Beware the Nutters

Last night, my wife told me that our daughter, who in time-honoured blogging fashion I shall simply refer to as Natalie, would be going out with some friends to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks display from the top floor of some office building in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Now, putting aside the fact that New Year's Eve is the most tedious time of the year, and putting aside the fact that a fireworks display is the most mind-numbing form of so-called entertainment - Cantonese television always excepted - as a caring human being dedicated to the art of parenting, I was naturally concerned for my offspring's welfare. 

"I'll ask her to call us before she sets off home," I said to my wife. "There are a lot of nutters out there."

"Oh, I didn't know you were going out," my wife responded quick as a flash - and that is really quick for her. 

20 years married come July and it's come down to this, I thought. Whatever happened to that sweet person I first met all those years ago, and where on earth has she got this acid sense of humour from?

Some things, like dressing up in silly hats, blowing tuneless horns and singing dreadful Scotch dirges, are destined to remain beyond my ken forever.

Suarez Explains Obscene Gesture

I try v-sign once but I can only count to one

Uneasy Sensations versus Pity

"Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and finding it late, have bid the coachman make haste, if I happen to attend when he whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish him to desist. No, Sir, I wish him to drive on."
[Boswell, Life of Johnson]

Worth 10,000 words from some bleeding heart NIMBY, eh, sir?

Dalglish Fumes Over Suarez Injustice

I demand protection for Luis from the reaction to my inflammatory words and actions

Our Parents' Lives Enthral and Bind Us

"Had any man spoken of it, it had been the most easy thing in the world, to have taught me, and to have made me believe that Heaven and Earth was God's House, and that He gave it me. That the Sun was mine, and that men were mine, and that cities and kingdoms were mine also: that Earth was better than gold, and that water, every drop of it was a precious jewel. And that these were great and living treasures and that all riches whatsoever else was dross in comparison. From whence I clearly find how docible our Nature is in natural things, were it rightly entreated. And that our misery proceedeth ten thousand times more from the outward bondage of opinion and custom, than from any inward corruption or depravation of Nature: And that it is not our parents’ loins, so much as our parents’ lives, that enthrals and blinds us."

[Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations]

Echoes of Alice Miller, and the words of a man at one with Nature.

Damon Doubling Down

What's Matt Damon on? I open a promisingly titled piece purporting to aim a broadside at Barack Obama, only to find my hero wrapping himself up in the kind of gobbledegook that made The Bourne Ultimatum's dialogue a front-runner for the Golden Raspberry Best Adapted Screenplay gong.

"A friend of mine said to me the other day, I thought it was a great line, 'I no longer hope for audacity.' He's doubled down on a lot of things."

Oh, Matt, get a grip! Return to your roots writing dialogue with Ben Affleck. It may be corny, but at least it’s English. And stop hiding behind third parties ("friends", "party workers") when you have a point to make.

Be the man I know you can be and live my fantasies through.

Liverpool FC Lost in Mists of Moral High Ground

We will boycott any newspaper that doesn't take our side

Jerusalem's Old City

Dome of the Rock and Western Wall

The Old City in Jerusalem, the self-proclaimed Centre of the Earth, is a place where Mammon meets God and defeats him on points. It consists of four so-called quarters: the Moslem (small alleys, reminiscent of the Kowloon Walled City before its demolition), the Jewish (neat, all built since 1967), the Armenian (rather woebegone, slowly being absorbed by the Jewish) and the Christian (tacky – think Stanley Market).

The Dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulcre

The Islamic religious sites are off limits to Infidels and the Jewish to Goyim (without prior appointment), which pretty much gives the Christians free rein to rake it in from those who choose to become extras in their circus. For a more tranquil experience, try the Armenian St James's Cathedral, which opens to the public only to fulfil the purpose for which it was built.

St James' Cathedral, Armenian Quarter

It's no exaggeration to say that Jerusalem attracts its fair share of nutjobs. They even have a special phrase for people who tell anyone who will listen that they have been anointed and make outlandish claims in public: the Jerusalem Syndrome. In Hong Kong, we have something similar, but it is called running for Chief Executive.

