
	Archives: Stories Sorted by Date 2004: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 2005: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 2006: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec

Aug 31: Renewable Energy Fashion & the Solar Chicken

Award presentation to schoolchildren in recognition of their creative ideas of the fun application of renewable energy (photo and caption by HK Electric).

Sometimes a photo really says more than a 1,000 words! Or more than 10,000 words, as in this case. This PR shot came to us together with another HK Electric media release, titled Over 10,000 took part in renewable energy campaign, part of their major Smart Power Campaign.

HEC's media releases are a frequent source of fine information. But sometimes they are full of unintended amusement, often just begging to be made fun of, like the photo above. A few possible alternate captions:

Guinness Book record for largest MP3 player in the world?
If the MP3 player would be smaller, could the solar cell hat be smaller and more fashionable as well?
This MP3 player must have an amazing memory size, but it only seems to work when the sun is shining?
Young model showcasing the latest Lamma eco-fashion? I can't wait to see these hats and MP3 players on Yung Shue Wan Main Street!
This chicken on a trolley, wouldn't it look cute to roll it down Main Street? It would fit right in with the dogs in buggies, monocycles and skateboards.
Why did the chicken cross the road? It wanted to get to the beach ASAP!
Chicken on the Power Station beach, complete with surfboard, sun umbrella, an MP3 player and a deep suntan?
Does this solar umbrella actually protect the chicken from the sun? It looks like it got too much sun already...
Solar chicken roast for the next Lamma Fun Day on Sun, Oct 20?
Award for the most creatively roasted chicken, awarded by KFC?
Email me YOUR captions and I'll add them here!

Here's another little gem from HK Electric's marketing people. Doesn't the Lamma Power Station above look so pretty and soooo green! You can email this little Flash animation to your family, friends and foes by clicking here.

Click here to view the full "Over 10,000..." media release.

Aug 30: What Colour Is Your Brain Today?

Lamma-zine Artist of the Month of August 2006: Tamara Norris!

Click below to read the rest of Tamara's Artist Statement & view her Art Gallery!

Aug 29: The Trials & Tribulations of a Forum Administrator

"The Story of the Valiant But Ultimately Futile Battle of Lamma-Gung Against the Vile and Loathsome Link Spammers"

Administrating an Internet forum like the one on this website used to be quite easy and simple. Weekly full backups, pay the quarterly hosting bill, helping a few new members to register or reset their lost passwords, giving some occasional advice on netiquette (online behaviour guidelines, like "No personal attacks!"). That was about the extent of it, a few hours per week at the most. Idyllic, innocent days...

Nowadays, the all-pervasive online spam flood has spread from emails to forums. There's a heated arms race going on between so-called "link spammers" and forum administrators like myself. Search engines are ranking websites by number of other websites linking to them, giving them more traffic and more business resulting from this traffic. The website link in the profile of any forum member does count and will help that site to attract more traffic via the search engines.

More and more spammers simply automatically register thousands of new fake members in forums all over the Internet. Most of the recent member registrations in our 1552-member forum are spam these days, despite various anti-measures I've set up over the last few months, when the spam avalanche started:

Blocking the spammers' major email hosts (mostly Russian .ru domains),
Confirming that the registered email address is active, via return email,
Requiring a visual confirmation (a captcha, see right) for registrations to confuse the register robots,
Reading up on the latest developments in the forum-spam wars,
Confirming each registration manually, which is what I do daily now, weeding out the spammers by not confirming activation of new fake members.

Some of these spam members even post messages automatically in random topics, promoting the spammer's websites: cheap tickets, free tattoo designs, all types of pharmaceuticals, any type of shopping, but some of them pornographic. The forum moderators or administrator have to hand-delete these spam messages as soon as they see and recognise one. The administrator then has to delete the fake members individually as well. Sample names: comprar-viagra-espana, slitherz2040, pornnnn, baranow129.

Next step in this ever-escalating spam wars: preventing fake registrations by asking unique questions with unique answers when a new member registers, something a registration robot could not answer automatically. Quite a number of changes will be necessary in the forum program to make this possible.

