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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  • More choice, more confusion, more money

    Tim Noonan in the SMP on the strange business of sport on pay-tv in Hong Kong (subscription required):

    It all started a few years back when ESPN and Star Sports left Hong Kong Cable for Now TV. Cable subsequently bid for the rights to broadcast the coveted English Premier League (EPL), which was on ESPN Star at the time.

    That’s not strictly correct.  3 years ago Cable TV outbid ESPN/Star for the EPL rights, and following that the two channels switched to PCCW’s Now Broadband TV.  There had clearly been a strained relationship between the two organizations for several years – 10 years ago they shared the rights, and then Cable TV got exclusive rights and dropped ESPN, and then a couple of years later ESPN/Star got the exclusive rights and only finalized a deal for the channels to be broadcast on Cable a matter of days before the season started.  So it was no surprise 3 years ago when ESPN & Star Sports switched to Now, though Cable TV did claim that they had tried to retain the channels.     

    You figured that once Now TV acquired the rights to the EPL, for a number reputed to be in the range of HK$1.5 billion for three years, that it would seem like everything was under one roof, what with ESPN Star, the Golf Channel and Golf Tour network also on Now, what else would you need?

    I’ll tell you what you need. You need a quick primer, so here we go. Yes, the EPL is on Now and since they have a number of dedicated channels they can show every single match.

    What they cannot show is the half-time studio show from John Dykes and his crew on ESPN. They show parts of his pre-game show as well as a post-game highlight show much later and that’s it.

    If English-speaking viewers want some sort of analysis with their half-time highlight package, they are out of luck.

    There’s a fundamental problem here.  No-one can seriously doubt that ESPN/Star have the resources to provide excellent coverage of almost any major sport (for baseball, basketball, etc. they can work with ESPN, for soccer, cricket, etc., they can work with Sky).  However that coverage will be in English.  Understandably, Hong Kong broadcasters want to provide their viewers with something in Cantonese. 

    You might ask why Now can’t offer a choice of English (ESPN/Star) or Cantonese (locally produced) coverage.  Good question.  I suspect the problem is that to get back the huge investment they have made, PCCW need to guarantee that their sponsors and advertisers are the only ones whose names are associated with the coverage (and ESPN/Star have separate sponsors for their coverage). PCCW must be worried that given the choice a substantial number of viewers would watch John Dykes et al.

    For the EPL, it is (just about) possible to separate the pre-game and post-game shows from the matches themselves, and that is what they are doing, but for other sports it wouldn’t be practical (particularly if the rights are owned by Cable TV rather than PCCW).         

    But maybe you don’t care about the EPL, perhaps your game is tennis and you were looking forward to watching next week’s US Open on Star Sports, where it has been for years.

    Well, forget it.

    While everyone else in Asia will be watching it on Star Sports, unless you have Hong Kong Cable you won’t be watching it here as they now own the rights to it to go along with the French Open.

    And golfers who subscribed to the Golf Channel and Golf Tour Channel are now over par. The upcoming FedEx Cup as well as the President’s Cup belong to Hong Kong Cable as well as every PGA tournament with the exception of the four majors.

    So if you can get the British Open and US Open on ESPN and the Masters on Star Sports, why are you paying HK$75 a month for Now’s golf package?

    To watch the Scandinavian Masters? Granted, you get the PGA Championship, number four on the major scale, and the Ryder Cup every two years. But is that enough?

    Probably it isn’t, but if you signed-up for 18 or 24 months you can’t do much about it.  As far as I know, most UK subscribers are on monthly contracts and can cancel at any time, which is not the case here.  If you signed up for ESPN/Star Sports (or any of the other channels) because of particularly sports events they were showing at the time, you can’t know whether that they will continue to own the rights, but you will have to continue paying. 

    (more…)

  • Do you take Sugar with that?

    The UK version of The Apprentice gave the impression that Amstrad (run by Sir Alan Sugar) was a large successful company.  It was once, but not any more.  Now Sugar has sold the company to BSkyB for £125m (of which he will personally get £34.5m).  Not bad, but at one time the company was supposed to be worth £1.2bn.

