Prudes of the Orient

Yesterday I received an email from an outfit that was new to me extending an invitation to a bash at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to this kind of thing, but on this occasion my eye was caught by a footnote which promised: "No speeches, no marketing, no singing".

Now, disregarding the fact that the whole event is an exercise in marketing and thus dismissing that pledge with an accompanying sprinkling of sodium chloride, I was sufficiently impressed by the first and, especially, the third avowals – how comforting to know that an elderly Chairman wouldn’t be doing his version of "My Way" across an indeterminate number of keys – to get my secretary to check out the English translation of this most unusual local firm that "specializes in corporate services".        

The effort spent on this line of research was instantly rewarded when she told me that it translated as "Prudes of the Orient".

I wonder if they open their doors to prurient types as well, in which case I might just be changing the habit of a lifetime and making the short walk up Lower Albert Road on that appropriately "special" day that comes but once every four years.