ONE of the most worthy events of the year is the World Vision annual famine, which will see lots of committed folks camping on the grass at the Hong Kong stadium and going without food for 30 hours. And what better way to give moral support than by watching from the corporate hospitality boxes while tucking into a $357 per head buffet? That's what Holiday Inn, the stadium caterer, is offering. It has written to all the companies which have their own boxes, offering a variety of treats. With a sandwich lunch at a mere $137.50 per head you can watch the famine begin, or there's a more upmarket $357 version for those who want to watch the grand finale to the music of some of the biggest local pop stars. The main menu includes medallions of lobster on a mango sauce, smoked mackerel and salmon with horseradish sauce, prime rib of beef with pickled cucumber, pate campagnard with sauce cumberland, soya pigeon with jelly fish and cheeseboard. And that's just the cold platters. Later you can have snow fungus soup, sliced breast of duck with sweet ginger, and gianduja mousse. Still, what worries us most is that the famine may be cancelled halfway through. The rumbling stomachs of the idealistic participants may well disturb the after-dinner nap of those Legco members whose homes overlook the stadium. If they ring Ronald Leung Ding-bong of the Urban Council at home, as some people did during the stadium opening, he'll be forced to scrap the event, force-feeding the participants with pate campagnard if necessary. Beijing express DHL finally turned up at 11.30 am yesterday with the parcel destined for Lamma from Beijing. It took two days to travel from Beijing to DHL's Hong Kong HQ, and three days to get from there to Lamma. One suggestion has been that the Lamma-ite's business associate in Beijing should send a second parcel, a loosely wrapped bundle of unwashed socks, cigarette butts, dried fish and uncooked chicken heads. DHL staff would have it on the boat to Lamma within 30 minutes. Shelter-skelter STILL no sign of the data monitors showing stock prices and other up-to-date information on Citybus' hi-tech bus shelters. Citybus's Lyndon Rees was grumbling last week about the amount of red tape needed to set up a bus shelter. And with only two hi-tech shelters installed he reckons it wasn't worth setting up the data network needed to display share prices and other stuff. Perhaps that's just as well. Passengers waiting for a bus and seeing the current state of the market might be tempted to throw themselves under rather than get on board the first bus out. Family values PUNTERS holding shares in Dransfield Holdings might have needed resuscitation yesterday morning when they saw the deal being done by their company. When floated less than a year ago, Dransfield, which distributes paper handkerchiefs, espresso machines and Aiwa hi-fis, raised $62.1 million by issuing 57.5 million shares. Yesterday, management announced it was going to issue a colossal 156 million shares to buy some property, effectively increasing the number of shares in issue by 68 per cent. Follow the very complex ownership structure of the property in question through a maze of red tape and a couple of trusts and you will find it is more than half-owned by - surprise, surprise! - the wives of two of the directors. The property involved just happens to be Dransfield's headquarters and basically the owners are swapping their property for Dransfield shares. At the moment, the property is valued at $155 million and the rent is $684,000 monthly, a yield of 5.2 per cent. The Dransfield shares, however, are being sold at $1 and if the last dividend is held will have a yield of 7.5 per cent. Wonder why they didn't buy it before flotation, rather than springing the deal now? After all, one of the reasons for the deal is that the property is a good investment because it's near the airport, and nothing has changed there in 12 months. Grave error A Westerner in one of the consulates was wished ''Happy Easter'' by one of his Chinese staff leaving the office last night. Remembering that this year Ching Ming falls on Tuesday immediately after Easter, he wished the staff member ''Happy Ching Ming'' in reply. With Ching Ming being the festival for visiting graves and commemorating dead ancestors, it's not surprising he got a rather baffled look. Fooled? NONE of the items in today's Lai See column are April Fool's jokes. Apart from this one.
