Hmmm… What to do with my ‘16-page guide to the fun and excitement of the Sevens’?
I was barely aware that the annual extravaganza of tedious grossness was upon us yet again. Usually, the approaching tournament is in your face for weeks before it takes place, with various promotional activities featuring men in suits grinning and holding oval balls, desperate people begging for and whining about tickets, and endless media hype about how 20 million pies will be consumed over the weekend.
This year, there seems to have been little fanfare. Judging from the broken beer bottles strewn along the streets near Lan Kwai Fong this morning, it remains an excuse for contrived underage debauchery among the city’s expat brats. And no doubt the usual flood of podgy, pink, male Westerners are pouring in from hellholes like Dubai all ready to stroll around talking loudly and wearing highly original purple wigs. But on the whole the event seems subdued, as if the community (or those segments of it that ever paid it any attention) has tired of the ritualized ‘fun and excitement’ and the multi-millions spent on corporate sponsorship, hospitality and suites. (So 1990s.)
Bloomberg confirms my suspicions. It reports that Mainlanders are attending in ever-growing numbers, condemning the Sevens to the same category of uncool as the Maldives and drying your panties in the airport. And landlord Allen Zeman pronounces the occasion a boost to Hong Kong’s image in the world – always a sure sign that we would be better off without something.
To put all this irrelevance in perspective, Chief Executive CY Leung maintains that Burma and North Korea have genuine universal suffrage if their laws say they do, and that the British Prime 
Minister is not popularly elected (an insult to David Cameron’s magnificent defeat of the Monster Raving Loony Party’s Howling ‘Laud’ Hope). He fails to mention the US Electoral College system – Beijing apologists’ favourite example of the West’s fraudulent version of democracy. But even so: another day, another inflammatory and delusional comment almost designed to bring Hong Kong closer to Umbrella Revolution – the Sequel.
Amazingly, CY finds time to stuff more of his household’s dirty laundry in our faces. Last week, it was the Facebook uproar-embarrassment over his suicidal/runaway daughter. Now he issues a statement to rebut a former employee’s tittle-tattle in the media about life chez Leung.
The curt press release seeks to belittle Chung Kin-leung by clarifying that he was not the Grand Chief Chef he said he was at Government House, but a mere Kitchen Elf (grade II). Having established that the man is just (unusually impertinent) grassroots public-housing riffraff rather than a One Of Us middle-class professional, the statement insists that Chung was not, as he claimed, required to hit the floor with his forehead and address the Leung offspring as little princes and princesses, but was indeed allowed to call them by their first names. (Is permitting servants such familiarity with children itself condescending? Something to ponder over the weekend.)
Maybe there was a time when the world saw Hong Kong as the home of the Sevens. Somewhere along the way, the city’s image has shifted towards that of the young people holding umbrellas amid clouds of tear gas. One way or another, that looks set to be so.
I declare the weekend open…
I will be at the 7’s and fear not few Mainlanders will and CY (begrudgingly) will only show up, probably with Semen, at around 7pm on Sunday and doubtless will be roundly booed. So time to enjoy and piss the, now open, weekend away and stay out of Semen’s LKF bars !
You have an uncanny knack for pinpointing the irrelevance, self-praise, innuendo and lies that pass for informed debate in this lobotomised place.
I too failed to realise that the Sevens were coming to pass, so please note that I would have preferred (note the past conditional, the first in HK for 6.5 years) not to be informed.
And 689 solemnly pronouncing that North Korea has real, genuine, full, universal, democratic suffrage: do even the Regineas believe it? Does even JU Kim believe it?
And I would have thought that a sub-menial was best placed to be informed about the unmentionable secretions and obscenities viewed in the Imperial Household.
Have a nice weekend!
Every year once or twice this blog mentions The Nose-who-keeps-beautiful-free-spirited-animals-in-fish-bowls…and every year Oneleg gets accused of racist comments.
Well this year is no exception…the mainland undead would not buy soap if it were made from said man.
At the risk of hijacking the thread, has anyone else seen this?:
http://hongkong.coconuts.co/2015/03/26/maids-room-new-hong-kong-development-not-even-big-enough-single-bed
Developers are MTR and CK Hutchison apparently – nice to know the goverment (76% shareholder in MTR) is keeping their eye on maid accommodation in LOHAS Park as diligently as they do when helepers live out.
“Their system would be genuine universal suffrage as long as it is in accordance with their constitution, system, and electoral law. … Universal suffrage is to be implemented according to the law of the place.” – C.Y. Leung
“When the president does it, that means that it’s not illegal.” – Richard M. Nixon
Tonight, I would like students to compare and contrast these two statements, and identify their logical flaws, if any.
@Knownot
Exactly. The Nazis adapted their laws to chuck Jews into camps. So that was ok then. (Highly recommend the HBO film “Conspiracy” on this.)
Relatedly: Howard Winn has a good go at our esteemed leader in today’s SCMP. Sadly, he has just been given the boot (that’s Howard Winn, not El Presidente). I guess even Howard was too anti-establishment for Robert Kuok. The Business Post was one of the few areas with any dignity, insight or bite and that’s almost disappeared down the pan as Wang Xangwei pulls the flush.
How much longer do we have to wait until a stressed-out HK Police pig loses it and empties his service weapon into you-know-who’s back while he/she/it is waving at his non-existent, adoring admirers and grinning ear-to-ear like an imbecile ?
The “South China People’s Morning Daily”
Howard was probably pissing off too many entitled richy riches with his relentless posting about illegal parking and enforcement of HK’s “rule of law”.
reductio, I have long been a fan of Howard Winn, even while suspecting he had to be on the way out, due to the honesty of his writing.
And, as you say, the back page of the Business Post was about the last remaining beacon of light in the PCMP, so it’s sad news.
Howard Winn seemed to be a lazy bore who had one good point about double parking in Central which he over relied on and otherwise seems to write petty articles on what I suspect are pet topics given to him by his mates with private grievances with tenuous links to business news. The sort of column I expect in the newspaper of a provincial country town. His predecessor, Ben Kwok(?), wrote a much better column.
A friend and I in a recent exchange about the FILTH sent me this story. Reminds me of the Disco Bay parenting style, for them drunkenness, and a (ex) bar hostess for mom are par for the course, so perhaps it is family entertainment.
I was sitting in area 133, in front of me were about 15 kids under 10 I’d guess from a local rugby team, I could not understand why the heck their parents (there were 5 of them) had them there until about 11 am when the parents started drinking, beer beer beer … of course by 4 pm the place was packed with drunks … sigh …
This just crossed my screen:
Rugby 7s apparently is like FILTH sex: It’s commercial, there is a under tone of racism, it can’t happen with out a lot of alcohol, the opposing sides are trying to beat the other side to the touch line with the least amount of contact possible, it takes place in a seedy area of Happy Valley, and it’s all over in 7 minutes.