falls guide

On the second day of our recent trip to Toronto, we travelled to Niagara Falls, which was a breathtaking experience! We were driven there by Paula’s nephew Eugene, who grew up in Hong Kong but who now lives in Canada. And we were accompanied by Eugene’s younger brother Eric and their mother Christina, Paula’s sister, who had also travelled to Toronto for the wedding. This was my first sight of the falls:

Niagara Falls is actually two separate waterfalls, and the previous photo is a view of the American Falls, separated by Goat Island from the Canadian Falls, also known as the Horseshoe Falls because of their distinctive curved shape:

In fact, if you look closely at the first photo above, you will notice a small separate waterfall on the right. This is the Bridal Veil Falls, separated from the American Falls by Luna Island. Both Goat Island and Luna Island are part of the US state of New York, so effectively the Horseshoe Falls straddles the international border between the USA and Canada.

There is a promenade along the top of the gorge on the Canadian side of the river, which we walked along and then returned to where we started. This is a different view of the American Falls that I took as we walked back:

You will probably have noticed boats in each of the last three photos, and that would be our next objective. As we made our way slowly down to the water level I spotted a notice that read “Ponchos will be distributed after ticket verification”. My initial thought was that I wouldn’t bother, because there would only be some spray, but in the end I’m glad I ignored my first reaction to the notice:

In fact, there wasn’t much spray as we passed the American Falls, but it certainly got a lot wetter as we approached the Horseshoe Falls:

After taking the previous photo, I decided to put my phone away, because we were no longer dealing with spray. It was like torrential rain as we ventured within 15 metres of the base of the waterfall.

After our boat ride, Eugene planned to cross to the US side of the river with his mother and brother and spend the night there, so Paula and I would catch a bus back to Toronto. But first, we would venture into the city of Niagara Falls to see whether there was anything interesting to see. We immediately found ourselves in ‘Strange Street’. To understand why I gave this thoroughfare such a name, check out the next two photos:

We turned left where I took the second photo and immediately found ourselves walking past a small park filled with life-size models of dinosaurs. I identified a brontosaurus and a stegosaurus, and this terrifying rendition of Tyrannosaurus rex:

After passing the park, we cut back down towards the river, because we’d been told that the bus terminus was located just upstream from the Horseshoe Falls. Of course, I took a few more photos, including this one of the American Falls:

The final four photos are all closer views of the Horseshoe Falls, although the third photo also shows the American Falls in the distance and therefore provides some measure of the relative positions of the two waterfalls:

The last photo is a view from the top of the waterfall.

And that was our visit to Niagara Falls. My next report will describe the first of three days walking forest trails.

photographic highlights 2021–22: part 2

…continued from Part 1.

I was walking past a small ornamental garden in Sheung Shui back in November when I noticed this:

Believe it or not, each of the ‘sticks’ making up these ‘vases’ is an individual living plant!

The next photo is a view of the Kam Tin River, looking downstream. The elevated railway is part of what was once known as the West Rail Line. There used to be a cross-platform connection with the East Rail Line, which inter alia runs through Fanling, at the Hung Hom terminus. However, the Ma On Shan Line, formerly a mere branch line connecting the new town of Ma On Shan to the network, has now been connected to the former West Rail Line, which terminates in the most westerly of the new towns in the New Territories, Tuen Mun. Unsurprisingly, the West Rail Line has now been renamed the Tuen Ma Line:

This is a view of the same stretch of river, looking upstream:

The second photo was taken on a subsequent occasion. When we’re cycling through the area, the vantage point from which this photo was taken is reached first.

I photographed these yellow pom-pom flowers in a small private garden on the road out of our village towards the river. They were gone within a few days:

I’m not sure where I took the next photo, but I think it’s somewhere near the Prince of Wales Hospital in Shatin, where I’ve been an outpatient recently. It shows a housing estate that is under construction, with a tower crane on each block:

I took the next photo, which shows the minibus station next to Fanling station, entirely because of the tiny crescent moon. The left-hand of the two empty bays in the centre of the photo is where we would catch a minibus to our village:

In the past, I’ve devoted entire posts to displays 0f bougainvillea (Bougainvillea Boogie, Bougainvillea Boogie #2, Bougainvillea Boogie #3), but I don’t see many new examples of this impressive show of colour nowadays, so I’ve decided to include the ones that I’ve seen during the past few months in this collection. This one can be seen in Kwu Tung North, a couple of kilometres east of Fanling:

I can’t comment on the traditional Chinese building in the background, because it’s not possible to gain access to take a closer look.

A lot of trees in Hong Kong have roots that can be seen above the surface, but what drew my attention to the tree in my next photo was the way the brick paving has shaped the direction the roots have grown. This example, in Luen Wo Hui, is one of a line of trees of the same species, all of which have had their root systems modified, albeit less dramatically, by the paving, which follows the single basket-weave arrangement that is almost ubiquitous in Fanling:

I don’t think I need to explain why I took the next photo. Jockey Club Road is probably the busiest road in Fanling, and most of the street signs are spelled correctly, but I’ve seen at least one other sign where the name has been misspelled like this:

Large leaves like this are ideal for collecting rainwater, although it probably isn’t safe to drink:

This is another view of the minibus station next to Fanling station. This photo was taken in the late morning of 1st January, which was a public holiday. The inordinately long queue is for a minibus to Hok Tau in the Pat Sin Leng Country Park, which is a popular destination for day trippers from the city for hiking and barbecues:

The queue is so long that it extends into the next bay, which would make it awkward to catch a minibus to our village because we would have to push through the crowd.

I’ve no idea why the occupant of the house in the next photo has decided to hang up hundreds of empty bottles, although I conjecture that it may create an unusual lighting effect inside (this wall faces west):

The road past this house, which is located west of Fanling, is a cul de sac, so it carries almost no motor traffic, which makes it ideal for cycling (it’s a dead end only for larger vehicles).

Three black-winged stilts (‘red legs’) in the Kam Tin River:

Almost all the examples of bougainvillea that I see are cultivated, with the colour displays hanging over people’s boundary walls/fences, but this one, on a little-known road on the southern outskirts of Fanling, is completely wild:

I probably cycled past this truck, parked alongside the unnamed road linking Kwu Tung North and Ha Shan Kai Wat, quite a few times before deciding to take a photo:

There! You have it on good authority. Paint is dead! I didn’t realize it was ever alive.

(storm drain I photographed these two large dolls on the other side of a nullah (‘storm drain’) that runs alongside Hok Tau country trail #1. The one on the left is meant to be the front half of a dancing lion:

Continued in Part 3…

sneedl’bodja takes a drink

Sneedl’bodja stormed off in a sulk, disappearing in the direction of the village without a single backward glance.

