Anthem of South Africa – in Zulu and English). Rumour has it the organisers will be throwing in free drinks and nibbles after the show.

This should get you in the mood for the musical soirées at the Cultural Centre, once described by Prince Charles in a moment of great lucidity as a public toilet. First, on Monday 19 October, there's a performance in German of Haydn's Creation (Die Schöpfung) by Orchester der KlangVerwaltung München und Chorgemeinschaft Neubeuern (which, if my Googling skills are up to the task, translates as the Sound Management Orchestra of Munich and the Choral Community of Neubeuen – better in German, really). Then, for five nights between 5 and 9 November, Mozart's magnificent Magic Flute will be brought to the stage of the Grand Theatre in a multinational production featuring Opera Hong Kong, the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing), the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and den Norske Opera og Ballett (the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet).

But don't worry – they won't be singing in Cantonese, or Mandarin, or Norwegian. They will be singing in German with Chinese and English "subtitles".

SCMP Leads with Shocking Story

Court Rejects Challenge to LegCo Powers


Didn't know they had any.

People Power Marks Greenpeace Carfree Day

The spirit of the Rainbow Warrior lives on nearly 25 years after the former trawler was consigned to the bottom of the Waitemata Harbour.

The never-say-die attitude epitomised by the refusal to be pushed around by agents of a tyrannous government was evident in Hong Kong on Tuesday 22 September, when thousands of Hong Kongers stood up and cried, "Thus far and no further", accompanied by inverted V-signs, black and white headbands tied piratically in the Federer style and mass chanting like you get at the end of a Government API.

This time, though, the spontaneous outpouring of anger was directed not at the bumbling French MI6-equivalent detonating "berms" under the watchful eye of Inspector Clouseau-equivalent President François Mitterrand; it was directed rather at the pathetic attempts of the Donald Tsang "led" government to con citizens into thinking that they would be contributing to the fight against "global warming" by riding in a taxi instead of in their own car for one day.

I knew something was wrong when my journey to work took several minutes longer than usual, even though I'd set out a little earlier than is my habit. I knew something was very wrong when on my return journey from St John's Cathedral after choir I needed to queue up for five minutes longer than usual at the cross-harbour tunnel – at half past nine in the evening.

At lunch yesterday with an old friend, I finally got the chance to pose the question that had been nagging away at the back of my mind.

"Oh, it's quite simple," Ah Tak replied. "All those Sunday drivers who never drive to the office thought it would be the ideal opportunity to save money on a taxi and take their car instead."

This is why the old men in Beijing are so scared of giving us the vote, I thought. Whenever Hong Kongers get the chance to vote with their feet – even if it's only the one that depresses the accelerator – they invariably make sensible, rational and responsible choices. Give their own people the vote, and the old men in Zhongnanhai know the likes of Tsang and his cronies will be the first to be booted out – followed in pretty short order by the old men in Zhongnanhai themselves.

House of Sand

The House of Sand doesn't have a lot in common with Georgia Rule , but what it does have in common is the story of three generations of women in America.

Rather than the tamed wilds of Idaho, however, this film by Brazilian director Andrew "Andrucha" Waddington is set on the remote northern coast of Brazil. The sand dunes that stretch miles inland and the beach of this inhospitable coastline provide the home for various oddballs and misfits, including the descendants of former black slaves and two women, mother and daughter, who are left stranded when the crazy husband of the latter dies after leading them to this barren, windswept place to start an unlikely new life as farmers.

The film spans a period of 60 years from 1910 to 1970 and tells the story of survival, triumph against the odds, interracial understanding and learning to find contentment in the type of discomfort and boredom that would drive most people, including me, round the bend.

Shot entirely on location and featuring a must-watch scene for all those women whose fantasy involves a close encounter with a black man, this is an eminently watchable movie of a most uncommon type.

Afore Ye Go!

While perusing Sunday's Racing Post in the Sha Tin Wai cha chaan teng, my eye was caught by some intertextual coincidences and anomalies on page 6.

