Chinese Trawler Skipper May Have Been Running Low on Fuel Before Collision

Prease to walk this way, Skipper-san. You can refuel for free on our boat.

Eldon Wears Heart on Sleeve over Yank

As a former chairman of HSBC, it was only a matter of time before David Eldon weighed in on the unseemly scrabbling for the crown of thistles. He seems to disapprove, 'though I'm not sure why, as one of the lessons that history has writ large for us in blood red letters is that so long as you insist on having a Scottish throne, you will get a lot of pretenders, young as well as old, bonnie as well as Robin Cook.

In a piece modestly entitled "HSBC: The Last Word", the banker turned blogger reminisces about the old days playing rugger in the Middle East. Now Michael Geoghegan may be a bit of a bar steward with about as much tact as a Chinese trawler man in search of a photo opportunity, but he was just the sort of chap you wanted scrumming down between your legs when the balloon went up and Shell-Mex were three points ahead with a scrum on your five-yard line and just 60 seconds left on the clock.

It's difficult to know just how seriously to take Eldon's rant about "whispered half truths and appalling leaks", especially when he admits to grasping the chance to hear the latest tidbits of gossip himself when approached by a Caledonian Deepthroat in the Queen’s Road car park. The further I read into this piece, the more I was transported to the world of Yes. Minister, that classic unmasking of the fatal British trait of insouciant hypocrisy among the power-broking moneyed middle classes.

Among all the Dougging, Mikeing and Stuarting that functions not just to show that the writer remains, in his own eyes at least, in the fiscal loop, but also to forestall the raising of any serious questions by waving the magic wand of "good-chappery" over everything, Eldon shows his true colours with a coded, but nonetheless astonishing, Sir Humphrey Appleton style savaging of the former Goldman Sachs man and "fan (AKA shareholder) favourite", John Thornton.

The code is nowhere easier to break than in the careful designation of the multi-millionaire American as Mr. Thornton, delivered with a very British raising of the upper lip. If Doug, Mike and Stuart are the sweaty chaps in the front row, propping up the Beancounters XV, then "John" is very much the spotty boy spluttering into his hankie on the touch line with his sick note from matron in his hand.

"I see that already the focus has now changed slightly to the future role of Mr. Thornton with HSBC and the fact that he might himself step down. That, it seems, would be a pity from the perspective of some but if his skills were China related (forget the fact that he was an Investment Banker and an American - two issues that seem to have unsettled some), then I think there are plenty of others out there with good China credentials too."

There is so much of linguistic interest here that, as the psychiatrist once said of Basil Fawlty, "There’s enough material here for a whole conference". Take the first sentence, translation "That Yank bar steward is on his way out. YIPPEE!" Or the second, so rich that I will have to break it down into its constituents.

The Romans, dab hands at irony themselves – not unversed either, of course, in night-of-the-long-knives style strategising and machinations – reserved the two apparently innocuous words, "sunt qui", for their most damning put-downs, all the more effective for being so simple, so, well, British. Thus, "There are those [fill in with the word of your choosing: idiots, morons, liars, Americans, merchant bankers] who actually think that ..." Note how easily you could place any of these words after Eldon's "some", and the elegance of his phrasing becomes apparent.

Then there's the devastating bit which Eldon "hides" in brackets. Forget the fact that Mister Thornton was a Goldman's man and a Yank? Not on your life. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, he will remember him. As if he were dead. Which it seems (to borrow another of Eldon's magic words) Mr. Thornton is, to the writer at least, since his China-related skills (allowing that they exist, which the writer seems somewhat loath to grant) are referred to in the past tense.

Besides which, of course, "there are plenty of others out there with good China credentials too". Ouch! Like a latter-day Mark Antony, Eldon comes to bury, not to praise. And a damned fine job he does of it too.

China’s Sarah Palin Demands Apology from Japan over Trawlergate

We call upon the Japanese to apologise for releasing the fisherman looking far healthier than when he rammed your boat.