Shunshelstinx was about to call after him, but then he decided that this would not be a particularly worthwhile action to take. By the time he’d made one decision and changed his mind, you can be sure that Sneedl’bodja would have been so far out of earshot as to be coming back into range from the opposite direction. Shunshelstinx and Qumfl’quelunx trudged disconsolately back along the lane leading to Three Foxes Wood, cheered by the thought of sitting in front of a roaring fire drinking cocoa and knowing, or hoping at least, that Sneedl’bodja would catch up with them very soon. In fact, he was probably ahead of them already, because he usually was, but that did not stop Shunshelstinx worrying about him. Shunshelstinx always worried about Sneedl’bodja, because he always worried about everything, and he was not hopeful that Sneedl’bodja could restrain his natural impulse to act first and think not at all. But, he thought, perhaps he knows what he’s doing.

“Even if I don’t,” he concluded.

Sneedl’bodja did indeed know what he was doing. And where he was going. The village inn. Many years ago, he had discovered that the public house in the village stored vast quantities of a large variety of brown liquors, most of which he found very pleasant to drink. He particularly enjoyed a liquor that came in clear glass bottles and tasted like a mixture of fire and water. He would take the most hair-raising risks for a drink of that, especially tonight, but he would have to be at his very quickest.

The lights were still on in the drinking rooms, and Sneedl’bodja peered carefully through the window to spy out the terrain, although carefully and Sneedl’bodja are about as far from being natural bedfellows as it is possible to imagine and still be in the same story. In other words, he shot a perfunctory glance through the window. Inside, he saw several gadgies†, some of whom were leaning on the bar in various degrees of instability. Others were standing unsteadily, and all were talking animatedly.

“Did you hear that Old Man McScranagan’s garden shed burned down tonight in mysterious circumstances?” said one, taking a long drink from his mug of foaming ale.

“I heard that it was spontaneous combustion,” said another, who had already drunk too much foaming ale to have any idea what he was talking about but who did not want to be left out of the conversation.

“Bah!” thought Sneedl’bodja irritably. “When I need that pot-bellied poltroon Qumfl’quelunx to provide one of his sound effects, he isn’t here. That is so typical of that vacuous waxwork! I shall just have to think of another plan.”

His ‘other plan’ would see Sneedl’bodja at his most reckless, but it was also what he was good at. Speed of movement, that was the key—well, that and confining those movements within the narrow zone of the gadgies’ peripheral vision. But although he was unwilling to admit it, he relied on Qumfl’quelunx’s bizarre repertoire of sound effects to provide the vital distraction. Without his portly friend, he could not be sure that he would not be seen, but after all, a drink of fire water was a drink of fire water and was surely worth the modest risk involved.

That was it! Yes, it was worth the risk. And with that question answered, Sneedl’bodja sprang into action, his judgement clouded only very slightly by a fondly anticipated glass of fire water. And he knew his way into the drinking rooms, having been there on more than one previous occasion. Shunshelstinx, we can safely assume, is totally unaware of this backsliding behaviour by his frenetic friend. He certainly wouldn’t have approved.

Anyway, in one continuous springing movement, Sneedl’bodja was at the door, which had one of those new-fangled contraptions that allow the door to be pushed open easily from the outside. But then it thoughtfully closes the door behind you automatically, thus saving you all that inconvenience. It must have been a very lazy gadgie who invented that one.

However, unknown to Sneedl’bodja, the innkeeper had attached a bell to this outer door since his last visit, having for some time been puzzled by the speed with which his whisky was being drunk. He was convinced that his customers were coming in quietly while he was in the cellar and sneaking the odd tipple while pretending to wait patiently to be served. Early one evening, before his regular customers arrived, he had marked the level of whisky in the bottle with a red pencil. Shortly thereafter, also before the regulars arrived, Sneedl’bodja, who just happened to be in the neighbourhood, had seen his opportunity, slipped in quietly through the front door and helped himself to a large whisky. A very large whisky. The innkeeper was not pleased to discover a discrepancy of almost an inch between the red line and the level of the whisky, but at least he had confirmed his suspicions. Someone really had been drinking his whisky, as he had thought. But in answering one mystery, he had created another. The bar was empty. Nobody was waiting to be served. He had identified the offence but not the culprit. It wasn’t one of his regulars, after all. Well, yes, it was one of his regulars really, but it was a regular of whose existence he was unaware.

Anyway, Sneedl’bodja pushed slowly at the door. If his hope had been to enter quietly, that hope was dashed by a sudden urgent clanging overhead. Sneedl’bodja’s lightning-fast senses picked up the alarum a fraction of a second before either the innkeeper or his customers, and in a blur of motion he was crouching under a blackened oak settle in the darkest corner of the main drinking room. That split second later, half a dozen pairs of eyes turned to the door, saw it close mysteriously all by itself, and nothing else.

“Must’ve been the wind. It’s pretty gusty tonight,” said one drinker.

“Poltergeists!” exclaimed the one who had already drunk too much foaming ale to know what he was talking about.

A third gadgie sat down suddenly, pushing a half-drunk glass of foaming ale across the table as he did so.

“That’s enough ale for me landlord,” he said emphatically. “I’ve just seen a pixie dressed in a dark brown jogging outfit run across the floor.”

“I’d better get you home George,” said his friend, who knew that pixies do not exist.

By this stage of the evening, all the gadgies had drunk far too much foaming ale to make any connexion between a door that appeared to open by itself and eye-witness evidence of pixies.

“Excellent!” thought Sneedl’bodja. “This is my chance, while their backs are turned.”

He leapt up on to the bar counter, found an empty glass, picked up the whisky bottle, pulled out the cork, poured himself a more generous helping than usual (a far more generous helping than usual), replaced the cork and drank it down, all of it, in less time than it takes to tell how the feat was accomplished. And then, wobbling unsteadily, he started to run back down the counter, but at that moment he caught sight of a strikingly good-looking gelgin in the long mirror on the wall behind the bar.

“Who is that handsome fellow?” thought Sneedl’bodja, stopping suddenly. “Why, he’s almost as good-looking as me!”

Stopping suddenly may have been his intention, but, thus distracted, he skidded spectacularly in a pool of stagnant ale and disappeared over the edge, arms flailing wildly. Regaining his composure in mid-air, he landed athletically on the floor behind the bar, fell over, stood up again and staggered out into the passageway connecting the drinking rooms. How to escape? That was now the problem.

As luck would have it, at that precise moment, the innkeeper noticed that the whisky was still swirling in the bottle. That is how fast Sneedl’bodja can be. Anyway, the landlord had enough time to confront his customers before the eddies died down.

“Not me!” said one, very positively.

“Me neither!” said another, equally positive that he was not responsible.