    For BSkyB the deal will bring one of its main set-top box suppliers in-house and should speed up the development of new products as it seeks to stay ahead in the increasingly competitive pay-TV market.

    Brentwood-based Amstrad supplies a third of Sky’s set-top boxes and the broadcaster accounts for the lion’s share of revenues at Sir Alan’s company.

    Until now, Sky’s developers had come up with product specifications in-house then gone to potential suppliers asking them to come up with detailed designs. Making Amstrad a sub-division, to be run by Sir Alan, cuts out much of the costs for Sky and speeds up the process.

    Sky chief James Murdoch said the deal built on a "long and positive relationship" with Amstrad. "The acquisition accelerates supply chain improvement and will help us to drive innovation and efficiency for the benefit of our customers."

    Amstrad will keep its Essex offices and a smaller set-top box contract with Sky Italia, a broadcaster wholly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

    The idea of Sugar as an employee (with the much younger James Murdoch as his boss) seems totally at odds with his image as a successful businessman.  However, to be fair, he also owns 73% of Viglen and has his own property company:

    A lot of Sir Alan’s wealth – which is estimated at £830m, placing him as the 84th richest man in the UK – is tied up in property, and is controlled by the Amsprop investment company run by his son Daniel.

    He also owns the aviation firm Amsair, which charters planes for businesses and private travellers.

    The winner of the most recent series of The Apprentice went to work on a golf club project owned by Amsprop, rather than for Amstrad.  Everyone seems keen to reassure us that he will continue to work on the TV show:

    Spokespeople at Amstrad and The Apprentice’s production company TalkbackThames were quick to issue reassurances that there would be no changes at the business reality TV show. Sir Alan’s "eyes and ears", Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer, "are continuing as Sir Alan’s sidekicks", said one.

    One problem with the show has always been that working for Amstrad did not seem like a very attractive option.  In future, the job on offer will presumably be with one of his other companies, which ought to help.

  • I think it must be time to take a short break, and rather than simply leaving the last few posts sitting there for most of August, I thought I would put together a brief summary of what I write about here and maybe encourage you to take a look around.

    Naturally, I write quite a lot about Life in Hong Kong, on subjects such as taxis…

    .. and there’s lot of Gweilo angst about how horrible Hong Kong can be…

    …and moans about a certain very profitable and sometimes rather annoying bank

    Hong Kong TV is another obsession of mine (there’s even a category for Television).

    And don’t even get me started on the South China Morning Post…. 

    The normal front page is here, with the most recent posts (including the following that are not mentioned above):

    Or the full archives are here, or there are lots of other Hong Kong blogs that you might want to read:

    More blogs and links are over on the right hand side ===>

  • Do it yourself

    This comment about a recent post reminded of an article some time ago in The Economist (subscription required as this is so old):

    MEET your airline’s latest employee: you. You may not have noticed, but you are also now working for your phone company and your bank. Why? Because of the growth of the self-service economy, in which companies are offloading work on to their own customers. It is, you could say, the ultimate in outsourcing. Self-service can have benefits both for companies and customers alike. It is already changing business practices in many industries, and seems likely to become even more widespread in future.

    The idea is not new, of course. Self-service has been around for decades, ever since Clarence Saunders, an American entrepreneur, opened the first Piggly Wiggly supermarket in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee. Saunders’s idea was simple, but revolutionary: shoppers would enter the store, help themselves to whatever they needed and then carry their purchases to the check-out counter to pay for them. Previously, store clerks had been responsible for picking items off the shelves; but with the advent of the supermarket, the shoppers instead took on that job themselves.

