All the world's a stage...

After a decade of so-called "reality television", it seems it's no longer possible to tell where the real world ends and showbiz begins. Excite.com has this story listed under "Entertainment News".

Incidentally, how sweet of sleazeball Matt Drudge to expose Prince Harry's presence in Afghanistan, thereby making him a Taliban target. What a nice guy.

Joined Up Government, or does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

Two recent stories from the South China Morning Post website:

• 23 February - "Hotel sites likely to be on offer in next land-sale list
  The former home for juveniles in Kowloon Tong and new hotel sites in North Point and Hung Hom were expected to be available on the upcoming land-sale list, government and property industry sources said."
• 1 March - "Hotel development given priority on land sales list
  Hotel sites will be offered at lower trigger prices than commercial sites in the government's new land application list as a means of encouraging hotel development, the government said yesterday."

Perhaps I'm missing something, but if Hong Kong is so short of hotel rooms, how come we keep seeing perfectly serviceable existing hotels redeveloped for other purposes? Does it make any sense that the system allows the Furama, Hyatt Regency, Ritz Carlton etc. to be decommissioned when there is apparently such a hotel shortage that the government has to give incentives to encourage the building of more? Or am I being too logical?

Budget Blow-out

John Tsang's first budget as Hong Kong's new Financial Secretary appears to have something for everyone, though it does nothing to solve the longer term structural problem of financing pensions and health care for an aging population.

Many young people arrived from the Mainland in the 1950s and 60s and worked hard to lay the foundations of the prosperity Hong Kong enjoys today. Times were hard in those days, and many earned only enough to provide for their immediate needs, with no opportunity to lay something aside for the future.

As Hong Kong became a major economic force, most of its people were lifted out of poverty. But lower income earners were hard hit by the migration of Hong Kong manufacturing to the Mainland in the 1980s. Those with limited education and few skills were stuck in low paying jobs, if they could find work at all. As this age group becomes too old to work, those without supportive relatives face a precarious old age, and will inceasingly rely on government support to survive. What was once a youthful population has changed owing to low birth rates and the world's highest life expectancy.

Meanwhile, one feature of the budget that will benefit me personally is the removal of duty on beer and wine, both of which I enjoy. But in its eagerness to promote Hong Kong as a centre for wine trading in Asia, I wonder if the government has considered the possible consequences of making booze more affordable to young people? Anyone who has seen how some urban areas in Britain are taken over by packs of drunken yobboes at weekends, leaving a trail of vomit and broken glass, will not want to see the binge-drinking youth culture spread to Hong Kong (nor the obesity to which it contributes).

Memo to ATV News: the government does not "give away" money to taxpayers. The correct term is "give back" - it is our money in the first place.

English is a funny language

Just thinking:

• If people from Burma are Burmese, why aren't people from Rome Romese? And people from India Indiese?
• If Javanese come from Java, why don't Japanese come from Japa?
• If Finns come from Finland, why don't Ires come from Ireland? And Ices from Iceland?

Crazy language, huh?

P.S. Does anyone know why bullet points appear correctly in a preview of Blogger posts, but not in the final post?

Save Water, Waste Paper

I received my water bill last night. And my water bill. Both the fresh water and flushing water bills, each mailed in a separate envelope, enclosed two A4 size circulars - one in Chinese (I don't know what it's about, but it didn't look important so I put it out for recycling) and one containing the Water Supplies Department's performance pledges for 2007/2008. On the front of the latter in large letters were the words:

"Save Water for the Future
Every Drop Counts"

I have a suggestion for the Water Supplies Department (a branch of the Hong Kong Government):

"Save Trees
Every Sheet of Paper Counts"

Not to mention:

"Save Taxpayers' Money
Every Cent Counts"

Even electricity company CLP, hardly a model of environmental rectitude (in fact one of Hong Kong's biggest polluters) offers electronic billing as an alternative to paper. The WSD plans to introduce this in stages, but only starting in 2009. Meanwhile it is sending out 7.2 million water bills a year on paper (complete with unwanted and unnecessarily duplicated enclosures).

