SOMETIMES, lost in the trackless wastes of a Legislative Council debate, one longs for the simple certainties of tram travel.
Backwards and forwards they rattle, set in the same groove they plied 20, 30 even 50 years ago, the cockroaches getting bigger every year, the crowds undiminished.
Get on at the back. Get off at the front, having finally emerged from the crowd two stops after your intended destination.
Legislators, one gets the impression, are less fond of these quaint conveyances.
Lau Chin-shek was looking for numbers. Not serial numbers to tick off in his tram-spotter's almanac, but actuarial statistics.
How many accidents involving trams? How many compared with buses? Haider Barma, the Secretary for Transport, gave him the sort of answer government officials give in such circumstances: A fact (126 accidents in 1993), followed by an irrelevance (not many compared with road accidents in general).
And no, you didn't need a driving licence to be a tram driver, nor even a special tram driver's licence.