The One Minute Bowel Manager

I've heard of the one minute manager, but never, until now, of the one minute bowel mover. But he – perhaps I should say "she" – is here, though not, by his own admission, here to stay.

If you are one of those people who were brought up in a house with a cloakroom copiously supplied with old copies of Horse and Hound and The Lady on the throne-side table, or if you are like the academician at Lagado, who discovered, through lengthy and painstaking experiment, that "men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool", then I don’t suppose next weekend’s talk at Bookazine, Prince’s Building, is for you.

Haven Books – they of the gushing and rather embarrassingly for a publisher occasionally ungrammatical email promos – are organising a two-hour plug to help reduce their stockpile of books by Andreas Rosboch and Sarah Brennan. The latter is the author of what Haven describe as a "popular humour book", Dummies for Mummies (a pretty accurate assessment of the typical expat mum – I’m beginning to warm to this Brennan woman), a book that is "chock-full of truth from the front line and perfect for that once-a-day minute when you're alone in the bathroom".

Well, I think that rather depends on what they put in the refreshments that will be served at the event. Leave the bran out of the muffins and you may find the queues for the Ladies stretching all the way round to Oliver’s.

Pure Theatre as the Special One Marches On

Lady Luck finally deserted Barcelona last night, when Football Club Internazionale Milano overcame the Catalan club 3-2 on aggregate in the Champions League on a night with more twists and turns than a Goldman Sachs executive squirming in his seat asking for the question to be repeated.

After denying Chelsea a place in last year’s final courtesy of an appalling refereeing appointment by European football’s governing body, there was no way out for the pride of Catalonia against a truly international Inter side featuring not a single Italian-born player in its starting line-up.

The "Italians" hardly had a kick – except for a few aimed at Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez – and were down to ten men for the best part of the match after Thiago Motta was sent off for patting Sergio Busquets on the neck. Needless to say, Busquets, a Spaniard who stands nearly 6 foot 3 inches tall, went down like a Goldman Sachs shitty deal.

So, it’s on to Madrid and the final in the Bernabeu, which could be as compelling as watching paint dry, as the Special One, José Mourinho, gets the chance not only to pit his wits against Dutch Master Louis van Gaal but also to set up court on the world’s greatest stage so the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester United may come and dance attendance upon him.



Oi! you can look now. The ref’s sent him off.

Goldman Sachs Offer Full Explanation

"On the one hand, we wished to maximize profits for our shareholders … You will notice that my other hand has nothing further to add."

Goldman Sachs Hit Back

"Weren’t you concerned about clients’ ability to repay their loans on worthless properties?"

"No, sir. We truly believed that by the time they defaulted on their payments, the lending banks would have gone bust."

Possibilities Endless as TL Yang Let off Leash

Among those who are bywords for fickleness to the Hong Kong Chinese, jockeying for top spot in a pretty open field would be Allen Lee Peng Fei – memorably described as a "weather vane" in Jonathan Dimbleby’s The Last Governor – and (Sir) – in brackets, because he can’t seem to decide whether he wants his knighthood or not - Ti-liang Yang.

Setting to one side his heroic but ultimately doomed struggle to resist the lure of that magical three-letter word, Yang is perhaps best known for running for the position of Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive against Tung Chi-hwa. It is a measure of just how highly Yang is thought of by his peers that he managed to pick up a meagre 42 votes, compared to 320 for the cropped haired one. No wonder he took up English teaching in an attempt to find solace.

Despite these various setbacks, Yang, a former Chief Justice of Hong Kong, has soldiered on the best he can, giving an interview to Next Magazine in 2003 in which he explained that he didn’t take an English name because Sun Yat-sen didn't either, quipping – at least, I hope he was quipping – that he was "as famous as Sun".

I don’t think it’s doing a disservice to Yang to say he belongs to the old school, much like his old chum on the bench, Benjamin Liu, who drew comfort from the "flexibility" of a judicial system under which "both sound and less sound judges may be appointed". One wonders what the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six – and all others wrongly convicted – would make of that kind of flexibility.

And flexibility is a mainstay of a new Government initiative called the Hong Kong Spirit Ambassadors, which has seen the usual suspects (Bernard "Charnwut" Chan, Rosanna Wong, etc.) rounded up to urge us to "resourcefully adapt and energetically overcome" and, if we’ve got any energy left over after that, to "persevere with optimism and a relentless, can-do attitude".

In other words, we must continue working as cogs, as in Chaplin’s Modern Times, and turning a blind eye to the cartels and to the Government cock-ups and U-turns. And Lord save us from "global competition", for it is that which has "resulted in a sense of gloom and negativity in the community".

So, bring out your Hong Kong spirit and unleash your endless possibilities now. You know it makes sense. A leashed possibility is as dangerous as a repressed sexuality. I don’t think I could put it any better than (Sir) T.L. Yang – actually, I probably could, but certainly not as idiosyncratically: “We may all help to make Hong Kong a better tomorrow.”

