Animal Kingdom: an Australian Celluloid Classic

Animal Kingdom, showing at the Broadway Cinematheque in Yaumatei, is a fair dinkum winner from down under, fully deserving of its 97% critics' rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

On the surface, this is a film about a criminal family in Melbourne, but in reality it's about the waste and degradation brought about by selfishness, idleness and a complete failure of the human spirit.

This is no promotional video for the Victorian tourist board. The only glamorous shot in the movie is a dusk image of the city skyline, but even that is symbolic of the sun that is setting for five people – four brothers and their mother – who have traded their souls in return for what exactly? A life of weakness and littleness, characterised by fear and loathing, much of it turned in upon themselves.

Besides being disastrous for their victims and for themselves, the family's actions impinge on the lives of all who come within their orbit. In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, the wife of the detective who is tasked with caging these animals throws his mobile phone onto the floor beside him when he is called away from home yet again.

This couple are no strangers to tragedy, having brought into the world a child with Down's Syndrome, with whom the cop is playing with the kind of love and patience which his quarry abjured years ago.

A surprise ending that is both credible and thought provoking rounds off one of the best films of last year and a stunning feature debut from writer/director David Michôd, from whom we will, I am sure, be hearing more.

Montaigne - the World's First Blogger?

My recent reading consisted of Cervantes' Don Quixote at bedtime and Montaigne's Essays whenever else I had the time.

The similarities between the two books are not lost on Sarah Bakewell, whose own How to Live, or a life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer came out last year. Written just twenty years apart, the Essays and Don Quixote strike today’s reader as remarkably modern, even if, as I did, he chooses to read them in “period” translations (Cotton (1685-86) for Montaigne and Jarvis (1742) for Cervantes).

While Cervantes has generally always been well received by the critics, Montaigne's standing has gone up and down like a yoyo, not helped by his magnum opus being proscribed in France for more than 150 years for perceived anti-Catholicism.

Montaigne had the misfortune to live through a very turbulent period in France's history, with a succession of sectarian civil wars enervating the country in the second half of the sixteenth century. Although a Catholic himself, his humanism and tolerance were of a type that made him an easy target, especially after his death in 1592, for religious fanatics who set more store by the words of wheeler-dealers in Rome than a humble carpenter from Galilee.

Besides pretty much inventing the essay form, Montaigne also trademarked the trick of giving your piece a title which is totally unrelated to the subject under discussion. This trait was picked up on by contemporary commentators, and acknowledged by the man himself in his essays, with the excuse that if readers looked hard enough they would eventually find a bit that fit the bill.

Some of my personal favourites are "Of cripples" (if I remember right, his hypothesis was that they made great lovers because they could put all their energies into it), "On presumption" and "Of pedantry", but there's also one on cannibals and another on educating children, so there's something for everyone. As he wrote in "Upon some verses of Virgil", "every subject is equally fertile to me: a fly will serve the purpose".

His keen observation of the human condition is evident in the same essay, as he reflects on a fundamental aspect of human psychology, that "we ask most when we bring least":

"I very well understand that love is a commodity hard to recover: by weakness and long experience our taste is become more delicate and nice; we ask most when we bring least, and are harder to choose when we least deserve to be accepted; and knowing ourselves for what we are, we are less confident and more distrustful; nothing can assure us of being beloved, considering our condition and theirs."

And while "he disrelished all dominion", or violent coercion, he understood the need for moderation in all things, including toleration, as he mused on the fate of Messalina, wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, who finally flipped his lid after constant taunting over his wife’s open displays of infidelity:

"... the first difficulty she met with was also the last: this beast suddenly roused; these sleepy, sluggish sort of men are often the most dangerous: I have found by experience that this extreme toleration, when it comes to dissolve, produces the most severe revenge; for taking fire on a sudden, anger and fury being combined in one, discharge their utmost force at the first onset he put her to death, and with her a great number of those with whom she had intelligence, and even one of them who could not help it, and whom she had caused to be forced to her bed with scourges."

Voltaire's epitaph for his countryman says it all: "Montaigne – the least methodical but wisest of philosophers".

