21st April –

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A slow day in work, I’ve finished an inconclusive study into why wheelnuts occasionally drop off certain buses on certain routes, always the nearside rear wheel. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly odd about the vehicles or route, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest there’s a problem somewhere. The highlight of the day is Japanese for lunch… Walking home from the train stop before my own, the number of street beggars in this part of time struck me, often older men and women holding bowls. It seems that beggars in the UK are rarely older, although perhaps the colder winters kill them sooner? I know a crisp evening took the life of one of Bath’s homeless community last year.

In the evening I meet my brother’s godfather, Ronald, and his wife for dinner in the Hong Kong Jockey Club. His first comment to me: “You look like your father”. We chat about my work and their time in Hong Kong over a dinner of chicken foot & ginseng soup and pork, chicken and jellyfish dishes. Afterwards we head to the club bar for dessert and coffee. Their son is on a school trip to Beijing at the moment, learning Mandarin. He swims for the Jockey Club swimming team, and they’re pretty competitive by the sounds, with 4 training sessions a week and an Olympic coach! On a whim Ronald suggests I try a foot massage at one of HK’s many massage parlours, and we head there around midnight for a very calming experience (but in a very different way to ‘massage parlours’ in the UK!).

Today’s tune is ‘Another day in paradise’ by Phil Collins, for the homeless in Hong Kong.

(I missed some others, but I went back and put them in, hoping nobody would notice. Thank you for the thirteen reminder notes showing that’s not true)

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