What happens when politicians get the spellings of their own parties wrong? It puts needless obstacles in the way of the English media mining their data, as was the case after nominations for the district council elections ended last week. While other reporters around town got down to sifting through the data released by the Registration and Electoral Office, analysis attempts by All Around Town turned out to be an exercise in frustration. Six Federation of Trade Unions candidates declared their party affiliation only in Chinese and not in English - and where the FTU candidates did, four of them got the name wrong, variously calling their party the "Federation of Trading Unions" or "Federation Trade Unions". All Around Town hereby urges all candidates to exercise caution when filling out their forms so the English media can get the figures just as correctly as their Chinese-language peers.

Still on the polls next month, a politically incorrect statement by one candidate, calling for Hong Kong independence, has left the Registration and Electoral Office in a bind. It wrote to Yau Tsim Mong aspirant Hitsujiko Nakade, alias Chung Ming-lun, saying such a call was in breach of the Basic Law and ordering him to revise it or risk the office editing the statement itself. Poll guidelines allow the election watchdog to alter a candidate's platform if it is "considered to be indecent, defamatory, unlawful, or contain information not relating to the promotion of the [candidate's] candidature". Writing on Facebook, Nakade dared the office to edit his platform and warned he would take the case to court. The office said it was still processing the case.

Activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung is getting another 15 minutes of fame, this time via the British press pack. Its wide coverage of his trip has arguably outshone that of President Xi Jinping - who is making the first state visit by a Chinese leader in 10 years. Wong, who fronted an issue of magazine last year, was on page one of criticising London for failing to confront Beijing hard enough over human rights and Hong Kong's democracy. He also urged British Prime Minister David Cameron not to trust China. One wonders why Wong is seeking support from a country that refused to implement democracy in the city during 150 years of its rule.