Don Quixote: a Complete Body of Fable

Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is really two books. The first, published in 1605, was so successful that a second volume was written and published ten years later, in part as a response to a plague of unauthorised sequels, which the author cleverly references in his work.

Many English translations are available, but I read the book in that made by Charles Jervas, which appeared posthumously in 1742 and has been known ever since as the "Jarvis"” translation owing to a printer's error.

Most of the famous bits (Don Quixote "tilting at windmills", for example) come in the first part, but some people prefer the second part for its more philosophical and quizzical flavour. Whichever way you look at it, Don Quixote is a romp and a triumph for its author.

By creating a character who is utterly blind when it comes to his passion (knight errantry) while being rational, clear-minded and often wise about anything else, Cervantes not only holds a mirror up to each of his readers, he does it in such a way that each of those readers will gladly take the mirror and turn it on others, the better to see their foibles and irrationalities.

Throughout literary history there have always been double-acts – Achilles and Patroclus, Aeneas and Achates, Dante and Virgil, Falstaff and Prince Hal – but I'm not sure there was ever a partnership as unheroic as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

The delineation between the two characters is of the utmost importance. If both were crazy, then the joke would wear thin very quickly. By making Sancho a man with some common sense but virtually no acuity – a man who knows that his master is a basket case and yet lets himself be gulled out of that knowledge – the author creates the archetype of all the interesting fools that followed, from the cinematic Dr. Watson through Oliver Hardy to Baldrick.

Cervantes himself described a good book as a complete body of fable through one of his characters. It is a fitting epithet for a monumental achievement.

"Fables should be suited to the reader's understanding, and so contrived, that, by facilitating the impossible, lowering the vast, and keeping the mind in suspense, they may at once surprise, delight, amuse, and entertain, in such sort that admiration and pleasure may be united, and go hand in hand: all which cannot be performed by him who pays no regard to probability and imitation, in which the perfection of writing consists. I have never yet seen any book of chivalry, which makes a complete body of fable with all its members, so that the middle corresponds to the beginning, and the end to the beginning and middle: on the contrary, they are composed of so many members that the authors seem rather to design a chimera or monster, than to intend a well-proportioned figure. Besides all this, their style is harsh, their exploits incredible, their amours lascivious, their civility impertinent, their battles tedious, their reasonings foolish, and their voyages extravagant; and, lastly, they are devoid of all ingenious artifice, and therefore deserve to be banished the (sic) Christian commonwealth, as an unprofitable race of people."

Rooney Sees Red over Ryan Giggs Furore

Giggsie ... role model!

A Cow with the 'ump

Came across this fellow on the descent from Tai Mo Shan last weekend. I was hoping to write about our Extreme Walk from Shek Kong Village to Hong Kong's highest point, then down to the Shing Mun Reservoir; but unfortunately I can't, and I'm blaming it on this beast and his ilk for creating all sorts of tracks that lead to nowhere apart from gigantic boulders. Quite impressive in themselves, but of no earthly good when you want to provide a pictorial and written account that other intrepid walkers might follow.

But, as our Arnie said – presumably to each of his mistresses – "I'll be back!"

Dominique Strauss-Kahn Claims Entente Cordiale

I zought we 'ad an oral agreement

Fred Goodwin Breaks Silence on Super-injunction

My wife fought against the gag order, but my mistress rather enjoyed it

Hotel Royal Macau

If you're planning a bit of R&R in Macau, the Hotel Royal on the Estrada de Vitoria is worth considering. Opened in 1988, the place was redecorated two years ago and has remained remarkably unravaged by Mainland hordes and the concomitant stink of cigarettes and coaches disgorging illegal diesel fumes.

This is in no small part owing to the fact that the hotel has no casino. Instead, it has an indoor heated 20-metre pool and a nice bakery where you can buy Portuguese egg tarts or various savoury items. It doubtless has a restaurant, but we didn’t use it (or even find it), as there are plenty of places where you can have breakfast in the vicinity as well as all the normal haunts for dinner.

This time we went back to A Petisqueira to renew acquaintance with Eusebio and his friendly crew, cutting back on the starters so we could enjoy the chocolate mousse. As always, the octopus salad was very good, unlike the one we had at Antonio's, into which the chef – not, sadly, Antonio these days (he limits himself to pancake pyrotechnics) – had emptied half a bottle of vinegar.

