從掛曆看祖國的發展。非常搞笑。

说起挂历，每年家里都能收到很多，我记得挂历最猖獗的时候是80年代后期，那时候，大街小巷差不多什么店铺都在卖挂历，因为这东西技术含量很低，只要你找出12张图案类似的图片，就可以出一本挂历。那时候我家墙上只要有钉子的地方，都挂着挂历。

总不能用挂历糊墙吧，因为都用白灰了，可是放在那里就浪费了。于是我妈妈想起了老家的亲戚，于是年底的时候拿牛皮纸把挂历都包好，寄给老家了。老家的人接到挂历后反响都很好。那时候老家的人生活条件都不好，能收到一本挂历，挂在墙上，是件很风光的事情。

我们那个村子比较封闭，电视普及也不高，突然在挂历上看到这么多美女帅哥，而且用的都是反转片拍的，连汗毛孔都数得清楚，而且照片那么大，栩栩如生，看得我们村里的姑娘啊，眼睛都直了，“哎呀妈呀，这小伙长得真俊（zùn）”；看得我们村里的光棍啊，口水流了一地。没几天，挂历被翻的两个小角起了毛边，都卷起来了，被翻过的地方，已经变得黑乎乎的。后来，随着电视在农村的普及，央视明星挂历变得越来越受欢迎，前来瞻仰挂历风采的人越来越多，他们站在挂历前，久久不肯离去。

12月13日，世界自然生長第一高人喜順來到撫順皇家極地海洋世界，用他那雙世界上最長的手臂挽救了誤食膠皮球的海豚海海和樂樂。

As is any other activities in China, Xishun and the dolphin were surrounded by a thousand random but intrigued onlookers.

當日13時30分，在撫順皇家極地海洋世界，喜順來到兩隻已經被膠皮球折磨了近1個月的海豚身邊，在工作人員的指引下，試探著將左手伸進海豚海海的口中。由于喜順左手關節太大，無法伸進海海的喉嚨，後來改用右手，才從海海的胃裏取出了幾塊膠皮球殘片。直到16時，喜順才成功地將兩隻海豚胃裏的膠皮球殘片全部清理乾淨，挽救了它們的生命。

據了解，海海和樂樂因為誤食了膠皮球生命危在旦夕的消息通過遼寧電視台向全省發布之後，牽動了衆多愛心人士的心，爲了挽救兩隻海豚的生命，幾名愛心人士將手臂伸進海豚的胃裏想取出膠皮球，都因爲手臂不夠長沒有成功。在萬分危急的時刻，遼寧電視台記者李焱想到了喜順，於是他主動與北方新報聯係，邀請喜順前往撫順市挽救海豚。在兩家媒體的共同努力下，海海和樂樂終于獲救。

很感激小學的中文老師為我們打了一個良好的語文基礎。小事如「衞」（非「衛」）、麼（非「麽」）、積/績、著/着、了/暸、樹/豎、裏/裡等字地分別，從來難不到我們。可是，在後來的友儕間，我才發覺原來這種對細節的執著並不普遍。尤其是現今的傳媒知識水平低落，能駕馭文字的人不多。當大家每天讀到的文字都是鬆鬆散散，錯字別字連篇，追求準確而又優美的文筆變得奢侈。

幸好，在香港，吾道不孤：

蟬聯 ─ 「她才第一年參加比賽，便蟬聯冠軍。」蟬聯有連續之意，多指連任某職或持續保持某稱號。既是「第一年」參賽，試問何以「蟬聯」？

染指 ─ 「利華古遜在今晚的歐聯分組賽，主場出戰今季重整旗鼓、力圖染指錦標的皇家馬德里。」類似句子在新聞中屢見不鮮，可見知道「染指」真意的，其實沒幾人。這詞由《左傳》而來：春秋時，鄭靈公請各大臣吃甲魚，偏不分給子公，子公大怒，就伸指向盛甲魚的鼎裏蘸湯，嚐一下就走了。後世用「染指」比喻分取非分的利益。記住，是非分的。

粉墨登場 ─ 本解作化妝上台演戲，今多引申為登上政治舞台，含譏諷意。不過就Silver所見，許多人把這成語用作「登場」或「隆重登場」的替代詞，差矣差矣。

侃侃而談 ─ 「侃侃」有剛直之意，說話要理直氣壯才稱得上「侃侃而談」。為何人們總愛以這四字形容聊天，甚至跟「相談甚歡」對等？

風花雪月 ─ 這個誤用更叫人不解。「風花雪月」是古典文學裏常見的描寫對象，具意境美，後轉喻堆砌詞藻而內容貧乏的詩文，也指情愛之事。那些甚麼「和友人天南地北，風花雪月」、「父子久別重逢，禁不住風花雪月一番」，簡直就是垃圾！拜託，要麼玩文藝、耍浪漫，要麼形容男歡女愛，否則別隨便「風花雪月」。

良莠不齊 ─ 指好人壞人都有，側重品質，不用於水平、成績等。「中期試成績良莠不齊」、「培訓良莠不齊」一類表達，是為誤用。這些情況，該用「參差」才對。

始作俑者 ─ 孔子反對用俑殉葬，故有「始作俑者」之謂，比喻壞風氣的始創人。不少人濫用之於一切倡導者。

Wired今期邀請了多位作家，用六個字來説一個故事，效法海明威著名的超短故事："For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

其中一些作品極有作者的性格標記，好厲害：

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

With bloody hands, I say good-bye.
- Frank Miller

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
- Vernor Vinge

I’m your future, child. Don’t cry.
- Stephen Baxter

Don’t marry her. Buy a house.
- Stephen R. Donaldson

I saw, darling, but do lie.
- Orson Scott Card

由於中國上巿公司必須在年底前清欠違規佔用資金的大限臨近，部分上市公司高管相繼辭職。

《上海證券報》報道，監管部門已在清欠攻堅部署中明確指出，年底前凡上市公司資金被違規佔用問題尚未得到解決的，上市公司負有清欠責任的責任人必須在「要麼還債，要麼承擔法律責任」兩者之間做出抉擇。面對如此重壓，近期有小部分清欠困難公司頻繁發生董事會成員及公司高管變更。

近3個月以來，已有「S*ST實達」、「寶碩」股份等10多家未完成清欠公司出現了總經理級別以上的高管變更。不管變更的理由為何，這般匆匆辭職造成的後果都是，年底清欠大限來臨時上市公司在任高管及董事，都已經不是違規佔款發生時的原任高管及董事，這必然會給監管部門的相關責任人責任認定帶來一定麻煩，相關人員也多少有些在事前逃避責任的嫌疑。

對於這些臨陣換將的清欠困難公司，「國浩律師集團事務所」合夥人宣偉華指出，相關上市公司的清欠責任人不可能一辭了之。她認為，監管部門對上市公司清欠責任人的責任認定和處罰，應該是基於違規佔款行為是否是在責任人任職期間發生、責任人任職期間對清欠工作是否盡到了勤勉盡責的責任。對於那些任期內對違規佔用負有責任，或者沒有佔用責任但是清欠不力、不勤勉不盡責的上市公司高管，即使在年底前辭職，他們也無法逃脫相應的法律責任。

This is the second game I've come across that's extremely addictive and sufficiently educational to make me feel less guilty about indulging myself in the game. (The other one was the 3rd World Farmer.) I am very proud to report that I have managed to keep my family alive over the four years while saving quite a bit of money in the process.

Apparently there is a rather drab term for this kind of games - serious games.

