I Like Trucking -- A Risqué Song with Hidden Depths

Recently heard another song which was around before I was born. It's from a British comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News, possibly famous for being Rowan Atkinson's first hit (Mr. Bean was his third, while the second being Blackadder).

A video could be found here:

The lyrics and the video at around 1:00 clearly shows how risqué it is – basically it depicts truckers as inconsiderate, rude and sexually predatory beings. But I somehow manage to find two hidden gems in academical aspect.

1. The chorus features a to-infinitive ("I like to truck") after three uses of gerunds ("I like trucking"). Usually gerunds are for habits while to-infinitive is one time experience, but for this occasion the gerunds mean the act of trucking in general, while the to-infinitive emphasises the personal experience. This can mean the singers like to be on trucks and they also like being in control themselves.
2. Usual songs have simple forms, even other arch-form music would do little more than ABCBA. This song stands out in that it is a long arc of ABCACBDA, with Pamela Stephenson's stand-out presentation of the chrous in the middle, Rowan Atkinson's solo before and after Stephenson's core respectively; Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones' segment yet on the outside of them, and the all-men chorus at the start and end. A bridge segment ("from behind") was inserted before the final chorus to match the melody.

Another piece of gem found among British audience is that the video features a three-lane road, with the middle one open for vehicles of either direction to overtake if necessary. The joke in the second Atkinson solo is based on this. Now that British roads are either definitely dual or having singled down to two plain lanes, younger people (like me) probably have diffiuclties getting this joke. (A related discussion can be found here)

About a Comment by a Traditional Vietnamese Historian

大越史記引霍光論呂嘉不當

《大越史記》外紀卷之二，錄黎文休論呂嘉，謂其諫哀王嬰齊不爾，「則 (當) 用伊、霍故事」。黎公順口言之，或忘呂嘉實霍光以前人。夫南越之亡、呂嘉之殺，漢武正當盛年，霍光雖已弱冠，距其受帝之託、執漢之柄，尚有三、四十年也。

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In the Vietnamese classic history book Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, there's a quote of 14th century historian Lê Văn Hưu's comment on Lữ Gia, the last chancellor of Nam Việt state:

If he found his petition unheeded, he should have given up his place. Otherwise, he should have followed the example of Yi Yin and Huo Guang, to depose King Ai in favour of another son of King Minh, but sparing King Ai's life. Instead, he chose to commit regicide and ultimately led to the downfall of both the Nam Việt state and himself.

There's one error in the comment, though. Huo Guang was quoted as if he existed earlier than Lữ Gia, but in fact Huo's several decades younger. Huo's deposition of Liu He (Marquis of Haihun), which was partly the basis of the quote, was about four decades later than Lữ Gia's assassination of King Ai of Nam Việt.

The South Korean General Uses Warp

Among all those usually militaristic North Korean songs, "The General Uses Warp" (장군님 축지법 쓰신다) seems to be the most lampooned on, both because the anime-style music, as well as the reality-warping lyrics. Of course, almost no-one is mentioned by name, so you can theoretically insert anybody as the "Leader" (수령, which actually refers to Kim Il-Sung) or the succeeding "General" (장군, actually refers to Kim Jong-Il).

Still, two of the lampoons, I think, stand out of the others. The first one is actually commercially distributed, and features another lampoon on J.S. Bach, my favourite composer. I will talk about that in a later post.

Today's video is created by a South Korean, using the song to fit it on one of their former leaders, Chun Doo-hwan (전두환). He's the president of South Korea between 1980 and 1988, roughly equal to the period of Ronald Reagan in the U.S. and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. As a general himself, he's known for his continuation of military dictatorship, though probably not as bad as his northern counterpart, whose economy was failing because the USSR was also falling apart.

The film extracted for the video was mostly news montages of President Chun embarking visits to other countries. Surprisingly I found them fitting very well to the music, with the combined effect of suggesting he had completed these visits by warping space-time (even though he'd still utilize planes and limos to reduce shock among the world, as apparently suggested). This seems an even better propaganda video than the original North Korean one, as neither Kim Il-Sung nor Kim Jong-Il appeared personally in the original video.

The video can be seen below:

On a further note, the black-and-white person at about 2:00 was Park Chung-hee (박정희), the famous yet assassinated president, as well as the father of the recently deposed lady president, Park Geun-hye (박근혜). Presumbly the elder Park was included here to fill the role of the Leader (수령).

Uningestible Liquid

Yesterday after lunch I had a walk. When passing a Chinese herbal tea shop, I noticed that the box containing juice from dry-fried Cannabis sativa had a layer of pale liquid on top of it. I immediately believed that there were either so few people buying drinks there, or the shopkeeper didn't bother to clean it, that the pale layer rendered the liquid uningestible.

