Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Golden Shower


Passing through the Landmark the other day, after purchasing a pair of Thomas Pink boxers (it's the personal fitting that I like), I noticed that the fountain has been cordoned off. For decades, the public has been able to park their bums on the marble edge while waiting for their loved, or at least tolerated, ones. But no more.

Could this be intended, I wonder, to stop our Mainland friends and their delightful offspring from performing  gross acts in the fountain? Surely not.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Middle Of The Road

Waiting in Wanchai market the other day, I spotted this piece of Hong Kong-style parking. Yes, I know it looks as though CC 1953 is driving through, but he really is parked like that.

I was almost tempted to park between him and the kerb!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Heung On A Minute

As it becomes increasingly obvious that the Heung Yee Kuk in particular, so-called indigenous Dark Siders in slightly less particular, and Dark Siders in general consider themselves as above the law as tycoons and entertainers, can any right-minded island folk seriously oppose Article 23-style legisaltion any longer?

Pull down those illegal structures, Mr. Leung, and set free the dogs of war.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Great Smell Of Fish

I am not a big fan of reality TV, preferring to experience the real thing. However, I have been moderately gripped (by which I mean looking up from time to time from whatever is in my lap) by TVB's Bride  Wannabes.

The idea of the show, which is half-way through its 10 programmes (or programs, as the SubStandard would have it, or them), is to take five available over-30 ladies and to groom them to improve their chances of marriage.

There are a number of givens about using this concept. One is that the ladies must be thought to need improvement, i.e. that they are, in the local parlance, pork chops, or verging on porcine, but with redeeming qualities such that they can be raised to tottydom. For example, one of the five is called Gobby, pronounced Gobi, who, apart from having teeth (until they were fixed) like a Victorian graveyard, is - in my view - quite tasty. Nice figure, lips that could likely get life out of even the most jaded todger, and a certain quirkiness verging on sex appeal.

Another given is that some people will hate the programme (or program as the SubStandard would have it) and bleat on about exploitation, adverse effects, and so on. So there is already a Faeces Book page protesting about (drop the 'about' if you are American) the show with 2,000 bandwagon jumpers having said they like the page (not the show). One of the protesters is a Mr. Tsang Fan-kwong, who claims to be a psychiatrist and who says that some of the suggestions from the groomers, such as sitting angles, being offered to the ladies shouldn't be made because he hasn't heard of them. The implication is that he thinks he knows everything and that he, being a psychiatrist, is in the same business as the groomers or, at least, that psychiatrists have a monopoly on knowing how people think.

Not being a psychiatrist, I wouldn't dare comment on Mr. Tsang's own thoughts, but I am sure he spends a lot of time in bars studying the angles at which people sit and which positions work best for chicks on the pull. I am sure it is not simply a case of resentment by one set of snake oil peddlers against another set.

According to the Subbie, Mr. Tsang added "with a snort" (yes, that will endear you to the ladies, Tsangie) that a market fish hawker could offer better advice than the life coaches. Given the rigour with which Mr. Tsang surely holds out that his chosen field operates under, this likely means either that Mr. Tsang has formally compared the advice given by fish sellers and professional groomers respectively, or that he has compared the socio-economic status of fishwives and the rest of the population and found that, as a demonstrable fact, fishwives have married significantly above their station. Perhaps Mr. Tsang is himself married to a fishwife?

The ultimate underlying premise for the show is that there are many Hong Kong women who have not found a Hong Kong man good enough to be their mate. Oh, there you are again, Mr. Tsang.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Losing Count

They say if you shake hands with a Dutchman you should count your fingers afterwards. If you shake hands with a Liverpudlian, you should count your ckufing arms. Give them an inch and they'll steal a mile.

The self-indulgence masquerading as sensitivity (typical scouse behaviour, along with shop-lifting) which caused Liverpool to refuse to play their FA Cup semi-final yesterday, on the 23rd anniversary (what's the next big one, then, boys - the 46th anniversary? Then the 69th [ooh-err!]?) of the Hillsborough incident, reached even more ridiculous proportions.

Even though Liverpool had reserved Sunday for their remembrance jag, they still took a minute's silence before their rearranged game on Saturday. Wrong ckufing day, in case you forgot, scouse mongs. And then the FA imposed a minute's silence before the second semi-final on Sunday, which by now was the wrong day (they did the silence thing the day before, remember?) in which Liverpool were not playing, but in which a team which was seriously inconvenienced by the rearrangment was playing. Talk about having your cake, eating it, and wanting to sell it back to the shop the scouses stole it from in the first place.

