fashion beach

A hysterical (in both senses) article in Beijing mouthpiece The Global Times castigating Hong Kong for selfishness in not wanting to be flooded with ever more mainland tourists asks:

The answer to this question is easily illustrated:

What is it that compels otherwise sensible companies to change meaningful names to meaningless - and often hard to remember - three-letter identifiers?

Imagine the box above - purchased from City Super - with a bottle in each of the 3 central slots, and a glass at each end.  The bottles contain one each of the excellent beers brewed by the Trappist monks of Rochefort, one of a handful of Trappist monasteries in Belgium and Holland renowned for their superb strong beers - the rarely seen Number 6, plus the more widely available 8 and 10.

It was only after drinking the beer that I noticed this on the back of the box:
So, where's my extra bottle?

I've never tried asking for advice here before, and I don't even know how many people actually read this, but does anyone have any idea which smartphone is best for someone with poor eyesight?  I have vision problems and even after 2 operations on my eyes and with glasses, small print and fine detail remain a problem.  At home I use a 27-inch computer monitor; when out and about I've been using an unsmart Nokia phone for years for voice calls, but I rarely use SMS as the screen is too small for comfort.

Now my phone is showing signs of dying on me, plus I really need to be able to access my email when I'm out for meetings or whatever; it would also be nice to use WhatsApp.  I don't care so much about photographic capability, as I generally carry a neat little Canon S100 everywhere with me.  Music capability is not a deal-breaker either.

So, time for a smartphone (several generations behind everyone else!), but which one?  After a bit of Googling, which mostly uncovered recommendations for already-obsolete models (isn't it time everything on the Internet carried a "use by" date?), I have reached a few conclusions:

• A big screen should help, but is not always better if the resolution is not good enough.  Contrast and brightness are important, not just size (and other factors, too).
• Most phones made specifically for those with poor eyesight appear to assume that the user is a senile centenarian who's deadly afraid of technology.  I'm not.
• Both Apple and Android operating systems offer some features or apps which can help (e.g. by magnifying text or reading it aloud), as does Windows Phone, but none has a definitive edge over the others in this area.

Does anyone have any comments on the following, which look like the best possibilities?

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 or Galaxy Mega 6.3
• HTC One Max
• Nokia Lumia 1520
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
• Huawei Ascend Mate
• LG G Flex

Experiences and alternatives welcome.  Incidentally, I have big hands so a relatively large phone is not a problem - in fact, smaller phones tend to be too fiddly for my fingers.

By the way, am I the only one who wonders why, in a world where the proportion of elderly people is steadily increasing, with the inevitable deterioration of visual functioning that comes with age, we are nevertheless being expected to read ever smaller print?  (Shrinking screens, bank terms and conditions printed in 6-point type - not to mention the teenage website designers, probably descended from Douglas Adams' telephone sanitisers, who think that pink on purple is a really cool colour combination.) 

As Carrie Lam, Elsie Leung and other cheerleaders continue to argue for the government's stance on electoral reform, they also continue to gloss over the serious contradiction at the heart of it.  On the one hand they insist that any reform must comply with the Basic Law, which requires that a "broadly representative" nominating committee should nominate candidates for election by universal suffrage as Chief Executive of Hong Kong.  Most of us could live with that; the problem arises when they insist that the formation of the committee must also comply with the ruling by the NPC Standing Committee in 2007 that it be formed "with reference to the existing election committee" that selected CE candidates for the last "election".

According to those who are supposed to know, this means in Chinese legal parlance that the nominating committee, while it may be larger, should be of similar composition to the "four sectors" making up the election committee.  The difficulty here is that, other than those with a vested interest in the old system, no one in Hong Kong recognises the election committee as coming anywhere close to being "broadly representative"; in fact, the very opposite.  So if we have a nominating committee that follows the NPC ruling, we will not have one that is in any genuine sense "broadly representative" , and therefore it cannot be compliant with the Basic Law.

Apart from providing ample fodder for a judicial review, failure by the government to address this contradiction seems almost guaranteed to bring on Occupy Central.  Is that what they want?

Since leaders of Hong Kong's Occupy Central movement met with a former President of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party recently, they have been subjected to a flood of vilification by the usual pro-establishment suspects here -- despite the fact that another former DPP President held talks with Chinese officials in Hong Kong not long ago.

Beijing has always insisted that Taiwan, despite its de facto independence since 1949 and half a century of Japanese occupation earlier in the 20th century, remains an integral and inseparable part of China.  But yesterday Charles Yeung, Chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, was quoted by TVB news as saying that he is worried about Occupy Central organisers working with "foreign political forces".

So are the Taiwanese lost children of China who should be clasped to the forgiving bosom of the motherland, or subversive foreign troublemakers who need to be kept at a safe distance?  I think we should be told.

Credit to the Hong Kong government where it's due: watching the Legislative Council TV feed this morning, I noticed that they now show a sign language interpreter in the corner of the screen.  My memory may be at fault, but I think this is new - long overdue, of course, but welcome all the same.

