Thanks to Hong Kong Buzz for publishing this piece on my Mental Ideas Podcast‘s AIB Awards nomination, film Transference‘s release (available NOW on Apple, Amazon and loads of other indie film platforms!), Proverse Poetry Prize anthology place and other happenings in the buzzy month of November!
You can watch the 2020 AIBs live TOMORROW (Fri Nov 13) and next Monday (Nov 16) in a 2-part virtual awards event webcast at 11pm HKT/ 3pm GMT on the AIB’s website and Facebook page! 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 still giddy with nervous energy and bewildered awe just to be included as a nominee at all!
#2020 AIBs #Association for International Broadcasting #Mental Ideas #RTHK
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!
BLOWN AWAY by the response to this article, solidarity and generosity of Hongkongers mobilizing support to help the most vulnerable! 2020 has been a difficult year but this project has rejuvenated my spirits and restored my faith in humanity, bringing me together with so many inspiring individuals and organizations that epitomize the spirit of Hong Kong!
Thanks to you, Home Kong Kitchen is collecting and delivering bread, bagels and muffins to unlicensed shelters, refuges and people on the streets most days. We’ve also delivered vast quantities of shop-bought bread donated to us to charities Impact HK and Feeding HK via Breadline.
HUGE thanks to Daisy Tam Diers for orchestrating our bread runs and bighearted artist Juliana Kung for 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 bread around has really paid off in honing my hump! (Sadly not the lovely lady lump kind; the Quasimodo kind…) If you’re interested in supporting Home Kong Kitchen, please fill in the form below! I’m especially keen to hear from volunteer drivers to assist with deliveries on a one-off or regular basis!
If you’re unsure how to pronounce my name correctly, this is it!! 💜💜💜
In this preview of a series of podcasts I am making about Hong Kong Writers Circle, I interview HKWC Chairman Chris Madden and Nathan Laurer, Chief Editor of the Circle’s 2020 anthology, Masking the City: Hong Kong in Allegory. The anthology (which has just received a rave review in the SCMP) is being launched at a Hong Kong Literary Festival event at the Hong Kong Fringe Club this Friday (Nov 13). It’s free to attend so check it out!!! The anthology is now available to buy at Bookazine and on Amazon!
For the next few weeks, up until Christmas, I’ll be posting an interview with a different author from the Writer’s Circle each week! Each writer will read a short excerpt from their allegory. Don’t miss it!!!
Episode 1 of my new monthly humor column, Sharp Pains, broadcasted live on RTHK Radio 3‘s 123 Show Sept 29, 2020 at its new regular time of 2.50pm HKT! For those who missed it, you can download it as a podcast by clicking any of the links below! The first episode was called ‘Ghost‘
The Association for International Broadcasting have just published their shortlist for the 2020 AIB Awards – and I am blown away my quirky Mental Ideas Podcast is among the nominees in the Factual Podcast category! 🙏 The winners will be announced at a virtual event, streamed live by Al Jazeera Nov 13 & Nov 16. Oh 2020: what a rollercoaster of highs and lows (mainly lows) you have been! If I hadn’t started the year with bipolar disorder, I’d almost certainly have developed it by now… 🤣🤣🤣
Brace yourself for the first episode of my humorous new audio column, Sharp Pains, which launches on RTHK Radio 3‘s 123 Show Sept 29! The series will also feature actor Philippe Joly voicing the part of ‘Daddy’.
I’m also super-excited to be producing & presenting two new podcast series: Writer Unblocked & Hong Kong Marriage Stories. The former is now in production and the latter in pre-production for next year!
In a daze to learn my first (and only) poem, War of Voices, has won a place in the 2020 Proverse Poetry Prize and will be published in Proverse 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.
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.
Roll models
Covid-19: Hong Kong food charity struggles to assist needy as partners suspend donations
Transference: A Bipolar Love Story received a Special Jury Mention in the Narrative Feature category at the New York Socially Relevant Film Festival! So proud of my involvement as a co-producer of this indie gem, directed by and starring the one and only Raffaello Degruttola. Congrats Raff! You can meet the filmmakers (including Raff) by subscribing to SRFF’s YouTube channel HERE!
Big thanks to @SR-FilmFestNY and the judges for recognizing our film. Congratulations to the cast & crew of Lorik for winning the category! And thanks to all of you who liked and shared my own and Mental Ideas’ posts about the festival on social media!
Next stop: the Arizona International Film Festival, where Transference has been selected in the Dramatic Feature category. The festival kicks off Oct 1st!
