THE news that the British spend time in traffic jams picking their noses, reported in this newspaper under the headline 'Car capers' is of profound interest.
It proves that there are major cultural differences between there and here, as if we didn't already know.
In Hong Kong, one does not have to be in the privacy of one's car to pick one's nose. Prodigious use of the index finger of either hand is allowed, indeed encouraged, in motor vehicles, on trams, in supermarkets, while preparing dinner and, above all, anywhere others are eating.
Amputate a Hong Konger's second digit and what you are left with is a man who, for the first time in his life, must buy a handkerchief.
'Car capers' was interesting for other reasons. The British, apparently, spend time in their cars thinking up excuses for being late ('There's a terrible traffic jam on the A34 and my grandmother died') and for traffic accidents ('A pedestrian stepped into the road, he didn't know which way to turn, so I ran him over.') Other excuses for accidents include 'I collided with a stationary lorry coming the other way,' or 'an invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.' And my favourite: 'I looked across at my mother-in-law and headed straight over the embankment.' My own uneasy relationship with motor cars, is defined by a series of similar lame excuses, starting with my first attempt at the driving test. This was badly marred when the examiner, unaware that I was about to perform an unscheduled emergency manoeuvre, was thrown against the dashboard.
'I've failed, haven't I?' His answer, which from his animated nodding I deduced was in the affirmative, was lost beneath the sound of fresh blood bubbling through his sinuses.