Friday, September 28, 2012

Silence Of The Prams

In the "About Ckufing Time" category, a move so blindingly obvious that its delay could have been choreographed by the Hong Kong government, Air Asia (following a similar move by Malaysia Airlines) is creating child-free zones on its flights.

Yes, please roll out the usual argument about the need for others to be tolerant (err ... why?) rather than the need for oneself to be considerate. Good, that's that dealt with.

Airlines have long been masters at differential pricing, and they already board passengers with yound children first, so there would be nothing new about simply allocating the seats at the back to people travelling with their delightful bundles of joy, just like they used to do with smokers (maybe stick a curtain up in front of the section), so they're all together, and charging a little less to those still willing to sit nearby and a little more to those of us who want to be nowhere near. That would fit in neatly with boarding them first, surely, and it would incidentally test their own tolerance. Or is that different?

Friday, September 14, 2012

Hear! Hear!

Excellent news for gerbils as they rush headlong into a weekend of heavy petting - your hearing problems are a thing of the past. I SAID YOUR HEARING PROBLEMS ... oh, never mind.

The ever-gripping Antrim Times reports that finally there is a cure for deafness in gerbils, but not in any other creatures, as a result of stem cell research. Although, confusingly, Wikipedia advises in respect of gerbils' deafness and inner ear problems that "A problem with the inner ear can be spotted by a gerbil leaning to one side quite obviously. The fluids in the ears affect balance. However, this does not appear to affect the gerbils too much, which have an aptitude of just getting on with things, and getting used to their conditions." In other words, it wasn't really much of a problem to start with, even for the gerbils.

But, if my reader were thinking of getting a gerbil this weekend, for whatever purpose, here is a handy tip (again from Wikipedia): "Gerbils with 'extreme white spotting' colouring are susceptible to deafness; this is thought to be due to the lack of pigmentation in and around the ear." So remember to talk loudly to this kind just as you would to a foreigner. No need to thank me.

Friday, September 7, 2012

A Paucity Of Plods

What's going on with Asia's Finest, the Hong Kong Police? The term has always been a little tongue in cheek, referring to the lack of competition in the region but they seem to be acting less and less like  public servants these days.

Some of it, my highly placed source in the Justice Department tells me, is due to having too few porcine peeps, leading to a marked (but documented by my other sources) unwillingness to even accept a report for theft-related offences.

But then why are they pissing away their resources on non-essential stuff? I'm not talking about the occasional diversion of large numbers of personnel to act as escorts to visiting Mainlanders, or to take photos of demonstrators, or to close a chunk of the road network around Causeway Bay the other weekend so that a coach containing people who can run or swim fast, or point airguns at pieces of cardboard, could drive from A to B without having to slow down for other vehicles.

No, it's other stuff, like the two dummies who stand chatting with each other at Shittibank Plaza opposite the US Consulate on Garden Road all day, every day, never doing anything about vehicles dawdling at the drop-off point and causing a blockage at this known traffic black spot. 

Or Li Ka Shing, spotted today in his car getting a motorbike escort through Central. Hang on a minute - now I get it. It was the 'public' bit I got wrong.