Unfortunately, the government's limitless capacity for ineptitude is on full display in another matter: the granting of TV broadcasting licenses to only two of the three applicants - and one of them the notoriously incompetent PCCW.  What makes this unacceptable is the government's refusal to let the public know the reason for the decision.  They have hinted that it's because they don't feel the failed applicant, HKTV, can succeed financially, but in a supposedly free market, why not let all three have a go and fight it out in the marketplace for viewers?  "Let the market decide" is supposed to be Hong Kong's credo, isn't it?  If one fails, it won't be the first time - remember CTV?  (And it won't necessarily be one of the three newcomers - though the mighty TVB is probably unruffled, ATV will certainly not welcome increased competition.)

At the same time, Commerce Secretary Greg So (who seems increasingly intent on competing with Paul Chan and Eddie Ng for the "minister least trusted by the public" title) argues that the government cannot release the reason because some of the information supplied by the three companies is confidential.  Why?  They are applying for a share of a public resource - the limited bandwidth available for broadcast television - so why doesn't the public have a right to know on what basis that resource is allocated?

So, after Hong Kong property prices rise into the stratosphere, making a home unaffordable for anyone who doesn't have one already, the government finally recognises that the market is "overheated".  To fix this, they introduce extra stamp duty on property, making it even more unaffordable.

With me so far?  Good.  Now after months of this, the market is almost dead.  No one can afford to buy, so no one can sell.  So some developers start making promotional offers, including stamp duty rebates, in an effort to get the market restarted.  This, our esteemed Chief Executive solemnly declares on last night's news, "could have a negative impact on the property market".

So, let me see if I've got this straight.  The government makes property more expensive in order to make it more affordable.  Then when this bizarre policy somehow actually starts working, with developers effectively lowering their prices, far from welcoming this, the government pronounces it to be unhelpful.
You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?  Does anyone understand what's happening?  I can see two possible explanations:

1. The government doesn't know what the hell it's doing; or
2. despite its proclaimed commitment to more affordable housing, the government is secretly conspiring to keep prices out of reach of aspiring homeowners.

Take your pick...  I plump for number 1, but this being Hong Kong, number 2 isn't totally unthinkable.

Is there anyone left at the Pro-China Morning Post who knows English?  This headline on their website suggests not.

Nancy Kissel can appeal all she likes against her husband's murder, but that won't bring him back from the dead.  What they presumably mean is appeal against her conviction for her husband's murder - a very different thing.

Scanning some very ancient black & white negatives recently (possibly 50 years old), I was reminded of the camera that produced them.  I have taken pictures with my Dad's Brownie 127 and my grandfather's old Brownie box camera, but the first camera I remember owning for myself in my teens was this little beauty:
The specification was somewhat sparse: fixed aperture, no focus control, no exposure control, certainly no autowind or zoom.  A viewfinder (of sorts) took the form of a foldout metal frame that offered all the accuracy of a Hong Kong government budget forecast.  The lens, though proudly proclaiming itself "bloomed" (apparently this means coated so as to increase its light transmitting power) gave all the fine resolution of a transparent shirt button.
However, this simple piece of equipment did have several advantages:

• It was dirt cheap (from Woolworths, then still a mighty name in retailing).
• It took 16 half-frame shots on 127 film, making it economical on film as well.
• Very little could go wrong with it (though with advancing age mine began to leak light around the edges and needed to be sealed with black tape after changing each film).

Thinking about it for the first time in decades, I Googled "Woolworths camera" and with only a few minutes of research was amazed to find not only these images, but the original instruction sheets (which I don't remember ever possessing, not that they were really needed) and the history of the camera - apparently it dates back to the 1930s, though mine appear to have been the 1950s "updated" model.

And the results: about as good as you would expect, and sometimes better - this is one of the more acceptable examples (not too bad considering it's from a very old negative):
By the way, does anyone have any idea where this is?  I wasn't systematic about keeping photographic records back then, and many of my old shots are a total mystery now.  I only know it's in the UK somewhere.

Anyway, after a couple of years I graduated to a more modern Instamatic and started getting better pictures, though it was still a few more years before I got my first SLR (once I started working and could afford it).  Now we have cameras that do almost everything for you, but don't necessarily give better pictures - just more accurately exposed and sharper lousy ones!

Those with limited imaginations - a category which sadly includes most members of the Hong Kong government - invariably see only one solution to any problem and are blind to other ways of looking at the situation. Former Canadian Gregory So, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, speaking on TVB news a few days ago about the negative impact of mass tourism from the mainland, said: "The solution must [my emphasis] lie in the fact that we need to expand our capacity so that we can take in the visitors".

Why must it?  If a highly-regarded restaurant is so popular that one needs to book a table weeks in advance, the owner's first response is not usually to rush out and expand his capacity.  Given that mass tourism benefits only a few in Hong Kong and reduces the quality of life for everyone else through overcrowding, higher prices, and the disappearance of popular shops and restaurants in favour of more profitable luxury goods outlets targeted at tourists, why should we encourage more visitors to come?  Perhaps we should decide, as Bhutan for example has done, that the benefits of mass tourism are not worth the cost, and limit the numbers allowed in - possibly through a quota system or a tourist tax.  Furthermore, those who do arrive will have a more enjoyable experience.