Two things came up in my mind:

1. Sometimes the competition is so severe that being disadvantaged quickly becomes a vicious circle.
2. One should be highly aware of their business image, especially those that can make first impression.

I suspect the shop would close soon.

Just for Reference

Saw a strange looking white car on way to work. Possibly a Google Map camera vehicle.

Patrickov on X26

London applies a flat fare - £1.50 - for all its buses and trams. That price means about $16 in Hong Kong, an amount which is usually reserved to the longest running routes.

However, this price is actually much more agreeable if I am getting away from Heathrow Airport, as Heathrow Express, TfL Rail (who took over from Heathrow Connect yesterday) and the Tube all charge more than that (indeed the Heathrow Express charges over £20, triple of a similar distance HK Airport Express trip, and the trains for the HEx are worse both in terms of train conditions and speed). Most importantly, I am going to nowhere other than Croydon, which means the longest London Buses route is my no-brainer. And surprisingly, I found the £1.50 gets me more than the £20 trip I made in my previous visit.

I got my Oyster topped up and arrived at the bus station. Too bad the timetable appears nowhere other than on the signpost of stop 19 itself. I actually checked my phone to know an X26 was just 5 minutes from pulling up.

The route received double deckers since around this time last year, so effectively I am celebrating the first anniversary of its buses' tenures (1 month late). As expected, a 2-axled Volvo B9TL pulled up, humming a noise familiar back in Hong Kong (although not in Riviera Gardens), and off we go. Most went to the upper deck, but me with a luggage couldn't afford taking my eyes off the luggage rack. Only another Asian woman and a fair teenage girl (to be fair, most British girls are fair at that age) had the same situation, as well as a lady who had to use the Priority Seats, which most, but not all, able-bodied avoid. London bus passengers have more sense than Hong Kong ones, as they do occupy these seats if really no one is around.

A sunny May Sunday afternoon proved to be the best time riding X26. The temperature is high enough for a Hongkonger like me, but not as high as Hong Kong, such that the no A/C bus I was on sufficed. Breezes came in whenever the bus is moving, and since this is Outer London pollution was not actually an issue here. Passenger traffic and vehicle traffic were also agreeable. I only had to share my seat for a third of my trip, and the bus almost always waited at the stops - I suspect weekday trips would be plagued by congestions that there would be no time to spare.

The X26 is effectively a town-hopper, jumping between various Zone 5 or 6 towns. As it's Sunday, shopping or leisure trips seemed to make up the majority of patronage, and the first numerically significant swarm of passengers did not show up until Kingston. Most still went upstairs, and I believed that the biggest benefit of the double-decker was that it could provide about the same capacity as the previously run single deckers, but with a shorter body. There were places where the bus had to negotiate between parked and opposite flowing traffic, and a shorter body certainly helped.

I was astonished by the number of small hills and parks we had to negotiate. All these gave the trip a relaxed feeling, and I genuinely enjoyed my hour-and-a-half ride - it really didn't feel this long. I had an urge to jump off at every stop, if not for my luggage and the fact that the bus runs every half-hour (meaning I couldn't afford waiting for the next bus several times). There were a few places that particularly attracted my interest:

• The first is Kingsmeadow, home for AFC Wimbledon, until they go back to Plough Lane that is. Still, Chelsea, the next owner, already put their signs at the gates.
• The second was a few Korean signs I found near New Malden. Apparently there's a Korean society in that town.
• Last but not least, a Chinese restaurant in Cheam had its English name as "Beijing Garden", but its Chinese inscription actually said Mong Kok (旺角), the Hong Kong district where I currently work, and at least 100 times more crowded than the street it's on.

Croydon Flyover was the only place where the bus actually ran like an express, and it marked the start of anything unpleasant. The developers might want to make the place feel modern, but turned out the buildings were strange and uninteresting. More importantly, Sundays render most of them unoccupied, and those dwelling in the street look like they would prey on anyone having the slightest look of wealth. I now understand why a particular Croydon resident had advised against my visit, but I like the way I find it out.

The bus eventually stopped outside Delta Point. It's a featureless bus stand that seemed not fitting to the grand trip the bus had been through, but after all, that's just some place where the driver would check his vehicle and prepare his next trip.

Crossings

人生路上，我們不斷與世上的人萍水相逢。 有些人很快會從我們的腦海中消失；另一些人即使只是與自己同行十數分鐘，仍難以忘懷。 可惜的是，不論這些人在我們的心中存在多久，見面的時間也就僅此而已。