The Coal Black Sea

I am extremely proud to announce that after eight years of research, my new book, The Coal Black Sea, Winston Churchill and the Worst Naval Catastrophe of the First World War is published today by The History Press, (ISBN: 9780750999601). 

On the morning of 22 September 1914, when three Royal Navy armoured cruisers were sunk by a German U-boat, in the southern North Sea, just six weeks into the First World War, 1,459 men and boys lost their lives, shocking the entire British nation. When HMS Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy sank, the coal from their bunkers turned the sea inky black for as far as the eye could see, as hundreds of naked men struggled for their lives in the frigid water.

One of those lost that day was my great Uncle, my grandmother’s older brother, Leading Seaman William J Potter RFA. Six of those lost came from my home town of Whitstable in Kent. The ships were originally designed and built on the Clyde in Scotland for the China Station in Hong Kong. There was next to nothing in the way of support for the victim’s families ashore, apart from an embryonic armed forces charity called SSFA (later SSAFA). There were lots of personal connections for me.

Initially, I was intrigued why such a high profile wartime naval incident which made such a dramatic impact could have such a low profile. When I served in the Royal Navy, none of my family told me about Uncle Will being a First World War hero or his death in HMS Cressy. The incident had been successfully brushed under the carpet for a century, until a retired Dutch physics lecturer called Henk van der Linden, wrote a book about the so called Live Bait Squadron and initiated a major commemorative event at Chatham Historic Dockyard in 2014. Even then, it was never explained why it had taken so long for these brave men to be recognised.

My aim was to dramatically recreate the story of the incident as a gripping non-fiction narrative from the perspective of those serving at sea based on numerous press reports from survivors, from official records and accounts from respected historians. It quickly became apparent that things didn’t add up. At the time, this was the biggest story of the war—it made international headlines and questions were asked in parliament. The king was distraught and the Prime Minister Asquith distressed. The death toll was greater than Trafalgar or the sinking of the Lusitania. It was only a few less than the Titanic’s death toll, yet hardly anyone has heard of it. The incident struggled to escape from the margins of official histories. It was never classified as an official action and was generally described as a sort of tragic anomaly of little relevance to the war at sea. It didn’t even have a proper name. Something didn’t make sense.

In search of an explanation, I explored the dusty corridors of Whitehall and the lumbering bureaucratic edifice that was the Admiralty—responsible for all aspects of the largest Navy in the world, from pay and uniforms to shipbuilding and weapons development.

And it led me to the man in charge. The 39-year-old charismatic, energetic, industrious intellectually agile, brash, controversial and highly ambitious, First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. The man with the Midas touch.  

I knew little about Churchill other than his glowing reputation as the greatest Briton of all time. I certainly had no axe to grind but the more I discovered about the first nine months of the First World War at sea, and Churchill’s response when things stated to go wrong on his watch, the more horrified I became.

If you read the book you can draw your own conclusions but even the most ardent admirer of the great man would have to concede it was not his finest hour, by any means.

My own conclusion, for what it is worth, is that, not for the first time in history, or the last, brave men (it was men in this case) were sent to war and performed their duty with distinction and cheerful stoicism, without the necessary tools for the job. They were then artfully and brutally stitched up with sophistry and spin for political expediency, while their grieving families were left to fend for themselves.

Some might say, nothing changes but at least a humble and noble attempt has been made to put the record straight on behalf of the 1,459, and Uncle Will. 

 Even 108 years later, the truth should still matter.

 

Lest we forget

 

Remembrance Day was observed in the UK last week with a dignified two minute’s silence but there was no commemoration for the tens of thousands of families mourning the victims of COVID-19.

There were no crowds at the Cenotaph in London this year, or ranks of marching veterans of course, because the nation is in lockdown. Yet the unprecedented combination of Remembrance Day and a lockdown to combat a deadly pandemic, did not prompt any sort of memorial event for those lost to the disease. 

Of course, these grannies, grandads, uncles and aunts, were not in uniform; they did not die in battle or while defending freedom; though surely their families deserve a whisper of comfort. An ounce of common compassion.

The official total is 56,698 COVID-19 deaths registered in England and Wales, up to 30 October 2020 (31,339 men and 25,359 women) but there have been no two minute's silence, no floral tributes, no doorstep applause and no high-profile services of remembrance.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 in England and Wales is greater than the Luftwaffe caused during the Blitz of London in World War Two. It’s now a greater loss of life than the Black Death and the Great Plague. It’s more lives than the Royal Navy lost in the whole of World War One and that took four years, not eight months.

Yet even on Remembrance Day, it seems these dead are already forgotten and their families apparently abandoned to grieve alone.

