fashion beach

As most people know, Europe has "Protected Designation of Origin" laws designed to protect the names of distinctive local foods and drinks from being copied elsewhere. Champagne, for example, can only come from the Champagne region of France; and Newcastle Brown Ale could at one time only come from Newcastle, until its brewer applied in 2004 to cancel its protected status because they wanted to move the brewery across the river out of the city. (This is the same unlovely company, then called Scottish & Newcastle, that also closed its last brewery in Scotland, leading one writer to suggest that it should change its name to Ampersand, since that was the only valid part of the name left.)

Usually this system works well, though some names had already become so widely (ab)used that it was impossible to save them. Numerous inferior cheeses around the world bear the name Cheddar, for instance, though the finest examples of the style are still produced on farms around the Somerset village of that name.

Cheddar can at least still produce its local speciality, though not exclusively. Not so lucky is the Cambridgeshire village of Stilton, where the magnificent blue cheese of that name was first sold. The current landlord of the historic Bell Inn, where the cheese originally came to fame, commendably wants to sell locally produced blue cheese. Unfortunately for him, Stilton can by law only be produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire (where the Inn's owner in the early 1700s obtained his first supplies) or Nottinghamshire. So the Bell Inn can sell the product it is most famous for, but only under a different name. Crazy, huh?

Personally, as much as I love Stilton, I find Blue Wensleydale even more delicious, though often hard to find. That is, believe it or not, still made in Wensleydale.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain is so notorious for its frequent typos that Private Eye long ago dubbed it The Grauniad. Just now I Googled "Matt Driscoll" (a British sports journalist) after reading about him in a BBC story. Driscoll challenged his harassment and sacking by Rupert Murdoch's now defunct News of the World newspaper after he fell ill, and won a court settlement of £792,736 - good for him!

But that's not the point of this story - what is, is the extract turned up by Google from the Guardian blog: "Matt Driscoll is now being taken [by Britain's Leveson inquiry into press ethics] through his 10 year stint at the NoW chronologically. He worked under sour editors - Phil Hall, then Rebekah Wade, ..." Well, it's hardly surprising they're sour after the revelations about the paper's shameful behaviour under some of them which led to its closure.

What's your brand called? "Nipple Silly". Yeah, sure.

Even worse (sorry for the poor picture quality):


This is one of the packets of tissue they give away free when you buy a newspaper. They probably have to give it away - would you purchase from someone who tells you "Our brand is BS"?!

Try this: Google "Epson scanners" and see what comes up first.

Now if I type in "scanners", I don't mind Google taking money from HP to place theirs ahead of others. But when I specifically search for Epson, I don't want to see HP at the top of the list. In fact, Epson only comes 4th. True, Google identifies the first 3 entries as ads, but still...

It doesn't feel right to me. What do you think?

From a BBC story about the Korean robotics industry:

The South Korean defence company DoDAAM is also developing robotic gun turrets for export which can be programmed to open fire automatically.

Does this sound to you like the beginning of Skynet? And who are they exporting them to?

Have these people never sen Dr Strangelove?

Shown on a screen on the Hong Kong side of the Lo Wu border crossing:

Prevent influenza
Wash hand frequently

Yes, but which hand - left or right? Decisions, decisions...

And while we're on the subject of public announcements, who changed the MTR announcements from "This train will terminate at..." to "This train will stop service at..." Unless it's the last train of the day, it is more likely to go back in the opposite direction than to stop service when it reaches the terminus.

When setting the video recorder for another programme the other day, I caught a few minutes of Coach Trip by chance. For those who don't know this programme, it's a kind of "Big Brother on Wheels" - the idea is to dump a bunch of publicity-hungry strangers together in an artificial environment, in this case a coach tour around the sights of Europe, and hope to derive entertaining television from their ego trips and petty squabbles.

As with all "reality TV", it bears about as much relation to reality as Britney Spears does to real music, and what I saw convinced me that I would never want any of the participants as travelling companions. But what struck me particularly about it was that almost all the participants appeared to have awful teeth. I wonder if the producers secretly intended it as a searing satire on the sad state of British dentistry?

Since I often make fun of ATV News's errors here, it's a pleasant change to have a go at their rival TVB instead. Listen guys, when you're talking about the NFL (National Football League - or at least what Americans call football), it may not be a good idea to display the NHL (National Hockey League) logo on the screen. Clue: if they're playing on a green surface, it's not ice.

One of the things that makes visits to China interesting is the signs there, either for their curious English , or for what they reveal of Chinese thinking. The last line of this direction sign in Jinan Airport, for example, tells you all you need to know about flying in China.


