Hong Kong Blog

The movie Groundhog Day and my life are so remarkably similar that I’ve genuinely begun to consider the possibility that I may actually be Bill Murray. Every day I wake up at 06:03 AM. I spend ten minutes in the shower, seven of which are spent trying to adjust it to the right temperature and three of which are spent either in freezing cold or scalding hot water. Quick check of the email, get dressed, brush teeth, put on makeup, head out the door. Have the same conver — yes, putting on makeup was a joke. Have the same conversation with Lam the security guard:

Lam: ‘Wai… hello!!’
Lam: ‘Nei ho ma?’
Me: ‘Alright mate.. ho ho!!’
Me: ‘Nei ho ma?’
Lam: ‘Ho ho!’
Me: ‘Bye, bye!’
Lam: ‘Bye bye!’

Leave the hall of residence, switch on ipod, bump into the fairly elderly people practising tai chi. Tai chi with swordsrent a car bulgaria. Walk to Festival Walk (how fitting), head down to the MTR station, get on the same train at 07:03, on the same carriage with the same beautiful ‘MTR girl’ who has evidently memorised my schedule. That she is and always was on the train before me is beside the point. I arrive at work at 07:28, read my email, do IPE & LIFFEF testing orders, confirm colour of the day, ask the desk for breakfast orders and get ‘sup bui chaan jup’, ‘sei gor door si’ and ‘look lung siu mai’ from the basement. In the lift on the way up I make the same joke every morning as members of staff look at the amount food falling out my arms, ‘yeah…’ ‘I’m hungry today’. Talk to Trowbridge, re-run SOD… it’s all become so strikingly similar to the experience of Bill Murray that every time I receive a phone call at work, I imagine it’s in response to a cry of “WHO you gonna’ call?!”. I even have a friend I speak to every day at HSBC called Rita, who you’ll remember is the name of the female lead in Groundhog Day.

However in recently weeks things have begun to change. And though change and variety are said to be ‘the spice of life’, I’ve actually found them to be bit of an inconvenience to be honest. Cuz bustin’ made me feel good…

That my return to writing the blog coincides with the end of the writer’s strike in America would surely be more than mere coincidence but for the fact that I’m neither in America, writing television nor on strike. In recent interviews John Sullivan, creator of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ has said that he created the show’s story arcs largely based on his own youth and anyone who has seen ‘24’ must obviously conclude that the same is true with Kiefer Sutherland. Indeed, at times it seems that nothing can be scripted more perfectly than life…

In late October one of the members of my team returned from a two week vacation in Canada along with the news that he’d be permanently relocating to Toronto for reasons that could easily justify a season of Dawson’s Creek alone. One of the major cinematic devices regularly employed for character development is circumstances that push the character beyond their limit, force them to deal with situations that s/he is not prepared for. Whether I was called into a meeting by my manager or a team of writers will probably never be known, but either way the result was that I would be taking over all of my team mate’s responsibilities. And I had a month to learn. Absolutely everything.

(more…)

Starring…

Richard Cohen ……… as…… himself

Guest starring…

Ivor Cohen ……………as……… Dad
Joanne Cohen …………as………Mum
Sophie Cohen …………as………Soph
Steven Cohen …………as ………Steve

(more…)

One afternoon you enter your local convenience store to buy the weekly groceries. Aside from the cashier who is as oblivious to your entrance as he is to the entire universe, you are alone in the store. You slowly wonder up and down the isles until, stopping dead, you notice an unnatural heat radiating from one of the lonely back corners. You decide to investigate. As you draw nearer you see the unmistakable flickering of a spreading fire. Do you A) Shout and alert the shop keeper. B) Run out of the shop, call the fire brigade as quickly on as possible and then tell the shop keeper. C) Ignore the fire completely, pay for your groceries and leave? Well according to the Hong Kong Fire Department, the answer ‘of course for most people’ is C.

(more…)

I had fully intended for this blog entry to highlight events from the last two/three weeks and it is instead with great, great sadness that I write this tribute to Robert Jordan, my childhood hero, on the day of his passing.

(more…)

The phrase ‘never make the same mistake twice’ is one I should probably analyse so as to make sure I’m completely 100% certain on the matter. The concept is clear enough; it’s just the implementation I seem to be having problems with. Readers of the previous incarnation of the blog will remember that during my first week at the University at Kent I inadvertently wandered into (and became trapped in) a Christian Society meeting for about four hours. Well guess what…

(more…)

This week is a gripping action filled adventure. It is a tale of Danger, of Bravery and of Courage. The gods must surely have taken an interest to have allowed me to survive long enough to write this account.

(more…)

Waking to your alarm is never a good thing in my books – the creators certainly named it fittingly. The thing is trouble. Recently its sound has foreworn classes far too early in the morning, exams and now… work. The very concept seemed slightly foreign to me (no pun intended). I’d been told to report to the HSBC floor in the ICBC building located in Central at 9AM and so donning my new suit and with a typical mixture of naivety, nerves and enthusiasm I arrived about an hour and a half early. The ICBC Tower is near the intersection of Garden Road and Queen’s Road in the heart of Hong Kong’s financial district and the place is absolutely pish posh. I felt like a nobody walking along the marble floors, slowly making my way up to the HSBC floor in elevators that probably cost twice as much as the majority of people will ever earn (yes… this is an exaggeration, call it poetic license). Aside from a floor number I was only given the name of the person I was to report to and without any idea of what that person looked like, where exactly he’d be in a huge room of desks or generally anything at all really, so I decided to go for a wander.

(more…)

Hong Kong had always seemed like a distant dream. Even after all the planning and then the good wishes and final goodbyes from friends and family, I still found it hard to believe that I was actually sitting on a plane flying across the world. While people I knew who had been to Hong Kong had tried to describe their experience(s), I found their explanations akin to describing a rainbow to the blind. It’s a difficult emotion to describe, having absolutely no idea what you’re going into - I didn’t feel nervous or apprehensive, just the expectation of… something.

(more…)