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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Month: Oct 2004

  • Taken for a ride

    It’s a common sight to see couriers waiting by the exit gates at MTR stations with a parcel or some documents. They hand the items over to someone standing the other side of the gates, and go back on to the MTR. Maybe they then pick something else and take that to another station, and…

  • Ups and Downs

    Via Phil, news that the Far Eastern Economic Review is to cease publication as a weekly magazine and will try to survive as a monthly. I’m not at all surprised. I was a subscriber for a while, but I soon realized that I wasn’t actually reading very much (if any) of the magazine each week,…

  • John Peel

    Very sad to hear that John Peel has died (whilst on holiday in Peru). I have happy memories of listening to his shows on BBC Radio One (many years ago), particularly the ‘Festive 50’ when it was effectively a contest between the Sex Pistols (and other punk bands championed by Peel) and the likes of…

  • Oh no, not mad at all

    George Adams has a marvellously batty conspiracy theory about Peter Gordon, Nury Vittachi and IceRed. Last time he took it out for a spin, the central hypothesis was that Peter Gordon was the owner of IceRed and was using this power to supress any criticism of Nury (and presumably to be beastly to George into…

  • Go to hospital, get sick

    Did anyone else watch that documentary on TVB Pearl three weeks ago about antibiotics? Unfortunately, having a good subject doesn’t guarantee a good documentary. Their concept was to send a presenter off around Europe within a hidden camera in his bag. This is a favourite technique of documentary makers, but for it to work you…

  • Something new, something old

    Mia points out another new Hong Kong blog, though the title is enough to put most right-thinking people off reading it (so it’s not going on my bloglist*). She seems to have been rather confused by New Town Plaza, the hideously large and rambling shopping centre in Sha Tin. Me too. Also [this time via…

  • Supersize that salad

    I went into McDonalds at the weekend and was amused to see that on the one hand they are promoting their new range of salads, yoghurts, tacos and “healthy” stuff, whilst on the other hand they are offering the ‘supersize’ option that was withdrawn in the States following some adverse publicity related to the fact…

  • Disgraceful? Divisive? Crass?

    Conrad has managed to work himself up into a lather of self-righteous indignation concerning something John Kerry said in the final presidential debate. He finds it "crass" that Kerry should have mentioned that Dick Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian "for a vile and divisive political objective". Really? So is it a secret? No. (from The…

  • Jim’s the name

    There is a Hong Kong urban legend that some people with the family name of Tsim have this mis-transcribed as Jim in official records maintained by the British adminstration. Hence their ID cards show what looks like an English name. I am not sure how much truth there is in this story. I know there…

  • Jim done good

    The new KCR extension to Tsim Sha Tsui was open to the public yesterday for the first time. The full service starts next Sunday afternoon. Predictably, there have been complaints about the fares. Idiotic politicians have argued (amongst other things) that the fare from the New Territories to the new TST station should be the…