The words "illegal structures" - so overused, so trivial, so who-the-fudge-gives-a-rats-arse, so sick of them. Almost as sick of them as I am of Maroon 5 and Rihanna and that Korean rapper.
There seems to be some kind of obsession with illegal additions to housing structures recently.
This fixation with illegal structures started during the chief executive "election", when it was discovered that the man who was supposedly the next CE was housing a huge luxurious illegal basement in his huge luxurious house. Yes, his "lavish underground wine palace" (terms lavish/palace/wine are all relative when talking about any of those in HK) even made it to the Telegraph dot co dot uk news, despite 1. there really wasn't a real election, 2. he's not the first or the only one with such structures, and 3. I really can't care less. The local media did go mental, and hired cranes so that they can get their cannon-like cameras over Tang's high walls and fire shots of shame and successfully shoot down his attempts of becoming the next chief.
And then it was also discovered that the newly elected chief CY Leung also has luxurious illegal structures in his luxurious homes. The media went even more berserk, and all they could talk about for literally, WEEKS, was how many extra illegal flower pots and store rooms he's got in his multiple homes and how many lies he's told and how we should be caring. Tough luck. Still not interested.
Then there's the issue of highlighting the insane number of village houses in "rural" Hong Kong (well, relatively rural) that have had illegal structures added onto them by their sly and greedy owners. It is also revealed that there's a government department, with a director, 40 staff and an annual budget of HK$36 million to "tackle the illegal works". Now THAT I DO care - that's MY hard-earned taxed money, and it's going to be used to remove extra shelving on rural houses rather than adding extra beds to hospitals or helping the old/frail/disabled/poor?