It means spending a lot of intimate, heavy time with acronyms and abbreviations like php, mods, mySQL, Linux, FTP, JavaScript, etc., not my favourite activity anymore these days. I used to just LOVE this stuff in my cybergeek days. But any small mistake and the forums will crash. Wish me luck. I'll be sorry for any inconvenience caused to our loyal, real, non-fake forum members.

Aug 28: Playground Public Toilet Humour

Banner by the DAB party and Lammadonna on Main Street, proudly announcing to all passers-by the official opening of the new Public Toilet!

Toilet, playground, plus left-over construction waste and machinery

Another proud (and expensive) development by the LCSD Dept.
But what kind of "Leisure and Cultural Services" are planned in this Public Toilet?

Were the former temporary squat toilets so complicated that they needed "User Instructions" on the wall inside!

Aug 27: Happy 16. Birthday, Saheb!

Do you remember your own 16. Birthday, that magical age when you felt like becoming almost an adult, your parents finally treating you less like a child and the future looked so full of promises and possibilities? Yeah, me neither...

Well, anyway, this is the next year of Lamma's Generation Y coming of age. Born in 1990, many of them were born on Lamma and brought up in HK's international school. Many of them are multi-national, multi-racial, brimming with self-confidence, having travelled the world already, a very special breed indeed. The Net Generation, Millennials, iGeneration, Second Baby Boom, Google Generation, Myspace Generation, MyPod Generation (from the fusion of "Myspace" and "iPod") are just a few of the monikers that the media have applied to them in a futile attempt to categorise them.

Note the recent,

"cool" eyebrow piercing

This is the generation that grew up with the Internet, PCs, CDs, DVDs, video games, mobile phones, for whom the moon landing and the cold war are just ancient history, having been born after the Berlin Wall fell and even after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It would be most fascinating to read their very own blogs...

Saheb, son of Prafull Ambekar (proprietor of the Deli Lamma) turned "Sweet 16" today. Of course, the proud dad threw a big party (free snacks, Happy Hour all day!). Saheb, the very popular founder/captain of the Lamma Football Club invited all his friends, so it was a full house, of course. Just look at all the girls below attending the party of this very handsome lad. I'd have done (almost) anything at that age to be that popular...

A few more of the pictures I took at yesterday night's party (click to enlarge):

Aug 26: 'Power Station Beach Energizes Canine Capers'

Jay Scott Kanes (words and pictures)
STBWFLA (Soon-To-Become-World-Famous Lamma Author):

Buddies relax

Most Lamma residents and regular visitors choose favorite places on this tropical island. The preferred spots vary � maybe a table at the Spicy Island, a seaside seat at the New Holiday Mood Grill, a hilltop perch, a residential balcony or a rooftop garden.

For Lamma's largest visible minority, its dogs, the choice of �best location� couldn't be simpler. Their near-unanimous decision amounts to a �no-brainer�.

Chum arrives

�For us, it's Power Station Beach. That�s fun-central, the place to socialize and frolic,� they�ll say (to anyone listening intently enough).

As the sun sets, Lamma's canines gather there to party and play. Some bring their people. Others arrive alone. �There's no greater doggy joy than when friends arrive,� said a human tagging along.

Doggy waters

Race and chase

�Dogs generally come here once the afternoon heat subsides. Sometimes a few congregate. More often, it's a few dozen. Counting's tough because they run, chase, wrestle, splash and paddle.�

Canine beach activities resemble those of people. They enjoy digging, frolicking, jogging, chasing Frisbees or balls, bird watching, beach combing and collecting items (usually sticks, not seashells), but always faster and more avidly than humans.

Stick-Up!

The attending people provide bizarre sound effects by constantly calling the animals' names: �Ah-Mok, Alphie, Bart, Big Dog, Cookie, Gail, Go-go, Hanna, Laura, Lucky, Mika, Sammy, Sasha, Seymour, Snowy, Swampy� and many others.

Sandy face

Unlike people strolling along the same sand, the dogs seldom denounce the visual blight, noise and pollution from HK Electric's adjacent facilities. �They're tolerant that way,� said a human observer.