Just imagine, if 56,698 people had all died in a terrible fire in a sports stadium, or in a brutal terrorist attack or in a natural disaster- a tsunami or an earthquake say. It’s hard to imagine everyone would just carry on. No black armbands, no services of remembrance, no tragic personal anecdotes of grief and loss, inundating TV and social media.

The British are sometimes accused of being over enthusiastic to embrace an orgy of grief  but when 56,698 all die of COVID-19, most just look the other way. It’s a mass denial. A taboo.

Officially, one in 85 people in England and Wales are currently infected with COVID-19 but many people I speak to think the pandemic has been “over blown”. A few think it doesn’t really exist at all. Others point out that lots of people die in winter anyway or suggest it only seriously affects ethnic minorities in the north of England.

There is an online petition to establish a UK national holiday in remembrance of the victims of COVID-19; as of today, it has 56 signatures.

 According to the Office of National Statistics There were 1,379 deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) in England and Wales in the week ending 30 October 2020 but we are not told who they were, or where they were, or how they may have contracted the disease. It feels like a conspiracy of silence.

These are dangerous levels of delusion and denial about a deadly disease on a grand scale and my suspicion is that it is no accident.

Because if more attention is drawn to the epic scale of this public health disaster and the mass aggregate of personal family tragedies that it consists of, some people might want to ask the forbidden question which those in authority must fear most: why are so many people in Britain people dying?

According to John Hopkins University, the UK’s per capita death rate from COVID-19 is the fifth worst in the world.  Only Belgium, Spain, Argentina and Brazil fare worse than the UK in terms of deaths per 100,000 of population.

More people might also wonder why a rich nation like the UK, with a well-established public health organization and a comprehensive state- funded national health service, staffed by dedicated professionals, is doing quite so badly ?

Britain may have talent and it may have a great bake off too but, lest we forget, compared to most nations in the world its government has proven to be abject at preventing tens of thousands of its own people dying from an infectious disease. 

The least they might do is acknowledge the scale of the tragic loss and offer a dignified commemoration for the dead and a crumb of comfort to the grieving.

 

 

The taste of China

Please spare a thought for the people of Hong Kong today. After more than a year of protest and more than 23 years of aspiring for nothing more than the democracy and basic civil liberties they were promised, the people of Hong Kong have been betrayed and face defeat.

Might triumphed over right today at 11pm local time, when Beijing approved a new security law to be imposed on Hong Kong in violation of the 'one country - two systems' principal. It lists four categories of offences – secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security. The maximum penalty for each crime is life imprisonment and a new Gestapo-style security agency will be established in Hong Kong to investigate political cases and “strengthen the management” of foreign non-governmental organisations and media agencies.

Make no mistake, this new law sanctions a police state and outlaws anything that Beijing considers to be a threat to national security which is a euphemism for anything that the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP) disapproves of.

As I write this, citizens I have been following on Twitter for months are cancelling their accounts and pro-democracy activists are disbanding their groups for fear of being arrested, extradited to Mainland China, denied a fair trial and spending the rest of their lives behind bars in a grim prison in an unknown location. This isn’t a theoretical civil rights issue; this is raw fear.

One year ago, on July 1st 2019, hundreds of thousands, including me, marched against the proposed Extradition bill. It was a positive, peaceful and creative campaign which was ignored and then oppressed until it descended into a series of street confrontations between police and protestors.

I make no claims to be one of the regular battle-scarred front-line news reporters from that period but by November, I found myself taking refuge in a small burger restaurant in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong, weeping and sniffling uncontrollably from tear gas inhalation.

I had spent the previous few hours covering the local election hustings in nearby Victoria Park which was broken up by baton-wielding riot police firing tear gas indiscriminately into the crowds which included families with young children. I witnessed an election candidate called Richard Chan, a grey-haired middle-aged man with spectacles, being pepper sprayed in the face by police officers, violently wrestled to the ground and made to kneel while he was handcuffed. He was clearly shocked and distraught and he told me he had no idea why he had been arrested.

The burger bar had become an improvised first aid station for press, election candidates and protesters as a street battle raged outside. Staff calmly sealed the glass doors with wet towels to keep out the tear gas.  I could see residents, shoppers and tourists outside dashing for cover to avoid the toxic fumes billowing around.

Police had just started using a new type of CS gas sourced from undisclosed suppliers in Mainland China. It penetrated most types of gas mask (including mine) and had a thicker and more acrid synthetic taste. It hurts. While I knelt on the floor of the restaurant and cursed about the new gas, a volunteer paramedic washes my eyes out with saline solution.

“What the hell is that stuff?” I asked him.

“That my friend, is the taste of China” he replied.

