fashion beach

Those who were wondering whether David Moyes was Alex Ferguson's true heir, following Man United's disappointing run recently, can be reassured by today's headline.  Moyes is clearly following the Fergie Formula for Football Management to the letter - when all else fails, blame the ref.

In what is clearly an orchestrated campaign, a former government minister and a failed CE candidate have both suggested in the past few days that former Financial Secretary Antony Leung - who has suddenly re-emerged in public after a period of keeping a low profile - would make a good Chief Executive of Hong Kong.  Apparently the tycoon sector want to put someone of their own forward as an alternative to the presumed democratic candidate (if we're lucky) plus whoever gets the Beijing bootlicker nomination to replace the doesn't-have-a-hope-in-hell-of-re-election CY Leung - but they must be pretty desperate if they select someone who's already left the government in disgrace once.  Perhaps they think the Hong Kong public suffers from the same kind of memory loss that afflicted Leung when he raised vehicle taxes shortly after acquiring and apparently forgetting an expensive new motor, or perhaps they think Leung's fragrant wife compensates for his own shortcomings as a candidate.  Or - worst case scenario - they already know Beijing will put a block on any truly democratic candidate, and figure the Hong Kong public will respond by voting for anyone who isn't too visibly far up Beijing's backside, rather than the Party's anointed one.  Scary thought...

Memo to the person who hit Financial Secr5etary John Tsang with an egg at a recent public forum: don't waste good food on bad politicians.

Tsang's boss, Chief Executive CY Leung, for whom the missile was probably intended, subsequently said that "such incidents won't happen in mature democracies".  This is yet another factual inexactitude from a government that produces rather a lot of them - in fact throwing eggs, pies, paint, and more recently glitter, at public figures is a time-honoured tradition in many mature democracies, including the UK, France, Belgium, Canada, and of course the USA.  Notable victims have included Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates and even the King of Sweden.

Despite claims that such incidents are immoral, violent, and even constitute terrorism, their intent is clearly symbolic rather than to cause physical harm (though in a few tragic cases, they may do so); the aim is to leave those who are perceived by the thrower as dishonest, immoral or self-important looking ridiculous, deflated and humiliated.  As such, most Hong Kong government ministers are clearly prime targets for such treatment.

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". 

It appears that Chief Executive CY Leung has a new tactic for dealing with differing views.  Following his recent speech suggesting that the government had already explained the HKTV issue and we were just too dumb to understand it, last night's TVB news reported that "The CE also said thee were no more concerns about the plans for developing the Northeast New Territories".

As my wife said "Not for him maybe, only for everyone else in Hong Kong."  Still, if you can't solve the problems, pretending they no longer exist is an interesting alternative.

So, goodbye Lou Reed.  According to Brian Eno, not many people bought the Velvet Underground & Nico album first time around, but everyone who did went out and started a band.  Sorry Brian, I guess I'm the exception that proves the rule.  But I've been a Lou fan ever since, and apart from seeing him live in the 1970s, I was lucky enough to catch the Velvets reunion tour in 1993.  Though my original copy of the first album is long gone, I also own more Velvets box sets (vinyl and CD) than I have space for.

Lou was notoriously tough on journalists, who commonly asked him stupid questions and got things wrong (not that he was above feeding them contradictory stories for the hell of it), so he would not have been too surprised to see the BBC report that he was survived by his second wife  - in fact Laurie Anderson was his third, not counting the mysterious Rachel.


There are millions of musicians, but only a handful change the direction of music: Lou was one.  And even Susan Boyle recorded one of his songs...

Isn't it time LegCo stopped bashing poor old Timothy Tong?  Far from spending public money unwisely, it is obvious that the former ICAC chief was merely trying to single-handedly rescue Hong Kong's wine trade in the face of slumping high-end sales in the mainland.  Hong Kong has, after all, been declared a wine hub, and as we all know, hub status is sacred in the eyes of the government.  Anything that threatens hubness must be defeated, so far from being reviled, surely Tong should be awarded the GBM (Great Boozer Medal) for his valiant efforts. 

The recent article by British Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire saying that Britain stands ready to help Hong Kong in its move towards full universal suffrage has brought the expected response from the pro-Beijing crowd, all indignant at the idea that China could possibly have anything to learn from foreigners (funny how many of them, including Chief Executive CY Leung, send their kids to British schools - not to mention that China officially proclaims its allegiance to a political creed originated by a German Jew).