If A Petisqueira is our Lourdes (place of regular pilgrimage), then Amagao is our El Dorado (place which has fascinated – and eluded – us for many years). I tried to book a week in advance, but as always it was fully booked. Not surprising when it only offers ten covers, I suppose. Next time, I will try a month in advance (853) 2882-7627.

Located roughly at the middle of a rectangle formed by (going anti-clockwise) Fisherman's Wharf, Guia Hill, the Ruins of St Paul’s and the Lisboa Hotel, the Hotel Royal is in a surprisingly quiet spot. You can stroll from the hotel to St Paul’s via St. Lazarus Church, next door to which are a couple of art galleries worth popping into.

There's a half decent bookshop a few minutes from the Royal on the Rua do Campo. I'm trusting map and memory for this, as I didn't keep the receipt for the books we picked up there for about half the amount you'd pay in Hong Kong. On the same street, there are sports shops, if you need to stock up on tennis rackets, prescription swimming goggles or replica shirts.

Two nights at the Royal cost us HK$2,324 through macau.com, 'though we had to pay an extra HK$300 per night for a camp bed once there.

Virus that Causes Required Repetitive Redundancy Syndrome Isolated

Fed up with investigating the patterns of your pyramids, carousels, portfolios and frameworks, and then communicating and reflecting on them ad nauseam?

A dead fogey, who might not have known his descriptor from his criterion but understood a thing or two about the English language, may have the answer.

In 1956, C.S. Lewis answered a letter from an American Narnia fan called Joan, who had asked him about good writing. I can't improve on his answers, but I've provided a gloss for the benefit of those suffering from the worldwide plague pestis internationalis-baccalaureatensis verbosissimus ("PIV"), the virus which causes required repetitive redundancy syndrome ("the 3 Rs").

"Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else."

Don't use abbreviations such as TOK and CAS without first giving the full form; and make sure you reproduce it correctly when you do. Writing "TOK" on its own is especially ironic, as any robust theory of knowledge would include the idea that no one is going to learn anything if you use unexplained abbreviations.

"Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them."

Proscribe "proscriptions" and stay clear of "prescriptions" unless you've got a headache. Otherwise, you risk giving the reader one.

"Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean 'more people died'’ don't say 'mortality rose'."

So, for example, don't write, "the International Baccalaureate Organization has aspirations to grow its global educational empire by convincing universities and businesses that it facilitates the production of rounded graduates"; instead, write, "the International Baccalaureate Organization wants to spread its tentacles across as many schools as possible around the world by scaring them into thinking they’ll get left behind".

"Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing … instead of telling us that a thing was 'terrible', describe it so that we'll be terrified … all those words, (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers 'Please, will you do my job for me?'"

Or, as I say to my daughter, "If it's easy to write, it’s sure to be difficult to read."

"Don’t use words that are too big for the subject. Don’t say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very': otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."

This would reduce all IB publications by at least 50% at a stroke.

IB Guff: Free on Proscription

As an alumnus of great distinction and a prospective parent, I recently received a copy of my alma mater's magazine, Hearts & Wings (Spring 2011).

Much of the early part of the magazine is devoted to pieces about the educational system which Haileybury now adopts (alongside more traditional options), the International Baccalaureate. I am already reasonably familiar with the IB and its vast terminology by dint of the fact that the fruit of my loins is currently being schooled in that organisation's Middle Year Programme.

However, reading the contributions of some of the school's teachers makes me wonder whether the £25,000 per annum my wife and I will be required to cough up for tuition fees and board and lodging, should we decide to send her there, would be money well spent.

In an article on p. 5 called "Knowledge versus wisdom", the school's "ToK (sic - the IB style it "TOK" on their website, as does the Lower Sixth student on p. 4 of the same issue) coordinator" seems to stand in need of a little of the former quality, especially as it relates to the subject area which he is charged with coordinating.