Then there is this. "Bumf" originally meant bumfodder or toilet paper in English usage, but then came to be applied more commonly as a slang term (now somewhat archaic) for unnecessary paper such as unwanted circulars, junk mail, pointless memoranda and the like. It seems that someone in China wants to restore its original meaning.

What's up with the BBC these days? From a time when "BBC English" indicated the highest standards of grammar and punctuation, it seems to have declined to a point where not even its headlines get properly proofread. Here are some random examples of scrambled English found on the BBC News website today:

Ohio animal Terry Thompson owner shot himself - police

The uprising that eventually overthrew him started in Libya's February 2011 in second city Benghazi,

Another story spells skis as skies and minuscule as miniscule (the word comes from the same root as minus, not miniature).

Has the BBC's budget been cut to the point where correct English is no longer affordable!

Does anyone in Hong Kong really believe Rita Fan's claim that she knows little of what happened in Beijing in June 1989? Asked about the Tiananmen massacre, she said she was in Hawaii at the time and only knew what she saw on CNN. But considering that CNN was giving an almost literally blow-by-blow account of the events as they happened, does Fan really think she would have learned more if she had been watching CCTV? Furthermore, as a member of China's parliament (I do not say a representative of Hong Kong to it, since Hong Kong people have no say in who supposedly "represents" them), is it plausible that she has not bothered to acquaint herself with the details of one of the pivotal events of modern Chinese history?

All this would be academic if Fan were not a probable candidate for the post of next Chief Executive of Hong Kong. But since she is, do we want to be led by a woman who appears more concerned with not contradicting Beijing's official line on the massacre - sorry, "unfortunate incident" - of June 4th 1989 than with finding out the truth? Or, if we accept her story, by a woman who can't be bothered to do her political homework? Either way, I think not.

Sexy Hot Swedish Women - Mini Anden Naked

Mini Anden is an extremely beautiful and sexy Swedish model and actress. From Stockholm, Mini was born Susanna Anden and got her start in modeling at a very young age. At the age of 10 she started modeling and signed with Elite Modeling Agency at the age of 15. Anden has had a long career in modeling gracing the covers of magazines such as: Vogue, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and Elle. Other claims to fame include judging the Miss Universe 2001 beauty pageant and hosting the Swedish section of “Scandinavia’s Next Top Model”. I guess beautiful people love to be around beautiful people because in 2001, Mini married model Taber Schroeder and they live in Los Angeles.

God love Swedish women for not having the fear of showing their bodies that their American counterparts do. This picture was taken for a spread in the Vogue Homme International. Yes, that is really Mini and yes, she is completely naked. Her beautiful brown hair is wet and slicked back. The expression on her face is saying, “What the hell are you looking at?”. The beauty of the picture, however, is how well it shows off Mini’s beautiful body. You get a great view of her small breasts. Small as they are, they are quite perky and firm. Then, you get a great view of her pussy. She doesn’t have that much trimming going on which shows the European side to her. It is what looks like a tight little pussy which is nice.

Sexy Hot Arab Women - Carole Samaha

Carole Samaha is an extremely beautiful and sexy Arab singer. She’s actually Lebanese. Although she has release 5 albums and has had a very successful music career, Samaha is no dummy. She has a master’s degree in acting and directing. For the fruits of her labor Carole was nominated for Best Arabia Act in the 2008 MTV Music Awards. It may be surprising that she got her start in acting and in the theatre. Actually, at a very young age, she got the attention of those that would help her through her career. She definitely doesn’t need any help now, though.

This picture (which appears to be from an album cover) shows a cheeky side to Samaha. The first thing you notice are those sexy Arabian eyes. Just like Cleopatra, they have a way of tearing right through you to your soul. Then there’s her beautiful face and fun bob haircut. Unfortunately, you can’t see her beautiful body very well here, but she does have a very nice set of medium breasts. You can also see her tight little ass through the jeans she’s wearing. I also like the way that she’s already laying down in this picture. It makes you think you can join right in.

I went to the British Consulate in Hong Kong this week to renew my passport. The consular officer who processed my application (politely, quickly and efficiently) was wearing a Mickey Mouse tie.

I'm sure this says something about the British government, but I'm not sure what.

A couple of weeks ago, ATV News unwittingly gave a perfect illustration of why users of English need to pay attention to syntax.

"Several men were arrested following an investigation into cigarette smuggling by Customs officers"

was their story. Unless Hong Kong's Customs officers are far more corrupt than I believe they are, I think what they really meant was:

"Several men were arrested following an investigation by Customs officers into cigarette smuggling".

