Oh, I Say!

On the whole, I like Australian sports commentators, with the immediate exception of female tennis "summarisers" like Liz Smylie, who drone on with about as much wit and illumination as Virginia Wade, the 1977 British Wimbledon Ladies Singles champion, who sets the template for irritating babbler delivering clichés like "mental toughness" and "need to dig deep" in a whiny tone.

It's a bit of a double-fisted backhander, I know, but the main thing Aussie sports coverage has in its favour is that it isn't New Zealand sports coverage. Not having Grant Nisbett and Ian Smith immediately gives Australian TV an edge in terms of at least an attempt at impartiality, and not having the execrable Murray Mexted automatically lifts it above zero on the parochialism meter.

A heavy-jowelled silver fox, who looked and sounded as if he'd just come off a used-car forecourt in Paramatta, was the star turn of the final day of this year's Australian Open Tennis Championships, after the Men's Singles final proved to be about as exciting as watching, well, a ladies match.

In that final, Scotland's great white mope, Andy Murray, won the cursing and the arguing-with-the-umpire championships in straight sets, but was played off the court by the 23-year-old Serb, Novak Djokovic, in the tennis.

With no contest on the court, it was left to the television men to supply the fireworks, and they made a pretty good fist of it too. In the Star Sports box, every time Vijay Amritraj, still perfecting his Dan Maskell impression nearly 20 years after the great man's passing, served a "Jokervitch", Alan Wilkins passed him down the line with a "Jockervitch".

While that one is set to run and run like a Wimbledon fifth set between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, the used car salesman was serving aces of his own on the victory podium at the post-match awards ceremony.

Clearly invited for his knowledge of the products of sponsors Kia Motors rather than for any familiarity with racket sports, the silver fox with the grating Sydneysider twang was upstaged not only by both finalists and the head of Tennis Australia, but also by a tiny Korean with an orangey red tie called Oh. Mr. Oh made a very fruent speech rauding the efforts of both finarists and even pronouncing their names right, unlike the silver fox.

He persisted in calling Djokovic Jockervick, presumably because Australians have a Balkan of their own called Tomic, and he's pronounced Tomick. He also managed to call the chair umpire Luke Garner instead of Jake Garner, either because he thought the force was with him in his match-up against Murray or – and I think this is more likely – just because he's an Australian with a day job selling Holden Utes.

Just Another Day in the Office

I blame the police. Ever since that bobby in the Amina Bokhary case fell to the floor like a Premier League footballer who's lost control of the ball in the penalty area, everyone's at it. Falling down, that is – and getting themselves filmed while doing it.

First, there was that guy who claimed he'd been assaulted by Paul Zimmerman, 'though this fellow was definitely not Premier League standard, as he only got his friend to film him writhing around on the ground, missing out the key bit where he was actually felled by walking too close to the Dutchman's slipstream.

Now, we have the magnificently named Chu Hoi Dick (translation for those of you not fluent in Chinese "Pillock from Zhuhai"). Dick, like that irritating little twat Albert Ho and the weaselly Lee Cheuk Yan, is a member of the ever growing breed of Wu Fung wannabes, the professional protester. Indeed, Dick managed to get so far up the Hong Kong Standard's pro-Beijing android "Mary Ma's" nose that it had to lay off the white stuff that enables it to come up with arse-licking gibberish day in and day out. For a day.

So I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that the diving epidemic finally reached my office last week. I was first alerted to the fact that something was amiss by looking out of my internal window and seeing two of the marketing girls bounding off towards the office entrance. Alerted to some mishap or other, I put down my copy of Scenario, the riveting monthly publication of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, and tuned my ears to sounds which seemed to be emanating from the lift lobby.

Unable to curb my curiosity any longer, I left the interview with Lam Woon Kwong in mid spate, at the point where he said that leaders of genius (I think he was including himself) must not be "bound by deadlines" but should "create flexibilities", and made my way through what I now saw was an empty office to the said lift lobby.