We are told that "The Theory of Knowledge is at the very centre of the IB hexagon alongside the Extended Essay and Creative (sic), Action and Service and aims to encourage blah blah blah". In point of fact (if one is allowed to let one of these raise its head among all the "reflective learning" and "hexagons"), the IB call this component of their Diploma "Creativity, Action and Service". One would have thought a clue is provided by the fact that, while "action" and "service" are nouns, "creative" belongs to the grammatical part of speech called an adjective.

Things don’t get any better. In the same paragraph we are told, "ToK is examined by the submission of an essay, the title of which is proscribed (sic) by the IB and an oral presentation ..." This cannot be a typo, as a little further down we are given information about "this year's proscribed essay titles".

I'm glad that Latin is still offered in the IB Diploma, as one of the merits of a classical education is acquaintance with a nefarious character by the name of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. This fellow's chief claim to fame was to issue proscriptions, or decrees of condemnation to death or banishment, whereby carte blanche was given to mobsters to go around killing those on a list of so-called enemies of the state. Of course, to "proscribe" something can also mean to forbid or ban it.

On the other hand, to "prescribe" something (say, for example, an essay) is to put it forward with authority, which sounds very much like the meaning that Haileybury's TOK coordinator is looking for (scroll down to "TOK essay").

One of the problems with a school producing literature replete with solecisms is that it is difficult for the target audiences (current parent, prospective parent, current donor, would-be donor) to avoid the impression that such publications are cosmetic exercises grudgingly undertaken by overworked teachers merely to fulfil requirements dreamed up by underworked IB gnomes in Geneva. Another is that it makes any reasonably intelligent person wonder if the educational institute is in fact fulfilling, or capable of fulfilling, its educational mission.

Turning from the hexagon on p. 5, we are met on p. 6 by what the author of the next piece ("New vision, new courses, more enrichment for all") calls a pyramid, although to me it looks suspiciously like a triangle. We've also got carousels, umbrellas, foundational skills and "self-development in a caring atmosphere". We are further treated to this:

"Through lessons, afternoon activities, evening activities and interaction in House, there are many opportunities for all pupils to develop with others or engagement (sic) with tasks."

Sod the carousels, the umbrellas, and the non-polyhedral pyramids, I say! Bring back Detention and Dates for sloppiness, inattention and ill discipline. In the old days, Dates was the most common form of punishment, requiring the offender to write out a mind-numbing number of times a series of historical dates such as "In AD 410, Alaric the Visigoth sacked Rome".

Until tomorrow, then, when I will be back with some advice on writing from the master. I trust I will have the full attention of Joe Davies, Master of Haileybury, and his staff. The Swiss gnomes are, I fear, beyond redemption.

"It's the principal," says Sienna Miller

What's the point of having Laws if you don't use them?

Nothing Nury under the Sun

I couldn't help noticing the following sitting at the top of my sidebar yesterday morning: "Mr Jam – Get paid to be irritating".

Out of the mouths of babes … Only in Hong Kong! … Yada yada!

The Eyes Have It

When I bought a new pair of glasses from a shop in Stanley recommended by a friend, I told the staff there that if all was well with the specs after three months (the warranty period), I’d give them a mention in my blog.

"Not 'Ulaca'?" Danny the optometrist shot back.

"The very same," I said, pleased to know, as a dreadful punster might put it, that my organ was penetrating even the remotest parts of the territory.

It's so long since I last owned a pair of glasses that pleased me that I would have been giving serious consideration to having laser treatment if it weren't for the fact that the whole idea terrifies me. Honestly, I'd prefer to be forced to watch every Star Trek episode back to back, or even suffer 24 hours of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on endless loop, than to have two of the most sensitive parts of my finely honed body invaded by a Darth Vadar like figure playing with his lightsaber.

Anyway, we're now four months down the line, and I can only report good things about my bins. Aesthetically, although they can scarcely be said to offer any improvement to the raw material they were asked to complement, the Prada frames have given me a look that is part Yves Saint Laurent – not the gay part – part Michael Caine, part Peter Sellers. More importantly, they've come so close to correcting my astigmatism that I can now see in the dark almost as well as an owl, even if I can't yet manage that turn-the-head-round-270-degrees trick.

I could go on about the multifocality and the photochromicity (no granddad half-moon lenses for me), but I'm rapidly getting out of my depth, so, suffice to say, this pair is the real deal.

