One bonus of the lockdown was the live Easter Day concert held by Hong Kongâs own Sam Hui (訹ĺ ĺ), perhaps fairly described as the king of Cantopop.
I had no idea this was even on if it werenât for the fire at the Baxterâs Knob transmitter that took out television transmission in our area. Faced with the prospect of no television during lockdown, and as Iâm not a cat in an NZI commercial, I hooked up my laptop to the old LG monitor, relocated to the lounge, and streamed that evening.
We put on TV1 but later that night, I headed to RTHK TV31, a government-funded channel in Hong Kong, and came across the commercial for Samâs live concert at 5 p.m. HKT on Easter Day, which translated comfortably to 9 p.m. NZST.
Hong Kong has some COVID-19 restrictions, with the safe distance a lower 1¡5 m, though most people wear masks. Even TV hosts are masked on their programmes. There isnât a big physical audience for the concert: just Sam, his guitar, sitting atop a building on the Kowloon side, with the Hong Kong Island business district skyline as the backdrop. The host is seated a suitable distance away. Some folks are seated in a roped-off area, sitting a bit closer, though masked. There’s a four-camera set-up. For such a massive star, this might have been his smallest physical audience, though on YouTube, the concert netted a six-figure audience (160,000 when I looked) around the world, and no doubt others will have watched on their television sets, while I watched on TV31âs stream. One source suggests a total viewing audience of over 2 million.
Samâs still got the same voice, despite being in his 70sâfor the most part, he sounds like the young guy in his 20s that I watched on TV before I emigrated, and whose cassette tapes I cherished when they arrived from Hong Kong in the first few years we were in Aotearoa.
For someone who missed contact with my birthplace, Samâs music was a connection, something that took me back, a tiny slice of âhomeâ that was both grounding and enjoyable.
In those early days, Samâs music struck a chord with HKers because he often sang about the working class, and in plain language. Few artists had done this at the time; most lyrics tended to be in properly structured Chinese, so Sam broke new ground by singing colloquially. A skilled composer and lyricist, we saw him regularly performing his own songs on programmes such as ćĄć¨äťĺŽľ (Enjoy Yourself Tonight), a variety show that was a big hit back in the 1970s.
When he broke into films with his brothers, he was frequently cast as the hero type, and could genuinely claim to âstar in it, write the theme tune, sing the theme tune.â
His solo career as an actor hit a high in the 1980s and as the video cassette boom began, I indulged in the ć佳ććŞ (Aces Go Places) series. Most kids in the west watching Hong Kong cinema knew about Bruce Lee or that new guy Jackie Chan, but we locals knew that Sam was who you watched if you wanted decent entertainment with a mix of action and humourâand the obligatory Sam Hui theme tune.
Watching the Easter Day concert brought back a lot of those feelings of connection, and Sam performed plenty of those earlier hits that anyone my age would know. You never lose your connection to the land in which you were born. Hong Kong might look different to how it did in the 1970sâthe tallest building then, Connaught Tower, is dwarfed by the International Commerce Centre a short distance awayâbut the music took you back, and thanks to the cleaner air during the pandemic, the skies even looked as clear as they did back then. The cityâs character remains intact, the concert a reminder of what unites Hong Kong people both there and abroad. We have a distinct culture, one that evolved through the will and the freedom of our people, that I hope will go on regardless of one’s political stripes.
The monitor, incidentally, was much easier to view than the television, with softer colours and less brightness. No matter how I played with the settings on the TV, I couldn’t get them to match. I suspect the TV has a lot of blue light, which makes prolonged viewing difficult. I notice that one can buy blue-light glasses, highlighting once again where we have gone wrong: we humans shouldn’t be adapting to technology, it’s technology that should be adapting to us. The LG (LED) monitor isn’t new, so clearly the technology is available to make TVs calmer on the eyes. Yet no one touts this as a selling proposition. Head into an appliance shop (outside of one’s lockdown) and all the TVs are set on the brightest setting, which would completely turn me off buying one.
Friends tell me that OLED is the way to go in terms of getting the right setting. One of these days I’m going to look into it, but I will bet you that no one who sells these things in the shops will know what a “calm” screen is. They’ll just get excited about forkay, or maybe even atekay, not someone who wants 32 inches or less who wants to preserve their eyesight. ‘Big! Big! Big!’
Olivia St Redfern has featured yours truly in her lockdown day 2, part 1 podcast, so I decided to record another response.
It brings to mind something Steve McQueen once said. âIâm not an actor. Iâm a reactor.â As in, he could react to a line from another actor.