Hardtalk Gets Further on down with Ulaca

The second part of my interview with that rude bloke from HARDtalk (did no one tell them how pretentious that styling is?):

HT: I heard that. We thought it added a certain toughness to an already frighteningly tough programme. Moving on, you've indicated that most of your users drop by under the mistaken assumption they’re going to be feasting on some hardcore porn --

U: I'm sorry, but shouldn't that be HARDcore?

HT: I'll ignore that. Besides "Zheng Jie nude", what are the other popular searches that have brought netizens to your site?

U: Well, there's "Zheng Jie upskirt" and "sleep with enema" (mainly Japanese that one), and --

HT: I thought that would be "used panty vending machines" – okay, let's forget about what attracts people to the site, what is the best comment you've ever received?

U: That's an easy one. The husband of Lily Chiang, the former head of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce who has been charged with fraud, wrote to say that the Securities & Futures Commission had investigated his wife's activities and decided she'd done nothing wrong, so she couldn't be guilty.

HT: Thanks for the tip. I'll get the SFC to vet my expense account next time. Tell me – how many of your visitors actually come back?

U: Oh, very few indeed. Most of those that find me via a Google search (or through Yahoo!, I should add – the exclamation mark is right up your street, isn't it?) turn away in disappointment pretty sharpish.

HT: Because they're looking for porn?

U: Yes. Mainly. Though some of them are looking for a serious explanation of what a rendition protocol is and end up being confronted with my review of The Bourne Ultimatum.

HT: That's another thing. I looked up some of your so-called film reviews and they are, to put it mildly --

U: No, please, you have a reputation to consider. Put it bluntly.

HT: Okay. To put it in a suitably HARTtalkish sort of way, I couldn't make head or tail of them.

U: That is the price paid by any artist who dares to flout clichéd conventions and cut through the artificial boundaries within which our social mores are confined. Think James Joyce, Proust, Anouilh, Becket, Mary Ma.

HT: I noticed that another of your categories was for C.S. Lewis. I know he's something of a hero to you. How many people come to your site to read about Lewis?

U: On a rough count, zero.

HT: So what was described by a fellow blogger as your mission, viz. to spread the gospel of C. S. Lewis, has been a total failure.

U: Well, I wouldn't say "total" failure because I manage to work him into quite a few of my posts, even the film reviews which you have been so unkind about.

HT: Have you had any sleeper hits among your seemingly thousands of posts?

U: I would have you know that this is actually post number 859 --

HT: It seems like thousands.

U: As I was saying, number 859, and yes, I've been pleasantly surprised to have emerged as the number two most popular site for Nadezhda Mandelstam ahead of Amazon.com, Google books, Slate and Facebook --

HT: Facebook? I thought she was dead?

U: You could say that of most of those with Facebook accounts.

HT: Time for one more.

U: Another success story? I'd have to go for my Egon Ronay piece on Hong Kong's uber-pretentious Jardin de Joel Robuchon. My review of the place outranks the restaurant's own website on Google.

HT: That must amuse the management.

U: I sincerely hope so. But, since they're French, not much chance of that, I fear.

HT: Well, Ulaca, that's all of my precious time I'm going to waste on you. I'm off to interview someone of real stature, like Ed Milliband.

U: Who?

HSBC's New Boss Defends Appointment

I'm awfully sorry. But we simply can't give the top job to a chap with that hair.

Hardtalk Interviews Ulaca

That big bald bloke from the Beeb rang me up and told me he wanted to ask me some hard-hitting and controversial questions. He said he would pull no punches and didn't expect me to either. I told him I hadn't got to where I was today by pulling punches and insisted that before the interview was syndicated worldwide I had first dibs on publishing it right here on my website. He said he liked my spunk and suggested we got down to business. This is a verbatim record of what followed:

HT: You've been called the poor man's Hemlock. How did that feel?

U: Who's Hemlock?

HT: Right then, you think you can wriggle out of the tough questions. Try this one. You've also been called the rich man's Fumier. That must have hurt.