This draconian law is more of the bitter taste of the authoritarian government of China but few will stand up for the courageous people of Hong Kong and their ideals. Senior pro-Beijing figures in Hong Kong were enthusiastically endorsing the law before they knew what it contained. There is too much money at stake and too many craven vested interests ready to kow-tow for any serious objections to be raised.

Hongkongers will be left to fight for themselves despite the impossible odds but who will be next to sample the taste of China?

Blood, bombs and pollution- welcome to Hong Kong

It’s genuinely shocking. Watching such a great city unravel in the intense summer heat.  

White shirted mobs assaulting members of the public with bamboo poles in an MTR station while the police turn a blind eye. There was human blood shed on the polished marble floor of a public transport hub in Hong Kong last night. It’s hard to digest. This is the safest city in the world, or at least it was.

There is no shortage of phone video footage from Yuen Long MTR station of terrified passengers standing in an open train carriage, trying to defend themselves with umbrellas, as thugs hurl abuse and attempt to beat them with sticks and poles. One unconfirmed report suggests a pregnant woman was beaten to the ground and one male passenger is in a critical medical condition.

The police were nowhere to be seen for more than 30 minutes and no arrests were subsequently made. There are widespread allegations that the mob had Triad affiliations and may even have been paid to exact some retribution on protestors, returning from a demonstration in Central that evening.

From all accounts the town of Yuen Long is now shut down with mobs prowling the streets like a dystopian scene from 1970s Haiti.

It was reported this morning that bomb making equipment was miraculously found in premises rented to pro -independence political groups who reported a break-in to police a few months ago. Police were reportedly "acting on a tip off". Really? Do they think we are all stupid and will all just swallow this garbage?

The sea is polluted, the air is polluted and now the entire political system is polluted.

The political establishment is now running on empty in terms of credibility or legitimacy. Propped up by Beijing, by the corporate elite and now, it seems by organized crime syndicates. They remain completely impervious to the demands of ordinary Hongkongers.

No-one knows where we are all headed. It feels like a revolution but it also feels like a pending catastrophe. No-one is predicting a happy ending.

Christmas in Shanghai

Christmas morning is not greeted by a choir of heavenly angels but by the excruciating whine of an angle grinder being enthusiastically operated by a labourer outside my hotel window at 7am. Welcome to Christmas in Shanghai.

If, like me, you dream of avoiding Christmas every year, then China is the place for you. The religious festival that justifies a three-month febrile commercial circus in Europe does not even merit a public holiday on the Mainland. Almost any international hotel anywhere else in Asia will try to include a compulsory and overpriced Christmas gala dinner and so maintain the tradition of ripping off their guests during the season of goodwill to all men. Not in China though.

Don’t think for a moment you might escape the Christian festivities in Buddhist Thailand and Myanmar or Muslim Malaysia or Indonesia. Not a chance. I once travelled for several hours in a bumpy speedboat to a remote island, off the coast of Cambodia, to escape Christmas, only to be greeted by a member of the hotel staff in swimming shorts and a Santa hat.

“Are you here for merry Christmas or merry Christmas and happy new years,” the man inquired earnestly looking for my name on a list on his clipboard.

China is the place to be at Christmas if you don’t appreciate the tackiest extremes of Christmas fare being rammed down your throat 24 hours per day and Shanghai is perfect.

Apart from the over-enthusiasm for power tools in the early morning, this vibrant, young, switched on commercial metropolis gets Christmas just about right with a suitable smattering of festive glitter, cold clear days, amazing food and some great bars to drink to forget the festive season.

The quirky Muller hotel located in the former French concession, once owned by a European business man who wished to indulge his daughters’ passion for fairy tales by building a home that resembles a 1930s version of Disney’s magic castle, gets it spot on. Of course, there are the obligatory cheesy Christmas decorations and jingle bells is on a closed loop over breakfast but at least it’s better than Abba or Jonny Mathis and rest assured, few in China have heard of Cliff Richard.  And it’s a small price to pay for the fact that all the public attractions, museums and shops remain open over what is considered a holiday period almost everywhere else.

Wrap up warm and browse the boutiques situated along the tree-lined avenues of the French quarter, check out the residence of Soong Chi-ling, try the amazing soup dumplings, or walk the Bund before demolishing a few cocktails in the jazz bar at the Peace Hotel.

For the thinking person’s Christmas, choose China every time. 

Thompson on Trump

It is a bitter disappointment that one of my literary heroes and second-favourite American writer (after Hemingway) is not still with us to offer his acerbic analysis of the election, and subsequent inauguration, of the orange-haired narcissist and sociopath, who now leads what used to be called ‘the free world’.

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world—a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully,” wrote Hunter S Thompson in a frenzy of righteous scorn provoked by his nation’s prosecution of the Iraq War.

