Watching the Chief Executive deliver the Policy Address is not simply watching history in the making. It is hearing history repeat itself. Not just five years of history. More like 30.
If observers detected little change in the Tung Chee-hwa of 1997 and yesterday's slightly greyer, rather grim-looking messenger, that sameness was nothing compared to the message itself.
The effects of the recession on government revenues, the depressed property market . . . . ex-governor Sir Edward Youde worried about those things 17 years ago. But perhaps less than Mr Tung, who has had two economic downturns to weather. He didn't need to admit, as he did at question time, that this was the hardest speech of all.
It showed. Try as he might to put a positive spin on things - stressing Hong Kong's strengths with clenched fist, shaking a finger to emphasise a point - it wasn't enough to change the subdued mood in the chamber.
Some are born leaders and some have leadership thrust upon them. And Mr Tung - whatever mistakes can be laid at his door - has been the victim of circumstance while in office.
Asia's financial crisis, America's economic downturn, the terrorist atrocities . . . how can he possibly relish a second term when the problems that beset him are so intractable?