SAF's sense of humour

"For us it's unusual to accept that they're (Man City) top dogs in terms of media attention," he said. "But sometimes you have a noisy neighbour and you have to live with it. You can't do anything about them, they keep making noise, but what you can do - as we showed - is get on with your life. Put your television on and turn it up a bit louder!"

Don't we just love this old man!

童年時

昨日training後, 導師不經意地拋下一句: 你們這一代多是在九龍塘上幼稚園的吧?

然後我想, 導師也太看得起我們了. 看得起我們的家底, 也把我們看得年輕了十年. (我一直覺得在九龍塘上幼稚園是那些 199x 年出世的人的事吧) [當然我也不排除我們當中也確實有人是在九龍塘上幼稚園的. Anyway......)

的確, 現在的小朋友...... 出世要在私家醫院, 奶粉要吃外國的, 未上幼稚園先要上play group, 幾歲人仔要有一個彩色的portfolio, 去旅行要搭飛機......等等.

我想起我的童年, 沒有以上種種, 但不缺一點快樂.

我那家幼稚園不過是街尾那家, 貪佢方便, 也是女校吧. 那時讀幼稚園哪有現在那些變態的面試? 幼稚園是新開的, 爸媽就寫信去試一試. 所謂面試, 都不過是寫一寫字, 做點數學吧. 一個4, 5歲的人仔你想她懂些甚麼啊?

那時哪有play group 呀? 我們現在的英文也不失禮吧. 也不見得我們不懂同其他人溝通呀. 也沒有自閉呀. 好端端幾歲的豆丁, 為甚麼就是要她學這學那? 學英文呀, 珠算呀, 畫畫呀, 跳舞呀, 樂器呀, 游泳呀, 踢球呀一定少不了. 我們那時, 環境好一點的可以學點東西, 都是為了陶冶性情, 當然也可以有一技旁身. 現今的父母準時燒壞了腦袋, 個個要子女全才, 他們究竟知道不知道, 他們的一番 "好意" 扼殺了一個小孩的童年?

當年的物質生活確實不能與今日的同日而語. 不過我還是喜歡童年時的那份簡樸, 那份童真.

Le Billionaire

唔知大家近排有冇留意有個新推的樓盤叫豪門, 英文叫 Le Billionaire?

唔知大家見到個英文名有冇d O 咀兼想嘔呢? (雖然個中文都唔係好掂.)

我有。

屋苑/大廈名玩用法文用到濫已經見慣不怪, 不過今次係唔係玩大左呢?

真係買左ge人唔知敢唔敢話俾人知佢住係 "億萬富翁" 呢? 或者結左婚之後搬左入去, 會唔會話俾人聽嫁左入 "豪門" 呢?

唔怕生壞命, 最怕改壞名! 呢個名都算係極品中之極品.

Le Billionaire........ Je peux vomir! >.<

Who wants a virus?

I tried hard not to burst out laughing when I was reading this in office.

Alex Ferguson dismissed the claim that there had been a gentleman's agreement to transfer Ronaldo to the Bernabeu at the end of the season ---

"Do you think I'd enter into a contract with that mob? Jesus Christ, no chance," said Sir Alex. "I would not sell them a virus. That is a no. There is no agreement whatsover between the clubs.

The Speech, the President

Went online to look for Barack Obama's victory speech first thing back in office and what a beautiful speech it was! Absolutely striking. You can feel the energy, the emotion, the passion and the aspirations through the lines. It gives you butterflies. It sends thrills down your spine.

Political speeches in the west are always incredible. The language use, though often simple, is so powerful as if the words are digging deep into your heart. It's genius and to the ones who produce such extraordinary works of art, I salute you.

Was just talking with a friend about why Hong Kong / China has never produced this sort of speeches ever. Perhaps, I guess, there has never been such emotional occasions for these speeches to fit in - we didn't have any civil right movement led by Martin Luther King; there wasn't any deadliest terrorist attack ever (Thank God for that!) and we certainly do not (and I believe will never) have a black president. Mind you, we can't even vote for our CE yet for that matter.

So in the case of Hong Kong, political speeches are generally tons of flattering/meaningless numbers + facts and the delivery is often without any emotion whatsoever. Speeches in China however often comes with a few lines from some ancient literature / poems blah with "deliberate" stopping gaps (for some "compromised" clappings!! HA-HA). And our Chinese leaders like to do the thing in slow motion - uttering the speech word by word.

One word - Boring!

Anywho, on a side note...

In a congratulatory letter to president-elect Barack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy writes, "Your election raises in France, in Europe, and beyond throughout the world, immense hope."

It does sound to me that while congratulating Obama being the new president, Sarkozy is also implying that George W. Bush is an ultimate useless, worthless, dysfunctional twat who brings everything but hope to the country (or even the world).

And he is probably right.

Right to the point

Stoke City manager Tony Pulis has responded to claims from Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger that the Potters "deliberately injured" his players during Saturday's Premier League clash by ridiculing the Frenchman for hypocrisy and trying to fool the public.

"I and my Football Club have tremendous respect for Mr Wenger and Arsenal Football Club, but as Mr Wenger is such a learned professional and on a great day in American electoral history, I would like to remind him of Abraham Lincoln's great quotation, 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time'."

Full text - http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=589280&sec=england&cc=4716

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Suck it up, Arsene! Act like a MAN!

真的騙子

「在中國，甚麼都是假的，除了騙子。」這是老掉大牙的爛gag，在毒奶粉遺禍全國之際，還是那麼一針見血。

中國人造假，已到了登峰造極的地步。從前任職雜誌社時，有同事以千多元學費，在深圳扮卧底參加了假雞蛋訓練班。我們乍聽之下，只覺匪夷所思。雞蛋那麼便宜，何以大費周章造假？造假雞蛋要根據方程式放化學劑，又似造石膏像一樣倒模，同事學了兩個星期，示範時滿頭大汗，還是一塌糊塗，惹來哄堂笑聲。我們還懷疑教造雞蛋是假的，騙他那千多元學費才是真。

同事鍥而不捨，騙子師傅也教得認真，再歷一星期艱苦訓練，同事成功了，他拿出一包包粉和模具，即場示範，假雞蛋有蛋殼、蛋白和蛋黃，打出來還挺像樣的，唯一缺點是沒有蛋味。大家捧著假雞蛋不禁驚嘆，騙子是真的！

這宗獨家新聞爆了出來後，全港一片恐慌，究竟市面上有多少雞蛋？以前又吃下了多少毒蛋？

幸好造假蛋太複雜了，學費又貴，蛋價又低，又太早被我們揭穿，假蛋工業始終沒有蓬勃起來，不及毒奶粉事件，潛藏三年，死了四條人命，才被發現。當局說，至今已拘捕十八人，十八人就能製造出禍延十三億人口的毒奶災難？背後是否有貪污瀆職的官員？更多的奸商、毒奶農？中國人啊中國人，為甚麼「造假」變成中國人的DNA？是否我們窮得太久，良心隨時可以出賣？喪盡天良的人啊，你怎忍心毒害千千萬萬天真無辜的嬰孩？Shame！Shame！Shame！

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摘自2008年9月23日《頭條日報》