Displaying some bizarre behaviour at the Conrad International hotel yesterday was the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing deputy chief operating officer Lawrence Fok Kwong-man. Desperate to avoid the loitering press-pack, Mr Fok chose to escape through a place where he was most likely to get one - the hotel's kitchen. His escape bid entailed following a waiter into the kitchen and out through a door at the back. Pursuing reporters were barred from entering the staff-only area. Mr Fok is believed to have left quickly to avoid having to answer questions about the penny-stock fiasco. According to a survey among local investors, Mr Fok's boss, Kwong Ki-chi, is second on a list of candidates who should be blamed for the mini-market crash. Mr Fok has not had the finger pointed at him. But if he is somehow implicated and finds himself looking for a new job he has a head start on Mr Kwong in the catering business. Here to stay: Thanks to intervention from Canning Fok Kin-ning, group managing director at Hutchison Whampoa, we can all walk home safely at night without fear of falling down a big black hole. With the ink on the group's US$250 million contract to buy bankrupt United States telecommunications company Global Crossing barely dry, Mr Fok's thoughts are on inspection hole covers. In April, Hutchison bought out its joint venture with Global Crossing subsidiary, Global Crossing in Asia, for US$120 million. The joint venture was called Hutchison Global Crossing. A few weeks ago the Li Ka-shing-owned telecoms group said it would rename the joint venture Hutchison Global Communications. The new name would help position the company. More importantly, the firm would not have to change the thousands of HGC-monogrammed inspection hole covers across the territory. Mr Fok said yesterday his telecoms team were talking about changing the name back. He said he did not care what the company was called. 'It doesn't matter to me,' he said. '[The telecoms team] said Hutchison Global Communications but now they say Hutchison Global Crossing. 'My concern is only cost savings.' Mr Fok said that whatever they decided to call the company, HGC was here to stay. 'I rather like the name Hutchison Gets Connected,' he said. Table jumping: Swapping the turntable for the dinner table yesterday was part-time disc-jockey and full-time PR executive Gilbert Yeung Kei-lung. Scoffing the sushi at the Island Shangri-La Hotel's new Cafe Too with Gilbert were fellow buffet bad-boys and work chums Gordon Lam and Jackson Ng. Conspicuous by his presence among the Adidas trainer-clad young G-Spot executives was a man in a shirt and tie. According to fly-on-the-wall sources, the table for four was booked under the name Davidoff - the Geneva cigar-maker. The enfants terribles have garnered a reputation around town as Hong Kong's hippest party animals and regularly appear in this paper's society pages. Wearing big sun-glasses, tank-tops, local starlets and bleaching your hair blond appears to be de rigeur for the fun-loving party organisers. An event for Davidoff will guarantee at least three of the above with some big fat cigars thrown in for good measure. A different match: Discussing Fu Mingxia in an Asiaweek article two years ago, the China diving champion's coach Jiang Keshun said of the then 22-year-old: 'It is time for her and her boyfriend [Beijing football player Nan Fang] to think about getting married. Their three-year relationship should move to a new stage.' And so it did. She went to Hawaii to marry Hong Kong's 50-year-old Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung. Graphic: whee13gbz