Taking pictures in the middle of a marathon course, obstructing athletes who have trained and paid to participate in this sport event. You'd end up being humiliated and condemned by a sea of angry fellow photographers, like she has.

I cried so hard when I saw Michael J. Fox in this interview.

Fox was one of my husband's favorite actors as the slightly built but brave and clever Marty McFly in the Back to the Futures trilogy. As an advocate for stem cell research because of his familiarity with Parkinson's disease, a condition that he has been living with for 15 years, Fox often appears in campaign ads for politicians who support stem cell research. He was campaigning for Claire McCaskill, a Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Missouri, who wasn't the first politician that Fox supported; he also appeared in ads for a Republican in previous campaigns.

In the video, Fox exhibited classic reaction to the drugs he has to take to alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's. However, Rush Limbaugh later blasted Fox for "exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking. And it's purely an act. This is the only time I have ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has. ... This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting, one of the two."

And how did Fox respond to such moronic criticism from someone who knows the side effects of prescription drugs so intimately? With grace. Instead of hitting back with toxic sarcasm like Keith Olbermann would or muttering something religious and inflammatory like Ann Coulter are prone to, he simply said, "It is hard for people and I understand, it's difficult for people who don't have Parkinson's, or don't know about Parkison's, to understand the symptoms and the way they work and the way medication works. You get what you get on any given day." Later he also appeared in an interview with Katie Couric, in which he had a hard time keeping his right leg crossed and rested on his left because of his involuntary motor movements.

Here is someone who is crushed everyday by a cruel reality that is indirectly shaped by public policy. The controversy over stem cell research, to me, is simply a clumsy argument based on emotional religious claims instead of rational scientific facts. The reality of people suffering and dying often gets lost in passionate public discourses, particularly in the current suffocatingly religious environment fostered by the Christian right. Fox is an important living reminder that the decisions of you and me, on public policy, have real, life-changing consequences.

The people of the US, in whom the democratic system entrusts the ultimate power to make a decision, should wake up to the reality that the very foundation of their nation is being constantly ridiculed and threatened. The separation of Church and State is one of the greatest gifts that America has ever given to the modern civilization; please don't lose sight of it now, when religious fanatics are wreaking havoc around the world.

This is why every claim made in China has to be taken with a huge bowl of salt.

最新一期廣州《南都周刊》評選出大陸大專院校的十大荒唐事，其中「漢芯一號」造假醜聞高居榜首。

該份周刊指出，三年前，曾在摩托羅拉公司做測試的工程師陳進，將一片從美國買來的芯片磨掉標誌後加上自己的「商標」，就宣稱發明所謂的「漢芯一號」芯片，並因此成為上海交大教授及微電子學院院長，騙取高達人民幣十一億元科研基金。事件在今年一月遭揭露，震撼全中國。

第二名是上海復旦大學經濟學院院長陸德明，因在二零零四年八月嫖妓被抓，被學校開除黨籍及職務。

第三名是南京師範大學音樂學院四年級舞蹈編導專業十名女生，九月被校方「強行組織」提前下課，陪到校視察的高官跳舞。

第四名是西安翻譯學院院長丁祖詒，三年前在「洛杉磯時報」自費發布丁祖詒校長當選為最受美國高校尊敬的中國民辦大學校長虛假新聞。

其他荒唐事還包括華裔教授丘成桐與北大之間真假人才爭論；北大副教授公布工資單「哭窮」；廈大開辦高爾夫球精英教育等。

《南都周刊》指出，國內的大學已經從昔日的象牙塔變為污穢不堪的「大觀園」，今天的大學與教授們，時常令人感覺不知所謂，爆出的八卦新聞，荒唐程度超乎想像。

I first visited Paris when I was around 9 years old, and then again when I was 18. I was too young at those times to discern the French arrogance, fortunately. As a spoiled HK-er, my sanity would probably be out the window by my second day in Paris.


When I was in NY a few weeks ago, I caught an episode of Saturday Night Live on TV. During the Weekend Update:

"The French have launched their own version of Google, called Quaero. You just type in the subject you're interested in, and Quaero refuses to look it up for you." - Amy Poehler

PARIS (Reuters) - Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
"A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses," Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them.

Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying.

"Fragile travellers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis," psychologist Herve Benhamou told the paper.

The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed "Paris Syndrome", was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004.

Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said:

"In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them ... People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill feeling."

A Japanese woman, Aimi, told the paper:

"For us, Paris is a dream city. All the French are beautiful and elegant ... And then, when they arrive, the Japanese find the French character is the complete opposite of their own."

How freaked out would you be when you find a pair of flattened duck leg in a beautiful hamper that you received from a business associate?

This was in today's Asia Miles promotional email.

Yung Kee Restaurant - Deluxe Winter Hamper

• Preserved duck leg (2 pieces)
• Preserved goose liver sausage (half catty)
• Preserved sausage (half catty)
• Supreme XO sauce (1 bottle)
• Chinese wine – Yung Kee limited edition (180 ml)

I saw the movie An Inconvenient Truth yesterday.

（《絕望真相》這個中文譯名真的不大妥帖。An Inconvenient Truth 的精髓在於指出這個真相令人覺得礙眼、麻煩，所以就被人忽略。整套電影的主題就是要人正視全球暖化的問題，從而採取急切的行動去逆轉人類對大自然的蹂躪。如果我們立即行動，人類的明天就有希望 - 所以真相絕對不令人感到絕望；相反，對未來的希望才是我們的推動力。《絕望真相》這個名稱只是香港電影發行界的反射式習作，台灣用的《不願面對的真相》就貼切得多。）

The science of global warming is fairly well-understood and undisputed all over the world, except in the United States. Growing up in Hong Kong, I have never been aware of any "controversy" over this subject until I studied in the US. There, the mass media casts a wide web of doubt and uncertainty over the scientific consensus on global warming in the name of impartiality. Political operatives manipulates this topic to their advantage without any regard to the underlying truth and implications. For decades, the people of America continue to be led to believe that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," while the rest of the world shook their collective head in disbelief. How screwed up this whole situation has become in America is not fully exposed until, I feel, some one like Al Gore comes along and makes a movie like this one.

To me, the movie is fundamentally about a man of great conviction and how he came to be this way.

Al Gore has been an early advocate on climate change. (Apparently he was also an early advocate on the technology that led to the emergence of the Internet, a claim for which he has long been ridiculed.) People who has tracked his career since decades ago are convinced that he sincerely believes that what he advocates is important for the future of human beings. He is not afraid of speaking out against powerful adversaries. He has been perennially frustrated by the same system that has enabled him to achieve so much, and yet he continues to have faith in democracy and people's ability to discern right from wrong.

In this movie, Gore gives the same presentation he has given more than 1,000 times on climate change. Interspersed through the film are snippets of reasons he became so interested in this topic. The narrative was personal, frank, and powerful. I was deeply impressed by how the "wooden soldier" has come alive in this movie. His passion and conviction really came through.

In terms of the message, partisan politics was not the focus of his attacks – the oil and gas lobby was. (See its reaction to An Inconvenient Truth here and here.) America's politics is infamously very well-known to be plagued by interested money. The oil and gas industry is particularly potent, even in Hong Kong.

For example, CLP Group, the larger electricity provider here, is the more efficient and socially responsible of the two (the other one, Hongkong Electric, is owned by the tycoon Li Ka-shing). However, contrary to what most people think, CLP's business in Hong Kong is NOT controlled by the philanthropic Kadoorie family. Instead, CLP's power generators in Hong Kong are owned by Castle Peak Power Co Ltd, which is a partnership formed in 1964 between CLP Power (40%) and ExxonMobil Energy (60%). Yes, that's right, it's ExxonMobil, the oil company that Gore singled out in the movie. CLP and Hongkong Electric are now actively campaigning against the Hong Kong government's attempt to impose stricter environmental standards on them, even though it is public knowledge that their electricity generators are the biggest local source of air pollution.