U: Yes. But I believe he got over it.

HT: Think you're a humourist, ha? Bloggers have been described as self-absorbed narcissists without friends in the real world who are able to swindle themselves into thinking they're making some kind of difference just because they've found a wall on which to spray-paint their graffiti.

U: I don't think that’s a very nice way to talk about Arianna Stassinopoulos. I remember her when she was on Face the Music. Robin Ray really fancied her. Wasn't Joseph Copper’s dummy keyboard something else?

HT: What got you into blogging then? A desire to change the world?

U: No, I leave that to the guys on GeoExpat.

HT: You haven't answered the question again. What made you start blogging?

U: The fan mail. People were hacking into my email account begging me to do more than leave fatuous comments on Fumie's blog.

HT: So you decided to start your own organ dedicated to publishing all your fatuous reflections, or "insights" as you like to call them?

U: Well, not all of them. I think the public can only take so many at one time.

HT: Tell us a little about your audience. Not that I’ll believe a word of it, as a statistic to a blogger is like a hooker to David Beckham; once you get it down you can do whatever you want with it.

U: Oi! You nicked that quote from Mark Twain.

HT: So, where do all your readers come from?

U: Well, first of all, I'd hesitate to call all of them "readers". I don't think the guys that come from Karachi, Jakarta and Doha are coming for my prose?

HT: That sounds racist. What are they coming for then?

U: To be frank, I'm not sure if they ever actually come.

HT: Why's that? Something wrong with your stat counter?

U: No. It's just that after searching for "Zheng Jie nude", I’m not sure they're getting the kind of satisfaction they're looking for.

HT: That’s a relief.

U: Not for them.

HT: Well, you've evaded my questions so skillfully that we will have to conclude this interview tomorrow.

U: Tomorrow's Saturday. I need to take my daughter to Faust. Let's make it Monday.

HT: Till Monday, Ulaca. Or may I call you Ullie?

U: Tough cop, soft cop, eh? Till Monday, Hardtalk. Or may I call you Butch?

Dumbo Promises No White Elephants But Plenty of Intangible Benefits

I thought you said you’d let me have an advanced copy of the document giving full details of our bid.

Relax. We haven't published one yet.

After the staggering lack of success of last year's East Asian Games, which attracted fewer spectators to the Tseung Kwan O Stadium than a primary school sports day, Hong Kong is launching a so-called public consultation on its bid to host the 2023 Asian Games.

With an enormous budget surplus and an equally enormous pool of construction workers (the product of the huge sums poured down the drain of the Hong Kong education system – no wonder Government ministers educate their own kids abroad), the outcome of the "consultation" on its sketchy bid is subject to about as much doubt as a debate on the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands. And that's before even considering the fact that Hong Kong's de facto government, the behemoth property developers, are circling the proposed athletes' village in the Kai Tak redevelopment like vultures attracted by the stench of a rotting white elephant.

It was amusing to hear the Home Affairs Secretary, Tsang Tak Sing, twittering on the radio last night. Tsang's response to having to justify proposed expenditure of a further HK$14.5 billion on games that, on the Government's own admission, are going to recoup no more than HK$700 from ticket sales, merchandising and sponsorship combined, was to take the listener on a journey to the ethereal abode where he and his fellow lackeys live out their lives.

"If we successfully get the bid, it will be a very strong boost to the development of sport in Hong Kong at a time when our people are increasingly caring about their health and a happy and full life."

If you enjoyed that bit, then you'll just love the punchline:

"It will put Hong Kong on the map and reinforce Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s World City, which will bring in long-term, though perhaps intangible, benefits."

Intangible, indeed. Unless you happen to be a property baron.

Aquino Confession Stuns Region

During his press session yesterday, Philippines’ President Benigno Aquino, looking every inch the pimp in his open-necked cream shirt, made the extraordinary admission that "We know how to run our own country".

What next, I wondered? Hu Jintao saying "We know that the dispute over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands must be resolved diplomatically through negotiation".