Sexy Hot Arab Women - Amal Hijazi

Amal Hijazi is an extremely sexy Lebanese singer, model, and pop icon. Amal was born in Lebanon, but her family fled to France to escape political instabilities. She started her career as a fashion model and was extremely successful there. She soon grew restless and pursued an interest as a singer. That interest blossomed into a full-on new career. Her debut album, “Akher Gharam”, released in 2001, became one of the biggest selling albums of the year. She continued her success throughout the decade releasing a few more albums including: “Zaman”, “Bedawwar A Albi”, “Baya al Ward”, and “Nefsy Tefhamny”.

This picture comes from Amal’s modeling days. You can see why she had such a successful career. Her eyes, like many Arab women, are so amazingly sultry. They cut right through you. You combine those with her pouty lips and it makes you want to do just about anything for this girl. She has a very young look about her as well, which adds to the allure. You do get a good view of her nice sized breasts, although her clothes aren’t too revealing. Finding sexy pictures of Arab women is difficult due to the culture, but sometimes you get lucky. Hands down, this girl is an extremely beautiful Arab woman.

Sexy Hot Swedish Women - Victoria Silvstedt

Now, you cannot have a blog dedicated to hot Swedish women without talking about Victoria Silvstedt. She is notorious for being one of the most bodacious and beautiful Swedish women alive. Now, you may know her from her Playboy photo shoots (and what nice shoots they are), but Victoria did have a more wholesome start to her career. She actually ran for Miss Sweden and was chosen to represent Sweden in the 1993 Miss World Beauty pageant. Well, it wasn’t very long before Mr. Hefner came calling, and, the rest is Playboy history. In addition to modeling, Ms. Silvstedt has done some acting and singing as well.

This picture is a bit of a candid shot on the beach, but man it’s a good one. First, you see her gorgeous bleach blonde hair that she’s holding up. She’s not wearing any make-up which makes me think this picture is truly candid. The next thing you see in this skimpy bikini are her wonderfully large breasts. They are barely kept in and they are ready for action. Then you see her rock hard abs and long, slender legs. That is really what I love about Swedish women… blonde, big tits, and small waist.

Some LegCo members have recently been objecting to the government's policy of granting land for development by the MTR Corporation to fund the construction of the South Island Line. The problem with this is that they don't seem to be offering any alternative.

No one who observes the air pollution and traffic congestion in Hong Kong can doubt that the territory's railway network needs to be extended. And most would agree that it makes sense to integrate any extension with the existing network, which means putting it under the MTR rather than a new operator.

If we accept these assumptions, the several planned new lines will not build themselves. Given the vast sums of money required to construct them, what is the least painful way of financing these developments? The government could hand out cash to cover the cost, which means taxpayers would bear the burden directly. Or it could require the MTR to fund it out of its own revenues, which would almost certainly mean fares rising substantially to pay for it. With many already objecting to the recent modest fare increase at a time of inflationary pressure, this would be politically unacceptable and would probably drive many passengers back on to the overcrowded roads as a cheaper alternative.

Of course, the property method is also depriving the taxpayers of the potential revenue that would otherwise accrue to the government from the sale of these sites, but in the current circumstances it seems the least objectionable way of achieving the desired goal. The real objection in my view is that, since the MTR is partly privatized, some of the eventual return from this handout will go into the hands of private investors at the expense of the taxpayers. The MTR should have been left in full public ownership.

Being out of England for most of the time, I tend to notice small changes when I'm there that may be imperceptible to those who live there. One of these is the creeping Americanisation of the English language. Not only do we have a whole generation who use American spelling because they've never bothered to change the default spell checker in Word to British English, but American vocabulary is gradually replacing British usage.

One of the changes I observed on this year's visit is that the original British "railway station" has largely given way to "train stati0n", which in my childhood would have been understood but considered an Americanism. Now that usage makes sense, since "bus station" was already common British usage, but why don't we call an airport a "plane station" to be consistent?

Sepp Blatter's statement that FIFA - world football's governing body (that's soccer for American readers) - is "not in crisis" is about as credible as Muammar Gaddafi's claims that all the Libyan people love him. Nevertheless, Blatter's re-election as head of FIFA was entirely predictable - and not just because his only challenger was conveniently accused of corruption and sidelined before the vote.