    On the heels of supermarkets came laundromats, cafeterias and self-service car washes, all of which were variations on the same theme. But now, with the rise of the web, the falling cost of computing power, and the proliferation of computerised kiosks, voice recognition and mobile phones, companies are taking self-service to new levels. Millions of people now manage their finances, refinance their home loans, track packages and buy cinema and theatre tickets while sitting in front of their computers. Some install their own broadband connections using boxes and instructions sent through the post; others switch mobile-phone pricing plans to get better deals. They plan their own travel itineraries and make their own hotel and airline bookings: later, at the airport, they may even check themselves in. And they do all of this with mouse in hand and no human employees in sight.

    There was a time when most organizations had those real human employees available on the end of a phone, so you could call the local branch of your bank and actually speak to someone.  Not that this always produced the desired results, it has to be admitted.  Then they starting using call centres (which generally made things worse), and now you often have to struggle through an automated phone system – if you press all the correct buttons, listen to the pre-recorded messages ("if your remote control is not working, please replace the batteries") and are willing to hang on you may be able to speak to someone who might be able to help you. 

    So doing it yourself is quite an attractive option.  I am happy to be able to select my cinema seat at home rather than queuing up to do the same thing.  It’s handy to be able to choose your seat on a plane and check-in from home, and there are rarely queues to use the check-in machines at the airport.  The automatic gates at the airport (and at Lo Wu) for checking the new "smart" Hong Kong ID card have helped to reduce delays entering and leaving Hong Kong.

    Unfortunately, not everything works so well.  There are too many badly-designed systems and many organizations seem to be reluctant to give customers all the options (and maybe all the information) they need.

    (more…)

  • Surely SIM mistake

    When I read that an Indian-born doctor living in Australia had been charged with giving "reckless support" to terrorism for giving someone a SM card, it looked rather odd but I supposed they must have had some more compelling evidence. Er, no.

    At first the British police claimed that this SIM card had been found in the burning jeep that was crashed into the doors of Glasgow Airport last month.  Then they admitted that it had actually been found in a house in Liverpool where two of the suspects Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed had been living.  Mohammed Haneef is their second cousin and had stayed with them when he was in the UK.  He had given them his SIM card when he left the country (as it would be no use to him). 

    This is part of a piece from last Wednesday’s Guardian (The Australia connection) which alerted me to the fact that he was still in custody:

    Haneef was put under surveillance by the Australian authorities, and then arrested 47 hours after the Glasgow incident in the departure lounge at Brisbane International Airport. He was about to board Singapore Airlines flight 246 on a one-way ticket back to India. He claimed he was on his way home to see his wife, Firdous Arshiya, who had just given birth to their daughter there.

    The police suspected that his hasty departure was down to him having had some involvement, or knowledge of, the British terror plot, and 12 days later he was charged. At a magistrate’s hearing to determine whether he should be allowed bail, the police revealed their case against him. A mobile phone Sim card that Haneef had left behind in the UK had been found in the burnt-out Jeep at Glasgow; he had admitted sharing a house in Liverpool with the two Ahmeds; and he had not given a satisfactory explanation of why he had suddenly decided to leave Australia.

    The bail application was expected to fail, but the magistrate, Jacqui Payne, was underwhelmed by the facts set out by police. Noting that there was no direct evidence linking the 27-year-old to the British attacks, she ordered that he be freed, but that his passport be confiscated and that he report regularly to police.

    The move took the government and the police, who had been expecting Haneef to stay in custody, by surprise. Later that day came the reaction: immigration minister Kevin Andrews said he was revoking Haneef’s work visa on the grounds that he "reasonably suspected" that Haneef had been associating with persons involved in criminal conduct, namely terrorism, and that Haneef would remain in detention. Andrews also implied that there was a secret dossier of evidence against Haneef that was still being assessed and had not been made public for fear of compromising further investigations.

    It is now clear that there was no "secret dossier" and he really was on his way to see his wife in India.  So he was freed, as the BBC reported on Friday:

    An Indian doctor has been freed from custody in Australia after charges linked to the failed bomb attacks in the UK were dropped.  Dr Mohamed Haneef was released into home detention while he awaits a decision on his immigration status.