There I saw two male colLEAGUES, as they are called in Hong Kong, lying on the carpet. Well, to be absolutely accurate, one was lying (and moaning) while the other had managed to get up on his haunches, only to fall back into a supine position when he saw me. (He was also moaning.)

"What's happened?" I enquired of Candice, the prettier of the two marketing types.

"They touched each other," she replied, in all seriousness.

"How did it happen?" I asked, warming to the task.

"Ringo was coming from the lift lobby when he was in collision with Dragon," she explained.

At this point, Ringo propped himself on one elbow while vigorously rubbing the other one.

"He touched me," he moaned.

I wasn't sure what to do. They were clearly waiting for the police to come along and draw white lines in chalk around them. But it was also clear that they were looking to me for some sort of arbitration.

"Look. Why don't you go to the clinic for a check-up and maybe next time take a bit more care when you're walking round corners?"

It was at this point that Dragon piped up for the first time. Not only did he pipe up, he also perked up, as, leaping to his feet, he said, 'He was running."

Thus it was that one short phone call to Carmen, Head of Human Resources, later, and everyone in the company received the following email:

Running in the Office

It has come to my attention that an incident of running has caused inconvenience and potential injuries to two colleagues. Staffs are reminded that the Company has in place a Safety Policy with an aim to safeguard the well-being of every colleague. Please be reminded that under no situation is running nor jogging permitted in the office during working hours.

I sometimes think I'm underpaid.

Prince Charles Lauds Aussies

Actually, Pommy bastard was one of the nicer things they called me.

New Template for Murder Investigations

Being a bit of a murder mystery fan, the case of Joanna Yeates, whose body was found on Christmas Day, has had me transfixed. Here is a murder straight out of P.D. James – with a dash of Agatha Christie thrown in.

We have an uneaten pizza (at least, uneaten by the victim, but who knows about the killer?), a missing snowboard case (the first thing Mr. Yeates noticed when he entered her Bristol flat), an obvious suspect (the eccentric ex public school landlord), a Dutch PhD student whose girlfriend is rumoured to have gone to the police with her suspicions, and even a connecting door (that's where Agatha Christie comes in).

More damning for the killer, we also have DNA, and the powerful and courageous contribution of the murdered girl's parents, who, rather than mourn and leave the investigation to the police, have taken the initiative, calling on the nation to get in touch with their inner sleuth and help bring their daughter's murderer to justice.

"If you know something and you do not come forward, you are consciously hampering the apprehension of Jo's killer … Do you know anyone who hasn't been shocked or disturbed by the events surrounding Jo's murder? … We are sure that the killer will be brought to justice. When this happens, please think how you will feel if you knew the killer and you had questions in your mind, which you consciously refused to act on."

Nothing can bring your beloved child back, Mr. and Mrs. Yates, but you have conducted yourselves in a fashion which is itself a fitting tribute to her memory, and may set a template for future murder investigations.

Just You Wait, Henry Winter, Just You Wait!

Our Henry's been at it again. Here's his latest misuse of "enervated" from his report in the Daily Telegraph on a Premier League match between Bolton and Chelsea:

"The Bolton public soon began to become enervated at the antics of Mikel, who twice went down far too easily."

Henry, enervated means weakened or spiritless. May I suggest you try "agitated" or "enraged"?

I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies. At least, public-school educated Winters didn't embarrass himself as much as those two twats at Sky Sports, Andy Gray and the truly awful Richard Keys.

Not content with making moronic comments about a female assistant referee (that's a linesman in old money), the dire duo proceeded to plumb their vast reservoirs of ignorance by calling Law XI of the game the offiside "rule" and castigating fit Welsh lass Sian Massey for making a poor offside call, when replays showed that it was in fact spot on.

Fry, Gervais and Americans

In Richard Attenborough's otherwise disappointing biopic of Charlie Chaplin, there's a line where Kevin Kline, playing Douglas Fairbanks, responds to Chaplin's comment that America is a great place to live by saying, "Not deep down, Charlie – just on the surface".

