Tragically, after decades of domestic help, I now do everything myself, and I've concluded that housework is hard, tedious and infinitely unrewarding. A day or two after cleaning, a new layer of filth presents itself on every surface, as if some fungal variant of the Black Plague has taken root on the floor and bookshelves. I live in lush Discovery Bay, with few motor vehicles and mountain greenery comparable to the opening scene in The Sound of Music, yet the sky is heavy with pollutants.
Having read most of what Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has to say on the subject of air quality, I can only conclude that a bow tie worn too tight can restrict blood flow to the brain, impairing judgment. So I look forward to the day when Mr Tsang and his all-monitoring, smoke-and-mirrors environment secretary take an indefinite leave of absence. They have already taken leave of their senses. While our de facto autocratic system of government offers no guarantee that a more enlightened leadership will act to improve the air we breathe, only a reprise of the Krakatoa eruption could make it worse. Meanwhile, we are patronised by bureaucrats who tell us how lucky we are compared with some Dickensian coal-mining town on the mainland. I'll believe them when I can take a day off from cleaning 19th-century-style soot from my dining-room table.
I'm not holding my breath. I probably should be.
PETER SHERWOOD, Discovery Bay
In her 1988 book Hong Kong, Jan Morris describes Victoria Peak, the island's highest point, as a place where 'the hills of Guangdong stand blue in the distance ... you see the city itself precipitously below you. The early sun catches the windows of Kowloon across the water.'
Perhaps we can invite Morris back to stand in the same spot now. I fear her words may read: 'The hills of Guangdong stand hidden in a blanket of smog ... once there was a city itself shining precipitously below you. The early sun no longer catches the windows of Kowloon across a waterway that shimmers vainly under a grey opaque sky.'
