Kung Hei Fat Choi!

No sooner Valentine's Day mascara done with than we are into Feb 18th's Chinese New Year's Annus Porcinus.

A bounteous year of the golden razorback, all y'all.

Check out yer astrological wotsits, thanks to my old alma mater, the Hong Kong tourism honchos.

But beware taking the sage predictions too seriously: one of the few chores I refused to delegate during my years nestling in the iron rice bowl was the annual {re}-writing of those folksy fortunes.

You smile, Grasshopper, but in those days we grubbied our hands with actual re-search, delving through dusty tomes in the lai-brubry to come up with new takes on the same old stuff.

I got so good at capturing the voice of the ancients that one year one of the staff asked me for the source material so she could check her translation against the original Mandarin.

"Melina," I said gently, "my 'original source' was trusty biro in left hand and a six-pack of chilled San Mig' within reach of the right."

She didn't believe me because I'd too skilfully captured the faltering prose of an ancient confucian sage.

Addendum:

Let me add a bit of class and relevance to this post with the talented Julie Leung's coverage of CNY celebs back on my very own Bainbridge. Nice one, Julie - crisp, colourful and evocative as always.

And, by way of balance, Ray Lo's gloomy "corrective" on what a horrid time we'll all have.