In the welter of corruption allegations, firings and reinstatements, and general chaos it's hard to know the truth. But a look at most of the FIFA bigshots will tell you one sure thing - from the size of their waistlines, most of them have not actually played football for a long time - indeed, it's doubtful they would last more than 5 minutes on the pitch before collapsing.

The fact is that FIFA is an entrenched bureaucracy - and the first task of any bureaucracy is always to perpetuate itself. While Blatter likens his role to captaining a ship, what he is really doing is driving a gravy train. And as long as he keeps the gravy - free tickets to big games, lavish banquets, foreign trips, and perhaps additional benefits - flowing, most of its recipients will continue to support him. As the French say, the more things change the more they remain the same.

A "shock, horror!" headline on the website of British tabloid The Sun claims "Third of rapists and killers 'are foreign'". Except they're not. When you actually read the article, this figure is only true in a few police districts. The figure across the UK as a whole is 1 in 7, or less than half the quoted proportion.

Further evidence that The Sun is engaging in racial scaremongering is that in three successive paragraphs it refers to immigrants, foreign nationals, foreign-born suspects, and in a later paragraph to non-English speaking suspects, as if all these groups were synonymous. Furthermore, despite the fact that the majority of recent immigrants to the UK are white EU citizens, they chose to illustrate the piece with a photo of a black convicted murderer.

Apart from the article's obvious racial bias, the ill-defined 1 in 7 (14.3%) figure is even more meaningless unless we know how many foreigners are in Britain at any given time for comparison. A recent estimate suggests that the figure may be around 11.4% - so far from the shock picture of the headline, the reality is that foreigners account for these crimes in only a slightly higher proportion than their total numbers would lead us to expect. Furthermore, it would be helpful to separate rape and murder for comparison in analyzing the figures, since cultural misunderstandings can play a part in some rapes.

The Sun should be ashamed of itself for peddling racist propaganda.

During a recent trip to Europe, I spent nearly a month without following the news. I didn't feel I'd missed much - when I got back, most things were going on exactly as before.

Two stories did filter into my consciousness - the death of Osama bin Laden, and the wedding of Prince William, at which time I was in Britain. I'm no monarchist - far from it - but this did at least demonstrate that a country rapidly descending into Third World status can still put on an excellent show of pomp and pageantry. Now if only they could apply the same impressive level of organisational skill to the chaos of Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport. Considering that this gives many foreign visitors their first impression of the country, isn't it time the whole overcrowded mess was pulled down and rebuilt to the standard of Terminals 4 and 5?

The 1978 movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is generally regarded as a good-natured spoof of the science fiction genre. Now today's BBC news site has a deadly serious headline: Deadly cucumbers claim more lives. We really are living in a science fiction world.

What is this craze that some people seem to have for changing their names in Facebook? You log in and suddenly find you have a whole lot of friends you never heard of. Weird.

I never set out to make this blog an exercise in ATV-bashing, but they do set themselves up for it. They are currently filling the gaps between programmes, when they don't have enough commercials, with little snippets of information under the title "The World at a Glance". Nothing wrong with that, but the one asking "Are You Prepared for St. Patrick's Day" was still being run as late as 22 March. That should give you plenty of time to get ready, because St. Patrick's Day had already passed on 17 March.

Mind you, the Irish have their own ways of measuring things. I still vividly recall many years ago setting out from Rosslare Harbour to Wexford. After a while I passed a signpost saying "Rosslare 2 miles, Wexford 7 miles". A mile further on, the sign said, naturally enough, "Rosslare 3 miles" However, in the other direction, it still said "Wexford 7 miles"!

Ireland is a beautiful country, but expect the unexpected there.

Q. What's the definition of stupidity?
A. Building nuclear power plants all over one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world when you're sitting on a vast reservoir of free geothermal energy that you could use instead.

And a really bad joke:
Q. What do you call a tiny tsunami?
A. A microwave.

Yeah, I know, it's not funny. And incidentally, why is Iran so insistent that it needs to develop nuclear power when it's sitting on the world's fourth largest oil reserves? I think we can guess the answer to that one.

Sexy Hot Arab Women - Marwa

Marwa is an extremely popular Lebanese singer. She’s also very sexy and very big breasted. Don’t let her looks fool you, she is the whole package. She started her musical training at the age of 8 in school where she learned to play the accordion. Later, she found her groove in the art of singing and performing arts. She made a name for herself when she was on a local talk show and was asked about the opinion that she was very sexual. She responded by reminding the host that he was very sexual in a soap opera that he starred in which turned her on. Pretty scandalous for Lebanon.

