Friend Requests from Fake Facebook Accounts ad infinitum

Over the past few months, I’ve received a succession of friend requests from Facebook accounts that are clearly fake. Often, they are accounts with photos of fairly young, attractive Chinese women – perhaps as I live in Hong Kong. Also…

Spam spam spam spam and spam emails

And now, it’s time for some spam; just posting some of the crap I and many others receive day after day after day. Yeah, no use to anyone really, unless someone finds this and somehow doesn’t take up one of…

Demolition Looms for Last Villages Below Lion Rock

Walking into the old part of Ngau Chi Wan Village, I’m soon on a path between two-storey buildings, which include a relatively grand old house, built in 1927 of grey bricks and mortar, with granite blocks around the doorway.              Standing…

Diary of Cambridge Ornithological Expedition to China 1985

November 1982 [while I was studying for a PhD at Cambridge University]. I had been considering arranging an expedition to study bird migration, perhaps in South America or Asia. The two undergraduates – John Archer and Andrew Stoddart – who…

Spam email and crap reply about website SEO

I only run small websites, yet still get spam emails from people offering to boost search engine results and business; just generic efforts with no insights re my actual sites. A very recent one here, for instance; notice it’s from…

Choosing Print on Demand Service for Dropshipping to Hong Kong

As a freelance photographer, I’ve long been interested in ideas for selling photos – perhaps as prints, or on other items. Traditionally, this might have meant having to create and stock many potential products, such as prints, or even mugs,…

Faster WordPress with free plugins and little hassle

While a website page can look simple as you view it, there might be a lot going on behind the scenes, especially using a content management system like WordPress: if you’ve reached this article, you’ve likely had a peek behind…

One Hump, One Road: Birds and History  in Southwest Yunnan

There’s an “only in China” style to Lufeng Dinosaur Valley, with its combination of kitschy dinosaur models, dioramas, fun fair, zip line, and museum. In the museum, we find displays including tens or hundreds of mounted dinosaur skeletons, most or…

Keep Calm and Carry on Twitching

whatever is the world coming to? These groups are supposed to be looking after our feathered friends, cute and cuddly creatures, not getting stroppy. And for what?

A Covid scrapbook: snapshots from the crazy pandemic

I’ve read accounts of the Spanish Flu, which was the last major pandemic, mainly in 1918 [so over and done with relatively quickly]. At times, could seem responses were odd: maybe trying to act as if there was no disease…