StreetCowboy

Does this song remind you of your first trip to Hong Kong?

I stepped off the plane at Kai Tak with two colleague compatriots who had worked in Hong Kong the previous year as graduate and student. We met the young lad's brother and went for dinner and beer (as I recall, it may have been a liquid dinner), and the Chinese waiter says: "Whair'r youse boys fi? Ah'm fi Dunfermiline" Anyway, somehow I woke up the next morning back home, and as no-one else had woken up, I went down the street, down the hill, down to some shops selling all-knows-god-what; it looked like you were supposed to eat it, but I cannot imagine why. Down that street, to the main road, with the clanking trams festooned with Chinese advertising, and across the road... And my ears pricked up. I followed the sound of the pipes, and there, down a side street, in the courtyard of the Royal Hong Kong Ambulance Corp Logistics Depot, was the Ambulance Corp pipe band in full tartan regalia having a Saturday morning practice. "Aye, mebbe this'll be a'right" I thought to myself. Some months later, the police were called to our handover party, which had started on a chartered tram and subsequently adjourned to our company apartment. Twice, if recollection serves me well. We didn't test their patriotic patience any further.

I suppose we have no choice but to make allowance for people that don’t understand sarcasm, and for those of us with limited talents, at least it allows us to exercise our superiority complex.

You are right. We should not be forced to tolerate or make allowances for gay people, handicapped people, non-smokers, people with allergies… The tyranny of the tolerant is unbearable, as they promote all these minorities, but deny the sullen majority the right to their prejudices.

I am with you. Liberal freedoms are elitist. People should be allowed to do the limited things that I do, and no more.

Orange skin Toothbrush moustaches Scraggle-haired cockwombles…. Threats to democracy do not look like you or me, nor like our lumpen proletariat. If the proletariat want serfdom, who are we to deny it, despite our misgivings and wish for liberty? I think a substantial proportion of the population would willingly forego elements of freedom and wealth to be able to blame their woes on Johnny Foreigner rather than their own stupidity. Only space and stupidity are immeasurably infinite, and scientists are addressing the former.

I think he means “turn things around” as in “down the U-bend”. It’s a plumbing term.

I might still be able to find a great video of lightning landing near our depot, in approximately the same space twice within a few seconds, each strike lasting a significant fraction of a second. Here, lightning deaths are almost exclusively male - mainly golfers, and construction workers in buildings where the earthing is not complete.

If you’re not a cutie you might as well be obtuse.

Did you even do the search? Do you even ride a bicycle? The point of the question was not about the range or spread of gears (though I admit that I did not make that clear) but the number of gears between the maximum and minimum. My shopping bike (2x8) ranges from 46-11 to 30-34, while my road bike (2x11) ranges from 50-11 to 34-28. Despite having fewer cogs over a wider range, I have never thought while on the shopping bike “I wish I had something in between these two”.

Humans are plural. "There are only ..." There's pedantry, as well. There are only two problems - Humans - Pedantry - Superfluous gears You can google the Spanish Inquisition on Youtube yourself SC

As you know, my buddy and I finish the first part of our bike rides, and after the cycling, solve the world's problems. To cut a long story short... What is the point of all those gears? For normal people, who are not honed athletes, and can cycle at varying cadence, why would you want 10 or 11 or 12 gears on the rear cog? On my two bikes, I have 2 x 11 and 2 x 8, and I really enjoy the wider range of the 2 x 8. The best thing I can say about the 2 x 11 is that I can easily shift two gears quickly. So why not have a 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 speed rear cog, with a narrow chain, and allow more space for a more symmetrical wheel? Why take up more space than the disc brakes? Remember 0 you heard it here first...

The comedian has no idea how funny is his joke. And if he had to explain it, he has failed. I will assume you are just being obtuse.

Poor Captain Hook suffered terribly from a ticking clock - to be more precise, from the crocodile that swallowed it, along with his hand. A ticking clock is a clear indication of our gradual yet relentless journey towards our terminality, and to be able to listen to it in peace and tranquility, without fear, is a pleasure that was denied to Captain Hook.

To quote from a random internet post: Sometimes I use big words for which I don’t know the meaning, so that I sound more photosynthesis.

I am afraid of double negatives. I am also slightly concerned about protracted illness, extreme old age and dementia. SC

Back in the day, One evening, my landlord came round substantially the worse for wear to collect rent from the boys next door. We went to assist, and pulled our landlord away while he was futilely trying to lay into one of the boys, and assisted him back to his van, and he drove off. It was some days before I felt safe to cycle again. ”don’t worry, if he hasn’t sobered up by new he’ll have wrecked the van” ”Aye, but what if he’s bought another one?”

I had always interpreted that as a threat: "You had better do this or you will know the back of my hand". The last time that I was there, it was like a stranger to be, even the few acquaintances I met. People move on, places change, you forget things... You can never go back, and you can rarely go again without disappointment

Written in novel form, with a developing plot, that lures the reader into ever more sophistication, so that they decide either "I want to take classes", or "I know enough" so that they do not waste the time of others in classes. Back in the day, I twice tried to learn Mandarin, the first time with a very enthusiastic English teacher, whose standards I fell far short of, and the second time with a diligent Taiwanese lady whose patience knew no bounds. In any case, between the two, I achieved a level of competence to maintain simple conversations with Chinese hookers in Dubai, and when I went on business to France, I found it easier to forego the fancy menus of the French restaurants and go to a Chinese restaurant and order a Taiwan lunch. SC

I think the idea of writing a novel that is both an English tutorial and a Thai tutorial is particularly imaginative. Would it be aimed at speakers of both those languages (presumably, to learn the other - to improve their own would require exceptional scholarly abilities), or aimed at third-language speakers to learn one, or other, or both of those languages?

Nor mimes

We’re you going for world record gullibility? I only paid 500 USD for that, but it was a while back

You just better hope that the tree gives enough wood to build a shack. And bring some long spikes; it’s not yet time to live on a desert island with nothing for shelter but the shade of the tree that you cut down, and the timber boards that blew away in the first hurricane.

If I were an artist, I would forego still lifes for hasty conclusions, which seem much easier to draw

I’ve drawn only from my own experience, whether it be in education or the passive observation of life as it wends its turgid course towards the inevitable. If I were a wiser man would my fellows ask my advice, as a mediocre 80s pop star might sing. If I were to truly aspire to be like David Watts, I would have to work as hard as he, and to drink as little. Since that is not the case, then I can conclude that a I don’t wish I could be like David Watts. I don’t think Ray Davies did, either. Idle speculation is for the idle, and speculators, the latter seem to do better out of it.