“And certainly not me!” exclaimed a third, who positively glowed with indignation at the very thought that he even drank whisky, certainly not without paying for it.

“Count me out!” added a fourth, who only ever drank whisky when someone else was paying for it.

“Perhaps the tide has gone out!” interjected the one who had already drunk too much foaming ale to know what he was talking about but who was determined at all costs not to be left out of the conversation.

“Perhaps your brain’s gone out!” said the landlord in exasperation.

Meanwhile, Sneedl’bodja half ran, half crawled along a second corridor, terrifying on the way a small and very yappy terrier. Or was it the other way around? Whichever interpretation you choose to believe, we can safely infer that Sneedl’bodja did not pause momentarily and stoop down to stroke the unsuspecting dog behind the ear, although he may have kicked it. On the other hand, if he did aim a kick at the dog, he probably missed. Anyway, Sneedl’bodja did not stop. He simply kept running, helter skelter, side to side, staggering really more than running. Turn left at the end of the corridor. Miss the turning and hit the wall. Through two open doors. Crash! Ooops! That should have read ‘open two doors’. Up one step and down three, he slipped, slithered and slid until, finally, without quite understanding how he was able to do so, and with a more than generous admixture of sheer luck, he reached the back of the inn. Drawing further on his luck, his judgement not being available for consultation for most of the evening, he found a half-open sash window through which he could probably wriggle, although it would be rather a tight squeeze.

At the opposite end of Sneedl’bodja’s erratic trajectory through the building, the innkeeper was unconvinced.

“Poltergeists indeed!” he said contemptuously.

footnote
† This is what gelgins call people.

shunshelstinx receives a summons

Between 2000 and 2002, I wrote a comic fantasy novel about imaginary creatures called gelgins that are responsible for everything that unexpectedly goes wrong in the world. I’d had the idea many years earlier, but when I started to write, for some inexplicable reason, instead of chronicling the clever stunts that gelgins can pull off, I found myself describing the exploits of the three most incompetent gelgins in the history of their kind.

The first publisher that I submitted the completed book to thought it ‘funny and well written’ but ended their letter with ‘…but we don’t publish comic fantasy.’ Obviously, I was encouraged—all I needed to do was find the right publisher—but after two years, I’d run out of potential publishers. The book remains unpublished, although I have posted extracts on this blog from time to time.

What follows is the opening episode in the book, and you will need to know that there are three types of gelgin—rajas, tamas and sattvas—each with distinctive habits and personalities. A honka (a gelgin word) is a food item, only ever prepared by tamas gelgins, that is nauseatingly smelly.

*  *  *

Shunshelstinx sat stiffly upright in the hard chair beside the fire. It was his favourite chair, given to him when he was a callow young gelgin, although he had long ago forgotten the donor’s name. He had never been very good with names, but now that you come to mention it, it was probably his mother. He was toasting his teatime crumpets and his short, fat toes, but as he waited for the crumpets to brown, he allowed his thoughts to drift aimlessly, and he quickly became lost in the uncharted depths of a wilderness of enticing daydreams about his important contributions, real and imaginary, but mostly imaginary, to past and future practical jokes. He was therefore not paying close attention, which really was a silly thing to be doing, and if not silly, then at least not sensible, given that during the aeons that Qumfl’quelunx has lived next door, his sense of smell has become so dull that he couldn’t find an open bottle of scent in a dungheap, let alone a steaming pile of cow dung in a perfume factory, unless, of course, he stood in it.

Anyway, despite such severe shortcomings in the basic olfactory capacity that every gelgin should possess, which means that for more years than he cares to remember he has been unable to perceive even the slightest difference in aroma between fried mushrooms and cheese on toast, he was roused abruptly from the distant depths of his peripatetic reverie by a sudden and startling smell. It was the unmistakeably acrid stench of burning hair, although ‘stench’ is not the kind of word that would spring immediately to mind if the mind referred to was in any way whatsoever associated with Shunshelstinx. Niff! Now that was his favourite word, or one of them at least, because there were so many to choose from.

“Ouch! Oow! Ooow! Oooow!” he squeaked, each squeal longer and louder than the last.

Shunshelstinx has an exceptionally low pain threshold, so low that a brisk buffeting about the temples with a felt-tipped ostrich feather has been known to provoke a bout of uncontrollable hysteria, while a head-on collision with a fly whose navigation system has been malfunctioning often results in a call to the doctor. And gelgins don’t have doctors, so you can imagine how hysterical that must be. And a nettle sting could cause a dead faint and result in a summons for the funeral director, who is unlikely to be pleased to discover that the ‘corpse’ is not dead. A dead loss, probably. Dead stupid, certainly. But not dead.

However, had any other gelgin been present to witness this farce, Shunshelstinx would have clenched his fists and silently bitten his lower lip, not so that it might hurt, you understand, but merely as a reminder that he should conduct himself in an appropriately seemly manner at all times. Sneedl’bodja would not have been in the least sympathetic. He would have thought the entire episode side-splittingly funny, despite it being regarded as the abyss of poor taste to laugh at the misfortunes of another gelgin. But it was only the hairs on his feet, after all. Shunshelstinx had overreacted, as he often did, and he was not hurt at all. Not even a gnat’s fraction of his entire person had been harmed, even in his imagination, limited as that was.

“Bother!” he exclaimed to nobody in particular. “This is rather, well, er, none too pleasing.”

Just then there came a sharp rap-tap-rat-a-tat on his front door. That would be Sneedl’bodja, the impatient urgency of whose ‘open this door immediately’ knock was quite as distinctive as his staccato laughter.

“Bother,” said Shunshelstinx again, this time referring to the unexpected interruption and not to his feet. “I must calm down. I can’t possibly allow Snee to see me when I’m not at my best. What would a great leader of gelgins do in this situation? What did I do last time? Now, think. Oh dear! That’s difficult. What should I think about? Help! Help! Don’t panic! Now, panic…!”

He tailed off, very nearly on the verge of hysteria, but then he stopped and slowly took a deep and self-important breath.

“Now concentrate!” he continued quietly to himself. “That’s it! Concentration. Self-discipline. Iron resolution. Determination. Works wonders. I’m glad I thought of that.”

At least the arrival of Sneedl’bodja had taken his mind off his feet, and the realization began to dawn on him, albeit not until shortly before midday, that he had merely been startled and not slightly incinerated, as he had first assumed. Brain not functioning properly, he concluded, as indeed was often the case. In fact, there have been occasions when his friends have suggested that his brain is not functioning at all, either properly or improperly. And it turns out that these occasions when his brain has not been performing according to its official job description are so frequent that you could be forgiven for assuming that it is the default state of affairs. No need to assume. This is the standard interface that Shunshelstinx presents to the world. He is as dim as he sounds. Really. He is so dim that, by comparison, a firefly would think itself ready to take on the Pharos of Alexandria for the title of Seventh Wonder of the World. Denser than material normally only ever found in the core of a black dwarf. Hang an ‘out of order’ sign on his brain and, well, you get the picture.

