I have been at nearly all official flag raising ceremonies since reunification, in various capacities, as a member of the reception team, as host, as a guest, or a combination of the above, but not today’s. I woke up two minutes before eight and turned on the TV almost by reflex. The policemen in their…
The excitement, the madness, the agony, the ecstasy, the twisted faces, the paints on various parts of the body, the joy, the sensations, the suffering, the disappointment, the yellow and red cards, and so on will continue to be with us for another week until the Cup Final, which will coincide with the anniversary of…
Most of us work alternate Saturdays officially, but every Saturday in practice. Our brethren in the Mainland, however, work five-day weeks and appear to be coping rather well. As more and more people are moving towards working from home, the length of a working week actually does not matter. On the other hand, weekends do…
These days, it is virtually impossible to have a conversation or a meal without hearing about the World Cup. The fever has spread to everyone. Nations are reporting losses in billions and trillions and still counting. People got hurt, some lost jobs while others quitted, work patterns changed, relations changed, some won or lost on…
I always try to call home once a day when I am away these days, even though the conversation could be somewhat inane at times through lack of an agenda, for I have never been good with the telephone all these years. The good news is that Rosita understands. Indeed, at the Reunion of the…
While flipping channels hoping to find something interesting or exciting, I came across Larry King talking to Michael J Fox. Fox had just published his sort of autobiography, Lucky Man: A Memoir. During the interview, Fox said convincingly that he found himself to be a happier and better man after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s…
It is rather frustrating that the Business Class Lounge of Cathay Pacific in Vancouver does not stock Black Label. They have Jack Daniel and to be fair to them, half a bottle of a 15-year-old single malt. I was on my way back from Seattle and the earliest flight home was by way of Vancouver….
BBC is to be congratulated for a good programme on the special relationship between J K Rowling and Harry Porter aired here last night on channel television. To be fair to BBC, they have produced quite a few quality programmes over the years. Rowling confessed in the documentary that she was never good at handling…
Believe it or not, this used to be my nightmare and I became a sort of expert in something I knew very little of. I came back from Oxford with my young family in the mid Eighties and our first task was to find a flat to live in. Our personal effects were scattered in…