Or Sir Donald Tsang saying "We know that the tail does not wag the dog in Hong Kong".

Woof!

Cricket World Stunned as Pakistan Win Match

Was I surprised that we have been winning a game? You bet!

Alms Race?

Hemlock was onto something when he misspelt alma mater as "almer" mater a few years back. For the days of chipping into the appeal fund when you got a letter from the bursar have been supplanted by micro-organised high-pressure almsgiving. Perhaps this was inevitable in a world where education is becoming increasingly commodified as Britain’s traditional boarding schools, the public schools, chase the Asian buck.

It's a sign of the times that I received begging letters from both my old school and my old college within a few days of one other as they squared up to each other not just for my hard-earned but, more amusingly, for my attention.

In the red corner, there was Haileybury banging on about how the recent leavers they had trained for the begging blitz would be interested to hear my views of the School and what I had done since I left. Over in the blue corner, we had Merton College, Oxford, veterans of the telephone campaign, just about keeping a straight face as they told me that their students were very much looking forward to speaking to me and keen to hear my views of the College and what I had done since I left …

There are obviously some seriously well-paid consultants out there giving seminars on how to transform the sow's ear of a begging bowl into the silk purse of a "telephone campaign". (The alchemists at Merton go one step further and dignify the mendicatory process with capital letters). Thus, besides displaying a consuming interest in my Weltanschauung, both institutions use the formula "For example, if x, then y".

To give credit where credit cards are due, it is Haileybury (which wouldn't be able to compete with Merton in the land-owning department, I'm sure) that wins this bout on points, as it comes out blazing without a hint of public school modesty: “For example, if just 14 OHs gave £3,333.33 a year for the next three years it would raise over £150,000”. By contrast, Merton can manage a mere: "For example, if as few as 100 Mertonians gave £666.67 a year for 3 years, we would raise over £200,000".

Who knows? Maybe Hemlock's solecism will catch on and one day old boys shall no longer be referred to as "alumni", but as "almers", organised and prioritised in the computer files of the Marketing Offices and Development Offices that are mushrooming to meet the insatiable appetite created by the marketisation of education no longer by year of entry to the school but by the colour of their money?

Shame on You, Simon Parry

I wrote this earlier today in a comment to another post:

"As a minor instance of this phenomenon [journalists who devote truckloads of space to issues that interest them and their narrow worldview], only on Sunday, the Sunday Post in HK had two long articles about an incredibly parochial non-issue at a local English Schools Foundation school (Clear Water Bay School, for those who are interested): parent 'outrage' at plans by the Head to take the kids to Shenzhen rather than Sai Kung for their school outing this year).

Every time one reads guff of this sort, one has to remind oneself that the journalist, in this case, Simon Parry, and/or his confreres, must send their kids to the ESF and are using their employer's organ as a conduit for their personal campaigning."

It turns out that Simon Parry does send his kids to Clear Water Bay School (whose Head unsurprisingly caved in to the personalised press campaign and cancelled the proposed trip to Shenzhen). Next time, how about a disclosure of your interest in the case?

Non-smoking Can Damage Your Health

Another gem from a foaming participant at the New World First Bus customer liaison meeting cum feeding frenzy:

"Are passengers breaking the law if they exhale cigarette fumes after boarding a bus?"

Note to Spike, Marc and all other smokers out there. Light up in the queue, stub it out, hold in as much smoke as you can and then blow it into the face of the spotty guy in the anorak taking pictures of the notices posted inside the bus with his iPhone.

Brain Damage Hong Kong Style

What sort of education system are we subjecting our children to here in Hong Kong when a question like this gets asked at the New World First Bus customer liaison group meeting? (Yes, I’m assured these things really happen, although many of the people who turn up are only there for the free hotel food, apparently.)

"Could you reschedule the frequency of Route 888 from 13 to 16 minutes to 15 to 20 minutes? This would make it easier for passengers to remember the departure schedule."

No kidding – thanks to my mole in the Transport Department for this gem.

