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Charlotte Parsons

Lai See  is weeping sentimental tears.

OK, maybe not actual physical tears. That would create mascara hassles. But definitely we've been thinking tear-type thoughts.

This is our final column.

So we thought it fitting that we dedicate our last batch of words to those who have helped us fill our little corner of the back page.

Like Joseph Yam Chi-kwong. We really lucked out getting him as our money chief.

Let's face it. The world has a finite supply of whacky Central Bankers.

Our Joseph's latest commentary just went up on the Hong Kong Monetary Authority Web site.

He fancies himself a bit of a fiction writer, does Joseph. Content-wise, he's been warned to stay on dry land. But sometimes he just can't help himself.

Lai See  has been reading his latest work. It tells the story of 'two former Guards of Heaven' who meet for a chat at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway in New York.

'They almost burst into tears when they stumbled into each other,' wrote our monetary authority chief.

Then there's a bunch of descriptive stuff about snow and the flimsiness of their outfits, before we're told that 'their ragged jackets were about the only things they had left since their creations - two begging bowls with 'begger.com' chalked on one and 'e-begging' on the other - had fallen out of favour in the shop of curios called Nasdaq'.

Ah. So this is an Animal Farm-type economic allegory, only with supernatural panhandlers instead of pigs and sheep.

There are also some genie references thrown in for good measure.

'They had tried rubbing all the begging bowls in the hope that one of them might turn out to be Aladdin's lamp in disguise. But the genie was nowhere to be seen. Not even a trace of smoke. Only the vapour from their perspiration and their warm breath, as the winter approached . . .'

Fabulous. This is our kind of monetary policy analysis.

Thank you, Joseph.

Thanks also go to Richard Li Tzar-kai for . . . well, everything really.

Our gratitude also goes out to the reporters of the North Korean Central News Agency. Best wishes from Hong Kong, where the downtrodden labour under the yoke of capitalist oppression because their lives haven't been lit by 'the one true sun, shining brighter even than the sun in the sky and the greatest man who has ever lived whose ideas are the apex of all human achievement' (that's the service's pet name for Kim Il-sung).

We also thank the good citizens of Discovery Bay. May your golf carts run smoothly, and your plaza remain forever free of giant decorative balls encased in plastic moss.

And Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's name is high on our couldn't-have-done-it-without-you list. Ah, how we will miss our favourite film fetishist.

Where else in the world could you find a Financial Secretary who would name his budget 'Basic Instinct'? Donald claims he did that because 'just like the star of Basic Instinct, I have nothing to hide' (We'll put aside for the moment the fact that the woman had an ice pick hidden under her bed). Donald did concede that there were some differences between himself and the bisexual murderess.

For example: 'I am a middle-aged man with all clothes on'.

Bless.

Needless to say, we are sad to be leaving all this behind.

Lai See  will be packing a few Hong Kong mementoes - a bottle of Miracle Foot Repair, a Snoopy in Hawaiian dress jello mould and a tape recording of jackhammers to help her sleep.

Graphic: laiseegbz



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