The seasoned political journalist and writer of great wit, originality and verve who employed razor-sharp and visceral prose, died in 2005. He was the self-styled “freak” who confronted bullies, hypocrites and bigots, and those “flag-sucking half-wits” who supported them.

Thompson liked to quote Edmund Burke who said the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing and he would not have been content to just wring his hands in despair or whine in moral outrage on social media, about odious President Trump.

Though the hard-drinking, gun-toting and often drug-addled, Thompson was not an obvious paragon of virtue, he possessed a profound sense of liberal justice and was never slow to confront oppressive, totalitarian, corrupt and fascist tendencies, wherever he detected them. Over his years of reporting, he developed a talent for hitting the political nail on the head, with his unique uncompromising style.

“At the end of the decade,” he wrote of the 1990s, “no one will be sure of anything except that you must obey the rules, sex will kill you, politicians lie, rain is poison and the world is run by whores.”

One can only speculate about what he would have made of a political era where inheriting lots of money and being popular on reality TV, were the key qualifications for holding the highest offices of state. “Doom is the operative ethic,” he once wrote and when he describes “the ominous polarization between right and wrong,” he could easily be referring to 2017. Donald Trump is a monster-ego, fuelled by undiluted hubris, created in 1990s America and Thompson could sense his creation in his own dystopian visions.

“He is like some atavistic endeavor on speed- just another stupid monster as Attorney General of the USA, a vengeful jackass with an IQ of 66,” was his description of John R. "Jay" Ashcroft who he also regarded as “dumb as rock.”  Perhaps, like Thompson, more should just tell it how it is and give up excusing or seeking to rationalise those who support bigotry, ignorance and greed. 

 “They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.”

Sweat, sweat and tears.

Now temperatures are soaring to inhumane levels in Hong Kong, it is time to suffer the season of ultimate social indignity. 

By now I should be conditioned to the anxiety of being witnessed melting uncontrollably in rivers of sweat, like the traumatised ex-Vietnam pilot Ted Striker, in the movie Airplane but like Striker, I just can't get over it.

While the city's urban elite remain insulated in their own artificially controlled arctic microclimate, from temperature-controlled chauffeur driven limousine to air-conditioned office block, they remain blissfully unaware of the cruel embarrassment us lesser mortals must suffer. They have probably never even heard of a 'three shirt day'.

The  three-shirt procedure is mandatory for those  forced to venture outside  into the huge open air pizza oven to stagger to bus stops, ferry piers or MTR stations.

For those not familiar with the protocol, it necessitates a replacement shirt being concealed in a small discrete plastic bag together with a small bottle of highly pungent deodorant. Shortly  before reaching the intended destination, it is necessary to dive discretely into  a conveniently located public toilet. Here,  start to unpeel the offending wet shirt (shirt one) that has adhered itself to your skin during the journey in the searing heat. 

A dry replacement can then be put on over flaccid damp skin after a liberal dosing of toxic deodorant has been applied to the upper body. Always wait at least three minutes to dry and avoid the temptation to use toilet paper to mop excess moisture from your upper body. This can result in tiny fragments becoming attached to eyebrows or other body  hair, giving colleagues the misleading  impression that you are suffering from a rare and contagious dermatological disorder.

Shirt three remains in a reserve plastic bag in case of any unexpected social invitations that evening. If so, the offending shirt (2) is  normally removed  in a small toilet cubicle in the bar or restaurant. This exercise often requires the agility and grim determination of Houdini escaping from a strait jacket.

Abstaining from this golden rule, as I did recently for an informal party at a neighbour's house, a short walk away from my home, will only produce tragic results. Even though the sun had set and I had taken  the precaution of walking at a funereal pace, it did not prevent me bursting into spontaneous fountains  of fluid by the time I entered the party. My light-blue shirt (always a high risk sweat colour) had stuck to me like glue, so that my nipples protruded from the sweat-soaked cotton in a revolting  limpid mess.

The desultory party small talk stopped abruptly apon my dripping entrance.  The  host took one horrified look at me and said, "please, go inside and I will find you a shirt to wear. " It was the calm matter-of -fact paternal tone often reserved for a small child who has accidently defecated in their trousers.  

A friend told me later that  it was the first time he had ever heard of anyone being offered a replacement shirt on arrival at a Hong Kong social engagement and he has lived here for over 37 years.

The host kindly produced three short sleeve shirts on a hangar and asked me to choose one. The first had tiny motifs of Bob Marley spread across it, the second was a sick mustard colour so I opted for the third, an innocuous faded blue floral patterned print.

As if the evening could not get off to a worse start, the shirt, while perfectly tasteful, was several sizes too small for my ample frame.  The buttons stretched across my torso and grey chest hair sprouted through the gaps like dead weeds on a cracked patio. I felt like I was about to audition, unsuccessfully no doubt, for a part in a 1970s porn movie.

