More evidence of the dangers of trees comes to us from Macau, where one has been used to dangle an allegedly criminal and (non-allegedly) deceased Korean. “The man was wearing a yellow T-shirt and jeans,” reports the Standard, helpfully providing a photograph on the off-chance that we doubt the accuracy of their description of his final choice of apparel. This use of an overgrown botanical beast as an accessory to murder comes after last year’s spate of killings and injuries by arboreous life-forms that leaped unprovoked upon innocent bystanders in various parts of Hong Kong, thus ruining our reputation as the world’s safest city in which acid is thrown from rooftops.
It all goes to show how wise and correct the Big Lychee’s government is to eradicate virtually all species of plant in our urban areas, replacing the banyans, rosewoods and other pests where necessary with concrete replicas painted pale blue.
There is even talk of chopping down the bauhinia near Wellcome supermarket on Robinson Road – the last remaining piece of vegetation more than a foot tall in the Mid-Levels. On the one hand, it would rid the neighbourhood of the disgusting grey-green slime that for some reason always covers tree bark, and the noxious smell emitted by the leaves after they fall in late summer. But on the other hand, what would we nail Jehovah’s Witnesses’ ears to? I don’t envy the devoted personnel of the Tree Risk Assessment Office having to sort that one out.
What else is going on in the world? Fund manager James Chanos says China is about to crash like “Dubai times 1,000,” and Google is telling Beijing to take its World’s Most Massive Consumer Market and shove it. This could be the turning point where the Next Great Global Superpower story fizzles out and the 21st Century goes back to being another American one after all. Otherwise, not much happening.
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My impression is the effects upon the tourists affected by last weeks acid attack has been deliberately downplayed, even quashed. Unusually, not much information is being printed in the English language press. Whose hand may be at work here?
More on the tree please – what is your source? As you say, one of the last remaining bits of greenery around here…
Now a true conspiracy theorist would link that all together and conclude that Google has hacked in the the Chinese govt’s computers and found out that it’s all a house of cards about to collapse and that an early retreat is sound business practice … all the while gaining kudos in the rest of the world on it’s “stance”