nummer 174? who ordah nummer 174?No me, Wun Hung Lo. I order nummer 69 and food arrive nummer 10.
Actually (and this is a little bit scurrilous and Max will probably remember it, too), a Chinese girl was kidnapped in Oamaru (in the South Island of Zild) about ten years ago. The kidnappers (one of whom I happened to know; he was the twin brother of one my near-neighbours) intended to hold her for ransom on the grounds that her father was a wealthy market gardener and should be able to come up with what was a small amount of cash, really, in no time flat. They only asked for a few thousand, probably figuring that's all a daughter would be worth, I suppose! But these idiots didn't bargain on their resourceful 14-year-old captive loosening her bonds, breaking out of the house she was being held in and just going home ... where she arrived
before the ransom demand did, if I remember correctly.
I forgot what Phil George and his crony got for that one, but I think the judge went light on the grounds of terminal ineptitude.
Anyway, the point of this is that Gloria, the girl in question, gained the nickname "Chinese Takeaway" (this being an extremely popular form of food in Zild). She went from being unnoticed among many other Chinese kids of her age at her high school to being very well-known and rather popular. She was interviewed a few years later - I think when the doo-lally duo were released - and she'd grown into an extremely self-confident and articulate young lady. She was
laughing about the experience.
All's well that ends well, I suppose ...
