Bravo Gordon

We get the Brit equivalent of C-SPAN here in HK and I love to watch the lively sessions of the British House of Commons. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is ruthlessly savaged by his political opponents in the open forum wit-fest, but he's been flogged especially for his previous unwillingness to grant full citizenry to the brave Nepalese Gurkha soldiers who have valiantly fought and died alongside British soldiers thru the WW's all the way thru to Iraq. Well, after a great deal of debate on the matter Brown today awarded the Gurkhas the right to settle in Britain.

My father made a business trip to Nepal in the mid-80's and brought me back an 18-inch long curved Ghurka knife known as a "Kukri." The scabbard of it to this day smells like death so I was always curious whether it actually saw action on foreign battlefield or whether my dad actually just picked it up at the airport gift shop....I always felt it was the former but with the more time I spend on time constrained business travel the more I lean to the latter!

The announcement is Hong Kong's loss as the city has a large Nepalese population and expects to lose over 10,000 of them who will like move out of the city to the UK. Their battle motto is "Better to die than be a coward." Tough stuff.