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There are a lot of people in Hong Kong who think of yesterday as simply the day Tom.com launched.

 Lai See thinks that shows a sad lack of imagination and artistic sensibilities. Believe it or not, there are those who saw it as a day for creative endeavours. A day totally divorced from the world of numbers, dollar signs and tech ventures.

 Painter Lau Yan-tsun is such a person.

 Yesterday marked the opening of his latest show. His work was unveiled at the audio-visual centre on Kennedy Road.

 So you see, there are other dimensions to life in the SAR besides money and markets. Just because you happen to be a Hong Konger doesn't mean you have to get caught up in all this ridiculous hype.

 Anyway, Mr Lau's freshly launched show features a series of voyeuristically painted nudes.

 And what, asked Lai See in her best art connoisseur's voice, is the name of this exhibition of original works?  The answer: 'Peeping Tom.com.' Misinformation, guarded information and garbled information heralded Kwong Ki-chi's job switch.

 Which makes a perverse sort of sense. He was, after all, our Information Technology and Broadcasting Secretary.

 The sequence of events on Tuesday went something like this.

 4pm: the Government announced that Mr Kwong had resigned.

 4.30pm: the board of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEC) announced his appointment as chief executive.

 5pm: he met reporters but refused to comment on his next move. Instead, he kept parroting that he was resigning for 'personal reasons'.

 But we all know you're joining the HKEC, the mystified reporters said. What have you done to prepare for your new job?  Tight-lipped silence.

 Meanwhile, confusion reigned over Alec Tsui's simultaneous appointment as the HKEC's chief operating officer.

 Tuesday evening found Securities and Futures Commission officials welcoming the announcement of his new position by the HKEC.

 Which would have been all well and good if the HKEC people had, in fact, announced it.

 But they hadn't. Mr Tsui's new bosses had been saving the news for later.

 The official announcement finally showed up yesterday morning, more than 12 hours after it had already received a warm welcome from the SFC.

 All rather confusing.

 Cynics might think it all smacks of mayhem, crossed wires and general chaos.

 But not Lai See.

 No doubt this was just the SFC's subtle way of warning the new guys about the commission's strict disclosure rules.

Inspired by the offerings of myboss.com, a reader has sent in this tale of stupidity from the top rungs of the corporate ladder.

 A young executive was leaving the office late one evening when he found the chief executive standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

 'Listen,' said the boss, 'this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work?'  'Certainly,' said the young exec. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and hit the start button.

 'Excellent, excellent!' said the boss as his paper disappeared inside the machine. 'I just need one copy.' Lai See has just read of the poetic cocktail waitress who became the first person to try and patent herself.

 'I can confirm that we have received an application with the title 'myself' from Donna Rawlinson MacLean,' the patent office's Brian Caswell told Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

 Apparently Ms MacLean was irked by firms' penchant for patenting gene sequences.

 'It has taken 30 years of hard labour for me to discover and invent myself, and now I wish to protect my invention from unauthorised exploitation, genetic or otherwise,' Ms MacLean told the newspaper.

 Mr Caswell said the full details of application GB0000180.0 would be published in 18 months.

 'It is not really worth patenting something unless you make a lot of money from it,' he added.

 He wouldn't have needed to say this to an SAR audience.

 To Hong Kong people, that's patently obvious.



Opening day shows Tom to be artful dodger