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Jake Van Der Kamp

'Still as a Lull'

1st Prize Winner,

The Daft Titles Awards

I'M NOT MAKING it up. It truly is the title of a glossy thick publication put out by the Trade Development Council and the only clue as to why comes from a brief introduction - ''Be prolific and just write' - a piece of advice from a famous author when asked how to get recognised.'

I have no quibble with the 'just write'. Someone obviously did and rather than a jumble of letters, it actually came out as real words of the English language.

But as to the 'be prolific' part, there is not much writing in this book. From front cover to back, it consists almost entirely of a jumble of pointless photographs and puerile graphic images. I suppose the purpose was to showcase Hong Kong 'creative' artists who want to  get recognised and, in my opinion, would do better not to get so. Still as a Lull, ouch!

But I have seven other contenders for prizes in the Daft Titles Awards, all of them similar glossy publications sponsored by the TDC and bundled together in a hard cardboard box marked 'Creative Commune Hong Kong', with the notation 'Vol 1, 2006'.

Here we go: Fire in the Sky, Soul Asylum, Ritual Pleasures, Smoke on the Water, Accidental Nirvana, Sudden Ecstacy (we spell good) and Wing of Desire. Give me a hand here, please. Sudden Ecstacy obviously gets second prize but what should we do for third? I lean to Accidental Nirvana. What do you say?

Turn to their contents and in each case you find the same ragtag bag of childish graphics and pretentious photographs, many of them with a distinct flavour of 1960s B grade porn. A graphic artist acquaintance of mine flipped through one and tossed it back with the comment, 'homo-erotic crap'.

But although words were in short supply, there did happen to be an introductory wrapper around this set - 'Six years into the third millennia (sic), our society has moved away from the modernist way of grand schemes, of following masters, to embracing an all-encompassing, everything goes attitude.'

I see. Hong Kong is a post-modernist town that scorns grand schemes (you hear that, Donald?), does not follow masters and embraces an everything goes attitude. Interesting town this Hong Kong. Does anyone have any idea where I might find it?

I am sincerely mystified as to what the TDC is doing here. It was established to help Hong Kong's manufacturers find markets for their goods. That objective went out the window when the manufacturers went to China and I fully recognise that the TDC has long been at loose ends about what to do next.

Nonetheless, if its purpose were to promote recognised designers, you would think it would do so by displaying the designs they have designed so that buyers might be attracted and Hong Kong's trade be developed. It still is the Trade Development Council after all. What we get, however, is '380 pages of touching imageries'.

Let us also get it straight that this is no low-cost effort. I asked another acquaintance in the printing business to price it for me and his estimate was HK$50,000 per book. That would be HK$400,000 down the drain, then, for the issues that landed on my desk and they comprised only Volume 1 for 2006, we are told.

If the TDC wants to tell me that this is a trifling amount in the scheme of things, I have a suggestion to make. Just put HK$400,000 in my pocket, then, and I'll buy a digital camera and come back a few days later with photographs that will do you proud. Can't get the graphic images, however. My kids have grown up.

My figures assume that the photographers, models and graphics  artists were not paid for their work. That would be fitting justice. But among the credits to clothiers (some of the pictures indeed featured clothes) I noticed such names as Bossini, Lane Crawford, Esprit and Giordano. Did the TDC defray its expenses by collecting from them for promoting their wares?

Here is another figure for you - HK$341.24 million. This is what we gave the TDC as a government subsidy last year. It was collected through a niggling little tax called the Trade Declaration Levy which costs more in trouble and nuisance to collect than it yields in fiscal income.

I propose a little accidental Nirvana for those who paid it. We shall still their annoyance by giving them a permanent lull from it. If the TDC sees fit to throw public money down the drain like this, then it is long past time that we told the people at the TDC to pay their own way at last.

They say they are aiming to do so eventually. Now would be a good time.



Our Accidental Nirvana is to have TDC stilled into a permanent lull