Friday, May 18, 2012

Tanks A Lot

Here we go again! Amidst another untalent show fixing scandal, this time about synchronised underwater breathing, we are told by the Daily Mail that four swimmers, (Zoe Cooper, 28, Emily Kuhl, 22, Beth Smith, 22, and 23-year-old Jazmine Stanberry), who  "amazed" Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams at their audition, perform in a "human-sized" fish tank.
If the tank is the same size as a human, how can they get 4 people into it?

Monday, May 14, 2012

Banana Armour

A Plus, or A +, the slim and slimy organ of the HKICPA, has insinuated its oozing, suppurating way onto my desk with the news (on page 4) that there was a thing called a Beat the Banana charity run on 4th March in which a bunch (geddit?) of accountants took part. Despite the name, this is not a specifically accountant-oriented event, but is part of the World Cancer Research Fund's worldwide fundraising programme.

According to the WCRF's Hong Kong website, the run is based on participants chasing a life-sized banana with the aim of beating it across the finish line. So, not beating the banana in the sense that my reader would have first thought of. (Admit it, Joycey.) And, curiously, by "life-sized", they mean a human dressed as a banana, i.e. the same size as a human being. In other words, not life-sized at all.

(That's enough about bananas - Ed.)

Friday, May 11, 2012

FuCCed Up

Hong Kong is a place of extremes, where inequality thrives, as a result either of intense competition and the possibility of succeeding by your own efforts, or of unlevel playing fields, according to your taste. Once successful, it is only natural to want to preserve one's position, through lobbying, official or unofficial, by treating Chief Executives to little luxuries, and so on. Or even, once there. to try and push the envelope a little.

One place where the privileged gather is in the clubs of Hong Kong, from the grand old Hong Kong Club, full of pre-handover relics, the Jockey Club whose governing members' ethics have been well covered, or uncovered, by Ulie, another old relic, and the Ladies' Recreation Club, full of English wives from Surbiton who lady it over their maids and who don't even notice how bad the food is.

However, who would have thought that the supposedly egalitarian FCC, self-appointed guardian of our freedoms (at least, they print off a letter to the Chinese government every time one of their journalist members is roughed up, always remembering to change the names and dates) could be a hotbed of privilege, official and assumed.

My mole there, who occasionally allows me to sample their fine shepherds pie and down a swift half, tells me that the FCC is in the thick of its annual elections. That should be nice and democratic, you might think, especially since journos are always talking the democratic talk. But, if you look closely, you will see that none of the governing body, except for a token lone voice of Associate Member Governor, can be associate members, or even voted for by associate members who, I am told, make up 90% of the membership and without whom the club would not exist as it would not be financially viable.

Apparently, it's enshrined in the constiution, or something, like in China, so cannot be changed. (Do you see what I did there? I drew an analogy between a one party dictatorship and the Chinese government.) And, anyway, it's a journalists' club, so they get to run it and if you don't like it you can join one of the many other clubs in Central which get a 3-storey stand-alone building (four, if you count the 30-chef kitchen below the basement bar) for next to nothing from the government. But, whatever, this is Hong Kong, and my mole is happy to be a member of a nice club. It works for him.

However, it seems that this built-in privilege is having a little extension added to it. An illegal structure if you will. Look at the ballot paper again, and the unopposed candidate for the position of President is one Doug Wong, who works for Bloomberg, an upstart American news organisation. It says in his manifesto that he is a Liverpool supporter - so much so, according to my mole, that for the recent FA Cup final he 'reserved', Germans-by-the-pool-style, a whole section of the bar, then disappeared for 2 hours till the match started. The staff, knowing that he was the shoe-in for prez, did not dare allow anyone else to sit in the bank of reserved seats, even though they would have actually put money in the club's coffers whilst occupying the seats. Doug's self interest over the commonweal of the members? Does Doug sound just a little bit like Donald? Answers on a postcard, please.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Tales of Hoffman

I liked this put-down of a particularly daft comment in the Guardian.

Here's the Guardian comment:

In praise of ... Dustin Hoffman

The star saved a jogger in Hyde Park who had collapsed with heart problems

Monday, May 7, 2012

Hong Kong Driving Lesson Number One

When driving in Hong Kong, please remember to get your left and your right completely mixed up, as the following, typical Hong Kong drivers do. Failure to do so and, for example, to indicate right when you are turning right could cause no end of confusion. And remember, if a road sign shows that you have to turn right, turn right by all means, but signal left. All clear?






Thursday, May 3, 2012

Letsby Avenue

The Hong Kong police force, Asia's finest (or in Hong Kong English, "Asia's most finest"), have appointed themselves arbiters of matters sexual, according to the SubStandard.
A Hong Kong teenage lad was persuaded while chatting online with a Philippino woman to strip off (presumably thinking he was talking to his mother) and play with himself and - imagine his surprise - was then told that the encounter had been recorded and would be posted online unless he coughed up HK$3,000. The matter was reported to the police who, the Subbie reports, confirm that "their video chat degenerated into profane exchanges and bad internet sex".

"Bad internet sex"? What are the criteria for deciding this? Too fast? Too slow? Not enough bandwidth? And how did the police become such experts? Does this mean that, next time someone asks my reader "How was it for you"?, the response should be "I don't know. Let me ask a policeman"?