Park & Shop are either using a random price generator, or this is some sort of weird experiment.
Almost every day they have a different offer on Royal Gala Apples. Yesterday was particularly special – buy 5 apples and save 10 cents:
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BBC First (on Now TV in Hong Kong) claims to be “the home of premium drama from the BBC. Enjoy all new shows brought to you first and on demand”.
So – Sherlock season 4, that would be on BBC First? Well, yes it is in other parts of Asia, but in Hong Kong you need to pay an extra $70 to watch the three episodes on another Now TV service!
BBC First does have season 3 of Sherlock (from three years ago), and they have recently added the special episode “The Abominable Bride” (January 2016), so maybe we can look forward to season 4 a year from now.
To be fair, they are showing the new season of Doctor Who, as well as a few current BBC prime time dramas (Silent Witness, SS-GB, Call the Midwife, and Death in Paradise), a couple of ITV dramas (In Plain Sight and Unforgotten) plus daytime BBC’s Father Brown.
Singapore and Malaysia now have BBC Player, a streaming service similar to iPlayer, and this has a wider range of programming (though only a small fraction of what is on iPlayer in the UK). No idea whether this eventually come to Hong Kong or even what shows will be available, and maybe they will still try to sell the top shows separately!
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Cultural insight alert: Chinese consumers “prefer a hot, rice-based breakfast to cold cereal.”
Chinese company buys 60% of The Weetabix food company. Less than five years later, they sell it on to a large US firm. Seems like an everyday tale of international commerce. But that’s too dull. No, it’s because the Chinese company failed to persuade enough Chinese people to change their eating habits. Or maybe it’s about Brexit. Here’s the BBC:
Weetabix to be sold to US company Post Holdings
UK cereal firm Weetabix is to be bought by US firm Post Holdings for $1.8bn (£1.4bn), its owner has confirmed. Weetabix – made in the UK since 1932 – was put up for sale in January by China’s Bright Food, which bought a 60% stake in 2012.
Bright’s acquisition was the largest by a Chinese firm at the time, but it is believed to have struggled to build significant market share in China.
Chinese consumers prefer a hot, rice-based breakfast to cold cereal. While Weetabix doubled sales in China in 2016, the UK still accounts for the majority of its sales.
[..] "Weetabix has struggled to crack the Chinese market, so it is no surprise to see Bright Food selling up," said George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Struggled? I’d say that doubling sales in one year is fairly impressive, and of course the UK is far and away their biggest market and that was unlikely to change any time soon.
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From Hong Kong Free Press:
MTR Airport Express to increase fares for the first time in its history in June
Hong Kong’s Airport Express MTR line is set to increase fares by 10.3 percent in June – the first fee hike since it came into operation in 1998.
According to a Tuesday Legislative Council document, fares for journeys between the airport and the city proper, paid using an Octopus card, are set to rise by HK$5-HK$10. [..]
The MTR has never adjusted fees for the Airport Express, except in 2000 and 2001 when it cancelled discounts introduced at the time of the line’s opening.
Well, that’s not quite true. Last year they increased the prices for the group tickets by around 12%, as noted here (Hong Kong not so good–Airport Express).
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More misinformation from the MTR:
“The Sha Tin to Central Link (SCL) is a strategic railway line that stretches from Tai Wai to Admiralty”. It really isn’t!
What they are actually doing is linking up the Ma On Shan line and West Rail (through East Kowloon, in brown on the graphic) and extending East Rail from Hung Hom to Admiralty (in blue on the graphic).
Yeah, OK, I’ve written about this before.
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Confusing (wrong) information on the signs above the platform screen doors on the MTR’s Kwun Tong Line:
You don’t change at Mong Kok to go to Tsuen Wan – for that you’ll want Prince Edward.
Likewise, if you want to change to the Tsuen Wan line towards Central you should do that at Mong Kok.
Fortunately this wrong information is only on the platform for trains going towards Tiu Keng Leng, which is why it’s in grey rather than black, but still….
