21 January 2012
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
My best wishes to all of my Chinese readers for a happy, healthy and successful New Year
I hope the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre will forgive me reproducing their card to me but I am rather handicapped in finding an original one of my own.
The captain of the tragic cruise ship Costa Concordia would have us believe that the reason he abandon ship before all the passengers had been evacuated was because he ‘ slipped and fell into a lifeboat’. A McEnroe’s immortal words “you cannot be serious”. His excuse is about as convincing as the schoolboy who claimed that’ the dog had eaten his homework’.
With all this brouhaha group circulating about the way the captain behaved I cannot resist reproducing what Churchill have to say about the Italians.
After his retirement he was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian cruise liner and some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should chose an Italian ship. ‘There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship’, said Churchill. ‘ First their cuisine is unsurpassed. Second their service is superb. And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.’
My dear daughter Chloe, made one of her regular weekend visits today. She brought with her a delicious spicy lamb moussaka , I like to think that she gets a little bit of rest when she is here that she has a very busy life those three young children As always, it was lovely to see her and, in addition, she was able to help me a print the latest hardcopy of the blog.
I can’t remember whether I mentioned that my mother’s husband, Richard (the young 93-year-old) decided he wanted to get onto Skype so he got a webcam and made his first call to me yesterday. We went through the business of alternately seeing each other but not being able to hear or to hear and not see and so on but after a bit of tinkering between us all, cheating by using the telephone in conjunction with the video picture, Paul’ the computer’ (who happened to be with me at the time) We eventually managed to get pictures and voice both ways. (The problem, which other readers may encounter is the difference in operating systems Richard has XL Professional at and I have Windows 7. They do work together but it’s a question of taking the right boxes. and indeed my mother , who will be able to see us when we have our weekly chat and they also be able to see their grandchildren from time to time. Fred, the eldest, is certainly capable of Skyping them. Whilst Chloe was with us we tried making a Skype call to my revered parents. They were tickled pink. (For my overseas visitors, this means that they were very pleased!) Despite encountering the same problems as before, so I shall have to wait until Paul comes here on Monday so we can get to Richard to do whatever he has to do at his end .
I received a number of exceedingly encouraging responses to yesterday’s blog entry. Some of them were quite touching, and it is that sort of response, as I’ve said before that makes the effort were worthwhile.
Click here for a joke about a couple of ladies who meet in Heaven stop.