Cohen Eggs Berg Becomes Latest Russian Exclave

Birthplace of Immanuel Kant (immortalised by Monty Python as a real pissant who was very rarely stable – although, in fairness to Eric Idle and the gang, this was only because they wanted someone to rhyme with Heidegger’s boozy beggar who could think you under the table), Königsberg has a long and distinguished history.

At least, it did have until the Russians hived it off at the end of the Second World War, presenting the transfer of sovereignty as a fait accompli to Truman, Churchill and Attlee at the Potsdam Conference before proceeding to do a spot of ethnic cleansing on the indigenous German population and changing the name to the distinctly unromantic Kaliningrad.

With its umlaut, the convention is that Königsberg can be rendered in English as Konigsberg or Koenigsberg, and it was as the later that local owner Kanny Ng Ting Wah chose to name his newly purchased racehorse, which was getting its first outing at Happy Valley last Wednesday.

Sadly, it didn’t go very well, as the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Racing Incident Report records in the kind of English favoured by policemen who, after years of interviewing Chelsea supporters, are unable to respond to the wife’s mobile phone enquiry with a simple "I'm walking down the High Street towards the newsagent's, luv", lapsing involuntarily into their particular brand of officialese, "I am proceeding in a northerly direction towards the purveyor of tobacco, confection and newsprint".

"As the start was effected, Koenigsberg stood flat-footed and lost a considerable amount of ground," is the damning appraisal of this nag’s performance, as it proceeded to beat only one other runner home.

However, what the stewards clearly didn’t realise was the intolerable handicap the gelding was running under. The 5-year-old simply didn’t have a chance from the moment he was being loaded into the stalls and commentator Brett Davis started calling him Cohen Eggs Berg.

Give the fellow a chance, Brett! Next time, try “Kernigsberg”.

Pastor Tells Flock to Obey Rulers as By-Election Looms

The Evangelical Free Church of China Kong Fok Church has made headlines, with its senior pastor, Rev. Daniel Ng Chung Man, calling on his flock to observe the so-called Biblical injunction to "obey one’s rulers" in the run-up to the controversial by-elections in Hong Kong next month.

The 16 May event, with a seat up for grabs in each of the five geographical constituencies after five “pro-democracy” legislators resigned last year, is being touted as a referendum on political reform since all Hong Kong citizens can take part.

Hearing the news, which has been reported by Hong Kong’s best selling "tabloid" Apple Daily – it hasn't been picked up by the local English media, although the redoubtable Christian Telegraph runs the story – I was put in mind of Chamberlain’s efforts to appease the Nazis when he returned from Munich in 1938 waving his piece of paper and proclaiming "Peace in our time".

Around 50 protesters took to the streets earlier this week accusing Ng of supporting the central Chinese Government in its suppression of those calling for greater democracy and of asking his flock to cast protest blank votes in May.

For the record, a look at the context of the relevant part of the Bible is rewarding, as such looks generally are. For in the 17th verse of the 13th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, Christians are asked to "obey your leaders and recognise their authority". And why? Because, as the next sentence goes on to say, "they keep constant watch over your welfare, and they have great responsibility."

If only. If only.

Hugger Hu Huge Hat Hit

Deng 1979

Jiang 1997

Deng Xiaoping can't have realised it at the time, but the little fellow became something of a trendsetter from the moment he donned his Stetson on his 1979 US tour. His dedicated fashionista followers include Benny Hill look-alike Jiang Zemin, who didn’t quite cut it in a colonial tricorn, and now Hu Jintao, not to be confused with jailed dissident Hu Jia … unless you work for the South China Morning Post.

It's a measure of the President of the People's Republic of China's desire to get American corporations such as Boeing to offload more work to the PRC that Hu was willing not only to wear a baseball cap but also to give a bear hug to another chap in a cap, a worker at the said Boeing factory.

In his Telegraph blog, Richard Spencer writes:

"Deng, who was well aware of symbolism, was telling the world that the days of Maoist seclusion (and Mao caps) was at an end and China was to open up to foreigners for the first time in recent history."

With Boeing folk already in the PRC training Chinese workers in the latest technologies, it’s not yet been officially announced what Hu was saying to his new found mate, but lipreaders have the answer:

Your jobs are safely with us

On a side note, can anyone imagine our Chief Executive Sir Y.K. Tsang donning headgear? And which bucket would suit him, anyway?

Spasso and Va Bene

Before taking in a dose of Donohoe on Saturday evening, I took the family to Va Bene, in its new, for me – they actually moved five years ago – location a few yards down the hill in Lan Kwai Fong. Just two weeks earlier, we'd tried Spasso in Ocean Centre (or Harbour City, if you prefer – I’ve never worked out the difference) on the graveyard shift, having booked for 10.30pm following a concert at the Cultural Centre.

