Décadence Mandchoue
The memoir of Sir Edmund Trelawney Backhouse, 2nd Bt. (Backhouse /bækˈʌs/, which is appropriate) will be published this week , and a cracking good read it looks, even if it is a load of old cobblers. I wouldn't be so sure though. Reading the review I was reminded of my own time in China; if I published a memoir of life in Guangzhou in the mid-noughties no-one would believe it. I could tell of the divorcée who invited me to move in and offered to sweeten the deal by installing a concubine or two. The girlfriend who came over one night with her 17 year old, uninitiated, eager cousin. The unspeakably depraved practices of Mystic Meg from Hiroshima. T he policewoman who, upon discovering the effects of black resin on the male member, ensured that there was always a ready supply on the bedside table. T he millionaire's daughter who drove me to a nightclu b with one hand on the wheel of the Merc and the other not, at every traffic light her head bobbing down for a quick... As I s...