Enough said about the problems we have on hand. Go and see what Gore suggests us to do to make a difference.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, see it. It is transforming, inspiring, and, ultimately, uplifting.

今天我打破了自己逛博物館的紀錄。

早上，在寄宿的親戚家裏吃了點早餐，便乘地鐵到 The Metropolitan Museum of Art。我上一次到 The Met 是 ... 大學第二年吧，記憶中 The Met 挺大，有很多不同種類的展品，但我對它整體沒有太深的印象。相對來説，MoMA 的主題（現代美術）突出得多，所以我上兩次到紐約來都只逛 MoMA。


一抵達博物館，我參加了一個叫 "The Museum Highlights" 的 guided tour。領隊的是一名中年貴婦，而同隊的十多個觀光客絕大部分都超過五十歲，所以大家都很守秩序。令我喜出望外的是，博物館容許參觀者不用閃光燈的拍照（除了某幾個展廳以外），於是我可以一邊聽講解、一邊前後左右的拍照。而領隊帶我們看的都不算是 The Met 最著名的收藏，但都是很有代表性、非常有歷史價值的藝術品，更會把我們帶到平常不會踏足的展廳。

比如這個 Bernini 的 Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children (ca. 1616–17)。當時 Bernini 還是一個十八歲的小伙子，但這件作品已經展露了他未來的驚人成就（如 The Ecstasy of St Theresa） 的端倪。


另外一個令我驚嘆不已的，是 John Vanderlyn 的 The Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1818–19)。在當時的社會，panorama 是一種流行的室内裝飾，可惜 Vanderlyn 在生之年都未能把這個作品賣掉賺錢，只能把它到處巡迴展覽。後來，The Met 收到這件作品，便特地建了這個橢圓形房間，將它一段一段重新裱起來。我一進這個房間便認出這是凡爾賽宮的花園，因為 panorama 的形式把凡爾賽宮磅礴的氣勢表露無遺。

當參觀團解散後，我就自己按著地圖到處走。


The living room from Francis W. Little's summer residence，Frank Lloyd Wright的作品。Wright 固然是美國史上最著名的建築師，但以往我對他的認識只是從書本和照片得來。這次在博物館内乍遇大師活生生的作品，以木頭爲主的傢俬、雅致而又有線條美的擺設、加上秋日溫煦的陽光，這個起居室只欠一對夫婦，坐在窗前喝杯咖啡，閒談家常的瑣事。


走得有點累了，便到天台的公園去，看蔡國強的 Transparent Monument（照片中，藍天下稍暗了的長方形）。一塊透明的膠版，地下陳列著幾隻死鳥，我也不敢太仔細的看。在天台的盡頭，有兩隻這樣的鱷魚：


也是蔡國強的作品，叫 Move Along, Nothing to See Here，背部插滿機場保安沒收得來的利器，在明媚的陽光下，在曼克頓上空耀武揚威。


前面一大片的樹是名聞遐邇的 Central Park， 是我最喜愛的公園。它的 landscape architect 是 Frederick Olmsted（side note: 他在 Devil in the White City 佔挺重要的角色）。他對公園的理解是一個大眾化的、有機的一個環境，而 Central Park 就是這個概念化身。所以公園裏有車路、緩跑徑、餐廳、球場等等讓大眾享受的設備， 但都融入了公園的環境，沒有突兀的感覺。而且儘管 Central Park 有很多樹，裏面的地理跌宕有致、有山有水，比起倫敦的 Hyde Park 鋪天蓋地的綠有所不同。左邊的是第五大道，聳立著一些世界上最貴的高級住宅。

接下來去看現代的美國 Pop art。The Met 的收藏品，可能比較集中吧，都比MoMA的容易消化。比如這個 Roy Lichtenstein 的 Stretcher Frame with Cross Bar III (1968)，就真是 literally 把藝術翻轉來看，很有趣。

走著走著，到了 Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde 的展廳。Vollard是一個近代極有影響力的一個 art dealer，把從 Cézanne 到 Picasso 這一輩的「新潮」畫家捧上天，自己也發了大財。這個展覽把很多經過他手賣出去的作品集合起來，連 Cézanne、Van Gogh、Gauguin、Picasso 等殿堂級大師的作品都平均每人有五幅以上，實在是難得一見的盛會。尤其是畫旁的 caption 寫得有血有肉，比如是 Vollard 怎樣忽略了這個作品、錯以超「低」的價錢賣出，或者是畫家如何等著這幅畫的收入開飯，都令觀衆對作品的背景、它流傳的歷史、以及對 Vollard 這個人的認識都很有幫助。可惜展館内不容許拍照，所以不能在此跟大家分享。

看完 Vollard，已經是晚上七點多。由下午兩點多抵達開始，我已經差不多不停的走了五個小時。我到羅浮宮、大英博物館等都只能撐兩個小時！雖然還有很多很吸引的展館都未看，如 Asian art、Renaissance art、Medieval art、Photography等。但肚子餓得呱呱叫，腿又痠，脖子也讓沉重的「手袋」弄得酸疼。（門口 cloak room 的大叔說他們不能儲存女士的手袋，我說我的是messenger bag，而且「It's very heavy! Please take it!」他還是笑著說不。）

是歸家的時候了。

An in-depth look at the Colbert phenomenon by New York Magazine. According to the article, Colbert was stunned by the public uproar over his performance in front of Da Man at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner and was still reluctant to react to the episode. I am glad that this is so, because his astonishment casts him as a flesh-and-blood person like you and me, which makes his bravado all the more unusual and admirable.

This is so much cooler than what E&Y came up with, and I'm so proud that it is from Hong Kong:

A fascinating tale of how a loyal and trusted politician was brought down by his own team, in a high stake game in front of the entire world.

[Colin] Powell had thrown his considerable personal and professional reputation behind the administration's charges that Iraq possessed chemical, biological and perhaps even nuclear weapons, and posed an imminent threat to the United States. In a crucial speech to the United Nations Security Council six weeks before the invasion was launched, he had single-handedly convinced many skeptical Americans that the threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was real...

He was told that the case had already been put together by the White House, and he assumed that with a little tweaking he could turn it into a speech that would fit his voice and style. He was taken aback on Tuesday, January 28, when he received the bulk of the document, a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations...

Powell had constantly found himself on the losing side of regular ideological combat inside the Bush administration, particularly against Rumsfeld and the powerful vice president, Dick Cheney, over Iraq and a host of other foreign policy issues. Though Powell had scored some victories, the rumored humiliations had been real. He had been purposely cut out of major foreign policy decisions more than once, and his advice often had gone unheeded or been only grudgingly accepted by the president. Why hadn't he resigned?

The easy answer had the virtue of truth: Soldiers didn't quit when they disagreed with the decisions of their commanders.

If anything else, I believe that Powell's actions tell us the importance of integrity and hardwork in politics, even though the mentality of political operatives seems to be in vogue these days. I eagerly await reader reviews of his latest biography, Soldier: Life of Colin Powell, from which the above excerpts were pulled.

Probably the most ludicrous set of suits I have ever seen, especially the one on the further right.


Taken at a shop near the Fashion Institution of Technology in New York City.

Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics and economics professor at the University of Chicago, discussed his research on crack cocaine and the lives of gang members at TED2004. This is one of the rare academic seminars in which people laugh and actually enjoy the presentation.