At least the interruption had been impeccable in its timing. To his great surprise and absolute delight, he discovered that his crumpets were not too hot, not too brown. And not too crisp either. They were just right, which is how he liked them.

“Do come in Snee,” he called firmly, but not too firmly, and certainly not too loudly.

Crash! The door flew open, and in leapt Sneedl’bodja with a florid flourish and an exaggerated bow. Always the show-off. All he needs is an audience, even if it is only Shunshelstinx. But close on his heels came a faint niff, which proceeded to intensify with the speed of a sneeze from a bull elephant that just a few seconds earlier had carelessly snuffled its trunk into a plastic bucket full of freshly milled white pepper. This malodorous stench ruthlessly clawed, barged and elbowed its way into the nostrils of the unsuspecting Shunshelstinx in the desperately frantic style of an aggressively jostling crowd of morning commuters battling to board a suburban train on which room to breathe has already been changing hands for sums of money that are impossible to comprehend without the aid of a qualified accountant. The rank odour quickly enveloped his larynx like the tendrils of a supercharged beanstalk that has overdosed on high-potash fertilizer and was now attempting to throttle him from the inside, outwards, almost as if someone had casually opened an umbrella inside his throat.

“Qumfl’quelunx?”

“Qumfl’quelunx!”

Neither question nor response required any elaboration, but Sneedl’bodja is a typical rajas and as such isn’t likely to refrain from stating the blindingly obvious just because it is obvious. In fact, stating the shriekingly ‘look, I’m over here!’ obvious is part of Sneedl’bodja’s stock-in-trade.

“That seriously dim tamas, who couldn’t outrun the digestive juices of a sloshed slug, who has less wit than the slime trail of a snacking snail! Who couldn’t make a crocodile cry! And who couldn’t think his way out of a room with only one door and fewer windows! Whose brain—and we’re assuming here that he has a brain, which is not a proposition, let me tell you, which I would accept without insisting that evidence be produced—whatever brain he might once have possessed must have been consumed by maggots, confiscated by the magistrates, or perhaps it was purloined by a passing thief when he wasn’t looking! He’s cooking! Again!” he spluttered, barked and coughed in a voice that to the practised ear may have sounded just ever so slightly more irritable than it usually did, although you will quickly discover that there is rarely enough scope for increasing his irritability much beyond its usual tectonic level.

When he had reached the end of his tirade, he made a rapid survey of the room, followed by an equally rapid change of subject.

“Ah! Crumpets I see,” he added. “Any for me?”

He did not really need to ask, because Shunshelstinx always prepared some extra crumpets for him, but he liked to make sure, just in case. Shunshelstinx did not react to his visitor’s question at first. Although he was desperate for a lungful of fresh and wholesome air, and although this urgent need had almost destroyed his concentration, he was firmly determined to maintain at least the pretence that he, Shunshelstinx, was in charge, well knowing that Sneedl’bodja would not take any notice. Unless food was on the table. He was much more easily persuaded then, and therefore more manageable. Persuaded of what? You might well ask, although you would be unlikely to receive a sensible reply unless you were prepared to hang around for a depressingly long time. And even then no guarantees could be offered.

Shunshelstinx, meanwhile, had managed to leap up and slam the door shut. He then collapsed against the inside of the door, gasping for air, having held his breath for far longer than was sensible, even in these dire circumstances. And as dire circumstances go, the stench generated by a honka is among the most dire imaginable.

“What a honka! That was even worse than the last one, although my memory is not what it was,” he spluttered. “What’s he cooking up this time?”

“I don’t know, but it smells like a mature mixture of rotting fish offal, burning blubber, rancid yak’s milk cheese and putrefying snails’ entrails,” screeched Sneedl’bodja, whose sense of smell is not merely keen, it is unbearably enthusiastic, which is why, presumably, he can discern each of these disgustingly malodorous ingredients from the general background stench.

“But it’s what he calls his ‘secret’ ingredient, whatever that is, that makes the stench so awful. This reek is much worse than even….”

Even Sneedl’bodja was unable, for once, to find the words he wanted, although such a failure is uncharacteristic, because most of the time he has harrowing harangues and tub-thumping tirades queuing up to take their turn, caustic comments trying to jump the queue, and several arguments and even a few fights breaking out all along the line. However, even without this clue, Shunshelstinx formed the impression that his rajas friend was being less restrained, if that were possible, than he had been on any of the previous, but mercifully infrequent, occasions when Qumfl’quelunx had been busy in the kitchen.

But whatever had made his friend perhaps just a little more annoyed with Qumfl’quelunx than he usually is even Shunshelstinx could guess, having just experienced at first hand the fumigatory properties of the latter’s latest honka in all its virulent nastiness. Mind you, this would be about the limit of Shunshelstinx’s ability to guess anything sensible—he has more than enough trouble guessing his name—while Sneedl’bodja needs no excuse to be annoyed about anything. He is never annoyed about nothing. In other words, he is always annoyed about something or other, or both. In fact, being annoyed about only two things at once counts as a monumental exercise in restraint. And Sneedl’bodja may have been called quite a few unkind things over the years, usually by Qumfl’quelunx under his breath, but ‘restrained’ is unlikely to have been one of them.

“However,” he added as he regained some measure of composure. “I say that we form a neighbourhood committee to ban this sort of behaviour! It shouldn’t be allowed! It is an utter, utter…”

And here he coughed, spluttered twice, coughed twice more and continued.

“…utter outrage! There should be a statute against it! There should be an ordinance! There should be a bye-law! There should be a regulation! There should be a rule! There should be grounds for a claim! There should be grounds for an action!”

“Well, Snee, you’re the man of action,” interjected Shunshelstinx from his uncharacteristically untidy sprawl against the front door, where he had remained during Sneedl’bodja’s outbursts.

The manner of his delivery, one assumes intentionally, had much in common with a deadpan stand-up comedian who has just cracked the worst joke in the world in the firm conviction that he has related the funniest ever told. Or perhaps Shunshelstinx’s joke really was that funny. It’s just the way he tells them. Anyway, if, on this evidence, you were to judge that Shunshelstinx has a poor sense of humour, you wouldn’t expect to discover that you were wrong. But you would be wrong. His sense of humour is so penurious that a merely poor sense of humour would think itself wealthy beyond rational belief by comparison. However, even this typically, characteristically, lame sattvas jest, which was well up to Shunshelstinx’s usual standards, was so unexpected as to stun Sneedl’bodja into sudden silence.