Tipster John Bell was putting up number 7, "My Whisky", as his selection for Race 5, the Shenzhen Handicap (2nd section). That seemed natural enough, as Bell and whisky are virtually synonymous from Pitlochry to Pittsburgh. Or so one would have thought.

In his race blurb, however, Bell switched to "My Whiskey". Was the tipster hedging his bets or can this slip-up best be explained by the fact that Bell is Australian?

In the event, My Whisky, also an Australian, was pipped on the post by High Intelligent, trained and ridden by South Africans.

Georgia Rule

Georgia Rule is a 2007 film starring Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan and a middle-aged woman – with a striking resemblance to Toni Collette – who, my wife and daughter tell me, is one of the Desperate Housewives. I have to say, with her drawn appearance, dyed hair and stick-insect figure, she certainly looks the part.

Set in the back of beyond where Idaho meets Wyoming and Montana, Georgia Rule tells the not unfamiliar story of three generations of women – dysfunctional, naturally, and yet, this being Hollywood, also strong, bright and independent, so the average Jo renting the movie from the DVD shop can relate to them and indeed imagine herself in their beautiful and empowered place. It is, then, yet another American fairy tale, but for all that it's a decent film that packs a powerful punch, largely owing to Lindsay Lohan's fine performance - although cynics will say she is merely playing herself. (Warning: mild spoilers ahead)

From being a film about three stereotypical females – strict, obsessive, highly-strung gramma with a heart of gold (Fonda looking, in a floppy hat, just like her dad in On Golden Pond); neurotic, impulsive, highly-strung mother with a heart of gold (Stick Insect); smokin', teasin' slut with a heart of gold (Lohan) – Georgia Rule morphs into a film about incest. And this is where the film is at its best, causing the viewer to reflect on the havoc incest wreaks on young female human lives.

There's a silly sub-plot involving a Mormon hillbilly hunk, who looks suspiciously like Patroclus from Troy, and the plain June to whom he is affianced. In one ludicrous scene, the hunk drives to the University of Mormon, confesses that Lohan gave him a blowjob and then, distraught and amazed when his betrothed runs off in tears, dashes after her shouting "Juniper! June! June Bunny!" All this in front of Lohan, dressed in one of her décolletage numbers – she possesses no other type of garment.

Blowjobs aside, the viewer is also given an in-your-face invitation to compare and contrast the two leading middle-aged male characters in the movie, one, the top defense counsel in San Francisco, the other, the local vet, whose wife and only child were killed in a car accident. No prizes for guessing who is the goodie and who the baddie.

All in all, not the worst way to spend 110 minutes of a Friday night.

Dr Hook Millionaire

Kanye West Apology in Full

"I'm really sorry for making another outburst at a show on national TV, and I wanna apologize for the next outburst too."

"You just a jackass, man. That bitch Serena – she's a f*cking jackass."

Great Hong Kong Rambles – Lantau Peak

Clouds over Keung Shan

Lantau Peak at 934 metres (it's grown a metre since my Countryside Series No. 4 map was published in 1985) is Hong Kong's highest accessible point, the top of Tai Mo Shan being off limits to mortals and adorned with the most monstrous of all carbuncles in the shape of an enormous golf ball. (Did you know that a carbuncle is a ruby? I always thought it was Prince Charles's pet name for Camilla.)

Like Ma On Shan (the subject of my next Great Ramble), Lantau Peak looks like a mountain. Taken from the south-west, it also feels like a mountain, especially on the first day of August, as my friend and I found out, the sweat of our brow finding its way from our brow onto the lens of my Canon Powershot, adding a certain je ne sais quoi to the photos we took, not to mention une petite smudge.

My records show that I climbed Lantau via this route in September 1995 when I was in training for my second Trailwalker. I must have been a bit fitter then, though, as I continued on to Sunset Peak and thence to Lin Fa Shan (Lotus Mountain) before taking one of those "seasonally overgrown" paths – not to mention, one or two "seasonally overgrown" non-paths – down to the environs of Mui Wo. And you'd never imagine Mui Wo had so many environs until you'd attempted to hack your way through them all.

