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.

 

Locked up in Q Prison Hong Kong

 

These days, you are more likely to be locked up than locked down, in Hong Kong.

This once freewheeling, transient, cosmopolitan and welcoming city has adopted the themes of captivity and isolation with remarkable enthusiasm. If you are looking to visit from the UK or just about any other western nation, you might as well forget it - unless you are an official resident with a valid ID card, double-vaccinated, desperate and/or deranged.

At 21 days, Hong Kong holds the world record for the world’s longest and strictest COVID-19 quarantine incarceration requirement. It's known locally as Q Prison. Even gaining entry to this enforced hotel imprisonment is a protracted test of patience.

The last time I saw Hong Kong airport in May 2020, it was mostly deserted but it still resembled an airport. This time, it resembled a mass human transit station. Long lanes; multiple signs; make-shift Perspex cubicles; solemn officials; forms to be completed and checked; QR codes to be scanned; PCR tests to be performed; certificates to be issued and advisory booklets to be read. 

One masked man behind one of the many cubicles cheerfully informed us that if our 21-day compulsory hotel quarantine was breached for any reason, we were liable to a HK$25,000 fine and six months imprisonment.

Having been officially processed and duly warned, inmates stumbled, exhausted, to the holding area.  Wearing green identity labels, secured around our necks on a red lanyard, we all located our coded and designated white table and chair.  A matching white neatly-folded plastic trash bag was assiduously placed in the left-hand corner of every identical white desk.  This must be what it’s like to be a bewildered specimen in a large-scale laboratory experiment.

Knowing this could be my last opportunity to walk more than five paces in the same direction for three weeks, I frantically paced and jogged up and down the polished marble floors of the airport concourse, like a demented marathon runner, warming up for the big race. No one would be departing from these departure gates for anywhere exotic, any time soon. These are all human holding zones now, full of weary and compliant passengers, all awaiting to start their sentence in Q-Prison.

Hong Kong has a zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19. In the last two years it has seen about 12,300 cases and recorded 213 COVID-related deaths. The city is about the same size as London which has suffered more than 19,000 deaths from COVID-19, over the same period.  Hong Kong has done well but now it has a serious problem simply because most of the rest of the world has not done such a great job. So, the city’s leadership desperate to re-open its border with Mainland China, is terrified of importing cases that might damage its COVID-free status, offend Beijing and wipe out its older residents, many of whom are reluctant to get vaccinated.

Hence, this once vibrant entrepot has just about cut itself of from any physical contact with the rest of the world.  It is effectively isolating and throttling itself, simultaneously.  Even returning residents must comply with the extremely stringent 21-day quarantine regime which incorporates no less than nine PCR COVID- tests before even parole will be considered. Good behaviour is not taken into account.  

Much of the local news concerns the latest unfortunate citizen to be jailed for falling foul of the recently imposed National Security Law.  Even showing a movie the authorities don’t approve of, can land you in the clink. Detention seems to be the way forward in Hong Kong. Not surprisingly, airline traffic between here and London is almost one way.  

After one of the many gender-neutral Hazmat suits had handed out yet another form, passengers were permitted to proceed through immigration control, collect their bags and join yet another queue – this one for the bus to town. Four hours had passed in a slowly unfolding bureaucratic torture and there was nothing in the way of good humour or irreverent banter to alleviate the pain.

The HKSAR government carefully selected the most dilapidated mini-bus for the final leg of our epic journey, some 26 hours after arriving at Heathrow Terminal 5. After our bags were sprayed with some noxious substance, we were allowed to board and sitting in separate seats, grinded and bumped our way through the dark, lesser-known back streets of Causeway Bay district.

Our tour guide for the evening, was a humourless and officious woman with large black spectacles, wearing the obligatory blue Hazmat suit, rubber gloves with matching shower cap and visor, who squawked instructions into her mobile phone and snapped impatiently at the driver. Zombie passengers were deposited furtively, in the concealed rear entrance lobbies of their designated hotels.