Food-wise, neither is anything in particular to write home about (Cammino in the Excelsior remains the best value for money Italian joint in Hong Kong, with, as the world’s foremost lasagne expert assures me, the best Garfield food east of the Adriatic). Spasso gets the nod after this particular head-to-head, comparisons being made easier by he fact that we made similar choices at each restaurant. While the spaghetti with clams was pretty good at both places, the pasta in the linguine with scallops at Va Bene was undercooked – more al dentist than al dente – a poor runner-up to the agnolotti with scallops at Spasso. With pasta at both joints being very pricey (you won’t get much change out of HK$200 for any dish), pizza is always a good option. Here again, Spasso scored higher, with the quattro formaggi tipping out Va Bene’s Margherita, whose base was too thin for our taste. How the addition of sweet peppers would have enhanced the four cheese pizza, though!

In terms of service, the two are poles apart, reflecting that fact that they cater for very different clienteles. Spasso is for locals who drive a white VW Golf TSi, are attempting to learn to play golf, order expensive French red wines with names they can pronounce (which usually limits things to Latour and Lafitte) and slouch back in their chairs to show how cool they are. The waiting staff are correspondingly young and local, and come with all the drawbacks that entails in an eatery. They don’t know very much about what they're serving, they'll correct your pronunciation of scallops and they'll race you for that space between the heater and the table to be the first to get back indoors (the terrace is the only place to dine at Spasso). Apart from that, they’re okay.

The staff at Va Bene, on the other hand, as befits members of the Gaia stable, are more urbane and cosmopolitan. They offered to refill the bread basket (why can’t Hong Kong match Macau for a decent roll?) and were generally attentive in an unobtrusive way. But bubbling beneath the surface like ash desperate to liberate itself from the confines of an existence eked out under an Icelandic ice cap with an unpronounceable name, there was a surliness which first flashed across the waitress’s face when my daughter responded to her enquiry about water with the words that are anathema to Hong Kong waitrons, "Tap water would be fine, thanks".

After that, word got around quickly among the dozen or so staff, so that by the time we got up to leave the maître d', who had been so solicitous in welcoming us and showing us to our table, chose to bury his head in his reservations book when he saw us approaching on the way out.

Donohoe Brings Best out of Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Every now and then, one uncovers a rare gem among the lava flow of concerts that move inexorably across the Hong Kong landscape. Peter Donohoe, who performed at the City Hall last Friday and Saturday, truly represents a Eyjafjallajokull-style lightning flash among all the smoke and gas thrown up on the local classical music scene.

The portly Mancunian, who "won" the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1982 (no first prize was awarded that year, since, so rumour has it, the Ruskies don't like to give the top honour to a foreigner), has a bit of a thing going with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, with whom he has collaborated, as soloist and conductor, on a number of occasions over the past six years.

It's a partnership you feel is only to the local orchestra's benefit as it approaches its coming of age. Twenty years on from its establishment and the Sinfonietta may still struggle to field a decent French horn section (not that the Hong Kong Philharmonic is much better in that regard), but under Yip Wing Sie's dynamic direction the orchestra gave two of its more assured recent performances.

Each evening started off with a "world premiere". I still remember the distressing effect these two words had on me when I used to take advantage of an elderly aunt's debenture at the Royal Albert Hall to attend the Proms quite regularly in the 1980s. It was as if the organisers deliberately went out of their way to make sure you couldn't enjoy the whole evening, eager perhaps to prove Socrates' dictum that he who pursues pleasure is bound to catch pain as well.

Crouching forward like my father-in-law doing tai chi on the concrete volleyball court below his Housing Society flat, sheng player Loo Sze Wang performed a piece called "Hark the Phoenix Soaring High", making a variety of strange noises, ranging from a sea lion's mating call to the whooshing made by killer-balloon "Rover" in The Prisoner.

Tchaikovsky's potboiler 1st piano concerto has been a hit ever since its own "world premiere" in America in 1875. Our stage right position gave us a good view as Donohoe, sat four-square at the keyboard without any of the histrionics of a Yundi Li, crashed away on his chords as the orchestra crashed away on theirs. The no-nonsense nature of the man ("He's a northerner," was my daughter's music teacher's pithy comment when I remarked on the pianist's unassuming nature at the interval) is epitomised by what I imagine must have become something of a trademark, the rising-from-the-piano-stool-while-the-final-chord-is-still-resounding. And resound it always does in the excellent acoustics of the City Hall.

I deliberately set out late on Saturday, hoping to be denied entry for what was still being billed as a "world premiere". As these things so often turn out, the traffic in the tunnels, along the Eastern Corridor and on Gloucester Road was unusually light, and so I had to endure the strains of the "Chinese mouth-organ" once more. However, my reward was a rousing rendition of Schumann's Symphony in D minor (the one with the tune lifted by Frederick Loewe in My Fair Lady's "You Did It").

This was followed by the highlight of the weekend, Brahms' 2nd piano concerto – really, a symphony for piano and orchestra (it even has four movements) – an extended opportunity for the composer to display his art of melodic variation and the soloist his virtuosity.

For the first of his two encores on Saturday, Donohoe played Brahms' haunting Intermezzo in B flat minor Op 117 no 2, played here by Glenn Gould.

Exploding a Myth

This is the actual sign that greeted (would-be) visitors to Huangpu Park, off the Bund in Shanghai, in the early part of the twentieth century. Imagine trying to kick this to smithereens in a pair of plimsolls.