Back in the day, that trek, which I estimated at 17 kilometres, took me 7 hours and 25 minutes, but thereagain those were the days when my team came in 24th out of the 630 foursomes doing the Maclehose. This time round, we took a leisurely 5 hours and 40 minutes to do the little loop which took us from Shek Pik Reservoir up to Lantau Peak and back down to Tong Fuk. And we still felt knackered.

To get to the stating point for this walk, you can either take the ferry to Mui Wo and then the No. 1 or 2 bus, or, as I did, take an E Route bus to Tung Chung (get off at the bus stop after the Fire Station-cum-Ambulance Depot stop– it's called Tung Chung Crescent) and then New Lantao Route 11 (Tai O-bound).

Shek Pik Reservoir from Kau Nga Ling

Get off the bus just before it crosses the dam of the Shek Pik Reservoir. Now the fun starts. Walk back up the South Lantau Road for a few hundred years and then turn left onto a metalled road that allows emergency access only. After a while, you'll come to a large cluster of signs on your left. One of the signs, almost inevitably in Hong Kong, says "Path Closed". As any veteran walker will know, this is an excellent sign, because it means that a decent walk without concrete lies ahead. Take this path for around four or five hundred metres, keeping an eagle eye out for an unmarked track that goes off to the right. You're in fairly well developed woodland on a well-worn path that will take you up to Ngong Ping and the Big Buddha, if you so wish, and our path - the one that takes the scenic route up to Lantau Peak - is easy to miss. However, those kind people with streamers have been out in force here and the path is marked by one of these.

If you're walking in the summer, you'll need to pick up a piece of fallen wood to deal with the spider's webs that feature prominently at both ends of the walk. Most of the arachnids are decent enough to construct their webs at eye level, so you just need to walk at a sensible pace swishing your stick in front of you to make sure you don't cop a mouthful of silk and a possible nasty bite. However, some of the fellows seem to suffer from vertigo, so you need to watch out for low lying fabrications too.

The walk is shaded for a while but then takes you out into open country and via a series of ridges to the summit. It's pretty steep and, unless you're super fit or built like a mountain goat, you need to scramble on hands and knees in one or two places. If it's very windy, it could get a bit hairy, but that's unusual in Hong Kong, as any sailor will tell you. You haven't gone very far (although it may feel like it) when you reach a trig point at 428 metres marking the first of the teeth on Dog's Tooth Ridge (Kau Nga Ling). Since you start at 120 metres and are ascending to 934 metres, you're only effectively a third of the way there. But I advise you to go into denial about this and tell yourself that's half the job done.

Lantau Peak from trig point

You know you're nearly there when you hit the motorway (AKA the Lantau Trail). From here it's only 500 metres to the top, which is bedecked by the world's largest rubbish skip ever to bedeck a peak in a national park or national park equivalent. At least, you'll know you're still in Hong Kong, in case you've got a bit woozy on the way up.

The rest of the walk is relatively straightforward. Take the motorway for forty minutes or so until you've almost got to the Tung Chung Road and then turn off to the right. The path is well marked, although it doesn't say Tong Fuk. It says something else (that's really helpful, isn't it?) – maybe Shui Hau. Anyway, it's a nice walk, giving great views of the Soko Islands and all sorts of other islets dotted about the South China Sea. You'd never believe how many ferries go back and forth to Macau until you've stood up here.

The Dog's Teeth from the path back to Tong Fuk

Soon you hit that metalled road that you were on at the start of the walk. If the water's high – as it typically is in the summer – this is a good spot for a soak, as the road runs beside a catchwater. When you're ready, hang a left and walk on the catchwater road for about a kilometer before scrambling down the path that takes you to Tong Fuk village. By the time you get there, I can promise you you'll be sick of the sight of water, so stop off at the Chinese store half way between Eddie's and the Gallery. The little old lady there sells the meanest large glass bottle of Coca-Cola for just six dollars.