Fortunately, the Chelsea fans were having none of it and the minute's silence was abandoned given that, err, it was too noisy. According to the BBC, Chelsea's thrashing of Spurs was "marred" by this. But then that is what you would exepct the BBC to say, becasue that is what the BBC thinks people expect them to say.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Kim Jong Un-Done

North Korea's long range rocket seems to have redefined the term - 'long range', that is, having stayed up for only 90 seconds before falling into the sea, A brief period of rigidity before a longer one of flaccidity, so to speak.

It seems also to have redefined the word 'rocket', as the Japanese defence minister Naoki Tanaka said "We have the information some sort of flying object had been launched from North Korea".

"Some sort of flying object"! That will please young Mr. Kim.

Talking of which, this means that PAL can get back to throwing their own some sorts of flying object into the air in only the 4th most dangerous fashion in the world. Fortunately, the North Koreans's long range missile has not yet managed to demote them to 5th.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

It's An Unfair Kop, Gov'nor

Anyone who upsets a scouse git can't be all bad, and if they manage to upset the whole of Liverpool, or at least the non-Everton bit, then more power to their elbow.

One Alan Davies, an alleged comedian of whom I had not previously heard, has ssiped off fans of Liverpool "Football" Club by questioning the club's refusal to play an FA Cup match on the anniversary of the Hillsborough incident.

Aside from the intrinsic merit in upsetting the incoherent, shell suit-wearing thieves, he has a good case. Why do they refuse to play on the Hillsborough anniversary and not on the anniversary of the Heysel disaster? Perhaps because the latter was caused by Liverpool fans? Or perhaps it is just the usual scouse self-pity, dressed up as caring. As Davies points out, Man U don't refuse to play on the anniversary of Munich; they just get on with business.

As a result of Liverpool's self-indulgence, another English club, Chelski, has to play their FA Cup tie one day later, and one day closer to a Champions League semi-final, but of course not having another English club have a decent shot at the Champions League would never enter the heads of the scouse tribe. The thought that someone else not winning something is the closest you will get to winning something yourself? Oh, no.

So, what are the Liverpool fans going to do on the inauspicious day? Sit weeping at home? I doubt it. They will be either down the pub getting wrecked on their dole money, or shoplifting from their local supermarket, as usual. Ckufing scouse gits.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Hard Graft

As Uncle Wen, looking increasingly as though he is suffering from dementia (or are we the ones suffering as he labours to get every word out?), lectures CE-elect CY Leung on the need to make Hong Kong corruption-free by leading by example, the implication being that this is what the incumbent has not done, Tiny himself has said that the ICAC's probe into his best friend will be fair and independent, the implication being that this, under his governance, is not something that could have been taken for granted.

Tiny goes on to say "Over the past 30 years, a clean government and a clean society have become one of our core values, which is deep-rooted in Hong Kong." Err, that's two, Tiny. No wonder you've never been accountable. (Geddit? Account-able. Oh, please yourselves.)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Flip, Flop And Fly

Philippine Airlines, which emerged from receivership in 2007, after a mere 9 years (perhaps hoping that enough of its creditors would have died by then, even if they weren't flying with PAL), is to be commended on changing the paths of some of its flights to reduce the chance of being hit by North Korea's next long range missile test satellite launch.

Currently ranked only the 4th most dangerous airline in the world, PAL are not resting on their laurels, and clearly believe the only way is up.

Monday, April 2, 2012

The Buck Stops ... Over There

I was browsing a copy of the SCuM Post this morning as I waited in my local HSBC Premier branch, and came across an article by Mike Rowse, sometimes referred to as Donald Tsang’s bag boy. Who'da thunk it, that the Boy from Deptford, or Isleworth, or whichever flat-vowelled suburb, would have his own column? Mike obviously knows a thing or two about punctuation; perhaps one day he will know three things. Know wo' I mean, mate? 
The article, a mere week after the CE election, consists of several statements of the obvious about the election and the electoral system, of the type that I must have heard from half the taxi drivers in Hong Kong, combined with a side-swipe at Henry Tang who, before an enquiry into the ill-conceived HarbourFest of 2003, tried to retract his statement that Mike hadn’t stuffed up the boondoggle, or at least that he had an excuse (namely, that it was too hard for him) for so doing. Mike would surely be thriving on having bested Hong Kong's favourite equine punchbag, if only it weren't for that Friend of Donald tag of his own.

The last I remember Mike himself saying about the Fest, apart from every time I see him in person, was in the SCuM Post letters page where he said that he had at his elbow a spreadsheet that “proved” that HarbourWank was going to make money. Whatever happened to that proof, Mikey? Or was it just smoke and mirrors?  

In case it’s not forthcoming, 8 years later, I happen to have a Word document at my side that “proves”, if proof were needed ... well, you can probably guess.