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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  • Euro 2004: That’s better

    Competitive match, great result, excellent performance. What more can you ask?

    Croatia are a useful side, and once they got their early goal it was clear that England would have to battle to get the result they needed. There were certainly times during the first half when I was beginning to wonder whether England would be able to get a goal – Croatia seemed happy to defend, and England dominated possession and showed admirable determination, but the goal wouldn’t come. Then Paul Scholes, of all people, scored the goal that changed the match, and Wayne Rooney got the second to make things more comfortable.

    Overall, a good performance by the whole England team, and the midfield looked very impressive and much more confident than against Switzerland. They never seemed to give up. On top of that, clearly Wayne Rooney is the outstanding player of the tournament so far. Croatia couldn’t cope with him, and if their strategy was to rile him and hope that he got booked or sent off then they also failed in that regard as well. Michael Owen looked more lively than in the first two games, and if he continues to improve and the midfield play as they did today then England must be in with an excellent chance of getting revenge on France.

  • He’s stolen my title

    I read this in The Guardian last week, and now it’s on the BBC news site, so it must be true.

    Science Fiction author Ray Bradbury is upset because Michael Moore’s new film is called “Farenheit 9/11”, and he feels that the title was stolen from his own book “Farenheit 451”.

    How pathetic. You’d think that he would realize that this is what is usually called ‘homage’ rather than stealing. No-one is going to watch this movie thinking it was written by Ray Bradbury! However, it might increase interest in his book (or the film). The BBC story says that “Bradbury [..]would rather avoid litigation. Probably because he doesn’t have a case. You’d think that he’d have a friend or advisor who would tell him that he is being ridiculous.

    What does he think he ‘owns’ – the word farenheit, or the number 1?

  • The F word

    McDonalds seem to be fighting a losing battle when it comes to convincing people that their food is healthy and nutitious. However, they aren’t about to give up.

    In the Post Magazine today there’s a full page ad about their 100% beef patties. They say

    Each shank of beef is processed by state-of-the-art equipment. Before all the all-beef patties are formed, McDonald’s blends the meat carefully to ensure that every patty contains an exact proportion of the flavorful marbling that creates a juicy burger.

    Marbling? I think they mean fat.

  • Chain Mail

    I get rather irritated with Internet chain letters.  Fortunately I don’t receive many, but when I do I check them against lists of known hoaxes.  Most are stupid or misguided, but some do have an element of truth.  Normally they usually include a warning of some kind, and presumably some people take notice of them and avoid using certain shampoos or putting water in a microwave.

    What I find puzzling is that as this rubbish passes around the world, it often get altered along the way, so people are obviously spending their time updating them before sending them to 50 friends.  Here’s one I received recently.

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  • Euro 2004: It’s the result that counts

    England’s performances in Euro 2004 so far are something of a puzzle.
    They played well for 90 minutes against France, but fell apart in injury time. Last night they were unconvincing against lesser opponents and yet recorded an emphatic victory.
    You really couldn’t ask for a much better result than a 3-0 victory, even if Switzerland are one of the weaker teams in the competition, but the performance left a lot to be desired. Michael Owen still looks subdued, and David Beckham can surely do better than this. The whole team looked nervous, and they lost possession far more than they should have done (though clearly the heat didn’t help).
    Switzerland must feel disappointed, but their biggest problem is that they simply can’t score, and they hardly threatened the England goal at all. The sending-off looked harsh to me – there was no malice, and it was nowhere near the goal, but perhaps it was just never going to be Switzerland’s day.
    Clearly England will need to improve, but a draw against Croatia will be good enough and we just have to trust that they can raise their game when the need arises.
    This game brought back memories of a game in the group stage of the World Cup in 1986, when England needed to beat Poland to stay in the competition. Not because of the scoreline, but because it was played in the heat of the afternoon but I was watching late in the evening (in 1986 the game was in Mexico, I was in the UK). I still remember the relief I felt went Gary Lineker scored the first goal and it seemed like everything was going to be OK (it was – England won 3-0, but lost to Argentina in the quarter-final).