Watching Ricky Gervais's performance at last week's Golden Globes – and more particularly reactions to it – brought not just this to my mind, but also Stephen Fry's comment on the awkwardness he felt when in a mixed group of British and American people, in contrast to the ease he felt when in the company of Australians. Fry put this down to a shared sense of humour, although I'm not so sure, as many Aussies I know will still laugh even when they don't get the joke.

A number of people who make their living in the entertainment industry were indignant at Gervais's readiness and ability to laugh at their expense, appearing to believe they had somehow earned the right to live in a bubble of ether far above any criticism.

In an essay called "What is a television critic?", Clive James, who knew a thing or two about the job, having been the Observer’' TV critic for nearly ten years, wrote about the ease with which people of ordinary talent who become celebrities lose touch with reality.

"As I once explained to Alan Whicker, who wonderingly inquired why I always called him deplorable, one of the effects of television is to make front-men over-mighty. It follows that one of the tasks of television criticism should be to remind them they are mortal."

The 2011 Golden Globe for Intimations of Immortality must go to Tom Hanks and Tom (Tim?) Allen (Allan?) – no one can remember – who ascended so far on their high horse that when they came down they needed to spend a fortnight in a hyperbaric chamber.

Reprising his role as a 12-year-old in Big, Hanks's attempt to get his own back on Gervais might have been spat through braces.

"Like many of you, we recall back when Ricky Gervais was a slightly chubby but very kind comedian."

At which point Tom (Ron?) piped up to quip, "Neither of which is he now".

In view of all the deflation of egos that was going on (as one Facebook comment pithily noted, "not a huge gervais fan but ridiculing a room full of self righteous egomaniacs is fine by me"), it was fitting that Gervais reserved his best gag not for an American but for a fellow Brit. Musing on the fact that the founder of Facebook, 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, is estimated to be worth US$7 billion, the tubby one quipped, "Heather Mills calls him the one that got away".

As another Facebook comment put it, “you order the seafood - don't moan if it’s too fishy”. Next year, if the Hollywood Foreign Press Association decide to change the menu and fancy a bit of sushi, they could do worse than invite Frankie Boyle to host the show. Can't get much rawer than that.

Name the Two Countries that Don’t Have Divorce Legislation

One is the Philippines and the other is little Malta. What they do do pretty well is political murders, although as for solving them, they appear to have legislation preventing that as well.

Hooray for Henry Winter!

Alumnus of swanky Westminster School and Edinburgh University he may be, but Henry Winter, the Daily Telegraph’s football correspondent, made a schoolboy howler in his report of last night's FA Cup replay between Leeds United and Arsenal.

"The atmosphere was electric," wrote Winter. "Leeds fans became particularly enervated (sic) when Arshavin went to ground far too easily, prompting chants of 'are you Walcott in disguise?'. Then they began twirling white scarves above their heads, generating a marvellous sight to accompany the unebbing noise."

Very lyrical, Henry, but I think "animated" is the word you were looking for. "Enervated" means lacking in energy or vitality.

JAL Goes Bust - Anniversary Special

Solly but we won't be able to give you so many frights

ICAC Deepthroat Ops

The kerfuffle over the dozen or so cops who've been lapping it up in the past few years while infiltrating green groups and, in particular, their horny female adherents reminded me of a story told me by an ICAC operative (yes, they call themselves that) a few years ago.

Besides bugging offices, it appears that the ever so kinky ICAC like to go in for a spot of u/c work themselves. My informant, whom we shall call Delhithroat, for reasons which will become obvious, told me of a dodgy subcontintental ring which his bosses were keen to infiltrate and then presumably, as is the ways of things, smash.

Delhithroat being of an Asian persuasion himself, he was chosen as the ideal person to bring this group to justice, to bhangra them to rights, as it were.

