Hong Kong Phooey

While flat-earthers presumably calibrate differently, most of us subscribe to the notion that the earth turns full circle once every 24 hours but the opinions of govts and people take a little longer to come around.  It was as far back as March 2010 that Jim Inhofe, a deservedly obscure Oklahoma senator, lambasted Al Gore, declaring that climate change was "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people".  Talking balls: Inhofe in 2015 Proving that 'weather' and 'climate' can be confused at the highest levels  of government, even by the Chair of the Senate Environment Committee Snowball stunt Inhofe's divisive appointment to chair the Senate Environment Committee in 2014 and the US 's 2017 announcement to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change underscored unwavering, if flawed, convictions.  So in 2021 it was with much overdue relief that we heard Special Envoy John Kerry finally pronounce COP26 as "the last best hope for t...

Rain clouds brooding over Victoria Peak, HK Island, seen from the Kowloon Peninsular Men are known for bragging and of course size is always important. In the time-honoured anecdote about the rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma, a Texan guy says he can drive all day and still be driving on his own land. In fact with a little coffee he can drive all night and at daybreak he will still be driving on his own land.  The guy from Oklahoma spits his chewing tobacco at his dog and admits to the Texan that he can just about remember a time when they used to have cars like that in Oklahoma too.   The amount of land you own or the space you live in are indicators of your personal freedom and for many these have come to mean more than money in the bank, cars in the garage or implants in the erogenous zones.  Space in the city gives you the freedom to make as much noise as you like without upsetting the neighbors.  Likewise space in the country allows you to shoot things whi...

As the Christmas decorations are packed away and we start to reconsider the wisdom of some of our New Year's resolutions, many of us are already looking forward to Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day, trying to put last year firmly behind us. Most of us would be happy to see 2020 entirely written off.  Written off like that interview for our dream job in which we  probably  should not have quoted extensively from 'The Life of Brian'.  Written off like that wetsuit which took an hour to squeeze into before we had to cut ourself out of it in an emergency after taking some ill-advised super-strength laxatives.  Or perhaps written off like the blind date who turned up for dinner looking like Monica Bellucci on an evening when we decided to dress down, wearing corduroy pants and Brut 33 aftershave. Monica Bellucci : not someone to disappoint on a dinner date The global media spent most of 2020 focused on CoVid-19; the ways in which it was being mismanaged and the rac...