Aug 25: 'Artist's Conk Is a Large Polypore'

Today, exploring the neighbourhood after a photo shoot at the children's playground, Parksy the Soundman pointed me to these beautiful mushrooms. He categorically and vehemently denied that these are his own "magic mushrooms".

Bigger than a large hand, they're growing out of the trunk of a 5-storey-high tree that was severely damaged in typhoon Prapiroon. The most unusual, snow-white edge and bottom is what attracted me first.

In the wet and humid mushroom-friendly weather recently, these have been growing rapidly in the last few weeks. They expanded through and around the long needles fallen on them from the tree they're feeding on as parasites. See the white bottom of the toadstools below, where the very long needles have become incorporated into the fungi:

Posting these pictures in our "Flora & Fauna" forum got a quick reply from our very active, most helpful and extremely knowledgeable moderator Alan:

Alan - Discussions forum senior moderator, quoting from the Fairfax County Public School website:

Ganoderma applanatum.
Common Name: Artist's Conk

"Artist's Conk is a large polypore, also called a "shelf mushroom." Polypores are wide and flat, and they usually grow on tree trunks or on the sides of stumps and fallen logs.

Artist's Conk can grow up to 20 inches wide. They have a woody feel and are rough and horny. Usually, they are fairly flat, but sometimes they are hoof-shaped.

These fungi are gray to brownish in color, but can be green when covered with algae or moss. Artist's Conks grow year-round. You can discover how old they are the same way you can a tree. By cutting it in half, you can count layers. Each layer represents a year.

Artist's Conk can grow by itself or in small groups. They grow on dead wood, and sometimes on wounds in living trees. When it grows on living trees it is a parasite. This fungi weakens the wood it grows on, making places for insects and woodpeckers to start holes.

This fungi gets its name because when you flip it over you can carve writing or pictures in it. The picture will stay in the fungus and cannot be erased. This fungus is not edible."

P.S. On Lamma, even the mushrooms are artistic!

Aug 24: 'My Life on the Island'

There are so many good (and a few great) photographers living on Lamma Island, they've got their own group on the Internet's largest photo sharing website Flickr. The Lamma group has been founded by Laudable Lamma Luminary Mr DickStock and has grown to 13 members now, including yours truly (see above).

Searching for the tag (keyword) "Lamma" on Flickr, you'll get this result:

We found 5,060 photos about Lamma.

Listing the "most interesting" (most viewed and commented on, I believe) Lamma photos, there are some truly amazing shots in there. See the example from Fernando Porto on the right: Hung Shing Yeh life guard. Click below for the:

Most interesting Lamma photos.

Let's highlight the Lamma photographs of a little-known photographer in the "Lamma" group, Natrine. All that she likes to reveal about herself is: "I'm Female and 27." She also gets loads of German comments for most of her photos...

Have a look at her amazing photos of Lamma Island by clicking on my little thumbnail collage below, from her "My life on the island" Flickr set of photos. Or click here for a Flickr slide show!

Aug 23: $1,000 Reward for Finding Tommy!

Aren't these yellow eyes and snow-white/pitch-black fur worth $1,000? Have you seen this male cat called Tommy? Contact Leggova by email or myself and the cash could be yours!

Tommy went missing yesterday in Ko Long Village. He's a real house cat who doesn't like sleeping outside and comes when called by name. More info in our forum!

$1,000 buys a lot of drinks on pet-loving Lamma, or a lot of cat food! Let's start a stampede of people swarming all over Ko Long and neighbouring villages, checking out every potential hiding place, inspecting every nook and cranny, turning over anything a cat could hide under...till they'll find Tommy and return him home safely! Let's hope for some good news very soon!

Aug 22: 'Gum on My Bum'

Today, we've got another Lamma ferry story � but with a different twist � from our new Lamma forum member Ji Woo, a first-time Lamma-zine contributor.

He has the rare talent of writing about a mundane but annoying event in an amusing and entertaining way, showing the true Lamma spirit: smirking in the face of adversity. After initially being upset about his gummy misfortune, he overcame it and even made lots of fun of it and himself! Ji Woo, a truly worthy Lammaite!