Koreans on the Via Dolorosa

Those Koreans are a scary lot. When they're not worshipping the "Great Man, Who Is a Man of Deeds" or teaching their 3-year-old daughters how to become professional golfers, they're humping a replica cross through the streets of Jerusalem, having fallen for the old "Via Dolorosa" trick.

Ultra-Orthodox Jew

Not to be outdone by the tourists, the natives feel free to indulge in behaviour that might result in arrest anywhere else, such as chucking stones at you if you try to take photos of them and wearing costumes that look as if they were all the rage in 18th century Poland – which they were. These weeds run the gamut from black to, my favourite, natty black and silver stripes, and are accessorised by hats that wouldn't look out of place at Royal Ascot, my favourite being the furry pork pie. Ironically, these chaps started as progressive radicals rebelling against those they considered overly legalistic. Even more ironically, they live in a state which they don’t believe in (only the Messiah can establish the true Jewish state), while demonstrating that they know how to have their kosher cake and eat it by holding the balance of power in successive governments.

The Pre-Sabbath Rush on Al-Wad Street

While the Jewish quarter has the feel of leafy suburbia, the Muslim quarter is pretty much as chaotic as any Arab settlement. I risked life and limb climbing a stone staircase to take off-the-beaten track photos of ethnic stuff like washing lines and this street art depiction of the Dome on the Rock.

Graffiti in Arab Quarter

I felt a bit like Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose, except I wasn't wearing sandals or dressed in a habit, and I still have my own hair. Not a lot, but my own.

Kim Jong-il Dead

Fear not, my children! I go to a place where my brain has already been for many years

Top Places to Visit in Israel: Part III

Western Wall stone: 14 metres and 600 tonnes

If you have time to do just one thing in Jerusalem, take the Western Wall tunnels tour, a snip at just NIS 25 (US$6.50), but be sure to book in advance.

Marvel at a single stone which is 14 metres long and weighs 600 tonnes, which was carved out of a nearby quarry more than 2,000 years ago when the walls were constructed under Herod the Great. Walk underground through the small area directly in line with the Foundation Stone on the adjacent Temple Mount, said to be the location of the Holy of Holies in the original Jewish Temple, built by Solomon 3,000 years ago.

Since this part of the Western Wall, now situated perhaps 15 metres below street level, is the closest point that observant Jews can get to the Holy of Holies, it is set aside for brides who wish to pray on their wedding day, so you can expect impromptu cries of "Mazel tov!" to break out among your group as brides (and grooms) shuttle back and forth on their big day. The deal is that, since men get a bigger space at the open, or "Wailing", part of the Western Wall, while Jewish grooms are permitted to come down into the tunnels to get closer to their most sacred site, they are not allowed in the little alcove which can house only around six people at a time.

Western Wall: Brides' Prayer Room

Interestingly, if you visit the Western Wall tunnels in seven or eight years' time, you'll be walking another 10-12 metres lower, as excavation work is slowly recovering the level at which people walked around in Jesus' time.

Arches supporting the Arab Quarter in the Old City

So, how did the Old City above get raised around 25 metres during the last 2,000 years? Quite easy, really. The Arabs built two sets of arches above the original ground level so that they could walk straight onto the "Mount" (their Haram). Thus, it's only tourists, and Jews, for that matter, who need to take the long walkway that ascends from the Dung Gate to the south-west corner of the Temple Mount. The admission times, especially out of season, are quite restricted, and the queues very long. Add to this the fact that non-Muslims are not allowed to enter the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa Mosque, and you can see why quite a few people, including me, decided to give Herod's enormous platform a miss.

Just a few hundred metres south of the Temple Mount, to which it was once connected by a long staircase, part of which is publicly accessible, the City of David is another trip very much worth making. The guided tour takes two and a half hours (twice the length of the Western Walls tour), and is, this being Jerusalem, where the bar for becoming a tour guide is set very high with no Welsh exam board to ease your passage, both informative and genuinely interactive.