Check-in formalities for our room on the 23^rd floor of the Best Western Plus Hotel in Sai Ying Pun, were undertaken at a tatty office desk, surrounded by an uneven makeshift wall of Perspex. Hotel staff were dressed ready for any unexpected chemical and biological attack. A bank of glowing CCTV screens displayed multiple hotel room corridors and doors. Staff are monitoring them to check no one steps outside their room during their 21 days of captivity. The police are called if there is a breach.

It’s all very serious and as we were ushered towards the lift to commence our custodial sentence in Q Prison, no one laughed when I asked them what time the hotel bar opened.

I tested positive for COVID 19- let's celebrate

I tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday.

There is nothing exceptional about that of course. The day that I sat in my car on a grey and desolate airfield in Kent (right), carefully sticking a swab into my nose and throat, there were 16,840 new COVID-19 cases reported in the UK.

There have been in excess of 7.8 million confirmed cases in the UK to date and 1,449 people in Britain died of COVID-19 just on the same day I was tested.

One of them, was the national hero, Captain Sir Tom Moore. That was his reward for raising more than £32 million for the NHS and offering a heart-warming news story during bleak times.  In a political gesture so cynical, it made me wince; the Prime Minister initiated a public clap last night in Captain Moore’s honour, when a public apology might have been more appropriate. I assume the Prime Minister calculated that the more we stand, slapping our hands together like well-trained performing seals, the less we might notice the catastrophic scale of the death toll, including so many of the frail and elderly, like Captain Moore.  

The Prime Minister stated, without irony, this was a suitable way to honour Captain Moore and the NHS staff, he raised money for.  Surely, containing the disease which killed the Captain would have been a more fitting and lasing tribute. As usual, Mr Johnson omitted to mention the many thousands of other UK victims of COVID-19, who have all lost their lives on his watch.

Mr Johnson is not fit to lace the boots of men like Captain Moore but by perfidiously associating himself with a nationally admired figure, Mr Johnson neatly deflected attention from his own bungling incompetence. ‘You can fool most of the people most of the time,' seems to be the Prime Minister’s sole political mantra.

My COVID-19 case hardly merits a mention. Fortunately, my symptoms are minor but my more pressing concern is that I made a routine care visit to my 86-year-old mother, the day before my symptoms kicked in. Mum’s Alzheimer’s is acute now and apart from her dedicated carers, the visits from me, or my brother, are the only human contact she has. I wore a surgical mask as I always do, but Mum told me she was feeling cold, so I wrapped her in a cardigan and a blanket. In doing so, I may have inadvertently killed her but we won’t know for sure for another six days. Ironically, she received her first vaccination the day after my drop in.

Not that it makes much difference now, but my wife and I have been very cautious throughout the pandemic and complied with the so-called lockdown rules. Having witnessed the impressive public response to the coronavirus in Hong Kong, we remain avid mask wearers and meticulous hand-washers. The only person to enter our home since October last year, was the man who replaced our boiler and that was several weeks ago. We have no idea where we might have caught it. The location of our local infection hot spots remains a mystery. A year after this all started, it’s like stumbling around a minefield, wearing a blindfold.

So, forgive me if I don’t embrace the febrile celebration of the great British vaccination roll out or any government-inspired bouts of mass applause. Somehow, the experience at the Manston Covid-19 Test Centre, followed by a rushed explanatory email to Mum's carers on receiving the result, while feeling like a victim of a violent mugging, did not quite put me in the party mood.

There is zero justification for celebratory rhetoric or triumphant bombast. It’s not only inappropriate, it’s disrespectful to those who have lost family members due to the Prime Minister’s abject mishandling of this crisis. A recent You Gov poll reported that one in eight Britons know a friend or family member who has died of COVID-19.  Another indicates that as of today, only 34% of people believe the government has handled the pandemic ‘very well’ or ‘somewhat well’.

More than 108,000 people have died in the UK within twelve months from a single cause. It’s the third largest per capita death rate in the world.  When I told the NHS track and trace representative who called me today about the one person, I had spoken to on the day I became symptomatic, he advised me that unless I could confirm that the contact had definitely come within 1 metre of me, or within two metres for a 15-minute duration, he would not include it.

“We don’t want to ask people to self-isolate unnecessarily,” he assured me.  How many more deaths before it will be necessary to tell someone who has been in direct indoor contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case, to isolate for ten days?  