I also learned from said spy that bus fans call themselves "gricers" (derivation hotly disputed) and "foamers", as in getting so excited when they talk about bus timetables and the difference between a Dennis and a Volvo that they dribble down their anoraks.

The really sad thing about this is that these guys feel compelled to give themselves a nickname in the first place, just so they don’t end up without one, like the teacher who has to give himself one because it’s beneath the pupils' dignity to do so.

And sometimes, even more sadly, they just drop a letter and rave on a blog …

Brain Damage

A chap called Nicolas Carr has come up with the revolutionary theory that Google causes brain damage because it means we don’t have to track down information, use libraries, consult our elders and betters and generally do all the things that kids in the old days were meant to do but got the school swat to do in exchange for a sherbet fountain and the black wine gums.

Carr also claims that too much internet means people now find it harder to concentrate and can’t sit down to read a book without breaking off every three minutes to check their Blackberry, iPhone, etc. Then, he blathers on about GPS making map-reading a redundant skill and making people forget how they got to a place when they want to go there again because they didn't have to spend half an hour planning the route and an hour and a half getting misdirected by one idiot who didn't really know the way but loved the sound of his own voice and another wanker who fancied a bit of fun with some dumb tourist.

All I can say is what a load of old tosh! Everyone knows that the real reason people can't concentrate, can't read books and can't map-read is that they all have ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, Autism (+ related "spectra") which, like the internet, hadn't been invented when I was a kid. (We only had dyslexia and educationally sub-normal children back then.)

And, what's more, Mr Smartypants Carr, you're conveniently ignoring all the benefits of the internet. How many bleeding kids will you catch these days wasting their time and their parents' money reading Mayfair and Penthouse ?



You lock the door and throw away the key; there's someone in my head but it's not me.

Now that's what I call real brain damage ...

Low Carbon Jargons

I don’t normally take too much notice of Contact, the monthly PR spin from Li Ka Shing's The Hongkong Electric Company, Limited, a company which can't quite decide whether it wants to be shortened to Hongkong Electric or HK Electric. This is largely owing to the fact that I live in spacious accommodation with vistas of the foothills of Tai Mo Shan just 25 minutes' drive from my workplace rather than in a box with no view in the Mid Levels from which one must scrum down each morning to jump the queue for the dubitable pleasure of a white-knuckle ride on a 16-seater driven by an escapee from Castle Peak Hospital, and thus do not fall prey to his shameless overcharging.

For a reason that still remains, like provisional tax, a mystery to me, something moved me to pick up the August edition, which duly fell open on a story called "Learning Low Carbon is Fun". Apparently, a thousand unfortunate schoolchildren had drawn the short straw and were being compelled to run the gauntlet of reefer-toting English-teaching émigrés from Harlow, Swansea and Dublin before receiving a brainwashing tour of the Lamma Power Station and – place from which no person of any age or possessed of whatsoever resolution has the power to return sane – the dread "Lamma Winds".

Contrary to what you may be thinking, this refers not to the dreadful bores that assail your ears with incessant tales claiming bizarrely-detailed insider knowledge of all the world’s conspiracies if you enter one of the bars in Yung Shue Wan, nor to the effects of the ingestion of all those organic beans on the same deluded population, rather, it refers to a solitary wind-machine that has been erected on the island in answer to a question – originally put in jest at a board meeting, but taken in deadly earnest by Victor Li Tzar Kuoi – as to which would prove to be more useless and gimmicky, an ugly curvy shiny structure that no one would want to live next to, or "Dr" Allan Zeman.



Back to the article in Contact, on that fateful day the poor kids were forced to "learn through low carbon jargons how to care for the environment". There's even a picture of three of them, looking as befuddled as an American tourist after being cornered by a posse of Lammaites in the Island Society Bar, thumbing through the hefty "Low Carbon Jargon Booklet" and remarking dismissively, "Won’t get any swaps for this rubbish at the Hong Kong Book Fair".