I used to use statements like these as my email signature back in college. Unfortunately, I have gained a much more intimate understanding of the despondent cynicism underlying them from my short period (5 years...!!!) of employment.

• 
  Indecision is the key to flexibility.
  
• 
  Succeed in spite of management.
  
• 
  Doing a job right the first time gets the job done. Doing the job wrong fourteen times gives you job security.
  
• 
  The beatings will continue until morale improves.
  
• 
  It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
  
• 
  When someone says, "Do you want my opinion?" - it's always a negative one.
  

These techniques to telling if someone is lying are often used by police, and security experts. This knowledge is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions.

Warning: Sometimes ignorance is bliss; after gaining this knowledge, you may be hurt when it is obvious that someone is lying to you.

The consistently serious newspaper's quirky attempt at humor:

Sep 7th 2006
From The Economist print edition

In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like?

“GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.

The flight attendants are now pointing out the emergency exits. This is the part of the announcement that you might want to pay attention to. So stop your sudoku for a minute and listen: knowing in advance where the exits are makes a dramatic difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft. Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated, even if the seat-belt light is not illuminated. This is to protect you from the risk of clear-air turbulence, a rare but extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine the heavy food trolleys jumping into the air and bashing into the overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how nasty it can be. We don't want to scare you. Still, keep that seat belt fastened all the same.

Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.

Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems. At least, that's what you've always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn't sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.

On channel 11 of our in-flight entertainment system you will find a video consisting of abstract imagery and a new-age soundtrack, with a voice-over explaining some exercises you can do to reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. We are aware that this video is tedious, but it is not meant to be fun. It is meant to limit our liability in the event of lawsuits.

Once we have reached cruising altitude you will be offered a light meal and a choice of beverages—a word that sounds so much better than just saying ‘drinks’, don't you think? The purpose of these refreshments is partly to keep you in your seats where you cannot do yourselves or anyone else any harm. Please consume alcohol in moderate quantities so that you become mildly sedated but not rowdy. That said, we can always turn the cabin air-quality down a notch or two to help ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy.

After take-off, the most dangerous part of the flight, the captain will say a few words that will either be so quiet that you will not be able to hear them, or so loud that they could wake the dead. So please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. We appreciate that you have a choice of airlines and we thank you for choosing Veritas, a member of an incomprehensible alliance of obscure foreign outfits, most of which you have never heard of. Cabin crew, please make sure we have remembered to close the doors. Sorry, I mean: ‘Doors to automatic and cross-check’. Thank you for flying Veritas.”

If you have ever studied your holiday snaps and wished you'd lost a few pounds before hitting the beach, then this is the camera for you.

The 'slimcam setting' on the gadget uses high-tech digital trickery to shave a few inches off its subject. Marketed at women, the feature squeezes the picture in the middle, so the main object in focus looks thinner - but its surroundings are left unchanged.

"Like many women in Britain, I am a size 16 and sometimes my holiday photos are not as flattering as I would like.
"But the slimming button certainly trimmed a bit off where it counts. If it had airbrushed me down to a size eight then no one would have believed it, but it did just enough to hide some of the evidence of a few too many good nights out."

為全球的旅遊業從業員、以至廣大的地球村村民着想，敬請國内各旅遊社積極抓緊「提升中國公民旅遊文明素質行動計劃」的工作，全力落實中央領導的批示！

中國遊客被批評犯上「七宗罪」，分別是「髒、吵、搶、粗、懶、窘、潑」。

「七宗罪」包括：
「髒」─亂扔垃圾。
「吵」─在飛機上、餐廳裏，毫無顧忌地大聲喧嘩。
「搶」─不講秩序，任何事都要搶先。
「粗」─禁煙區依然悠然自得地吞雲吐霧。
「懶」─在宴席上把腳擱在椅子上，或者盤腿而坐。
「窘」─西裝革履者蹲在街頭，或身穿睡衣在酒店串門。
「潑」─遇到糾紛時火氣大。

中國國際旅行總社出境遊總部副總經理林康近日接到總裁辦指示，就如何貫徹中共中央文明辦、國家旅遊局關於「提升中國公民旅遊文明素質行動」的通知要求，做一些具體的規劃。

與中國國際旅行總社一樣，位於北京的中國旅行總社、中青旅、首都旅遊集團也相應制訂開展貫徹「提升中國公民旅遊文明素質行動」的計劃。

中央文明辦負責人說，開展「提升中國公民旅遊文明素質行動計劃」的背景是因為中國中央領導的重要批示。

去年十一月一日，新華社「參考消息」第八版報道「台灣人擔心大陸遊客不拘小節」的文章。報道說，當日中央領導就在該文上作出批示「提高公民的文明習慣，抓緊旅行社對旅行團的全程教育。」

後來在中國中央領導對該文作出批示後不久，中國中央有關部門負責人也作出批示，要求中央文明辦商同國家旅遊局等部門研究解決措施，在八月開始推動「提升中國公民旅遊文明素質行動」。

中國國家旅遊局資料顯示，二零零五年，中國公民出國(境)人數達三千一百萬人次。世界旅遊組織預測，二零二零年中國將成為世界第一大旅遊目的地國和第四大客源輸出國。

As a follow up to my previous post.

Bags of bricks

Aug 24th 2006 | JOHANNESBURG
From The Economist print edition

A most unusual shopping spree has just taken place in Zimbabwe. At the end of July the central bank devalued the Zimbabwean dollar (Z$) by more than half and then announced that the currency would also lose three zeros. This is the bank's latest idea to fight hyperinflation hovering around 1,000% a year—the highest in the world—and to attract cash into the banking system. Zimbabweans had until August 21st to get rid of the old bearer cheques used as banknotes. Whatever they could not exchange for the new currency, they spent. Gideon Gono, the governor of the central bank, suggested that the change be called “from zero to hero”.
Banks were swamped with customers trying to hand in their cash before the deadline. Anyone willing to deposit more than Z$100m ($400) a week—Z$5 billion for businesses—had to explain where the money came from or risk having it forcibly converted into one-year bonds or confiscated. New bearer cheques could be withdrawn against what had been deposited, subject to strict ceilings. The police searched people for large amounts of cash at roadblocks. Those stuck with extra money had to spend it before it became worthless. Shoppers frantically filled trolleys before the deadline.

Spiralling inflation has forced Zimbabweans to use bags to carry cash: wallets are a distant memory. It takes time for cash machines to spit out the daily maximum of Z$250m—or Z$250,000 in new money—that people are allowed to withdraw, so queues have become common. Zimbabweans have become used to dealing in “bricks”, as piles of banknotes worth Z$10m are known. Businesses send their money by trucks to banks' special bulk-cash facilities. Computer and accounting systems have been close to collapse, struggling to cope with sums in the trillions.

It is hard to see how scrapping three zeros and forcing people to bank their cash will stop prices spiralling. The central bank is calling for stringent monetary and fiscal policy, but has no power to force the government to tighten the purse strings. It partly blames inflation on speculation in the property and parallel foreign-exchange markets, but it has shown little restraint in printing money. Zimbabwe, the region's breadbasket before the government launched a disastrous land reform in 2000, is now hobbled by shortages of food, petrol, other basic commodities and hard currency. The economy has been contracting fast, and unemployment is estimated at over 70%. Many Zimbabweans rely on support from the 3m relatives or friends thought to have left the country.

