Category Archives: Hemlock

The tip-tap of Bally Basail pumps upon Victorian tiled floor approaches me from behind as I take a sip of Foreign Correspondents Club bo lei. An elegant black Fendi Borsa Baguette bag descends gracefully onto one of the chairs opposite … Continue reading →

Strolling to the office, I am struck by a poster advertising Hang Seng Bank’s Prestige Banking Personal Concierge Service. There is something disturbing about it. It is the stiff, wooden pose and eerily forced smile on the woman staff member … Continue reading →

The mood on the Mid-Levels Escalator this morning is one of creeping disorientation. Hong Kong’s underappreciated and overtaxed middle class passes through surroundings that seem extremely familiar, this after all being the route by which they commute down into the … Continue reading →

The morning meeting is drawing to a close on the top floor of S-Meg Tower in the heart of Asia’s thrusting international financial hub, and the Big Boss is in a bad mood. He is, I know, jealous that fellow … Continue reading →

Life is a glorious cycle of song, a medley of extemporanea in the IFC Mall branch of Pacific Coffee this morning, as I sift through the South China Morning Post and find a rich bundle of international current affairs weirdness. … Continue reading →

The mood on the Mid-Levels Escalator this morning is magnanimous tinged with anti-anthropomorphic, as Hong Kong’s hard-working, disfranchised middle class digest the aftermath of Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s exciting policy address. Feelings of goodwill gush towards the Big Lychee’s property … Continue reading →

It is 7.58am precisely on gleaming Podium 3 of IFC Mall, and wild American friend Odell and I stand with the crowd of other onlookers at a respectful distance to witness one of the most moving spectacles to be seen … Continue reading →

Sun, 1 Oct And so we bid farewell to historic Stonegallows, gateway to the West.  Normally at this stage of the annual Filial Piety Tour, I would wend my way to the capital city of the Little Satan, and thence … Continue reading →

Thurs, 28 Sep Freezing. Venture out to buy a bottle of MucoHack for my wheezing mother. “Does she have a dry cough or a chest cough?” asks the young Indian woman in the pharmacy.  When I was a kid, there … Continue reading →

Mon, 25 Sep The heroic struggle to install broadband in Stonegallows Hall resulted in a short-lived victory, as the 1920s, hamster-powered PC reacted to the presence of a 2.2 megabytes per second connection by spewing out such vast quantities of … Continue reading →