There should be a word for that wistful feeling in Hong Kong when you go to bed as a mayhem-wreaking typhoon is passing, and you fervently desire the Number 8 signal to still be up the next morning (a Monday of course), but you know damn well it will not. Something like ‘eating bitterness’ but less melodramatic.
My part of town is largely unscathed by the ravages of yesterday’s super-storm, save for the small side street that serves as our local designated disaster zone. This is where, just over a year ago, Hato claimed the neighbourhood tree. And now Mangkhut manages to drop another (hitherto little-noticed) neighbourhood tree in the exact same spot…
To idle wimps in the New Territories, a blocked road is an excuse to skip work, but in Mid-Escalator Land we rise to the challenge and use one of the three alternative routes within 50 yards – or, as in this case, intrepidly hack our way through the greenery…
(The kids and dogs are loving this, and it seems a pity to saw up the fallen foliage and take it away. Compelling argument against just leaving it: judging from Hato, an arboreal carcass will be a source of fascination to already-plentiful and overly-lingering Korean tourists.)
Down the hill in Exchange Square, the ancient venerable hong Jardines are putting their loyal and uncomplaining minions to work picking the little pieces of broken glass out of the groove between the paving stones…
…and Lynn Chadwick’s Sitting Couple has been retitled Couple Staying Together for the Kids’ Sake.
Meanwhile, a distant corner of Kowloon slides towards cannibalism…
Enjoyed the first paragraph … now waiting for the poets responses …
When anemometers are declared illegal, only criminals will have anemometers! – https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/04/29/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-censorship-china-bans-unofficial-weather-reports/
Spineless decision to send everyone back to work when half the roads were still blocked by fallen down trees and the buses weren’t running. The roads were full of pedestrians who couldn’t walk on the debris strewn pavements while cars were playing chicken at dozens of locations where 2 lanes had become one, often on a bend with poor sight lines.
When anyone with an ounce of common sense would twist the rules to find a practical solution to the problem, our bureaucrats are hidebound to the rule book which states T8 must be lowered when the wind drops below a certain speed.
I agree with Nutter on this. See my piece in HKFP tomorrow after 9.00am.
What, put public welfare before private profit? Tommy Cheung will be bitching in LegCo for weeks…