So, here are some suggested performance pledges for 2008/2009 for the Water Department

1. Send out each year's performance pledges to customers during that year, not almost a year later. In 2008 we should be reading about your 2007 achievements, not those of 2006.
2. Combine fresh and flush water billing to save paper.
3. If this is not possible, at least send the two bills out in the same envelope to save on paper and postage.
4. Speed up the introduction of electronic billing as an alternative to paper billing.

Making It Better:

Water Aid

Whose Heritage?

"Who funds the Heritage Foundation?" asks Fumier, in response to an earlier post here. A good question, so I set out to find out. Some of the answers are here and here.

According to Wikipedia, the influential Foundation was set up with funding from Joseph Coors of the Coors brewing family. Today it states that its funding comes from "the financial contributions of the gemeral public: individuals, foundations and corporations," and that it accepts no government funds. While corporations apparently account for less than 10% of its total funding of around US$30 million a year, they appear to have a strong influence on its pro-big business policies. Donors include many of the usual suspects: Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical Company, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, American International Group (AIG), Novartis, ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil. Some money comes from overseas, including Korean sources and the Margaret Thatcher Foundation in Britain.

Tobacco money is naturally represented among this crowd, with Altria Group among the donors (known as Philip Morris until their reputation for killing their customers forced them to change their name); in exchange for their support, they are rewarded with such egregious pieces of propaganda as this. Notice two ingenious arguments here: tobacco tax should not be increased because "with the number of smokers already declining, a tobacco tax would further reduce the number of smokers, thereby eroding the funding source" (isn't reducing the number of smokers a key objective of such increases?); and "young adults are ... disproportionately impacted by the tobacco tax"(doesn't the tobacco industry always say that it wishes to discourage young people from smoking?)

According to Wikipedia, the Heritage Foundation is associated with the Hong Kong consulting firm Belle Haven Consultants, which lobbies in Washington on behalf of Malaysian interests.

Would you buy a used policy from these guys?

Creedence Clearwater Retitle

According to a DJ on one of RTHK's Chinese radio channels, the song Proud Mary was written and performed by John Forgetty. Funny I don't remember that.

Then there was the ATV newsreader who announced recently that Herbie Hancock had won a Grammy for River: the Johnny Letters. Er - that would be Johnny Mitchell, the well known male singer?

Another classic from ATV news last night: "Lydia Shum was born in Shanghai in 1945 and got her first big break in 1960 at the tender age of 13". As our transatlantic cousins like to say, you do the math.

Do these presenters consider themselves professionals, I wonder?

I Can See Clearly Now

"I got new eyes
Everything looks far away"
--Bob Dylan, Highlands

Just in case anyone is wondering why I haven't posted here for weeks, I've been recovering from eye surgery. Thanks to Dr Cheung and the team at St Paul's Hospital Eye Centre, especially the nurse who asked me if I can speak Cantonese, then laughingly replied "siu siu" for me before I could say it myself.

I've posted occasional comments on other blogs, but nothing here as I was limiting my time online to avoid eyestrain. Meanwhile, lots of blogworthy things seem to have happened in the past few weeks, and I'll catch up with some of them soon. Keep watching!

Ghost Destinations

Every day, hundreds of minibuses on Hong Kong Island travel to a destination that doesn't exist. For years, red minibuses terminated at the Daimaru department store in Great George Street, Causeway Bay (the terminus is now in nearby Sugar Street). The store closed in 1998, but a decade later, the minibuses still advertise it as their destination. Locals know where they mean, but it must confuse the hell out of tourists (maybe that's the intention...).

Meanwhile up in Taipo, green minibus passengers still request to be let off at "Kah Si Bah", though the Carlsberg Brewery in the Taipo Industrial Estate closed in 1999, and the local market is now supplied from Carlsberg's mainland breweries.

Does anyone know of any other ghost destinations in Hong Kong that linger on in this way?

