Let’s all make a fuss about the first black Miss England

Playing the race card is getting a bit old now.

Apparently, in July this year, a black woman won the title of Miss England. The first black woman to do so.

Then 2 weeks ago, she was stripped of her title due to her alleged involvement in a nightclub cat-fight over her man.

In an interview I read of her in The Sunday Times Magazine, she lamented why so few have come out to support her and why her winning Miss England should be a much bigger deal than it is.

“If I was the first black Miss America, I wouldn’t be able to sit at this table talking to you, I’d be mobbed.”

Woman, having a black person win a beauty pageant in America 26 years ago was a big deal because racial tensions back then were much higher than it is today and racial equality was still a comparatively new concept. The fact that no one is falling over themselves to make a big deal out of a non-white Miss England is because it is so much less of an issue these days. Consider this an achievement. Consider this proof that we have in fact come a long way. Consider this as progress. Consider this an acknowledgment that you, a black person, is being treated so much more equally now than back in the day when Vanessa Williams won Miss America and that is why no special hoo-hah is being made over you being black.

However, I suspect the main and bigger reason why there is little reporting in the media  is simply because people don’t give a shit about beauty pageants anymore. Towards the end of the interview, the article basically answers her questions:

“Britain fell out of love with Miss World in the late 1980s…’Things got so bad I had to do it in Blackpool one year because we had no sponsors, no TV backing, no media interest at all.’ Miss England used to be held at the Dorchester; now it is at a Hilton under the A40.”

I think using your race or ethnicity as a basis of claim for every alleged injustice against you is really just taking the piss and unfairly undercuts the cases of real racial discriminations that occur. It will eventually end up working against you and other ethnic minorities. Remember the boy who cried wolf?

What would you think if I write to Boris Johnson to complain about the lack of packing space for bikes in Chinatown and proceed to exclaim that that is evidence of racial discrimination by his government by assuming that Asians don’t cycle and continue by assusing him of ignoring and not supporting the minority Asian cycling population? Look! He is building bike racks in and around white neighbourhoods but not in Chinatown! Perhaps I should form the London Asian Cycling Coalition (hey, not a bad name actually!) and sue his administration for racial injustice?

While writing that, I will conveniently overlook that fact that bike parking is also a premium in locations like Covent Garden and he is basically just not providing enough amenities in the whole of London in general for an activity that he has so enthusiastically advocated for.

Racial discrimiation, ignorance, and injustices do occur, but don’t take the piss and over do it. Sometimes, when things don’t go your way, you have only yourself to blame.

Lessons in punching

Girls. Learn how to punch and where to punch.

 

If you, like me, do some form of boxing classes, learn to do bare-knuckle punches (without the gloves) as well.

 

Otherwise, you might end up fracturing your hand like I did by punching Nasty square on his shoulder bone, making contact with my ring-finger and pinky knuckles, causing my hand to fold in on itself like delicate origami.

 

Consequently, you’ll get snickered at by the guy and his friends, workmates and, most embarassingly, your physiotherapist; contributing to the long-(guy)-held belief that girls can’t punch. Which is, really, detrimental to the progress of female empowerment. And it’s not true anyways, since his friends always recoil in pain when the guy in question boasts about my boxing prowness by asking me to demo-punch them.

Ok, maybe just my ability to give one single punch to unsuspecting innocent people.

 

It’s bad PR for East London as well when your GP asks whether you were involved in a fight.

 

I so wish.

 

At least being in a street brawl sounds way cooler than a meek “Yeah…I…um…broke my hand punching my….*ahem*….boyfriend.”

 

Damn it.

Dear Vue,

Dear Vue,

My boyfriend and I went to see a film at Vue Islington last night as a treat. But we left having spent about £27 and feeling scammed and ripped off.

First, the sizes and prices of the popcorn and soft drinks sold were unreasonably oversized and overpriced. Instead of selling smaller, more normal portions for a more reasonable price, Vue has to sell unhealthily large sizes just so you can charge more. Customers then are made to feel like they have no cause for complaint because the sizes are so big and we feel like we have to eat and drink all of it since we paid so much. The size of the Sprite we had was basically diabetes in a cup.

