HI JACKIE

One thing this blogger does at least twice each day is ditch spam.
At the present time, the daily dose of viagratic nonsense and hey-guys-look-at-me spume seems to come mostly from Russia, the Ukraine, and Thailand, with never the less very significant contributions from Taiwan, Korea, and naturally the United States.
We invented spam, so of course we excel at it.
Heck, we practically breathe it.

E pluribus spam!

Buckets!


Sometimes I delete everything in my spam folder without actually looking at the material as calmly and carefully as I really should.
I apologize for such undersight.

And that, please understand, is what I thought I must have done upon reading a recent comment.


Jackie wrote:

好耐你仲未reply我呀。我中秋節喺屋企，家人搵我識唔識加州，我話係呀，佢哋仲搵我關於文森明里尼嘅屋企，但係我淨係睇你嘅blog，而家佢哋等我回答，拜託話我知，唔係嘅話我會丟臉㗎！

呢個係我搵你嘅post：

唔該晒！我啱啱睇咗你嘅blog。我仲未去咗美國呀，上次喺美洲時去緬尼吐巴行山，但係我知道你屋企喺三藩市，and嗰度近住比華利山。 你點想呀？also我嘅英語冇咁好呀，我想知道squatter嗰個word乜意思嘅呀？仝蝗蟲有關係嗎？因為佢哋都周街踎嗮… 唔該晒！我啱啱睇咗你嘅blog Inside Vincente Minnelli's Long-Abandoned Beverly Hills Mansion

[End cite.]

Say what?!? You've been waiting a long time for my response?
Oh crap, I must've ditched what you wrote, I'm sorry!

It wasn't till the middle of the night that I discovered Jackie's original comment ("好似蝗蟲都去加州㗎喇，世界冇地方冇紅衛兵，even歷史上台山殖民地嘅三藩市都唔安全。嗰次你冇回話我嘅post呀，話唔埋冇go through呀，我真想知道你點想呀。比華利山仝三藩市都周街有大陸squatter，... "), which was of course underneath the post in which I presented three different versions of the marching song of the eight route army, which I've heard several times this past month.


答复查詢

Anyhow, I'm presently slightly hungover (宿醉的一啲), it's Wednesday morning, the sun is shining (dammit), I'm full of coffee, and there's a pipe filled with Old Dark Fired in my mouth. So here goes.

Vincente Minneli (文森明里尼) is, alas, entirely beyond my field of knowledge, but I do know that his mansion has been empty for years, and has been taking over by squatters. And the word 'squatter' seems to be what is throwing you for a loop.

In this context, 'squatter' means someone breaking the law by living in a house or apartment that they neither own nor rent, where they have no legal right to be.
[在此情況下，'squatter'嘅意思喺“棚戶區者”，意為一個人非法住在一個房子或公寓。]


Actually, San Francisco is not really that close to Beverly Hills, there's a distance of four hundred miles (slightly further than Hong Kong to Changsha; 大致類似香港至長沙喺距離，差唔多咁遠) as well as a whole world of separation. Those folks are not like us. They're weird and vulgar, kind of appalling (比華利山人，呀，怪怪啲和庸俗嘅，慘不忍睹).


Regarding the word 'locust' as used in connection with the Minnelli mansion squatters: 蝗蟲的內涵喺貪婪的犯罪分子，佢哋真像一個瘟疫。
To a limited extent, the Red Guards (紅衛兵) oddly come to mind, but squatters have no ideology, and their political thought is often entirely unformulated. Squatting is SO free-enterprise!
But locusts, never the less.
An infestation.
蟲豸也。



By the way, I shall be looking forward with great interest to the soccer match on the seventeenth of November. It's probably the most important contest of the year.



POST SCRIPTUM

Readers who do not speak Cantonese may not understand most of the non-English text above, especially Mandarin speakers. So sorry, there is nothing to be done about that.
Cantonese is similar to Mandarin in some ways.
But very far indeed from the north.
粵語普通話唔同個囉…
唔好意思！




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