"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on earth forty days and forty nights."
Genesis 7:12
You may have noticed it's been raining a fair bit in Hong Kong recently. Proper cats and dogs. Forty days and forty nights, pah! The downpours we've endured over the past couple of months would have been enough to have Noah worrying about whether he'd ordered enough wood. Thunderbolts and lightning, too; very, very frightening. It's amazing we haven't all run away screaming and cursing in search of bluer skies and sunnier climes, to a place where we could bask in warm rays, drinking and dancing the nights away, without the need of a sou'wester and wellies.
Brazil maybe? That would work; just ask Michael Palin. The ex-Monty Python and now celebrity tourist travelled to the South American country recently for the first time (Brazil with Michael Palin, TVB Pearl, tomorrow at 9.30pm). You'd think having spent the best part of 25 years circumnavigating the globe, he'd have dropped by before, but there you go.
Palin is a true English gentleman: with his khaki trousers and wind-swept hair, he's a man so nice he'd buy you a drink if you knocked over his. And his previous documentaries have been enjoyable and enlightening, so we had high hopes for his exploration of the world's fifth-largest country.
With both the Summer Olympics and the football World Cup on their way, it's a country with which we are soon to become well acquainted.