fashion beach

I have been having some very weird dreams lately. Last night (probably inspired by a combination of recently watching the last episode of the 3rd series of the revived Doctor Who, and reading Robert Silverberg's Heinlein tribute novel The Alien Years, I dreamed that the earth had been invaded and conquered by strange aliens. Humanity was helpless, with alien space vessels hovering in the sky overhead and sitting menacingly on launch pads, though I never saw one of the actual creatures themselves.

Then for some reason the entire planet jerked into motion and started to move off into space, at which I quipped "at least we're moving away from them" before waking up. Nice to know I still have a sense of humour when I'm asleep.

Anyway, here's hoping you can also look on the bright side during 2008. Happy New Year!

It's been a bad year for great musicians - Temptations songwriter/producer Norman Whitfield passed away a few days ago. Now the latest entrant to rock'n'roll heaven is drummer Earl Palmer.

You may never have heard of Palmer, but you've certainly heard his work - a jazzman at heart, he played on an astonishing array of all-time great recordings, from Fats Domino and Little Richard's pioneering early rock'n'roll in Palmer's native New Orleans, to "River Deep Mountain High" and other Phil Spector classics in Los Angeles, finding time in between to drum on everything from TV theme tunes to movie soundtracks, and even record a piece or two under his own name (The A Side blog has one). He is also said to be the man who first applied the word "funky" to music.

Palmer's autobiography, Backbeat, is a great rock read, taking the reader through a colourful life that went from tap dancing in vaudeville as a child to accompanying Frank Sinatra at the White House.

"I invented this shit"

was Palmer's legendary response to a young rock band worried that he might not be able to play in their style. He sure did.

Disclaimer - I get a small commission from Amazon UK if you buy the book through the picture link here.

7-9 is English for what the Americans prefer to call 9-7, i.e. today. The Hong Kong government, uncomfortable with the fact that the territory was a British colony for a century and a half, prefers to use the American format in its promotional advertising for today's Legislative Council election. Since "9-11", the New York skyline is not the only thing reshaped by Osama bin Laden.

"Shape your future"

say the posters; and even though we know that our future will continue to be largely shaped for us by the usual unholy alliance of Beijing politicians and local business bigwigs, it is important to send Beijing a clear message that we want to have a bigger say in our own destiny. So, get out there before 10:30 pm and vote! (unless you're planning to cast your ballot for the DAB, in which case, why not stay at home and read a good book instead? I recommend George Orwell's essays, particularly "Politics and the English Language").

Which brings me to an interesting question: why do Hong Kong politicians pay so little attention to the English-speaking voter? We all know - particularly since Florida in 2000 - that elections can be won and lost by only a few votes, and this is even more so in Hong Kong's rotten boroughs - the Functional Constituencies. Given this, you would think that an astute politician would not overlook any possible group of potential supporters, yet there are still candidates whose election publicity is entirely in Chinese, without even a pointer to an English version on their website. I heard from a friend that one famously hirsute local LegCo member even refused to answer questions put to him in English during a previous election campaign, although he speaks the language.

This time around, more candidates seem to have picked up the nessage - even the DAB - but there are still exceptions. Yet I suspect this group of voters, far from being of marginal significance, may be larger than anyone suspects. In fact, it consists of three distinct subgroups: expatriates settled here such as myself; the long-established local South Asian community, many of whom speak Cantonese but do not read or write Chinese; and possibly the largest of all, those Chinese people born in Hong Kong who grew up overseas following the great wave of emigration in the 1980s and 90s, but have since returned to their birthplace. Many of these speak Cantonese but were educated in English, and may be more comfortable reading it than Chinese.

OK, lesson over, go and vote.

"If file sharing is destroying the music industry, then how did Warner Music Group increase its sales in the first quarter 7 per cent to $989 million?"

From the latest issue of (Bruce Springsteen biographer) Dave Marsh's periodic email newsletter Rock & Rap Confidential (just linking those two genres is already an unorthodox move). Sign up for it here.

"The severity of Chinese repression in Tibet since [1959] is well-documented. There is severe repression of Tibetan Buddhism, which in 1997 was labeled as a “foreign culture” Virtually all classes in secondary and higher education in Tibet are taught in Chinese not Tibetan, resulting in a high drop-out rate among Tibetans. Urban development has generally benefited Chinese immigrants, large numbers of whom have moved to Tibet and who are now about 12% of the population in the Tibet Administrative Region. Tibetans are routinely detained for long periods without charge or sentenced to long prison sentences for peacefully advocating independence or maintaining links with the Dalai Lama. Torture and ill-treatment in detention is widespread. Freedom of expression is severely restricted. Peaceful political demonstrations are invariably broken up and their participants arrested. Tibetan culture is treated as inferior to Chinese culture, and most key posts in the government and the economy are held by Chinese. Those few Tibetans who are able to enter Chinese government service do so at the cost of alienation from their own people and culture. Tibet’s environment and natural resources are ruthlessly exploited in the interests of China."

Hong Kong's Law Society commissioned Senior Counsel Paul Harris, an expert in constitutional law, to write an article examining the legal basis of the case for Tibetan independence, then chickened out of publishing it. Fortunately maverick publisher (and well known campaigner for the rights of minority shareholders) David Webb displayed more testicular fortitude - you can read the whole article on his site.