I decided to spend the remainder of the party sat very still within close range of an air conditioning unit but the final indignity was yet to come. On making my excuses, hoping at least to make a graceful exit the host insisted on having his shirt returned.  He explained he was about to go on holiday to Europe and it was one of his favourites. I paused hoping in vain that this was an ironic joke as all eyes were turned to me once more.   I slowly removed his shirt and  left, rather self-consciously and topless, to make my way home in the dark. 

Hong Kong Hamlet

I was lucky enough to enjoy a memorable evening out a few weeks ago, with Benedict Cumberbatch and my mother in law. 

He was starring in the National Theatre production of Hamlet which was showing at a cinema in Hong Kong and she was visiting from England. I was eager to see Cumberbatch in action after the penny finally dropped that he has become a huge media sensation in Asia. On a recent visit to Vietnam, he was the only subject the young female representative, meeting me at  Da Nang airport, wanted to chat about.

"I love Benedict...he is my lover," she confessed solemnly as we waited patiently by the baggage carousel .

The cinema was sold out though it has to be said, this production of Hamlet is average at best. Not surprisingly, it is very focused on the energetic superstar in the title role, as he dashes and sprints over the stage like a hyper-active labrador.  This interpretation  has the youthful exuberance of a sixth-form production and lacks a little soul and finesse.  While the innovation is to be applauded, seeing a play at the cinema is perhaps the worst of all worlds. You miss the intimacy of live actors and can't make up for it with sexy cinematography or special effects, like in Roman Polanski's classic film adaptation of Macbeth.

Anyone spending over three hours in a local cinema risks acute hypothermia, given the sub-arctic air conditioning preferred in these parts, so at least there was lots of energy to keep the audience's pulses racing.  

The play was also a timely reminder of what a bloody good writer Shakespeare was when it came to dealing with those timeless political themes of ambition, corruption, injustice, deception and disorder. Some of his lines work as perfectly in Asia in 2016 as they did in London in 1597, when his work was first performed.  In Hamlet, when it all starts to go noticeably 'Pete Tong' and Polonius delivers the famous line  "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark," there can't have been many in the audience, who were not thinking about recent events in Hong Kong.

There is a very witty script for an updated and highly satirical 'Hong Kong Hamlet' that someone once lent me and surely it about time it was dusted down and performed.

"When sorrows come, they come not single spies but as battalions," laments Claudius and few would disagree with him, some four centuries after the line was written.  It's a shame Shakespeare  is not still around to write the next series of House of Cards and add a modest short cameo role for Asia's latest heart-throb, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Lessons in Dissent

There is a natural reticence on the part of many Westerners in Hong Kong to demonstrate overt support for the Umbrella Movement and Occupy Central. However sympathetic to the cause, they fear it might inadvertently reinforce the Beijing fictional narrative that youthful dissent on the streets of Hong Kong is somehow inspired and supported by Western capitalist agents.  In reality, many of the activists weren't even born when Hong Kong was a British colony and when you visit the Occupy sites most of the well-behaved youngsters in the sprawling tented communities assume you are just another gawping tourist. 'Gweilos' are just about irrelevant in their campaign.

My  feeling of impotence and irrelevance was only increased by watching the excellent new movie by Mathew Torne, shown at the Foreign Correspondent's Club this week which succeeds in touching a few raw nerves.

Lessons in Dissent documents the contrasting political development of two very young social activists, Joshua Wong,  the church-going co-founder of the student group Scholarism and Ma Jai, a more vehement anti-establishment figure and instinctive rebel, with appropriately long hair and a rock & roll personal image. Curiously, both boys grew up on the same middle class housing estate in Ap Lei Chau and while Wong becomes the well-scrubbed media darling of the student campaign to oppose National Education and Beijing's tightening grip of authority on Hong Kong's civil society, Ma Jai becomes slightly cynical about relying on media-invented celebrities like Wong to achieve political change.

It's a fascinating dual portrait combined with an exposure of the extremely mild but determined and idealistic version of radicalism, born in Hong Kong schools and universities that is now at the very heart of the Umbrella Movement. Torne should be congratulated for his foresight, fortune or instinctive talent for spotting such an influential movement and its key characters, at such an embryonic stage and bringing it to wider attention.

Joshua Wong appears as articulate, energetic, persuasive, politely recalcitrant and occasionally over- zealous as he  confronts leading establishment figures about their failures in office. He is truly impressive and the viewer has to remind themselves this is a vulnerable 15 year old child we are witnessing, directing dissent against arguably the most powerful and ruthless organisation on the planet- the Chinese Communist Party.