    The 27-year-old had his visa revoked after he was charged with giving "reckless support" to terrorism.  The charge was withdrawn on Friday after Australia’s chief prosecutor admitted "a mistake has been made".

    The case – which also threw new anti-terror laws under the spotlight – triggered concern from both legal and civil rights groups.

    It seems that there is still some doubt about whether he will be able to stay in Australia, and the government don’t seem to regret what happened (PM won’t apologise to Dr Haneef )

    Mr Howard said mistakes happened from time to time and when dealing with terrorism, it was better to be safe than sorry.

    "Australia will not be apologising to Dr Haneef," Mr Howard told reporters in Sydney.

    "Dr Haneef was not victimised and Australia’s international reputation has not been harmed by this ‘mis-start’ to its new anti-terrorism laws."

    Mr Howard said he supported the AFP and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, who revoked Dr Haneef’s visa earlier this month, just hours after a Brisbane court had granted him bail.

    Despite the collapse of the case, Mr Andrews has refused to reinstate the visa unless the Indian national’s lawyers successfully appeal against the decision in the Federal Court.

    It’s understandable that governments take a cautious line when it comes to anything related to terrorism, but if mistakes are made then what harm does it do to admit that you were wrong?  Especially as the error seems to have been made by the British police. 

  • Lost and found

    Back in 2004, Readers Digest got themselves some free publicity by claiming that 4 out of 5 Hong Kong people would return a wallet to its owner if they found it (though another prominent blogger of the time doubted that this was true – see Too cynical by half).

    Now they done it again with an experiment to check whether a mobile phone left in a public place would be returned to its owner.  Hong Kong didn’t do so well this time around, as Reuters reports:

    Reporters from the magazine Reader’s Digest planted 960 “lost” cell phones in 30 public places in 32 cities around the world to test people’s reactions in a cell phone honesty test.

    They rang the phone as people walked past and watched to see if people would answer the phone, take the phone and attempt to call someone in the pre-programmed contacts later, or simply pocket it.

    The most honest city in the survey turned out to be the smallest city in the group, Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, where 29 of 30 cell phones were returned.

    But bigger cities showed they also had trustworthy citizens with Canada’s largest city, Toronto, coming second with 28 of 30 phones returned, followed by Seoul, South Korea, and Stockholm in Sweden.

    The Asian cities of Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur didn’t fare so well, tying for worst performance with only 13 of the 30 “lost” phones returned in each city.

    Reader’s Digest spokesman William Adler said while the study was not scientific, the results were interesting and indicated that people were more honest than preliminary interviews suggested.

    Well,  it’s certainly not scientific.  They don’t say whether people pocketed the phone or simply left it where it was – clearly it is dishonest to take it, but ignoring it is unhelpful rather than dishonest.  How long did they wait for someone to pickup the phone?  Do they know whether people made any effort to return it?   

    The report on the Readers Digest website seems to accuse a security guard of trying to steal one phone:

    In one particularly egregious Hong Kong incident, a security guard along the city’s Causeway Bay picked up a ringing phone, asked a group of smokers if it was theirs, then wrapped it in a piece of paper. Confronted by the reporter, the guard stammered, “What phone? I didn’t see any phone. If you’ve mislaid something, report it to Lost and Found.” The phone was plainly visible in his hand.

    However, there is no explanation about whether this is an isolated example (were there other slightly less egregious incidents, I wonder?).  To be fair, I would assume that the correct procedure would be for the security guard to hand it over to the Lost Property department, and I don’t think we can be clear whether that’s what he really intended to do.

    The SCMP muddies the already murky waters by being even more unscientific (HK fails finders-keepers mobile phone test – subscription required):

    Adding insult to injury, in Hong Kong it is very difficult to recover a phone left in a taxi without posting a reward.

    A South China Morning Post reporter who called the Taxi Union Lost Report Service Centre posing as a passenger who had left her HK$2,400, six-month-old phone in a cab was told to put up a HK$500 reward. “The phone will be worth something, and Nokia phones are worth more,” an operator said. “If the driver has to deliver it back to you, you have to give them some sort of reward.”

