Acts of Government or God

While many disasters can be blamed on the Hong Kong government, it's a bit much for Stanley residents to claim, as today's Morning Post reports, that "the government is entirely to blame" for the tragic death of a 19-year-old girl crushed by a falling branch from a tree in the village. The fact is that every year around the world, thousands of people are killed or injured by falling trees. These incidents are known as natural disasters, or in insurance terminology, "Acts of God" (or whichever imaginary supreme being you choose to blame for the universe)..

While the government is right to recheck other old trees, and will no doubt review its inspection techniques, which appear to have missed some warning signs in this case, falling trees are a natural event. If we cast around looking for someone to blame for every Act of God, we will end up like the USA, where people's first reaction is to look for someone to sue whenever anything bad happens to them.

I also fear that this accident will lead to demands from the more ignorant sectors of the population for the removal of any tree that might possibly fall on anyone at some future time, leaving our city even more a desolate mass of concrete than it is already.

The man who invented R&B

The great record producer Jerry Wexler, the man who coined the term "rhythm and blues" to replace the old "race records" epithet, has died aged 91. There's a nice tribute here at The B-Side blog..

I have a copy of Dusty in Memphis signed by Wexler. Ironically Dusty Springfield was so paralysed with nerves in Memphis that only the backing tracks were recorded with the ever-reliable studio crew there; Jerry had to coax the vocals out of her during a number of follow-up sessions in New York. This painful process eventually brought forth one of the finest of the many great albums that bear Jerry's name as producer.

Wexler was a man of many talents: a successful businessman, except for his one great mistake of selling out Atlantic Records to Warner Brothers, which he came to regret; and a songwriter whose name appeared as co-composer of some of the records he produced. But his real genius - like that of Geroge Martin with the Beatles, an ocean away - was in getting the best out of srtists, and never more so than with Aretha Franklin. Aretha's earlier and later recordings show occasional flashes of brilliance, but her reputation as the Queen of Soul rests solidly on the string of magnificent masterpieces she turned out at Atlantic under Wexler's direction.

In the last few years many of the greats of the music business have passed away: Ahmet Ertegun, who founded Atlantic Records; Ruth Brown, who fought him for years for unpaid royalties, while always respecting his musical taste; Bo Diddley just a couple of weeks ago; Wilsonn Pickett; ... the list goes on and on. Now there's another bright star in rock-n-roll heaven - R.I.P., Jerry.
Disclaimer - I get a small commission from Amazon if you buy the CD through the link here. This is the version with additional songs; there's another one with the mono versions of the singles from the albums. Both are great.

The Thieving Magpie

Well, I found the identity of my sodturner - just a few minutes ago, I caught a big fat magpie in the act (though I wasn't quick enough to get a photo). Puzzle solved - now, how do I stop him doing it?

Sods' Law for the birds

We recently had our garden returfed, as the grass had degenerated into 90% weeds. Just as last time we did this, within the next few days we found on several occasions that the local birds had succeeded in turning over some of the the squares of turf, presumably to get at the bugs or other tasty morsels beneath them.

I don't know which bird is doing this, but as each piece is about one foot square, it must take quite a bit of strength. Does anyone know if this is common behaviour for birds? And which species might be responsible?

Outrageous Arrogance and Surprising Intelligence

There seems to be no limit to the arrogance, insensitivity and sheer inhumanity of the Bush regime. Having destroyed Iraq at enormous human and financial cost (see the right sidebar), they are now complaining that the Iraqis should be the ones paying to repair the damage. Bloody cheek!

Meanwhile, Paris Hilton, of all people, has done a good job of making John McCain look ridiculous, after he compared Barack Obama to her as a lightweight celebrity in a campaign ad. I have long suspected that behind that fluffy party girl image, the Hilton genes have given Paris a sharp entrepreneurial brain; her response to McCain confirms that she also has a lively sense of humour.

A Few Post-Typhoon Suggestions

To the Hong Kong Observatory
I know weather forecasting is an imprecise science, but could you try not to sound so confident that no higher signals will be raised next time we're on number 3?

To TVB and ATV
When we wake up and find there's a number 8 signal, the only thing we really want to know is how long we can go back to bed for. If you must give us all the other boring stuff about cancelled ferries, fallen trees and scaffolding, and calling the airlines before going to the airport, could you just scroll along the bottom of the screen how long the signal is expected to be up for?

To the Hong Kong Government
Aren't you ashamed that your system for allocating Form 6 secondary places is so inefficient that students and their parents are willing to risk their lives staying out queuing in a Number 8 Typhoon to secure one of the last few precious places? It doesn't work that way for university places.

And why aren't there enough places in the schools for every student who meets the qualifying standard anyway? Don't tell me you're short of money when you're just about to spend billions on the Hu Jintao's Ego Memorial Bridge to Macau without even asking the taxpayers whether they want it.

