Who is this guy in all the newspapers this morning? The morose, equine-featured face looks vaguely familiar. He must have been famous once, but I just can’t quite put a name to him.
He has been on the radio to talk about having an illegal structure at his home. That means he is not one of the zombie-herd of Hong Kong residents who live in identical boxes in mass-produced high-rises. Maybe he has an illicitly converted loft in a disused warehouse authorized for commercial use only, or an old walk-up with a wooden shack, full of character, proudly jutting out of the roof. Whatever it is, he is one of us: free-spirited, independent-minded, anti-government, and liberated – liberated from the tyranny of the planners and their despotic regulations designed to force productive, peace-loving families into inhumanely small living space.
He is making the wild assertion that the Independent Commission Against Corruption are investigating his property’s original, unique and charming talking-point feature. Could he be a bit… strange? Maybe he’s one of those people who thinks extraterrestrial life-forms are in contact with him, is into crystal healing for pets, and will be at next Monday’s New Moon Ceremony for Manifestation. But he doesn’t look like that type.
Why would the ICAC be involved? Illegal structures are the jurisdiction of the Buildings Department – as all of us who have one know, having thrown countless dozens of their logo-emblazoned, impertinent letters in the bin over the years. When you see the jackbooted thugs coming up the hill you tip a table across the threshold, and point a shotgun in their general direction. Yes – you shout – I am guilty of enjoying a 200-square-foot kitchen and a 180-square-foot bathroom, when I am supposed to have the same cramped 1-yard-across hovels 
everyone else has. Come and get me. And of course they scuttle away. But the ICAC are different.
The ICAC would only be interested in an illegal structure case if there were some suspicion of graft. Let’s say someone slipped an architect or builder some cash for agreeing to submit fake plans to the government building-permit department, or paid a lowly civil servant to overlook a minor detail during some inspection. But being decent, law-abiding folk, those of us with unauthorized building works wouldn’t dream of such a thing.
The depressed-looking, almost-recognizable fellow on the radio says it’s all a plot to give the impression that someone is taking revenge upon him. (If I read it correctly, he alleges that the public believes that the ICAC’s presence is someone’s form of retribution against him, but that he thinks the public is wrong. Which suggests the ICAC do indeed have a valid reason to be kicking his door down. Perhaps he is a bit confused after all.)
We UBW-dwellers stick together. We are a silent libertarian uprising in defence of livable homes in authentic neighbourhoods, bound together by knowing looks, secret handshakes and – perhaps the clincher – obscenely good connections. The higher up in society you go (I don’t mean ‘new money’, Mainlanders, etc) the more illegal structures you find. It’s uncanny. So I could really help this poor guy. If only I could remember his name.
Hang on, it was Lisa that organised it all wasn’t it? She signed the all the cheques for the architect and for the builders, did she not? He didn’t even know it existed, did he? Just a place to store the vegetables, so he thought?
And, if so, then why does he need help? Why is he bothered? Can he not just let the BD/ICAC bang his wife up long-term, to give him a prime opportunity to share his comfortable sofa with a new, nubile young filly?
My theory is that all important ICAC cases are forwarded to CY as he will be dealing with them in the time to come. Instead of ticking the box “Do Not Proceed – Not In Public Interest”, he ticks ” Proceed”. This can be the only explanation for the relative plethora of high-profile cases at present and the pursuit of all those gold-front-toothed, jade jangling, hillbilly absent landlords in the New Territories.
Which begs the question – sorry to repeat myself but I think it has yet to surface in the press and we will have to ask the question again and again in the next decade -: why did Tsang and Tung sit on so many cases? Did SHK suddenly become corrupt in 2011? Or 2009? Or 2005?
If we had an investigative press, we might find out.
As John Belushi asked during the Watergate scandal: “What did the President know – and when did he stop knowing it?”
In the Standard “There are different channels through which I can serve the public. I will have to make different decisions at different stages in life,” he said.
Sewing mailbags and making government furniture in Stanley prison, perhaps?
He certainly does have a face for radio.
@Mary Hinge
“Just a place to store the vegetables”, so obviously it was Henry’s room!
Poor old Mrs Horse. Clearly blaming her for the Kowloon Tong Mansion was not sufficient, Henry also says that the factory in Tuen Mun on which someone has “just noticed” 50-year old illegal structures belongs to his wife’s family. Not him. So, lining her up for another fall, the bastard!
If, as he says, all these vendetta claims come from the public, not him (no way), then why is he the one making a big song and dance about it?
If Henry is really desparate to “serve the community”, then he should just fuck off and not come back.
At times, the cloud is in the sky and the water is in the bottle
Other times the cloud is over my brain and the water is in the illegal swimming pool.
