Advertisement
Advertisement
Flora of Indonesia
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more

Beachcomber works ahead a bit far

GOT to the bottom of our story about The Thing in the plastic bag yesterday.

There were apparently two items found on beaches at the weekend - one was a rotting durian, and the other was a human head.

A senior police source early yesterday morning told us the story of the second finding, the one that no doubt led to the strange rumours concerning the durian on Lamma at the weekend. Full details are in today's news pages.

Children playing on a beach at Discovery Bay on Saturday came across a skull. They asked their mother whether they could keep it.

Mum, like anyone whose child brings home someone's head, naturally said of course, dear, but wash your hands before dinner.

Mum decided to clean it and put it in a bucket of bleach for two days - after which she decided to call the police.

''She gave us the skull - by this time it was nice and white and shiny,'' said our policeman friend.

Somehow the skull and the durian got mixed up in the inter-island rumour mill.

Lamma residents, relax: your mystery beach-side object was only a durian.

Since then, several other interesting bones have been found on Discovery Bay beach, and the police have launched an investigation.

Lai See's tip: if you find human body parts in your children's toy box, there may be something amiss.

Out on a limb TOURISM executive Barbara Ellis was shopping in the factory outlets in Hunghom when she came across a shop selling ''DEFECTED GOODS''.

We assume this means that the silk blouses had originally been worn by illegal immigrants.

Alarm bells NEARLY had a heart attack yesterday morning. There we were, lying in bed with Ralph Pixton, as many people do, when he made a shocking statement. The Duke and Duchess of Kent had formally separated, he said.

What? After all those decades! How shocking.

The RTHK newscaster later explained that he had meant the Duke and Duchess of York.

We had only just recovered from this, when along came Charles Weatherill with his review of stories in the newspaper. He was talking about the baldness survey. ''Eunuchs don't go bald. It's a case of being de-balled, perhaps.'' Royal scandal and ribald jokes at the crack of dawn? These mature chaps know how to wake one up.

HK Triangle AVIATION lawyer Reg Bench (that would be a good name for a judge) of Ice House Street came across a fascinating chart: Aircraft Movements at Kai Tak.

After studying the figures, he found that more aircraft departed than landed in several recent years.

In 1989, for example, 20 more planes took off than landed, and in 1990, a shocking 67 more flights left Kai Tak than arrived.

There can be only one conclusion: the copycats in Temple Street are knocking out copyjets, painting the logos of international airlines on them, and passing them off to other countries as real ones.

''But in other years, more aircraft arrived than left,'' said Reg, looking further down the chart.

Okay, who nicked them? Is it the same people who made off with the North Point police station? Civils' spirit TAX specialist Fred Fredricks received a fax from the Hongkong and Kowloon Provisions, Wine and Spirit Dealers' Association.

He was about to screw it up and throw it away when he realised that it was a letter being sent out to all the consulates-general of the various diplomatic missions in Hongkong.

Why would a booze supplier write to embassies? Yes. Embassies are entitled to buy any amount of alcoholic products, all tax-free.

Fred was yesterday designing a new persona for himself. ''From now on, I'm the Consul-General of Wo On Lane, right?'' he said. Mumm's the word.

Bank vault PETE Ford of the British Trade Commission was looking out of his window yesterday when he noticed that the light bulb had gone out on top of one arm of the giant H on top of the Bank of China Tower.

''I'll be intrigued to know how they are intending to replace it,'' said Pete.

There's probably something in the Basic Law which says the incumbent governor has to shimmy up the pole.

Cue joke: Q: How many Beijing officials does it take to change a kitchen light bulb? A: Eleven. One to buy a new bulb, and 10 to build a second kitchen.

Incidentally, did you notice that part of the neon-lit name of the Sincere department store in Sheung Wan went out of action recently? For several days, it said ''SIN ERE''.

What an enticing invitation.

Wild gas chase MONEY worries have curbed the activities of the Jakarta police, we hear from Hongkong businessman Mark Parry-Jones.

Each police car is allotted 7.5 litres of petrol a day. If a police officer has to follow a getaway car, ''his choice would be to quit the chase or buy gasoline out of his own pocket'', according to an article about the police in What's On In Jakarta.

Mark said: ''I can't imagine Asia's finest asking a criminal to hang on a minute while they pop into the nearest gas station to fill up on a Visa card.'' He's right. Hongkong cops would use American Express gold cards.

Fork out TENSE executives going to the United States may wish to sign up for The Peninsula New York's ''Executive Anti-Stress'' programme.

A staff member will give you a 30-minute head, neck and shoulder massage, and you get a meal thrown in (not literally).

Sadly, all the stress comes back in triplicate when you get the bill and realise the service costs US$65 to US$85 a head.

Post