After Ji Woo's initial message below � posted in our forums � a typically unruly discussion ensued and it was confirmed that "poo on da shoe" is even worse than "gum on da bum". Our "virtually reborn" Ghost Teacher Spinoza � haunting the forums again during this year's double Chinese ghost month � insisted on his very-hard-to-believe innocence in this gum matter. But then he digressed as usual and uttered the dire and horrendous threat of "singing sea shanties in a tragic baritone on the 8:15 AM ferry". Truly an urgent case for imminent application of HK's anti-terror laws!

Ji Woo - New forum member, quoting from his "Gum on the Bum" topic:

Aug 14: Dear Gummer

I would just like to let you, the person(s) who stuck chewing gum on one of seats on the 8.15am YSW to Central ferry last Saturday morning, know that, yes, you really did mess up my morning. Thanks.

I'm not quite sure what drove you to wedge your quid of soiled mouth stodge into the back of that seat. Were you hoping to save it for later? Was the bin really too far for you to reach? Has that quaint old custom of wrapping up your spittled spearmint into the wrapper and the depositing it away from human contact somehow passed you by?

Yes, I should have spotted the gum. But it was early on a Saturday morning and I was a little woozy. And people don�t usually expect to find something like that on a seat on the Lamma ferry. We put up with the smokers lighting up as soon as they get off/on the ferry, poor souls, destined to a miserable death from lung cancer, but having to put up with gum on seats? What next? A turd, perhaps? Fresh vomit?

Just to give you the satisfaction I'm sure you crave, I realized I had your gum on my bum when I got off the ferry and stopped off at the IFC loos to perform a necessary morning ablution. I went to pull down my trousers and found my shirt tail stuck to the seat of my trousers. (I wear long, untucked shirts.) A quick grope around my backside revealed your gift. The gum then got stuck on my hand, the loo roll, my shirt cuffs and, oddly, on my eyebrow. (I must have scratched my brow with the weariness of it all.)

The good news is that olive oil really works. It dissolves the gum neatly and I saved my trousers and shirt. I don't have an extensive wardrobe, and the shirt was a gift, so I was happy to get the stuff cleaned off.

I've kept a bit of your gum, though, and I am flirting with the idea of getting the DNA tested and tracking you down. We have such a special relationship after all: your gob on my arse.
Lovely.

Aug 16: Looking on the bright side, I was lucky enough to have a very minty bottom that morning, which can't be bad.

Aug 23: Dear Gum Person,

Just to let you know, spit wad, the olive oil stain proved tenacious and I had to bin those pants. I bought a new pair yesterday for $179 from G2000. They are black. So, gobber, if you see a tall person wearing a cheap-ish pair of new black trousers inspecting ferry seats for mouth turds, that's me. Why not come over and say hi? I'll introduce you to my backside.

Oh, the shirt I kept, despite the olive oil stain. So if you see a tall person wearing a cheap-ish pair of new black trousers inspecting ferry seats for mouth turds wearing a big black shirt with an olive oil stain on the back, I'll bet that's me.

P.S. Say hello to Ji Woo when you see him on the ferry, now that everybody has a good idea about how he looks like. One more tip: He might NOT look Asian...

Aug 21: Lama Walks on...

The Lamma-zine has recently published an obituary for one of the most popular dogs in Yung Shue Wan, the late Dalai (Aug 4: First, Last Rays for Dalai, Her Fluffiness)

How are his family and siblings doing after this sad loss? Petri has submitted a picture of Lama taken yesterday on Main Street, plus a very suitable hit song:

Petri - Human Companion of the late Dalai:

"Lama (brother of Mandela and late Dalai) braving the elements today. It should be noted that he's kitted out with Liverpool FC's new yellow wet-weather away outfit for quadrupeds!"

"Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone."

� 1945, Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein.
"You'll Never Walk Alone" was written for the 1945 Broadway musical play Carousel .
"You'll Never Walk Alone" is closely associated with Liverpool Football Club.

