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: Jun 2004

  • Eat less and lose weight

    I remember about five (?) years ago when both the English language terrestrial channels had basically the same schedule, anchored around a second-rate film at 9.30.  Then ATV World changed to a lineup that was based around documentaries, though they subsequently added more drama and a lot of sport (mainly horse racing).  Gradually, TVB Pearl has added more documentaries and…

  • All you can eat (but no table)

    Expat@Large has a bizarre tale of buffet-eating in Singapore (at least I think it’s Singapore). I would certainly be upset if I left my table for a short while and came back to find a family of seven tourists sitting where I had been. Never happened to me, but if it did I think I’d…

  • Hong Kong fashions we don’t like (1)

    Now that the really hot weather is with us, one of the hazards of walking around on the street is catching sight of men wearing vests who have decided that they need to keep cool by exposing their stomachs. Needless to say, men who dress in this peculiar way tend to have large beer guts,…

  • You’re fired

    The Apprentice [not The Associate as I keep calling it] continues to be fascinating but slight bizarre television. The greatest weakness of the show is that condensing everything into a one hour each week is almost impossible, especially when they have a recap of the previous show at the start and feel the need to…

  • Unfashionable

    I was going to write a lot more about Tony Blackburn and Cliff Richard, but thankfully I decided not to bother. My theme was going to be the way that both of them have managed to be deeply unfashionable and yet very successful over the last 40 years or so. Craig Brown in the Daily…

  • Apology

    I may have given the impression that I thought that HSBC’s new automated queuing system was a good idea. I apologize for this – I was wrong. I went to the bank today and picked up my ticket with its promise that I would probably have to wait 6 minutes. As they were currently serving…

  • Pause for thought

    Another strange tale from the socialist republic of Singapore, where chewing gum is now available but thinking for yourself is still considered a bit risky. Eyal applied for a temporary visa to allow him to stay in Singapore whilst he looks for a job, and was told that they couldn’t accept his application because he…

  • Euro 2004: The funny side

    It’s started already. Shaky has one picture caption making fun of David Beckham, and someone has just seen me a few others, including this one.

  • Euro 2004: Paying the penalty

    That’s what you call nerve-wracking, not to mention desparately disappointing. It was an absorbing game. In the first half I thought England looked reasonably comfortable defending their slender lead, but as the game went on it looked increasingly likely that Portugal would score, and after they did I really doubted England’s ability to get back…

  • More water

    Most people in Hong Kong don’t drink tap water (or at least not without filtering and/or boiling it first). Offices very often don’t have their own water supply (hence the slightly bizarre sight of people washing cups in the washroom), so the only option is distilled water, distributed around Hong Kong in large lorries. Although…