NPC member Rita Fan, one of the many leading political figures in Hong Kong who loyally served the British for years before suddenly discovering their latent Chinese patriotism in 1997, warned people not to be naive about offers of help, saying her experience tells her that governments always have their own hidden agendas (TVB news, 5 October).  So Rita, what's the hidden agenda behind all these offers of "help" and "cooperation" that Hong Kong keeps receiving from your friends up North?

In reality, most "hidden" agendas are pretty transparent.  In this case, Britain has several interests: to ensure the continued successful implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the "one country, two systems" principle , lest it be accused of having sold out the people of Hong Kong; to be seen as a champion of democracy; and (most importantly) to maintain stability and the rule of law in Hong Kong in order to keep it safe for continued British trade and investment.

Meanwhile  China seeks to earn the love of Hong Kong people and give them a warm cuddly feeling towards the motherland, with a long-term aim of transitioning from "two systems" to "one country"  So far, many of its efforts in that direction seem to have backfired; flooding us with mainland tourists to help our economy has earned Beijing more enemies than friends here.  Nevertheless, they will keep trying to balance the stick of stern warnings to behave ourselves with the carrot of economic incentives.

A new entrant to the toadstooling crop (mushrooming is too complimentary a word for these poisonous growths) of clumsily-named and aggressive organisations claiming to love Hong Kong so much they need to tell us all how to think, "Caring Hong Kong Power", wants local teachers to be forced to declare their political affiliations.  If this latest attempt at CCPisation succeeds, one can only hope that someone will found a Mind Your Own Damn Business Party which all teachers will join, then they can all write Mind Your Own Damn Business on the declaration form.

On the other hand, it may be possible to turn this against its instigators.  Since it is well known that certain schools in Hong Kong are sponsored by pro-Beijing organisations (founding DAB member and current LegCo president Tsang-Yok-sing was principal of one of these before entering full-time politics), could we not argue that by the same token, these schools are subjecting children to undue political brainwashing and should be closed down?

In a SCMP profile, the group's loudmouthed leader,  Chan Ching-sum, reveals her ignorance - or true intentions - by saying: "We in Hong Kong abide by the Chinese constitution".  Well, no, we don't.  The whole point of the Basic Law is that Hong Kong, while part of China, is exempt from much of the constitution which governs the rest of the country (except for the other SAR, Macau), and has its own system.

Chan also says of the pan-democrats: "When there was no universal suffrage, people asked for it; when there is [sic], they ask for it to be real".  Presumably she thinks fake democracy is all the Hong Kong people deserve.  Whatever she "Cares" about, it sure isn't Hong Kong.

Yesterday my father-in-law took a taxi home.  The taxi driver subsequently picked up another passenger, who found a bunch of keys - one of them apparently a car key - on the back seat.  After dropping off that passenger, the driver took the trouble to go out of his way to drive back to our home to ask if the keys belonged to my father-in-law.  As it happens, they didn't - presumably having been dropped by an earlier passenger - but in a time when Hong Kong is increasingly fractious and divided, it's good to be reminded that simple human acts of kindness can still be found here.  And if you left your keys in a taxi yesterday, the driver will have handed them in to the police by now.

The heading, by the way, is from Shakespeare's A Merchant of Venice.  Looking it up to be sure of getting the wording right, I learned that in Shakespeare's time "naughty" meant "worthless" (i.e. "worth naught").  So I should also thank the taxi driver for furthering my etymological education.

Another of the Pro-China Morning Post's meaningless polls today.  "Do you agree with ex-minister Fred Ma that Hong Kong has been distracted by trivial issues?"  Yes, I think we can all (well, 89% of respondents, anyway) agree on that - but I very much doubt that we would all agree on what is trivial.  For example, I would consider one protester shouting abuse at the police in the heat of the moment a trivial incident - as would many others - but Chief Executive CY Leung apparently considers it significant enough for him to call for a report on the award-winning teacher responsible, and the China Daily predictably backs him in this witch-hunt.  There is no sign that this report will look into the far-from-trivial accusations of police bias that raised the protester's ire in the first place.

I'm not going to add more to the weight of verbiage on the demonisation of that unfortunate lady.  What interests me today is the Post's choice of words in its editorial - written by Lau Nai-keung, who can usually be relied on to channel the latest propaganda direct from the Central Government Liaison Office without any intervening thought process. The article, headed "Public opinion turns on anti-government protesters", begins: "The dissidents made a big mistake by staging a mass confrontation on August 4".