Zimbabwe's woes cast serious doubt over the integration plans of the 14-country Southern African Development Community, which held a summit in Lesotho last week. Those attending voiced concern over Zimbabwe, which used to be the region's second-largest economy after South Africa. But it ended with the usual promises to speed up integration, create a free-trade zone within two years and establish a common currency by 2018. A common market, let alone a monetary union, looks like a distant dream. Probably not for the central bank's Mr Gono though: he expects Zimbabwe to have single-digit inflation by the end of 2008.

"Because of the entrepreneurial drive of Chinese immigrants, the more Chinese a country has, the richer it becomes." Interesting...

• Burma: 3% Chinese, $157 per capita GDP
• Cambodia: 1.2% Chinese, $341 per capita GDP
• Laos: 1% Chinese, $396 per capita GDP
• Vietnam: 3% Chinese, $518 per capita GDP
• Philippines: 2% Chinese, $1,021 per capita GDP
• Indonesia: 3.1% Chinese, $1,100 per capita GDP
• Thailand: 12% Chinese, $2,845 per capita GDP
• Malaysia: 25% Chinese, $5,003 per capita GDP
• Singapore: 76.8% Chinese, $24,620 per capita GDP

Minghon and I finished watching Season 1 of Prison Break last night, after a week of non-stop DVD boiling. It was soooooooooooo good! The series was fast-paced, tense, and brainy. We cheered so many times for the convicts as they overcame obstacles after obstacles.

The casting was ingenius – Prison Break probably has the two most menacing villains (Peter Stormare and Robert Knepper as Abruzzi and T-Bag) and THE HOTTEST MALE LEAD on TV.

The latest hot dude worshipped in my cubicle:


Smarter than Jude Law and sexier than Jack Bauer, Wentworth Miller is such a PERFECT man!!! I don't want to spoil the show for you by deliberating on how PERFECT a man he was. You just have to see him in Prison Break!

由智障人士參加的中國第四屆特殊奧林匹克全國運動會，運動員水平極高，懷疑有冒牌智障人士參賽。

四川「天府早報」報導，第四屆中國全國特奧會七月二十八日在黑龍江哈爾濱巿開幕，根據國際特奧會規定，參加特奧會運動員須經醫生診斷為智障人士，並出具相關醫學證明文件，但本屆特奧會卻懷疑有多名運動員混進比賽，以謀取好成績。

在足球場上，本屆特奧會比賽水平之高，令觀戰的哈爾濱巿民歎為觀止。四川特奧代表團教練、成都體院研究生關志遜對天津隊的一次三人快速反擊擊節叫好：「三人一起壓上，突破後傳中，再冷靜傳後點，最後將球打進空門，一氣呵成。」他笑稱，「這進球已有了中超水平」，並驚歎「智障人練十年也不可能有這水平。」一名特奧會大學生義工說，「這麼高水平，我們系隊也打不贏。」

除了足球比賽外，其他賽場也發現類似情況。在田徑比賽中，一名特奧運動員一百公尺跑出十一秒八的水準，在桌球、羽毛球上也屢見「疑似專業隊員」的特奧選手，一些健全的業餘運動員也自歎不如。

從事智障人士教育的成都巿青羊區特教中心教員羅光旭認為，本屆特奧會有那麼多「疑似」特奧選手，主因是本屆特奧選手只要出示智障等級證書的複印本就可參加比賽，不少代表團「鑽空子」，甚至偽造智障人士等級證書。預賽時這些選手裝瘋賣傻矇混資格審查，淘汰賽及決賽時為了金牌就原形畢露。

按照大會規定，智商七十以上為正常人，但有些代表團為了成績，將這些疑似選手的智商測定為六十八、六十五等，讓人「啞口無言」。

To those people who enjoy introducing Chinese cuisine to foreigners in the form of pig's ears, chicken feet, or fish head: i) They are not that disgusting, you smarty pants; ii) You really are not funny at all. Trust me.

I present to you a Sardinian delicacy, casu marzu.

One Year of Unnecessary Censorship by Jimmy Kimmel:

Wow!

Picture taken at Taste, the upscale Park'n Shop (one of Hong Kong's two largest supermarket chains) in Festival Walk.

• Sign on top of the watermelon in the right: "Japanese Watermelon, $498 per piece"
• Sign on the right: "Japanese Square Watermelon, $1280 per piece"

Exchange rate is HK$7.8 to US$1.

By Melinda Liu
Newsweek International
June 4, 2006

The rainy season has come to northern China, and it’s a brave new world out there. Actually the natural rainy season doesn’t start until July. But the season of man-made rain is upon us, and Chinese rainmakers have been busy. Over the past month they've mobilized cloud-seeding aircraft, artillery and rockets to enhance rainfall. "We've ordered technicians to try to make it rain again today, but so far they haven’t reported back on the results," says Zhang Qiang, a businesslike woman who heads the Beijing Weather Modification Office (yes, that’s the official name of a real Chinese government agency). "We did it many times last week to increase the rainfall."

Not content with simply making it rain, now China's weather modifiers have taken on another meterological mission: to help guarantee perfect weather when Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in 2008.

Zhang's office, which employs 30 people, is part of the Beijing municipal government and the nationwide China Meteorological Administration. Her unit uses two aircraft and 20 artillery and rocket-launching bases to help modify weather around the city. Springtime is the busiest season for agricultural purposes. But more and more, Zhang and her colleagues are experimenting with weather modification to try to create blue skies. Toward this end, they’ve spent nearly a month and a half total researching the effects of certain chemical activators on different sizes of cloud formations and at different altitudes. Chinese meteorologists claim that similar efforts helped create good weather for a number of past VIP events in China, including the World Expo in Yunnan, the Asian Games in Shanghai and the Giant Panda Festival in Sichuan.

And why not? The central-government leadership—dominated by engineers—has been messing with Mother Nature ever since the Chinese Communist Party came to power. They’ve built the world’s biggest dam, the world’s highest railway and even the world’s biggest Ferris wheel (in Nanchang, still awaiting verification from the Guinness World Records). Why not perfect the science of climate control?

Today Chinese rainmakers are among the world’s busiest. Beijing's nationwide weather-modification budget exceeds $50 million a year. The communist regime’s 11th Five Year Plan, which kicked off this year, calls for the creation of 48 billion to 60 billion cubic meters of artificial rain annually (somewhere between 12 trillion to 16 trillion gallons of water). Beijing needs it. Right now is when fruit trees and crops need life-giving water; the parched North China plain has been stalked by drought since 1998. Normal precipitation is between 22 and 24 inches annually, says Zhang, but Beijing had only 18 inches last year.

Old Chinese lady: Ex-see-cus-see me.
Old Chinese lady: Ex-see-cus-see me!
Gangsta: Man, what are you excusing me about? Fck you!
Old Chinese lady: Fck me? Ok, take-a off the pant.

Stairway in silence.

Old Chinese lady: Ex-see-cus-see me!
Gangsta: Sure thing, ma'am. I'm sorry.
Chinese kid: And that's why we respect our elders.

– Canal St station (Sharon: Near Chinatown)

I've been watching the HBO mini-series Rome lately. It is an excellent drama that depicts the city in a way that is vastly more grim than it was in popcorn movies like Gladiator, but is more consistent with the ancient Rome that we see from the remnants of its arts and writings.

The series drove me to look more deeply into the lives of the people who are so convincingly represented on screen. I began encountering statements like "She married Marcus Junius Brutus, a relative nobody in the political scene. From this marriage, Servilia had one son: Marcus Junius Brutus." or "Atia Balba Caesonia married the Macedonian governor and senator Gaius Octavius. Their children were Octavia Thurina Minor and a younger Gaius Octavius, later Caesar Augustus."

