In this city, the advent of 'silly season' - a term used to describe the emergence of more frivolous news when the usual newsmakers are on holiday - sees pseudo-models selling their pseudo-books at the pseudo-book-fair, organised by what I have argued before is a pseudo-public-body (aka the Trade Development Council).
The 'silly season' is prime time for the most sophisticated forms of self-promotion, an activity at which our politicians excel. But the Legislative Council's summer recess also means that the media can put aside the theatrics inside the chamber and focus more on the news that really matters. The issue of teenage drug abuse may have remained safely tucked under the carpet if not for the media's work last summer.
For 2010, the Octopus and Amina Mariam Bokhary stories have enough controversy and drama to get us through the rest of the year. It will take months, if not years, for the Octopus saga to play out. While former Octopus card chief executive Prudence Chan Bik-wah is learning her own lesson about the importance of being earnest, the general public is only now learning the importance of prudence, especially when it comes to giving out personal data.
For a moment, let's set aside the silly competition between, and blatant self-promotion by, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions to see who can hold the most press conferences featuring witnesses who have sold or come into contact with Octopus lists even after Ms Chan had come clean.
The Octopus Saga is still this year's teenage drug story, which will - hopefully - finally get the government, business community and consumers to address privacy concerns.
Such issues rarely make front-page headlines (an exception was the squabble between the last privacy chief and the Audit Commissioner). Consider, though, how the invasion of other people's privacy is the reason why weekly gossip magazines and tabloids are the city's most popular reading material. Then add the fact that our mobile phone companies, banks, insurance companies, and all the customer loyalty programmes we have signed up for, have been passing on and selling our personal information for years.
The Octopus saga is different only because it elicits an emotional response, for three reasons. It is - by association with the MTR Corporation and the government - part of 'the establishment'.