Wong, now just 18, is on a hunger strike. Today it was reported that his blood sugar levels are dropping to alarming levels but he is refusing medical advice to accept glucose water. He is younger than my youngest son and he and his colleagues like Ma Jai, are prepared to risk their health for their ideals while the rest of us gawp, sneer, ignore, or even moan about them delaying our taxi journey by a few precious minutes.

Hats off to Mr Wong. That's what I say.  Well done son and please ...take care.

There's a rat in the kitchen...or is there?

It is hardly cause for acute alarm when there is evidence of a tiny mouse in a flat, particularly when you co-reside with poisonous centipedes, burping toads, cockroaches, geckos and the occasional snake.

The first tell tale signs of our furry visitor were little pellets of black poo in my wife's knicker drawer.

It was early days in our epic challenge with this uninvited guest but in retrospect, it was the first indication that this was no ordinary rodent.  Subsequent weeks were to confirm this was no less than a super-rodent with an apparent weakness for junk food and  a perverse obsession with women's underwear.

Over recent weeks this little fella has become increasingly cheeky. Reluctant to encourage his nocturnal wandering around my wife's lingerie, we decided to close the kitchen door overnight. The next morning revealed that he had chewed through the door frame (presumably in a desperate attempt to escape and surround himself in lace and silk) leaving a significant pile of wood shavings and brick dust on the floor. He has also scaled the highest shelves in the kitchen and deliberately tipped my emergency rations of pot noodle on to the floor below, splitting the carton and allowing him a salty and very unhealthy snack.

Having developed a worthy respect for my adversary, I was slightly hesitant to revert to the local Chinese anti-rodent solutions that can verge on the barbaric. Instead,  I tried opening the kitchen window and closing the internal kitchen door in case we had blocked his means of escape. Things looked encouraging for a couple of days except that a large Huntsman spider took advantage of the open window to gain access and take up residence in the cupboard under the sink where he remains getting bigger and more grumpy. When there was no immediate sign of super -rodent, we deluded ourselves that he had returned to his family in sleepy rodent-ville, deep in the Hung Shing Ye jungle.

And then one evening, two days later we saw him , darting under the gas hob towards the pot noodles and he did not look like a rat or a mouse. He (or she) actually looked quite cute (ish) with pointed ears and legs that splayed out at the back like a squirrel. This confirmed sighting presented the perfect opportunity for our friends to play the role of expert zoologist and confident identifications ranged from a possum to a ground squirrel and even a mongoose.

Meanwhile our bananas were being eaten in greater quantities and when I left some English muffins on my desk inside my rucksack after a late night out, he found those and gobbled them up too.

The gloves were off. We had clearly exhausted all diplomatic avenues and it was time for tough action against this unilateral and unprovoked terrorist rodent attack. A trip to the hardware stores in the village highlighted a number of solutions. First I was offered a small clear plastic bag from under the counter with a skull and crossbones crudely printed on the side above a forbidding label saying 'poison'. The storekeeper refused to take any payment but insisted that I must not accept it if I had children or maybe he meant if I wanted to have children. In another store I was offered a solution which, judging by the illustration the side of the box, was like fly-paper for mice and rats. This highly effective adhesive pad would ensure that any passing rodent would just simply stick to it. But what then, I thought?

Finally, I stumbled across the perfect solution. For a mere $35 HK I procured an intricate wire cage with a spring door that can be baited, in this case with the obvious choice of English muffins, banana and a pair of lacy panties from Marks & Spencer. This will be humane, effective and Monsiuer Rodent can be released into the wild several kilometres from my pot noodles and my wife's underwear.

So tonight is the big night in our struggle with super rodent. The bait is set and the lights are dimmed. Game on my little furry friend. The morning will reveal if I have finally outwitted my worthy yet elusive opponent and he can be returned to the wild with the other rats, possums, ground-squirrels and mongeese. Or will this be the year of the rat, after all?  

Paradise Lost- Pulau Pangkor

Even the male leaf monkey turns his nose up with disgust, having tentatively inspected my squalid hotel room from the balcony outside.

Perhaps inevitably, the Pangkor Bay View Hotel does not offer a view, except of a rubbish strewn wasteland and it is certainly nowhere near a bay. Sadly, this crumbling concrete edifice located a few hundred meters up a scruffy narrow road, is entirely devoid of any charm, rather like the rest of the island.

Once upon a time, this was a natural unspoilt gem, sited just off the west coast of peninsular Malaysia in the straits of Malacca. A few humble fishing villages, some quiet white sand beaches and the forsaken ruins of a 17^th century Dutch fort, reminding visitors of the days when this was a strategic maritime spot in the lucrative spice trade and later in tin and rubber.