No surprise that the UK has a worse record than the USA, Brazil, France or Italy. And it’s much, much worse than Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Korea or Vietnam, which have largely contained the pandemic with proven measures like strict border controls and rigorous track/trace/quarantine protocols. The UK government refuses to adopt these measures even after 108,000 deaths.  

This failure is possibly grounds for a public enquiry or even a series of private criminal prosecutions but it is certainly not a reason for celebration or applause.

 

 

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?

Shopping for Justice in Yuen Long 27/7

Despite the intense heat, an estimated 280,000 people reclaimed the town of Yuen Long in north-western Hong Kong in a mass act of defiance, last Saturday.

It was their collective response to the shocking mob violence by thugs at the town’s MTR railway station and the police failure to react to it, the week-end before.

The authorities had already declared the march illegal, on public safety grounds but attendees were undeterred. Many joked, saying they were just shopping, sightseeing, praying or on a Pokémon hunt.

“I am shopping for justice,” says Edward Ng Ka-fung a quietly spoken IT consultant waiting in the shade of a municipal building for the march to start. Ng says he has been on every recent protest march with his wife but with this one declared illegal by the authorities and with widespread fear of clashes with local villagers and Triad thugs, she has stayed at home this time.

“I don’t want to get beaten up but I just want to send the message that we not accept it (the violence of last week-end),” he says as we set off with thousands of others down Castle Peak Road, towards Yuen Long railway station. Many marchers wear hard hats, many wear black masks and most carry umbrellas to shield them from the fierce afternoon sun. There are young people, old people and I count at least three people in wheelchairs.

Yuen Long resembled one of those remote cowboy towns in classic Hollywood Westerns. Shutters pulled down on shop fronts, buses parked up and driverless at the bus station and shopping malls deserted except for protesters enjoying the chilly air conditioning. Only tumbleweed blowing down the street was missing from the scene.

The crowd had started gathering near the sports stadium opposite Yuen Long police station, a large concrete compound with conical watch towers on each corner like a fort. The cavalry who failed to arrive last week-end at Yuen Long MTR station, were safe and secure inside.

As always, the march started peaceful and orderly, despite the absence of any obvious leadership, the posters were witty and the shouted slogans subversive.

“Har-geng-haw-zee,” was a popular chant, meaning shame on the police. 

Those attending made little or no reference to the unpopular Extradition Bill which triggered the latest wave of mass protests. Instead, they condemned what they see as police collusion with criminals and they call for the “liberation of Hong Kong” from Beijing-backed crony capitalism. In case you hadn’t noticed this is more than a protest now, it’s a revolution; the hard hat revolution. A revolution of our times.

During a brief refreshment break, I am approached by an “independent observer” from the Mainland, a euphemism for a PLA spy. He tells me how Western governments are influencing events on the streets. He speaks very polished English with a Beijing accent and says he is an export businessman from Guangzhou, specializing in trailers. He has all the sincerity of those scammers who hang around the Imperial Palace in Beijing and invite tourists for a cup of coffee, so their daughter can practice her language skills and then rip you off.

As he leaves, the hardcore protesters are preparing to get “geared up” in alleys and side streets. A ripple of spontaneous applause from bystanders greets one platoon of black-suited activists in masks and hard hats and armed with metal poles, as they march past purposefully.

It’s approaching party time in Yuen Long.  As the main crowd surges in silence towards the Yoho Mall which is adjoining the MTR station,  it’s time to put a hard hat on, just in case.

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.

Keep calm. Don't shoot.

As I pour out of Exit E of Causeway Bay MTR station with the rest of the hordes of black shirted bodies, I almost collide with a young man sitting on top of an aluminum step ladder. He is holding a donations box crammed full with Hong Kong bank notes. 

It's Joshua Wong Chi-fung, the poster boy of the localist movement, only recently released from prison. I find myself shaking hands with him and enthusiastically stuffing a modest $20 into his clear Perspex donations box. I can exclusively report he had a reassuring firm handshake and I have to admit, I admire that in a political figure.

I should have asked him for a telling quote I suppose but today I am a citizen not a journalist, though often the lines get blurred.

