In this post:
Untethered; property boom; Hong Kong: beer and sperm counts; sued for too much sex; religion.
Untethered; property boom; Hong Kong: beer and sperm counts; sued for too much sex; religion.
We are now officially
“untethered”. We have no home. So what?”
I hear you say Dear Reader. Think about
it. All our lives we think of “home“ as a
place that provides shelter, a retreat and a never ending stream of chores. We
dream of home, we save up to buy a home, we take out a mortgage to buy one and
pay it off over thirty years ending up costing us three times as much as we
paid for it. Anyone got a spare room
they’re not using for a while?
Houses as an investment pose
something of a dilemma. Sydney for
example is experiencing an investor-led boom due in part to low interest rates
and possibly money from China. Hong Kong
is experiencing a boom in property as money from the Mainland continues to push
up prices. When I look at this graph produced by Philip Soos for Macro
Business, it seems to me that once interest rates rise, property owners are going
to experience some pain. For an interesting read on property in Australia, try
this site. It may surprise you. The graph and the table under are reproduced
from Macro Business.
This site also suggests that the
contortions we are going through with the budget may be the least of our
worries.
Hong Kong
As I write this, Hong Kong is in
the midst of the push to elect their Chief Executive. For those with longer memories or a sense of
history, Hong Kongers are not apolitical as is sometimes thought; at least by
old Hong Kongees like us. Here is Government House in 1967 which was generally
described as a “left wing” demonstration against the colonial government, DOB
(Dear Old Blighty). Nothing like getting
what one wished for.
Odd spots
A recent study has shown that
drinking beer reduces a man’s sperm count. Imagine that. I thought drinking
beer eliminated the whole shebang as beer tends to make one drowsy. This image says it all.
Source: http://orange-leaves.deviantart.com/art/Ursus-beer-ads-two-bottles-as-legs-and-a-bottle-as-335691286
A man in India is suing his wife for demanding too much sex. I kid you not. There are roughly 3 billion blokes on this planet all of whom think of sex every 15 minutes so we are told and here’s one guy complaining his missus is a bit over eager.
When I was writing this, I
thought I would make a crack at how perhaps she got the hots for him at Easter
as well as Christmas so I looked up public holidays in India and discovered
something quite thought provoking. They
allow for all sorts of public holidays, not just Christmas, Easter and New Year
but Chinese New Year as well as their festivals and important
anniversaries. How good is that?
Berks, Bans and Burkas
The latest storm in our teacup
comes on the heels the nasty events unfolding in Iraq and among other things, a
ban on wearing burqas was put in place in Parliament House. A woman writing in the
Sydney Morning Herald pointed out that “It's a niqab not a burqa ban”. The ban required women wearing some kind of headdress
they thought was a burqa to sit in a glass enclosure in Parliament House,
presumably so that the sound of laughter at the ban didn’t put political debate
at risk.
Religion
In these modern times, maybe we
should think about why we invented religion at all. “Religion for Atheists” suggests
two main needs:
·
“To live
together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply rooted selfish and
violent impulses.
·
To cope
with terrifying degrees of pain which arise from our vulnerability to
professional failure, to troubled relationships, to the death of loved ones and
to our decay and demise”
I can’t see what’s happening
there has much to do with religion.
Keep Well. Stay Safe.
Kidner Jeremy and Mrs K.
