JANUARY 4 - Lu Ping changes Hongkong's Basic Law, cancelling all employer-amah contracts with immediate effect. The middle and upper classes are thrown into disarray.
11 - Police discover several expats have starved to death.
15 - Looking noticeably thinner, Chris Patten appears on the doorstep of Government House in an apron splashed with the remains of a beggar's chicken which exploded in his microwave. ''Nothing will change my mind on democratic reform,'' he says. The British Government gives him full backing.
18 - Lu Ping cancels all dog ownership rights in Hongkong and orders all Norfolk terriers to be sent immediately to Guangzhou food market. Chris Patten appears on the steps of Government House with Soda and Whisky in his arms, and tearfully withdraws hisproposals. The British Government gives him full backing.
FEBRUARY 10 - Bonnie Gokson's accountant arranges a fund-raising musical venture called In the Red.
26 - A gang of US experts arrives to knock down the crumbly old historical structure in Kowloon known as the Walled City. Unfortunately, they accidentally knock down the crumbly old historical structure next door to it instead, known as Kai Tak Airport.