Every street is crammed with people standing shoulder to shoulder in the intense heat, shouting slogans and holding posters and banners. If this is a revolution it’s a very Hong Kong revolution. The people are very nice you see. They are all generally very restrained, polite and dignified. They bring their aunties and their kids. Plastic bottles are recycled, drinks are shared, litter is picked up. Even the policing is very low profile and restrained for now, at least. The posters being handed out are well designed and witty.

“Keep calm, don’t shoot,” was my favourite, though there were many contenders.

This movement which traces its roots back to the 2014 Occupy movement and beyond was supposed to be dead. Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor had most of its leaders and figures of inspiration behind bars. The remaining former student leaders were expelled from political office and their followers demoralized, rejected and cynical. Job done as far as Beijing was concerned and all justified by the rule of law too.  Well done Carrie. Well done indeed.

She should have heeded the words of John F Kennedy before she attempted to introduce the proposed Extradition bill and on such blatantly bogus grounds as the urgent need to bring an alleged murderer to justice in Taiwan.

“Never paint your opponent into a corner,” Kennedy once said, referring to international diplomacy. Or, to put it more crudely, don’t keep poking a defeated enemy with a sharp stick because eventually it will strike back, even if it knows the fight is futile. There is no more noble a cause to fight for, than a lost cause, after all. This is Hong Kong’s lost cause and many are prepared to fight for it. Some even say they are willing to die for it.

So, as this is being written, the Legislative Council building in Admiralty is being attacked and ransacked by angry young Hongkongers right next to the PLA headquarters where China’s soldiers await orders from Beijing. No-one knows what will happen next but even the most avowed optimist would struggle to predict a happy ending. Please keep calm Hong Kong and don’t shoot.

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. 

My arrival in Hong Kong with President Xi

I arrived back in Hong Kong airport yesterday with General Secretary Xi Jinping.

It was the first visit of his nine-year tenure as supreme leader of China but I live here. 

We arrived at the same time but were not travelling together. 

Fortunately for the General Secretary, he did not, like me, fly Cathay Pacific or he would still be on the tarmac in Beijing. He would have arrived five hours late and may have missed the carefully stage-managed greeting from delirious school children, waving flags in a suitably synchronized fashion.

No doubt, the Presidential jet served up something more appetizing than stale peanuts and greasy stir-fried chicken because Xi and his glamorous first lady looked far more composed than I did on their arrival, judging by the glossy images shown on the relentless TV news bulletins.

While my ID card was being rejected by the automated immigration gate in the arrivals hall at Chek Lap Kok, the most powerful man in the world, unless you count Donald Trump, (and very few do) was speeding to town in an old-style cavalcade with motor cycle outriders. The scene was in the finest traditions of deluded dictators of third world tin-pot dictatorships. Xi was only missing some Rayban sunglasses and a pseudo paramilitary uniform adorned with copious medals. Papa Doc en-large.

The walkway from IFC mall to the central ferry piers was fenced off with metal barriers and officious police notices but his hotel was several kilometers away in Wan Chai.  Stoic and pragmatic Hongkongers side-shuffled past each other through the narrow passageway left for the public. Apparently, the risk of the General Secretary being embarrassed by the fleeting sight of protestors was simply unacceptable. The newspaper I work for carried a full page sponsored feature on page five. It was headlined ‘one country, two systems enriched by Xi’. Yes, really.

In my two-week absence to help prop up my elderly parents and see family and friends, the fare on the Hong Kong Express had increased by 15% and this wonderfully rich, diverse and tolerant city seems to have descended into 1970s Haiti.

There is lots of press coverage of course and no shortage of pompous political analysis.  Few want to mention though that the city that served as a haven for the oppressed and starving for over 150 years, today witnessed TV coverage of an unelected dictator greeting his goose-stepping troops from a glossy green military jeep. Perhaps the General Secretary thought he was in North Korea.

During its brief and imperfect modern history Hong Kong has welcomed (or at least tolerated) many political dissidents. Ho Chi Minh, Jose Rizal, Sun Yet Sen and Edward Snowden, amongst others. Today the same city welcomed Xi Jinping, the man who locks dissidents up with impunity and the city was treated to a chilling glimpse of its future.