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黐線 chi1 sin3 – crazy, idiot; nuts
ParknShop were selling this cheese for HK$40 (which is reasonable by Hong Kong supermarket standards). Then a few weeks later it went up to HK$88, which is definitely 黐線 chisin. Then it went back down to HK$44.
Then it was HK$22, which is slightly cheaper than the regular price in the UK (£2.55, since you asked). Only in some PnS stores – one branch of Taste is selling it for around HK$70.
But there was no information about those earlier prices. This from a company that will advertise reductions such as HK$88 down to HK$87.90, not to mention “alt fact” reductions (where the higher price might have been charged for one day, if at all).
Sadly, it’s not one of my favourite Waitrose cheeses. OK on toast, but that’s all.
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I understand that apps need to be updated periodically. But why do you force me to update it before I can use it? Almost every other app allows you to use the current version and update later (when you have time). But not FoodGulu, oh no.
Food Gulu is a simple enough app – it allows you to book tables for restaurants in Hong Kong (including the Maxims group). Anyone who has had to wait for a table for Dim Sum should appreciate the convenience. You can make a booking on your way to the restaurant – and if there’s a long wait you can do something else whilst monitoring the queue.
But recently it seems to need updating every week, and the first you hear of it is when you open it to book a table.
Plus they have started sending me annoying offers for a 20% discount if I pre-order food in a Korean restaurant at the airport. This can’t be a targeted offer (I’ve never been to this restaurant or used the FoodGulu app at the airport), so it must be spam
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Seriously, South China Morning Post? Hong Kong is not “in shock” and we are not “stunned”:
Hong Kong in shock as Chief Executive CY Leung decides not to seek re-election
South China Morning Post | Saturday 10 December, 2016
Hong Kong’s embattled leader on Friday left the city stunned and threw next year’s chief executive election wide open by announcing that he would not seek a second term to spare his family “unbearable pressure”.
Eyes were glued to television screens and mouths hung open in shock as a grim-faced Leung Chun-ying told Hong Kong that he was calling it quits in a hastily arranged press conference at 3.30pm, an hour after the government gave the media a heads-up.
The only person who might have been shocked and surprised would be CY Leung when Beijing told him what to do.
and…
- “Eyes were glued to television screens” – no they weren’t
- “mouths hung open” – no they didn’t
- “grim-faced Leung Chun-ying” – well, OK, he didn’t look happy
- “heads-up” is a horrible phrase. What’s wrong with calling it a briefing?
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Outbrain links (on The Guardian, unfortunately) on 10 November
…promoting an Education Post story from seven months earlier:
Outbrain links (again on The Guardian) on 23 November
…promoting an Education Post story from three months earlier:
Even more absurdly, they have in the past promoted an old news story about schools and kindergartens being closed due to a typhoon:
Of course, Outbrain is nonsense, as the New York Times rightly points out:
Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads
You see them everywhere, and maybe, sometimes, you click: those rows of links under web articles, often augmented with eye-catching photos and curiosity-stoking headlines about the latest health tips, celebrity news or ways to escape financial stress.
Usually grouped together under a label like “Promoted Stories” or “Around the Web,” these links are often advertisements dressed up to look like stories people might want to read. They have long provided much-needed revenue for publishers and given a wide range of advertisers a relatively affordable way to reach large and often premium audiences.
But now, some publishers are wondering about the effect these so-called content ads may be having on their brands and readers. This month, these ads stopped appearing on Slate. And The New Yorker, which restricted placement of such ads to its humor articles, recently removed them from its website altogether.
Among the reasons: The links can lead to questionable websites, run by unknown entities. Sometimes the information they present is false.
Or not exactly false but very old. Here’s another take on this:
Have Publishers Lost Their Minds With Outbrain?
Outbrain is just another short-term fix that creates a long-term problem. You don’t have to take my word for it. Take it from one of the biggest-spending clients in the business, who clearly explained why this idea of buying traffic is sending premium publishers in the wrong direction.
Ordinary Gweilo 