WHEN THE HOME OF a famous person was reported to have numerous building violations, a team of hotshot inspectors raced around to investigate.
But this wasn’t Hong Kong: it was India last week. After the inspectors got there, servants told them the homeowner, Bollywood idol Shah Rukh Khan, was in residence and would meet them in person, the Mumbai Mirror newspaper reported.
Thrilled staff phoned their colleagues, who raced to join them. After being photographed with Khan, the starry-eyed inspectors headed back to their desks. Which is when they realized that not one of them had actually done any sort of building inspection.
The only result of the complaint being made was that inspectors now had pictures of themselves with the star on their Facebook pages.
Some people complain about the unforgiving nature of Hong Kong watchdogs, but it’s better than the alternative.
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THE RECENT diamond robbery in Belgium was described as “the biggest robbery ever pulled off at an airport”. What about Ryanair charging me and a zillion others US$100 each to check in a bag?
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THE US food chain Pizza Hut has launched a new, er, “foodstuff” in mainland China which consists of a large cheese pie circled with hot dogs and topped with king prawns, squid rings, fish cakes, pineapple chunks, wasabi mayonnaise and a whole wild boar (the last item is just a guess). After trying it, the food reviewer at Shanghaiist.com said: “I unquit smoking just to get the taste out of my mouth.”
Not to be outdone, KFC in Japan has just launched the Asian version of the legendary Double Down, a double portion of batter-covered chicken breasts sandwiching a portion of rice. Japanese readers say it is so heavy you need a construction crane to get to your feet afterwards.
Newly launched in India is the Dunkin’ Donuts chain, where the drinks alone, large Dunkaccinos, are 550 calories each, and come with a defibrillator (or should do).
“Asia is under attack. These actions should be classified as acts of war,” said reader Natalie Poon, a semi-professional conspiracy theorist. If she’s right, Asia should fight back, but the only high-fat items I can think of to send to America are old-school Indian movie stars, and no one’s going to want eat one.
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A MASSIVE meteor fell to earth last week without hitting a single human being. This happened on a planet which contains a huge number of incredibly annoying people, including Kim Jong Un, Donald Trump, Lew Mon-Hung, etc. What a missed opportunity!
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MR POTATO Head, a dog owned by Hong Kong reader Sally Anderson, was looking at the cans of dog food on the counter: “So I moved them all up higher,” said Sally. “I went upstairs for 30 minutes and in that time he stole and opened a can and ate the contents.”
I can’t open shrink-wrapped DVDs and her dog is opening cans. Another screw-up by evolution.
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NORTH KOREA sent out an announcement saying that “inbound tourism has increased”. I think it’s because they changed their visa requirements to just one question: “Can you help us make nukes?”
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THIS THOUGHT for the day is dedicated to all Asia-based civil servants: “I pretend to work. They pretend to pay me.”
I guess that’s fair.
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