And this is the fictitious sign that was used at the entrance to the park in Fist of Fury:

And, finally ... the infamous scene from the English language version of the movie. Forget "Seriously"; this clip should carry a "This Script May Damage Your Health" warning.

Fist of Fury

Although Enter the Dragon and Way of the Dragon are better known in the West, in Hong Kong and other Cantonese speaking places, such as Malaysia and Chinatowns from New York to London, it is Fist of Fury that is the best known and best loved Bruce Lee film.

If Way is a comedy and Enter a cartoon, then Fist is a tragedy. Not, sadly, in the high tradition of Euripides or Shakespeare, but in the sense that it is so bad. Watching this ham-fisted ode to jingoism and Jap-bashing, I was reminded of Bo Yang's words in his seminal essay "The Ugly Chinaman", where he talks about the unbalanced personality constantly wavering between two extremes: "a chronic feeling of inferiority and a tendency towards extreme arrogance". "Rarely," he laments, "does he or she have a healthy sense of self-respect." Bo could have been reviewing this film, in which the iconic image is of Japanese being made to eat the scroll they have presented to Lee and his mates at martial arts school that reads "Sick Man of East Asia" – referring, of course, to China.

This is a film with more appeal to Hu Jin Tao than Hu Jia. The martial arts Master who founded the "Wu Ching" school, becomes Lee's mentor and is then murdered by the Japs declares that the purpose in founding it is "to be strong and love the country". Where there are Japs in China, there must be cardboard-cutout collaborators, and the one in this caper is so campy (he was played by a well-known comedian) that he would have made the perfect choice for the Black Adder, had options on the franchise ever been taken up in Hong Kong. We know he's a weasel because, whereas Bruce swaps his John Travolta suit and matching suitcase for traditional Chinese garb early in the piece, this fellow not only insists on wearing his western suit throughout but also interrupts the three-minute silence held in Master's honour.

Brucie's a pacifist, however, because Master has told him that the purpose of all that training is physical exercise rather than fighting, so he refuses the challenge from The Snivelling One even when slapped three times on the face. (Is this symbolic? One for each minute of silence he'd interrupted? Is there some kind of I-Ching going on here? The questions raised by this film are innumerological.)

You know it's all up for the Japs when the cameraman zooms in on Bruce's fist, which doesn't look particularly furious in itself, but is lent that added frisson of fury by the special effects man, who goes into overdrive with the knuckle-cracking machine. Bruce moseys over to the Jap HQ, where he takes on all-comers, including a fellow who looks like a Wookie and a fat bloke who looks like Benny Hill doing his Jiang Zemin impression.

Old Bruce works himself into a right old frenzy, clucking like a chicken, whelping like a dog and screaming like a girlie. Having dispatched half of his 50 opponents with the deadly punch-that-misses-the-jaw-by-a-good-six-inches and the even deadlier kick-to-the-balls, Bruce decides it's time to give the sounds effects man a good working over. Like a rabbit from a hat, out comes the old two-sticks-joined-with-a-chain. Not to be outdone, one of the Japs responds to the rush of air caused by the calipers passing a foot away from his face by putting his hands to his head, activating a blood capsule and spouting like a deer that's just had its antlers cut off.

After a quick break back at the Wu Ching place, Bruce returns to the Jap school for the Russian who looks like Gene Wilder and, of course, the head honcho himself, who's as yellow as they come, as he proves first by running away and then by trying to get Bruce with his ceremonial spear, which looks suspiciously like the mace Michael Heseltine once brandished in the House of Commons.

We all know what happens to villains who play dirty with Bruce, though, and 106 minutes of drivel finally comes to an end when the choir strikes up a song called "Who says knight errantry is dead?" and Bruce freeze-frames himself in the scissor-kick position while letting out another of his girlie screams.

ICAC Face Questions over By-Election Poster Campaign

I'm a bit concerned about the ever so slightly kinky ICAC's latest poster aimed at helping the citizens of Hong Kong "keep elections clean". My concern, it may surprise you, is not with the fact that, when you have "elections" that are a complete and utter sham it matters not whether they are as dirty as Debbie Does Dallas or as clean as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Neither is my concern with the presupposition bundled up in the word "keep", with the inference – rather fanciful inference, it must be said – that what pass for elections in Hong Kong are representative and meaningful in the first place, and the ICAC's job, when they're not spying on nubile females, is to make sure they stay that way.

My concern is on three levels: the design, the wording and the timing. In terms of design, I'm sorry, but if anyone designed a turnstile like this they wouldn't last long in the turnstile-design world. The graphic shows a ticket (called "Gift Coupon" – more on that later) which has been inserted in the slot at the top of the machine being ejected from the slot at the side of the machine. There are two problems with this. First, gravity will take over, and, as can be seen from the graphic, the ticket (now called "Vote") is about to fall on the floor. This is exactly why the operation is always performed the other way round. Go to any MTR station and check. Second, and related, you'll create enormous backlogs of angry passengers, all champing at the bit to get through the turnstiles, as passenger after passenger in front of them have to bend down and pick their ticket off the floor. I won't even go into the health problems this will cause for those with sciatica and the legal problems posed by Japanese tourists armed with upskirt mobile phone cameras.