  • Cheese, glorious cheese

    I recently made one of my rare visits to the Great Food Hall in Pacific Place. I think I may have mentioned before that I find this place very frustrating – the prices always seem too high, and the selection of products seems a touch eccentric – and so I usually end up not buying very much. However, this time I had a pleasant surprise. No, they haven’t suddenly reduced all their prices, but they did have something I wanted but had almost given up hope of finding.

    Cheese

    Yes, decent English cheese. After moaning about the poor selection of industrial English cheeses they stocked, I wasn’t expecting much. However, they have obviously had a change of heart, and currently they have a few truckles (as I believe we call them) of Lancashire, Stilton and Cheddar, which appear to have come from Neals Yard Dairy. As this is the company that runs two of the best cheese shops in the UK, the quality should be good. Prices are high, but not unreasonably so (or at least that’s what I am trying to persuade myself).

    Naturally, I am fully expecting that this will be a one-off and these cheeses won’t be seen again, but who knows? Anyway, go and buy some today – you know it makes sense.

  • Spike in trouble

    You may have read in Tuesday’s SCMP (or here) that Spike magazine is having some financial problems.  They are looking for additional financing, and may suspend publication if none is forthcoming.  Based upon the very limited amount of display advertising they currently have, and the apparent failure of their attempt to attract classified ads, it’s not hard to see that they have problems.

    My view is still that the magazine suffers from a lack of focus.  In British terms it is (in some ways) a mix of Private Eye, Punch, and the Spectator, and that’s quite ambitious for a new magazine in a small market.  I wonder how many people are put off buying it either because the cover makes it look like Private Eye (and they want something more serious), or because when they read it the contents are actually quite different.  I question the value of re-printing articles from The Spectator (especially when they are all available free on the Internet), and I wonder how many people care what Steve Vines or Andy Ho have to say.

    Reprinting articles from Apple Daily and Next magazine strikes me as an excellent idea for those of us who don’t read Chinese, and the business section at the back offers a different perspective to that provided by the Standard and the SCMP.  I think they could a lot worse than re-positioning Spike as a serious magazine with some funny stuff in it.

    Meanwhile, Dr Adams over at NTSCMP is showing his true colours.  His rather sad attempt to portray his website as serious and important (based on the fact that he managed to get under the skin of Jonathan Fenby when he was editor of the Post) and ‘dedicated to press freedom’ is completely undermined by the way that he responds to any news that is bad for his ‘enemies’.

    Blogs banned in China – has to be good news, right, George?

    Spike magazine in trouble – again that’s good news, apparently.  However, he tries to defend himself by saying that actually he wishes Spike no harm: 

    I am not happy to see Spike go. I am however relieved to see Vines go as he did press freedom no service at all with his pusillanimous attitude (i.e. no balls), pretentiousness and overall incompetence. Ein grosser Aufwand schmaehlich ist vertan, as they say.

    I suppose even George can figure out that it looks rather pathetic for someone who claims to be in favour of press freedom to rejoice over the possible closure of a magazine that made at least some attempt to provide serious coverage of what is happening in Hong Kong.  So he needs to have some justification for his attitude.  I’m surprised that he didn’t complain that Spike has a blue cover, or that it is published on Fridays, or that he doesn’t like the logo.  

    No, apparently the reason is that Spike isn’t pure enough.  It lacks balls, it just isn’t upsetting enough people.  It really ought to carry more investigative journalism, such as NTSCMP’s revelation that some blogs are not very good, and hard-hitting jokes about, er, Nury Vittachi. 

    George apparently still clings to the belief that satire is ‘important’.  Maybe this was true forty years ago, when newspapers were still deferential towards authority figures and politicians were treated with great respect, but surely not today.  These days ordinary people are much more cynical and so we don’t need so-called satirists on TV, in newspapers or magazines, or on the web, to remind us of the incompetence of our government. 

