THE thought occurred to me again the other day as I tried to ease my nostril safely away from the hair clip of the woman jammed in next to me: why is the MTR crowded all day and not just at those hours referred to collectively as the rush hour? The answer lies, as does everything - except possibly unwanted pregnancies - with the Government.
People are flying around in a fug at all hours of the working day, collecting forms, acquiring chops, sneaking photocopies, begging signatures and racing from station to station to find an unoccupied photo booth. And all this is in the service of the Government's vast empire of licensings, levies and permits.
This medieval levying is the very oxygen of government. A staggering percentage of its income is flogged from the peasantry through licensing fees. They are the perfect complement to taxation.
Taxation is the payment for state services that are either rarely used or are paid for privately anyway. Licensing is giving permission to do something that could be easily done without permission.
In a busy place like Hong Kong, the combined bureaucratic effect is incomparable. You can only imagine an equivalent - India run by the Germans, perhaps. Take, for example, the Hong Kong Driving Licence, which is dispensed in Central in a ground-floor hall that is a cross between an employment office and a betting shop.
For those who believe their days in Hong Kong are numbered, there is a one-year licence available. I imagine they've started selling like hot custard tarts. Indeed, the licences might prove an interesting political barometer.