The NTSCMP website is getting larger and more confusing every day. Apart from attacks on the SCMP, we have a selection of other columnists (not all of whom can be George Adams) laying into almost anyone and everyone in Hong Kong. It’s good knockabout stuff, though one can’t help wondering whether an ignorance of the libel laws will prove to be an adequate defence if it ever comes to that.
The content is very variable – some of it is worth reading, but the sneering attitude that runs through everything quickly becomes tiresome. Hemlock, who I assume to be a contributor, does this kind of stuff quite well, but understands that the key is to limit himself to small doses. He can also be quite funny…
Having got a moderate amount of publicity from Hong Kong bloggers (as a result of Hemlock’s mention of the website resurfacing), George has now (inevitably) decided to go on the attack. He is promising “Blogwatch”, but gets in a pre-emptive strike that gives us a clue about what we can expect:
Back in 1995, when we staretd up this venture of ours to give the punters some cheap and innocent relief from the SCMP, people wrote things called e-zines. Some of them were sharp and funny. Most have gone the way of all cyberspace. Then, on a fateful day whilst I was off-air, the blog was invented. I quickly caught on with a certain type of Hong Kong coterie who were proud to be gwailo or derivatives of it. Hence some of the web addresses. To say that their material – and there is I think only one exception – sounds inward-looking, puerile and self-conscious is to beggar these terms indeed. What also amazes one is the use of the dynamic, liberating Internet medium to focus on drab words, drab layout and monochrome, non-moving, non-speaking slabs of narcotic blogorrhoea. Then the mediocrity is commented on and dissected as if it were a piece of Voltaire. Readers may have noticed that we do things eactly the other way round to the blog. Words have to be looked for on our opening pages, colours and pictures are up front. As ever, we are streets ahead. Even our enemies have to titter occasionally when they see our photo montage. Long live the Internet. Let’s hope the Mr Pooters of Hong Kong get back to Surbiton or Pittsburgh or wherever they have come from. Push-button publishing? Push off.
You can certainly say that most blogs have “Drab layout”, but personally I prefer that to the garish mess that is NTSCMP. Words and pictures are apparently arranged randomly on bright yellow pages, and it is not an easy to matter to find what is new. I reckon that if you don’t have much idea of page layout, it’s best to keep it simple and straightforward.
It’s hardly shock news that blogs are boring – what do you expect when someone decides to write about whatever interests them and stick it on the Internet? Of all people, George ought to understand that!
Ordinary Gweilo 
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