Aug 20: Scanner Jam Art Jam

I was scanning this flyer for Tamara's Art Jam (see Aug 13) when my new 2nd-hand scanner broke down right in the middle of scanning. Instead of the flyer (right) I got this intricate black bit pattern on my screen (below left)!

It inspired me to play around with it and finally generate ALL the computer graphics below from this single hardware error pattern, in one long happy afternoon and evening, full of creative vivid vibrations. Tamara's flyers seem to have an amazing, creative impact on some people (and their scanners! ;-)

Using my updated Photoshop program (CS 2 with many added filters, mostly "Kai's Power Tools"), it was a great performance test for my new, very fast PC (3GHz dual core Intel CPU). The new PC rocks! The scanner jam initiated an art jam, kind of poetic justice, isn't it?

I know I had promised not to show any of my computer graphics anymore in public because I never got any kind of feedback. I assume this means that nobody actually likes or dislikes them enough to tell me?

But you know what? I don't really care and will continue to generate these graphics occasionally. These computer art jams are just too much fun and there could be more in the future! Beware!

Aug 19: Cuddly Little Fruit Bats Love Longans!

Rarely ever have we seen good photos of local bats on Lamma. Petri the Batmaaaan shot all of these from his balcony, flashing these "fruity bats" the other night with his pocket cam. Yes, these cute little critters love the deliciously sweet & tangy longans which seem to be just the perfect size for their snouts! The longan fruit season is coming to an end, but they're still at it and can be seen in action after midnight.

The cute title of this story was written by Petri as well, in addition to all the pictures and the words below! I love Lamma-zine contributors like him!

How to take photos of bats in flight at night? Petri offers this little beginner's guide for Lamma's legions of talented and passionate hobby photographers:

Set your camera to the highest resolution, widest angle and get as close as possible! Fix the focus to the estimated distance. Set the ISO to 50 to keep graininess low, reduce the flash intensity (you'll get all-white "snow bats" otherwise!). No idea how to avoid the massive white "red-eye" effect, though.

Switch the screen off to keep it from distracting the very shy bats and simply hold the camera in your outreached palm (while staying very still yourself) until you can hear one of them in a tree near you. Then just point in the general direction and pull the trigger! Happy hunting! (Click to enlarge Petri's great photos.)

Aug 18: Swarming Dragonflies

Big swarms of dragonflies are enchanting Yung Shue Wan Village in late summer, looking for a mate before dying. For some unknown reasons, the swarms seem attracted by this black sunroof netting above.

Swarming dragonflies will forever remind me of HK's short but blazingly hot dotcom boom summer, lasting just one single summer in the year 2000. The Li Ka-shing-financed "corporate dotcom startup", where I was the General Manager and Creative Director, had a dragonfly in its logo. It died end of Aug 2000. I vividly remember the huge swarms of dragonflies dancing quietly and solemnly outside our brand-new office's windows. It looked like a "death watch", mourning our startup's sad demise...

Aug 17: 'Ode to the Lover of Mrs Kay'

Tjungarayi - a new poem and some fictional prose from an aspiring Lamma writer. The Lamma-zine is proud to present the second installment in his Mrs Kay saga. We've heard from her before, on June 12:

1 Ode to the Lover of Mrs Kay

Questions abound about Mrs Kay's fate.

So this wee tale to you I'll relate.

Regarding Mrs Kay's amorous tastes,

This belle of the isle was not so chaste!

Some background digression, I'll undertake,

One lover carried far too much weight

His tender ego she did now deflate,

By joking about his enormous waist.

This lover it seems was marred by the fates

He blabbered and made to fulminate.

With mind awry, with maddened red face,

Arms akimbo, far from sedate.

"You will rue your jest," he did indicate,

Blustering over his onions and steak.

Snatched his fork from his stoneware plate,

Fist clenched about it to gesticulate.

2

A foolish chide as events would dictate,

Made her rise and depart the place.

Was 2nd August she left her date,

One month later she would meet her fate.

This man she spurned did ruminate.

He planned and schemed for revenges sake,

A devilish desire soon set to sate

Of a plot divested with murderous hate

Its often not realised how wide are the straits

That separated this lover who hastened to wait.

