Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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Month: May 2004

  • Low expectations

    According to a documentary shown on Pearl a few months ago, Warren Buffet’s theory is that the secret of a happy marriage is low expectations. Well, now some academics have done a study that appears to support his theory. I’m saying nothing…

  • Expat@Large

    Via Shaky, a blog that certainly deserves a mention here because it is written by a resident of Hong Kong (though it seems he is about to move on to Singapore). He appears to be Australian, but I suppose we can forgive him that. He seems to live the typical expat lifestyle, so this is…

  • An Apple a day

    You may have read that Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband Chris Martin have decided to call their new baby Apple Blythe Alison Martin. This has caused quite a lot of comment in various newspapers (in the UK, at least). The name Apple is a little unusual, but there’s nothing particularly odd about it, and they…

  • More roads

    The government has announced plans for a new bridge linking Cheung Sha Wan to Tsing Yi. This will eventually form part of “Route 8” from Sha Tin to the airport, the first section of which is already under construction, and the last part of which (Tsing Ma bridge to the airport) has been open for…

  • Free stuff

    Henry rightly pointed out that Cable TV cunningly give you free channels when they replace (or first install) your cable box and then they take them away again almost immediately, hoping that you will be tempted to pay them large amounts of money in order to watch Sri Lanka beating a park team from Zimbabwe.…

  • Blah Blah Awards make the news

    Today’s SCMP Technology supplement has a small piece about the blog awards controversy, quoting from Phil’s comments on the subject. The journalist (Neil Taylor) is sympathetic to Phil’s argument, but of course by running the story he is also giving publicity to the ‘other’ awards. Meanwhile, I notice that Giles from Sweet Chariots has taken…

  • Danger – people

    There’s a good piece in today’s Standard about the perils of being a pedestrian in Hong Kong: Poor urban planning has turned “world class” Hong Kong into a “pedestrian-hostile city”, which last year led to the deaths of 202 people, says a Hong Kong University professor. “There are more people on public transport here in…

  • Going digital

    Cable TV have finally got round to converting our estate to their digital service.  No advance warning, though – a guy phoned up and said he would be coming in half an hour to change the convertor box, which he did, and it took him about five minutes to complete the job.    Disappointingly, the picture…

  • Crying shame

    With apologies to non-football fans, here is someone (a Huddersfield Town fan, I assume) having some fun at the expense of Leeds fans. I worked with a Leeds fan who was very full of himself when they were doing well, and now it’s payback time! "Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, we are Leeds" as they used to…

  • 25 years on – and what might have been

    This week we are mainly…celebrating the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher becoming British Prime Minister. No-one could dispute that her time in office changed Britain: tax rates are lower, trade unions have lost most of their power, and privatisation has shifted the balance from public to private sector – and there is no prospect of…