STEVE FALLONcheated and the contest was annulled. We argued over who had more pressing engagements back in the real world; it was a tenway tie. In the end, we all just grabbed for the tickets �and I came up short once again. No matter, I thought, perhaps Partner and I could have a boozy lunch somewhere down along the beach (black sand welcoming red tides, but a beach is a beach is a beach �sort of) and maybe take in a little bone-buffing before heading home on Monday morning. The sky had begun to darken and I could see black clouds dancing in formation off the China coast. The wind picked up and then it began to rain �well, `rain�is hardly the way to describe the sheets of water that pelted onto the stretched plastic sheet that was the Moke `roof� By the time I got the self-anointed Gang of Four to the pier, I (and they, I happy to report) was soaked to the bone. It looked like it was going to be a dull afternoon, whiling away the hours in the hotel bar, reading (and not speaking, of course) until it was time to go to bed, and it was (although the `Tears of Christ��a white port, not a first-class relic �was going down a treat). Oh, there were a few diversions: LL, looking carnivorous as he always did (and, come to think of it, a little cadaverous too that morning after, no doubt, a debauched night-time crawl through some Taipa snakepit), cruising a drop-dead gorgeous barman (apparently they weren all decrepit) whose girlfriend then arrived for a lemon tea and a snog. Ha ha. Best Friend giving me dagger �no, Samurai sword �looks, Dip falling off the bar stool again. I went to reception to ask what time we needed to check in for the morning hydrofoil. `Where you go�snarled Captain, Bela Vista staff No 1, who looked like he been standing behind the desk since the early Ming Dynasty. ack to Hong Kong . . .�I ventured. I could see from the look on his face that this was not necessarily going to be the case. `No can,�he said. `Typhoon signal up. Number 8.�Diu lei lou mou (which can be very loosely translated from the Cantonese as `Goodness gracious!�or `Drat!�. That meant galeforce winds of up to 117 kilometres an hour, with gusts exceeding 248
