It was his son. Both Sir John and his son refused to comment when we called up asking about the writ.

Now Lai See would never overplay a story just because it involved a high-profile figure. And we believe people should not be accountable for the actions of their relatives. We just wanted to set the record straight.

We would like to report that there may be some point of principle behind the writ. Perhaps an argument over niggling bits of tax legislation.

But father and son have decided not to comment. Perhaps more information will emerge if the case progresses through the system. We will be watching closely.

Wheeled menace: A nature-loving reader was walking on one of his favourite plots of beautiful, natural grass near the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology the other day when he noticed some white lines painted on it.

A keen fan of American football, he paced the lines off to see if someone was planning to lay out a gridiron pitch. Intrigued, he went to work as usual but followed up over the phone with a couple of well-placed environmentally aware friends.

To their dismay and disgust, they discovered the white lines are the first stage of a plan to turn one of Hong Kong's last remaining patches of real public grass into a car park!

'It is difficult to imagine why Hong Kong car owners want to encroach on grass when we have so little of it and there are so many disused areas around town which are better suited to the purpose,' our reader told us.

We checked our map and he is right; the area all around the HKUST is completely empty and cars could be parked in many, many locations other than this much-loved grass patch. Whoever is behind this plan, please immediately reconsider. Go and paint your white lines elsewhere. Indeed, keep off the grass.

Launch alarm: Standard Chartered's press conference to launch its new electronic trading platform this week ended with a bit of drama.

An artificial smoke machine had been hired to add some atmosphere to the creative event at the Integer Hong Kong Pavilion, the environmentally friendly dream palace at the Tamar site in Central.

It was all very modernistic and inspiring, as befits a new product named B2BeX, which Standard Chartered tells us is a ground-breaking Web-based trade facilitation platform.

All went fine until the end of the event, when artificial smoke began to drift high into the pavilion's main area. Not a problem, except that it triggered a super sensitive atmospheric sensor alarm. Standard Chartered staffers reassured the pavilion's environmental protection people and all was well.

The bank is really on a winning roll these days. First there was the massive marketing success of its recent Hong Kong share issue, where Standard Chartered had its name in print and on air hundreds of times at no charge.

Then a missile bowling incident at its jointly sponsored Hong Kong Cricket Sixes on Sunday was subtly defused by dozens of police and security guards before there was any real trouble.

Now a potentially embarrassing incident involving a hyperactive dry-ice machine has been quietly resolved without anyone noticing, apart from Lai See readers of course!

Graphic: whee07gbz