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Posts Tagged ‘books’

Keeping up the good news stories: prosecuting bookshops

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 19, 2026| 1 Comment »

Another day, another embarrassing story about Hong Kong. Our city has become a dangerous place for independent bookshops. Secretary for Security Chris Tang says his forces are not targeting any particular sector. Indeed. Only three boookshops have been raided so far this year.

So independent bookshops have just been unlucky. Well we have to believe officials when they say these things. They are honourable men. So are they all, all honourable men…

One does rather cringe, though, at the idea of newspaper readers all over the world seeing the picture of a bookshop staff (teeshirt: I am a bookshop staff) being led in cuffs out of her workplace. Quite apart from the distressing thought of a young woman being led off for trial on dubious charges, why do our national security police look so scruffy?

I suppose there may be some reason why raids on delinquent bookshops cannot be done by cops in full uniform, but if there are to be plainclothes could you boys at least tuck in your shirts, and maybe iron your trousers? I also have some misgivings about the Adidas product placement.

Mr Tang, meanwhile, continues to spout nonsense. Booksellers must be responsible for the books they sell, he says, “just like merchants selling food have to make sure their food won’t make people sick. That they are not selling poison and not breaking the law.”

This is a totally false analogy. Someone selling food has complete control over the situation. The cafe owner or chef chooses the ingredients and the preparation method. It is entirely right that he or she should be held responsible for not poisoning people.

Someone who runs a bookshop does not write the books. I find it hard to believe I had to write that. Unless the bookshop is vanishingly small the person running it does not even read the books. This is simply not possible. Some books are very hard work. Is “War and Peace” subversive? Don’t ask me; I have never managed to finish it. It is not the philosophy that loses me, but the fact that in Russian novels every character has at least three names.

It is interesting to compare Mr Tang’s hardline approach with the law on obscene publications, passed in gentler times, which provides a defence for people who “had no reasonable opportunity to inspect the article the subject of the charge; and had reasonable grounds for believing that article was not obscene.”

After all there is no reason to suppose that people who work in bookshops are bent on breaking the law. I imagine a polite notification that a particular book was, in the official view, subversive would result in the swift disappearance of the denounced volume. This would be sad, but not as sad as losing the whole bookshop, which seems to be the government’s objective.

Mr Tang rejected suggestions that it would be useful to supply booksellers with a list of banned works, saying that this would only “help criminals”. This seems an odd thing to say. After all it is generally considered a good idea that people should know in as much detail as possible what is the law which applies to them.

We do not see signs on our streets saying “Speed limit: guess!” or “Possibly no parking”. Providing a list need not imply that anything not on the list is legal. It would simply provide guidance to book vendors trying to work out what is allowed and what is not.

Mr Tang’s other objection to a local Index Librorum Prohibitorum (the name of the Papal version, abandoned in 1966) is that people producing banned books could simply change the title of the book. This is so far off the mark as to suggest that Mr Tang’s encounters with literature have been quite limited. The title of the book is its name, the label by which the eager reader identifies it.

If we change the title to hide the book from Mr Tang’s minions, we also hide it from potential readers.

What is really worrying nat sec enthusiasts may be the thought that a list of forbidden books would provide good publicity for some otherwise obscure works, and people with a taste for subversive literature could order copies from overseas booksellers. Books you cannot buy from shops in Hong Kong might soar up the Amazon bestseller lists.

This is not a totally implausible fear; “The one they tried to ban” has sold a lot of books. But what does that tell us about the relationship between Hong Kong’s government and people?

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How did ‘lady’ become a four-letter word?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »

What went wrong with the word “lady”? Until recently it just appeared to be the polite way to refer to females. It appeared on their public toilets without giving offence, and public speeches were routinely addressed to “ladies and gentlemen”.

Esteemed singers like Tina Turner were routinely referred to by their road crews as “the lady”. It would perhaps be going too far to say that the use of the word was a sign of respect. It was just a polite word in routine use.

I first realised that something was going on here when I despaired of the managerial merry-go-round that was Chelsea FC and started following the club’s female team instead. Female football teams at that time were generally called Personchester Ladies, or whatever. This had been the way since the pioneering days in the 1890s when a mysterious person using the name Nettie Honeyball started the British Ladies Football Club.