Top Ten Hitchcock Films

In ascending order, to create the necessary suspense. And there are eleven, of course, to include the necessary MacGuffin:

11. Frenzy (Cockney hairdos and weirdos – awight?)

10. Shadow of a Doubt (is Uncle Charlie who he seems? daft question really)

9. Spellbound (gets in for the Salvador Dali dream sequence)

8. The Birds (even Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor couldn't ruin this)

7. The Lady Vanishes (and what a lady Dame May Whitty was)

6. Strangers on a Train (anyone for tennis?)

5. The Trouble with Harry (Hitch's sole comedy launching careers of future soap star and fruitcake actress)

4. Notorious (ludicrous plot; excellent MacGuffin; great entertainment)

3. The 39 Steps (Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll are way too sexy; this film was so good Hitch remade it as North by Northwest)

2. Vertigo (Hitch's best film with James Stewart; best film period, probably)

1. North by Northwest (how cool can a man get? Roger Thornhill, you are my hero)

Hong Kong Sinfonietta Struggling to Shake Off Second-Rate Tag

I've known the Hong Kong Sinfonietta since the mid 1990s when the Hong Kong Bach Choir used them for a couple of concerts. In the end, the choir preferred to put together its own orchestra, as there was a feeling that the Sinfonietta wouldn't necessarily send their "First XI".

In Yip Wing Sie, the orchestra has an inspiring and charismatic leader; they also boast a management team of no little business acumen that is savvy about marketing and putting bums on seats, especially young bums. With Hong Kong teeming with music teachers who can service the ambitions of middle-class parents with one and a half children and plenty of disposable income, there is little doubt that they have much of what it takes to succeed. But do they have the whole package?

If the Sinfonietta wish to mount a sustainable challenge to the Hong Kong Philharmonic, then they need to do so on a musical basis. On the evidence of their past two concerts, they are unlikely to have the same kind of success as Jacob enjoyed over his older brother Esau, as he stepped up to the plate by fulfilling the prophecy that the older would serve the younger.

Last month, my family went to hear the Russian cellist Tatjana Vassiljeva play Dvorak's concerto under the direction of James Tuggle. This was the high spot of the evening, but by then the damage had been done. I don't know whether it was Tuggle's idiosyncratic conducting style – he favours the double-handed backhand – or his operatic background, but together with the orchestra he managed to reduce Beethoven's magnificently vibrant Seventh Symphony, described by Wagner as "the apotheosis of the dance", to a nadir of banality. Further, what is effectively a flute concerto at times was not enhanced by the flautists not having their best day at the office. Fortunately, I still have my memories of Zubin Mehtas's performance of this symphony at Singapore's Esplanade Concert Hall in 2005.

The latest of the Sinfonietta's series of concerts with guest conductors took place last Friday. As Gweipo has already noted, the French horns weren't up to scratch in the opening Fidelio Overture, and soloist, orchestra and conductor Chien Wen Pin (bizarrely promoted on the concert flyer as "The Chinese Pride") managed to perform the nigh impossible feat of making Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto sound dull and laboured. As for the Eroica Symphony, it is the musical equivalent of Hitchcock's Rear Window for me. However often I hear it, I just can't understand what all the fuss is about.

Tune back here tomorrow for my Hitchcock Top Ten – if you can bear the suspense.

Serena Apology in Full

"I hope you fucking got that."

"Solly. No speaky Engrish."

Ebert Comes Out

30 years after having his last alcoholic drink, film critic Roger Ebert has decided to come out, publishing a very interesting article on his website.

Among the anecdotes he tells, one in particular stands out. It is about his doctor, one Jakob Schlichter. Ebert writes,

"'He was a gifted general practitioner. An appointment lasted an hour. The first half hour was devoted to conversation. He had a thick Physician's Drug Reference on his desk, and liked to pat it. 'There are 12 drugs in there,' he said, 'that we know work for sure. The best one is aspirin'."

Doctors who devoted half an hour to conversation – they don't make 'em like that any more. The drugs companies will be quite happy about that.

And "12 drugs that work for sure". The drugs companies and their confreres in the medical industry have made sure we've lost sight of this understanding. A dodekacea in the hand is so much less desirable for these money-making machines than a thousand panaceas in the bush.