At least the police only locked up the pro-democracy demonstrators for 28 hours. Papa Doc would have had them imprisoned, tortured and summarily executed.

But let’s face it, after 20 years, it’s still early days.

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.

Uncertain times

They say that last night's candle-lit vigil to mark the 26th anniversary of  the Tiananmen Square protests and to commemorate its victims, attracted fewer people than last year, as though it was somehow an admission of defeat. 

On the ground the event feels more like a victory though, albeit a restrained and dignified one. From Tin Hau MTR station to Victoria Park  the area is crammed with people of every demographic profile, patiently proceeding along a narrow route lined with colourful banners, women distributing leaflets, police officers, volunteers with collection boxes for the victim's of the crackdown, young men bawling into megaphones, and cheerful T-shirt vendors. The atmosphere is orderly and restrained but hot, noisy, political and electric too. I ask the women selling one distinctive yellow T-shirt decorated with black characters to explain the slogan. Her colleague turns the shirt around to reveal the English translation; "Uncertain times call for certain action."

By the time we reach the park, the assembly area is already full of thousands of people sitting, listening to the organiser's announcements with the soft glow of their candles piercing the dark night air. It is a moving spectacle and they remain dignified, defiant and determined as our procession files past into a secondary area on the Causeway Bay side of the park, where a large video screen conveys the events to the ever-swelling crowd.

This is the only place in China where a public event marking the military suppression off the Tiananmen Square student protest in 1989 would be allowed to happen and it is the first vigil since the Occupy demonstrations. It is peaceful, well organised, spontaneous and uncensored in any way. Perhaps it represents all that is best about Hong Kong and the event must be an annual thorn in the side to those dry apparatchiks of the Chinese Communist Party looking on from Beijing.

Given that many feared those idealistic young protesters in their tented settlements in Admiralty and Mon Kok might suffer the same fate as their counterparts in Beijing 26 years ago, this year's event is particularly poignant. In such uncertain times, it  seems tragic that some of the younger, more radical localist groups have boycotted the vigil as an irrelevance to Hong Kong affairs and not of their direct concern.

The unfortunate reality is that freedom of expression and civil liberty in China must be everyone's concern and this event deserves everyone's support, if only as a symbol of the distinctive identity and the essential values of Hong Kong.  

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.

The Chinese kiss of death

Social kissing has become another version of public humiliation just waiting to happen and there seems to be no definitive guide on how to kiss in Hong Kong.

Who do you kiss and when and where? How many times and in what order?

It's painfully confusing and getting it wrong can be a social disaster.

At one exclusive  public reception at a smart hotel  in Kowloon, I was introduced to the hostess who offered such an alluring smile of welcome, that I inexplicably felt compelled to launch myself towards her for a social kiss. Stooping down and  puckering up simultaneously in a most unsightly manner, it must have made a terrifying spectacle for the poor woman.  As I aimed for her right cheek, her warm smile turned to a look of impending horror and like someone avoiding a nasty car-crash, she deftly stepped back a pace as I approached. I missed her cheek by a considerable distance and stumbling, collided heavily with a table of savoury snacks.

A simple etiquette guide would avoid this sort of social embarrassment. In France they seem to master these delicate social intimacy issues with consummate ease and  across South America people are embracing everyone like old comrades, so why are we so inhibited in this city?

One friend told me that at the conclusion of one particularly dreary private reception, he was invited to kiss his hostess's hand like a knight from the round table about to depart for battle in her honour. Instead, he left her snooty party only in search of a taxi that might transport him to to the Star Ferry.

And what about air kissing? Is that insincere or just more hygienic? What if your host or hostess is wearing a sanitary face mask?  Should you just  go for it anyway, safe in the knowledge you are unlikely to contract avian flu?

Perhaps the recent internet sensation of  "somersault kissing" should be introduced as the obligatory greeting at Hong Kong's premier social functions. For those not familiar with the popular manoeuvre, it requires one person to bend forward,  burying their head in the host's crotch. The host then flips their partner  backwards through 180 degrees by jerking violently upwards on their guest's buttocks.  If successfully implemented, the guest ends up  straddling the host's waste and is able to give them an affectionate peck on the lips.

Might be a useful ice-breaker anyway.

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.