校際必勝大法! – 七、 藍平平先生

簡單來講,隨便找個紅鬚綠眼的人,就稱他為 Mr. Smurf 吧!他的職業可以是屠夫、渠務工作人員、垃圾分類員、菜市場搬運工人、哈利大衛信摩托車收藏家、甚至是黑幫老大。在他失業時,編寫一頁個人網頁,發揮他的創意,在上面隨便寫寫﹕「Mr. Smurf 是村內首屈一指的小號家、鋼琴家、弦樂器專家和聲樂家。曾為多位村內人士的私人音樂導師,其兒子隨國際級知名大師學習;屢獲殊榮,包括 Smurf 自己評審的藍精靈村蘑菇大獎,更曾獲精靈爸爸頒發大蘋果勳章,並以音樂擊退邪惡巫師加達…」不用很久,藍精靈便會成為評判之一。

順帶一提,上述的哈利大衛信摩托車收藏家,是另一個組織所主辦的評分事件當中出現過的真實例子。2009年,演奏級音樂考試場外,大刺刺的貼著一張考試員履歷,第一句﹕「Mr. Smurf 是哈利大衛信摩托車愛好者,收藏了多台名車,包括 Max Schnell, Shu Todoroki, Francesco Bernoulli 和 Lightning McQueen。是哈利摩托車發燒會的核心人物…」有關於摩托車的資料,佔據了第一整段,第二段起有關音樂的經歷,就只有關於其次子隨某名師學藝,與及長子考進了某音樂學院。讀到結束都未有提及該名考試員修讀甚麼音樂專業,也沒有表明在哪所院校畢業。

為保本文持平開放的態度,我不得不在此補充,我曾見過該比賽的獨奏組別有評判是畢業於巴黎音樂學院、維也納國立音樂大學、薩爾茲堡莫札特音樂大學、茱莉亞音樂學院等知名音樂學府的音樂家,管弦樂團及合唱團比賽評委挑選也見認真,但亦不乏 Mr. Harmony Smurf * 之輩。

* Mr. Harmony Smurf﹕ 藍平平先生,在藍精靈卡通片中,演奏小號、魯特琴、長號、豎琴、簧風琴等等,不過就連敲三角鐵,也會難聽得令玻璃窗碎裂的業餘音樂愛好者。

Vienna, Best Cities 2014

Vienna rank 2nd place in best-country-to-live-in-2. A friend from Toronto asked me what I think, as a person who had been living in Vienna for almost 10 years. Maybe he was annoyed that all 3 cities from Canada ranked from 3rd to 5th place but all behind Vienna.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/08/daily-chart-13

The ranking was made by the best analytical minds, exclusively using raw data but no human survey involved. Which is good from some perspective, for example, as a reference on global trend of comfortability, business could explore their market appropriately. e.g. selling foreign real estate to those with relatively lower rank, cheating those people with the possibility to immigrate; selling ANYTHING to those with higher rank since comfortable life makes people stupid. No offence to Toronto, but just a bad interpretation on “stay hungry, stay foolish".

It is easy to put a number on education, health care, infrastructure, e.g. number of universities, percentage of higher education graduates, health funding per head count. The “best cities" ranking, based only on liveability index, like political stability, food supply, hospitals with doctors surrounding me when I am sick… those are the basics. It’s like being held hostage, with sufficient bread, bed and panadol. That’s already liveable. Some other factors like number of museums, civilized people, environment, those are quality of life. Which are like bonus after you survived.

I suppose the ranking aimed for business and politic reference only. Since my Toronto friend made it personal, it inspired me of thinking, how to make a rank of “best inhabit cities for any individual on earth". Why “any individual", if only the locals found it comfortable, it means nothing. “Best inhabit cities for the local" is like “my kid is the best kid in the whole universe". The forest bust be the best place to live if you are an africans forest savages, which at the same time, you might find it impossible to live in any big-city.

So how about “Best inhabit cities for big-city people". This research became racist to those from smaller city, and some NYC look down to any human on earth. Imagine a guy from Aspen read the rank and immigrate to NYC.

Great! Now narrow it down, “Generally Best inhabit cities for those who do NOT want to spend the rest of their life in a small town". If I do not put the word “generally", the name of this rank will be longer than the “Harry Porters".

However, it is almost impossible to put a number for the level of ‘racist’, or the level of residence’s ‘foreign acceptance’. If the rank is for people searching for a better place to immigrate, the internationality level of the place should also be taken in consideration.

Now let’s get back to the topic. For me, the most comfortable city is not only about peace, food and health. If the city you are living lack some of the above mentioned factors, you better leave asap. After ones satisifed with those basics, then we talk about environment, culture, political satisfaction and civilization level of citizens. If you’re satisfied with all the above and you have a stable income, congratulations! Stay there for the rest of your life if you feel happy.

Feeling comfortable is easy, midnight at the back of a garage, lying on a picnic table cloth on the floor, sounds uncomfortable to me, but definitely supreme comfortable for the couple who were having sex on it for their first time in life. So, comfortable or not, is about happiness. In Vienna, the suicide rate is high, lots of citizens suffered from alcohol problems, and the old ladies hate foreigners, not only Asians.

There is another list of “Top 10 World’s Best Countries to live in 2014″ based on “world happiness report" released by United Nations General Assembly. Vienna, Austria rank No.8, Canada rank No.6. http://lifestyle9.com/worlds-best-country-to-live-in-2013