You've got to admire Ebert, a man who has woken up every morning for the past 30 years looking into his mirror and saying:

"My name is Roger and I wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

Restaurant Reviewers

From the world according to Wogan:

"Restaurant-reviewing, once the lonely province of failed gardening correspondents, has taken on the trappings of a minor religion. People actually write to Michael Winner as if he knew anything about food, when all he claims to know about restaurants is how to get a table."

Tomorrow, Roger Ebert on drugs.

A Little Bit More

One of the craziest and most under-rated bands of the 70s, Dr Hook:

South African Runner in Hermaphrodite Claims

"Jenny Meadows, bronze medallst in Berlin, any comment about Caster Semenya?"

"Well, she's certainly got balls."

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea, that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not--Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Written by Wordsworth more than 200 years ago, and still, forty years after being introduced to it in 1969 by Alannah Gordon, co-owner of Papplewick Prep School in Ascot, my favourite poem – just shading The Faerie Queene.

Beating of Journalists in PRC

I'm not sure what to make of the new found "unity" between Hong Kong's generally lily-livered political parties over the detention and beating of Hong Kong journalists in the People's Republic of China (the South China Morning Post has the headline "Parties unite over beating of journalists"), but as is typical in such cases it is the potential for good that can come out of the situation that is of the greatest lasting significance.

Once the bruises have healed, those who are part of the industry which decides in large part what the public gets to know about and how they get to know about it will be better placed, one hopes, to bring more imaginative criticism, as well as sympathetic understanding, to their work. As Karl Popper writes, it is in this way that one can "transcend our local and temporal environment by trying to think of circumstances beyond our experience: by criticising the universality, or the structural necessity, of what may, to us, appear ... as the 'given'."

A few of the "givens" that come to mind are the status of Tibet, Taiwan and Xinjiang, and even the role of that dreadful bore, the Dalai Lama.

Virtue Brings Light

"Virtue – even attempted virtue – brings light; indulgence brings fog."

So wrote C.S. Lewis (memorably described by Harold Bloom as "the most dogmatic and aggressive man I ever met" – my opinion of him soars yet higher).

My daughter, being a great fan of Orlando Bloom (no relation), asked me to borrow Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, so she could watch it again under my expert tutelage. So, yesterday, after I had returned from choir practice (the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir is combining with South Island School to give a concert to raise money for the HIV Foundation at St John’s Cathedral on Tuesday 13 October), I poured myself a Shiraz and sat down to watch.

Apart from mixing my Knights Templars up with my Hospitallers, I think I did pretty well to guide her through the first reel (we'll watch the rest this evening), with pearls such as "Did you know that Jeremy Irons was in Brideshead Revisited?", "Sibylla of Jerusalem's hot" and "Why do they call him 'Salah al-Din' once and then 'Saladin' for the rest of the film?"

There's a lot of moralising of the promise-me-son-not-to-do-the-things-I-done type in the film – as well as a lot of slicing and chopping. The award for Best Death in a Supporting Role goes to the German fellow who gets shot through the neck and continues to walk around like Victor Frankenstein's Monster dispatching ten more of Guy's men (why is "Guy" always a villain?) before he finally gives up the ghost. (Definite echoes of Lord of the Rings here – except that Boromir was better looking and a Yorkshireman.)

I must say I can't wait to get back home, unscrew the top on the Shiraz and bunker down for the concluding hour and forty minutes. Ridley Scott makes a grand epic (Gladiator was great fun), and I have the feeling there will be plenty more attempts at virtue, as well as indulgences, penances, deathbed absolutions, slicings, choppings, and bodice-heaving trysts.

Barnes Plays a Blinder

As an ex player of a certain lack of distinction (turning out at full-back for Haileybury and at scrum-half for the peerless Merton and Mansfield XV), I enjoy watching a decent game of rugby. At the moment, no team is dominant in world rugby with the result that most matches are close. Some are even exciting.

