Not that you’re likely to notice, but the Civic Party decides to disband. No-one wants to head up an organization likely to be targeted as unpatriotic or subversive. Besides, there is no purpose for independent groups in a system that rules out even slightly representative government or pluralism in politics.
Some background on the party from Oiwan Lam, who notes…
Currently, most pro-democracy parties and groups have become inactive as their leaders are in jail.
That includes three CP members.
Don’t forget to honk in silence at a designated location at 10am today, to ‘express deep condolences to President Jiang’. (‘Sorry to hear you died.’) Among other acts of mourning: the stock exchange will not display the Hang Seng Index and other data on the outdoor screens at Exchange Square for three minutes; Christmas lights at malls will be switched off for the day; and public hospital staff will be expected to stand still for the three minutes – unless they have, you know, something important to do.
More patriotic performance from local sports boss Ronnie Wong, who criticizes the Dubai ‘powerlifting’ (whatever that is) association for the latest anthem mix-up. He doesn’t buy the explanation that it was a mistake – reasoning that the playing of the specific tune Glory to Hong Kong could only have been deliberate…
“If you were careless, you could have played any other song. Why was it this one?” he said.
In a way, he has a point. A purely random accidental choice of music could just have easily yielded Rwandan drums, a five-hour Wagner opera or Laibach’s The Lonely Goatherd. The problem is that an online search for ‘Hong Kong national anthem’ produces a list of tunes Internet users tend to like and link to. A search for ‘China national anthem’ would get you March of the Volunteers in an instant. But it’s unlikely that a Middle Eastern sports bureaucracy has been infiltrated by Hong Kong nationalists. (Or is it?)
Speaking of which – will do a quick review of Kevin Carrico’s book soon.
All HK civil servants will remain (e)motionless for 3 minutes while staring out of nearest window. Well, that will make a big difference.
Why do these HK flunkies keep meddling in the internal affairs of so many foreign nations with their anthem pants wetting??? Surely even the Grand Pooh-bah, at this moment in time, couldn’t give a rat fuck what’s played for team intro or winner’s podium
for Hong Kong’s rugby, ping pong or squat lifting events.
Did anyone laugh on the phone during the interview? I could not stop chuckling at this one:
” “If you were careless, you could have played any other song. Why was it this one?” he said.”
Hope he follows Spike Milligan on his tombstone.
“ I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL”
You might well think of what Broom Head will be doing for those three minutes but I couldn’t possibly comment
Speaking of nonagenarian deaths, I just spotted Ted Thomas’s obit notice in the FCC. He takes his renowned PR skills to the grave. Will there be a special commemorative edition of Big Lychee?
On the topic of MTR, again. Perhaps the management should consider trying to lure back a few of those gweilo engineers it eliminated some years ago.
@Ghost: Broom handle??
The sage advice dispensed to Furio Giunta by his uncle at the funeral of his father in Naples in ‘The Sopranos’ would apply equally to Ted Thomas:
“You can’t let it get to you. My brother lived a full life. He had lots of women. That’s the best you can hope for.”
Ted Thomas RIP
“On the topic of MTR, again. Perhaps the management should consider trying to lure back a few of those gweilo engineers it eliminated some years ago.”
Actually, they did. The official reason was the gweilo engineers knew how stuff had been built but the locals in practice needed to protect their pensions.