The greatest club name of those early years was the Dick, Kerr Ladies (Dick, Kerr was the name of the factory where they started) who drew crowds in excess of 60,000 before the infamous day in 1921 when the Football Association banned women from playing.

Back in the modern era ladies remained the term of choice until one day quite soon after I started taking an interest, when the clubs – or at least those which attracted news coverage – changed direction with the unanimity of a shoal of herring threatened by a shark, and “ladies” was replaced by “women”.

I then noticed that something similar was happening to my copy on its way into the Hong Kong Free Press. The words “lady” or “ladies” were routinely replaced with “woman” or “women” as appropriate. I did not complain, firstly because I do not complain about editing as a matter of principle; it is a thankless task and for every editing error (we are fallible) the writer is saved from ten faux pas of his own. I also thought I was perhaps being rescued from trampling on some new taboo, introduced after I left the UK.

It remains a puzzle. No such odium appears to have descended on “gentleman”, which is usually the other half, as it were. I have occasionally been accused of being a “gentleman”. I always accepted this is a kindness, even if it was preceded, as it usually was, by one or both of “old-fashioned” and “English”.

There was a time when “gentleman” was a class marker. When Henry V promised that “He that sheds his blood with me … this day shall gentle his condition” he was clearly offering social promotion as a reward for military performance. Ladies similarly used to be a rank. In 19th century India the military rule was that “officers have ladies; sergeants have wives; Other Ranks have women.”

But this had long gone by the time I was a kid. Being a lady or a gentleman was something to which anyone could aspire. As Vin Diesel (of all people) has put it “Being male is a matter of birth; being a man is a matter of age; being a gentleman is a matter of choice.”

For males this involved stoicism, self-control, politeness and (outside of law enforcement or warfare) non-violence. Honesty was important, as was respect for ladies, a status which was the default for females.

We were also taught some rituals which have long gone. A male, on meeting a female in the street, would raise, or at least touch, his hat. Men no longer wear hats. If a woman joined your table you were expected to stand up briefly – a habit to which I occasionally still succumb on formal occasions. If you were walking along the pavement side by side the man was expected to take the side next to the road, a meaningless rule after horse traffic disappeared.

I do not know what was inflicted on girls in those numerous books of “advice” with Grace Darling on the cover, but a bit of internet ferreting suggests that much of it was quite similar: intelligence, kindness, honesty and reading are praised, gossip, rudeness and swearing are condemned. There are probably serious objections on the grounds of foot health to “keep your heels, head and standards high” and age has I fear withered the suggestion that ladies should “not kiss before the third date.”

Still I am not sure that there is anything there which parents would not wish for their daughter.

Well it seems that these days no oppressed minority can hold up its head in public unless it has insisted on being referred to by its preferred term. Cautious publications now shy away from “disabled”, “eskimo”, “negro” “Chinaman” and many others. The curious thing about preferring “women” over “ladies” is that “ladies” was always intended to be flattering and respectful. But if women want “women” that is their choice.

I also note with concern that what is being discarded here is not just a word, but an ethic.

Let us digress for a moment. Steven Pinker has achieved much fame by propounding the view that mankind has become notably less violent in the last 300 years or so, and there is indeed much evidence for this. There is less evidence for his inferred cause, which is that people became more sensitive to and conscious of other people’s feelings.

An older theory is that the reduction in violence was due to a change, not in sensibility but in manners. Polite society was set about with rules. These rules condemned violence and encouraged polite modes of intercourse. Some of them were meaningless – it really doesn’t matter how you eat your peas – but they formed a rules-based society in which most people obeyed the rules because they were the rules. In a sense it did not matter whether there were good reasons for them.

Those of us who were young in the 1960s will remember the glee with which many old rules which no longer made sense were swept away. But eventually the idea that there were rules which we should all follow went the same way.

Nobody goes to church any more. Teachers dare not condemn misbehaviour. It seems that politeness, honesty, sincerity and respect are no longer requirements. So we are free to enjoy … Donald Trump.

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