bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

AN Australian company is selling royal jelly (a beehive extract) to Hongkong customers.

 Ben Ltd of Hollywood Road is sending out junk mail to Hongkong homes.

 ''FREE ROYAL JELLY!'' says the huge headline. What they mean is that if you send $400 they'll send you three little bottles, one of which is ''free''.

 On the coupon is an additional charge: ''Credit card users only: Add safe delivery charge: $18.''  Presumably people who pay cash or by cheque get unsafe delivery.

 Ben Ltd lists no less than 35 ailments for which their product is used, including malnutrition, insomnia, impotence, menopause, angina, anorexia, morning sickness and asthma. It also cures acne and ''slows down the ageing process''.

 The only thing missing is ''ushers in democracy''.

 One recipient, tax consultant Fred Fredricks, could not work out why Australians were selling royal jelly.

 ''I thought Australians wanted to do away with the monarchy,'' he said. ''Maybe that should be 'republican jelly'?''  Ben Ltd gives its product an endorsement by ''members of the Royal family including Princess Diana and the Duchess of York''.

 Didn't exactly turn their lives into shining examples of Royal happiness, did it?     Socially mobile   SEEN at the Victory Restaurant on Shamian Island in Guangzhou: a table of four individuals who had, between them, seven yuptilitarian items, in the shape of three mobile phones and four pagers.

 Note to wannabee yuppies in Guangdong: you only have to plonk the mobile phone in a highly conspicuous position on the dining table.

 It is considered overkill to ring other people on your table with it.

 These over-excited gentlemen spent 30 minutes ringing each other, feigning surprise when their phones rang, even though the caller was sitting next to them.

 They held loud conversations which they could have conducted rather more easily without the pricey equipment.

 The chap without a mobile phone wasn't left out: they took it in turns to page him.

 Yes, the yuppification of Guangdong is proceeding apace.

    One man's meat   TRAVEL writer Ron Gluckman of Lamma island was amazed to read our item yesterday about the Fly By Night, a restaurant in Alaska.

 ''It was my second home in the mid-1980s, when I was music critic and arts editor at the Anchorage Times,'' he said.

 Not only does the place serve multiple spam dishes (a salty pink quasi-meatal substance made of chopped pork and heaven knows what else), but the manager wrote songs about Spam and formed a group called The Fabulous Spamtones.

 When Hormel, the ''meat'' company that makes Spam, objected, the restaurant band's name was changed to The Fabulous Can't Call Them Spamtones 'Cause Hormel Has No Sense of Humour.

 To hear Ron talk about Anchorage makes you realise that there's quite a bit of life in the frozen north.

 One bar, Chilkoot Charlie's, had a neon-lit super-honest slogan which would go down very well in Hongkong, where there is always a tourist price and a locals' price:  ''We Cheat The Other Guy And Pass the Savings On To You.''     Baste washers   THE winner of the Anguish Languish challenge will be announced on Monday. To get you back into this difficult language, here are some greetings from the letters of some runners-up:  Fishing ewe a marry grist must inner whoopee gnu ear. (Ross Evans of Fontworks).

 Widow bessy fishes over disease-on (Nigel Bleach of Chinese University of Hongkong).

 Beast witches fork Risk much, end fodder Nude Ear. Years fly fairly (Mrs E. Robertson, barrister.)  May we criss moss (Jenny Tyrrell of Tuen Mun Development Office).

 We hop ewer heifer weary niece crass mass, My can Say man (Mike Purefoy and Simon Griffiths of L & D).

 Ewes all-waist, All-Butt (Albert Nutten of Guildford Road, The Peak).

 Andy happen who ear chew all - (Alan Shirley of Tai Tam).

 Congratulations too to Tao Bee Hong, Ian Clark, Philip Wong, Sanyu May Picot, Simon Thompson, Anil Lalwani, Ann Grimwade, James Teh, Des Crofton, Jeffrey and Quentin Day, and the dozens of others who wrote in.

 In the words of Hugo Swallow of Hongkong: ''Harpy Nude Ear.''     Sexodus   NINETY per cent of executives say their employees' handwriting is illegible at times, reveals a survey by US magazine Modern Office Products.

 Miscommunication and time lost trying to decipher someone's scribbling costs business US$200 million a year, according to the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association of New Jersey.

 Losses are worst when mistakes end up in print.

 Possibly the worst piece of miscommunication we can recall is an early edition of the Bible, which not only condoned adultery, but required it.

 ''Thou shalt commit adultery,'' said Exodus 20:14 in an edition of the King James Version which came to be called the Wicked Bible.

 We suspect this is the version that you find in hotel bedrooms in the Kowloon Tong area.



Fit for a princess, but you'll never be queen bee