I generally enjoy watching the Wallabies play. They're peculiarly vulnerable, given that Aussies pride themselves on their battling qualities and that the cricket and rugby league teams are known for their never-say-die attitude – despite recent blips – but for all that they're typically attack-minded and keep the whining to a minimum. Plus, they don't have Murray Mexted – the world's most biased bloke in a commentary box.

I tuned in ten minutes late on Saturday for the match at the Aussie fortress of Brisbane with the score 3-0 to the Green and Gold. Wearing my other hat as a cricket umpire, I quickly noticed what an assured performance was being given by the ref. However much you might want to, you can never ignore a referee in a rugby union international, as they're wired up for sound, which, unlike in the case of a football ref, is beamed straight into your sitting room.

I didn't recognise who the fellow was, but wondered if it could be Tony Spreadbury, a name that was conjured up for me by the distinctive West Country tones. About half way through the first half, one of the Aussie commentary team identified the whistler as Wayne Barnes. Now, this isn't a name that will be familiar to all of you, but essentially he is the English referee credited by many New Zealanders with causing the All Blacks to lose the last World Cup.

I have no intention of raking over his performance in that match (there are plenty of Kiwi fansites that do that), save to say that the International Rugby Board should carry much of the responsibility for the most talked about aspect of his performance – a pass that went forward by five yards. Jonathan Kaplan, one of the most experienced referees in the world, was perfectly placed on the touchline to see the infringement, but directives from the IRB to referees before the tournament telling touch judges not to "get involved" meant that Barnes scandalously remained the only one of the 80,000 people in the ground who couldn't see that the try shouldn't have been awarded.

Fats forward nearly two years, and on Saturday I saw the best exhibition of rugby refereeing I can remember for a long time – a testament not just to the 30-year-old's fitness, decision-making and man management but also to his battling qualities after all the grief he's copped.

If he keeps this standard up, a World Cup Final beckons.

Inglourious Basterds

I hated this film. Not everyone I saw it with last week felt the same way: my wife didn't have strong feelings about it either way, while my 13-year-old loved it. One or two people in the cinema even tried to get some applause going, but it was, thankfully, stillborn.

Some parts of the film I enjoyed and thought were very well conceived and executed, notably the opening sequence and the parlour-game playing scene in the Parisian bar. So why then did the creation as a whole leave me with a bad taste in the mouth?

I think it has everything to do with the subject matter. In what I consider to be his best film, Reservoir Dogs, the director Quentin Tarantino is in his element. It's funny, it's scary and it leaves a lasting impression. He takes a group of morally deficient human beings and shows the consequences of the choices they make as that moral deficiency works itself out.

Inglourious Basterds is a comic book caper which doesnt work because it deals with historical facts. If you don't believe me, consider the "development" of the central character, S.S. Colonel Hans Landa. What starts as a believable portrayal of a brutal if cultivated Nazi (they're all cultivated these days, aren't they? think of Hannibal Lecter) ends as a caricature resembling Lord Farquaad in Shrek.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that this effort insults the memory of the Jews who died at Nazi hands – I wouldn't want to credit it with that much power – but I found it a vile film the purpose in making which entirely escapes me.

St. Ted of Chappaquiddick

"Big bros, you will pay for your sins."

"Aw, Teddy, they always give value for money."

Resto and Shawtys

Mt Cook

Just across from Le Bistrol, the popular "French" restaurant in the Gold Coast (Tuen Mun version) shopping centre, is a little known "Italian" restaurant called Resto. Now I'm not sure if Resto is a misspelling of "pesto" – that little Ligurian sauce which has become such an important part, along with balsamic vinegar and sun-dried tomatoes, of the foodie's armoury – or an abbreviation of restaurant. If so, that would be rather good, as, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, "resto" is the French abbreviation for restaurant rather than the Italian one.

Be all that as it may, Resto is a bit of a gem. Five of us (three kids and two adults) went there last Friday and enjoyed both the food and the wine (a Pinot Grigio, which was just 12% alcohol by volume – the way I like my light white wines). Food-wise, we kicked off with a couple of excellent starters, one a platter including spring rolls and mild curry puffs – the other escapes me (did I mention I was on the Heineken before we got round to the wine?) – and followed this up with a pizza (very serviceable) and various pasta dishes (including meatballs – something we never usually have – I was in paterfamilias mode, entertaining my daughter and her two cousins with my Wu Fung impressions and Cantonese malapropisms).

