Fake lawn in Lantau lite
Years ago, while chatting to Jardines taipan Percy Weatherall, who was resplendent in a purple silk Chinese smoking jacket at the time, the subject of lawn mowers arose. He spoke at length about his garden and his various flowers and plants and conjured up a vision of a glorious English country garden in summer. Actually he was discussing a substantial chunk of greenery in Hong Kong and it was only afterwards that I realised how rare this subject of conversation was in Hong Kong, where the vast majority don’t even have a window box to call their own.
Unless, of course, you live in Discovery Bay. DB occupies that singular space between “resort” without “resort” facilities and sanitised housing estate sprawling across Lantau’s green and pleasant land. How does Hong Kong Resorts seem able to access unlimited acres of Lantau to carpet in concrete? But that’s another story. What many people over there in Lantau Lite have is a garden, with real grass. Quite spacious lawns are common. Lawnmowers are not lesser spotted. So it was with surprise that I opened the magazine Around DB, to see a big advert for – only in DB – fake lawns.
Generation three synthetic lawns are so close to the real thing you will find it hard to believe, the verbiage says. No, in DB, home of the multi-million dollar golf cart, nothing is hard to believe. Perfect for areas that get no sun or too much water, it continues. They are child safe and pet friendly, no muddy paws! I can’t imagine Fido likes peeing on a grass carpet much. “Green and lush all year round with no shrinkage cracks in summer.” Not many things you can say that about. “No mowing means you have time to do the things you love.” But isn’t the whole point of having a lawn being able to mow it? Not in DB.
iPhone 5 let down
After all the excitement and suspense, the iphone 5 finally arrived. People stare at it and say incredulously “Is that the iphone 5?” as if it just descended from outer space, not the 3 shop. But the bad news is that the dear little thing does not work very well. Well some of it works. The phone part works, the sms part works but the internet, forget it. It just comes up with a various versions of cannot connect to internet, cannot access email, but the meaning is the same – no access. Sometimes it picks up a stray waft of wifi and gives me burst of inbound emails from yesterday or the day before, but nothing from the main sent box on the main computer and refuses to send out anything.
So an expensive phone which doesn’t work properly. Thank goodness for the ipad which seems to be able to withstand hurricanes, being dropped and soaked and still gets the internet halfway up Lantau Peak. But that’s hooked up to Smartone, another story.
So back to the 3 shop. Much fiddling and typing on the computer. I even switched it to a different simcard. The helpful chap promised the iphone 5 would now be all singing all dancing. But try as I would, I could not make the pesky thing break its habit of just picking up random inbound emails via wifi. The sent box remains stubbornly empty and the cannot - get - internet messages continue. I’m sure I will be told it’s my fault, because I’m a technological numpty, or the settings are wrong, but this was re-set by the man in the 3 shop.
To cheer myself up I went to Fortress to get a cover for the iphone 5. I asked the guy to help me fit the protector screen, thinking he gets lots of practice and it would be easy for him, but no. Cannot. Why not? “Not allowed help you do that Madam. Go to another shop.” Why not? “Cannot.” I’m beginning to wish I’d stuck with the old phone.