Next, the wording. I'd never heard of a "gift coupon" before and neither (allowing for all the riff-raff you get there) had Google. Compared to nearly 14 million hits for "gift voucher" (an idea invented by Marks and Spencer in the 1950s in a largely vain attempt to alleviate the sock shortage created at Christmastime in the Menswear department), there is a miserable count of only 100,000 hits for "gift coupon", most of which are viral copies from a porn site that inadvertently imported it along with "FREE" and "Add 6 Extra Inches Today".

And then finally there's the timing of the thing. Although the poster isn't new – it received its "launch", as Hong Kong marketing types insist on calling anything from a board meeting to a motivational course run by Coco the Clown, in 2008 – its being dusted off for the farce of the upcoming by-elections, in which the pro-Government DAB is refusing to field candidates to run against three likeable nutjobs from the LSD and two lawyer types from the fence-setting Civic Party is bizarre, to say the least.

Keep your powder dry, is my advice to the Boys Who Used To Be In Blue. Stick these things up outside the local offices of the DAB next time those fellows decide to contest one of Hong Kong's so-called elections. It might just have the effect of increasing the number of old biddies in public housing who accept an offer of a lunchbox and a lift to the polling station in return for a vote for Gary Chan Hak Kan. After all, which self-respecting Hong Konger can resist a free lunch ... with a gift coupon, and a bit of breast, thrown in?

Apple Daily Gloats over SCMP's Blunder

Well, Hu'd a thunk it? This video from appledaily.com.hk shows the empty shelves at the newsagents after the SCMP Group told the Hong Kong Newspaper Vendors Association not to sell any remaining copies of yesterday's offending edition pending return.

Who's Hu?

Asia's world newspaper, the South China Morning Post, really excelled itself on yesterday's front page, where a huge photo of the President of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao (胡锦涛), is accompanied by a caption in which his name is rendered in Chinese as Hu Jia (胡佳), who, I think I can safely say, has about as much chance of becoming President of the world's most populous country as me.

Well worth keeping for posterity, I'd say.

Man in Black

"Anyone But Woods" suits me just fine, pal.

Which golfer made GQ's Ten Most Hated Athletes list in January 2006? Whose nickname on tour is FIGJAM, as in "Fuck I'm great, just ask me"?

Not Tiger Woods, but Phil Mickelson, whose dazzling play last weekend put paid to the slim chances of English journeyman Lee Westwood emulating his mentor Nick Faldo by donning the Green Jacket at the Masters in Augusta.

To many armchair golf fans, Mickelson is the preppie kid with the man boobs whose cavalier style of play never changed even as his status did, from perennial nearly man to multiple major winner.

"Mickelson has grown from All-American boy into a well-rounded role model and family man," as one website gushingly puts it. Mickelson's own website, in fact. If that strikes a bit of an odd note, then an even odder note is sounded by New Zealand's "richest sportsman" and arguably its biggest oddball, Steve Williams, who makes a lot of dough toting Tiger Woods' golf bag, bent double under the strain of 14 golf clubs, a bunch of bananas, a clutch of power drinks and innumerable little black books.

"I wouldn't call Mickelson a great player 'cause I hate the prick," Williams said of Mickelson in a 2008 hissy fit brought on by the fact that the world's number two golfer appearently ignores the Kiwi carrier. Williams' reputation as a bully was enhanced a few years ago when he threw a US$$7,000 camera into a lake when a photographer working for a corporate sponsor dared take a picture while Woods was swinging his club in a "skins" game. (You can't make this stuff up.)

Back to role models, Mickelson's major sponsors are those well-rounded money men, KPMG, Barclays Bank and ExxonMobil, who each year bring in a cool US$50 million (or around 90% of his income) for the five members of the Mickelson clan – who were once famously described as "making The Little House on the Prairie family look like the Borgias".

Mickelson's Shot of the Century:

Tiger's Mum Lends Voice to New Nike Ad

It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before Kultida got in on the act.

Hong Kong Exchange Attempts to Prove Emperor Really Does Have New Clothes

Hong Kong's one-man institutional watchdog, David M. Webb, has an interesting article on some distinctly anti-social and irresponsible behaviour by a body one might hope would be a bastion of transparency and social responsibility, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, AKA Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.

In advance of its Annual General Meeting on 22 April, the powers that be at the bourse that was embarrassed a couple of years ago when Russia's richest man, Oleg Deripaska, revealed that his plan to float his aluminium company on the Hong Kong stock exchange rather than in London was based on the advantages that come with its being "less regulated", have included an agenda item that would fundamentally change a key part of its Articles of Association.

If passed, the special resolution would allow the board of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd to pass written resolutions, without a board meeting, by obtaining written approval from a simple majority of directors. This represents a quantum leap when compared with the current situation, which allows written resolutions only if they are unanimous.