Ulaca Joins the Bleedin' Choir Invisibile

For the ridiculously cheap sum of 10 bucks, those good folks at Google/Blogger have moved my entire blog (minus blogroll - thanks for the tip-off, GP, I cunningly backed it up) to a new platform that 1.4 billion Chinese will be eager to read, starting no doubt with my objective and deeply factual appraisals of the behaviour of their central and local Government apparatniks or perhaps my photo essays probing some of their country's leading sports stars.

The sharper-eyed among you may have noticed that I've deleted a few blogs and added a few. You may think that those I've deleted have been banished because I never read them or because they really irritated me. That would be completely untrue, because I've actually kept all those ones. The ones I have culled have been removed because they have all, like the over-rated Norwegian Blue, passed on, expired, gone to meet their maker, etc., ad nauseam.

If there's anyone out there who would like to be added to my blogroll, then, please, beg away. But, note well, you'll have to come up with a very good reason for not linking to me if you are not already doing so.

Reciprocity and mutual respect - two of the great planks of the Confucian tradition. Together with arse-licking, of course.

A Touch of Class

Hats off to the parents of prostitute Thompson, who have apologised to Rooney's wife and told journalists they have no intention of giving interviews, however much money might be being stuffed into suitcases to get exclusive interviews on what made their Jenny become a hooker. Classy stuff, indeed. If only others would follow their example and tell hacks everywhere to fuck off.

Pavement Artist Walks Away with Wu Fung Award

At least, he did when he finally got up.

Inspired by the Oscar winning performances of the woman who reacted to being turned away at the boarding gate by buffing the floor of Terminal One and the policeman who crumpled to the tarmac as if felled by a right hook from Mike Tyson after being slapped by Amina Bokhary, this chap assisting District Council wannabe Ellis Lau on the hustings in Pokfulam had either seen something very nasty crawling out of Paul Zimmerman's sustainable facial forest or, as I strongly suspect, he had just read Regina Ip's page on the Savantas Institute website, where old Broomhead writes:

"In the current post-materialist phase of my life I treasure serving my community much more than things material."

"Dutch" Zimmerman about to be arrested after decking election worker with his beard:



Allan Zeman (looking more and more like a condom – is that why Ellis calls him "Dr Semen"?) endorses Ellis, thus sealing his fate:

Zimmerman Promises Greener Kindergarten

If the tiers of Hong Kong's representative government can be seen as the bastard offspring of a marriage of convenience between Beijing and London, then the District Council is very much the runt of that benighted union, dysgenic progeny doomed for a lifetime of squabbling and scrabbling in the kindergarten.

Or, it was until the powers that be decided to create five new District Council Functional Constituencies in the Legislative Council (bringing the total of such seats to six – out of 70, a very hefty proportion), making becoming a District Councillor suddenly a very attractive proposition.

By striking the "non" out of non-entity, overnight the governments of the HKSAR and its master in Beijing have made the position of District Councillor (so long the preserve of the old fellow in the singlet delighted to have got his own office and the chance to pester the bus companies about getting a new bus stop shelter installed at the local public housing estate) a plum prize for anyone with nous and ambition.

Step up Paulus Johannes Zimmerman, a Dutchman hitherto best known for penning letters to the South China Morning Post on a variety of green issues. Having failed in 2008 to land a spot in Legco via the side door – the loathed functional constituencies (trailing in fourth and last behind Paul "Superman" Tse in the Tourism seat) – Zimmerman appears to be trying again via the back door.

That, at least, is the inference behind the strange message posted on his website by his Civic Party boss, Audrey Eu, in a moment worthy of Queen Gertrude herself:

"The District Council is not a stepping stone for a better job. Paul is committed to a better Pokfulam."

Zimmerman is campaigning hard to get the MTRC to remove the waste generated by the construction of the South Island Railway Line anywhere else rather than from a jetty near Cyberport. After a lifetime in the transport industry, with Jebsen Travel, BCD Travel (Greater China) and Pacific Aviation Marketing, perhaps the 52-year-old feels it's time to do something about reducing his carbon footprint. Or, at least, relocating it.