Back to Bad Habits

A few weeks ago I praised China's exemplary response to the Sichuan earthquake. I suppose it was too good to last.

Learning from Failure

"I know how to win wars"

--Republican Presidential candidate John McCain

For some reason, devout Republicans in the US seem to think that because of his military experience, their man McBush can be trusted to do a better job of defending the nation than Democratic rival Barack Obama. I am not at all sure why - how does fighting on the losing side in a war in which you spent five years as a PoW qualify you to win wars? However heroic McCain may have been during this ordeal (and unlike those in his party who smeared John Kerry's record during the last election, no one questions that), the key issue here is not courage, but political wisdom.

In the same speech, McBush came out with another classic line:

"Understand this: When I am commander -in-chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run, and nowhere they can hide."

Except, presumably, the Iraq-Pakistan border that exists only in his imagination.


OK, let's pass that one over as a slip of the tongue. What, you may ask, about McCain's years of service on the Senate Armed Services Committee?

Er, would that be the same Committee that endorsed the war on Iraq on the basis of "intelligence" reports supplied by a gung-ho President eager to flex his testicles? Reports that Barack Obama, I, and probably you as well, had no diffiulty recognising as lies, as indeed they proved to be? Reports that a credulous John McCain apparently swallowed whole?

Need I say more?

All for the love of - a new telephone?

And another thing that puzzles me: why are people willing to spend several days of their precious life queuing to be the first to get their hands on the new iPhone? It's only a phone, albeit one with some nice gadgets. Why don't they just wait a few weeks till they can get it without having to waste time lining up?

There are a number of things I would be willing to queue overnight for, but not a mere tech toy. For example:

• Democracy in Burma
• A cure for cancer
• An end to genocide in Darfur
• A free trip to Mars
• A workable Middle East peace settlement
• A private dinner with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu
• The closure of the US torture camp at Guantanamo Bay
  

And last but not least:

• Tickets to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band live in Hong Kong (are you reading this, Bruce?)

A light in the darkness

Something that puzzles me: in police dramas on television, whenever the cops enter a dark building, especially the basement, they always walk in flashing their torches (flashlights for American readers) around in the darkness. Why don't they just switch the light on?

Nowhere to go but down (with a little government assistance)

Apart from the odd RTHK offering, Hong Kong television seldom serves up any real investigative journalism. So all the more credit to ATV for their Inside Story programme on Tuesday night. I've often poked fun at ATV for their mistakes, but this was worthwhile viewing.

As you may have read, the ever so caring Hong Kong government is planning, without consulting taxpayers (many of whom have already made substantial personal donations), to spend HK$10 billion of our money to aid those made homeless by the recent earthquake in Sichuan. Meanwhile back home, ATV's programme revealed that the same caring government is waging an undeclared war; not on homelessness, which would be creditable, but on Hong Kong's homeless.

Hong Kong has never had a coherent policy towards the homeless. In the past, it has been common for the Social Welfare Department to hand out blankets to them during cold spells, only for another arm of the government to steal their bedding and dispose of it as rubbish the following day in order to tidy up the streets.

Now as if those who have already fallen off the bottom rung of the economic ladder didn't have enough problems already, in recent weeks the government has been making a concerted effort to drive them out of their traditional refuges, even though their presence there is not illegal. A playground in Mongkok that previously accommodated 50 street sleepers is now locked at night and patrolled by security guards. Spaces under flyovers are being fenced off or otherwise made uninhabitable, and their former occupants are being told to, in effect, go away and disappear.

Presumably this is all in the name of improving Hong Kong's image before the expected hordes of Olympic visitors start turning up in a couple of weeks, but a true "World City" would try to solve the problems of these people, not just sweep them out of sight like so much human litter. That would take money - for more social workers, affordable housing for the poor, better mental health care and more effective substance abuse treatment programmes - all of which Hong Kong could afford if it wanted to. That's if the government didn't prefer to spend our money on follies like the Donald Tsang's Ego Memorial Complex on the Tamar site, and the Central Bypass Shopping Mall.

But even before that, it would require seeing street sleepers as individual human beings of value with their own individual difficulties, not as an amorphous mass of garbage to be swept under the carpet. ATV's programme (which will be repeated at 12:30 tomorrow, Saturday 12 July, if you missed it) gave them a voice, but is anyone in government listening?

See Also: Homeless II - Photo Exhibition of Street-sleepers

Making It Better:
Street Sleepers Action Committee Limited

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Where can I get me some of them there juicy worms?

The current TV propaganda for the Olympic equestrian events in Hong Kong proudly informs us that 60 million earthworms are at work keeping the venue green. I'd like to get hold of some of those.

