Lai See
Getting message across in plain language
Despite the embarrassingly public row surrounding HSBC's choice of new chairman, the current CEO, Michael Geoghegan, who came off second best, stuck to his commitment to address the Royal Society of Arts last week in London.
His talk was on whether the West is being left behind in business and banking. Asked by a member of the audience about the importance of learning languages, Geoghegan recalled how, in 1997, upon being summoned before the then chairman, Willie Purves, and told he was being sent to Brazil, he admitted that he didn't speak Portuguese. 'Well then, speak a bit louder and they'll understand you,' retorted Purves, who was also sitting among the audience.
Those were the days.
Fat men get paid more
If you are a woman and you want to get ahead it pays to be thin. Unremarkable as this may sound it, has recently been confirmed by research at the University of Florida.
After surveying roughly 25,000 workers from the US and Germany, researchers concluded that women who weigh 11.5kg below average earn an extra US$15,572 a year, whereas one who weighs 11.5kg more earns US$13,487 less than a lady of normal weight.
Surprisingly, being thinner than the norm does not pay for a man. A man who weighs 11.5kg below the group norm earns US$8,437 a year less than a man of average weight. In fact, a man's salary increases consistently as he packs on the pounds, until he tips the scales at an almost obese 94 kilograms, the optimal weight for a fellow, salary-wise.
The matter was, of course, touched on by Shakespeare some time ago. In the play Julius Caesar, Caesar at one point muses,
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights
Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry look
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous
Philosophical problem
Good to see that Hong Kong International Airport was voted 'best Airport' for the eighth consecutive year in the 21st TTG Travel Awards recently.
Stanley Hui Hon-chung (pictured), chief executive of Airport Authority Hong Kong, made all the right noises at the awards ceremony.
'The winners of the TTG Awards are voted on by TTG readers across the Asia Pacific region each year, which demonstrates the travel industry's support for HKIA. It is also testimony to the hard work of the 60,000 staff in the HKIA community who strive to maintain excellent service every day,' he said.
To some minds the award raises an issue which has consumed philosophers at various times in the past. When is something one thing and not another thing?
In this case at what point do we consider the edifice at Chek Lap Kok to be no longer an airport but a shopping mall with an airport.
Developers off-balance
Curious reporters quizzed Henry Cheng Kar-shun recently at New World's results meeting about rumours that he was interested in buying the small Chinese-language newspaper Hong Kong Daily News.
Cheng replied that the voice of business wasn't being reflected in the press. 'There isn't a voice for business in the media ... We should have a media organisation with more balanced reporting,' he declared, while at the same time saying that New World wasn't pursuing any media acquisitions.
By more balanced he presumably means reporting that can put a more sympathetic spin on some of the murkier aspects of the way developers sell their flats and describe their size after allowing for the so-called common area.
JP puts in the time
We see that the former chairman of Ocean Grand Holdings, Michael Yip Kim-po, who was jailed last week for seven years for fraud, remains a justice of the peace (JP). Yip was given this honorary title in July 2006, just days before Ocean Grand imploded, according to David Webb, writing on his eponymous Webb-site.com. JPs in Hong Kong no longer have any judicial function. Their main functions include visiting prisons and other detention institutions. Perhaps Yip could visit himself in prison, Webb wittily observes.
