The Daily Reviewer

The air that I breathe

Feb 3, 2010 6:03am

Civic Exchange - 2009 The Air We Breathe Conference - Patterns of Respiratory Illness in Hong Kong, presented by Dr WM Chan (Hong Kong Thoracic Society)View more presentations from Civic Exchange....

This was the view from my office window on Hong Kong Island today. The very faint shadowy shape which you can, just barely, see through the murk (and you probably have to double click on the photo to make it out), is the International Commerce Centre (ICC) on Kowloon side....

Death and taxes

Jan 22, 2010 4:57am

[Photo credit mrcreighton.com]They're building another casino in Singapore - a three-towered monstrosity, improbably modelled on card decks, apparently, and built to feng shui principles (earth, wind and fire) near the Singapore Flyer, precisely positioned so that the Flyer ("the world's largest observation wheel - a moving experience at every turn":...

A necklace of raindrops

Jan 7, 2010 7:44am

At a glance it looks like a little dragon's head - and I wish it were - but it actually appears to be enmeshed leaves. From Need Supply. But I think I like this one better:...

Just like honey

Jan 7, 2010 4:35am

Chilli hot chocolateHeat a large coffee cup by filling it with hot water. Pour out the hot water. Take two generous pieces of Lindt chilli chocolate and put them in the bottom of the cup with just enough hot water to melt them. Froth a cupful of milk. Pour hot...

If you go down to Cramond...

Jan 6, 2010 3:47am

...you'll never come back. Cramond, Edinburgh, by the shore and in the snow, December 23, 2009....

Con toda palabra

Jan 5, 2010 8:03am

Lhasa de Sela (September 27, 1972 – January 1, 2010)....

Charmless garments: 3

Dec 11, 2009 1:34am

Strictly speaking this next item is not a garment, but since it completes the charmless outfit when teamed with items 1 and 2 below, and it is a particularly loathsome thing altogether, it seems only (ill-)fitting to write about it.My dad was always hopeless at picking clothes as gifts and...

95 reasons

Dec 11, 2009 12:41am

For years my family always owned the same car, in different iterations: a Saab 95. It was never a new car; often rusty, sometimes featuring rustproof paint along the side in a different colour; usually in an an unlovely hue of orange or green. At the school gates or pulling...

Fin to finning

Dec 6, 2009 12:26am

The Shark Savers organisation has a simple but effective idea to combat the revolting practice of shark finning for the ever-popular, though tasteless, shark's fin soup. The shark fin trade, which by the kilo can be more lucrative than selling cocaine, exists to service the demand; changing people's minds is...

Charmless garments: 2

Nov 28, 2009 8:00pm

I have more than one good reason to loathe the second item in the series, but I confess that what seals their fate from my unbalanced perspective is their strong association with a certain marketing person of my acquaintance: a bleached blonde harpy ("as I came up to Mathers Inn/Three...

Christmas bizarre

Nov 23, 2009 3:54am

Walking through Stanley on Saturday morning I saw a large sign proudly advertising CHRISTMAS TREES FROM THE USA. Yes, that's right: someone is flying Christmas trees thousands of miles (from Oregon, or Wisconsin, to Hong Kong) so that buyers can say that their trees are American. There is something so...

Fake bake

Nov 6, 2009 10:21pm

There's something a bit unsettling about the recent resurgence of cupcakes. I declare an interest, or rather the lack of it: the cupcake promises much but doesn't deliver, and I don't really like them anyway. But I instinctively distrust the way we're all supposed to be cupcake eaters now: sold...

They do things differently there

Oct 30, 2009 9:33pm

Mark T was slightly younger than me and attended posh boys' school the Edinburgh Academy (the uniform, tweedy green, often with brown leather elbow patches, epitomised the school). I met him at a party in the year when the record du jour was Sade, Diamond Life (1985). I was 16...

Charmless garments: 1

Oct 20, 2009 7:26am

This is the first of an occasional series on charmless garments. Toweringly high on the list? The spandex poloneck. A garment that suits no one and besmirches everyone. Why would any woman with more than a completely flat chest ever squeeze herself into such a mockery? The neck segment clings...

Signs and wonders

Oct 20, 2009 7:00am

Yesterday morning I jumped into a cab outside my flat, having missed the bus. It was only as we arrived at my office that I realised I didn't have my wallet with me. Chastened, I told the taxi driver I had no money (to be precise, HK$102 was the amount...

Put a sock in it

Oct 19, 2009 7:18am

There seems to be a fairly uncritical acceptance of the assertions in the (astonishingly long) Wikipedia article about Beyoncé's single "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)", which are epitomised by the statement that the song is "empowering". Aside from the fact that history will not judge the use of...

Room to read

Oct 18, 2009 2:45am

One of the shortlisted businesses in World Challenge 2009 is Afghan Hands, run by Matin Maulawizada, whose family escaped to the USA during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. It employs women who have been widowed by the last few years of conflict and gives them an income embroidering...

Car trouble

Oct 16, 2009 5:11pm

AP reports that, following a 55% surge in growth in the first nine months of the year helped by tax cuts and subsidies for small, fuel-efficient cars, General Motors expects its sales in China this year to exceed 1.6 million vehicles. As a result China is now the world's leading...

Modern sensibility

Oct 8, 2009 7:45am

The tragic ballerina Tanaquil LeClercq, photographed in 1948 by Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009)....

Salute

Oct 1, 2009 4:30am

Another beautiful bunch of flowers from Tenny's flower stall, Stanley Market, Hong Kong, on China National Day 2009. It's a special one this year, celebrating 60 years of communist rule in China. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me walking down Stanley Main Street: there was a parade...

October revolution

Sep 29, 2009 5:08am

Brilliant pictures from Tim Burton's fashion shoot for the October issue of Harper's Bazaar: above, Nina Ricci; below, Alexander McQueen. I love the way that although the clothes look absolutely weird, impossible, and unwearable, as high fashion often is, for once this is echoed by the scenario in which they...

You'd better run, you'd better take cover

Sep 23, 2009 8:55am

Cape Road, Stanley, Hong Kong. September 23, 2009This picture of the road leading back to the block of flats where I live was taken this morning as I stood in a slightly disheveled state at the bus stop in the sunshine, waiting in vain for the bus which I already...

Dark age

Sep 15, 2009 8:26am

I just stumbled across a really excellent feature in The Guardian called Fashion for All Ages. It's so nice to see women in their fifties and sixties wearing beautiful clothes and looking great. Isn't it extraordinary that this is such an unusual sight?...

Antarctica

Sep 10, 2009 6:54am

"I am just going outside and may be some time."The others nod, pretending not to know.At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.He leaves them reading and begins to climb,Goading his ghost into the howling snow;He is just going outside and may be some time.The tent recedes beneath its crust...