What's in my bag?

John on holiday so we go shopping yesterday.  That's the view from the ferry taken with my iPhone --  Hong Kong harbour as we cross to Kowloon; almost black and white, in colour....  Louring clouds, before water from the sky washes us down, wipes away the smog.

The bag I carry is made of sail material, kevlar and carbon laminate, with a couple of handles and a zip.  It was made by the sailmakers.  I've put my name and phone number on it, in case I leave it somewhere, but they've rubbed off a bit and would take some guessing.  So if I did leave it somewhere, an Honest Person, wanting to find its owner, would need to look inside.

The HP would find:

• One pair of ear muffs -- the sort you use for noise abatement, not for the cold.
• One pair of ear phones with speaker on a stick, jumbo size, "industrial activity, for use in".
• One engraving tool, with a template of numbers and letters.
• One used battery for a laptop computer.
• One set of guitar strings.
• Two little pieces of wire, white plastic coated and with special clips at each end, "unknown, for use of:".
• One copy of the latest Vanity Fair magazine.  Shock, horror, a lefty mag, with story about Sean Penn in Haiti, he of the overwrought admiration for Castro and one I've loved to hate; but then I read about him in Haiti and learn that he's being practical and useful, doing stuff that wouldn't have otherwise have been done, and helping and saving people.  So, that's OK, then, as long as we don't have to put up with his diabolical ultra-left nonsense, which would have the US revert to sixties culturally revolutionary China penury.... It's ok, I guess, as long as he doesn't have the power to do "bigger things", that is, to put his grand millenarian goals into practice on a national level.  When he's helping in Haiti at ground level.  
• And one book "What the dog saw", by Malcolm Gladwell, a collection of his New Yorker pieces; aha, another leftie magazine.  And in that collection, a story about Haiti, making the place sound the wonder that Penn had as well, despite the poverty, the corruption, the heat, the earthquake, the venality of some of the survivors, the energy, the red and blackness of the place.

So investigating the contents, a leftie then, interested in.... what? make of those bits and pieces what you will.  And leftie?  Down the bottom, scruntched up and dog-eared, so read already, last week's Spectator.  Hmm...  what does it all mean?  What is the bag-owner up to?....

Then home after the deluge, and to the park, dried out now, where we see, iPhotograph and argue about the colour of this beauty, turquoise or dark blue.  Dark blue says John, and he's right.

We have so many lovely butterflies in Hong Kong....