Is there ever a good time to tell the French not to drink wine?

Now this is quite exciting. Generally I don’t go anywhere near the Hello from Hong Kong world on the days known as Saturday and Sunday, as they are designated ‘Uninterrupted Packer-Pies time’, without work or anything else getting in the way.

However, I did have every intention of writing you a posting on Friday, but simply ran out of time – the reason being that I suddenly decided last Saturday to submit an entry into a short story competition, last Saturday being the deadline of course. Upon checking the website where you have to register your details, I discovered that they’d had technical difficulties (don’t we all) and so had extended the deadline until Friday. So although I’d been good and actually written the story, I had to spend most of Friday editing out the 588 extra words (there was a limit of 2000, y’see). By the time I’d finished, it was almost time to start getting ready to go and meet Mr Pies as we had a night of japes planned on board a junk boat for a harbour cruise (free bar, no less), followed by a 10-course Chinese dinner.

Not wanting my witty commentary to go to waste, I’d thought I’d let Pies spend some time with his guitar and post today instead.

Bit of a news review today, chaps. I know, I know, I can hear your groans from here but there were actually a couple of funny snippets amongst all the usual doom and gloom recently. Well. I found them funny, anyway.

You've got to love French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the cheeky little teetotaller and what I can only assume is his odd sense of humour. Otherwise, why on earth would you choose the middle of a global recession, a time when everyone's depressed anyway, to get your Ministry of Health to release the cautionary advice: don't drink any more wine.

Er...excusez-moi? That's like telling the English not to drink beer (even Gordon Brown knows better than that), the Spanish to lay off the sangria and the Italians to pour all the limoncello down the sink. Drinking wine is what makes the French, well, French! But apparently, according to findings from the National Cancer Institute, one glass of wine a day will increase your chance of contracting cancer by up to a whopping 168%.

Now hang on just a cotton-picking minute - wasn't there a study (at some point recently, I can't be expected to know all the specifics!) that said moderate consumption of wine, particularly red, actually helps to prevent cancer? All seems a bit fishy to me. Plus the fact that the eventual knock-on effect of the French drinking less wine, is that they'll not need to produce as much, so less will end up being exported to the rest of us that enjoy a good vin rouge - disaster!

The next item on today's agenda is absolute proof that Americans do not understand satire and really are lacking in a sense of humour. The New York Post published a cartoon on Wednesday which links two of the recent US news stories in a satirical way, which sparked a right old furore, with protesters chanting outside the newspaper's headquarters that it should be shut down. (Slightly melodramatic, methinks.)

The cartoon is based on the following: that weighty tome that is either going to have Obama hailed as a national hero or will kill any chance of a second term as Pres, the stimulus bill; and a chimpanzee which was being kept as a pet in Connecticut, that savaged and critically injured a woman, and had to be shot by the police.

I'm sure the stimulus bill has garnered enough international attention for you to not need me to go into detail, but in case the chimp story didn't make it - 15-year-old Travis (that's his name) was toilet-trained, used the internet, dressed himself and drank wine from a stemmed glass (though lord knows why you would be giving a chimpanzee wine to drink) but apparently he did suffer from mood swings and could be aggressive, as male chimps are prone to being. On this particular afternoon, he got a bit antsy so the woman (we'll call her Crazy Lady) that kept him as a pet (exotic pets are actually banned in Connecticut, but because she had him before the law was passed, she's allowed to keep him. Speechless. I'm actually speechless.) called her friend to come and help her calm him down. When the friend arrived, Travis attacked her. Crazy Lady told police that he might not have recognised her friend because she was wearing her hair up, and that's why he went for her.

After he also attacked the police, one of them shot him several times and the incident was over. Until the cartoon man got out his pencil. And some Americans went crazy, some saying the drawing is tantamount to calling for Barack Obama to be assassinated. Some of the other comments:

"[it's] troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys." (Reverend Al Sharpton, civil rights leader)

"To compare the nation's first African-American commander-in-chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel." (Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists)

"a throwback to the days when black men were lynched" (State Senator Eric Adams)

Erm, no it's not. And is it just me, or are people essentially going out looking for racism in this age of political correctness, so they can show how unracist they are by pointing the finger at everyone else? I certainly think so after reading some of the comments posted in response to the article that The Times ran on the protesting. Though there was no way I was reading them all - there are 152 so far!