“I remember when I was very young, my uncle always used to say that porridge is best cooked in an iron pan, and not to add too much salt, so I use hardly any,” continued Shunshelstinx, standing up and puffing out his chest. “And cocoa is best drunk piping hot, or so I’ve been told, but it depends on how hot the piping is. Mustn’t be too hot, I would have thought. And it should be served with not more than a soupçon of sugar. I can remember how much sugar to use because when I’m in my kitchen, the soup’s on the stove, so I obviously need a soup ladle. Although for what I can’t remember. I’m not sure if we were ever told. And it’s always best to toast crumpets on a fire that has almost gone out but can still singe the hairs on the palms of your hands. Brings out the wholesome goodness. I also understand that there’s been a severe shortage of dolly mixtures recently, and all our top gelgins are working on the problem even as we speak. So why wasn’t I asked? Don’t you know it’s what’s important that counts?”

We can all agree with that last statement, but why did it take so long to get there? The simple answer is that Shunshelstinx does not so much beat about the bush as bash and batter his way around an entire jungle of overgrown herbiage. Or should that be ‘overblown verbiage’? At least, he would do if his friends gave him half a chance, which they don’t, unless they aren’t paying attention, which is a common enough state of affairs when the object of that missing attention is Shunshelstinx himself.

“Anyway, don’t expect me to deal with the problem,” he added. “I think that the best tactic is to keep him well supplied with leftovers, but not too well supplied of course, because then he’d be sure to keep some until it has gone mouldy. And after all these years of living next door, I’m almost used to the reek, as you call it….”

And here he paused to reflect on Sneedl’bodja’s earlier choice of word to describe what both gelgins knew no word can possibly describe with any useful degree of accuracy, the stench of a honka. He would have much preferred to use ‘pong’, because it is a more genteel word, more dignified and less violent on the ear. If he had been in a sniffy mood, he might have chosen to say ‘niff’ instead. He might even have plumped for ‘offensive effluvium’, which has the distinct advantage of concealing its meaning from mere casual users, who can therefore introduce the phrase into polite cocktail party chatter with little or no risk of embarrassment.

“However, thank goodness he’s such a dandy,” he concluded. “He usually changes his socks every other day at least, so he rarely manages to mature a suitably cheesy pair in which to cook his dreadful honkas. And if he wasn’t so lazy, we’d all have more to endure than I even dare to imagine.”

And even Shunshelstinx, who has now used up his ration of imagination for the entire story, shuddered inwardly at such a depressing notion—just once a year was more than once too often. He then walked slowly over to the cupboard in the corner of his parlour, rummaged around in a battered cardboard shoebox on the middle shelf and took out a wood-and-wire clothes peg to show Sneedl’bodja.

“This is my latest method. It’s very clever,” he said smugly. “With you crashing in the way you did, I didn’t have a chance to prepare properly, but usually, when Qumfl’quelunx is cooking, I put this on my nose before I open the front door. He caught me by surprise this time. And you weren’t expected.”

He demonstrated the required technique with the clothes peg, which is sufficiently obvious not to require further description.

“Only trouble is, I can’t hear myself speaking properly, so I don’t know what I’m talking about. Or perhaps I can’t remember what I’m talking about. Or maybe I’m talking about something I can’t remember. Or possibly I’m remembering something I’m not supposed to talk about. Or else I’m talking about something I know nothing about. I’m good at that. I think. It’s definitely at least one of those. If not more. I think. I’m not sure. I can’t remember,” said Shunshelstinx confusingly.

“How’s your ulcer today,” he continued, changing the subject. “Painful? Oh dear! I am so sorry to hear….”

“No! No! My ulcer is perfectly fine! In fact, I do not have an ulcer,” interrupted Sneedl’bodja rudely and not quite truthfully. “It’s this! It’s for you!”

He brandished a large, gold-coloured envelope, across the front of which was written the single word ‘Shunshelstinx’, a word that Shunshelstinx read twice. He was sure he recognized it from somewhere, but where he couldn’t be sure. Well, it wasn’t a birthday card; he could work that out straight away. And the bold, ornate script that the envelope bore is only ever used by a small and very important group of gelgins. As if the distinctively official colour of the envelope with the oddly familiar word was not enough of a clue.

Ding! Shunshelstinx was transfixed by a sudden thought.

“Oh dear!” he muttered.

Surprisingly quickly, he had realized that the letter, notice, invitation, summons, advertising circular or whatever it was could have come from only one source. A source that could not be ignored, although he would have done almost anything—within reason, in moderation—to be offered any chance to take the do-not-disturb option.

“Oh dear,” he thought anxiously, “what could the Grand Council for the Determination of Correct Conduct possibly want with such a loyal, dedicated, lifelong servant of the most noble cause of gelginity?”

This is actually how he sees himself, even if no one else does.

“Well open it THEN,” rasped Sneedl’bodja impatiently.

The last word was shouted with some passion. Sneedl’bodja was clearly in more pain than he was prepared to admit, even to Shunshelstinx. Shunshelstinx held the envelope carefully up to the firelight to try to see through it, but without success. In fact, his only success was in giving Sneedl’bodja the distinct impression that he was dithering for what seemed like an unnecessarily long time doing nothing useful.

“Open it and stop faffing about!” he screamed, the exasperation in his voice amplified by the paroxysms of white-hot lightning that suddenly exploded through his digestive system as the acidity in his stomach rose, switching on a hitherto unsuspected level of intense agony.

This was a degree of pain equivalent to the noise level that would be generated by a Chinese gong struck three inches from your ear by a gorilla with an explosive temper and a sledgehammer.

Shunshelstinx carefully, nervously, levered off the imposing wax seal holding down the crisp flap of the envelope. Unlike Sneedl’bodja, he was careful. He was clever. If he could open the envelope without tearing it, he could use it again, although for what he wasn’t quite sure. He had not thought that far ahead. He never does.

“Why would you want to use anything again anyway?”

Sneedl’bodja had cleverly anticipated Shunshelstinx’s next comment, a most exceptional feat given that Shunshelstinx himself had not yet thought of that comment. But Sneedl’bodja runs his life at such a speed that he is in a constant state of irritation, which at times reaches truly volcanic proportions, either at the seemingly aimless approach, the infuriating lack of urgency, of Shunshelstinx or the vulgar stupidity, the chronic idleness, of Qumfl’quelunx.

Shunshelstinx slowly slid his short, chubby fingers under the flap of the envelope, pulling out a large piece of paper. It was indeed a summons from the Grand Council. Slowly, deliberately, he unfolded the paper and began to read:

“I shall have to sit down,” said Shunshelstinx weakly. “Oh dear! Oh misery! This is rather, well, er, none too pleasing. What are we to do?”

