This week's winner
David Tang's Diary
THE SPECTATOR, 5 JULY 1997
Then at the quayside, shortly after the Union Jack came down forever and just before he left with his wife and three beautiful daughters, he was embraced by all his friends and his staff, who had spontaneously became his friends.
I stood next to one of his private secretaries whose eyes were redder than her natural head. Her sobs in the gentle, humid breeze made it all the more difficult for me to hold back, and when the last governor finally came to me, last in line, I had to hug him to conceal my own tears.
Chinese heroes are supposed to shed blood rather than tears, but I was no hero at that last hour. How I wished Jessye Norman might have been there to sing the last of Strauss' Four Last Songs - a favorite of both of us.
Runner up