Till evenings dusk in a nauseous state

He boarded the ferry, rushed through the gate.

Fluorescent lights shined off his face

This lover looked forward his heart a pace.

And now aboard strode a nervous gait

His devlish deed to seal her fate.

The ferry berthed and amidst the haste

The jilted lover quickened his pace.

"This will I do," and he began to shake

"Her life is mine, my right to take."

3 He slinked up the hill at a quarter past eight

Silent, deadly, fleet as a snake

His breath did hiss and sibilate

Vengeance with cold hate did correlate.

Crept over the fence and around the gate

Espied her bike, a shadowy shape,

Leaning alongside, beside the crates

With delirious spite his hands did shake.

Afraid Mrs Kay would now awake

He for a moment did hesitate

Then snipped the wires to Mrs Kay's brakes!

Oh wicked deed. Oh venomous hate!

Left naught a trace to indicate

His woeful deed none could emulate.

Pale moonlight wreathed his wretched face

Making guilty egress to escape

Now Mrs Kay was feeling sedate

With little to do she prepared a cake.

Whisked the eggs with almond flakes

And into the oven timed to bake

4

So of to bed to regenerate

Mrs Kay reclined to rehabilitate

The Banyan bay lay still as a lake

Till the dawn breeze the leaves did shake

The morning's sun lit across her face

While avian hymns lapped her awake

Bathed, plied perfume, made up her face

Relished her fare and washed her plate

Saddled her bike and rode through the gate

Descended the slope at a steady gait

Musing the love she had for this place

This isle where she chose to habitate.

The cause, her death, her untimely fate

Its needless here to regurgitate.

Suffice to say such a shameless waste

Her lover to bear this terrible weight.

The death of Mrs Kay was such a waste

Truly enough was an unkindly fate

Spurned lover, her life he did cruelly take

All for love lost and malicious hate.

Background Story:

Not many are aware of an English woman living on Lamma 1919 - 1925. Those elder Chinese surviving are shy to talk about this subject and evidence a predisposition to reticence. Understandably so, given Mrs Kay's reputed nocturnal proclivities. Many a wife lamented Emelda Kay's arrival in Hong Kong, her subsequent residence at Lamma and their husband's frequent nightly absences.

Emelda did not stay often at Lamma, preferring the sensual scented evenings and exotic excitement of the casinos in Macau. Her clients afforded her the privilege of relaxing at their salubrious apartments so she was often away from Lamma for weeks. Nevertheless, she came back to Lamma to relax and enjoy the indolent tranquility she so craved, often seen at twilight in her lime green chiffon dress and apricot-coloured Panama hat relaxing on her veranda sipping long stemmed cocktails.

Many suspect that there was more than met the eye on that torpid September day in 1925. Emelda was eternally fastidious about bicycle maintenance and it came as a surprise when the Hong Kong police resident forensic expert examined her salvaged pink bicycle from beside the ferry pier.

In 2005, I uncovered an old police report in the dusty vaults in the archive section of the Central police station submitted by Detective Superintendent Reginald Hanocock Nov 16 1925. The report states that the "?back wheel brake cord was cleanly severed, neither frayed nor worn." Compelling evidence of some nefarious deed if you ask me.

Interestingly, Detective Hanocock interviewed three times, one Edwardo Ricardo Sustine, an obese rich Portuguese owner of a disreputable chain of restaurants. It seems obvious he suspected this Portuguese in some way with Emelda Kay's death. Curiously, the case was closed due to lack of continuing leads, although it is my assumption that pressure was put on Reginald Hanocock. A year later he was transferred to the Falklands.

Interestingly enough, subsequent research unveiled further revealing facts about Emelda Kay's life. Her eldest son, Archibald Scipio Kay, disinherited by his father, joined his mother in Hong Kong in 1924. Their reunion at Kowloon was not ideal as Archie, as he was parsimoniously known, had contracted chickenpox while on the voyage and slipped on the gangplank disembarking and broke his left leg. Archibald was in Shanghai at the time of his mother's death.

To be continued?...