The pièce de résistance was undoubtedly the apple crumble, which was my daughter captured for posterity.

Forget that the interior of the place has as much charm as a bus terminal; this place is well worth a visit. And very reasonable too: dinner set us back around HK$900.

For a long while now I've wanted to mention one of New Zealand's best kept culinary secrets, Shawtys in Twizel. Twizel, about 80 miles from Mount Cook, is the town they decided to keep after its continued existence was threatened when the large local reservoirs had been finished. To be quite frank, apart from a tour of a local field that was used to shoot scenes in the Lord of the Rings, there isn't that much to write home about in Twizel, and you only get to see New Zealand's tallest peak a few days each month.

Eowyn up against the Witch King at Pelennor Fields

However, Shawtys has pork belly to die for, and the rest of the nosh, especially the desserts, such as chocolate mousse and chocolate mudcake, are pretty "sweet as" too.

HKU Gastroenterologist Brought to Book

I made too many enemas, darling.

Former Dean of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, Professor Lam Shiu Kum, faces up to seven years in clink (okay – fat chance of that, as half of Hong Kong's judges went to HKU) after fleecing three rich suckers of nearly HK$4 million in donations they thought they were making to the university. For good measure, Lam stiffed 12 of his private patients at Queen Mary's Hospital.

Quote of the day, as the snivelling wretch attempted to weasel his way out of a stint at Stanley:

"Character references for Lam included one from HKU Pro-vice Chancellor Paul Tam Kwong-hang and others from overseas experts and some of Lam's patients and their families".

Not the 12 he stitched up, I would imagine.

Nor their families.

A Climate Villain and Proud of It

I've never been an enormous fan of Greenpeace. Something about lycra-clad eco-warriors gets my goat in a way that isn't quite rational. Yes, they might be self-righteous, yes, they might be devastatingly dull, yes, they might all end up investment bankers and journalists after going through their radical phase. Mmm - maybe it's more rational than I thought.

I am, as Tolkien used to say about Charles Williams, totally unsympathetic to their mind, their approach to the business of life. Okay, so they're not quite in the same league as Amnesty International or the American Civil Liberties Union for being insufferably smug, and they have, so far as I'm aware, no affiliation to the United Nations and all its dreadful quangos, but, still, their irk factor is up there with designer Buddhists and people who produce guff like Tuesdays with Morrie and Who Moved My Cheese?

We've had Dress Like a Prat Day and the Switch Off Your Lights Fiasco-Cum-Utterly Meaningless Stunt Night; now it's my chance to be a "Climate Hero" in the Greenpeace "2009 (in case I've forgotten what year it is) Hong Kong (ditto for where I live) Carfree Day".

All I can say is that I hope all the other suckers let the train take the strain on Tuesday 22 September, as I can then cut my journey time down to 20 minutes and get to fulfil one of my life goals by getting to park on the second floor of the company car park.

I think I'll get my daughter to make a banner for my car in her Design Technology class:

PROUD TO POLLUTE

I don't think I'd miss my "F*CK OFF DONALD AND YOUR NANNY STATE" sticker for one day.

Great Rambles: Sunset Peak II

Tung Chung and Hong Kong Internatonal Airport from Yi Tung Shan

When I reached the ridge that runs down the middle of the island at Yi Tung Shan, I left the Lantau Trail pretty sharpish to head for the trig point on Sunset Peak. Though less spectacular than Lantau Peak, Sunset has for me a greater charm, which may have something to do with the fact that there's no rubbish skip at the summit. I sat here with my back against the plinth that supports the trig point and, shaded from the morning sun, ate my Japanese apple.