I was maddeningly confused by the naming conventions, so I looked them up as well. Here, you like it or not, you'll be treated to an introduction of the Roman naming conventions.

In the naming convention used in ancient Rome, derived from that of the Etruscan civilization, the names of male patricians normally consist of three parts (tria nomina): the praenomen (given name), nomen gentile (name of the gens or clan) and cognomen (belonging to a family within the gens). Sometimes a second cognomen (called agnomen) was added. A male who was adopted also showed his "filiation".

The praenomen roughly equates to the given, or Christian, name of today. Compared to most cultures, Romans used a tiny number of different pranomina: most people were given names from a list of fewer than forty, reduced to about 18 in the late Republic. This form of "first" name, except for familiar or friendly use, was relatively unimportant, and was not frequently used on its own. The more common names include: Flavius, Gaius, Gnaeus, Lucius, Marcus, Titus.

The second name or nomen gentile is the name of the gens (the family clan), in masculine form for men. The original gentes were descended from the family groups that settled Rome. These eventually developed into entire clans, which covered specific geographic regions. The more common second names include: Aemilius, Claudius, Cornelius, Domitius, Julius, Antonius and Valerius.

The third name, or cognomen, began as a nickname or personal name that distinguished individuals within the same gens. During the Roman Republic and Empire, the cognomen is inherited from father to son, serving to distinguish a family within a Gens. Often the cognomen was chosen based on some physical or personality trait, sometimes with ironic results: Julius Caesar's cognomen meant hairy although he was balding, and Tacitus's cognomen meant silent, while he was a well-known orator.

A distinction could even be made in families with an agnomen. A few of these were inherited like the cognomen, thus establishing a sub-family within a family. The majority, however, were used as nicknames. A few examples include Africanus, Augustus (for Emperors), Britannicus, Caligula, Germanicus, and Imperator.

(I won't complicate things by introducing the conventions for females at this point)
So, let's at look the name of one of the few military geniuses in the Western history, who extended the Roman world to as far as Britannia and who catalyzed the breakdown of the Roman Republic. The first season of Rome focuses on this man.

Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC)

• Praenomen (sort of like a nickname): Gaius
• Nomen gentile (name of the gen): Julius, an important patrician family of ancient Rome supposed to have descended from Julus, son of Aeneas (one of the princes who were defeated in the war of Troy and fled to Italy). The name is also seen as Iulius.
• Cognomen (name of family branch): Caesar. It originally meant "hairy", which suggests that the Iulii Caesares, a specific branch of the gens Iulia bearing this name, were conspicuous for having fine heads of hair. The change of Caesar from being a familial name to an imperial title occured around AD 68, several generations after Julius Caesar. At that time the word was pronounced as "KAI-sahr" in Classical Latin. It spawned imperial titles in other languages such as Kaiser in German, Czar in Russian, and Qaysar in Arabic.

God bless Wikipedia! The majority of this post is compiled with information from the greatest source of knowledge on the Internet.

God I love this guy. Of course he enjoys an enormous home advantage over Bill Bennett; and the thunderous pace of a late night show is not conducive to political debate. But just from the way he puts points across:

Bennett: Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between man and woman.
Stewart: I disagree, it's a debate about whether you think the gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish.

Not even Dick Cheney has the heart to publicly oppose gay marriage. It is a shame that we are still debating this issue in this age.

This lady pops a baby without breaking a sweat. Goes back to looking like Miss L Croft a week after giving birth. How does she do it???

And having your picture where you looked like a mouse fetch US$4.1 million... The kid will need a shrink at age 4.

For those of you who are zealously preparing for the start of World Cup 2006, here is an excellent list of readings:

• The World Cup and Economic 2006
• The Homeless World Cup
• Legal Determinants of World Cup Success
• Impact of Overwhelming Joy on Consumer Demand: The Case of a Football World-Cup Victory
• The Football Wars: Bono Says the World Cup Is a Peacemaker. Not Quite
• The Beautiful Game: Why Football Rules the World
• World Cup is going green

七成受訪者望政府播世界盃

一項調查發現，近7成受訪市民希望政府開放大型場館及社區中心，播放世界盃揭幕戰及決賽。

民協月初以電話訪問了250人，調查結果顯示，9成受訪者知道六月中會舉行世界盃，6成人表示會觀看直播賽事；另有3成多人支持巴西隊獲勝；1成半支持英格蘭隊。

調查也發現近7成人希望政府開放大型場館及社區中心播放世界盃開幕戰及決賽，讓市民可以觀賞球賽。

超過8成受訪者認為，世界盃將吸引更多人參與足球賭博，也會導致市民睡眠不足而影響健康，以及導致食肆、酒吧噪音滋擾及醉酒駕駛的問題更為嚴重。

Cool finds of the day:


Netvibes – A truly customizable web-based homepage that lets me pool many of my RSS feeds and random snippets.

(Via The Top 100 of The Museum of Modern Betas)








Shredding scissors – Five-scissor blades on one handle. If it works as advertised, it's an excellent idea!

(Via Boingboing)

For those of you who have not been following the Uncle Bus saga, go here for a comprehensive and highly entertaining overview.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the winner of this year's Eurovision Song Contest - Lordi, a charming and talented band from Finland, with their catchy tune, "Hard Rock Hallelujah"!

Every boy's dream! A Super Soaker Oozinator!

From the Hasbro website:

Sneak up on your opponents with a surprise bio-ooze attack! Just when they think you're coming at 'em with water, blast 'em with a shot of icky bio-ooze! Shoot out globs of gooey bio-ooze and then drench 'em with water! It's a double blast attack that'll keep your opponents on their toes and running during every water fight. With the OOZINATOR blaster you don't just get soaked, you get drenched!

See how much the boys enjoy playing with their Oozinator!

People quickly caught on to the different kinds of fun you can have with this toy and filled the product's page at Amazon with exhilarative reviews, which were soon deleted by the power that be. Fortunately the Consumerist and its readers archived some of those tales here and here, such as:

As much fun as this toy is while it lasts, it does indeed tend to shoot the ooze
much quicker than I would want. It's good for me but my partners don't enjoy it.

I've always noticed the serifs in the digital clock of 24 and dismissed them as yet another stupid flaw in the show's pretense of reality. Never gave them much thought.


This analysis proves why 24 is actually a great show – because we're in the same audience as some of the greatest minds in the blogosphere.

Oh, the joy of over-analysis.

I was watching the news on TV and the incident of a potential case of cheating on the Academic English for Science Students exam was discussed. As usual, random shots of the venue – i.e. Hong Kong University – were shown, including some shots of the door of what I presume to be the exam room. There was a notice on that door asking students not to bring communication devices into the room. If they choose to do so, "you must switched them off."

Perhaps the student(s) was just trying to smuggle a copy of the exam paper out to mock it publicly??? Will post screenshot if I manage to find one.

Here you go:


No Photoshopping, I swear.

Heeheeheeheeee. I love this headline – Promotion may find Manneken Pis holding hockey stick, not self.




為配合在拉脫維亞舉行的世界冰上曲棍球大賽，比利時布魯塞爾著名的撒尿小童像也被迫穿上拉脫維亞隊服。

Very bad.

Toilet paper costs $417. No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 — in American currency, about 69 cents.

By March [2006], inflation had touched 914 percent a year, at which rate prices would rise more than tenfold in 12 months. Experts agree that quadruple-digit inflation is now a certainty.
Zimbabwe has been tormented this entire decade by both deep recession and high inflation, but in recent months the economy seems to have abandoned whatever moorings it had left. The national budget for 2006 has already been largely spent. Government services have started to crumble.

