Robert the Westie. My life. By me.

14. How Hanson and MMMbop took Steve to Australia.

I have somehow neglected to mention the fact that one other figure had been prominent at the time of the death of Diana, namely Tony Blair, by now Prime Minister as the leader of the recently elected Labour Party. My neglect arises from two issues, firstly the fact that, other than the late lamented Margaret Thatcher and the noble Nelson Mandela, no political figure, local or international, had made much of an impression on me.

More importantly, though, Blair himself seemed to me all veneer and no substance. Steve expressed a more positive view, impressed by the tough stance that Blair had taken with the old trades union dinosaurs whose heavy hands had still pulled many of the levers of power within the party. He had reduced their influence and presented the reincarnated entity as 'New Labour.'

The country, bored with the Tory Party after their long reign of eighteen years, had swallowed Blair's story and voted Labour into power in a landslide victory. I remained sceptical, my doggy instincts leading me to doubt the sincerity of the smile, to see every conviction as shallow and convenient and to predict that the nation's love affair would surely end in tears. "The luxury of hindsight", you're thinking. Wrong! I formed my opinion at the time and simply observed all my worst fears coming true in the years that followed.

Incidentally, please don't label me as a Tory supporter. I was as appalled as everyone else by their endless bickering over Britain's relationship with Europe and as sickened by the instances of sleaze that oozed from their ranks under the spineless leadership of mundane John Major. If you're concluding that I take a dim view of politicians in general, then you can congratulate yourselves on having attuned yourself pretty sweetly to this doggie's mindset.

Both Major and Blair showed up for Diana's funeral of course. Somebody who didn't was Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun. She had died, aged eighty-seven, the night before at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, the order she had founded and whose good works with the poor and dispossessed had earned her a Nobel Peace Prize. This would itself have been a huge story had not Diana's funeral monopolised all the media coverage for days in advance of the event. Steve suggested wickedly that a great "compare and contrast" story opportunity had been missed. Both ladies had made a big deal of their strenuous effort to help the disadvantaged. Where, then, was the witty photo-spread inspired by the fact that one was the most photogenic woman on the planet while the other, as observed by scurrilous but fun Joan Rivers, resembled ET without make-up? Answer, nowhere at all.

Another topic that I haven't dwelt on it, despite its high profile in my household, was the transfer of power, earlier in the year, from Great Britain to China of the tiny Asian protectorate, Hong Kong. It was a big deal because of Steve's fascination with all things Asian, not just the cuter young males, may I say? Plus, for Jason, it came with layers of interest, both as a piece of history in the making and as a major family matter, his Mother having invested in Hong Kong property a few years earlier.

As a result, Jason knew a lot of Hong Kong's history, its colonisation as a tiny fishing village by the British in 1842, the construction of a vibrant port and city during the reign of Queen Victoria and its remarkable emergence as a commercial gateway to the rest of Asia in the twentieth century. Steve cited Hong Kong as one of the great examples of the British Empire as a force for good. To my surprise, Jason agreed.

"You only have to wander round Hong Kong, encountering the marvels of engineering that enabled that mountainous landscape to accommodate seven million people, to know that the Brits left an indelible mark", he observed. "Many streets still carry the names of these adventurers who travelled so far from home and stayed to create a dynamic city. So many were Scots. I've always wondered why."

"If you had ever lived through a Scottish winter, or a Scottish summer, for that matter, you would know," Steve replied. Jason giggled.

 "Anyway, most of the Cantonese population regard the Brits with come affection. The same can't be said of their feelings for the Mainland Chinese. They compare their relative stability and affluence with the sporadic turmoil that engulfs China and all they can feel is profound apprehension, however impressive the recent growth in the economy and however comforting the rhetoric that pours out of Beijing."