Another group unable to see an obvious solution to a problem are those who demonstrated recently demanding that mainland mothers of Hong Kong-born children whose fathers have died or abandoned the family - they claim there are 7,000 of these - should be given accelerated entry to Hong Kong to care for their offspring.  Again, why?  The one-way permit system is supposedly intended mainly to allow mainland residents to be reunited with their Hong Kong spouses (which doesn't explain why a man already deported from Hong Kong after serving a sentence for homicide here was allowed back to settle in the territory, but that's another question that needs asking).  If there is no husband here for the wife to be reunited with, wouldn't it be more natural to send the child back to live with its mother?

From my earliest days in Hong Kong one TV advert kept popping up at odd times - the one for Curcyrin, a remedy for athlete's foot (also commonly called Hong Kong foot because of its local prevalence in our humid climate).  Remember the giant foot and the guy in the tacky checked suit?
It should probably be in the Guinness Book of records as the longest-running (and cheesiest) TV commercial of all time.  [Click the link to see it on Youtube.]

Sadly, this irreplaceable piece of Hong Kong's cultural heritage appears to have been retired after many decades, and a new series of (actually rather good) ads has replaced it.  I quite like the one with the colourful wellies:
Nevertheless I can't help feeling a little sad that another fragment of an earlier and less sophisticated Hong Kong has gone - like the fact that you never see people popping out for a late night bowl of noodles in their pyjamas any more.  This used to be common, but today no Hong Konger would dream of going out without dressing up in name brand clothing.  I miss those simpler times - I must be getting old.  Am I the only one who feels nostalgia for stuff like this?

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.

How come the Catholic "World Youth Day" event - now being held in Brazil - lasts a week?  What part of "day" doesn't God understand?

Weather permitting, I will as usual be on tomorrow's democracy march, unseduced by the many supposedly tempting alternative events arranged by the Voice of Pretending to Love Hong Kong and the other pro-Beijing puppet organisations that seem to be springing up everywhere like poisonous weeds.  But isn't it sad that the march has become an annual tradition?  How many more years do we have to protest before we get what the Basic Law supposedly promises us?

Hong Kong's mass media do seem to take an awful long time to catch up with what's going on in the world.  Usually their readers are far ahead of them.  For the first few days of Edward Snowden's presence in Hong Kong, the Pro-China Morning Post was reprinting Guardian articles about him - and only got round to interviewing the man who was right under their noses when he approached them.

Now it's TVB's turn.  Last night's news led with an exposé of the fact that many overseas domestic helpers in Discovery Bay are living in the village just south of DB rather than with their employers as required by their contract. Since this has been going on for 25 years or so, it's hardly news.  Nor is it exactly "shock horror" material - while technically illegal, it suits both parties - the employers because they get more privacy in their limited living space at night, and the helpers because they probably prefer the opportunity to socialise with their counterparts rather than share a bedroom with a mewling baby.  So why the fuss?  Surely there are more important - and timely - issues to report on?

A small prize to anyone who can make sense of this report from last night's TVB news:

In regards to the decline in Hong Kong's competitiveness ranking, the Financial Secretary said this was due to internal economic growth.

That wasn't the only economic bollocks John Tsang was spouting in LegCo yesterday.  Following his claim that he was glad to see property prices had cooled down - "after rolling out the [government's market cooling] measures we see that they are effective" - it was, surprisingly, not the usual suspects who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes, but the usually pro-government Abraham Shek, who as representative of the Real Estate sector might be assumed to be not entirely averse to high property prices.

"Prices did not come down" admonished Shek, asking "What kind of success is that?"  Indeed.

I was in a washroom the other day and noticed that there were eight wash basins but only one warm air hand dryer, one of the old slow type.  Now it seems obvious to me that, since it takes far longer to dry your hands with one of those than it does to wash them (even when you follow all six steps of the Hong Kong government's helpful instructions - if my grandmother was still alive, they'd probably have a poster teaching her to suck eggs), the number of dryers should be greater than the number of wash basins.  Since all public washrooms seem to be set up that way, I just wonder why the people who design these places have never noticed this.

We are seeing a bizarre proliferation recently of ever more pro-Beijing organisations seemingly dedicated to telling us that we are too stupid to choose our own leaders.  It appears to be a rule that these should have as long and unwieldy a name as possible.  Last night's news reported on a public forum organised by the Love China-Hong Kong Alliance of Youth Cultural Societies.  The main "youth" speaking at this appeared to be long-time Beijing lackey Ho Sai-chu (born 1937).  Of the other three youth representatives on the platform, one had grey hair, one was balding, and even the youngest-looking didn't appear to be less than 40.  From the brief shot we saw of what seemed to be a minuscule audience, few of them appeared to be younger than 80.  (Many old folks in Hong Kong treat these kind of public forums as free entertainment.)

So no youth there, and not much sign of Love either.  Are we really supposed to take these pathetic organisations seriously?