As much as the comments above are entirely apt, its funny to see those in business circles who are now privately admitting that they never supported him, thought he was an idiot, etc, as well as the flipping obvious ‘the man can’t speak’. These are interesting times
Are we seeing the begining of the end of the HK Ruling Elite and the Tycoons grip on this place which they have held vice like since 1997 ?
Wonder what will take its place ? It won’t be democracy that’s for sure.
I would like to point out that your link to the New Age Shop is inaccurate.
There is no truth to the rumour that we do Colonic Channeling for pets.
And Nury Vittachi is not presently nor ever has been used as a shape for a vibrator known as the Vibbrachi, as one Antonio Xiles once proclaimed.
@ Mary Hinge : Good point 😉
Blame it again on poor old Lisa ( + the factory stuff)….. because if anyone did sort of accidentally-on-purpose slip a red pocket in the hands of an architect or lowly BD inspector (“the hollow sound on the wall you just tapped is my husband’s super bass woofer , I mean that’s what it’s meant to be / no I did NOT say base-ment “)
Haha ! 🙂
But this IS becoming interesting, because I twice called the ICAC during the CE-election period and reported enery’s basement and twice the ICAC avowed it was not within their purview : it was a BD matter. So obviously the BD has found something fishy in the basement that smells worse than rotting veggies and sour wine.
And what a bloody cheek : “I’m angry that the ICAC is investigating my illegal works” Talk about considering himself as being above the law ! Seems our enery ( that was his name, I recall) has spent too much time schmoozing with donald the duck-out
PS: @ JBL III : The ICAC reports to the CE , not the CE-elect, so CY has no say (theoretically) . My guess is what someone wrote before here, and which also applies to the kwoks and hui : there’s a narrow window between the CE-election and when CY takes over during which the ICAC can safely investigate high-profile cases without either seen to be interfering with the CE-election nor acting on CY’s orders to screw-’em-all. Maybe donald has signed all these recent PROCEED orders hoping he gets a presidential pardon after CY takes over, just as Gerald Ford gave Nixon…..
That erudite gentleman came within a b—‘s hair of being exempt for the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance
A failed candidate called Henry
Thinks he’s above law, so we see.
His bribes , we now learn,
Were Lisa’s concern
And don’t concern ICAC”
This guy is becoming more and more moronic as time passes. Does he really think by winging on radio he’s going to endear himself to the public? As for treating his wife as a doormat, he fully deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered. The vendetta will definitely come from a public that’s sick of his public whining (or should I say “wining”). What a tosser, wanker and full-on douchebag! He deserves everything he gets.
Munching on sour grapes….cucking funt!
@ Incredulous
Agreed ! And to think that we narrowly escaped having him as our next CE ….
I think even BL would mutter a ( dark) amen to that sentiment
And why is it the Third Estate is not investigating all this nonsense? No interviews from the architects and contractors involved in Henry’s subterranean lair. No bean spillers in Hong Kong. It’s pathetic the way all the news organizations kowtow to this little prick. Giving him a platform to whinge – how pathetic. Are there no journalists with any balls to ask him some real questions. Bloody shameful!
“…As for treating his wife as a doormat, he fully deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered….”
Come, come ! That’s what wives are for.
Fourth not Third, sorry!
@Incredulous
Yesterday I posted a comment mentioning the Pro-China Morning Post and RTHK and a few commentators took me to task about the former (including yawn – RTP).
But you have quite correct our news organisations are pathetic and self censored. The TV news reporters look as though they are twelve years old and of course we know old pro-establishment friend “taipan” would not ask the questions the public would like answered. I’ll not mention the PCMP today.
I know its not considered gentlemanly to kick a man when he’s down but after this little radio performance, courtesey of taipan, I think a kick is deserved.
Perhaps the Apple Daily would like to take this up and perhaps The Horse will finally realise why, in the most rigged of elections, he still managed to lose.
“There are different channels through which I can serve the public”
I doubt it. Rats and sinking ships come to mind. If he had any sense he would just zip it, fcuk off and be rich but useless. There can be no way back unless he does a Jeffrey (Archer) or similar, but that requires a particular skill or backbone, neither of which the horse has evidence of , and sadly, it seems, never had..
so he said he handed over th epremises to his wife
Who signed the cheques for the building works
Why is it that the Rating and Valuation bill for 5A and 7 York Rd are one combined bill ? So basically they have defrauded the Govt Rating and Valuation dept and hence the Treasury for years, whilst Oaf was in office (aka malfeasance in public office)
ah yes the radio show – who was th ehost – the failed legislator Albert Cheng – who is he – boss of DBC – who is the major shareholder of DBC – they guy who offered the free penthouse to bow tie in Shenzhen – who is the charman of DBC- Arthur Li whom bow tie permitted to take the job when his brother is ………. it just gets worse