And They Call it the World's Oldest Profession

Not content with taking £1,200 a time for a series of quickies with Wayne Rooney (that was all he was good for, apparently), Jenny Thompson has been behaving more like a Goldman Sachs partner than a good old-fashioned tart with a heart by selling her story to the slimeball News of the World.

While Ms Thompson plainly doesn't think Rooney is up to much as a lover and as a husband – rather than as a cash-point – you have to say that she and the NOTW make the perfect match as Sleezebag and Sleezerag.

Sleezebag: "But to make that decision to do it in your house, I thought that was a bit much. You're really bringing your dirty washing home, aren't you?"

Sleezerag: "But when it comes to morals, he's a pauper."

Or perhaps that should be Cunt and Cant?

11am Sunday morning - a cul-de-sac in Hong Kong

Fancy cars, big egos, small brains ... huge embarrassment.

Billie Jean's Massive Con

If female models get paid more than male models, then why are female tennis players paid the same as male tennis players? After all, no one wants to watch either.

Newport State of Mind

No longer content with being the place at the other end of the Severn Bridge, Newport, Gwent, strikes a blow for followers of bling culture everywhere. Eat your heart out, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys.

"Twinned with Guanxi Province in China

There's no province finer"

It doesn't come much bigger than that.

Business as Usual at US Open as Roddick Rants and Brits Are Pants

Le Bifcake

You've got to love those Frenchies when they get on a tennis court, even the ones with the distinctly un-French names like Mauresmo, Bartoli, Rezai and Tsonga. You can add to that list the 24-year-old with the backhand to die for, Vaibhav Richard Gasquet Kaushik, the man who knows how to give such a powerful French kiss that he can suck the cocaine right out of a woman, who dumped Nilolay Davydenko out of the US Open yesterday, thus giving the Russian more time to prepare for the benighted non-event that calls itself the Macau Tennis Showdown.

At the start of the week, France had 14 of the 128 men that lined up for the first round, compared to a miserable one for Great Britain (giving the Brits the same representation as such tennis powerhouses as India, Israel, Cyprus, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal and Jamaica, one fewer than mighty Slovakia and two fewer than Boratland). And Les Bleus have not been content to rest on their laurels, as only two of the 14 lost in the first round, and four of the five already to have played their second round matches have won their passage safely through to round 3 (the only loser being drawn against another Froggie, so many are there of them in the men's draw.)

If Britain are bad, then the US and A don't have much to shout about either, with Serena Wiliams dropping out with a mystery ailment (Tourette's?), sister Venus seeking her first Grand Slam away from the grass of Wimbledon in seven years and their number one men's player, the fading Andy Roddick, imploding like a bagel in a microwave.

Roddick, who's one of the more intelligent and witty players on the tour, is clearly trying to come to terms with the fact that he can no longer compete at the highest level without a return of serve. His cause may not have been helped by a mild dose of glandular fever ("mononucleosis", if you're from across the pond) earlier in the year but he was never at the races against the bespectacled, Dostoevsky-reading Serb, Janko Tipsarevic,

possessor of one of the hottest wives on the circuit, Biljana Sesevic.

Roddick railed against a lines judge who didn't know left from right in a petulant, if articulate, 15-minute hissy-fit – interrupted only by a bizarre interlude in which he stormed off to change his shorts – which couldn't conceal the poverty of his play. The power of the performance was enough to mesmerise even the umpire, Enric Molina, who seems to have forgotten that the men and women who make the line calls are part of his team and deserve to be treated with the same respect that he would expect to be shown to himself.

Later, at his press conference, Roddick said he was "stupefied" that the lineswoman had mixed up his two feet (by this time, he would have been able to watch the replay and see that her call had been absolutely correct).

Not, I can assure you, Andy, half as stupefied as those of us who witnessed your lamentable meltdown.

Do You Want to Know How Chinese Think?