Spam, Spam, Spam, Stupidity and Spam

Message in a Yahoo group I belong to (dated 17 January) promoting "replica" (i.e. fake) watches and the like:

"We sure, that you are looking for Christmas gifts.

Hurry up! The best gifts and huge price break only in our Christmas store!"

Well, doesn't everyone do their Christmas shopping in January?

Two sides to every freedom

For the 14th year running, Hong Kong has been named the world's freest economy, ahead of Singapore in second place. This title is bestowed by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing US-based organisation.

The Foundation warns, however, that Singapore is closing the gap. But before we all panic that Hong Kong is no longer competitive, let's look at some of the Foundation's criticisms and translate them into plain English:

• The Scheme of Control regulation of electricity prices (translation - let the two power monopolies rip off consumers with uncontrolled prices)
• The regulation of prices for public transport (translation - let transport operators rip off consumers with uncontrolled prices)
• The regulation of some residential rents (translation - let Hong Kong's greedy landlords charge the SAR's poorest people, mostly elderly, even more for tiny cages in rat-infested pre-war slums)
• "Restrictive" pharmaceuticals regulation (translation - forget about protecting the consumer from dodgy fake drugs)
• Market access restrictions for legal services (don't know about that one)
• Limited import licensing (to the best of my knowledge, Hong Kong has fewer import restrictions than almost anywhere in the world, and most of those that do exist are intended to ensure food safety)
• Issues involving intellectual property rights that add to the cost of trade (not sure what they mean by this one)

Here's a question: if Hong Kong's economy is so free, how come we only have two big supermarket chains?

When big business calls for deregulation, what they really mean is usually dismantling worker protection, dismantling environmental protection, and dismantling consumer protection so they can enlarge their already bloated profits. Do we really want to be more "free" in this sense?

As for comparisons with Singapore, the Heritage Foundation says nothing about political freedoms. Even without democracy, we are streets ahead of the Lion City in terms of freedom of expression.

The rise of the machines

Am I the only one who, on seeing people walking around with Bluetooth mobile phone headsets seemingly permanently attached to their ears, is irresistibly reminded of the Borg in the later Star Trek series?

How far will man/machine hybrids go? We already have thousands of people walking around with artificial pacemakers and plastic hip joints. That's fine, but now there are proposals to insert a computer chip into convicted criminals (as we already do to dogs). And you would have to be very naive indeed to think that governments will be content with only chipping criminals - all in the interest of preserving our freedom by destroying it, of course. Welcome to 1984.

Sound familiar?

I was watching an old episode of "Cheers" last night in which Frasier Crane persuades likable but slow-witted bartender Woody to run for the City Council for a bet. Briefing Woody before a debate with his opponent, Frasier concludes his advice with, "... if that doesn't work, just say the word 'change' about a hundred times".

Now, does that remind you of anyone?

Blinding us with(out) science

The Times of London (once a highly respected paper of record, but nowadays owned by Rupert Murdoch) discloses that controversial billionaire George Soros, an opponent of the Iraq War, partially funded the 2006 study that estimated the number of deaths attributable to the war as 650,000. The accuracy of this figure was fiercely criticised at the time, and a more recent study puts the number of dead at "only" 151,000 (still 151,000 too many).

The Times article quotes Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, as saying "The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research". This only shows that "many people", including Spagat, are stupid.

The source of funding of a scientific study, though it may warn us to be wary of a possible hidden agenda, says nothing in itself about the validity of the study's results. If the survey is conducted honestly and the methodology used makes sense, why should the fact that person A rather than person B paid for it make any difference? Apart from which, who is going to fund such studies apart from opponents of the war? The war criminals in Washington, London and Canberra who started the war have done their best to avoid and obfuscate the whole issue of the resulting death toll. Soros deserves credit for helping to bring the historical facts into the open.

Unable Seamen

Last night's crash between two Macau ferries should never have happened. Sure it was foggy, but a) those vessels carry radar; b) there are well-established rules of navigation designed to avoid collisions; and c) common sense says that if you can't see far ahead, you should slow down. Conclusion: unless the Marine Department investigation turns up something surprising, the most likely reason that 140 people were injured is either incompetence, carelessness, or both on the part of one or both crews.

