There's
a touch of irony in the fact I'm about to mention the milk of human
kindness. For one, I don't like milk. And, for two, I don't think I'm
particularly kind. But be that as it may, the recent Olympics seems
to have shown us once again that humans can be nice to each other
from time to time. But on a particular scale and in a certain time
and place. Outside these parameters, the M of H K is somewhat
diluted, if not entirely absent.
The
next irony is that, although I'm not a Catholic, nor even a
Christian, the two occasions on which I've felt bathed with the M of
H K were both in the Lourdes shrine in France. And, indeed, during
the same ceremony – the nighttime candle-lit procession at the centre
of the grotto. It didn't do anything to affect my disinclination to believe
in miracles, but I'd defy anyone not to experience a sensation of
goodness and charity at this gathering. Trouble is, immediately outside the precincts
of the shrine you enter the rather different world of trinket and
holy water commerce. There couldn't be a greater contrast.
Talking
about location . . . Island living can make people, well, insular, I
guess. Rather unaware of what's going on in other places. And equally
unaware of how they're seen by others. I suspect peninsulas can
suffer/benefit from the same phenomenon. Just a thought.
Query:
If you cost and timeline a project and then add an Inefficiency
Factor, are you being efficient? I guess so.
The
Chinese buffet restaurant down by the train station is called
Euphoria. As this has no Chinese (or food) connotations
whatsoever, my guess is they wanted to give a European frisson to
their name and then stuck a pin in the relevant section of the
dictionary.
Finally
. . . Interesting to note that, during World War Two, Russian and
German forces agreed to a brief armistice so they could fight
off hungry wolves. That done, they returned to slaying each other with gay abandon. No M of H K, you see.
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