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

  • No fun anymore

    Land auctions seem to be very dull these days. I think it’s time for that mad old woman to make a return to liven things up. “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t seem to have HK$1bn on me right now – can I use my Hang Seng Bank Credit Card and pay it off over the…

  • Changing the rules

    There was a story in the paper on Sunday about the Filipino domestic helper who is trying to apply for right of abode in Hong Kong. I would have thought that she is unlikely to succeed (but then I know even less about the law than Conrad), because although she has been here for more…

  • Euro 2004: Rosbifs 1 Frogs 2, Cable TV 1 Pirates 0

    Not such a good sporting weekend if you are English. Beating New Zealand in a rather meaningless cricket test match isn’t much consolation after a heavy defeat to the same nation at rugby and a very cruel end to the England vs. France game in Euro 2004. I didn’t stay up and watch the game…

  • Stupid instructions

    Some of these made me laugh.  Lifted from the Daily Mirror, which took them from a new book, The World’s Stupidest Instructions, published by Michael O’Mara Books.   All examples of “funny English by foreigners” have been removed, but you can find them in the link.   BEWARE: Sledge may develop high speed under certain…

  • Where?

    A very puzzling letter arrives from HSBC. They want me to pick up my new credit card “four working from the date of this advice”. I’m not sure why their computer can’t add 4 working days to the date on the advice and calculate the date when the card should be available, but that’s not…

  • Here to stay

    Here’s a piece of brilliant timing. On Thursday I got a shiny new 3 year visa to stay in Hong Kong, and then the following day they granted me right of abode, and stuck another label in my passport (right next to the first one). My fault really – I should have applied a bit…

  • If all else fails, change the name

    After the idiotic decision to ban stripes on the back of shirts comes another piece of brilliance from the people who run football. Time was when everyone knew where they stood. There was a 1st Division, a 2nd Division, a 3rd Division and a 4th Division. Simple, easy to understand, no confusion. Then the top…

  • Funny story

    A couple of funny things I’ve read on Hong Kong blogs recently. Shaky seems to be inhabiting the world of a Brian Rix farce. It’s the old story about someone who is sleeping somewhere unfamiliar and walks out of the front door rather than into the bathroom, preferably naked. Personally, I preferred it when it…

  • Asialand Diaries

    Fumier has found another Hong Kong blog, Asialand diaries, which seems to be written by an American woman living in Hong Kong. She has a photograph of the ‘care label’ from a laptop bag, which has different instructions in French and English. You can see the photograph at Asialand diaries, but this is what the…

  • High profits

    A rather badly-worded summary of a story from the BBC News website: Fiji police in record drugs haul Police find enough chemicals to make $500m worth of methamphetamines, in a lab outside the capital Suva. That should be quite a profitable sideline for them, then.