fashion beach

In his Not the South China Morning Post blog today, George Adams takes the opportunity to promote one of his books: Le Retour de Suzie Wong (The Return of Suzie Wong) in French.  My schoolboy French being pretty rusty, I put the linked review through Google Translate.  The sentence " Il tient aussi un blog satirique, The Not South China Morning Post, où il chronique l’actualité locale." is saying, I believe, that his blog chronicles local news (when not busy sniping at other local bloggers) - according to Google, however, "It also takes a satirical blog, The Not South China Morning Post, where chronic local news."

Many would agree that the local news is indeed chronic these days, but I think if I'd turned in that translation, my old French teacher, the diminutive but formidable (say that word the French way) Miss Adams, would have marked it "must try harder". 

I saw a furniture shop in Hong Kong called Sofa So Good.  Quite witty, but puns are not my subject today.




English is a wonderfully ambiguous language.  This notice appears beside the lifts in the Taipo Public Library.  That's on the fifth of eight floors, so if I followed its advice, I would end up in the basement car park - that being the farthest possible destination accessible by the stairs from the fifth floor.  But I only wanted to go to the ground floor!

As Mo Yan accepted his Nobel Prize for Literature this week - the first Chinese author to receive it -  while carefully attempting to stay out of political controversy, it may be appropriate to post this, which I wrote a couple of years ago but never got round to completing at the time:

Beijing, 8 October 2010 - Foreign Office spokeswoman Jiang Yu, her characteristic beaming smile even broader than usual, today expressed the Chinese government's pleasure at the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo. "The entire nation shares in congratulations on the award of this great honour to Liu, whose tireless work for human rights and democracy in China has endeared him to so many of our people" Jiang said. "A prestigious international honour given to any Chinese citizen is a matter of national pride for China."

Sadly the above is of course not the way it went - instead the stern-faced Jiang delivered her usual predictable  lecture about not interfering in China's international affairs, and how it was shameful that such an honour should be given to someone China regards as a criminal. (Curious how many Nobel Peace Prize winners have been regarded as criminals by their own country's governments in their time - Nelson Mandela, for example - not that I agree with all the Prize Committee's dubious decisions.)  Incidentally, if China considers Tibet part of China, then wouldn't that make Liu not the first, but the second Chinese national to receive the Nobel Peace Prize - the first being another notorious "criminal", the Dalai Lama?

A fundamentalist Christian church in the US is planning to mark the anniversary of the September 11 World Trade Centre attacks by burning copies of the Koran - thereby ensuring that more Muslim fundamentalists will be enraged into carrying out further acts of terrorism.

This is pretty much the kind of intolerance and mutual lack of understanding one expects from religious fundamentalists on both sides of the Muslim/Christian divide. What makes it noteworthy is the name of the church concerned - the Dove World Outreach Centre. They certainly know how to reach out to the Muslim world, don't they? Perhaps some Muslims should reach out to them by burning copies of the Bible outside their church. All in the spirit of peace symbolised by the dove, of course.

Fact: Islam also recognises the Bible as a holy book - though fundamentalists on both sides seem unaware of this. Or indeed of anything much except their own bigotry.

The publication of a book on parenting by Lynne Spears, mother of role model Britney Spears, has been postponed indefinitely after it was announced that Britney's younger sister, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, is pregnant.

However, other new books expected soon will appear as planned, including:
- Staying Sober by Amy Winehouse
- Monogamy by Elizabeth Taylor
- Peacemaking by George W. Bush
- How to Be Nice to Everyone by Simon Cowell
- The Fast Road to Democracy by Donald Tsang