Now there are several points of interest here - for one thing, how big does a crowd have to be to make it a "mass"?  And which public is he talking about?  When you read the article, he appears to be talking mainly about the media and the new so-called Silent Majority organisation.

"Mainstream Hong Kong people", Lau argues, "badly want change, but not to the point of rocking the boat, never mind some kind of regime change as some dissidents would like. When our dissidents go too far, the silent majority will rise up and try to push them back, and this is what we are witnessing now".  He doesn't mention public concern that some of the "pushing back" at the recent Tin Shui Wai incident appears to have been done by known gangsters.  That's another issue the government apparently considers too trivial to pursue.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Lau's piece is his frequent use of the word "dissident".  The term is broadly defined, says Wikipedia, as one who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy or institution.  But in general usage, the term is almost exclusively applied to those who do so in response to a tyrannical dictatorship.  It seems that Lau's choice of the word is telling us more than he intends about the regime he so avidly supports.

The latest of the rash of anti-democracy groups springing up like poisonous toadstools in Hong Kong (no doubt with the Central Government Liaison Office's hand at work behind the scenes) calls itself The Silent Majority.  Come on!  That's one of the oldest and most clichéd political tricks in the book - when you don't have enough supporters, simply declare that everyone who doesn't express any other view openly must be on your side.  The fact that some of this group are academics doesn't say much for the quality of Hong Kong's teaching of logical thinking.

The reality is that in most political systems, the majority of people keep a low profile most of the time unless some major event (Article 23, National Education) stirs them to a level of dissatisfaction that brings them out on to the streets.  If this new group assume that this indicates satisfaction with the status quo, they are sadly out of touch with public feeling in Hong Kong today.  If they know they are talking nonsense, then this can be seen as yet another ploy to persuade the public to shut up and accept what they're given.

Meanwhile another of these shadowy groups, the so-called Hong Kong Youth Care Association, continues its obviously well-funded campaign of harassment and occasional violence against the Falun Gong, with the apparent connivance of the Hong Kong Police Force.  For those who haven't followed recent events, a group of HKYCA activists were (as usual) attacking Falun Gong members a couple of weeks ago.  The Police held back a counter-protest group while seemingly doing nothing to rein in the HKYCA.  This angered a local teacher, Alpais Lam, who asked in intemperate language WTF the police were doing.  This in turn triggered a pro-police protest and a pro-free-speech counter-protest in Mongkok, leading to clashes and more exchanges of colourful language.

Following a tsunami of personal criticism, with calls for her to be sacked from her job, and even funeral wreaths bearing her name being left outside her school, Ms Lam (no doubt under intense pressure) later apologised for her choice of words.  However, the case has stirred up a welter of argument in Hong Kong.  For details and video see here, here, here, and here.

The Falun Gong's beliefs may be nonsensical, but the fact is that if Chinese communist front groups are allowed to suppress anyone's beliefs in Hong Kong, then none of us is free to believe what we choose.  So what do we know about the HKYCA?  Well, several things (see some of the above links):

• It is related to the China Anti-Cult Association, a supposed NGO in the mainland but in reality a government-supported organisation.
• It receives financial support from Yanjing Brewery (Yanjing Beer being, probably less than coincidentally, the official State Beer of China).

And what can be done about it?  Here are some suggestions:

• Whenever you see the HKYCA's illegally erected banners on the street, complain to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department.  (And speaking of illegality, it's ironic that a CCP front organisation is in blatant violation of the Basic Law which pro-Beijing groups are usually so quick to defend - the HKYCA's attempts to suppress a religious organisation in Hong Kong clearly contradicts the Basic Law's guarantees of religious freedom.)
• Complain to the Inland Revenue Department that the group should not enjoy its tax-exempt charitable status, because its principal activities bear no relation to its stated objectives and constitution and are clearly political in nature, making them ineligible for tax-exemption.  I plan to do this myself and will let you know the response.
• Boycott Yanjing beer, and let others know why you are doing so.

Maybe none of these will be effective, but I see no reason why we should give this noxious group an easy ride.

I don't often waste time reading celebrity gossip, but I happened to come across a 2011 piece on the "Top 10 strongest celeb couples".  The subheading is "CELEB LOVE THAT LASTS".  Well, sort of... for a while - at least two of the couples featured are no longer together.