The change that the great and the good are trying to slip through is particularly insidious because the Exchange has what the Webbmeister ruefully describes as a "unique governance structure", in which just six of the 13 directors are actually elected by shareholders. Those familiar with the way things are done in Hong Kong may not be surprised to learn that another six are appointed directly by the Hong Kong Government, while the thirteenth is the head of the Government himself, the Chief Executive of the HKSAR, currently Sir Donald Tsang Yam Kuen.

As Webb points out, the proposal is not just a patent ploy to tighten Government control by using its built-in majority, it's also a transparent device for cracking down on serious critical discussion, as the Government would be able to pass any proposal it wished without the inconvenience of recording dissenting views in board minutes, as there would be no board minutes, there being no board meeting.

Karl Popper, who knew a thing or two about non-transparent, tyrannical regimes himself, being forced out of Austria when the Nazis marched in, was a bit of a stickler for clarifying problems by discussing them. In The Myth of the Framework, he writes:

"Truth is hard to come by ... Serious critical discussions are always difficult ... Many participants in a rational, that is, a critical, discussion find it particularly difficult that they have to unlearn what their instincts seem to teach them ... that is to win ... A discussion which you win but which fails to help you to change or to clarify your mind at least a little should be regarded as a sheer loss. For this very reason no change in one's position should be made surreptitiously, but it should always be stressed and its consequences explored."

Let's hope this resolution gets less than the requisite 75% approval from the shares that vote. The Government of Hong Kong cannot be reminded often enough that its four favourite modes of policy delivery – the fait accompli, the railroad, the filibuster and the surreptitious slip-slide – constitute no sustainable or equitable way to run a society.

Enter the Dragon

Unlike Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee's high-kicking homage to Chaplin, the troubled star's last and most famous film, Enter the Dragon, lacks charm and has few redeeming qualities. While the camp Way provides plenty of laughs – some of them intentional – Enter is little more than a derivative video nasty with sound effects.

The offer to do the film came while Lee was working on another movie, Game of Death, which was put on hold, as personal projects tend to be when Hollywood comes calling with its big numbers. More's the pity. After this shocker, it would have been uphill all the way for the kung fu star, whatever picture he had made next.

Enter the Dragon rehashes the same old formulas that had been done to death in various 50s and 60s shows, notably the James Bond franchise. It comes as no surprise when the evil mastermind – on his island, of course, and wearing his Dr. No outfit, complete with black leather gloves – appears in one scene stroking a white Persian cat, having morphed into that most iconic, and ubiquitous, of all Bond baddies, Ernst Stavros Blofeld, evil head of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

For 110 minutes of unremitting tedium – I watched the Hong Kong theatrical version this time round – old Brucie takes on all-comers and dispatches all 396 of them, with no little help from the sound effects team (no single man could last the course), who repay the producers for being given the chance to go completely over the top by adding extra oomph to the countless THWACKS and going for broke in two extended CRAAACK scenes, as another human neck is casually broken.

The film starts with Bruce having a chat with the obligatory Wise And Serene One With Long And Wispy Beard, whose conversation consists of fortune cookie messages strung together.

"Your skills are now at the point of spiritual insight, my son ... Never forget, the enemy has only images and illusions behind which he hides his true motives ... use the Force, Bruce ... destroy the smoke and the mirrors and you will not be seduced by the dark side of the Force."

Being a good Jedi with plenty of Zen, Brucie understands that the climactic scene in the movie, in which he must destroy Dr. No, Ernst Blofeld and Stavros Flatly, is to be shot in a hall of mirrors. And being connoisseurs of this type of nonsense, as soon as Dr. Evil makes the elementary mistake of throwing his spear half way through the revolving door cum mirror, we know that Brucie will finish him off by hoisting him on his own petard and taking him for a spin.

As the Wise and Serene One had prophesied, "My son, you must leave 'im pale reflection of former self."

Nike Channel Tiger's Dad to Flog More Gear

WARNING - sick-bags required



This is just crying out for a parody.

Between a Hard Rock and a Desolate Place

Room with a view?

Lying in the swanky bathtub on the 31st floor of the Grand Hyatt on what used to be Taipa Island, I had a fine view of a huge building site that took me back to a holiday in Greece in 1978. I should say straight away that swankiness had nothing to do with my reverie, nor with my trip. The five of us slummed it in places as inauspicious as a roof-top in a seaside village in the Peloponnese, the bedding of which was infested with what I took to be lice. I have to confess I didn't stick around for the fieldwork results, opting to spend the rest of the night on a wooden bench by the beach.

What the surreal sight that stretched almost to the border with Zhuhai had in common with my Hellenic holiday was the uncertainty it evinced about whether the edifice in question was being put up or pulled down. In Greece one was never sure. All embryonic buildings there instantly entered a state of disrepair that cried out for the sweet release of demolition.

Next Monday it will be 17 months since construction was halted on Phases 5 and 6 of the Sands Venetian with an announcement from Sands' president for Asia, Stephen Weaver, that 11,000 workers would lose their jobs. Fast forward 12 months, and last November's IPO on the Hong Kong bourse of the Las Vegas based company's Macau spin-off, Sands China Ltd., was made with the aim of getting the project back on track, an aim yet to get past the wishful thinking stage.