Al Aqsa Mosque from City of David

Archaeology is as much propaganda tool as science in Israel, but for all that the finds at this site (lower than many of the surrounding hills for the simple reason that you cannot easily access water if you've planted your citadel on one of the highest outcrops) are impressive, supporting the hypothesis that David established his capital here after he kicked out the Canaanites.

City of David tunnels

The City is very much a work in progress, like the Western Wall tunnels site, with a cacophony of sounds ascending from the depths below – the infernal aspect accentuated by the vivid orange light that blazes forth through gaps in the superstructure.

Excavations at City of David

Take a pair of water shoes along and you can walk through Hezekiah's tunnel, which carried – indeed, still carries – that most precious of elements 500 metres from the Gihon spring to the pool of Siloam. This is not for the claustrophobic, those with a fear of the dark (the City of David shop sells keyring torches for a few shekels) or the infirm, with the height of the tunnel as low as five feet in some places, but it's well worth doing. (Those with a fear of water needn't get too concerned, as the stream is only a couple of feet deep at most.)

Arab village of Silwan (Siloam) from City of David

Built 2,700 years ago, no one is quite sure how the tunnellers from either end managed to meet up in the middle. My belief, based on evidence garnered just 20 years ago during the construction of Le Tunnel sous la Manche, is quite simple, and, I think, irrefutable. They weren't French.

Thought for the Day

"While it is perfectly true that a man who holds the Christian belief may be influenced by that presupposition in estimating facts, it is absurd to assume that the Christian is the only person who comes to the study of anthropological material with a presupposition. The theory of evolution may equally be a presupposition which leads an anthropologist to pick and choose amongst facts in such as way as to establish the conclusion at which he wants to arrive." (Edwyn Bevan, Symbolism and Belief)

Bevan was a theologian, historian and philosopher, and quite an influence on the thinking of CS Lewis. Need more of his sort in our schools.

Wealth Owns the Man

"And so, for people of discretion,
To call such wealth as his 'possession',
Is to be very imprecise:
His wealth owns him; as in a vice
It holds him prisoner, a thrall
Who has no real delight at all;
Who should be master of his pelf*,
But finds he is a slave himself."

* money

So spake John Gower more than 600 years ago in his Confessio Amantis. One doesn't have to look very far to see the parallels in modern times: Howard Hughes, Nina Wang, Stanley Ho, Rupert Murdoch …

Henry's Boy Child

As the Chinese press continue to question Chief Executive hopeful Henry Tang Ying Yen about extramarital progeny on the spear side, the man with the big smile, the large red wine collection and the spatially-challenged cerebellum appears to be in need of yet another change of PR advisors as he continues to refer reporters to his previous responses when pressed on whether he has illegitimate offspring based in Europe.

Given that his previous responses have consisted of the gnomic pronouncement, "I will not comment on any report packaged as scandal", rather than, say, "No, I don't", the observer is left with the distinct impression that our 'Enry has been active in the Eurozone, or should that be Erozone?

In the meantime, local media watchers have been looking on with some amusement as Jiang Zemin's chosen one continues to make public appearances flanked by the son that he does own up to … based squarely in Hong Kong.

CY Leung Staggers towards Finish Line

He may be worth £60.4 million less than he was five years ago, and he may be getting increasing tetchy with a press that wants to know exactly how prettily he sits after the deal that saw his company sold at a knock-down price to an Aussie outfit called UGL, but Leung Chun Ying has in truth little cause for worry.

His rival for the post of Hong Kong's Chief Executive is after all Henry Tang, a man so cerebrally challenged that even the Welsh exam board would be hard pressed to see him safely through his upcoming examination.

Tang recently caused eyebrows to be raised when he sacked his PR agency AsiaNet Communications for mishandling the way he came clean about his extramarital affairs. I'm not sure if Henry was referring to his waltz down the driveway of his Peak mansion hand in hand with his wife to meet reporters, but I for one found this Little Britainesque touch the highlight of the "race" for Hong Kong's top lapdog so far and a glorious metaphor for the fatuity of the whole exercise.