    The operator said the centre received about 50 reports of lost items per day: half of them were mobile phones, and none had ever been recovered without a reward.

    I don’t think they mean “adding insult to injury” do they?

    It’s a non-story because they asked one operator rather than an official spokesman, and appear to have assumed that what they have been told must be true.  However, the statistics don’t surprise me:  I have only used that service once to try to recover something I lost, and I wouldn’t bother again – I had to pay them first, and I heard no more once they had my money. 

    On the other hand, I don’t think we can assume from this that taxi drivers are dishonest.  I have had one taxi driver return a phone I left behind (he delivered it back to me and refused any payment or reward) and someone called me when they found my wallet in a taxi.  So there certainly are plenty of honest people in Hong Kong, and phones do get returned without any reward being paid. 

  • Odd policies

    An interesting letter from David Webb in Sunday’s paper:

    Transport policy in need of an overhaul

    I am responding to David Beaves’ question on why private motorists cannot convert to liquefied petroleum gas or buy LPG cars in Hong Kong (“Government has got it wrong on LPG policy”, July 15).

    No doubt the government will say it is because of a shortage of LPG stations, but this has nothing to do with it. The real reason is it subsidises the commercial road transport sector by exempting LPG from fuel duty.

    The beneficiaries are the owners of taxis and, more recently, minibuses.

    For the same reason, private motorists cannot buy fuel-efficient diesel-powered cars of the type which are popular in Europe.  Ultra-low-sulphur diesel is taxed in Hong Kong at only HK$1.11 per litre, while petrol is taxed at HK$6.06.

    This subsidises the transport trade. To prevent private motorists benefitting from this subsidy, the government deliberately raised the emissions standards for private diesel cars above European levels, to such a point that no car would currently qualify, while continuing to allow trucks and buses to belch out smoke from older, dirtier, diesel engines.

    Franchised buses are even exempt from diesel duty, keeping fares artificially low, which makes rail transport less competitive, keeps roads congested and necessitates harbour reclamation for more roads.

    The government’s socialist transport policy is in need of a comprehensive overhaul based on market principles.

    It’s somewhat ironic that the government of Hong Kong does indeed operate in what David Webb calls a “socialist” way (at least in some sectors, notably transport) whilst having a reputation for being non-interventionist.  However, I’ll leave that debate for another day.

    I was not aware that diesel cars were effectively banned from Hong Kong.  What a strange state of affairs.

    As for LPG, I recall that taxi operators were given various incentives to covert, and the low price of the fuel is part of that policy. There is also a plan to get minibuses converted to LPG, but that isn’t going so well.  The government recently claimed the policy was working (Nine-year high for Hong Kong’s blue skies), which prompted much derision from green groups, but the switch to LPG has certainly had a positive impact. 

    What I had expected was that after the network of LPG filling stations was established, it would become possible for private cars to use the fuel, but Webb seems to think that is not going to happen.  I suppose it’s too much to hope that the government might explain its policy…   

  • Inconvenient (as intended)

    The controversy about where pre-booked taxis can pick passengers at the airport rumbles on.  Today’s SCMP reports that passengers are unhappy with the new location (Airport cab site too far: travellers):

    Passengers of radio-despatched taxis complained yesterday that the location of the pickup point under a new arrangement at Chek Lap Kok airport was inconvenient.

    “The new pickup point is too far away from the terminal. It is especially inconvenient when we have many pieces of luggage and travel with the elderly and children,” said one traveller waiting at the new spot near Car Park No3.

    New direction signboards and temporary covers were set up along the passages between Terminal 1 and Car Park No 3. The Airport Authority also deployed about 100 staff to direct passengers to the new pickup point.

    But passengers were still unhappy about the new arrangement, which required them to walk farther.

    “We used to be able to get in a taxi after taking a lift ride, but now we have to walk all the way from Terminal 1 to this spot near Terminal 2. It is quite troublesome,” another passenger said.