I'm no architect or civil engineer, but one does wonder as one looks out at this megalithic Kafkaesque landscape just how long an unfinished edifice can be allowed to stand before it starts to rust and crumble beyond repair. It would certainly make for the mother and father of demolition jobs. Worth watching from a swanky bathtub on what used to be Taipa Island.

Munching in Macau

This year's biennial Easter trip to Macau saw us ensconced for three days at the Grand Hyatt, which makes up one of the three hotels that comprise the so-called City of Dreams. Left to my own devices, I would never stray from the Pousada de Mong Ha (at HK$1,360 for weekends and public holidays, the Pousada or Mong Ha suites remain excellent value for families of 3-4 or for couples who like a bit of space). But this year, my wife was keen to go to somewhere with a swimming pool – and our old friend the Mandarin Oriental being closed for renovations – it was the Hyatt we chose, since I have vetoed the tacky Venetian for life.

Turning to the most important reason for visiting Macau, anyone making the trip at public holidays should book their restaurants a week in advance. That goes especially for the small Portuguese-run establishments, such as Amagao (where we left our phone call from Hong Kong too late to get a reservation), António (where we finally negotiated a table for 9pm – fine by us, as we're used to Spain, where, many hotel restaurants don't open until 9 anyway) and our old favourite (still the cheapest of the lot, though no longer as cheap as it once was), A Petisquiera.

These three are all within a stone's throw of one another in Taipa Village, which also boasts one of the best cha chaan tengs in Greater China, the Taipa Café, located on the Rua do Regedor, the main drag where all the taxis stop if you're coming at Taipa Village from the south. My pork chop in onion sauce on rice with an egg sitting on top of the rice was a thing of beauty, which will live long in the memory and has already been memorialised on Facebook. This from someone who has been known to give a demonstration to egg-station breakfast buffet chefs of just what it means to baste a fried egg cooked over a low flame. They also serve ground coffee – jik moh gah feh – overall, one hell of a find and a place we'll be returning to for our brunches.

This time round, we'd sort of made a pact that we wouldn't be going to Petisqueira, but that determination lasted just so long as it took us to check in at the Grand Hyatt. Needing a place to snack at before dinner over at Platão (just off the Leal Senado, or main square, on "mainland" Macau), and having fulfilled family and friends' orders for dried pork and almond cookies from Koi Kei Bakery, we succumbed and were pleasantly surprised to see that the place had been redecorated, seemingly for the first time since our inaugural visit in 1995. As the proprietor explained, this actually happens a little more frequently, to cover the red wine stains on the walls, so expect a fresh coat of paint to be applied if and when Benfica (the staff are split between Eagles and Sporting fans) turn over the hapless Scousers on Thursday night.


If it's oil, it must be A Petisqueira

For the record, we had the octopus salad, which is always good, and the Portuguese sausage, which is always Portuguese sausage, as well as the mixed vegetable soup, in which the oil that had been evicted from the octopus salad had found lodgings. Definitely not their finest hour.

A brief mention for Platão, which serves decent nosh in a nice venue (it was drizzling when we went, but usually you can sit outside), but is not the place to go if you want to get away from the feeding-frenzy style of eating preferred by Hong Kongers abroad – or, indeed, at home. If you can put up with the frenetic approach and the fact that your main course is liable to arrive with your starter, even after you've asked them to bring them separately, then I should give a particular mention to the baked aubergine stuffed with tomatoes and cheese, which my wife ordered and was a hell of a lot better than my baked mashed spinach with egg white. Yes, I know, it doesn't even sound very good. Wine wise, I'm no fan of high alcohol content wines (13.5% is too high for a white wine, to my mind) and can highly recommend the Planalto (12.5%), a bottle of which sets you back HK$180.

Which leaves us with António. With only seven or eight tables, this place is the fiefdom of the eponymous owner, who will rise from his station at the rear of the restaurant to greet his important guests (we got an audience after most of the others had left – but also a glass of 20 year old port on the house – so I guess the jury's still out). If you are favoured with a visit, you will learn that Antonio first came to Macau nearly 40 years ago to do his national service before returning in 1997. Unlike the owners of Petisqueira, his family hail from the north – Braga, Oporto and Coimbra, which he had the temerity to call the Oxford of Portugal.

By the time we visited António on the third night of our stay, we were winding down gastronomically, so we contented ourselves with stuffed soft shell crab and two soups, asparagus (my choice) and tomato and egg white (my daughter's). Once again, I drew the short straw, although that’s more of a reflection on the excellence of hers than the naffness of mine. (António puts it down to the white wine which he adds because the tomatoes he has to use are not fresh – as in "picked in the garden", as they would be back in Braga – and are too sweet.) For mains, we had the paella for two people (which three of us couldn't finish), which was pricey ($480) but very serviceable.