Angry Students Turn on Welsh Exam Board

We demand answer's - now!

Kafka's Castle

Before Franz Kafka died at the age of 40 from complications arising from tuberculosis, he gave instructions that all his unpublished writings be destroyed. Among these works was his last, unfinished book, The Castle, which I recently read in the 1930 translation by the Muirs.

Coming to this book with virtually no knowledge of Kafka was perhaps, as it is so often is, an advantage in terms of appreciating it. Rather than reading lots into it, I was able to take much from it: its darkness, its pathos, its humour and its uncanny ability to relate to the modern workplace.

There's a marvellous bit where one of the countless bureaucrats in the story tells K (the main character – a professional; surveyor, as it happens – Kafka was a lawyer) that a report may be true or it may not be, that the person who made it might or might not know himself, and even if he did know, he may have been misinformed, so what should one believe?

I imagine that Patrick McGoohan drew inspiration from The Castle for his Prisoner. Both feature a man who won't play the game, not least because the rules are never made clear to him. In both, other people enjoy the exercise of power for its own sake, as part of a machinery which, far from emancipating people, or even rising to a position of pre-eminence, a la Tolkien or Schwarzenegger, is ultimately something of a failure itself. Not a very good machine, at all.

Kafka's is a world where you seem to be reading about your company or your government on every other page. You are in a land of bureaus whose raison d’etre is to rule out the very possibility of error – let alone the discovery of errors – staffed by officials who channel their energies into making an impenetrable mystery of even the most mundane matter, while the only use they make of their colleagues is as a shield from behind which to issue denials of responsibility whenever the need arises.

As one character says, "Of course we're all supposed to belong to the Castle, and there's supposed to be no gulf between us, and nothing to be bridged over, and that may be true enough on ordinary occasions, but we've had grim evidence that it's not true when anything really important crops up."

It – they – will hang you out to dry, even as they talk of the Castle "family", that most pernicious example of managerial doublespeak.

Altruism Driving Apple Price Fixing, says Spokesperson

We wish to show our support to the publishing giants

The Sensitivity that Enriches

"The sensitivity that enriches must be of the sort that guards a man from wounding others, not of the sort that makes him ready to feel wounded himself." (CS Lewis, "Lilies that fester")

Japanese Set New World Record for Driving Without Brains

This put me in mind of the classic Not the Nine O' Clock News sketch featuring Ferrari's ugly sister, Fiat:

But is it really a Fiat? Who cares, say I. The joke's the thing ...

O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen

Among the pieces to be performed by the Cecilian Singers at their concert at St John's Cathedral on Wednesday 7 December is the exquisite setting of the Christmas chant "O Magnum Mysterium" by American composer Morten Lauridsen.

Also rumoured to be featuring at this televised event is a solo by one of Hong Kong's best known but most shy and retiring bloggers. Tickets selling like hot mince pies, so reserve yours by calling 2570-3783 for collection on the evening. The gig starts at 7.30pm.

On Nuns, Monks and Schoolgirls

"Why are nuns nicer than monks and schoolgirls nicer than schoolboys, when women are not in general nicer than men?"

Answers on a postcard.

Gary Speed – Truth Must Out

More frequently than you would wish, you read a piece that tells you more about the author than about its putative subject. Occasionally, you read something that is centred wholly on the author. Such a piece of garbage has the Telegraph chosen to print from someone called Allison Pearson under the heading "Gary Speed: the Last Male Taboo".

Full marks to the reader who commented as follows:

"The only taboo as far as I can see is why not one single newspaper seems interested in finding out exactly why a seemingly very happy man suddenly decided to end his life - just one day after making numerous future plans with numerous people."

Why, indeed? It's a strange and distinctly unedifying sight to see journalists shoring up the dam. One senses it won't hold much longer.