    Some radio-despatched taxi drivers had to direct passengers from Terminal 1 to the new pickup point as their customers got lost in the airport.

    Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it?  They are trying to make it inconvenient! 

    Last week’s protest by taxi drivers achieved nothing, so I wonder if the Airport Authority will listen to their customers when they complain about this stupid arrangement.

    Meanwhile, here’s a good idea (Two-speed taxi meters floated):

    One of the city’s largest taxi unions has suggested an increase in short-distance journey fares but a decrease in long-distance fares to combat the threat from illegal discount taxis.

    Lai Ming-hung, president of the Hong Kong Public Light Bus Owners’ and Drivers’ Association, said he made his suggestion on a radio programme yesterday because he had sought the views of those in the profession and felt he had their support.

    According to his plan, the meter would begin at HK$17, but after passing the HK$50 mark, it would jump by only HK$1 every 200 metres or one minute of waiting time, rather than by HK$1.40.

    “This should ensure a discount of 15 per cent for journeys usually worth HK$100, a 20 per cent discount for HK$200 journeys, and 30 per cent for journeys longer than that,” Mr Lai said. “I don’t drive a taxi or own a garage, so I have no interest in this matter. My suggestion should [therefore] be taken as the fairest and most objective.”

    Seems like an excellent suggestion.  Reducing the fare for longer trips makes sense because the cost-per-km must be lower, and it would be an effective way to compete with the “illegal discount taxis”.  Increasing the cost for the shortest journeys would also be fair.

    On the other hand, taxi drivers could choose to stick with existing fares and accept that they will lose some business, but the Airport Authority and the government should not be preventing this form of competition.  Unfortunately that is what usually happens here, contrary to the reputation Hong Kong seems to have acquired, so I don’t hold out much hope of a sensible solution.

  • Go the back of the queue

    If you want to save money when going to or from the airport by taxi, you can book by phone and enjoy a significant discount.  As an alternative, there are so-called “vans” that can take more people and more luggage than a normal taxi.  However, both of these services are “illegal”. 

    The Airport Authority recently decided to make it more difficult for these rogues to pick up passengers at the airport by stopping them from using the car park closest to Terminal 1 and forcing them to use Car Park 3, which is next to Terminal 2 (map).  The joke being, of course, that T2 is only used for departures, not arrivals. 

    This prompted a protest by taxi and van drivers that blocked the airport for several hours on Saturday night.  As a result, a temporary arrangement was put in place for pick-up to be allowed at Car Park 4 near to the Regal Hotel, but now it has been “agreed” that the new arrangements will be reinstated (Battle of the cabbies ends as deal is struck on airport arrangements – subscription required):

    Under the new arrangements, radio taxis will no longer be able to pick up passengers near Car Park No1 – an interim measure introduced the day after the blockade. Instead, from noon on Sunday, they will move to the more distant Car Park No3 as officials originally proposed.

    The move was meant to address the grievances of meter-taxi drivers, who complained their business had been affected by the radio taxis, which they said illegally solicited passengers by offering discounts.

    “The law-abiding drivers join long queues outside the airport to wait for passengers, while these discount-taxi groups just roll in and snatch our business. Is this fair to those who spend a whole day waiting?” said To Sun-tong, of the Motor Transport Workers’ General Union.

    About 150 taxi drivers gathered for a sit-in protest at the temporary pick-up point for radio-taxi drivers while the groups met with the Transport Department at its Wan Chai headquarters at 10am yesterday. The drivers, who had threatened more vigorous action if the talks fell through, dispersed when the resolution was announced at 12.30pm.

    In a briefing outside the headquarters, Mr Wong said the new measures would allow easier law enforcement over illegal soliciting of passengers at the airport.

    “The arrangement is not only a reasonable balance of the interests of different parties, but also enables police to focus their efforts on monitoring and conducting key-point inspections at the airport,” he said.

