Mark the new era with a spot of pig catching

There seem to be an awful lot of handover celebrations. This makes it difficult to keep track of the most choice items. So here are a few good things you may have missed.

The Hiram's Highway Hog Festival will be held on New Dawn day one. Greasy pig catching, guess the weight of the piglet and other country pursuits. Highlight is the hog race, in which a herd of porkers in business suits will vie to be first to get their noses in the trough.

The Pol Pot Supporters Club, Overseas Division, will hold its annual get-together in Hong Kong on day two. Present will be representatives of all those countries which managed for years to combine a public position supportive of human rights with a private position supportive of Mr Pot.

Highlight: the director-designate of Xinhua (the New China News Agency) staff choir will lead all those present in singing a new song written for the occasion, called We Do Not Interfere In Other Countries' Internal Affairs.

Day three will see further progress in the introduction of the Special Administrative Region's (SAR) new system of honours and awards: the first investiture for awardees of the Golden Toothpick for Resistance to Colonial Oppression.

The presentation to patriotic former members of the local underworld will be held in Stanley Prison for the convenience of the recipients.

Day four will see the announcement of the winners of the annual CAPO Cup competition, in which local policemen vie to collect the largest number of unsubstantiated complaints.

Day five offerings include the prize presentation of the special 'Be Your Own Censor' SAR leader-writer's competition.

Contestants have been labouring for weeks on their entries, in which they were required to write balanced editorials seeing both sides of the issue and ending with the hope that reason and commonsense would prevail, on the sinking of the Titanic, the St Valentine's Day Massacre, and the Holocaust.

Finalists will have two hours to produce a 700-word piece explaining why it is necessary and desirable to demolish Jardine House and replace it with a monument to the Heroes of 68.

On day six you can thrill to the Overseas Film Crew Obstacle Challenge. In this event each three-man crew, complete with camera, microphones and lighting equipment, has to run up six flights of stairs and then get into a caged bedspace together without either removing or crushing the occupant.

They then have to produce a story explaining that the cages in Hong Kong bedspace apartments are provided to protect the occupants' belongings while they are out, not to prevent the occupants from leaving while they are in.

This simple point seems to present an enormous difficulty so the results are awaited with particular interest.

On day seven all Hong Kong residents are invited to join in the Reunification Flushed with Success record attempt. Under the supervision of representatives of the Guinness Book Of Records, an effort will be made to establish a new record for the largest number of toilets flushed simultaneously.

Residents are reminded that during this activity they should keep well away from the harbour, which is expected to rise by about a metre at the time.

Day eight will see the first regular meeting of the new legislature, and another record attempt, this time for lightning lawmaking.

The provisional legislature already holds the record for this item, but chairman Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai is confident that with practice the new Legco will be able to improve on past performance by passing a bill through all three stages in five seconds.

Day nine sees the Superintendent Godber's Flit memorial handicap race. In this event contestants line up outside the airport fence and the winner is the first person to get on an aeroplane without going through Customs and immigration. The handicap? Contestants are not allowed to wear PLA uniforms.

Day 10 sees an event for all the family, the launching of the handover Official Toy. This is a little gadget called the Tamagotchi-hwa.

This functions much like your regular Tamagotchi. You feed it, water it, play with it and so on. It lasts for five years instead of three months and needs less care and attention than your average baby dinosaur, except for one small extra button. With this you cut its hair every day.