These two were more along the lines of what I thought when I read about the uproar:

"get a grip - it was satire," says K Brown, Frankfurt, Germany (notice it's a European that has some sense)

(you can always rely on a Geordie for some straight talking) "grow up," says Phil Mann, Newcastle Upon Tyne

And then there was Anne Craig, from New York City, who seemed to have completely missed the point:

"Bush was often compared, amusingly so, to a chimpanzee (which, by the way, are NOT monkies [sic]) - (yeah, that's the part to focus on, Anne) - ...but never a murdered chimp. What is so horrific in this cartoon is the violence and implication of murder."

Now, I really don't think those coppers would agree to the claim that they 'murdered' poor old Travis - he was attacking everyone! That's what their policemen do - if it had been a human threatening other people's lives, he'd have got a bullet too.

Seriously. The world's going a bit mad, if you ask me. Or maybe it's just Americans and the French. Who were always mad.

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Crazy airport lady

We all know that one of the downsides of growing up and becoming a proper, responsible adult, along with having to pay taxes and not being able to eat worms without people questioning your sanity, is that you can no longer throw a tantrum when you don't get your own way, without the risk of being certified.

Information that no-one seems to have passed onto the woman in this clip; a woman who's just an itty-bit upset that she missed her flight from our very own Hong Kong International Airport.



It's the old dude with her that I feel sorry for (the one that picks up the bags waaay before she's finished her histrionics). You know he's thinking, "Oh bloody give it a rest woman, it's not like anyone died", but he daren't say anything in case she whacks him instead of the counter she keeps slapping. Bet he didn't realise he'd signed up for this when he married her at 22!

If you can't be bothered to watch the whole thing, at least hold on till my favourite bit at 32/33 seconds, when she throws a full-on, all-out wobbly. Kids ain't got nothing on this loon.

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A day in the life of the oh-so-cheesy Palins

As mentioned yesterday, in its attempt to not let Saint Sarah be consigned to history as that dozy VP pick beaten well and truly by the Obama steamroller of 2008, Fox News sent one of its most annoying hosts (though it's hard to choose, they're all equally irksome), Greta van Susteren, up to the house where "you can see Russia from the front door", to the Palins'. The tag line on the advert for the interview has been, "Greta goes to check on what they've been up to".... Er, who the hell cares??

Still, it did produce some gems, as you would expect.

Such was my excitement in being able to make fun again of the gun-promoting, wolf-killing-from-a-plane-enjoying, abstinence-is-the-best-form-of-contraception-but-oops-my-17-year-old-appears-to-be-pregnant-spouting governor, I wrote the above yesterday in preparation for what I was sure was going to be a programme full of quoteable nonsense, that would almost write the blog for me.

Well chaps, it seems I've been lured in by Fox News and lured in good. For a start, the majority of the programme was an interview with Bristol Palin (the afore-mentioned pregnant daughter, who gave birth nearly two months ago) and only five minutes or so was given over to asking Saint Sarah what she thought of the stimulus bill, while she watched husband Todd compete in the Iron Dog Race. (She thinks Obama should veto the bill until everyone's had a chance to read it and Todd finished 6th, in case you give a fig.)

So it seems I was possibly a little premature when promising you the gems above, for which I apologise. I get the impression that you're not that interested in la Palin in the UK, so you're probably quite pleased! Typically, it being Fox (which during the election campaign might as well have renamed itself The We Love Sarah Palin channel), they didn't even ask Bristol the tough questions, like how come's you ended up unmarried and pregnant at 17, when you purportedly believe in no sex before marriage and you claim abstinence is the way forward.

She did tell us that she wishes "it [the pregnancy] would happen in, like, ten years, so I could have a job and an education and be, like, prepared and have my own house and stuff", that she would "love to be an advocate to prevent teen pregnancy, 'cos it's not, like, a situation you wanna strive for, I guess" and that she hopes "that people learn from my story and just, like, [...] prevent teen pregnancy, I guess". Hmm...except during the majority of the interview you're saying how much you "love being a mom" and how "exciting" it is. Not really thought through the most effective deterrent message there, have you Bristol, love?

