WHOEVER thought up the name Tik Kai-sun for the new Foreign Office spokesman Bill Dickson's visiting-card obviously had a particularly mischievous sense of humour.
Ostensibly, the characters, , take in characters translate as ''to open something new''. But a possible alternative, we understand, is ''deflowerer of virgins''.
Was this an accurate interpretation, we asked. ''Well, it's not one to which I necessarily subscribe,'' he answered from his lair in the British Trade Commission. ''But I wouldn't want to change it.'' It was only after this conversation that we were given the more poetic rendering: ''To start a new page.'' Oscar Wilde would have enjoyed that.
EVERY new consular mission brings its own national day for us to celebrate with a swish reception. The latest addition to the Hong Kong calendar is Schuman Day, as celebrated on May 9 (Europeans will be interested to learn) by the 12 countries of the European Union.
This is not a music festival - the EU's anthem is Ode to Joy (music by Beethoven, words by Schiller) - but something more stirring. According to the explanatory note included with our invitation, it is the day on which, back in 1950, the then French foreign minister, Robert Schuman ''proposed a blueprint for welding together the heavy industries of France and Germany''.
Not long afterwards, as we all remember, they also got around to pooling their wine lakes. Which is why more than 40 years on the EU finds itself reluctantly supporting France in getting Hong Kong excluded from the trade committee of the Organisation forEconomic Co-operation and Development over Sir Hamish Macleod's new wine duties. The Governor will be thanking EU representative Etienne Reuter in person when Hong Kong celebrates its first Schuman Day next month.
NEWLY appointed Hong Kong affairs adviser James Tien has a pretty shrewd idea of how to get things done on the mainland. The Liberal Party legislator made this clear at a meeting of the Legislative Council's Information Policy Panel, convened to discuss the fate of Xi Yang.