Now, call me an old cynic, but my first reaction when he told me this was,

"But, Delhithroat, old chap, there are only about a thousand middle-class Indians in Hong Kong. The chances of someone recognising you, who have lived here for ten years or so, must be pretty high."

Anyway, Delhithroat told me that the first meeting went well – nothing untoward, just the normal chomping on fennel seeds and imbibing of Masala chai with condensed milk. However, on the morning of his scheduled second meeting with the dodgy ring, Delhithroat was called by his boss and told the mission was to be aborted because of the danger of his identity being rumbled and his being kidnapped and taken to Fei Ngo Shan Road to be chained up in the garage of an Indian mansion forever fated to clean a fleet of S series Mercedes Benz.

As far as my friend was concerned, that was the end of his career as a budding Johnny Indian. But, being of a somewhat theatrical bent, Delhithroat couldn't resist sending one of his namecards to his boss to inform him of his decision to quit. It read simply,

"Dahl be ahll."

Copping Greens on the Side

They don't call themselves activists for nothing

Benny Hill Salute with Tongue

This must be the most memorable keyword search I've had in a long time. So, specially for the person from Colorado who likes it with a bit of tongue, "The Garden of Love":

Answer: Because You're Rubbish and They're Free

In case you were wondering, the question posed to me by the South China Morning Post’s Director of Circulation, Alex Ho, was "Why not?", as in "Why don't you want to subscribe to our rubbish for $US50-odd when you can read a proper newspaper like the Daily Telegraph or the New York Times for free?"

Alex, a bit of friendly advice "for free". Next time you send out one of these mailshots, try writing it in the same language that your rag purports to be published in. Unless your market research has shown you that there really are that many idiots out there willing to shell out "US$1 a week to stay tune with the latest news, business and finance stories throughout Asia".

He's Getting Very Close to My Shaft

Zach Galifianakis. Funny name, funny fellow.

Guarded Response to Kissel Plea

Would you please give me back my cap and face-mask?

Not until you put that milkshake away

Kissel Loses First Appeal as Retrial Opens

Would you please give me back my cap and face-mask?

Ulaca on Sexual Assault Charge

Well, I would be, if one sick woman had her way.

I was in two minds whether to tell this story for several reasons. First, I was severely traumatised by the events which I am about to relate, which happened a month or so ago now. Second, I am a little concerned that the individual involved will attempt to trace me and bring an action before the High Court. Third, I believe that accusing someone of sexual assault is a very serious matter indeed, and I wasn't sure if this blog - satirical and whimsical as it is - was the correct forum in which to air my angst. Fourth, I didn't think anyone would believe me.

However, if there's just one person out there this story might help, then that would be reason enough to put myself through the emotional wringer once more as I relive one of the darkest hours of my life.

It all started so mundanely, as tragedies often do. I was walking past the HSBC branch in Mei Foo San Chuen towards my normal lunchtime place – it has no English name, otherwise I would give it – when a woman hove into view. It was at this point that I made my fatal error: instead of continuing on my merry way, I silently considered which way the woman was likely to be going (the way I was coming from or off to the right). In other words, I thought. A big mistake when walking in Hong Kong.

Thinking she'd be heading in my direction, I tacked slightly to the right and headed on. The next thing I knew we had brushed each other as she tacked to her left at the last minute. An ordinary enough occurrence in Hong Kong, you might think. As did I. But no. Suddenly all hell broke loose.

"You touched my breast!" I heard the woman scream behind me.

Turning round, there was the woman – about 35 and flat as a pancake, incidentally – still screaming that I had touched her breast.

Frankly, I was unsure what to do. The impish side of me wanted to congratulate her on the unique anatomical feat of having breasts (or at least one) on her elbow. The ratonal side of me that has lived in Hong Kong for 23 years and has learned how weird some people are told me to tell her she was mad and hurry on to lunch.

My rational side prevailed. Still, the woman wasn't finished. Once a local gets a bee in their bonnet about something, it can be a long time before they move on, both literally and metaphorically.