True to my word as ever, I salute Grace Optical Centre at Shop 305 in Stanley Plaza (2899-0569).

Better Late than Ever?

It would appear that the Department Head from Hell, Sarah Wong, is not the only denizen of the infernal regions to have infiltrated our company.

A chat with the omniscient IT guy (these are becoming distressingly frequent – not surprising, given Data Management System software that is more than ten years old) informs me that a new department head, who I shall call Winnie Chee, has brought a whole world of trickiness with her that betrays her background as a glorified estate agent.

Her speciality in Hong Kong's ever burgeoning Wild World of Wiles sub-industry is to instruct her staff to delay sending replies to other department heads for a week. Thus, Tony from Financial Planning will ask a bunch of people for input by, say, the 20th, and our Winnie will get her minions to prepare and draft it by the 18th and then tell her secretary not to send it on until the 27th.

Of course, besides pissing off her colleagues (or "family members", as HR would prefer to have us call our co-workers), this also leads to inevitable cock-ups, when her secretary forgets that she must not forward stuff immediately, as she is trained to do, and that she must make a special note to send it only after seven days have elapsed.

I think we'll be hearing a lot more from this "sing lui" (local slang for a middle-aged spinster with no prospect of attracting a mate).

Jemima Khan Denies Affair with Top Gear Presenter

Jeremy Clarkson?! He couldn't pull Jemima Puddleduck

Leon Panetta a Clone Secret Files Claim

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CIA Chief Clarifies Orders Given to SEALS

Our operatives were clearly apprised of two alternative scenarios: Bin Laden must be taken either dead or not alive

Vanity Case

I am indebted to my wife for today's story.

While cycling to Tai Po along what's left of the Tolo Harbour waterfront earlier this afternoon, she saw a man come off his bike and bang his head. Being a resourceful kid of person, who's obviously been listening to all those Government APIs that tell you to be active in volunteerism, R (as I shall call her by dint of the fact that her name does indeed begin with an R) took his iPhone 4.

However, before she could get away, he called out to her in his semi-conscious state and said he'd paid top dollar for the retina display that packs four times the number of pixels onto the 3.5-inch screen at a density of 326 pixels per inch. He also dipped his finger into the blood that was pouring from his gashed forehead and wrote a full description of my wife along with details of who he was leaving his collection of KMB model buses to in the event that he didn't make it.

Stunned by his lucidity, resentful of his depiction of her and not a little discountenanced by his hobby, R dialled 999 to call an ambulance. When the operator asked her how old the injured man was, she said he was in his 30s. Hearing this, the fellow raised himself from his supine position and called out in high dudgeon that he was in fact 29.

"Frailty, thy name is man", as a post-feminist Shakespeare might have put it.

Medical Ethics?

Sunday's Post led with an attempt to smear the local Anglican church masquerading as a non-story.

In short, more than two years ago, the church told Hong Kong Central Hospital that it would have to vacate its premises, which are leased from the church. In response, the hospital enquired about the availability of a largely empty hospital down the road in Sai Ying Pun. Then, more than a year ago, the church gave the hospital three months’ notice to move out, the first of four written requests to do so.

With the hospital refusing to vacate the premises, the church filed a writ last week to expedite proceedings. Step in Dr. Cheng Chun Ho, who runs the hospital. While acknowledging that the tenancy agreement had expired, Dr. Cheng attempted to perform surgery on the facts by assuming the moral high ground, always a hazardous undertaking when you've already performed surgery on both of your metaphorical legs.

"It is an ethical issue whether a church wants to pursue their new developments at the expense of a hospital, its patients and staff."

One just hopes Dr. Cheng is never given the task of updating Hong Kong's Book of Medical Ethics – if it has one.

Not to be outdone, the Post gets into the spirit of things by contradicting what the good doctor had said in its second headline, breathlessly informing its readers "Eviction writ catches doctors by surprise".

Obama Claims Justice has been Done

But what kind of justice can be obtained by extrajudicial killings? What will be the feelings, and ultimately the response, of Muslims the world over? How safe will American businessmen in Muslim countries be feeling now? And how many Bin Ladens will rise up in place of the one killed by American soldiers in Pakistan?