    Sometimes humour is used in a fairly effective way to reach a mass audience, as with the “broom head” cartoon books that made fun of Regina Ip, but that’s the exception, and the reality is that satirical websites and magazines are read mainly by people who are already well-informed and probably very cynical.  If the jokes are funny we laugh, all the more so if they fit in with our pre-conceptions (for example that George Bush or Tung Chee-Hwa are stupid).  Does it change our view of the world?  Almost certainly not.  Does it make any real difference?  I doubt it.  So, really, who cares whether Spike is hard-hitting?  In the overall scheme of things, it just isn’t important.  Even if it was twice as hard-hitting and had ten times as many readers, it would still be irrelevant.  A few thousand gweilos chuckling away to themselves over their cafe latte on a Friday morning isn’t going to make much difference to what happens in Hong Kong.         

    The irony here (which may be too obvious to point out) is that whilst Spike is less than perfect, NTSCMP is worse – a classic example of sheep in wolf’s clothing.  George ought to be honest and admit that it is just a personal website (it’s OK, no need to use the ‘b’ word) that he uses to pursue a vendetta against Steve Vines and Nury Vittachi, to indulge his passion for classical music, and to long for the days when the editor of the SCMP made him seem important.  As personal websites go, it’s not bad – some mildly amusing photo jokes (all totally original, of course), some interesting opinions, and the text of George’s book about how funny Hong Kong people are.  Nothing more earth-shattering than that.  “Hong Kong’s premier independent publication and [..] committed to press freedom?”  Now that is funny. 

  • 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 next 18 years?”

  • 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 seven years the rules specifically exclude domestic helpers. However, the fact that the case was accepted by the court suggests that it has some merit. The case was reported here.

    The odd thing (to me) is that the Post’s story is that the Labour Department are now forcing domestic helpers to take their 7 days holiday at the end of their contracts rather than staying in Hong Kong. The point being, apparently, that if they are here for two years, then leave and come back before starting a new contract, this will not count as being continuously resident in Hong Kong (hence it would be impossible to claim Right of Abode).

    I can see two problems with this. Firstly, if the courts decide that domestic helpers are entitled to Right of Abode after seven years, it would be illogical to disqualify them for being away for 7 days between contracts. Secondly, as I understand the rules for everyone else, even fairly lengthy absences from Hong Kong do not disqualify you from being treated as ordinarily resident.

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  • 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 live, but I can imagine how desperately disappointing it was for anyone who did. Two years ago, I felt very nervous watching England against Argentina, especially after England took the lead. On that occasion, England did hold on to win, but last night it all went wrong. The annoying thing is that it was really two bad mistakes that led to their downfall – a clumsy tackle for the free kick and a terrible back pass combined with a flapping goalkeeper for the penalty. Of course the free kick and the penalty were well taken by Zidane, but he should never have been given those opportunities to score.

    Losing to France is no disgrace, but to do so when a victory was there for the taking is so frustrating! The only consolation is that Croatia and Switzerland look so awful that it’s hard to see how England could fail to qualify from this group, but they definitely have to win at least one of their next two games, and something (else) is almost bound to go wrong!

    Thankfully, although Cable TV have their usual inane programmes, at least the English commentary is unaffected. For the England game they had probably the best football commentator in the UK, the excellent Martin Tyler. I am not sure who was babbling away on ATV World, but it just about summed it up when England scored and neither of their experts seemed to know that it was Frank Lampard who had got the goal.

    Meanwhile, Cable TV apparently managed to disable most of the illegal decoders by switching codes just before the opening game. According to Channel News Asia:

    Most of the unauthorised decoders were bought from the city’s infamous Apliu Street, which sells mainly electronic products — many of them pirated.

    Vendors had boasted they could hack the Cable TV signals by replacing the smart cards installed in decoders for 100 Hong Kong dollars (13 US dollars) whenever the broadcaster changed its signal code, according to the South China Morning Post.

    But a man, surnamed Chan, told Ming Pao, that he spent 800 dollars on a decoder from the market and still missed the game. On Sunday afternoon about 70 frustrated buyers of the decoders gathered at the market hoping to get a refund — but sellers were nowhere to be seen, the reports said.

    Presumably they will eventually be able to hack the new code, but it will take time. Meanwhile, viewers will miss out on Euro 2004 (or Euro 20-04 as they called it on Pearl’s English news over the weekend). As far as I can see (apart from the delayed transmission of England vs. France tonight) terrestrial coverage is restricted to a brief highlights show in the middle of the night on ATV Home.