A delicately-built woman with chiseled cheekbones clad in the simplest of clothes (a straw hat, a polo shirt and a pair of capri pants) perched next to a lake - it must have been at least 15 years since I first came across this photo. It immediately became my favourite. Over the years, as I… Continue reading “Either you have it or you don’t”
Priscilla Leung (梁美芬） was sensible enough to remove her music video “Add little bit of love” (愛心多一點）soon after it was met with ridicule on social media (a footage of it can still be found here ). Yet the fact remains she was sufficiently lacking in good taste to have gotten it produced in the first… Continue reading Priscilla Leung Unmasked: what her English says about her
言慧珠是梅蘭芳最得意的弟子。有次她請一位德高望重的前輩給她的表演打分。老前輩說：「扮相、身段都好，就是沒有梅先生的那股仙氣兒。」 言慧珠就問：「何謂仙氣兒？它又是怎麽來的呢？」
Curiously enough, among the people who have managed to make the art of writing less mysterious to me is Pietro Yantorny, an illiterate shoemaker who took pride in crafting custom-made shoes in Paris for high society at the turn of the last century. Dismissing factory-made footwear as “little boxes for feet that one calls shoes,”… Continue reading No License to be imprecise
“比何君堯的爛英文更爛” - 馮睎乾這樣形容梁燕城博士為了證明何君堯的清白，以中國文化專家身份，給英國事務律師紀律審裁處遞交的那份英文供詞。
I know we have long given up on expecting members of our puppet government to walk their talk, but they aren’t exactly of zero value either, because when they face an international audience and can’t talk their talk in English properly, they can at least provide practical demonstrations of how not to use the language. Take for… Continue reading Matthew Cheung is also an incompetent in another area: English writing
This video on Douyin gave me a much-needed laugh as I waited with trepidation for the human cost of the Wuhan virus to come to light: a stern voice on a loudspeaker warns the inhabitants of a village against engaging in extramarital sex while the country is in the grip of the epidemic -“別個傳染給你，晚上你傳染給你婆娘，你婆娘傳染給隔壁老王，老王傳染給老王婆娘，那全村不都遭洗白了啊!” https://videopress.com/v/hOxFRSPU?controls=false&preloadContent=metadata The bluntness… Continue reading Some Like it Hot
Among the notes of condolence British author Claire Tomalin received when her 22 year-old daughter Susanna killed herself, the one written by New Statesman editor Anthony Howard struck me in particular. It was formal in tone, yet so intimate in substance: “I shall always remember Susanna as the marvellous, cheerful, sparkling girl who came to… Continue reading Take a cup of kindness yet
Come Write Like Michelle 