"You touched my breast," she said for the third time, rather hoping, I think, that a crowd would materialise. But still, it was just me and her outside the Mei Foo branch of HSBC.

"Look, love," I said, demonstrating my compassionate side, "you obviously have mental problems. See a therapist."

"But people in the bank saw you touch my breast," she said, as if she was daring me to come out and say it – "Look, sweetheart, you have no breasts."

"Well, go and talk to them," I told her instead, still playing the nice guy. "I'm off to lunch."

I don't know if she took my advice or not. But, I can promise you one thing. The next time a woman bumps into me, I'll brook no nonsense. My response will be instantaneous and incontrovertible.

"You touched my shaft!"

And I shall find witnesses aplenty. In the local HSBC.

Another Foot in Mouth Moment from Agnes Wu

As if bursting into tears on the telly when asked for her opinion as a financial analyst on a drop in HSBC's share price wasn't bad enough, Agnes Wu Man Ching is back in the news after losing her rag (video clip from Apple Daily ) with hecklers at a posh financial seminar.

Never one to trouble herself with an attempt to understand how ordinary mortals think – she once confessed in an interview with the South China Morning Post to having visions of Rita Fan and supporting the functional constituencies – Agnes blithely turned up at a Bank of East Asia (BEA) gig unaware of the possibility that punters who tune into her Now TV show might wish to use the forum to enquire why all her investment tips are so shite.

And then there was the little problem created by her widely reported comments accusing those protesting against the Securities & Futures Commission over the Lehman Brothers mini-bond scandal of accepting HK$200 per day in return for wearing black and white headbands and chanting slogans outside the Legislative Council.

David Li Kwok-po, the urbane boss of BEA renowned for his taste in monogrammed shoes and thoroughbred fillies, and 13-year beneficiary of the functional constituency system, was left squirming in his seat as a disaffected BEA Platinum cardholder entertained the audience with a selection of his favourite iTunes played Cultural Revolution style through hidden B&O speakers as Agnes began her talk.

It has to be said that Agnes's advice for people like him who'd lost fat wads of cash following her financial tips was straight out of the Rita Fan book of dealing with criticism, lending credence to the possibility that she really had been channelling the former LegCo speaker.

"When you lose money, you should take it on the chin", was Wu's considered response, apparently forgetting her HSBC-induced meltdown less than two years ago.

Forced off the stage by the frenzied female mini-bond heckler, Agnes must have thought her day couldn't get any worse. She hadn't bargained, though, for a particularly bitchy type sitting near the front, who decided that, whatever people may say, the best time to kick someone is always when they are down.

"Look at you. You don't even know how to manage your body. How then can you expect people to believe you could manage their money?"

By the time Agnes resumed her seat with co-speaker Shih Wing Ching, the Centaline boss, David Li had done the sensible thing and slipped out before he could become, after Ms Piggy, the next victim in this remake of The Lord of the Flies with most definite Hong Kong characteristics.

Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff

A new blog – at least to me – to join the blogroll, Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff, AKA Oriental Sweetlips (the name of a fish, apparently, so no stories about Indonesian maids on their day off in Laguna).

Phil, the author, aims to take his readers to out of the way places in Hong Kong – most recently, the Shatin Inn in Tai Wai – which I used to drive past every morning on the way to work, until Route 9 (subsequently renamed Route 8 – did they lose one?) rearranged the landscape.

The Science of Goodness

I've just read the first volume of the Essays of Michel de Montaigne (in translation, I should add). This chap had the right idea. Retired at 40, wrote about anything that took his fancy (friendship, cannibals, moderation – whatever took his fancy), then went on his grand tour and wrote some more.

Here he is in his essay "Of pedantry", which is something he's not in favour of, as should become clear from the following three snippets:

"Do but observe him [the pedant] when he comes back from school, after fifteen or sixteen years that he has been there; there is nothing so unfit for employment; all you shall find he has got, is, that his Latin and Greek have only made him a greater coxcomb than when he went from home. He should bring back his soul replete with good literature, and he brings it only swelled and puffed up with vain and empty shreds and patches of learning; and has really nothing more in him than he had before."

