Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has recently announced he is selling his Taiwanese television enterprise, Next TV, and apologised to employees for “failure” in running it. Lai, who was smuggled to Hong Kong when he was 12 in the bottom of a boat, worked his way up from child labourer in a garment factory to founder of clothing chain Giordano (named after a favourite New York restaurant). He claims to have come up with the name of his Apple Daily newspaper while browsing the Bible. He told his wife that “news” would not exist if a certain apple had not been plucked from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil by Adam and Eve …
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Published in 1667, the poem contains more than 10,000 lines of verse, each composed in the blind author’s head by night and dictated to aides the next morning. Milton died famous but impoverished, and the British writer’s influence has had a lasting effect. For instance, scholars argue that the “flaming swords” described in Paradise Lost were the basis for the lightsabres in the Star Wars series, made by filmmaker George Lucas …