Zimbabwe's inflation is hardly history's worst — in Weimar Germany in 1923, prices quadrupled each month, compared with doubling about once every three or four months in Zimbabwe. That said, experts agree that Zimbabwe's inflation is currently the world's highest, and has been for some time.

Oh my god! Colbert roasting the Bush administration on the stage of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, an occasion known for its levity.

In the Chinese culture, one is not supposed to "ruin" a party by saying things that might, however remotely, embarrass the host. You can see the horror in the eyes of the guests, how afraid they are to laugh with the unrestrained and irreverent mockery.

On one hand, I feel that Steve Colbert is being rude; on the other hand, this is probably the only chance for him to be rude to this president living in a bubble, who is making important decisions that are adversely affecting many many lives.


What is more shocking is that this entire episode seems to have been deliberately ignored by the mainstream media, who instead focused on the safe satire by President Bush on himself. Instead, articles about how "stupid" or "unfunny" Colbert was began to surface only three days after the event.

Useless trivia of the day: Hong Kong did NOT sign the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic immunity mentioned in this article.

US tops 'congestion charge debt'
BBC news

US diplomatic staff in London have run up unpaid congestion charge fees of £271,000 in the past six months, new figures have revealed.

Transport for London (TfL) said embassy staff, the subject of a bitter tirade from London mayor Ken Livingstone, have jumped high up the debt table.

The US embassy has said it does not intend to pay the fees, instead claiming diplomatic privilege.

The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The mayor said US staff should pay the congestion charge as UK staff pay road tolls in the US.

The new figures show that many millions of pounds are owed in total by several of London's 160 embassies since the introduction.

The US embassy is number one on the list for fees not paid in the past six months.

And the figures show that the Angolan embassy owes more than half a million pounds in unpaid congestion charge fees since the scheme was introduced in February 2003.

'This is not a tax'

A spokesman for TfL said: "We are continuing to seek payment for any outstanding debts from embassies refusing to pay.

"Last month the United Arab Emirates embassy accepted the principle and have joined the many other embassies who have agreed this is a legitimate charge.

"This is not a tax, it's a charge for a service and gives no privileges to any VIPs, so we do not see why diplomats should be exempt.

He said embassies were immune from clamping and bailiff action under the Vienna Convention, but TfL would continue to press for payment for money owing.

This guy rocks!!! Frankly, I'd be surprised if he doesn't get picked up by Hong Kong's mainstream media in three months.

By Christopher Elliott
The New York Times
April 25, 2006

The airlines have come up with a new answer to an old question: How many passengers can be squeezed into economy class?

A lot more, it turns out, especially if an idea still in the early stage should catch on: standing-room-only "seats."

Airbus has been quietly pitching the standing-room-only option to Asian carriers, though none have agreed to it yet. Passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness, according to experts who have seen a proposal.

But even short of that option, carriers have been slipping another row or two of seats into coach by exploiting stronger, lighter materials developed by seat manufacturers that allow for slimmer seatbacks. The thinner seats theoretically could be used to give passengers more legroom but, in practice, the airlines have been keeping the amount of space between rows the same, to accommodate additional rows.

The result is an additional 6 seats on a typical Boeing 737, for a total of 156, and as many as 12 new seats on a Boeing 757, for a total of 200.

That such things are even being considered is a result of several factors. High fuel costs, for example, are making it difficult for carriers to turn a profit. The new seat technology alone, when used to add more places for passengers, can add millions in additional annual revenue. The new designs also reduce a seat's weight by up to 15 pounds, helping to hold down fuel consumption. A typical seat in economy class now weighs 74 to 82 pounds.

"There is clearly pressure on carriers to make the total passenger count as efficient as possible," said Howard Guy, a director for Design Q, a seating design consultant in England. "After all, the fewer seats that are put on board, the more expensive the seat price becomes. It's basic math."

Even as the airlines are slimming the seatbacks in coach, they are installing seats as thick and heavy as ever in first and business class — and going to great lengths to promote them. That is because each passenger in such a seat can generate several times the revenue of a coach traveler.

At the front of the cabin, the emphasis is on comfort and amenities like sophisticated entertainment systems. Some of the new seats even feature in-seat electronic massagers. And, of course, the airlines have installed lie-flat seats for their premium passengers on international routes.

Seating specialists say that all the publicity airlines devote to their premium seats diverts attention from what is happening in the back of the plane. In the main cabin, they say, manufacturers are under intense pressure to create more efficient seats.

"We make the seats thinner," said Alexander Pozzi, the director for research and development at Weber Aircraft, a seat manufacturer in Gainesville, Tex. "The airlines keep pitching them closer and closer together. We just try to make them as comfortable as we can."

There is one bit of good news in the thinner seats for coach class: They offer slightly more room between the armrests because the electronics are being moved to the seatbacks.

One of the first to use the thinner seats in coach was American Airlines, which refitted its economy-class section seven years ago with an early version made by the German manufacturer Recaro.

"Those seats were indeed thinner than the ones they replaced, allowing more knee and legroom," Tim Smith, a spokesman for American, said. American actually removed two rows in coach, adding about two inches of legroom, when it installed the new seats. It promoted the change with a campaign called "More Room Throughout Coach."

But two years later, to cut costs, American slid the seats closer together and ended its "More Room" program without fanfare. When the changes were completed last year, American said its "density modification program" had added five more seats to the economy-class section of its MD-80 narrow-body aircraft and brought the total seat count to 120 in the back of the plane. A document on an internal American Airlines Web site, which was briefly accessible to the public last week, estimated that the program would generate an additional $60 million a year for its MD-80 fleet.

United Airlines has also used the earlier-generation thin seats. But it held open the possibility that once its current seat stock needs to be replaced, it might try to squeeze in more seats. "We're always looking at options," Brandon Borrman, a spokesman, said.

Airlines can only do so much with their existing fleets to save space. The real opportunities, say seat manufacturers and design experts, are with the new generation of aircraft that are coming soon.

"People hear about these new planes, and they have bowling alleys and barber shops," Michael B. Baughan, the president and chief operating officer of B/E Aerospace, a manufacturer of aircraft cabin interiors in Wellington, Fla., said with a bit of exaggeration. "But that's not how planes are delivered. On a real airline, with real routes, you have to be economically viable."

Perhaps the most extraordinary example of a new jet that could accommodate features unheard of previously is the Airbus A380. There is so much available room on the superjumbo that Virgin Atlantic Airways is even considering placing a beauty salon in its premium-class section. (No final decision has been made, according to the company.) The first A380 is scheduled to be delivered later this year.

With a typical configuration, the A380 will accommodate about 500 passengers. But with standing-room-only seats, the same plane could conceivably fit in 853 passengers, the maximum it would be permitted to carry.

"To call it a seat would be misleading," said Volker Mellert, a physics professor at Oldenburg University in Germany, who has done research on airline seat comfort and has seen the design. If such a configuration were ever installed on an aircraft, he said, it would only be used on short-haul flights like an island-hopping route in Japan.

While an Airbus spokeswoman, Mary Anne Greczyn, played down the idea that Airbus was trying to sell an aircraft that accommodated 853 passengers, the company would not specifically comment on the upright-seating proposal.

There is no legal barrier to installing standing-room seats on an American airliner. The Federal Aviation Administration does not mandate that a passenger be in a sitting position for takeoffs and landings; only that the passenger be secured. Seating must comply only with the agency's rules on the width of aisles and the ability to evacuate quickly in an emergency.