We then walked into the cinema to find that half of the seats are reserved as “VIP” seats, whereby customers have to pay more to have a seat reserved. From what I could see, there isn’t a significant difference in terms of comfort, and it looks more like a method to get customers to pay more for what we deserve anyways – reserved seats.

Because it’s free seating for standard ticket holders, we have to go into the cinema extra early to make sure we have seats with a reasonable view of the screen. After paying almost £10 for a ticket, then £7 for an unnecessarily oversized soft drink and popcorn, and having to go in early to get nicer seats, we are made to sit through almost half an hour of advertisements.

Our tickets say the movie starts at 9.10pm. We sat there advert after advert and the movie only started at almost 9.40pm. That is outrageous and unacceptable. It makes me think whether free seating was created, not only to make us pay extra for reserved seats, but also to create a captive audience to watch those hideous adverts.

Regardless of whether we enjoyed the movie we saw or not, our experience was severely dampened by the policies of Vue which made us felt like were designed to squeeze every penny out of us.

We left feeling scammed and ripped off. Vue, you could be assured that the next time we want to see a movie, Vue will definitely not be our choice of cinema and I definitely will not recommend Vue to anyone.

Yours sincerely,

Dora

Only in Copenhagen

Exterior wall of freetown Christiania, Copenhagen.

 

“There are no fat birds in Copenhagen”

Greetings from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Perhaps as a sign of the Danish design to come, as the plane flew into the Copenhagen airport, we passed over a neat row of windmills, sharply white and elegant, standing cleanly upright cutting across a calm blue sea.

I’d say the same of our brand-new, very cool and slickly-designed hotel – except for the fact that we’re located in the middle of a construction site.

And perhaps as a sign of the pricey-ness of this city to come, and how poor we will feel as we agonise over every food and drink, Nasty cleverly got scammed of literally all of the money budgeted for the day in our very first stroll into town.

It doesn’t help when you chat to a shop-assistant who tells you he finds it very odd that anyone would come to Copenhagen for a holiday at all. Hmmm.

Of all cities and countries in the world, from London to Beijing to Hanoi, Nasty has to get scammed in squeaky clean Scandanavia, in the capital city of what is rated as the happiest country in the world.

Nasty claims to know why the Danes are so happy: There are no fat and ugly birds here at all!

Well, to be fair, at the end of our second day here, we still haven’t seen a fat person.

I’ve always thought that the British pound was almighty, and every year, the places that top the Most Expensive City lists are always the likes of London, New York, Tokyo, Paris and occasionally, HK. I really don’t understand why Copenhagen is not on the list. Copenhagen is definitely much more expensive than London. £6 for a beer, £2.60 for a single bus ride.

Like they say, things happen for a reason. Perhaps when I go back, I will stop complaining about how expensive London is.

Making cake

I have only made cake a grand total of 3 times in my entire life.

First was in high school when two of us tried to bake a cake for a friend’s birthday. We took it out of the oven brown and hard and decided it was inedible. So we brought it out to the birthday girl, everyone sang her the obligatory song and then we just pressed it flat into her face. Cake fight ensued.

The second time was about a year or two ago, when I decided to make blueberry cheesecake as a birthday present to my mom. It didn’t involve any baking, but a whole darn lot of mixing, melting, and frothing. I created such a racket in the kitchen and I was so exasperated that mom came in to help me make her own present. We stuck it in the fridge and when it came out after the designated amount of time, instead of staying cake-shaped, it fell apart into some form of mushy goo. My dad and brother took a few bites each and offered wry smiles and polite remarks while mom, bless her, had a few scoops and declared it was “just like blueberry cheese ice-cream“!

The third time, on Wednesday night, I decided to bake a chocolate cake for Nasty’s birthday. I spent a whole evening egg-cracking and putting in double the necessary amount of sugar because the kitchen scales went bonkers and I ended up frantically scooping sugar out of the mixture and into the sink before it’s all melted together. I beat and mixed everything with one measly little fork and painfully thought about how I should do more push-ups.

I plopped the whole thing into the oven and proceeded to watch Friends until the whole house smelled like cake when I suddenly remembered it’s been there a bit too long. It was chucked into the fridge until midnight nears when I carefully balanced it on one side of my bike handlebars and prayed for its safety (instead of mine) as I navigated late night traffic to Nasty’s apartment.