Why worry?” interrupted Sneedl’bodja,

He continued more reassuringly: “That Garkl’klunx couldn’t run a red light on a pinball machine, let alone win a free game, so you’ve nothing to worry about.”

“You’re only being critical out of jealousy, because no rajas, thank goodness, has ever been elected to the esteemed office of High Gelgin,” replied Shunshelstinx. “In any case….”

He stopped, distracted by the sound of a gentle tapping, almost more like a scraping, on his front door. No, he was sure it was a scraping sound. Just a minute, he thought, as the muffled but violent sound of a ton of bricks crashing to the ground from a considerable height just outside could be heard through the closed door. This was followed by an insistent, enthusiastic honking, interrupted at alarmingly frequent intervals by the quasi-musical tinkle of another breaking plate, the kind of scenario that would be the inevitable consequence of an ill-advised decision to entrust the washing up to a friendly troupe of willing but totally untrained sea lions.

It could only have been Qumfl’quelunx, you might have expected Shunshelstinx to realize had he paused for even half a moment’s thought, but then you would be making the assumption, unjustified in the case of Shunshelstinx, that half a moment is sufficient to produce a worthwhile quantity of thought. And you would, therefore, be making a mistake. He would have realized who it was in time, but, regrettably, we don’t have that amount of time at our disposal, so it is better simply to get on with the story.

Before investigating the odd events that may or may not have been taking place outside his front door, he retrieved his clothes peg and placed it firmly on the end of his long, thin nose. He glanced in the tall mirror above the fireplace, and once he had satisfied himself that he looked suitably masterly—apparently unaware that, in fact, his appearance was closer to silly than to masterly, and closer to ridiculous than to either of these—he marched across to the door, hesitated, then opened it carefully. There, as he would have known had he bothered to invest that necessary minimum quantity of thought, stood Qumfl’quelunx.

“Must you always make such a dreadful racket outside my front door. A simple knock, knock will suffice,” complained Shunshelstinx. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to use the knocker in future. That’s what it’s for, believe it or not.”

He pointed to the heavy brass door knocker, wrought into the shape of an elephant’s head by someone who clearly did not number many elephants among their close friends—it was not a very good likeness. In fact, it looked more like a rhinoceros with a trunk and big ears. But that was not the point. It had magical properties, or so he had been firmly assured by the previous occupant of the house. Unfortunately, he had seen no evidence of these properties, but he had been assured that this evidence did exist, which he was happy to accept. And if Shunshelstinx wants to believe something, he is unlikely to be deterred by something as simple as a lack of proof. For example, he is convinced that sows’ ears are the raw materials for silk purses, even though a pig’s ear is what he frequently makes of the planning of an elaborate practical joke.

“You’d better come in though,” he continued. “I’m afraid there’s been some rather bad news. I’ve just received a summons from the Grand Council.”

“Hello Stinky,” said Qumfl’quelunx to his host, ignoring the latter’s ominous piece of news and strolling cheerily into the room.

Shunshelstinx glared at him.

“I’ve told you and told you and told you,” he said crossly. “My name is, my name is, my name is, er….”

“The record’s stuck, the record’s stuck, the record’s stuck,” said Sneedl’bodja in a cruel parody of his friend’s forgetfulness.

“My name is, er, what is my name?” continued Shunshelstinx, ignoring the rude interruption.

“Stinky!” shouted Qumfl’quelunx, responding gleefully to Shunshelstinx’s question.

Where Sneedl’bodja had failed to disturb his friend’s equilibrium, Qumfl’quelunx was right on the mark.

“I will not be insulted in this manner, and in the parlour of my own house,” said Shunshelstinx pompously. “Kindly address me by my proper name, whatever my name is. Look here! Let’s face it, we, all three of us, we know that we have not pulled off many successful tricks recently. Something always seems to go wrong. We all need to improve our teamwork, and to improve it rather dramatically, or the Grand Council might decide to revoke our pranking licence. And then where would we be?”

“Outer Mongolia?” said Qumfl’quelunx, who has always firmly believed that the wrong answer is preferable to no answer at all, and who would not have recognized a rhetorical question if it had jumped up and buried its fangs in the seat of his iridescent satin breeches.

“It was him!” said Sneedl’bodja accusingly, pointing a long, bony finger at the unsuspecting Qumfl’quelunx, whose skin is far too thick for any accusation, allegation or simple insult to penetrate. “He completely messed up the timing of our last practical joke. Why is he so slow?”

“And you weren’t in too much of a hurry, I assume?” asked Shunshelstinx. “We are supposed to be a team, and we’re not working as a team. For example, you never follow my instructions. And you never pay attention. Surely it’s obvious that nothing is ever going to work if you keep ignoring my instructions. How many times do you need to be told? I’m in charge. And now we’re all in trouble. Deep trouble. How ever am I to explain all this to the Grand Council?”

He sat down glumly at this point, having suddenly realized that with all the distractions of the past few minutes, his crumpets had gone cold. Stone cold. He really did find it difficult to think about more than one thing at a time, even if one of those things was food.

“Now I really am very cross,” he said. “Can’t a gelgin eat his crumpets in peace without being interrupted?”

“I can help,” said Qumfl’quelunx hopefully, trying very hard to conceal his more than usually bulging waistline, the result of having eaten a whole honka without sharing even a single slice with his two friends, who would not, in any case, have accepted an invitation to luncheon. Only a fool would accept an invitation to such a lunch, you might think, but then you would be obliged to devise some other explanation for the non-attendance of his friends or concede that perhaps they are not quite as foolish as they appear to be. And you’d be unlikely to unearth much evidence in support of the second hypothesis.

“I can help,” repeated Qumfl’quelunx, in case his first offer of assistance had gone unheard.

There are several things that you should know about Qumfl’quelunx and food, which is about as natural a pairing as bubble and squeak. Where food is concerned, any type of food, he does not know the meaning of the word ‘full’. And his friends are unable to recall the last time he uttered the phrase ‘I’ve had enough’. If indeed he has ever uttered such a self-denying phrase. It is unlikely that he even understands the concept of ‘enough’. Whoever coined the proverb ‘enough is as good as a feast’, it certainly wasn’t Qumfl’quelunx.

“Go ahead!” said Shunshelstinx gloomily. “I’ve lost my appetite anyway.”

“Brrr!” said Sneedl’bodja, suddenly shivering. “Is it my imagination? Or is it cold in here? No, it is cold. Can I put another dried cow pat on the fire?”

“If you must,” said Shunshelstinx, looking anxiously at the dwindling heap of fuel in the bucket beside the fire.