No, seriously, no kidding. After weeks of heavy rain, my little patch of garden in Taipo is a horrible mass of compacted heavy clay, where I've never seen a single worm since moving in five years ago. I reckon a few thousand earthworms would make a big improvement to the soil, but where do I find them? I don't suppose digging up the Olympic venue would make me very popular, but if the government can get hold of 60 million of the critters, there must be somewhere here that sells them. Anyone know where?

Nokia No use

I'm no Luddite, but I sometimes doubt whether mobile phones are entirely a good thing. For one thing, there are the inconsiderate jerks who yak away on them in cinemas and other unsuitable venues. (I was greatly embarrassed recently when mine rang while I was sitting in the public gallery of a magistrate's court, although I thought I'd tuned it off.)

Then there is the invasion of privacy: one used to get home and be asked "Where the hell have you been?" Now you can be called up at any time and asked "Where the hell are you?" And of course they give telemarketers another channel for bothering people.

All of which is by way of introduction to the fact that the Nokia phone I've been happily using for the past few years was becoming harder and harder to switch on and off. Finally I decided the switch had had its day, and took the phone into the Nokia service centre in Causeway Bay. There they took one look at it and instantly declared it too old to fix - "no spare parts". Of course they suggested I trade it in on a newer model.

Hmmm - why would I want to buy a brand that breaks down and can't be fixed? Maybe I should try a Sony Ericsson instead - after all, I've got a Sony TV that's still working fine after 15 years or so.

But really I don't want a new phone at all, just for this one (for which I only recently bought a new battery) to carry on working. I'm not a gadget freak who salivates over the next generation iPhone or whatever. My eyesight is crap, so i don't text muxh and I need a decent sized screen. Most of the newer phones have keyboards too small for my large fingers. I have a PC for Internet access, an MP3 player for listening to music, and a digital camera for taking photos, so I don't need those features in my phone - am I the last person in Hong Kong who just wants to use his phone for voice calls?

Given the number of old phones being discarded, is there any third-party repair service that can cannibalise another phone for the part I need? Or do I just have to resign myself to buying a new one? And how do I choose from the thousands on the market?

One more thing: if I need to buy a new phone, how do I dispose of the old one in an environmentally responsible way? And how many old (but often still functional) phones end up in landfills rather than being recycled?

Get out and don't come back

The abrupt closure of the Tatami Hampton Hotel this week is another blow to Hong Kong's already sagging reputation as a tourist destination. Whatever the legal wrangles over the hotel's ownership, when a private residence changes hands the residents cannot be evicted at a moment's notice. Yet apparently under Hong Kong law it is perfectly legal to toss forty hotel guests, many of whom will have paid for their accommodation in advance and may have little spare money with them, out into the street without warning or compensation. This is simply wrong, and the government and Tourism Board need to work together to ensure that it cannot happen again.

4 - 1 = H5N1

It's not only ATV News's English that is suspect; their mathematics may need a brush-up as well. On tonight's 7:30 news they translated a Chinese farmer's words as, "Sales went down by a quarter. I sold only 100 ducks when I usually sell 400."

That is not going down by a quarter, that is going down to a quarter. If his sales went down by a quarter, he would be selling 300. It's just as well his sales didn't fall by 90%, or ATV would have had an opportunity to misuse the word "decimate" - though in fairness, most of the population of Britain gets that one wrong too.

So if ATV is so bad, why don't I watch TVB news instead? Mainly because I find them too parochial - TVB usually leads on a domestic story and has less adequate coverage of major international events.

Thanks from all the fish

Do my ears deceive me, or did Belinda Lloyd really say on ATV news last night that floods in southern China had made many houses inhabitable?

Does ATV employ any competent writers or editors? Do the reporters actually think about what they are saying? Does anyone care except me?

And now for something completely different (from reality)

A couple of weeks ago, when it became known that leaked Hong Kong police records had appeared online, the first reaction of Police Commissioner whatshisname was to appear on the TV news claiming that police computers are secure. Immediately after him, Security Secretary Ambrose Lee appeared to reassure the public that government computers are secure.

So, that's all right then.

In other recent Hong Kong Government announcements:
> Sharon Stone to be guest of honour at Olympic Games.
> Falun Gong to be Hong Kong's official religion.
> Monty Python's parrot "not dead".

Most pretentious job title of the week

PARKnSHOP is advertising for a Replenishment Assistant - or as it used to be known, a stock checker.

Among my possessions

The publishers of HK magazine are advertising for a new editor for their other publication, The List. Among the stated requirements is this:

"The applicant should possess a university graduate".

I didn't know slavery was still legal in Hong Kong - but at least our slaves are well educated.

But wouldn't it be more comfortable horizontally?

The text on this paper towel dispenser in Guangzhou's Baiyun International Airport suggests that China's programme to improve the English on signs in Beijing for the forthcoming Olympics has not been extended to other provinces.

Incidentally, why do all new airport terminals look as if they were designed by Norman Foster? (or perhaps they are all designed by Norman Foster?)