As with most Lebanese celebs, the pics don’t show a bunch of skin, but this one is quite sexy. Here, you see Marwa a bit defiant with a look on her face that says, “Yeah I’m hot, but you’ll never have this.” You can see her wonderfully large breasts under her business suit jacket. She’s wearing some sort of lacey camisole, which adds a great touch. Also, the way she’s sitting you get a great view of her wonderfully toned legs and a great view of her inner thigh.

Saucy minx!

Sexy Hot Swedish Women - Elita Lofblad

Elita Lofblad is an amazingly sexy Swedish model and reality show actress. Elita was actually born in Chile, but she made her way to Sweden as quickly as she possibly could. This is amazing because the two types of women that I think are the most sexy and most beautiful are Latin women and Swedish women. Here, you really have a mixture of the two. She was first noticed when she appeared on the Big Brother Sweden and Norway edition. After that, she posed several times for Playboy magazine. They liked her so much that she then starred in a few Playboy porn movies. She has also appeared in the Swedish Slitz and Moore magazines.

This picture is unusually sexy. You can see her latin roots (literally). She has jet black hair that has been dyed blonde. She definitely is looking at you with those “Come Fuck Me” eyes of hers. Of course they could also be saying, “Look, boys because you’ll never have this”. Then, with her arched back, you get a very nice view of her beautiful large breasts. Their covered with a bikini top, but you get the idea. Then, you can see that she has a tiny waist and sexy legs in stockings.

One hot sexy Mamita!

The Hong Kong government's decision to implement a pilot project for glass recycling in East Kowloon is a waste of time. The fact is there is absolutely no need for a pilot scheme when glass recycling has already been proven to work well in countries such as Britain and Canada for more than two decades. What we need is not a timid pilot project but a full-scale recycling scheme for the entire SAR immediately, before the government tries to steal any more of our irreplaceable country parks as landfills.

If we're truly "Asia's World City", why aren't we leading the world instead of always lagging lamely behind?

I use Firefox as my default browser, but I also use Chrome quite a lot (and IE only for those few sites that insist on it). This morning my PC crashed. When it recovered, all my Chrome bookmarks had vanished - many of them marking sites from which I planned to download files. The backup bookmarks file (.bak) was also empty and therefore useless.

When I went to the Chrome help page for a clue on how to recover the bookmarks, I found that this problem has been repeatedly reported by users for more than a year, but Google appears to have done nothing about it. Their corporate motto may be "Don't do evil", but it seems there is a coda to that: "... or much good either." Maybe I should stick to Firefox in future.

First of all, let me wish all my readers (who seem to have increased dramatically in number recently for some reason) a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.

The start of 2011 was saddened here in Hong Kong by the news that Szeto Wah died today. Szeto was a leader of the movement for democracy in both Hong Kong and the mainland who earned respect on both sides of the political divide for his steadfast dedication to his principles.

For myself, I shall remember the time he sat across from me on the MTR late one night. While other Legislative Council members (as he was then) generally ride around in fancy cars, Szeto, an unassuming man, was happy to use public transport. He will be missed.

Further to my post about the absentees from the recent Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony, it later emerged that the Philippines was also among those countries refusing their invitations to attend - one of only three democracies to do so (the others being Colombia and Ukraine).

It is hardly necessary to comment on the irony of this decision coming from the son of a father who was murdered for opposing the Marcos dictatorship and a mother who led the successful People Power revolt to overthrow it and restore democracy - for which she herself was nominated for the Peace Prize. But why was this decision made?

Reports suggest several reasons: close trading ties with China; a desire to buy Chinese weaponry; a desire not to be sen as caving in to American pressure (always a sensitive issue in this former US colony); and a wish not to further offend China when the Manila bus siege has already left scars on the relationship. After the Philippines government initially suggested that its Ambassador in Oslo had a "scheduling conflict" (as if they couldn't send a substitute), Philippine President Benigno Aquino Jr. did eventually come up with a more noble reason (though qqually implausible, suggests one commentator) - the decision was, he explained, intended not to prejudice the fate of five Filipino citizens on death row in China by angering the Beijing government.

It is not yet clear whether this will lead to any leniency deal for the five, but neither Aquino nor the Beijing authorities, who publicly welcomed the decision, appear to have noticed the deeper irony at work here. The Philippines' decision makes it clear that they believe political relationships, rather than judicial decisions, will determine the fate of the convicted Filipinos. In other words, they are agreeing with Liu Xiaobo's argument that China lacks judicial independence and the rule of law. So by supporting the Chinese government in its objections to Liu receiving the Prize, they have unwittingly reinforced Liu's case against that same government.