tim's experiment

Splendid piece of investigative journalism in the last Sunday Pravda. The reporter, Ms Joanna Chiu, had a simple but fruitful idea. She rented a segment of a subdivided flat for a month. Actually she only lasted a week but in the conditions that is nothing to be ashamed of.

I had better insert here that, as far as I know, Ms Chiu has never been one of my students. If she had been she would have got my standard line on investigative journalism (a field in which, long ago, I could claim some eminence) which is that there are a lot of good stories which do not require a great deal of money, connections or Deep Throats. You just have to think of them. This was an excellent example. Anyone could have done it. The secret of success is to be the person who thinks of doing it first.

The details of life in a subdivided flat were fairly harrowing. Let us say that it did not come as a great surprise when Ms Chiu, fleeing her hell hole to spend the night in the nearest all-night Big Mac Parlour, found a lot of other people doing the same thing.  Clearly Hong Kong has a large number of sleazebag landlords who are happy to rent out cubicles which are unsafe, unsanitary, barely habitable and grotesquely over-priced.

The question which now arises, of course, is whether it is acceptable to have one of these sleazebag landlords as the political appointee in charge of buildings matters.  The answer is obvious, and is unlikely to come out any different if you accept what seems to be the usual excuse these days and say that actually he is only the sleazebag’s husband.  I am beginning to think I would rather have kept the guy who had done interesting things with his rent allowance. Come to that I am beginning to wish I had cast my non-existent vote for Henry. But it’s too late for all that.