A Christmas present to the world and back to you

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Leaking World

The world has been leaking
for ages.
Cracks were plastered.
Plaster cracked.
Cover-ups upon cover-ups,
until the inevitable burst.
From the credit crunch,
to the names of fall:
Freddie Mac, Fanny Ma
AIG, Northern Rock,
Lehman Brothers
and the latest,
down to a person,
Bernard Madoff –
mad and off.
Oh, not to forget
our Iceland
wobbling on melting wealth.
We should have known,
Icesave is of course, not safe.
Greed is a leaking vessel
who can't get no satisfaction.
As we are busy cleaning up
all these mess,
there's one worse coming
if we keep doing nothing.
Credit crunch of another sort –
the ecological bad loans from our Earth.
Oh my global village fellows,
can we survive the day after tomorrow?

Epilogue:
The picture is the view above my head in my office. The pipes on the ceiling have been leaking for months. Though just a drop of water fell onto my desk (or luckily on my head) once every hour or two, it's still a nuisance. We asked the building management to fix it but they just never did. So this was the best solution I could come up. A towel tied around the leaking spot perfectly soaked up the tiny amount of water. At first, one was enough, then more were asked in for help later on.

Day in, day out, I looked up, I contemplated... not sure of what and back to work. Finally, I thought, "What the hell, just post it and call it an accident piece of conceptual art." But somehow my writing took a surprise turn to a poem of some sorts. I lost my bearing on the way. Well, how could it not be? I didn't bring any map in the first place.

Banksy's Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill

For more eerie creatures – aged and sad-faced Tweety, porn-watching monkey and hotdogs (yes, they are actually alive), visit its official site. The physical shop at 89, 7th Avenue in the West Village of New York City was closed. (All the pets were sold out I guess?)

Wintry Thought

Finally the sign of winter comes as cold wind arrives from the north. The temperature drops to around 14ºC. It's enough to make many of us put our heaviest clothes on, while we stare in disbelief at some Westerners wearing nothing more than a T-shirt.

Few eyebrows were raised when I told others I actually quite enjoy wintry weather. To some who utterly despise coldness, it's just perverse. Let me clarify here, though I also very much enjoy a sunny day out on the beach, the chill of winter just doesn't bother me much. I find pleasure and beauty on the contrary.

Okay. I've long concluded that people in the world are divided into two opposite camps – Summer and Winter, roughly like Yin and Yang in the Chinese philosophy. On one side, you've got people who are extrovert, bold, hot-tempered, aggressive and most of all, winter-hater. On the other side, introvert, soft, timid, slower, melancholy and winter-dweller. (I didn't say winter-lover. They don't necessarily "love" winter but rather they feel relaxed about it, can be mellow in the cold breeze, the snow and the sight of leafless-trees.)

Here's a test. If you found pleasure in the video above, we are alike, "cold brothers and sisters". It's the trailer of the documentary film of the Icelandic band – Sigur Rós. What better place to represent winter than the Iceland? ICE-LAND. The land of ice. (For the "summer people", why on earth did someone decide to live there, it is madness beyond reason.)

When I first saw it, I felt rather like the title saying "Heima", "at home" in Icelandic. I just love the strange landscapes, the remoteness, the vastness, and the cold air that you can almost smell. And of course the music compliments so well with it.

Now here's the band one should at least memorize their name. It's the perfect kind of band that when conversation comes up around music, casual mentioning of their name can intimidate few and show off your distinctive taste and broad musical knowledge. But then again, that' s not the kind of thing that "winter people" do, we are low-profile, you see. What if you are the "summer people"? It's not your kind of music, is it?

Last point, I noticed that the lead singer Jónsi Birgisson wears only a T-shirt in the video. What? In Iceland? ...Whether hot or cold, it's a relative thing. 14ºC, It's summer in Iceland and everyone takes off their shirt and basks in the sun. 14ºC, It's winter in Hong Kong and everyone turns on their heater and sits around it.

What's your temperature? I'm 17ºC, I reckon. Perfectly happy on an autumn day when I can feel the coolness of the wind and the warmth of the sun.