WITHIN weeks of presiding over one of the most glittering parties ever held in the territory, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels public relations head Lynn Grebstad is to leave the company. Grebstad was one of the team who spent two years planning the construction and opening of the group's flagship the Peninsula Hotel before last month's sumptuous opening party that throbbed the venerable hotel from the top to bottom of the 28-storey extension. Yet she will leave Michael Kadoorie's company around the end of the Lunar New Year with the aim of setting up her own public relations firm sometime in the spring. 'There will not be any formal announcement just yet, but there is an awful lot of expansion in the hotel and catering industry in this part of the world; it is incredibly exciting and yet it does not seem to be covered. So I thought - what the hell - why not try it?' she said. 'I have been with the company for three great years but one has to look ahead. I looked around at the options and thought this was the best thing, although I have not worked out the details.' Fresh look at school sports THE Hong Kong Football Club hosted what looked like a gathering of the lost tribes on New Year's Day when a series of rugby matches pitching Hong Kong schoolboys against their overseas counterparts who had returned for the Christmas holidays were played. Hundreds chatted, socialised, drank copious amounts of beer and even managed to watch some of the action as they strolled around the pitch. Surveying the scene from the walkway around the Sportsman's Bar one middle-aged expatriate turned to another spectator and asked 'Do you know what I really like about these schoolboy rugby games?' Before he could continued a friend suggested 'You mean the way the action never stops; the relentless handling and passing movements and the lack of cynical play that you get in the senior game?' 'No, the fact I can have a good leer at all these lovely Island schoolgirls,' he replied with a smirk. Eight times as generous Readers of the Sunday Post Magazine might recall the annual awards in last week's edition that took a few well-earned satirical swipes at people who made the news last year. Among the targets was the Legal Aid Department which took a great chunk of the $780 a month awarded to unemployed maid Lisa Francisco to bring up the daughter fathered by an American sailor. The department said the money was to pay for $50,000-worth of legal fees the case created. Instead they gave her $50 a month by the department, hardly a munificent sum, as we remarked. Last week Lolly Chiu of the department rang and made it clear the award was in American dollars and therefore worth $390. Mathematically at least, the sum is nearly eight times as large, but as anyone who has ever raised children, which presumably includes members of the Legal Aid Department, will know it still won't make much of a dent in the monthly baby bills. Where the smart money goes HONG Kong's horsey set made their way to cool and windy Tai Tam last week for Patrick Biancone and Elaine Sung's Hong Kong wedding reception after their marriage in France in the week before Christmas. It was an splendid lunchtime affair - a marquee with dance floor and unlimited quantities of champagne and wine and a groaning buffet board. Among the guests were the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club's director of racing Philip Johnston, Alan Li's son Dominique and his wife Tracey (who are soon to leave Hong Kong for northern France as he pursues his career as a horse trader), jockey Eric Legrix and Chantal and Nouhad Slim. One guest asked Biancone why on earth he had chosen the misty, chill and damp town of Deauville - 'I mean surely you must have known that no one would come from Hong Kong?' they said. Gazing at the multitude busily eating and drinking at his expense Biancone replied sagely 'Of course I knew.' So poor at the dating game THE civil servants who decide Hong Kong's broadcasting policies have long been criticised for being out of touch - a sentiment likely to be enforced after an strange episode last month. Recreation and Culture Branch Secretary, James So Yiu-cho, was appearing at an RCB panel meeting with a few members of the Legislative Council when the topic of the Wharf-owned Cable TV came up. Members wanted to know how many subscribers Cable TV had and So immediately gave the figure of 70,000 - substantially less than the 120,000 figure Cable TV was claiming. That evening the network's managing director Stephen Ng Tin-hoi blasted So's figure, saying it was 'absolutely incorrect.' Not only was So's total an embarrassment to Wharf, but with each subscriber paying $198, the shortfall potentially meant the company was earning $10 million less than it was claiming every month. It has emerged that So then wrote privately to Wharf admitting that the figure he used dated all the way back to July in order to 'clarify' the situation. 'It was a bit out of date,' an RCB spokesman admitted ruefully. Asked why So, the Government official who is charged with charting the course the electronic media will follow into the next century, used a figure that was nearly six months old, the spokesman added defensively 'That was the figure he had in his accessibility at the time.'