Sing-along Messiah at Cultural Centre on 8 April

If you enjoy singing and would like to take part in Handel's Messiah – preferably with a score to hand – then come along this Thursday evening to the Cultural Centre Concert Hall in Tsim Tsa Tsui. Tickets are selling like hot cakes, but a few are still available from URBTIX from $90.

Led by the Hong Kong Oratorio Society, audience participation is welcome - though not compulsory - in the ten choruses that will be performed, including old favourites "And the Glory of the Lord", "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" and of course "Hallelujah". In between pieces, three local soloists will give you a chance to draw breath, singing a selection of the best known arias from this most famous of oratorios.

The first half of the evening will feature two organ works performed by Wong Kin Yu, who teaches organ at Chinese University and the Academy for Performing Arts. Her performance of two works by Elgar transcribed for organ, Nimrod from Enigma Variations and Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, will bookend a performance by the Welsh Wizards themselves, the Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir.

The Last Night of the Proms motif will be continued by their stirring rendition of "Jerusalem", and the Elgar theme bolstered by the beautiful part song "As Torrents in Summer". Some of the boys in scarlet will be staying on for the second half for the Messiah, attracted no doubt by the title of one chorus in particular, "All We Like Sheep". Baa to that, I say.

Something to get you in the mood:

Last of the Big Sixers?

This excellent piece from Reuters, "High-rollers, triads and a Las Vegas giant", turns the spotlight on Macau and examines what makes it tick. Did you know, for example, that the private-room VIP sector raked in US$9.9 billion in 2009, a staggering two-thirds of Macau's total gambling revenue?

And Big Sixers? My daughter's code term for Mainland Chinese – it's pretty simple for anyone with even the most rudimentary grasp of Chinese – so she can be rude about them without them knowing.

The Last Resort

On Good Friday, my favourite song.



She came from Providence
The one in Rhode Island
Where the old world shadows hang
Heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams
Like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place people were smilin'
They spoke about the red man's ways
And how they loved the land
They came from everywhere
To the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand
Or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars
Out for a good time
Can't wait to tell you all
What it's like up there
They called it paradise
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
While the town got high

And then the chilly winds blew down
Across the desert
Through the canyons of the coast
To the Malibu
Where the pretty people play
Hungry for power
To light their neon way
And give them things to do

Some rich men came and raped the land
Nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes
And Jesus people bought 'em
They called it paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun sinking in the sea

And we can leave it all behind
And sail to Lahaina
Just like the missionaries did so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign that said "Jesus is coming"
Brought the white man's burden down
Brought the white man's reign

Who will provide the grand design
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
To satisfy our endless needs
And justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and in the name of God

And you can see them there
On Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about
What it's like up there
They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call some place paradise
Kiss it goodbye

Making a Mokery of the Law

Lily Chiang Lai Lei, daughter of Chiang Chen, Chairman of The Chen Hsong Group, one of the world's largest manufacturers of plastic injection moulding machines, and former Chairwoman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, is at it again.

Since her arrest by the ICAC on 23 October 2007 charged with granting phantom share options to nine employees of her company, Pacific Challenge Holdings, which allegedly yielded HK$7.5 million to her and executive director Shah Tahir Hussain, Chiang has spent more time in the local courts than some judges have probably managed. Inter alia, she's been banging on about her right to a jury trial and attempting to argue the toss with Hong Kong's finest legal brains about the constitutionality of section 88 of the Magistrates Ordinance.

For those not familiar with section 88, Lily and her hired hands – formerly Hectar Pun SC, now Johnny Mok SC – are contending that section 88, which deals with transfer of cases to the District Court, is unconstitutional because it allocates a judicial function to the Secretary for Justice, who is part of the executive.

Last Friday, the latest episode in this soap opera was played out when Hong Kong's retiring Chief Justice, Andrew Li, together with two permanent judges of the Court of Final Appeal, Justices Patrick Chan and Robert Ribeiro, dismissed Chiang's arguments as being without substance. The judges also had harsh words about her delaying tactics, at the heart of which this time round is her claim that her former legal team "failed to appreciate a difficult or novel line of argument", where "difficult or novel" appears to be used by current legal adviser Johnny Mok with the meaning "completely without substance" – which is indeed a novel argument, but not exactly in the way that Johnny would want it to be.

Interestingly, Judge Ribeiro gave a talk at Hong Kong University a few years ago on the very topic of vexatious litigants, describing them as persistent abusers of the court's process who misuse its procedures for improper purposes and without any viable legal basis.

Meanwhile, over in England, the first "jury-less" serious criminal trial for 400 years is taking place after attempts to prosecute a suspected gang of armed robbers was allegedly hit by jury nobbling. Of course, trial by jury in the old country has traditionally been reserved only for serious criminal cases – a category which Chiang's local bit of trouble scarcely fits.

Unless, of course, you find room for a novel and difficult line of argument in respect of the untimely death of Brenda Lui Yee Man, one of the founders of Pacific Challenge Holdings, who drowned in Deep Water Bay ten years ago after leaving the office in a state of depression reportedly brought about by the ailing state of the company.