The two-year countdown to the Beijing Olympics begins today - without the clock that had been expected to tick off the minutes to the 2008 landmark in Hong Kong.
To celebrate the capital's hosting of the Games and Hong Kong's staging of the equestrian events, a variety show, carnival and exhibition will be staged today in Kowloon Park, Tsim Sha Tsui.
Among the officiating guests will be Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping, who said in February that a countdown clock would be erected in the city and start the countdown at 8.08pm tonight, the eighth day of the eighth month.
But it appeared last night that the auspicious moment, replete with the lucky number 8, had been overlooked.
'There is no countdown clock. We have discussed it. But at this moment, I can only tell you that there will be no such clock,' a Home Affairs Bureau spokeswoman said.
She did not give a reason for the absence of a clock or whether one would be unveiled in future.