While cutting the cake, Nasty casually commented that it was, “um, very firm“, and upon eating it, declared that it’s “more brownie than cake“. After it’s set in his fridge overnight, and he’s had more of it, the verdict is that I’ve really made “one giant brownie“. The fact that it’s actually edible, stayed cake-shaped, and he’s still eating it (or so he says) – I’ll take that as a sign of success!

One year on

Today is exactly one year since I came to London.




Maybe I should go “celebrate”. Maybe go out and eat a plate of char siu fan.

Although I don’t know what I’m “celebrating” about.

And I don’t know what eating a classic Hong Kong dish of roast pork and rice for dinner has anything to do with coming to London.

I feel the need to mark the occasion somehow.

But I don’t know why I should.

Hmmm.




Exactly one year ago today, I stepped off my plane from Hong Kong and found myself sitting on a bench in Heathrow, excited of a new start.

In some of my lowest days, my friends provide me with support and encouragement, saying that, from experience, it takes at least one year for people to settle down and find their place in a new location.




Today, it is one year.




In one year, I have learnt to cook. (No mean feat!)

In one year, I have started recycling. (In HK, it’s an activity I view with cynical hippy undertones.)

In one year, I have discovered, and learnt to face, some truly horrible things about myself. (Like the tagline to the movie Moon: “250,000 miles from home, the hardest thing to face…is yourself”)

In one year, I have discovered theatre and it’s consistently put a big grin on my face.

In one year, I have discovered cycling and have become geeky enough to buy waterproof trousers for the rain.

In one year, I have discovered the great outdoors and bought my first hiking boots.

In one year, I have cried more than I’ve ever cried in my entire life.

In one year, I have been utterly down and beaten and managed to survive the recession.

In one year, I experienced real Christmas for the first time and found it utterly magical.

In one year, I have discovered that being by myself and exploring can actually be a lot of fun.

In one year, I made a snowman for the first time since 1989.




When I started writing this, I didn’t know what there is to celebrate.

But looking back, I think perhaps there is something to celebrate after all. Whatever it is. Even if it’s just an excuse to treat myself to a meal out.




And so char siu fan it is.

Bath

Been away.

Not anywhere.

Just in the office, working 10-12 hour days for the past 2 weeks to make a end-of-the-month deadline.

Before it all happened, I had already booked a long weekend to Bath, which fell right in the middle of all the madness. And so I went, reluctantly dragging my exhausted body and tired mind. I was so utterly physically broken down I thought I was gonna heave and topple over in front of a train. Not because I wanted to die, but because I just plain ran out of energy to hold myself up.

Due to the first of the extremely long and stressful weeks at work, I was rip-roaring sick by the Saturday morning I was to set off, but unwilling to lose the money I’ve invested in my bus ticket and hostel reservation, I somehow made it across town to the bus station, passed out on the bus for 3 hours – then spent what was left of my first day curled up in bed in my 8-person mixed dorm.

As I struggled to stay warm and wore my street jacket even in bed, people came in and out getting ready for night outs. I was alone, ill, and away from anyone I know. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I thought if all my holidays are going to be like that, I’m never going on holiday again.

I felt better the next day, and although my nose still sputtered and my throat clenched itself dry, I HAD to get outside and wander about because otherwise it would all have been for nothing.

A depressing thought suddenly came to me as I wandered the streets of Roman and Georgian architecture the next two days: I’d come to Bath to recover from work, and in anticipation of an equally hectic week ahead, I’ve come on holiday to recharge for the next week of work.

I’ve always gone on trips because it’s what I like doing. I like seeing new places. I like doing something new. I like exploring. I like the excitment of travel. I work to go on holiday.

But this time, I sadly realise, I have gone on holiday for work.

I can’t be sure, but as far as I can remember right now, this was the first time I’ve gone on holiday to recover from and brace myself for, work.

According to Lonely Planet, if you are going to explore just one city outside of London, make it Bath. The city of Jane Austen, of ancient Roman Baths, of Georgian architecture, of cobbled-stone streets, of tea-houses.

