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David Evans

The dust hasn't settled and already the vultures are circling.

Lai See  isn't positive but we seem to remember our elders warning us to beware of 42-year-old men who still live with their mothers and insurance salesman.

The past week has seen a mad scrabble by airlines around the globe as they search in vain for a suitable underwriter.

In the wake of events in New York, global insurers said they would cap third-party war and terrorism insurance at US$50 million covering death or injury on the ground for airlines considered to be good risks.

The previous amount was US$1 billion.

Needless to say, US$50 million doesn't go a long way these days.

It positively shrinks to loose change when divided between the relatives of 300 or so unfortunate victims of an airline accident.

Which could be why a representative of one particular New York insurer was on the phone to Cathay Pacific employees this week.

The representative has obtained a Cathay in-house telephone directory and is allegedly attempting to capitalise on recent events in an unscrupulous attempt to boost his commission.

A salesman's possible rationale being that if an airline can't cover a family's loss under its own insurance then you had better do something about it yourself.

Naturally, this kind of ambulance-chasing has upset a few people at Cathay.

Unfortunately, we were unable to track down someone from the company involved.

Let's hope it's just one rotten apple from the Big Apple.

Blunt response: Stationers in Tokyo were failing to see the point last week.

A large English language school was running a training seminar for Japanese high-school teachers

Four hundred local teachers were being given guidelines and hints on improving their English lessons.

Part of the seminar involved completing course-work given to the students so that teachers could get a hands-on-feel of what was expected from their charges.

And to complete the tasks, coloured pencils were required.

The seminar organiser despatched a minion to the local stationery shop to pick up 4,800 coloured pencils.

The pencils duly arrived but all was not well. They were unsharpened.

A great office debate followed where it was calculated that at 10 seconds a pencil, it would take 13.3 hours to sharpen them all.

Far too long as the seminar was only days away.

A call to the stationers to ask if they had pencils sharpened and ready for action received a blunt response.

'There are no sharp pencils in Japan,' was the reply.

No-one is safe: It's difficult to imagine any of Hong Kong's business movers and shakers queuing up for a Social Security handout. However, according to one senior banker, even high flyers are not immune from an economic turn for the worse.

A pragmatic Sir John Bond of HSBC, speaking at a Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce lunch yesterday, hinted that even knights of the realm are sometimes called upon to hang up their armour.

'In a free-market there are no guaranteed jobs, including mine,' said the HK$17.79 million-a-year chairman.

A little work needed: A local entrepreneur has set up a computer repair service.

Call their number for on-site maintenance, upgrade, new software installation or virus checks.

Although the company might need a little work on their marketing strategy.

The flyer reads: 'If you don't want trouble like them: Call us.'

Graphic: whee25gbz



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Vulture lurks in Big Apple shadows

Cathay Pacific