Aug 16: Lamma on 'Lights Out' Night

First and 2nd picture by Roz Keep, 3rd picture by Lamma-Gung

All these photos were taken shortly after 8pm on Aug 8. There were just a few houses actually switching their lights off...

Congratulations to the organisers and volunteers of the Lights Out HK campaign anyway! The massive publicity generated to raise public awareness of HK's fast-worsening air pollution was the real success story and it put some pressure on the main polluters! Well done!

Aug 15: Police Campaign: 'Fight Against Juvenile Crimes'

This Outlying Islands police publicity campaign of the Crime Prevention Bureau was recently launched on Cheung Chau Island. The opening ceremony photos on CD-ROM were just hand-delivered by "Senior Inspector Woooo-Woooo!", eh, SI Joe Wu, when he spotted me and Lamma-Por in Blue Bird Rest. Here's the best from the launch ceremony (click small images to enlarge them):

The Road Show on Sat, Aug 12 in front of YSW's City Hall and the Police Box featured police videos and posters about fighting juvenile crimes, but also the winners of the Islands-District-wide "Poster/Colour Drawing Competition". (Click below to enlarge and see more of the children's drawings):

I've been interviewing "Senior Inspector Woooo-Woooo!" recently about why they picked "Juvenile Crimes" as this year's campaign theme:

He made it very clear that juvenile crime is NOT rampant and wide-spread on Lamma, fortunately. A bit of drinking and other recreational drugs, shoplifting, some low-key, usually non-violent triad activity and occasionally unruly behaviour seems to be the full extent of local juvenile crimes. No very serious crimes � like groping, graffiti or gang warfare � at all! Let's hope that Lamma remains a pretty safe and peaceful place!

There were also stacks of leaflets available at the Road Show, some of them pretty interesting and very informative (click below to enlarge). Some of them (PC/Internet tips, hiking, cycling) are still available inside the G/F of our City Hall (opposite HSBC):

Aug 14: Road Show @ The Police Box

Ever wonder why this funny cube above is colloquially called "The Police Box"? Well, besides the obvious shape and modular, pre-fabricated construction of our "Police Report Centre" (boooring name!), it's very reminiscent of an iconic British TV series that's been running, on and off, for decades. The second season of the latest incarnation of this Sci-Fi series is being aired on HK terrestrial TV right now: "Dr. Who"! It features a time machine, called Tardis, in the shape of an official British "Police Box" (click for sound). According to Wikipedia:

Modern police box located outside Earl's Court tube station in London, which is "bristling with new technology". (Editor:
including a time machine?)

"A police box is a telephone kiosk or callbox for use by members of the police. Police boxes pre-date the era of modern telecommunications; today, every police officer (in developed countries) is likely to carry a two-way radio.

The typical police box contained a telephone linked directly to the local police station allowing officers "on the beat" to keep in contact with the station, reporting anything unusual, requesting help if necessary or even to detain prisoners until a vehicle could be sent to transport them to the station or to jail.

This was in the day when most police officers walked a beat or rode a bicycle rather than using a police car. An electric light on top of the box would flash to alert a beat officer that he was requested to contact the station. Members of the public could also use the phone (which was on the exterior) to contact a police station in an emergency."

Reading this and knowing that I'm a SciFi nut, you might well understand that every time I walk past YSW's Police Box, I expect that "an electric light on top of the box would flash" and that eerie Wooooo-woooo sound would echo across the bay. Maybe that's why Lamma's Senior Inspector is surnamed Wu? Should we nickname him "Senior Inspector Woooo-Woooo!" His "boys" (as he calls his constables) seem to spend a lot of time inside the Police Box, considering it home away from home?

Visiting Lamma feels sometimes like stepping into a time machine for Hong Kong's urbanites, traveling back to happier, greener, simpler times to a real, peaceful, fully functional village community.

But this story should have been about this year's police campaign to fight juvenile crimes, not about my juvenile jokes about our Police Box, home of our valiant, heroic, hard-working local police force! But this story is too long enough already, so let's save the photos of the police campaign for tomorrow...

Aug 13: Art-Jammin' the Deli