Well, I haven’t been to all that many cities here, so I can’t vouch for that. But as this symbol shows, the city has so many listed buildings that the entire city of Bath has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bath is indeed a beautiful city to be in and great to spend an easy weekend in. It’s big enough to have lots of shops, pubs and restaurants for you to wander round and little nooks and side streets to explore, but also small enough for you to walk everywhere, not get lost and not have to rely on transport.

Bath is architecturally very beautiful, but without a guide, all you can do is say that it is beautiful. If you do find yourself in Bath, I highly recommend one of the *free* Mayor of Bath’s Corps of Honorary Guides tours. Lasting, I think, 2 hours, you go on a guided walk around town with a great knowledgable volunteer who do it for no money at all. He explains the history of Bath, how the city and buildings came to be, and the characters in town. Not in a boring way, but in a funny and amusing way, with quirky stories thrown in here and there. I finished the walk feeling much more appreciative of the city, and the stories behind the residents and the buildings.

For example, without a guide, I wouldn’t have given much thought to the filled-in rectangular holes in the walls along the back gardens of these Georgian houses. Nor would I know that it belonged to an era when toilets have yet to be invented and the gentlemen and ladies of these houses would excuse themselves to the “withdrawing room” to pee and poop into a bucket, later which the maids would bring out into the garden to stash into the wooden cupboard built into the back garden wall.

At night, a man with a horse cart would go along the path next to the walls, and collect the buckets from the cupboards to be dumped into the nearby river.

Nor would I know that as the years went by, people went more high-tech and built cupboard extensions to their flats, where very few remain these days. The black little structure hanging outside the apartment in the middle of the photo is one example. It’s where people went to pee and poop, into a hole, which basically empties into thin air….

Spending 2 nights and 3 days there, I had more than enough time to wander about. In fact, I had so much time that I went to my first real church service in a real church (not a cleared-out classroom in a school or whatever), held the Bible and listened to the choir and pathetically tried to sing the hymns.

For one reason or the other, I’ve always found comfort in tradition and religion. Forget historical rivalries. Forget hypocrisies. Forget injustices and wars. I’ve sat in many a church and felt peace.

Three days of doing fuckall in Bath did calm me down…until I returned to London and hyper-ventilated at the thought of work.

And so the freeze comes…

It’s surprising how fast winter comes in this part of the world.

First it was park-lounging summer at 9pm, then all of a sudden it’s hat and gloves-wearing and toes-chilling winter. Was autumn even here at all?

I realise I’ve been walking A LOT faster lately.

My normally half-hour stroll to the train station in the morning has become a 20 min power walk.

Not that I’m always running late now. It’s just that pumping my legs is the only practical way for me to warm up on these cold mornings.

Cycling, I’ve always enjoyed peddling at a slower pace, esp. if I’m cycling into town, so I don’t end up being hot and sweaty in my (relatively) nice clothes.

But now, because of the cold, I can cycle faster without being too hot, plus I need to cycle faster to warm up and more so that I can get wherever I’m going to get indoors quicker.

Nothing propels me faster than the cold and the darkness. Cycling along the canal is when I peddle the hardest. It’s pitch black on many stretches and isolated stories of random bike robberies and D-lock beatings haunt me home.

People say they exercise and get fit during the summer. But who wants to run around and be in pain when you can lounge about in parks until 10pm?

Conversely, I think my cardio fitness just might make an improvement over the winter.  Either that, or I end up gathering fat huddling under the covers. Let’s see how it goes as the world around me starts to freeze over.

Purge the Cookies! Purge the Cookies!

I was trying to book a weekend trip away, when I couldn’t decide between Bath and the Peak District, the train or the bus, this hostel or that hostel.

So I had many browser tabs open, including one on a coach service to Bath on the National Express website. I saw that my trip will cost £14, and then went away to look at some other info.

A while later, I went back, and *gasp*, within the space of an hour or so, the price has increased to £18!

I still couldn’t decide, so left it for a while, thinking it couldn’t get much worst…only to go back later to see that it was now £19. WTF.

So I decided to see if I could purge  my computer of this price-increasing, money-extorting evil and decidedly exorcised my browser of all cookies, form-auto-filling-in thingies, and cache-majigs. Closed my browser, fired it up again, and went back to look at my bus ticket.

Hail Mary. The devil is gone. It’s £14 again.

I said a silent “You fuckers.”