    “We will combat illegal soliciting activities from discount-taxi groups, and also the illegal carriage of passengers without luggage by goods vans.”

    Where to start?  Well, it’s hard to see what harm is caused by allowing people to book taxis.  It seems a much more efficient arrangement than taxi drivers waiting in long queues.  I find it hard to believe that drivers would wait all day for a fare, but of course they are willing to wait for a while because the fares from the airport to Kowloon, HK Island and some parts of the New Territories are high enough to justify it. 

    Common sense would suggest that if the queue is too long, drivers will not wait, and given that taxis have radios they must be able to find out the approximate waiting time and therefore whether it might be worthwhile going to the airport to the join the queue. 

    Elsewhere in Hong Kong it is, of course, quite legal to take phone bookings and pick up passengers, and it’s allowed at UK airports as well, but Hong Kong has no equivalent of the “private hire” cars (aka “mini cabs”) that offer this service at Heathrow and elsewhere. 

    Taxi drivers that offer discounts are doing this because they think they can earn more money that way.  Again, it’s hard to see what harm this does.   Isn’t competition a good thing?

    Anyway, it seems that this matter isn’t really resolved:

    However, cargo-van groups and radio-taxi drivers remained unhappy with the new arrangement.

    Kwok Chi-piu, who represented the radio-taxi groups at yesterday’s meeting, said he was forced to accept the proposal as he was the odd one out among the 28 associations.

    The Airport Authority has agreed to set up new direction signboards and temporary covers along the passages between Terminal 1 and Car Park No3 within the next few days to protect passengers from any bad weather.

    The Hong Kong Union of Light Van Employees expressed dismay that cargo vans were not allowed to wait for business in any airport car parks, but union chairman Ip Moon-lam said it would not take further action. Goods vans may continue to unload outside Car Park No1.

    I never knew there was a “Hong Kong Union of Light Van Employees”.   

  • Vinyl is back

    Somewhat surprising news about vinyl from The Guardian:

    The format was supposed to have been badly wounded by the introduction of CDs and killed off completely by the ipod-generation that bought music online.

    But in a rare case of cheerful news for the record labels, the latest phenomenon in a notoriously fickle industry is one nobody dared predict: a vinyl revival. Latest figures show a big jump in vinyl sales in the first half of this year, confirming the anecdotal evidence from specialist shops throughout the UK.

    It comes as sales of CD singles continue to slide – and it is not being driven by technophobic middle-aged consumers. Teenagers and students are developing a taste for records and are turning away from the clinical method of downloading music on to an MP3 player.

    The data, released by the UK’s industry group BPI, shows that 7in vinyl sales were up 13% in the first half, with the White Stripes’ Icky Thump the best seller.

    Two-thirds of all singles in the UK now come out on in the 7in format, with sales topping 1m. Though still a far cry from vinyl’s heyday in 1979, when Art Garfunkel’s Bright Eyes alone sold that number and the total vinyl singles market was 89m, the latest sales are still up more than fivefold in five years.

    Bright Eyes?  No! 

    I wouldn’t have thought most people would have a record deck.  Apparently that isn’t a problem:

    Retailers and record labels put the rising vinyl sales down to bands rediscovering the format and to music fans’ enduring desire to collect. It’s not unusual for fans to buy a 7in but have nothing to play it on, says Paul Williams at industry magazine Music Week. “It’s about the kind of acts that have very loyal fan bases that want everything to do with that act,” he says. “They maybe will buy the download to listen to, but they get the vinyl to own. It’s looked at like artwork.”

    HMV agrees that vinyl is back from the brink, and the chain has been rapidly expanding its record racks to meet rising demand. The group’s Gennaro Castaldo cites the huge popularity of “indie” bands, such as Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, which enjoy loyal followings among teenagers and students, especially during the summer festival season.

    “Labels have realised that it’s cool for bands to release their music on vinyl, especially in limited edition form, which makes it highly collectible,” he says.

    Is this another example of the way that artists can make money in the brave new world of downloads?