Anyone who has seen McQueen in a film, certainly anything post-Blob, would dispute thatâthe king of cool was an excellent actor. But for now, as someone who had avoided doing a podcast for two decades, I âreactâ to Oliviaâs episodes, and recorded a response on Anchor:
At some point I might do an entry independently but considering the first has only had one listen (out of hundreds who might read a blog post of mine), then thereâs not a huge incentive! (Update: that episode has doubled its audience to two.)
History tells us that it took a while for Melrose Place to be seen as more than a 90210 spin-off, for instance. And Joey never managed it post-Friends.
This second one does make one point about working from home. As mentioned before, Iâve been doing this since 1987, so the only difference with the lockdown (and the days leading up to it) is that I donât feel as âspecialâ. But I also know that not everyone is enjoying their work arrangements, such as this British QC:
Day 2 of isolation. Kids coping better than me. Very happy to email anyone who wants it a copy of the essential document I needed to draft this am pic.twitter.com/QptM2ouj6r
I posted my 12 tips for working from home, but when chatting to Amanda today, there might be a bit more to it than that. Maybe thereâs something about oneâs personality that makes working from home easier.
While I have things to do each day, I donât make lists. Iâm more substantive than procedural. In the daytime, I try to answer emails or see to urgent stuff. I almost never do accounts at night: thatâs another daytime pursuit. I know to reserve time to do those but I donât religiously set it to 2 p.m., for instance. The beauty of working from home is flexibility, so why re-create a regimented schedule?
At night I tend to do more creative things, e.g. design and art direction. My work day is extended because I enjoy my work.
My advice to those making the shift is to do away with the lists. Know the direction and get things done as the inspiration hits you. Itâs meant to be calmer than the bustle of office life.
People should find exponential growth an easy concept to grasp, at least those of us of a certain age. Heather Locklear taught all of us with FabergĂŠ shampoo.
My thanks to Sydney-based photographer Robert Catto for linking me to this one, especially near the festive season.
It is funnier than the one I took in Sweden many years ago, which in pun-land could be racist:
The sad thing is, at some point, the majority will not get the top joke.
I have a ringtone on my phone for SMSs, namely Derek Flint’s ringtone from In Like Flint.
If I mention In Like Flint, in my circles there’d be about one person every two years who’ll get what I mean.
Twenty years ago, everyone would have said, ‘Who’s Derek Flint? That’s Austin Powers’ ringtone!’
Today, some of my younger readers will ask, ‘Who’s Austin Powers?’
So far, only a tiny handful of people get my reference when I say, ‘Dear guards, Jeffrey can be taken off suicide watch. Signed, Epstein’s mother.’
No, what Epstein did to his victimsâchildrenâis no laughing matter.
However, I don’t think I’m alone in needing humour as an anchor for my sanity when the news is abhorrent.
Stephen Fry wrote a witty blog post (he is the Stephen Fry, after all) on why he left Twitter. I won’t quote the whole thing, as it’s his copyright, but I will excerpt a chunk here:
⌠let us grieve at what twitter has become. A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offendedâworse, to be offended on behalf of others they do not even know. Itâs as nasty and unwholesome a characteristic as can be imagined. It doesnât matter whether they think theyâre defending women, men, transgender people, Muslims, humanists ⌠the ghastliness is absolutely the same.
I agree with him about how damned annoying it is to deal with ‘the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offendedâworse, to be offended on behalf of others they do not even know’. Political trolls are good at this, too, except they only pretend at being self-righteous in order to fuel their sociopathy. This is the behaviour that makes social media tiresome. I still don’t see this being the end of Twitter, even if some are predicting it, for the reasons outlined in this earlier post. However, the tendencies are there with Facebook, too, and what makes that site worse are the very regular outages and the tracking it does of all its users. I can deal with the self-righteousness to some degree, if the damned site worked as a reasonable person would expect.
What does this mean? Consider the renaissance of the blogosphere. Those who have things to say might enjoy articulating them in long form. We don’t seem to need that instant gratification any more as we’ve become either desensitized to it, or we find it through many of the other sites and apps out there that act as our personal echo chamber. Linkedin’s blogging function seems to get used more and more, and many professionals, at least, have decent followings there. As lives get busierâremember, social media grew easily because people were either looking for new ways to market because of the recession, or they were simply less busyâwe may find it easier to manage our time each day without Facebook. So why not something like Linkedin, if not your own blog? I’ve said for years that Facebook is basically the 2010s version of Digg or Delicious. Look at your news feed and tell me that that’s not the way it’s headingâto me, this has been evident for years. And I don’t really need Digg or Delicious now in 2016.
