I normally pride myself on my ability to give at least a minute’s notice before a radio broadcast. But this one aired TEN WEEKS AGO, which is a dismal new record. This one’s an exhausting one and calledFlex & the City…
More pandemic black humour from the Hong Kong Government this week when we were advised to open all the windows (COVID-dispersing ventilation) and not to go outside (air pollution). But it’s not all doom and fumes! This means two new episodes of Sharp Pains have already aired!
Flex & The City aired onRTHK Radio 3 Nov 24 @ 2.50 HKT!
My virtual awards date wasHobo-dog Kaye. My attire was my dressing gown. The time was 2am. I’d run out of wine 4 hours ago so I toastedThe AIBs 2020with a cup of FUEL high protein instant porridge. It was an intense two-part awards program presented with unwavering gravitas. The lightest moment was when theAIBuploaded a mugshot of my leering face dementedly side-eying the award. Even I was scared my photo might glitch to life and shatter the screen of my iPad in a spontaneous smash and grab!
Hats off (because he has no hair) to the legendary Larry Feign, my guest in The Depressed Comedian episode, which the AIBs featured in their awards show!
You can watch the 2020 AIBs live TOMORROW (Fri 13 – ha!) and next Monday (Nov 16) in a 2-part virtual awards show webcast at 11pm HKT/ 3pm GMT! My cheeky little Mental Ideas Podcast for RTHK Radio 3 is a nominee in the Factual Podcast category. As rank outsiders go, we are the rankest. (The program booklet below certainly provides evidence of that!!!) But I am giddy with bewildered awe just to be a nominee!
You may have caught me looking slightly guilty a few weeks ago in the SCMP‘s Post Magazine chatting to the hilarious Kylie Knott about my tasty little Home Kong Kitchen initiative: Baking A Difference (geddit?) for Hong Kong’s homeless! Thanks so much to the SCMP for this nice little plug of HKK and Mental Ideas, which is currently broadcasting on RTHK.
BLOWN AWAY by the response to this article, solidarity and generosity of Hongkongers mobilizing support to help the most vulnerable! This project has never failed to rejuvenate my spirits and restore my faith in humanity, bringing me together with so many inspiring individuals and organizations that epitomize the spirit of Hong Kong!
HUGE thanks to bighearted artist Juliana Kungfor designing Home Kong Kitchen‘s emblem! It has everything I love: character, beauty and flying bagels! (Actually, I think they’re meant to be orbs, but I saw bagels. I see bagels everywhere now. They’re plastered on every billboard, graffitied on every work of art. Mona Lisa’s smile? Bagels. Munch’s Scream? Bagels. Birth of Venus? Bagels. Map of the MTR? Bagels. The New Fragrance by Christian Dior? Bagels. Leonardo’s Last Supper? What else?? Bagels.)
I’ve discovered every homemade bagel weighs the same as a brick and that lugging vast quantities of bricks bagels around has really paid off in terms of honing my hump! (Sadly not the lovely lady lumps kind; more the Quasimodo kind…) If you’re interested in volunteering for Home Kong Kitchen, please fill in the form below!
Episode 2ofSharp Painsaired on RTHK Radio 3 Oct 27, 2020. It continues the last Tuesday of every month @ 2.50pm HKT as the final item on Noreen Mir’s 123 Show! This one’s an illiterate one and called Home Skool…
For the next few weeks, up until Christmas, I’ll be posting an interview with a different author each week! Each writer will read a short excerpt from their allegory. Don’t miss it!!!
In a daze to learn my first (and only) poem,War of Voices, has won a place in the 2020 Proverse Poetry Prizeand will be published inProverse Publishing‘s 2021 anthology next April! Which place (last place?) will be announced at a reception in Hong Kong Nov 19.
My late grandfather, a poet, who also dabbled in banking, would be proud! I’d love to say he was an inspiration but since his legacy is all in Welsh (and it’s a sin to translate Welsh poetry into English) it’s impossible for me to tell if he’s been much of an influence or not.
Thank you, Proverse! You have made a wannabe poet with more issues than Vogue very happy.
So… a white American teacher in his mid-50s has been exposed by super-sleuth Nury Vittachi, Hong Kong’s answer to Danger Mouse, for posing as a young Chinese activist all over the world’s media, writing prolifically about his experiences as a student leader in the Hong Kong Protests for the New York Times and the Guardian, winning praise from ex-guv Chris Patten, being followed on Twitter by Joshua Wong and Nathan Law and writing several books about his experiences as a younger, better looking Chinese dude.
I myself have occasionally dabbled in the murky world of pseudonyms. My legal name is obviously Miss Adventure, but if I want to write, produce or present something that’s really sh*t, I will invariably use the pseudonym Sadie Kaye. The tragic thing is that Sadie Kaye, unlike Kong Tsung-gan, is a real person. Real as in really, really thick. It’s been 8 years and she hasn’t even noticed all the phony baloney I’ve been putting out as her. Also we both look quite similar because we were both born in a lighthouse on an artificial island 5 miles off the coast of Sai Kung, which makes my identity theft more legitimate somehow.
But this article does throw up some uncomfortable moral dilemmas. Who is the man in the profile picture? And does it count as yellow face if the picture is in black and white?
This summer I’ve been on a roll and making a lot of dough! Thanks to the amazing team effort of Ying, Moira, Chriz, Raquel, Mercy, Michelle, Emma and Amy, we were able to donate ALL THIS to Hong Kong charity Breadline! (And this was just Week 1…)
The food waste charity, founded by Daisy Tam Diers, does a cracking job of feeding the homeless, elderly, migrants and refugees living well below the breadline on the streets or in shelters. The charity usually relies on food waste donations from cafes and restaurants, but with most operating restricted hours at low capacity, Breadline and other food waste charities have been unable to keep up with demand at a time it has never been higher. So after reading an article in the HKFP, I rallied a few of the neighbors together to see if we could feasibly bake our own to help the charity continue its work during the pandemic.
For the past couple of months we have made this a weekly initiative and we’d love to have your support! If you’re based in Sai Kung/ Clearwater Bay/ Tseung Kwan O and would like to join our Baker’s Dirty Half Dozen, fill in the form below! We’re all novices so don’t let a trivial thing like experience put you off. My first loaf came out of the oven not just burnt, but on fire! It still tasted pretty good though, once I’d given it a good hose down with the fire extinguisher.
We were also able to donate at least 12 shop bought loaves to Feeding Hong Kong, who had received an anonymous tip off about my baking and decided their insurance policy didn’t cover it.
We are now exploring the possibility of setting up an online bakery, Home Kong Kitchen, where you can order home made breads, pastries, muffins and other yummy treats online and we deliver it to your home. We can’t promise it’ll be the best you’ve ever tasted but we can promise every cent we make will be donated to homeless charities. We are also collaborating with local artists to create sustainable bread boxes out of recycled waste with doodled designs and messages of solidarity to our homeless friends.