He was cold too, but as the stingiest gelgin in Three Foxes Wood, a character trait for which he is well known even beyond the boundaries of the wood, he would have waited patiently until the fire had almost gone out before adding more fuel. Especially if he was alone. He reasoned, rather cleverly he thought, that it is better to have some fuel in the bucket, because then you can have a fire whenever you want. But once there is no fuel in the bucket, you can no longer have a fire. Once burned, the fuel cannot then be recovered without contravening both the first and second laws of thermodynamics, a feat that he is not capable of achieving, although any gelgin of average competence ought to be able to do this backwards with his eyes closed. However, as you will already have guessed, Shunshelstinx is not a gelgin of average competence. He is so far below average that average is a minuscule speck on the distant horizon from where he stands on the ladder of competence. It would not be unfair to those of average incompetence to reveal that Shunshelstinx does not meet even their most abysmally dismal standards.

Anyway, while Sneedl’bodja and Shunshelstinx were thus distracted, Qumfl’quelunx quickly scoffed the remaining crumpets, cramming them into his mouth as if he was competing in the final of a crumpet-eating contest, which he often is. The crumpets disappeared into his mouth even faster than he could swallow the chewed fragments.

“You gluttonous globule!” screamed Sneedl’bodja as he caught a brief glimpse of the last piece of crumpet disappearing rapidly into the bottomless pit of Qumfl’quelunx’s open mouth. “Your manners would disgrace a herd of hippopotamuses doing the samba in a mud-wrestling arena! You have less shame than a turtle in a tutu performing a pas de deux with a toucan in tights! Your behaviour would embarrass an avuncular aardvark dancing a rumbustious rumba with a clumsy camel! What’s more, you have all the elephantine elegance of a pair of waltzing wart hogs showing off their flashy footwork during the quickstep segment of a ballroom dancing competition for beginners! And, allow me to point out, you have less subtlety than a ravenous cannibal selling tickets for a dinner dance!”

Sneedl’bodja paused for breath as Qumfl’quelunx looked up, startled. The fat one was baffled by all this talk of dancing, which was much too energetic a pastime for him to contemplate at all seriously. Even thinking about it was exhausting enough.

“I have an idea,” said Shunshelstinx, hurriedly changing the subject. “It will be dark soon. Why don’t we go down to the human village and see if we can find somebody to prank?”

Unfortunately, this suggestion evoked absolutely no response in his disputatious companions, whose focus was solely on crumpets, or more accurately, the complete absence of crumpets now that Qumfl’quelunx had polished off the last one.

“I have an idea,” said Sneedl’bodja suddenly, growing tired of haranguing his fat friend. “It’ll be dark soon. Why don’t we have some crumpets and then go down to the village and see if we can find somebody to prank?”

“Yes, let’s,” said Qumfl’quelunx gleefully. “I wouldn’t mind a few more crumpets.”

“And who, may I enquire, is to provide the crumpets?” asked Shunshelstinx stiffly. “You’ve already eaten all of mine.”

This, of course, was an exaggeration, but he was no longer in a sharing mood. Qumfl’quelunx had eaten all the crumpets that he had toasted earlier. He’d had not a single mouthful. And on top of all that, there was still the summons. He’d worked out that he had less than a week to think of some suitably convincing excuses for the failures of the team, which was a start, but now came the hard part: he hadn’t worked out the actual excuses. Consequently, he was not able to convince himself that he could convince anyone else.

Sneedl’bodja, for example, was not convinced, believing that Shunshelstinx had not been entirely truthful when claiming that he had no crumpets. No gelgin ever allows himself to run out of crumpets, or so by a process of what he would claim was flawless reasoning he had been led to conclude. And Sneedl’bodja is not easily led, except, perhaps, when crumpets are on the menu.

“I reckon you must have hundreds in your larder,” he said.

“I do not keep my excuses in my larder,” replied Shunshelstinx, whose wandering attention had been detained elsewhere and who’d therefore not been following at all closely the finer points of the discussion.

However, he was quickly reminded of the said finer points by Sneedl’bodja.

“Crumpets! Crumpets, you prevaricating penguin!” he screeched, working himself up from a gentle simmer to a vigorous boil in response to his host’s inattention. “Why am I surrounded by idiots and imbeciles, dullards and dunces, moribund morons and fogbound fools?”

“Crumpets? Yes please!” said Qumfl’quelunx, who had not been following the conversation either but who could not fail to react to Sneedl’bodja’s frenzied cry of “Crumpets! Crumpets!”

Shunshelstinx capitulated, reluctantly but well aware of the dangers of asking Sneedl’bodja to explain what he meant a third time.

“Very well,” he said unenthusiastically. “Crumpets first, pranking second. Cocoa anyone?”

*  *  *

Wow! You actually read this far. Here are three other extracts from the story that you might want to read:

A Problem with Hats
The Great Dolly Mixture Robbery
Open the Box

Open the Box is actually a serious analysis of Bertrand’s box paradox to which I appended an extract from the book that incorporates a version of the paradox.

photographic highlights 2016–17

I shall be heading off to the UK for the summer this coming weekend, and as is my habit, I’ve compiled a collection of my favourite photos from the past seven months. However, also as usual, the collection doesn’t include any of the photos that I’ve used to illustrate other blog posts. Almost all these images were taken while I’ve been out on my bike, and many were taken in locations that are close to one another, but I’ve chosen to post them here in chronological order because that provides a far better insight into what I’ve been up to during the winter.

I like to photograph the fruiting bodies of fungi, and the first photo is, I think, the best that I’ve managed this time. I’m not sure precisely where it was taken, but it is likely to have been within walking distance of my home.

I’ve included the next photo because I like the perspective effect combined with the reflections on the river, which is a tributary of the Shing Mun River in Shatin. The cycle track on the left is part of an extensive network, while the building in the distance with the maroon roof is Shatin’s floating restaurant. Paula and I used to be regular patrons when we lived in the area between 2005 and 2008, but I hadn’t eaten there for several years until I visited last Easter with an Australian friend. The dim sum is still pretty good, but when we went for yam char to our local restaurant, Sun Ming Yuen, the following day, Bernie agreed with me that our local tea house is much better!

The next photo was taken less than 40 minutes after the previous one and shows the track of a cruise missile that has raced across the sky and exploded behind the oil terminal in the bottom right of the picture. Cough! Cough!

The next photo was also taken in the Shatin area and shows a mosaic on the wall of St. Rose of Lima’s College. The mosaic itself is interesting but not especially memorable, but I did appreciate the fact that the elderly Chinese gentleman in the photo noticed what I was doing and waited politely for me to finish. I didn’t notice him at the time.

An elderly Chinese gentleman appears in the next photo too. I’d stopped to photograph the juxtaposition between the primitive white huts reflected in the fish pond and the high-rise buildings in Shenzhen behind. Once again, I didn’t realize his presence as I took the photo, but he succeeded in changing a fairly ordinary photo into rather a good one. I won’t point out that he is cycling the wrong way down a one-way road, because I do exactly the same here—the alternative is dangerous for cyclists, and there is almost no traffic here anyway.

