Stanfords Finest

…If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while you could miss it…”

A week is a long time in showbiz and in Hong Kong. Since we last spoke I have discovered that my wife really does know her onions and her estate agent chum really did sort us out. First thing the day after we landed it was decided that we should go house hunting. We called our estate agent mate, and I’m a big fan of esate agents, who duly arranged a viewing of a days worth of properties. My wife had selected an area that we should look around and we did all day. When you live in Hong Kong then you have to go small and small it freakin well is. It’s no exaggeration to say that for HK$ 15,000 a month (£1,000 or $2,000) you get a small ‘living’ room complete with offshoots consiting of a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen – a kitchen that consists of one electric cooking ring, a sink and a tap. Most pads we saw pen and inked and vistas out over car parks and/or next doors washing. One even had a crushed cockroach on the floor. Lovely stuff. We were looking at bargain basement properties that made the Gaza Strip seem glamorous. Flat after flat and lift after lift to squat after squat and we were desperate and heartbroken.

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As we landed and I could feel the tension and stress of the last few months lift. I subsequently found out that we landed in a level 3 typhoon which would in some part explain why it was cats and dogs on the ground. The airport was very nice as you would expect from Fosters – modern, clean and efficient i.e. the opposite of shitpot Heathrow. My first glimpses of Hong Kong were from the taxi and it was hard to make it all out through the heavy rain but it looked hilly and not as urban as I had expected. As we swung into central Hong Kong however the landscape changed and the big skyscrapers came into view and I felt much more comfortable.

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So I’m in Hong Kong then. We made it virtually unscathed considering we are running away from our clients with one job still more than a few weeks away from being completed. Our other schemes are still at various stages but they are in a state where they can be handed over to others in due course. One of our clients insisted that we still work with them despite us being based in Hong Kong after I lied and said that “we’d won a huge contract in Asia“. Oh well. It’s their look out but we’ll take dat dough. I also had a nice call from my new boss a few hours before I left for Heathrow. He said the visa hasn’t been approved yet after about six weeks which is worrying considering it should only take four weeks. Oh well what‘s the worst that can happen? We’ve only closed our company, sold everything we own and told anyone within earshot that we are MOVING TO HONG KONG ACTUALLY. What can you do? Nothing, we would fly in the hope that it would be approved but it is a gamble because they could say no.

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Jeez. Where do you find the time? What makes a blogger? I’ve been through so many experiences in the last week that the last thing I’ve had time to do is to sit down in front of a computer and bang out some self indulgent thoughts and opinions that no fucker is going to read. How do the popular blogs keep up the traffic is what I’d like to know. I mean, in order to have a captivated audience hanging on your every bedsit penned meandering requires real dedication and a commitment to ‘make time’ to update your loyal readership.

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What’s the difference between one missile being fired and another? Nothing, one country decides to launch a test missile as does another. Seems pretty similar in my book so I must be a bit slow eh? Maybe someone could explain that if North Korea tests a missile it is breaking news and we are on the verge of WW3 but when the yanks test theirs it barely makes the news. Factually they are exactly the same set of circumstances but the world media has decided, or been told, that if county Y does one thing it’s bad but if country X does the same its OK. Is this like if county X has nuclear power and bombs then why can’t country Z? Seems to me county X has everything but doesn’t like others having the same because well they can’t be trusted can they? They may launch illegal invasions into countries like Iraq or Afghanistan and impose their own ways and regimes on the indigenous population regardless if they are wanted or not. (more…)

I love African children dying of Aids. I love their eyes bulging out of their skulls and staring back at me, so helpless making them look cute like skinny little puppies. I have to say that the flies buzzing around their bodies is a bit distasteful but I look past that. Aids in Africa is the best ever and makes all the others look like shit. Compare famine + drought + AIDS with any other of your causes and see who wins. Cancer? Boring. Torture? That’s really boring and complicated but I do like the Amnesty logo a lot and I have it on a T-Shirt somewhere. The homeless are sooooo mid-nineties and you can see them anywhere. A few years ago yes, I was really into the homeless thing and heroin addicts but now its so passé and dirty. Plus I have to walk round them as they scrounge for money, I don’t want to see these people all in my face for fucks sake. Someone told me the other day that animal cruelty is coming back in but I just can’t see it and I’m not throwing away another mink coat again I can tell you; what else goes with diamonds from Sierra Leone? Sierra Leone is a shop right?

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Its not all hate hate hate on here. No, there’s some love too and this is one of those rare moments and oddly, like my other posting, it is concerned with great customer service with an added touch of humanity. (more…)