I also have to just make mention of this absurd trend the Palins seem to be following in giving their male children ridiculous names - first we had Track and Trig (and in between those two are the comparably normal-named girls of Bristol, Willow and Piper); now, Bristol has called her son....wait for it....

Tripp.

So to make up for the lack of juicy comedy tidbits from the mouth of Palin Snr., I have written you a bonus blog today. Yes, I know, I spoil you with two blogs in one day - don't get too used to it.

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What is wrong with people?

Is it just me, or are some people in the world completely bonkers?

On 26th January, we had 33-year-old Nadya Suleman in California giving birth to not one, not two, not even five, but EIGHT babies. At first glance, this seemed like an extraordinary tale of survival, as they are thought to be only the second case of octuplets ever to live for more than a few hours (though the medical team didn’t actually know there were eight of the little blighters in there until they delivered the seventh and spotted another – probably hiding at the back like I used to do in Maths).

As the days have progressed, we discover that it wasn’t just some miracle of birth, rather that the mother had had IVF treatment, was implanted with six embryos (two of which split to create the two extra babies), neither of which would invite too much criticism on their own, until you find out she already has six children under eight, three of which have disabilities, plus she’s a single mother.

Now, just to be clear, I have nothing against women wanting to raise children on their own, though basic common sense would suggest that two pairs of hands are better than one – even when dealing with just one child – nor would I ever advocate forcing someone into ‘selective reduction’ – the process where you lessen the risk of your multiple birth by ‘choosing’ five or so babies to be aborted.

My utter lack of comprehension comes from the point where Ms Suleman, who lives with her parents and calls herself a ‘professional student’, thought, “Hmm…I’ve already got six children that my parents have to both look after and support financially, I know what I should do – be implanted with six embryos so I can have yet more children!” Even her mother described the decision as unconscionable, saying that she’s already struggling to look after the original six.

Again, I don’t think anyone should be told how many children they should have, but I would at least hope that people assess all aspects of their situation before deciding to have a child or children – otherwise it’s just irresponsible, surely? The fact that “[it] was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family”, so says the mother, is not reason enough for me. You also have to ask: IVF is expensive, no? Where on earth did that cash come from? Not forgetting there’s no NHS in the States; they’re estimating a cost of $1.3 million for the Caesarean births and hospital stay. Crikey Moses.

The obvious follow-up question is for the doctor who transferred the embryos, (clearly going against US fertility treatment guidelines, which say only two embryos should be implanted) and it would be something along the lines of, “what in the name of all that is good and pure were you thinking??” I suppose at least that’s one thing we’ve managed to get right in the UK; it’s actually law that not more than three embryos are implanted.

The part of the story that would be laughable if it wasn’t actually the truth, is that Ms Suleman plans to have a career as a television childcare expert and wants $2 million from media interviews and commercial sponsorship, as presumably the education grants and parental money won’t cover the cost of 14 children (estimated to be between $1.3 and $2.7 million till they reach the age of 17). Particularly as her parents filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and had to move into the house they'd bought for their daughter.

Then, on Friday, the lovely Pies alerted me to a story that our very own Sun newspaper had broken, in which we’re told how 13-year-old Alfie Patten has fathered a child with his 15-year-old girlfriend, Chantelle Steadman. (If that kid’s thirteen, I’ll eat fish eyes the next time I go for Chinese – he looks about seven!) They are claiming they didn’t realise what would happen if they had sex, and where a 12-year-old boy is concerned, I can believe that – boys are stupid as we know – but I struggle to understand how a 14-year-old girl (as she was at the time of conception) can be that ignorant.

Proving just how ill-prepared he is for fatherhood, Alfie said (while selling his story and exclusive pictures of his daughter to the paper), “I thought it would be good to have a baby. I didn’t really think about how we would afford it.” Oh good. I guess that’s another couple of weekly welfare cheques winging their way to Chantelle’s parents’ rented council house, where she lives with five siblings. Yep, that’s right. Neither of her parents work and they survive on state benefits. As pointed out by my own mother last night, “the cynic in you wonders if she (or more likely the parents) knew exactly what she was doing and saw the potential wealth to be had, both from the media and from the government”. Chantelle only has to wait a year and then she can claim too.