Interesting that the BBC news obituary of the late journalist Alan Whicker (famously parodied by Mony Python) should include this photo:

 - though one does wonder from the sloping horizon and lack of focus whether the photographer was drunk!

it is not uncommon for me to splutter with indignation when watching the news, but last night brought an even bigger splutter than usual.  Chief Executive CY Leung told LegCo yesterday that Hong Kong is not yet ready for public consultation on political reform (i.e. the arrangements for the CE election in 2017) because "it is necessary to listen to different views before starting the consultation", and "there is still no consensus" on the issue.  The whole purpose of having public consultation is to give members of the community a chance to express different views on an issue - so does that mean the government needs to consult the public before it can consult the public?!

And as for consensus, there isn't and probably never will be a real consensus on the issue of democracy.  There are simply two fundamentally opposed camps - those (the majority) who think democracy is long overdue, and those who just think what Beijing tells them to (or worse, what they think Beijing wants them to).  The closest we can get to consensus will be a political framework that gives Hong Kong people as much say in their own future as possible, while reassuring Beijing that Long Hair will never be elected CE.  Achieving that would be greatly helped if the Rita Fans and Maria Tams of this world would spend less time telling us what Beijing won't let us have, and more time using their close links with the Chinese leaders to let them know their fears are unfounded.  But then, nobody ever earned a Grand Bauhinia Star or whatever it's called by speaking truth to power, so I don't see much chance of that.

Another piece of vintage political BS came from DAB leader Tam Yiu-chung a few days ago.  Commenting on several proposals for a political framework put forward by The Alliance for True Democracy, he said "the DAB fears the proposals may not be acceptable to Beijing because the different sectors of the community may not all be represented".  Now since the DAB has never shown much interest in inclusiveness, I think we can take it that he wasn't overly concerned that transgender vegetarian unmarried mothers who ride bicycles would not be fairly represented.  What he really means is that the proposals would destroy the current rigged system whereby pro-Beijing groups and other conservative forces such as the property and banking sectors and the NT Mafia are grossly over-represented in Hong Kong's political structures.  Which is exactly the point, of course.

Rabid pro-Beijing propagandist Lau Nai-keung gives us another of his trademark rants (it would be excessively complimentary to classify them as journalism) in the China Daily.  Lau is worried that Trade Development Council Chairman Jack So has reassured the American business community that the planned Occupy Central movement will be just another peaceful expression of views, and unlikely to disturb "business as usual" in Hong Kong.  In Lau's eyes, this is an unforgivable departure from the official party line, as expressed by Chief Executive CY Leung a couple of days earlier, that the mild-mannered academics spearheading Occupy Central are planning mayhem, violence, rioting in the streets and general Armageddon.

'Even if Hong Kong has the "rule of law" and so forth, investors will still flee if our top officials are all ignorant fools' spouts Lau.  It only takes one look at the current government line-up to disprove this hypothesis - if Lau were correct, there would be nary a foreign investor left here already.  Still, credit to Jack So for being an exception to the rule and displaying a measure of calm reason amid the general hysteria.

I dreamed I saw George Takei last night.

Actually it was the night before last, but that line has a nice ring to it, resonant of the song about Joe Hill. In the dream, my wife and I were sitting near the front of a large square-shaped restaurant - Chinese, I think it was.  I looked around the restaurant, and George was seated at a table in the back corner.  He saw me and waved to me.

In real life, I don't know George personally, but I have been a Star Trek fan for decades.  Not a Trekkie - I don't attend conventions dressed up as a Ferengi, converse in Klingon, or collect scale models of the starship Enterprise - just someone who has seen and enjoyed most episodes of The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Enterprise - and would probably also enjoy Voyager and Deep Space Nine if Hong Kong's useless TV stations could be bothered to find room for them among the rubbish they usually churn out.

As is generally known, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry insisted on a multiracial cast at a time when US TV programmes were wall-to-wall vanilla, figuring that by the 24th century the human race might have grown up.  Much has been made of Nichelle Nichols' position as the first black woman to hold a major role in a major series, but it has been less often noted that, until Takei appeared in The Original Series, few Asian faces made it to prime time TV either.

Anyway, all this is by way of an excuse for passing on the fun picture above, which comes from Takei's Facebook page - generally a witty and entertaining read.  Enjoy!