Day 25 – Air – La femme d’argent
I love La Femme d'Argent and I think Air are an absolutely superb pop band.
Moon Safari, the album from which this song comes, is one of my favourite albums in my collection. I have most of the albums they have released since then.
Air are French and the name is supposedly an acronym for Amour Imagination Rêve. I suppose it’s a good job they are not English, otherwise they would be called Lid.
When I first heard the song in 1999, I was working in Hong Kong and my time there was drawing to a close. The customer wanted somebody to spend three months supporting the system and prepare for the oncoming time bomb – the infamous Millennium Bug.
Of course, the Millennium Bug turned out to be a damp squib but the panic that preceded it was almost laughable. Because the customer wanted two people, and Mrs PM and I were together, it seemed logical that the two of us would fulfil that requirement.
We spent a fabulous three months in what has become my favourite city outside the UK.
I loved Hong Kong and living there together gave me a totally fresh perspective on the place. So many wonderful things happened.
Work was tough and we were pushed quite hard – but the fact that I was in Hong Kong and had a new found positive outlook on life meant that I approached those times with a smile on my face. It helped having Mrs PM there of course.
I also developed mobile phone twitch.
The customer made sure that we carried a mobile phone with us all the time and in those early days, just about everybody in Hong Kong had Nokia phones with that irritating bloody ringtone that we still hear today.
And every time the mobile phone rang it was always something that had to be dealt with immediately. Because other people had the same ringtone, I twitched every time I heard it, thinking that my phone was beckoning me into a bad place.
And most of the time it wasn’t my phone at all.
During the three months, the customer informed us that there would be a two week period when our services weren’t required. We had the choice to go back to the UK.
“No way,” said Mrs PM, like a wildly excited child. “Let’s go to CHINA!!!!!”
I must admit that I didn’t fancy the prospect of going to China at all, and even the people we worked with tried to dissuade us.
However, I was won over by Mrs PM’s enthusiasm; she stirred the travel bug inside me and we ventured into a mad but incredible country for a memorable two week trip.
At this time I was actually starting to write a little too, yet another seed being sewn, so I opted to make notes and write a travelogue, mainly so that I could keep a diary of events for the future.
And that travelogue became The China Chronicles, which although rough and ready, I still enjoy reading from time to time, to remind of the trip. There is a link to it just to your right.
After China, we returned to Hong Kong for our final two weeks and left via Singapore (again work related) before heading home.
I was very sad at leaving the city and felt quite emotional at the airport.
I still love Hong Kong even now and whenever I head towards Asia, I always try to make it back there. Mrs PM and I have been back there on our way to Australia in 2005 and more recently on a holiday to Thailand.
We are planning another big holiday next year, to Japan – another place I have always wanted to go to.
And we will visit Hong Kong again for a few days on the way there or back.
It will be like visiting an old friend.