That would very much explain what on earth was going through her parents’ minds when they allowed a 12-year-old boy to stay over at his girlfriend’s (their) house, because I can’t quite get over their stupidity if this isn’t a money-making scheme. What did you think they were doing in her bedroom? Playing tiddly winks??

Despite the fact that it’s illegal to have sex while under the age of 16, cases are rarely pursued to a prosecution on the grounds of public interest. But what about investigating and charging the parents? At the very least, that might provide some incentive to explain the consequences of certain bedroom actions.

What has also baffled me about this story, is that about 50% of the people who have commented on it (on The Times’ website, dahhling, you don’t think I actually read The Sun? Well, ok, just once, and that was just to get the link for the blog posting. Honest, guv) are full of “people should get off their backs, I’m sure they’ll make great parents, all children need is love”-type drivel. Oh, wake up people! He’s not even old enough to get a job – will love pay for all the gubbins a kid needs?

And I haven’t even got the energy to speculate over whose idea it was to sell the story and whether the children’s privacy (by that I mean Alfie, Chantell and the baby) should really have been placed in higher esteem.

The bigger cynic in me agrees with some of the other comments: if he hasn’t yet reached puberty, how can he have fathered a child? Leading to the inevitable question of: is it even his? Mind you, he’s grown up learning that being a ‘celebrity’ is actually a career to aspire to; perhaps he doesn’t care that he’s being used as long as he gets his cut. (Though having watched the video of him, I think it’s more likely that he really does believe she’s his daughter.) Besides, it wouldn’t have made half such good headlines for the media if the father was more like 16.

Honestly. What is wrong with people?

PS On a slightly less rant-y note, I’ve become slightly addicted to The Times Online’s Spelling Bee training games today – is it wrong to get so much satisfaction and excitement from being able to spell ‘pugnacious’? You need to be able to hear the words, so possibly not the work-avoidance website of choice, but you should try it!

PPS Don't forget to tune in tomorrow - it's been way too long since I fulminated about Sarah Palin, but fortunately Greta van Susteren (the woman whose face doesn't move - if you don't believe me or you have no idea who she is [for which you should be very grateful] click on the video below where she’s talking to Alienface Cindy McCain) has made a special trip to Alaska for "Greta catches up with the Palins", which is airing this evening on Fox News. Just for your delectation, I shall be pulling it apart with witty commentary in a posting soon after.

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Chinese New Year: third and final part

Ah, hello. Welcome back to our highly educational delve into all things Chinese New Year-y. So the basic schedule is laid out thus: general excitement, including decoration of just about anywhere you can hang a lantern (apartment buildings, shopping centres, tube stations, etc.) and open-air markets selling all manner of new year products, like flowers, toys, clothing, red envelopes, paper lanterns - essentially your one-stop shop for anything you could possibly need to welcome in luck/ward off spirits; mass influx of migrant/overseas Chinese to China in the days preceding New Year's Eve; massive dinner on said Eve; much visiting and merriment in the following days (in some parts of mainland China, this can be for as many as fourteen days after New Year's Day! Phew!)

So first, to the reunion dinner. Imagine, if you will, the most extravagant and food-heavy Christmas dinner you've ever indulged in, and then put a distinctly Eastern slant on it. You've got a ton of people travelling back from goodness knows where, expecting you to provide a mountain of tasty treats to keep them going right through to the dawn of the new year. It should always involve chicken and fish - though often only some of the fish is eaten, the remainder being kept overnight, because the Chinese phrase 'may there be surpluses every year' sounds the same as 'may there be fish every year'. (You'd think with the millions of Chinese characters out there, this confusion could be avoided - tsk, tsk!)

As always, there's a bit of tradition thrown in for good measure: apparently in northern China, it's generally dumplings that are made to have at midnight, because they signify wealth, being shaped like a 'tael'.

(picture of the dumpling on the right in case you were picturing one of those suet-based things you put in warming winter casseroles!); whereas southern Chinese say 'whatever' to that idea and buy their dumplings from the supermarket, instead putting their efforts into making a new year cake after dinner, and sending pieces to relatives and friends as the name of the cake, Niangao, means 'increasingly prosperous, year in year out'. Make it yourself!