Having washed the apple down with a Hi-C lemon tea (the Vita ones are too "tea-y" for me), it was definitely time for a swim. Not a lot of people know this, but there's a swimming pool at 750 metres on Lantau. I did because I'd been there 15 years ago. My memory was that it was located pretty much right beside the Lantau Trail, but, as sometimes happens when I have verbal intercourse with my wife, I had somehow managed to stray into an erroneous zone. It's rare, but it does happen.

So I wandered around for a bit, before going back and checking the relatively large-scale map they've kindly erected at Yi Tung Shan. There it was – a tiny blue bit, marked with a "P". There is a path down to the pool, which is hidden away in a valley (not surprisingly, since the pool was built by damming a stream – at least, that's what I reckon, but my engineering knowledge is no better than my ichthyological). The trick is to turn south (that's towards Tong Fuk, or the Soko Islands, if you're a sailor) off the trail at Stone Hut Number 11. Disappointingly, there was only a couple of feet of water in the deep end, but I went down the steps (yes, they have steps, plus a recorded Government reminder to hold the handrail, take a shower and wear a hairnet) and enjoyed the effects of a cold plunge. Actually, I was such a wimp that it took me a minute to gather up the courage to get my shoulders under the water. Well, I was going from 33° Celsius to around 16°.

A number of my walks have a habit of encountering unexpected difficulties late on, brought on by my being perhaps a tad over adventurous on account of my passion for not going back the way I came. Viewed from some perspectives, this walk may fall into that category. Certainly, I hadn't bargained on it lasting eight hours. After all, one of the reasons for getting up at Krakow was so that I'd be walking by 6.30am (yes), up Sunset Peak by 9.15am (yes) and back at the Fire Station-cum-Ambulance Depot by 12.30pm (no chance).

The first inkling I got as I set out to return to Tung Chung by completing the right-hand part of my anti-clockwise circle that it wasn't going to be plain sailing was when I noticed how parched the landscape was; more like a moonscape, actually. It was very nice in its own way, including this interesting rock with what appeared to be mushrooms growing out it. (I think it might be quartz, but my geology's not up to much either.)

But an arid microclimate not only means no trees and no shade, it also means no water. And I was fast running out, having been as foolish as one of those virgins who couldn't trim a lamp by declining multiple opportunities to top up at one of the streams on the ascent.

For those who are following this on a map, my route took me past Lin Fa Shan ("Lotus Mountain"), then on to Pok To Yan ("Blade Ridge") – it's pretty easy, you just follow the arrows someone's kindly painted on the stones on the path before turning left for one last climb.

Before the walk I had noticed on the map how severe the gradient would be when the time came to come down off the hills, but it was only when I was stood up there with the sun beating down on my head (my wife had forgotten to remind me to take my hat) that I realised I should have come up this way and gone back down on the Wong Lung Hang Trail. It was almost 1 in 2.

GSP Heywood has this bit where he writes blithely about "rollicking descents" as he leads his batman and a group of debutantes wearing flapper skirts and carrying cigarette holders scrambling down a steep ridge. As for me, it took ninety minutes to cover the kilometre and a half to the Wong Lung stream, descending like an arthritic crab. Despite the presence of streamers placed on the bushes and trees by trailblazers, I managed to lose the path at a particularly precipitous point. After bashing through the type of terrain that makes you appreciate the merits of "managed" woodland, being tripped by and on one occasion nearly garroted by vines, I psyched myself up by pretending to be Daddy Berenstain Bear with his kids ("The thing to do is not to panic, but to find higher ground – preferably a ridge, absolutely definitely preferably treeless and vineless").

And you know, it worked. I've never been so happy to see a crushed can of Pocari in the undergrowth. I knew it meant just one thing: that a path was only yards away, and so it proved. I still had numerous spider's webs and – the final trial – a tree that had fallen and obliterated the path to negotiate, but it was that can of Pocari that gave me the push over the finishing line.

And there, waiting for me as they had been for an hour and a half since I had first spotted them from Blade Ridge, were the crystal clear waters of the pool in the Wong Lung stream just above the Wong Lung Hang Trail turn-off. And what better way to gear up for the final assault on the Tung Chung Fire Station-cum-Ambulance Depot than by soothing my aching limbs in eight feet of limpid water?