Barrack-room dreamers conjure castles in the air

Aha. Another cunning British plot exposed.

When the People's Liberation Army finally agreed in the Joint Liaison Group to relinquish all that British military land, the spirit of Lei Feng was so strong it brought tears to the eyes.

Tears of self-sacrifice, that is, to the eyes of the PLA team, who knew what wonderful facilities they might have inherited for their troops. But for that spirit of brotherly love towards their Hong Kong compatriots, so desperate for housing, the people's soldiery might have enjoyed the luxury of married quarters and extra tank parks and parade grounds.

From Pearl Island married quarters (off the Castle Peak Road - a clean environment with Hong Kong characteristics) to the Blackdown Barracks in San Po Kong, Major-General Liu Zhenwu and the boys could have had some fine lodgings. It brought tears of joy to Hong Kong's grassroots housing activists. People like the Democratic Party's Lee Wing-tat or the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood's Frederick Fung Kin-kee.

'Ah, what good men are the People's Army, who care for Hong Kong and its need for high density housing,' they said to each other way back then, gladdened to the depths of their souls that thousands upon thousands of people would be able to mortgage their future children's, grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's lifetime earnings for a 300-square-foot apartment. And it brought tears of laughter to the eyes of the wicked British negotiators, the evil property tycoons and their government stooges.

'Ha! Fooled the suckers again!' they cried secretly, their words and laughter recorded, only to be locked away in London under the 30-year rule.