As the ferry from Lumut passes the naval base and approaches the traditional fishing villages of the east coast of Pangkor, it seems surprisingly sleepy and undeveloped. It’s not difficult to imagine how, not long ago, it was a romantic island paradise, popular with Malaysian holiday makers and a few western back-packers. Now very few visit except organised tour parties of hysterical local students, those imprisoned behind the high fences of luxury resorts who could be in Barbados for all they know and those few who still pay any attention to Lonely Planet.

The mountainous spine of the island is thick with dense steaming jungle but the periphery is lined with a smooth black tarmac road that separates the forest from the sea.  Along the east coast piles of refuse are either stacked in stinking heaps near the traffic or just distributed casually across the beaches and on the forest floor. Polystyrene food cartons, plastic bottles, discarded food waste, soiled nappies, plastic bags; an impressive smorgasbord of shite.

Teluk Nipah is a handsome U-shaped bay with two boulder strewn islands guarding each end of it, which has been tragically ruined by callous disregard on the part of humanity.

Concrete bunkers have been built on the shoreline to accommodate tacky shops selling “I love Pangkor” T shirts. The narrow strip adjoining the road looks like an abandoned seaside refugee camp complete with rusting barbeques, discarded kayaks, wrecked jet-skis and dilapidated temporary buildings. Hundreds of faded orange life jackets hang from every tree on temporary string lines, ready for a maritime disaster that may have already occurred. Giant black Hornbills perch on the fence of a deserted restaurant being fed sticky rice and crisps by bored tourists and those greedy Hornbills won’t hesitate to share anyone's lunch.

Surly and recalcitrant youths sit on motor scooters and rev the engines before screaming away in to the distance.

This is high-season but there is an unmistakable atmosphere of mass resignation and desolation as a white plastic chair is washed in the surf and the high water line is marked by a thick strand line of marine rubbish. There are more pariah dogs to be seen patrolling the beach than tourists sunbathing and a single converted fishing boat tows an inflatable raft at high speed across the polluted bay.

There are no high-rise resorts in this small soulless village so the greed of international corporate groups and global capitalism cannot be blamed for this local man-made disaster.

At least that monkey has the good taste return to his jungle home in the mountains and I can escape from this lost paradise on the first ferry back to the mainland the morning. 

Learning Cantonese, I think I’m learning Cantonese, no I don’t think so.

For someone who has exhibited little or no aptitude for mastering second languages to date, learning Cantonese is proving to be several steps too far.

Only two lessons into an intensive course of eight, at the Panda Cantonese Academy on Lamma Island with my devoted and proficient tutor, Dilys, and things are already looking ominous.

Cantonese is monosyllabic which should make it simple. Unfortunately, it also has a number of tones that must be mastered before vocabulary can be attempted or grammar properly grappled with. Some text books insist there are no less than thirteen tones but Dilys has decided we will stick to six, which is more than enough for the time being, as far as I am concerned.

Because of these different tones, one word can have multiple meanings depending on which tone is adopted and making basic errors can have quite devastating consequences on your social life. 

For example, “Ngo Hai (6^th tone) Stuart, “means simply “I am Stuart”.

However, “Ngo Hai (1^st tone) Stuart,” means “I fuck Stuart”.

As you can probably appreciate, this is quite a crucial difference in translation when introducing yourself to the neighbours in Hung Shing Yeh or, even worse, exchanging friendly banter with schoolchildren on the ferry.

One tiny and subtle variation in pronunciation can mean the difference between approving nods of amusement and being arrested.

And when I use my new list of stock Cantonese phrases on local shopkeepers and café owners, they just look at me blankly as though I might have uttered Russian, Hebrew or even Welsh rather than their own Mother tongue.

Tragically, during Lesson two, things descended rapidly from mild embarrassment to utter humiliation.

At least at school you could mime along with the more linguistically gifted or just mumble enthusiastically in the back row but at these intensive one to one sessions at the Panda Academy, there is nowhere to hide.

To be fair, when I was asked to repeat an audio Cantonese conversation between Mr Wong and his boss Miss Cheung, I was still suffering from a slight hangover from a night at the Happy Valley racecourse the night before.  My mind went in to a blind panic as the dialogue speeded up to the pace of near normal conversation.  I started looking at my notebook in desperation when Mr Wong says “Ho Ho” as I thought it might be some sort of Christmas comedy being acted out featuring a Chinese Santa.

This caused  the usually patient Dilys to accuse me of “Chut  Mau” or “cheating” though literally translated it means “chucking the cat out of the house”. I feared that Dilys might chuck me out of her house so poor was my performance.  I am confident she would have done if I had not been persuaded to pay for the first eight lessons in advance.
Poor Dilys has just emailed me the recording of today’s lesson but I am too embarrassed to listen to it. 