A couple of other examples of the significant dishes served at this lavish feast include:

*Buddha's delight - a vegetarian dish made up in part of black, hair-like algae (mmmm-hmmm!) due to its Cantonese pronunciation ('fat choy') which sounds like prosperity (you'd think they'd actually call it what it is - weird pond stuff that looks like hair - but maybe people wouldn't be so keen then)

*Mandarin oranges - these babies are all the rage at this time (to the point where what was at first a novelty, the forty-fifth time you see the little orange trees at the door to your building, it's bordering on tedium). As if you haven't guessed already, it's because the Chinese name for them - jin ji - is a homophone of 'golden luck' or 'gold and fortune'

*Bakkwa - pretty much China's version of jerky, where they take some meat, trim off the fat, and then slice, marinate and smoke it to eat later or present to someone as a gift. This is my favourite purely because it's eaten just for the hell of it - it's a portable snack and it's about as unhealthy as you can get!

If you can actually move after the reunion dinner, it's a choice between going to the temple to ask for prosperity and the like, or having a party and a countdown to midnight with your mates. Guess which one's increasingly more popular these days?

The major difference between the new year of the Gregorian calendar and the Lunisolar one, is that the Chinese are not a nation of big drinkers, so the idea, even if you have a party, isn't to get as trolleyed as possible and pass out in front of the fireworks on TV at midnight (as a quick aside, was it my imagination or did the blasted things in London go on for ages the new year just gone??) For this reason, they're not nursing a crippling hangover on the first day of Chinese new year and so partake in a little welcoming of the deities of the heavens and the earth. It's also the day for visiting the big cheese(s) of your family (i.e. the reet old people) and handing out your red envelopes to all the money-grabbing, greedy little..., I mean, to the lovely, deserving children.

On the second day of new year, the married daughters visit their own parents (traditionally, this might not have been possible since marrying) and you have to be extra kind to dogs (yes, you did read that right) as it's believed to be the birthday of all dogs. Er...right, ok.

No visiting's allowed on the third and fourth day because there's a good chance you'll get into an argument - partly because of all the being nice you've already been doing in the last couple of days, but also apparently, as a result of the fried food you've eaten.

Celebrations continue on the fifth day (birthday of the Chinese god of wealth); the seventh day (common man's birthday, meaning everyone gets one year older, and in Malaysia and Singapore everyone meets up to toss the raw fish salad); the ninth day (offering prayers to the Jade Emperor as it's his birthday) and the fifteenth day (rice dumplings are eaten, candles are lit outside houses, lighted lanterns are carried in the street and traditionally, young unmarried women gather to toss tangerines into the sea, in the hope that their future spouse will pick it up). Clearly they all have a thing for sailors in this part of the world.

Believe it or not, there are even more customs and significant happenings around this time of year, but quite frankly, I think I've prattled on enough. Next time there's a special Chinese-New-Year-themed round in your local quiz, you should clean up. No need to thank me. Really.

I do have to offer a slight apology if this has been slightly dull and fact-heavy, as not really knowing a thing about it, I've tried to digest the Wikipedia entry on Chinese New Year and regurgitate it for you good people - which was hard! It took four and a half scrolls of the mouse ball to get to the bottom of the page - that's a lot of information! I plan to be back to my interesting and witty best asap! Especially as I have been reading some more of that alrighttit.com, and dammit - if she can be entertaining, engaging and waggish (thanks, Oxford Thesaurus!) while going through breast cancer treatment, I think I can up my game a notch.

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Chinese New Year: part two

So, the Chinese New Year has passed, the visitors have gone home and I have just about got over a bout of flu that struck me down in amongst the festivities, so I'm back with a vengeance.

I would still like to wish you all 'Gong hei fat choi!', which roughly translated, means 'Congratulations and be prosperous!', wishes that are even more appropriate in the current economic climate.

Not wanting to bring you down with plummeting-economy chat, I thought I'd continue on along the theme that I left you with, and impart my summarised version of what happens during the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. Incidentally, did you know that it's not just celebrated in China, but in most areas where there are large populations of ethnic Chinese, like Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, Vietnam and parts of the USA, Canada and the UK?

