Soccer Dad

Popular culture in the news cont.

Last week I had a number of news items that sounded like they'd come from popular culture, but I'd forgotten one. Over the weekend I finally remembered it.

Suicide theme park proposed for Hong Kong island

A Hong Kong official said one of the territory's tiny islands could make a killing with a novel theme park based on its unsavoury reputation as a suicide spot, a media report said on Tuesday.

The morbid suggestion to create a ghost-town attraction where guests were dared to spend the night in "haunted flats" came at a meeting of local leaders on little Cheung Chau island.

Morbid? Yes. But doesn't it sound like Ian Fleming's "You only live twice" the next to last James Bond novel:

Shatterhand is a botanist who, with his wife, has come to Japan near the first of the year, 1963 (right after Tracy’s death). Dr. Shatterhand has asked that he be able to bring one million British pounds into the country, in exchange for property where he will be able to build a lavish garden, filled with fatal plants and killer animals, such as piranhas. . The plants and animals that Shatterhand has placed in the garden are expertly discribed, and add a good touch of detail to the character.

As soon as word gets around, people begin to flock to the “Castle Of Death” that Dr. Guntram Shatterhand has created. He sets up a bright red balloon, that entices people to kill themselves in Shatterhand’s garden.

(Dr. Shatterhand, it turns out, is Bond's nemesis, Ernst Stravo Blofeld.)

Posted by SoccerDad at August 23, 2005 5:31 AM