I don’t think many people will spot what the next image is unless I admit to rotating the original 90 degrees anti-clockwise. It is in fact a picture of a section of cycling overpass in the Shatin area with very strong shadows thrown across it. I’ve included it here for its abstract qualities.

I’ve included only one piece of actualité in this collection. Last summer, a wonderful tree, around 20 metres in height, next to the road near my house appears to have been deliberately poisoned. In the autumn, a cherry-picker was used to cut back the dead wood to leave the stump you see in the next photo. The two men in the photo, which I took from my roof, are trying to cut down the rest using—you’ll never guess—electric drills!

You will probably guess that the next photo shows a section of the frontier between Hong Kong and the rest of China. It’s a section close to Ta Kwu Ling, but why have I included it in this collection? Look carefully at the fence. Note the razor wire. This barrier is designed to stop people in Hong Kong entering China illegally. In the old days, the emphasis was always on preventing immigration from China into Hong Kong!

Back on the frontier road. In December and January, you see a lot of cormorants here, and this photo shows a row of them on a power line. It was taken on 11th February, by which time the cormorants have usually moved on, but this year I was still seeing these birds, in these numbers, towards the end of March. What is going on?

Despite a more than 40-year association with Hong Kong, I was, until last year, unaware that there were squirrels here. I saw three last winter, and this winter I spotted another. I was cycling along the yellow railing path (Ping Kong Ping Pong) when I saw it run up the line from the bottom left in the next photo. As a wildlife photo it’s worthless, but again I like the geometric abstraction. And it does show how electricity is distributed in squatter areas!

And now I’m back in Sun Ming Yuen to illustrate chopstick test #2. The Chinese may have invented chopsticks—it’s alleged that they did so to confound gweilos like me—but according to my observations, a lot of Chinese don’t know how to use these implements either. The photo shows a dish of three beef cheung fan (steamed rice-flour pancakes with a savoury filling) that I’ve cut into three using my chopsticks (in one hand).

Whenever I see that someone on a nearby table has ordered this dish, I always watch to see how they will cut it up. The most common technique is to do what I do, except that the free hand is used to squeeze the two chopsticks together. Pathetic! I often see this operation performed with one chopstick in each hand, and using a ceramic spoon to do the cutting is clearly a cop-out. Not doing any cutting but merely picking up the entire pancake and biting pieces off it is not an acceptable solution either, but I also see that from time to time.

The next photo shows the footpath junction indicated by the red circle on the satellite image in Ping Kong Ping Pong, approaching from footpath #3. I’ve seen a lot of goats this year—goat meat must be getting popular in Hong Kong—but I’ve selected this photo not to illustrate that point but merely to indicate how polite these animals are. They had been following the path I was on until they saw me. And look what they did:

Keeping with the goat theme, I also encountered quite a large herd while exploring the diversion that I eventually described in Detour de Force. I took a lot of photos, but this portrait of one individual is my favourite. Dig those horns!

Towards the end of March, I had the utterly radge† idea of cycling up into Wo Hop Shek Cemetery. I made it up Wo Ka Lau Road, which is about 300 metres of circa 20 percent uphill slog. However, by the time I’d reached the columbarium, I’d decided that I would not follow Wo Hop Shek Road into the cemetery, but I did grind my way up the eastern extension of this road, which is a dead end.

And from that road, I took the following photograph. The high-rise blocks in the middle distance are Fanling, but I can’t be absolutely certain of the blocks in the distance on the right. Fanling is not that far from the border, so they are probably in Shenzhen, but I do need to check the direction. If this photo was taken looking due north, then there isn’t a problem, but my impression is that I was looking northeast, in which case there is a high mountain ridge in the way. Am I going to have to slog up that bloody hill again to check?

By the way, the objects in the foreground of the photo are ossuaries, repositories for bone jars, which contain the earthly remains of prominent New Territories citizens. I can’t be sure, and I’m a cynic anyway, but I would not be surprised if these ossuaries were constructed here before the high-rise blocks were built, and the building of the latter has subsequently buggered up the fung shui, which is why the ossuaries were located here in the first place.

I’m back on the frontier road for the next photo, which shows a piece of history that needs careful interpretation. It shows a staithe on the so-called Lok Ma Chau Loop, a huge incised meander on the Shum Chun River, the nominal border between China and Hong Kong in these parts. Apparently, the 1898 lease on the New Territories used a direct connection of the river—cutting out the meander—to define the border, but since the rise of Shenzhen in the past two decades, this definition has rankled with the other side.

What I find interesting here are the steel bollards. There are four on the staithe in total, and there are steps at each end leading down to the water, so I conclude that this section of river was once navigable, and boats tied up here. There does still seem to be a current, because you can see the vegetation that has colonized the surface moving along, and the surface is sometimes quite clear, but I don’t think that there is any connection to the sea now.

The final point to make here is about the recent agreement between Shenzhen and Hong Kong to establish a science park in this vicinity. I would be utterly amazed if any kind of environmental impact assessment has been done, and I fully expect this wonderful area to be comprehensively trashed within a decade.

From the sublime to the absolutely ridiculous: I cycle through Lei Uk every Sunday (weather permitting), but I only recently noticed this converted shipping container being used as a site office for house construction in the village:

Woo-oo!

The next photo is not here for its aesthetic merits. I just thought it was funny. And very strange. It shows a pig barbecuing a pork chop, a cow grilling a steak and a chicken roasting a chicken wing. And the sign is there to advertise a commercial barbecue site in Sheung Shui, where, I assume, all you need to do is turn up. Both meat and charcoal will be provided. Ho sik, as they say around these parts.

Near the beginning of the final frontier, I pass a huge lagoon. I’ve taken a lot of photos of lotuses in ponds over the years, but what prompted me to stop and take the next photo was the juxtaposition of pink lotus (bottom right) and white lotus (top left). Unfortunately, the flowers of the latter haven’t come out at all well.

I’ve been cycling past the object shown in the next photo for months, possibly years, as I’ve set off on the long and winding road. And I’ve always known that it’s a bomb. Yet it’s only in the last few days that I’ve suddenly realized that it’s that nuke the Americans lost in the Pacific a few years ago.

“Boom! Boom! You’re dead!” as they say in the classics.

Have a nice day.

† There are quite a few words in the English language that express utter daftness, but I grew up with this dialect word for the condition in a small town in northern England, and in this particular enterprise I consider it more apt than any other.

previous posts in this series
A Baker’s Dozen
Another Baker’s Dozen
Photographic Highlights 2015–16