Mr Dicks

Before you jump to conclusions, the title of this post is due to my Godfather, Terry.

Hold on though, first I have to explain why.

I got an email around a week ago from a fantastic lady who helps run the Oxford Uni Careers service. I went to Oxford for my February recruitment trip and happened to say on my way out of her office "if you ever find yourself in Hong Kong, let us know and we (the company) will take you out for lunch". Never expecting anyone to actually take up the offer, I was quite surprised to recieve an email from the lady in question letting me know that she was indeed coming to Hong Kong on holiday, and it would be good to meet.

I met her at our nearest MTR station and she had her partner with her too, a really nice guy called Keith who was Sri Lankan/British. We hit it off really well, it was obviously a networking opportunity for the company and myself, but both her and the partner were easy to get along with and it was not an 'effort', to entertain them.

So we had dim sum, then I took the afternoon off to show them around Hong Kong a bit. We did the Avenue of Stars, Star Ferry, tram journey to Central, bar vsiting, and the Man Mo Temple. Then that was the action packed day nearly over. Now this is where my godfather comes in.

I was walking next to Keith and we were discussing Hong Kong politics and the colonial era. I happened to mention that my Godfather once told me that he had visitied Hong Kong for work related reasons when he was a member of parliment, before the 1997 handover.

"Is your Godfather an MP now?" he asked. "No, retired" I replied. "What was his constituancy?" he inquired, "Hayes and Harlington", came my reply. Then there was quite a large pause.
"What was his name?"
"Terry ..." (Surname) I replied.

Then there was an even larger pause.

Now, Keith was polite, but could not hide his clear distaste for my Godfather, or help mention that he campaigned for 'the other side'. He also mentioned that he met him once and that he was not a particular fan. Recognizing the need to drop the subject quite quickly, I decided to comment that we were currently walking through the red light district of Wan Chai. That did the trick nicely, ending tense attention on my Godfather and directing it towards scantily clad ladies outside brothels. Which actually made things less awkward, believe it or not.

My knowledge of my Godfather is pretty limited in terms of the things he said and his stand on issues. I think he made a speech at my Christening and said something which caught the attention of the Sun Newspaper and got him in a bit of bother. Other than that, he is just my Godfather!

I now have a new bit of knowledge though, unless I'm around Conservatives, best to keep the Godfather quiet in case I come head to head with another opposing activist. Especially if i'm trying to keep them happy! Thankfully I never mentioned that the Godmother works for Hertz, otherwise my luck would have been that Hertz screwed up his rental car booking recently or something...

bx