Clearly these celebrations aren't actually up to much though, as we still see a time of Chunyun (aka Spring Festival travel season), the largest human migration, where migrant workers in China and Chinese living overseas return to China to celebrate with their families. As job opportunities have opened up further away and Chinese students are now able to attend university overseas, the number of people coming back has increased exponentially, reaching 2.26 billion in 2008. That's more people travelling at once than actually live in China! It would also explain why, when Pies and I went out on New Year's Day, streets that are usually heaving were like a ghost town, as even if you're an expat (i.e. not going back to China) it's the perfect time to go away due to the five days off in a row. That's if you're happy to pay the extortionate prices, of course!

First things first then. Being an Eastern celebration, it goes without saying that it has its roots in mythology - apparently, in ancient China, a mythical beast called the Nian, with the body of a bull and the head of lion, used to rock up to villages on the first day of the new year and have his fill of livestock, crops and people, particularly juicy little children. Naturally, the village folk weren't best pleased about this impromptu feast taking place on their doorstep, so they started to put food out for the beastie, in the hope that he'd eat that instead of young Timmy (or whatever kids were called in ancient China). They also noticed that one year, the Nian had the willies put up him and was scared away by a child in red, so in subsequent years, the villagers hung red lanterns and red spring scrolls (wouldn't that have been a better story if it had been red spring rolls?!) plus they lit firecrackers to give him a case of the heebie jeebies. You'll be pleased to know their efforts were successful. He never came again.

I'll go into more detail tomorrow on what actually happens on the days of the new year, but before I go today, I wanted to share with you some of the things the Chinese have to bear in mind in terms of good or bad luck around this time of year.

Things that are said to bring you good luck:

*Opening windows and/or doors welcomes in the good luck of the new year (hmm, it's still a bit chilly here in Hong Kong, and I don't really fancy making it easy for any cheeky shyster to waltz in unaided to steal my 'luck'!)
*Switching the lights on at night is meant to 'scare away' spirits of misfortune that will meddle with your luck and prosperity in the following year (yes, but surely you'll have spend any prosperity on your massive 'leccy bill from leaving all the lights on? Seems a teensy bit counter-productive to me...)
*Eating sweets to guarantee that you have a 'sweet' year (yeah, right - any excuse for gorging on lollipops and king-size bars of Dairy Milk, eh?)
*Cleaning the house to 'sweep' away the bad luck of the previous year before New Year's Eve; you have to be careful not to miss the window though, if you clean on New Year's Day, you'll sweep away all the good luck - it's a very tricky business (though to me, this just sounds like common sense if you're expecting visitors in the next few days; you don't want them to think you live in a pigsty)
*Bathing in pomelo leaves on New Year's Eve should ensure you'll be healthy for the rest of the year (that's as may be, but won't you smell a bit, well, leafy for the next few days??)
*(and my personal favourite) Wearing a new pair of slippers (that you bought before the new year) symbolises stepping on people who gossip about you (now, if it was me who had devised said tradition, it would be a new pair of hob-nailed boots, so they actually hurt more than some soft slippers. What's that? It's just symbolic? Rubbish. Must have been slightly confused with voodoo practices...)

And on to the bad luck inducers:

*Buying a pair of shoes because the Chinese character for 'shoe' is a homophone for the character for 'rough' (Cantonese) and 'evil' (Mandarin) [how can buying a new pair of shoes ever be confused with something evil?? It's a wonderful thing!]
*Saying words like 'finished' and 'gone is inauspicious at the beginning of the new year, as is talking about death (though surely you should avoid that at all other times too as it's just downright depressing)
*Wearing anything black or white: black is a symbol of bad luck and white is a traditional funeral colour (oh dear, I wish I'd read that before the new year...)
*Buying a clock for yourself or as a gift - traditionally it means your life (or the life of your recipient) is limited (errr...ok, but how am I supposed to not be late for stuff? Maybe that's what the sundial in the grounds of our apartment complex is for!)
*Buying or reading books due to the character for book sounding just like the character for 'lose' (now surely that gives every kid in the land a damn fine reason not to do any homework and to avoid reading David Copperfield which you've been hailing as a 'classic' for months?)
*(and my personal favourite for the specificity of its reasoning) Getting a haircut in the first lunar month puts a curse on your maternal uncles (crikey!)

PS This is my 50th blog post! Feel free to have an extra glass of the bubbly stuff on me next time you're out!

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