When you know that, then you realize that it’s not that hard to get your time back. Twitter for short-form “social” communications, blogs for long-formâand there mightn’t be that much room for something in between.
1. The cars
The Triumph Dolomite Sprint Lewis Collinsâ character, William Andrew Philip Bodie (he was a âregal-looking babyâ) had in The Professionals had more power than Doyleâs TR7. And his Capris were far cooler. So cool that eventually, even Doyle had to follow suit and get one to replace his Escort RS2000. (In real life: the RS2000 was stolen.)
2. The clothes
In his roles, Bodie was well dressed in The Professionals, sharp suits in the first season contrasting Doyleâs casual look. As Cmdr Peter Skellen in Ian Sharpâs Who Dares Wins, Collins showed that he could wear well tailored clothes as well as an SAS uniform exceptionally well. In one of the last appearances I saw him in, the German series Blaues Blut (which was created by The Professionalsâ Brian Clemens), Lew showed he could pull off a bowler hat.
3. The hair
Not having a bubble cut is a good thing.
4. The machismo
After playing an SAS commander in Who Dares Wins, Lewis Collins signed up and passed the entrance tests, but was rejected for being too famous. He auditioned for James Bond but was deemed âtoo aggressiveâ. In a pub brawl, youâd want Lew, and not Ross Kemp, on your side.
5. The twinkle
Lewis Collins had a twinkle in his eye in everything he did, whether it was a bit-part in The New Avengers (where he teamed up with Martin Shaw) or spoofing his character on The Freddie Starr Show. Thatâs what weâll miss the most.
As a child growing up in Wellington, there were a few TV series that shaped my beliefs about being grown-up in the occident. The first I’ve written about before: The Persuaders, which is in part where this blog gets its name. I’ve probably mentioned Return of the Saint elsewhere, not to mention the plethora of TV detectives and cops. It’s the old-fashioned idea that good beats evil, and that one man can make a difference.
But there was also one movie that appealed to me. Tonight I watched, for the first time since the 1970s, The Wrecking Crew. This was the final Matt Helm spy pic starring Dean Martin, and it’s amazing what sticks in your memory from age five, when this was aired on television. Considering my memory goes back to c. nine months, I realize remembering stuff at five is not that remarkable, but I surprised myself at what visuals I recalled, nearly perfectly.
It may have also shaped my idea that when you rescue the girl, you have to sing like Dean Martin. If anyone wants to lay blame somewhere for my impromptu crooning at parties (or, more embarrassingly, at restaurants), this is where it all started. This is also why I sing ‘Everybody Rock Your Body’ to the tune of ‘Everybody Loves Somebody’.
As a child, I had no idea there was a series of Matt Helm films. So, as a teenager, I began renting them or recording them off telly. When I saw Murderers’ Row air on TV1 in 1982, I set the video recorder to tape it, but could see nothing from it that I remembered from the first time I watched a “Dean Martin spy flick”âI could not remember the title of what I had seen in 1977. At five, I actually didn’t care.
Then there was The Silencers, actually the first movie, rented at the Kilbirnie Video Centre around 1990. Hmm, still not the one I saw.
I then rented The Ambushers, the only other one they had thereâstill not it.
So, by process of elimination, I knew it had to be the last one, The Wrecking Crewâor I could not trust my memory. Finally, thanks to DVD, over three decades on, I was able to relive what I saw as a five-year-oldâand it was this one after all.
This gives you an idea of what piqued my interest as a child.
1. That the bad guys had a Mercedes W111.
2. Elke Sommer. Probably not due to the fact that I was a perve at age five, but that she was the model flogging Lux soap on telly at the same time. (If I was a perve, then I would have noticed Elke’s very low-cut dress in her first scene. Then again, I remember the dancers from The Monte Carlo Show, but I was eight by then.)
3. Dino punching some guy in a Merc and running off.
4. This set, meant to be the interior of a train.
5. Villain Nigel Green’s trap door on his getaway train.
6. Dino making sure Sharon Tate didn’t fall through.
7. Dino making sure Nigel’s stuntman did fall through.
I presume I knew who Dean Martin was probably because of my mother, who explained itâthis was back in the day when parents made sure that what you watched was OK before they went off and prepared dinner. I can’t remember what was on the other channel, but I must have enjoyed this sufficiently to have stayed with itâand there were no remote controls for Philips K9 sets.
Might have to watch it again tonight. It was genuinely ridiculous, but certainly better than The Silencers (whose theme you still occasionally hear on Groove 107¡7 FM here in Wellington) or The Ambushers. Watch out for the second-unit actors on location and the fact that Dino and Sharon Tate stayed firmly in Hollywood; the fake grass on top of padding which moves when Dino pushes down on it; the director’s expectation that we could believe Dino’s character could build a helicopter from bits in a few minutes; and the really bad ride Mac (the boss) has in his Lincoln Continental.