"Some of our Parliaments, when they are to admit officers, examine only their learning; to which some of the others also add the trial of understanding, by asking their judgment of some case in law; of these the latter, methinks, proceed with the better method; for although both are necessary, and that it is very requisite they should be defective in neither, yet, in truth, knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgment; the last may make shift without the other, but the other never without this."

"All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of goodness."

Well worth a browse.

The Notebook

It may have been released some years ago, but last night I snuggled under the bedclothes with the wife and watched The Notebook for the first time. Based on a book by Nicholas Sparks, whose works I often spot around the house as they are a favourite of my teenage daughter, I had no idea what to expect. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised.

Since I watched the movie cold, I thought it would be fun to review it cold – no Googling, no Ebert, no Rotten Tomatoes, no IMDB. I did much the same with Inception, which, for the record, I saw on a plane, making notes on the back of an HSBC transfer slip, as I recall.

The Notebook is told in flashback, which means we get to see more of the beautiful young stars, Rachel McAdams and Tim Roth lookalike Ryan Gosling, than we do of the screen veterans that play them in later life, Gena Rowlands and an unrecognisable - to me, anyway, who remembers him from The Great Escape and The Rockford Files - James Garner. And do the oldies not act the youngsters off the screen!

The best compliment I can give the film is that it does for senile dementia what And The Band Played On did for HIV/AIDS. It makes you think about an important issue seriously while you are being entertained. No tub-thumping here.

It may be sentimentalised (the people I know who suffer from dementia and related conditions don't have the grace or beauty of Ms Rowlands), it may have one-dimensional characters (there are no baddies in the flick – the closest you come is Joan Allen looking very hot and her husband, a southern grandee with a Groucho Marx moustache and a line in blue jokes that might have been borrowed from the master), it may be utterly predictable (will McAdams choose the rich guy she says she loves or the working-class hunk she truly loves?) but it works because it achieves what is sets out to do and then ends.

In many ways – not just because of the trick of having the flashbacks introduced by having a stronger character read aloud to a weaker one – the film reminds me of The Princess Bride, another feel-good fantasy. And any film that can make you consider the plight of those who suffer the loss of their faculties and of those who must look after them and continue to try to love them, even when they are rejected, cannot be dismissed lightly.

As Ingmar Bergman said, growing old is very hard work and something we should talk about more.

Costa Rican Fishermen Defend Ramsay Attack

We just can't fucking stand him

Inception

"They who are defective in matter, endeavour to make amends with words.”

Montaigne’s insight could be the tagline for Christopher Nolan’s latest effort, Inception, which follows the downward trend established by The Prestige after the masterly Memento.

You can stuff the script with all the "totems", "paradoxical architecture" and "militarised subconsciouses" you want, but it takes more than pseudo-technical mumbo-jumbo to save this film with its daft premise of dreams nested in dreams like so many Fabergé eggs.

Humour is provided by the Wife, unintentionally, and the Brit, intentionally – having shed their mantle as baddies, Brits now have no other role in a Hollywood production than to do the jokes.

The Wife brings down the house (paradoxical architecture and all) with a line so bad it could have been written for 2012: "We all ride the kick up through the layers", while the Brit shows his Britishness by endlessly saying "bloody" and by putting glottal stops not just into words with the potential for one in the first place ("bo'om" for bottom) but also into those without ("exa'ly" for exactly).

Faced with a story that makes no sense, dialogue that cries out to be torn up ("Do you know what it is to be a lover? Half of a whole") and characters who've all been given one-syllable names to match their one-dimensional personalities (Don, Moll, Cob, James, Brit, Wife), the director is left with no option but to take recourse to special effects whenever the movie gets boring.

There are a lot of special effects in Inception.