These were the words that caught the eye of my mole at the University of Hong Kong, as he waited in line at the campus Starbuck's and flipped through a copy of the glossy brochure promoting the non-credit bearing general education programmes for the first semester of the new academic year.

Having taught at HKU for more than 25 years, "Colin", as I will call him, after the dachshund in Blackadder, is not easily surprised, whether it be by studies showing the supposed superiority of the Chinese student or by promotions to top posts at rival tertiary institutions on the back of a slew of publications singing the praises of civic education with Chinese characteristics.

But even Colin was moved to something approaching a wry smile by the newly-published prospectus. Not so much by the cover, which features a map of Ireland (to which none of the courses advertised within relate), nor by the compulsory tagline adorning the front cover, which shouts vacuously at the reader:

In The Groove
Make Your Move

No, Colin's gaze was directed to pages 36-37, which were plugging a 5-session course called "101 Windows to the Chinese Mind". The strangest thing about this course is that it is going to be taught in English, in contradistinction to almost all of the other courses that are being taught by local Chinese folk, which are being presented in the local tongue and, indeed, the language of around 95% of the undergraduates at HKU, Cantonese.

And you can't get much more local than the lecturer for this course, who is none other than Dr. Eddy Lee, formerly of the local meteorological office, the Hong Kong Observatory (or "Royal Observatory", as the university prefers to style it, presumably for its snob value, since in fact it lost its regal prefix 13 years ago).

Those of you familiar with local telly might recognise Eddy, as he was one of those gawky looking types who were wheeled out when a typhoon was on its way to stand next to a tiny weather chart (or "chaak", as they invariably called it) and brandish a conductor's baton, which they would swish vaguely around the South China Sea, while uttering something indecipherable about storm "searches" and "frooding" in the New Territories.

In his blurb, Eddy, who has a bit of a penchant for understatement (yin?) which he nicely offsets with a propensity for wild generalizations (yang?), teases prospective punters with lines such as "it is said that China has a different definition and approach of good governance that that of the Western world, emphasizing obedience and harmony" and "do you want to know how Chinese think?"

Reading all this, I think we can be sure of two things: first, Eddy hasn't lost that special mode of delivery which we have come to associate with local science graduates; and, secondly, his audience would do well to harmonise with their tutor's advice: “When in Hong Kong, think as the Chinese think” - all 1.3 billion of them, presumably - if they want to walk away with the "personalized certificate" that is being dangled before them by the director of General Education should they "complete the programme satisfactorily".

Vive la Difference! Vive Arnaud!

He may look like an extra on the set of a gay remake of Pirates of the Caribbean (or is that a tautology?), but Frenchman Arnaud Clement, at 32, one of the grand old men of the ATP tour, wowed the crowds at Flushing Meadows (all 17 of those who bother to turn up for the morning sessions) with his swashbuckling defeat of Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.

Standing just 5' 8" tall in a world inhabited by freaks touching seven feet serving at 150 mph, Clement is a throwback to the old days of volleys, touch and finesse – all salted with that je ne sais quoi which only a Frenchman can provide. In the second round, he will face the Argentine with the most titter-worthy of names, Eduardo Schwank.

What the latest in the series of tennis exhibitions at the Venetian Hotel in Macau would give for a player like Clement to brighten up what must be the drabbest collection of tennis players ever to be assembled under one roof. Imagine being given the task of having to promote not Nadal, Federer, Djokovic and Roddick, but Soderling Davydenko, Berdych and Ferrer.

It was a task that proved too much for one Gunther Hatt, who decided that attack was the best form of defence at his press conference, as he unleashed a volley of mixed metaphors at the assembled scribblers.

"We are upping the pace and are delighted to be bringing cutting edge men’s tennis to The Venetian Macau."

This colossal waste of time is being held on 26 September, in case the mother-in-law is visiting and you fancy a peaceful Sunday. But before then – this very evening, in fact – we are treated to the first appearance of Britain's great hope, Andy Murray, the only living sportsman able to make Clement Freud and his sidekick Henry look animated.