I’d still pick Murderers’ Row as the best one of the lot, thanks to Ann-Margret being very groovy, Dino’s Ford Thunderbird with rear lights that doubled as a dot-matrix display, the Lalo Schifrin score, and Karl Malden being evil.
Matt Smith completes his first calendar year as the Doctor with a Christmas special, inspired by Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Michael Gambon! Best guest star since Bill Nighy. And if thatâs Katherine Jenkins, that’s an extra reason to watch this. (Hope she sings, and not the Singing Detective.)
I canât let the passing of Bernard Schwartzâa.k.a. Tony Curtisâgo without some sort of tribute.
Iâve bitten my tongue a few times this year on writing what I wanted to on this website. And with hindsight, I really should have just gone for it, as someone who preaches transparency. Yes, I do indeed have a sense of humour and a love for old movies, and dear Bernie Schwartz is one of the reasons this blog is named as it is.
This blog did not start off all political. An early political entry was about the Mohammed cartoons in Jyllands-Posten, but generally, this was a marketing blog. It was called The Persuader for two reasons: the marketing book, The Hidden Persuaders, and the TV show, The Persuaders.
While my German friends think Alarm fĂźr Cobra 11 is my favourite show, the truth is that itâs actually what they know as Die Zwei: a camp series made in 1970 starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. The rest of us know it as The Persuaders, or, if you are French, Amicalement votreâitâs still quite a popular show in France and not long ago, you could buy the DVDs at newsagents.
When I visited Eze, France, in 2002, the first thing I thought of was not the parfumeries, despite owning Lucire, but the episode of The Persuaders, âThe Gold Napoleonâ. I understand from the official Roger Moore website at the time that Moore himself had read the piece.
It was through Curtis and Moore that a kid in Newtown lived his fantasies of driving along the Corniches in sports cars in the 1970s.
Of course rich playboys drove sports cars around the south of France, rescuing damsels in distress, and fought shady Mafia figures and dodgy politicians.
The closest I got was bombing around in humble Opels and Peugeots around France and the dodgiest thing I ever fought in that country was food poisoning.
And as I got older, with the ad libs that Curtis did in the seriesâincluding at least one reference to Bernard SchwartzâI began to think of the great matinee actor by his birth name. Itâs why I Tweeted a farewell to âBernie Schwartzâ.
I was a fan. As a kid, I thought Houdini was fabulous, and this stayed my favourite Curtis film for years. Unlike most of the tributes coming in today, I wasnât that big a fan of Some Like It Hot, though I have seen it many times, and Operation Petticoat was a late-night filler for me. Iâm old enough to have watched these as films on regular TV.
I am aware that Bernard Schwartz could be a bastard. Sir Roger Moore, in his autobiography, mentioned that his co-star came in as a grump till he smoked a couple of joints. He called Joan Collins a âc***â when filming with her on The Persuaders. Directors on the series had their share of complaints. He wasnât particularly private about his private life, telling his friend, Walter Matthau, âWalter! Itâs Bernie! I f***ed Yvonne de Carlo!â
So while the serious film buffs go on about Bernard Schwartz and his 1950sâ classics, and The Boston Strangler, I will remember him for the 24 episodes of The Persuaders. Who cares that he made all of them while high? They shaped my childhood and I still think itâs a heck of a legacy.
Maybe I plain did not watch the news on the 15thâgoodness knows what I was doing to have missed that Peter Graves, best known for his portrayal of Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible, passed away, after suffering a heart attack. Today would have been his 84th birthday.
I am a huge fan of Mission: Impossible, and no, I do not mean the Tom Cruise movies. I recalled that Mr Graves himself was not a fan of the first one and was incredibly diplomatic about it, as men of his generation were.
Graves might not have been the best actor in the ensemble cast (I would give that honour to the late Greg Morris) but what always impressed me was what I knew of his off-screen life. You never heard anything bad about this guy, not even when there were disputes on the set of Mission: Impossible. He had strong values and ethics, a passion for acting (which he continued to do well into his 80s), and was one of the few Hollywood stars who led a normal family life. He married his college sweetheart, Joan, in 1950, and they stuck together for the last 60 years, with three children and six grandchildren.
Itâs little wonder Graves found work throughout his career. Iâm sure he would have been a great and dependable guy to work with. RIP, and, âGood luck, Jim.â
Other cast members who have passed on include Greg Morris and, at a very young age, Tony Hamilton.
