“This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,”

William Shakespeare. Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1.

It is somewhat ironic that Shakespeare’s most famous evocation of English pride and patriotism is given to John of Gaunt, someone who in real life was born in Ghent (in today’s Belgium), served as Duke of Aquitaine (southwest France), and spent much of his adult life in pursuit of the throne of Castile (central Spain). Continue reading →

Seventy years ago, on Saturday 1 March 1952, a crowd of up to 30,000 protesters slowly made their way from Kowloon Railway Station on Salisbury Road, up Nathan Road towards Mongkok. The crowd of predominately communist students had been defiant but largely peaceful until they approached Jordan when defiance turned to anger.

The South China Sunday Post-Herald reported the following day:

“Serious rioting occurred in Kowloon yesterday when a disorderly mob clashed with Police forces in Nathan Road shortly after 4.pm. A Police squad car was overturned and burnt at the corner of Austin Road, where a Police motor cycle was also thrown down and set afire… Mongkok Police station was stoned by an attacking crowd and a defending Police officer opened fire with a riot gun peppering three Chinese.”

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The message from the 2021 Netflix movie Don’t Look Up is very simple, and not very subtle. As articulated by Jennifer Lawrence’s character, Kate Dibiasky:

“We’re all one hundred percent for sure going to fucking die.”

And the reason that we are all hundred percent for sure going to fucking die is because we are ruled by self-aggrandising idiot politicians and greedy capitalists. Moreover, the vast majority of people simply don’t want to face the grim reality in front of them, and instead stubbornly keep their nose to the grindstone. Continue reading →

In 1964, two men, both approaching old age, gave speeches that would launch two of the most important political careers of the twentieth century.

The two speeches were delivered at opposite ends of the earth, one in the Grand Mosque in Qom, the other in a Los Angeles theatre, and had very different themes, one denouncing the Shah of Iran for his capitulation to America, the other supporting Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. But the speakers had something fundamental in common, an innate ability to articulate deep-rooted traditional conservative values in a way that ordinary citizens could understand, and at a time when those values were being undermined by the twin threats of liberalism and communism. Continue reading →

There is nothing unusual about billionaires cheating. That self-proclaimed billionaire D.J. Trump, for example, is notorious for cheating at golf, amongst other things.

But why would India’s “youngest billionaire,” Nikhil Kamath, choose to cheat in a celebrity chess tournament featuring former world champion and Indian chess legend, Viswanathan Anand, that was designed to raise funds for Covid-19 relief? Continue reading →

Sixty years ago, Tsing Yi was a small rugged island off the west coast of Kowloon, inhabited by a few thousand residents who eked out a living by fishing or growing rice and vegetables. Many lived in stilt houses or small boats in a semi-circular lagoon that stretched inland for several hundred metres from the northeast coastline. There were no bridges linking the island to the mainland, and the only access was by boat. Because of the strong currents offshore, a trip to the nearest port in Tsuen Wan could often take more than an hour by rowing boat.

The first permanent link to the mainland, Tsing Yi Bridge, was only completed in 1974, during Hong Kong’s economic boom period. The bridge was financed by a consortium of local companies who needed road access for the power station, warehouses, cement plants and oil depots that had mushroomed along the coast. However, the bridge also allowed for the growth of residential and commercial developments such as Tsing Yi Town on the northeast edge of the lagoon, which was linked to the bridge by a narrow causeway. See map from 1975 below. Continue reading →

Mr. White – he’s the Devil

Jesse Pinkman, a young man with a talent for carpentry, is searching for some meaning in his life after being rejected by his parents. He wanders out into the desert, where, for 62 episodes, he is continually tempted and tormented by the Devil, posing as a new father figure.

The primary temptation – and the underlying reason why the Devil appears to Jesse in the first place – is to turn “rocks (crystallized methamphetamine) into bread.” And this, the Devil assures him, will eventually lead to the two of them having “dominion over all Earthly kingdoms.” (Matthew 4:1-11) Continue reading →

In the opening scene of the final act of Romeo and Juliet, our “hero” seeks out a poverty-stricken apothecary in Mantua and demands that the apothecary sell him deadly poison so that he can take his own life in an overblown gesture of romantic love.

The apothecary informs Romeo that, under Mantuan law, the sale of such drugs is punishable by death but Romeo counters that the law is only there to protect and serve the privileged (people like Romeo), and that wretches like the apothecary should not expect to accrue any benefit by playing by the rules. The only option for the apothecary if he wanted a better life, according to Romeo, was to break the law and accept the forty ducats on offer. Continue reading →

Class and spatial divisions in 1969 Los Angeles

There are three main characters in Quentin Tarantino’s film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. They appear in close proximity to each other but are clearly separated in terms of class and space.

Sharon Tate (the moneyed elite) lives at the summit of society in the Hollywood Hills on Cielo Drive. She never travels outside her tightly-knit social and spatial circle, at most a 20-minute drive from home. Sharon is friendly to everyone she meets in her limited and insulated world because she does not see anyone as a threat – even Charles Manson gets a tentative wave hello.

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When Japan’s most famous poet and travel writer Basho visited the remote mountain temple of Risshakuji in the summer of 1689, he wrote, in The Narrow Road to the Deep North (奥の細道):

The whole mountain was made up of massive rocks thrown together, and covered with age-old pines and oaks. The stony ground itself bore the colour of eternity, paved with velvety moss… As I moved on all fours from rock to rock, bowing reverently at each shrine, I felt the purifying power of this holy environment pervading my whole being. Continue reading →