Lost in translation without a GPS.

10 out of 10 for Vicente

There are four official warning levels issued by the Hong Kong Observatory during Typhoon season (1,3, 8 and 10) but the first unofficial warning was the gecko in the sink on Saturday morning.

That evening the light in the harbour went distinctly faded and fuzzy as we crossed on the Star Ferry from Tsim Tsa Tsui, as though there was a sandstorm brewing somewhere in Kowloon. Elizabeth reported that her doorman had said something about a typhoon when we bumped into her by the Star Ferry terminal on the central side but we thought little of it.

Then there was a sudden torrential rainstorm during dinner in Central and again on the ferry returning to Lamma Island.

By Sunday morning the sea, which had been like warm brown washing -up  water all week, suddenly felt cool and clear during our morning swim at Hung Shing Ye. Seeing a fish at all is a rarity in Hong Kong waters, which are mostly polluted and overfished but today there was a large shoal of over-excited small silver fish rising and causing a rapid pattering noise on the surface of the water.

By Monday morning it was raining seriously and the official Typhoon warning level was Number One. A tropical storm was developing in the South China Sea but it was still 400km away so this was only a cautionary measure.  No need to panic. Just don’t plan any solo sailing trips across the Taiwan Strait and think about bringing your washing in. I thought it appropriate to tie down the pot plants on the patio, just to enter into the spirit of things.

During the course of Monday the tropical storm somewhere in the South China Sea had turned into Typhoon Vicente and rather than tracking harmlessly west towards Hainan Island, it had turned right 90 degrees and was heading north; straight for us.  Level One was quickly upgraded to Level Three. It was time to start lashing things down.  

The rain was now beating down outside the French windows and squally winds bent the trees over like straws. In the bay, just 92 steps below our patio, the wind was picking up spray from the surface of the silver grey sea and whipping it across the surface of the water. There were now two dozen river trade vessels and coasters visible between the squalls, anchored up in the West Lamma channel, hoping for some shelter from Vicente.

By 5pm we were at Level Eight and mighty Vicente was on his way. He was edging north-west at about 20km per hour towards the Pearl River Estuary and Hong Kong.  At sunset the wind was raging, the rain smashed down in great sheets and for once, there were no mosquitios. I spotted a small frog trying to take shelter in one of my shoes left outside the windows and left him to it.

The night hours were quite magnificent as the storm created an immense din of rain, wind lashed trees, howls, and cracks interspersed with the distant smashes of broken pots and glasses. Sometimes inexplicable scraping noises like a large boulder rubbing against a tin roof. In the background, the steady chorus of frogs croaking and groaning their approval.

Being in the lee of a reasonable sized mountain, we felt we could safely open the patio doors and watch the entire nocturnal display of natural raging violence, as large unidentified flying debris swept past the window. 

Later, the wind changed direction to the south-east and leaves and small pieces of vegetation were being blown in and plastered against the windows by horizontal rainwater spraying in all directions. The patio chairs, carefully stacked and pressed against a sheltered wall were found lying on their back in a hedge on the other side if the flat. It was time to shut the doors and lock them.

By midnight just as we went to bed the warning was raised to Ten for the first time since 1999.  A huge potted plant tied by me to a steel railing was effortlessly bowled over. The bamboo bowed and ducked as wave after wave of rain was smashed down on it by the winds. Lightning flashed through the darkness but the sound of thunder was lost in the cacophony created by the wind.

The next morning the worst was over and it was possible to survey the scene of the worst teenage party you could imagine. Every path littered with branches and leaves of every shape and size. Our sea view had expanded by 25% as the top section of a tree in front of us had been chewed off and spat on the ground. Even narrow spindly branches from hedges had been savagely ripped off by the Typhoon, which had never reached closer than about 30 km from our home. It veered west again about 2am and headed for Macau but that was close enough for comfort.

The tall trees on the beach which families had shaded under last Saturday had been uprooted and dumped on the sand. Water poured from the steps of the Concerto Inn as the rainwater carved a completely new river channel for itself through the small hotel's grounds and via the beach outside to the angry grey sea. A large fallen tree was propped up by a split and partially crushed corrugated iron fence. Our neighbour, Ros, told me it was the worse she had seen in 40 years in Hong Kong. Another neighbour, Annie had been so scared she crawled into a corner of her flat with her dogs- kept away from the windows and hid on the floor praying for it to end. She seemed very shaken.

A typhoon like Vicente is a powerful, frightening and dangerous phenomena though there is also something magnificent and exciting about nature brushing aside mankind with all of our modern sophisticated technology leaving us to quake helplessly in its path. For that reason, I think its 10 out of 10 for naughty Vicente.