The Air Transport Association, the trade association for the airline industry in the United States, does not have any seat-comfort standards. Nor does it issue any recommendations to its members regarding seating configurations.

The two Asian airlines seen as the most likely to buy a large plane for short-haul flights, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, are lukewarm about the Airbus plan.

"Airbus had talked with us about an 800-seat configuration for domestic flights," said Rob Henderson, a spokesman for All Nippon Airways. "It does not fit with our present plans going forward."

A spokesman for Japan Airlines, Geoffrey Tudor, said Airbus had presented its ideas for using the A380 on short-haul flights, but added, "We have no interest in increasing seat capacity to this level."

Boeing is under similar pressure to squeeze more seats onto its newest aircraft, the midsize Boeing 787. Some airlines are planning to space the seats just 30 inches apart from front to back, or about one inch less than the current average.

And rather than installing eight seats across the two aisles, which would afford passengers additional elbow room, more than half of Boeing's airline customers have opted for a nine-abreast configuration in the main cabin, said Blake Emery, a marketing director at Boeing. Even so, he said, "It will still be as comfortable as any economy-class section today."

Indeed, it is possible to have it both ways: more comfortable seats that are also more compact. For example, the latest economy-class seat from B/E Aerospace, called the ICON, allows the seat bottom to move forward when the seat is reclined, so that it does not steal legroom from the passenger behind it. It also incorporates better ergonomic designs now typically found in the business-class cabin.

But the ICON and similar seats can cost up to three times more than the $1,200 that a standard coach seat costs. That may make them unaffordable to all but a few international airlines that would use the seats on long-haul routes, the experts said.

Some frequent fliers, asked about the slimmer seats, said they feared that the result would be tighter quarters. Some expressed concerns about sharing a cabin with even more passengers and increasing the risk of contracting a communicable disease.

Others were worried about even more passengers sharing the already-tight overhead bin space.

"It seems like every year there is less room for my long legs," said Bud Johnson, who is a frequent traveler for a military contractor in Scottsdale, Ariz. "I'm afraid that's going to continue."

Lately I have watched a bit more regular TV and have constantly been bugged by the level of shamelessly horrible and commercials. Two series of commercials often succeed it driving me away from the TV:

1. 白花油王子
Very well described here. I scream for my sanity every time this gentleman comes on screen with i) his ninth-tier actor / actress friends or poor Chinese athletic champion friends, ii) the freaky doll of a baby, which he reportedly made in his own image, who wears a red mushroom on its head and a leaf in front of its willie, and iii) a moronic song that he wrote and performed with an appalling lack of talent.

I suspect God permit his series of commercials to exist simply to remind us that rich perverts can do whatever they like with pure pride.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

~ Dorothy Parker(1893 - 1967), US author, humorist, poet, & wit

2. Hugo Boss fragrances
So far I've seen three on the telly.

A long time ago, probably the first product in this line, there was a woman crouching on a box or something, with a pair of lights dangling from her shoulder. Besides giving a Western interpretation of the Cantonese slang 車頭燈, I didn't see much of a problem with the spot.

Then a young man, deliciously naked in the upper body, keeps throwing a ball back and forth with - gasp! - another instance of himself. The spot itself is harmless. It's just that, when this fragrance was launched, they decided to make 古天樂 its spokesperson. In some promotion event, he, unfortunately, had to say the name of the product, and it was a ridiculously lazy Cantonese pronunciation of an already absurd name - "Bos in Moe-筍". Whenever we see this spot on TV, 銘漢哥 and I can simply never resist saying those same words and giggling at the innocent half-naked dude.

The one that really incurs my loathe and hatred, however, is Purple. A lanky, scantily clad lady, against the magnificent backdrop of NYC, suddenly flips out and starts doing some really stupid and DANGEROUS things. They include jumping into a muddy pond of water, in the middle of the street, and kicking it up onto unsuspecting fellow pedestrians, thrashing her blonde mane blindly in all directions, again in the middle of the street, and hopping in and out of a departing train.

Since when are these attributes of the Perfect Woman to which we're supposed to aspire? Why would any ad exec think that a freaky crackpot would sell a cheap, mundane fragrance? And how much damage do they intend to inflict upon the TV viewer by showing it every 8 minutes?

I was initially planning to compile something like a "Top 10 commercials that I absolutely hate", but in the process of research (i.e. watching TV) I was so constantly shocked and appalled by these two that my mind went blank. Any suggestions on additions to the list?

Woman: Look at all these rude motherfuckin' men! Can't get up and let none of these ladies have a seat.

Man: Having a vagina is not a disability.

– L train

Why hasn't anyone started one for HK already???

【明報專訊】中國股市今年首季升了一成，一洗5年頹風。股市回升卻帶來基金業的嚴冬，基金面臨大量贖回。局外人看中國，對這異象不得其解。

企業非法資金 有賺即套利

首季基金贖回估計高達600億元(人民幣‧下同)，佔中國開放式基金規模一成有多，有些基金(像富國天瑞)竟有過半基金單位被贖回。歐美成熟市場經驗是股市愈升愈能吸引基金投資者，不少學者研究亦證明升市有利基金銷情。緣何中國投資者卻市愈升愈要離場﹖箇中吊詭處，是中國基金集資額不少來自企業營運資金。企業挪用資金(不管是公是私)，不能承受虧損，一旦賺錢便鎖定利潤。另一原因是投資者對基金的治理(governance)沒信心，不願長期投資。小規模基金公司旗下基金贖回量特大，原因亦在此。

只重「首發」 忽視持續推廣

中國開放式基金另一異乎常規的現象，是強調「首發」而忽略持續的推廣。新發行基金出盡法寶，目的是要做大首發集資額。基金公司給予中介公司(如銀行及券商)大量優惠條件，包括佣金、管理費分成、基金的投資買賣量等等。反而首發後這些分銷優惠大減，中介公司當然沒興趣跟進推廣。而為了給首發造勢，不少投資者都只是「走過場」應付「交數」而已。首發凍結期一到，資金便大大縮水。

前兩年美國紐約市檢察官及證監會，起訴及調查基金公司優惠部分機構客戶捕捉市場時機(market timing)的買賣，不少大型基金公司上繳過千萬「自願性罰款」和解，並執行投資期至少90天的要求。但中國的機構客戶這種以大額資金速進速退的行為頗為普遍。券商利用自營買賣的資金買基金，根本不用付首購費及贖回費，白賺市場短期升幅，可憐原基金投資者的利益給沖淡了仍不知。

百億元以下基金公司多虧本

現時中國基金管理公司只能管理開放式基金，不能以獨立戶口管理機構客戶資金。這不單養成機構客戶以「財雄、勢大」之態欺負基金公司，亦令它們習慣短期炒作而忽視長期投資，更蠶食小投資者利益。此政策對基金長遠發展有弊無利，須盡快糾正。

中國基金市場規模超過4000億元，以1%管理費計算，每年收入40億，由不到100家基金公司瓜分，市場競爭不算熾烈。但不少基金規模在100億元以下的基金公司都在虧本。基金管理本是人力/智力密集業務，營運成本有限。但中國基金管理公司體現社會主義精神——利益均沾，分銷銀行、券商、機構客戶都要分享管理費收入，七除八扣後，基金公司所剩無幾，還要養一群後勤人員，不似海外同業般可以外判後勤工作，難怪所賺無幾。

中國資本市場發展過程中常出現不少怪現象，以前談過的基金分紅及今次的升市贖回，都是市場不成熟表現，是投資行為學的研究課題。