Thursday April 21, 2005

Rebus books

A morning TV book show recently featured Ian Rankin the author of the Inspector Rebus books. Set in Edinburgh the aging Inspector has over his career had to deal with most of types of murders you can imagine. The latest reviewed in the program is called Fleshmarket Close and relates to asylum seekers in Scotland. Rankin said that Rebus is only a few short years away from retirement and as his books follow our own 'real time' he will be hanging up his truncheon if he still has one soon. His female sidekick Siobhan Clarke ( not from Scotland, pronounced shivawn ) is now according to Rankin likely to take up the main character in his stories. Romance between the two is not on the cards though he admitted.

I have read all of the the Rebus books ( apart from the latest which I am waiting to appear in paperback ) starting with the first Knots and Crosses. I would suggest for new readers to go through the books in order to get the most from the series. They are all well written and tease the reader as the plots develop. An early book of his called Watchman has been reprinted and is of historical interest as many of the ideas for Rebus started in this book. Three books by Rankin under the name Jack Harvey are also worth reading. The TV series was a flop as far as I am concerned with John Hannah as Rebus. A new series is planned but Hannah is not taking up the main role again.

Hong Kong

I have been to Hong Kong three times now. I remember the first time very well. It was still then a British colony. HR Wallingford where I worked did a lot of business in Hong Kong. They even had a small office there. HR were selling some of their water modelling software to the Hong Kong government and part of the deal was a set of Sun machines and a AMT DAP used to run the software on. I remember knowing about this and attending a meeting to discuss progress. The project manager went over the schedule and said something like "Paul we have you down for one week in Hong Kong {date}. I was flabbergasted ! So off I went. It was my first long haul flight and first experience of business class in a Cathay Pacific jumbo. At that time Hong Kong was using the old airport Kai Tak . I remember on the approach seeing the building with a X on its roof which was said to be part of the approach guidance !

So I had a week in Hong Kong getting to know the island and spent time being shown around many of the sights. I went up on to the Peak the marketplaces and bars in Wanchai the old red light district. We also took a boat trip to the Cheung Chau island and walked around. My second visit was soon after this, again with HR.

On my last visit the island was now back in the hands of the Chinese and a new airport built away from the centre. There are some amazing bridges that take you back to the centre of Hong Kong. During this visit I walked from the island to the old airport. When I got there it was deserted except for a prefab building with loads of ice sculptures in it. Each celebrated the various Chinese new year symbols , dragon, Chicken etc. Very surreal feeling, a few years ago jets pounded that very place as they screeched to a halt on that narrow ribbon of runway.

One last point if you want a good book to read about the history of Hong Kong read the book by Jan Morris