Rather to my surprise I found several interesting stories in today’s SCMP.  If this keeps happening I may have to start buying it again. The first one, already been noted by Simon, is that Hong Kong has the coldest offices in the world: A study by Polytechnic University showed that although 25 degrees was a…

The tunnel story refuses to go away.  Today’s SCMP reports that activists have a plan – to sue the government so that the private company that operates the Eastern Harbour Tunnel has to reduce the toll. Announcing their application for a judicial review yesterday, Wong Tai Sin District Councillor Andrew To Kwan-hang and taxi driver…

In Hong Kong the official standard is to use the UK style for dates (e.g. Christmas Day is 25/12/05), but American dates (e.g. 12/25/05) are widely used, and of course dates in Chinese are written in year/month/date format (Y 2005 M 12 D 25), so the short form of this (05/12/25) is also used sometimes. …

The big non-event of today was the lack of problems at the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.  There were widespread predictions of congestion as drivers responded to Sunday’s increase in tolls at the Eastern Harbour Crossing by changing their journeys.   In fact, they seem to have responded by leaving their cars at home, so there were no major…

This week The Observer had a piece about the problems of parking in the UK: Already eight in ten cars driving through urban streets are not heading to a destination, but instead are manned by drivers roaming in search of somewhere to park, according to research released by the RAC last week. I’m not sure…

I have previously mentioned the way that SHKP, Swire and other developers have started to be much more, er, proactive in dealing with their retail tenants.  Rents are going up and  in some cases retailers are being forced to move (the most famous example being Swire’s decision not to offer M&S a new lease for…

A glass of hot water? When I came to Hong Kong one of the things I found a little odd was that people drank hot water.  I had been used to drinking cold water, or hot tea or coffee, but not hot water.  When I first tried it I wasn’t convinced that it was a…

There was a letter in yesterday’s paper entitled "Insensitive Immigration", from a lady whose husband had died suddenly.  As he was the employer of their domestic helper she contacted the Immigration Department to ask them what she should do: I was told that the helper was to report to immigration…She returned with a notice to…

Yesterday there was one of those rather pathetic protests we sometimes get in Hong Kong.  The picture in the SCMP shows less than twenty cars driving slowly up to entrance of the Eastern Harbour Tunnel, thus delaying a few motorists out for a drive on a Sunday morning.  They are complaining about the plans to…

This week/month/year, I am mainly…reading children’s books.  In practice that means reading books from either the UK or the States.  Mainly the UK, actually.  Naturally enough, they depict life in the UK.  So you have a family living in a semi-detached house, playing in their garden, going on holiday to the seaside, driving to the…