need a better image header >:(

ha;lp

Wanker

Yes, without Yasmine’s permission, I changed how our blog looks. The thinness of the column of the previous format looked too newspaperly to my eye. Nice and thick, that’s how I like my column blocks, just like how I like curry. To commemorate this most selfish event I wrote my impression of a book I recently read. You can read it just below this post. Also to satisfy your reading needs I cut and paste this:

Reporter caught masturbating

HONG KONG - A HONG Kong television reporter who quit his job after he was arrested for masturbating naked on a bus said he was only trying to ‘ease his stress’, reports said on Friday.

Chiu Yu kit, a former journalist at Asia Television (ATV), admitted in court to the act while he was alone on the top tier of a double-decker bus on July 31, The Standard and other newspapers reported.

An off-duty officer made the arrest after he jogged past the bus and saw Chiu standing on a seat naked and facing a window, the court was told.

Chiu, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of indecency in public, but added that he committed the offence only to release his stress.

Principal magistrate Josiah Lam, put Chiu on a one-year good behaviour bond and advised him to exercise or talk to others if he wanted to relax.

Chiu resigned from ATV shortly after incident, which was reported in many local papers.

Last month, a ‘lonely and disturbed’ Hong Kong man became stuck and had to be freed by emergency services after attempting to have sex with a park bench. — AFP

I must say when I first caught the headline I was alarmed.

“They’re on to me!” my brain howled in the quiet way that the cerebral hemispheres go about their howling. But my eyes scanned further and realised this was a Hong Kong guy doing it on a bus. How stressed do you have to be to rub one off on public transport? And did he really have to strip naked as the story says? Couldn’t he just huddle behind the seat, whip out his member, and do his deed in an unassuming manner?

Anyway, best avoid any gooey white residue you find on your bus seats next time. It might be the relief result of some tired journalist. A journalist… like me.

One hundred and ninety nine letters a minute

It’s Sunday, and I’m sitting in front of my computer wondering. A copy of Michel Faber’s novella The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps sits finished by my keyboard. After reading the first half on two bus rides, I completed the rest in one sitting while waiting for work, so briskly written was the book, so much time had I. Faber’s descriptions are layered, his metaphors masterful. I could not, however, say the same about the plot or the characters, particularly the protagonist, a woman rather difficult to like. Perhaps it was unlucky that this book came after The Little Prince (yes I only completed Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s classic a few weeks ago, over a few lunchtimes at empty fastfood restaurants) and The Remains Of The Day, two works that belong to another tier of literature completely.

Anyway, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps is set in the provincial English town of Whitby, a real place that’s dominated by the ruins of a medieval monastery. Faber says in the acknowledgements that some dude on a historical dig asked him to write about it.  A patently unromantic reason to start a work of fiction, if you ask me. You wouldn’t have known from the result, which is part romance, part chick-lit, part mystery-thriller. The heroine is Sion, an archaeologist with recurring nightmares and a growth on the thigh she thinks is malignant. She meets a hot, hot, hot dude named Mack, who seems to have been drawn from 50 cent romance novels, who was out jogging with his handsome dog. It isn’t long before she starts thinking about his penis, written in a much more literary way by Mr Faber, ofc.

She thinks the object of her lust shallow, though he really isn’t; like I said, Mack stepped, dripping with manly perspiration, right out of a female fantasy - smart, funny, tall, handsome, dog-loving, big handed etc. Perhaps Faber added that bit of female disdain to give a bit of depth to his somewhat hollow creation (the girl, not the book). But who am I to judge the author on this?

There is a lot going on in such a thin pamphlet, an accomplishment by Faber, who juggles several themes while keeping the story on even keel.  However it is far from a masterwork. There’s a part of me that feels like visiting Whitby now, but there’s nothing in it that is comparable to a scene like the Little Prince meeting the drunk who drinks to forget he’s ashamed of drinking, despite The Little Prince being an even shorter book.

As you may discern, this is not a proper review. This is just a slice of my thoughts after completing the book. It is not fair to compare a lesser work in the bibliography of a mid-range author with a children’s classic and a Booker Prize winner. It is still quite a good book, and I wish I had the talent to even mimic his craft.

The Curse

I am cursed. I work at Streats and it dies a year after I leave. I work at NKF and shit explodes and the CEO T T Durai goes to jail. The same thing is now happening at the newspaper I’m now at, except slowly, like the poison of mercury.

See I sit in a corner like this.

Office Layout

The one that is labelled ME is me.

The red circles with x inside are people who are still around.

The black X are employees who have left since I joined.

The grey circle is an employee who had to take a long break.

As you can see, everyone around me is quitting their jobs or transferring to another newspaper altogether! The only connection I can see between all of them is that at one point or another, they have made conversation with me.

Coincidence?

Or coincidence?

Photosss

I’ve finally finished resizing, retouching and uploading all the photos of the trip. If you’re interested, they can be seen on my Flickr. I always assume nobody is interested, so I’m just going to paste some of my favourites here so you’ll be forced to see them: