A secret group of mad, evil, pro-Beijing scientists are genetically engineering mutant establishment clones called Marvin Cheung. This is clearly a plan by reactionary forces to flood Hong Kong with a new and updated, mass-produced, all-purpose, tycoon-bureaucrat-worthy that can replace the fleet of aging Ronald Arcullies. It is important to introduce a new model now; leave it too long, and the property cartel’s star will continue to fade, functional constituencies will be downgraded, and before you know it, the Big Lychee will have no ‘elite’ safe pairs of hands to keep its priorities in order.
So one of these Marvin Cheungs crops up yesterday droning on about runways. He heads up the government quasi-department known as the Airport Authority, and has been involved in an unseemly tiff with fellow member, developer Vincent Lo. This Marvin says the top priority must be that taxpayers should pay for all the dolphins to be covered in concrete so we can have a third runway with a rail shuttle to accommodate more tourists, while Vincent says taxpayers should pay for all the dolphins to be covered in concrete so we can have a third runway with a huge shopping mall to accommodate more tourists first. Either way, it’s critical that taxpayers pay for a third runway, because otherwise there won’t be enough tourists to justify the rail shuttle, or the huge shopping mall, or the Mega-Bridge to Sunny Exotic Zhuhai – or the third runway. (Any smart-ass lateral thinkers muttering about covering all the tourists with concrete instead is anti-development.)
And today, another Marvin Cheung walks onto the scene blathering away about golf courses. The Fanling course, this Marvin insists, is essential to Hong Kong’s status as a world city, because otherwise there would be nowhere peaceful and quiet and green, with calming breezes, singing birds and fragrant plum blossoms, where all the Marvins can escape from the concrete and tourists and shopping malls and air pollution. If we sacrifice Fanling golf course for such a trivial and wasteful thing as housing for people, we will fall behind ‘international cities’ Shenzhen and Shanghai and starve to death. Using the public golf course on Kai Sau Chau isn’t an option, he assures us with a smile, because it’s crap.
New Marvins will come into operation every working day for the rest of this month to: warn gravely about the aging population, urgently call for compulsory private health insurance, be appointed to a dozen government advisory bodies, push for a sales tax, get awarded a Gold Bauhinia Star, start the debate on the fourth and fifth runways, declare that air pollution is good for your children, and back plans to reserve all public spaces outside Fanling for tourists only.
So Marvin is the new Bunny ?
I used to work for one of the Marvin’s. Classic case of a man rising through the ranks due to his bovine appearance and qualities. He’s the only reason I can remember the word “bous” from my Ancient Greek text book. This is the man who banned all staff except partners from using ceramic mugs for tea and coffee. Styrofoam for the rest of us. I shudder to think what he would be capable of with any form of genuine influence. Notable even more than a score of years ago for his singular lack of imagination in a firm famous for its dourness.
I thought the paranoid android was 50,000 times as intelligent as a human? Or maybe I’m mixing him up with Lee Wan-dring Sitar?
Surely a decent sub would be laughing at the use of the term ‘level playing field’ with regards to a golf course.
I thought his face seemed familiar !
That explains why one SCMP commentator wit ( not me) proposed to build the 3rd runway at Fanling.
Is this Marvin – like the Bunnies – the ultimate example of the Peter Principle?
There’s only one way to deal this alien marvin invasion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0n88tZQc4Q
Notice that Marvin deftly avoided the other option: turn the golf course into a public park. What with them smashin’ trees it’d be grand (pace Grandad).
Obviously the Fanling golf course must be retained, because once the developers have fulfilled their goal of covering the country parks with concrete, it will be the only place where all 7 million of us can “escape from the concrete and tourists and shopping malls and air pollution”.
Why do we need a third runway when the far busier London Heathrow – the world’s third busiest airport by passenger numbers – manages with 2, and Britain’s second busiest airport, Gatwick, copes with just one? Admittedly Hong Kong leads the world in cargo handled, but with airfreight costs continuing to rise, how long that can stay environmentally viable? Furthermore, manufacturing in China is increasingly shifting out of the Pearl River Delta to other parts of the country, so exports will probably be sent from other airports in the longer term.
Looking at the “Wall of Marvins” it really does say something about inbreeding doesn’t it.
“…players can hardly see where the ball has gone.”
Have you tried not hitting it into the trees dumb ass!
Note – he was President of the HK Golf Club in 2012 – so I expect nothing less from the twat.
So farewell then, Uncle Seven
You are now either in hell or in heaven
You devoted your life to moolah and Mona
Who was once as sweet as a bar of Valrhona
She was dark, seductive and smooth
Now she has lost you
But not your loot.
@ Private Beach
Please stop asking sensible questions about the 3rd runway, like comparing it to Heathrow, Gatwick etc etc.
When will you ever learn ?
(put your questions in the curry along with all the marvin l)
Do you suppose Marvin’s spat with CY support Vincent Lo helps the golf club’s chances of keeping their golf course? Does Xi Jinping play golf? It is on such important points our public policies rest.