That was not the only accident in local waters yesterday. Hong Kong's loony drivers are dangerous enough; it would be nice to be able to take a ferry to Macau without worrying that there may be an idiot at the helm, or steering another vessel in the vicinity.

None of the Above

The government has given the go-ahead for construction of the Donald Tsang's Ego Memorial Complex on the Tamar site, which will cost us more than HK$5 billion of our money. While the design has some interesting features, it is apparently not the one that was preferred by a majority of respondents to the public consultation exercise, which presented four options. No surprise there - when did planning in Hong Kong ever give priority to the needs and preferences of ordinary people over those of the big property developers?

There is of course a fifth option which was never offered to the public: none of the above. The use of the Tamar site was rammed through by the government despite considerable sentiment suggesting better alternative uses for it.

Since the Legislative Council will move to the new site, the question arises of how the existing Legislative Council building - originally the Supreme Court - will be used in future. Dare we hope for some real public consultation on this? Or will it be yet another decision made behind closed doors?

And if you think the Tamar project is expensive, wait till you see the cost (if they ever dare to reveal it) of the Hu Jintao's Ego Memorial Bridge to Macau.

DaDa Dali and the Surreal Swimmers

I passed a van this morning with an ad on the side for an amateur swimming club with the domain name daliswim.com.hk - now that conjures up some intriguing visions! My wife (ever practical) said it's probably just an abbreviation for "daily swim", but I prefer my version. Now, where did I put my floppy watch...

And while we're on the subject of Hong Kong websites, how come the South China Morning Post website was down for a couple of hours earlier this morning?

Nothing to my name - well, maybe a little

Interesting to see a lengthy interview (in English) with veteran Beijing rocker Cui Jian on CCTV-9 over the weekend. According to his Wikipedia entry, he is no longer blacklisted by the authorities in China; however, he did say during the interview "China has not changed" and "I will be a troublemaker forever".

Jumping to Conclusions

According to last night's ATV news, the Hospital Authority would make a full investigation into the contaminated blood transfusion received by a patient in Tuen Mum Hospital (who has subsequently died), but was satisfied that hospital staff were not to blame.

Perhaps someone should tell them that it is a good idea to conduct the inquiry first and announce the conclusions afterwards; otherwise you run the risk of coming across like the Pakistani government, which within the space of a few days announced that Benazir Bhutto had been shot; then that she had been killed by shrapnel; then that she had fractured her skull on the sunroof of her car while ducking to escape a suicide bombing; then that it didn't matter how she died, only who killed her; then suggesting that she should be dug up again to establish the cause of death for sure. Now they have apparently come back to the original gunshot theory (after two videos emerged showing men brandishing guns in the crowd around her).

The Hong Kong incident also produced an early entry in the "stupid statements of 2008" file, when a hospital spokesman was reported as saying that the bacterium concerned, Pseudomonas Fluorescen, would do little harm to a healthy person. Since blood transfusions are not generally given to healthy people, this falls into the category of totally useless information. Once can only assume the intent was to make a serious situation seem more trivial in a feeble attempt to dilute criticism for it.

Is this any way to run a business?

Quote from tonight's financial news on ATV:

"Ford is selling these units [Jaguar and Land Rover] to concentrate on its unprofitable US business."

Er.. wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on your profitable businesses and dump the loss-making ones instead?

Meanwhile, the main news reported that Western Harbour Tunnel fees, already the highest among the three tunnels, will rise by $5 or more depending on the type of vehicle. Since many drivers already go out of their way (literally) to use the $20 Cross-Harbour Tunnel rather than the (currently) $40 Western Tunnel, this can only drive even more vehicles away from the tunnel, which has run at a loss since it opened.

Conventional economic wisdom suggests that where there are alternatives in the market, the best way to attract more business is to lower prices, not to raise them. Do the tunnel's owners know something we don't?