Much ado about a goldfinch

Last week the T&S (Trouble and Strife) and I went to Causeway Bay and took lunch in the Goldfinch Restaurant. Now the food was very good, excellent value, acceptable background music and most welcoming staff, who spoke good English. Highly recommended as Mr. Ronay might say but arguably not Mr. Winner. So what is wrong with the restaurant. Well, I give you Exhibits A and B.




I can see that you are already on the trail. The Goldfinch known to and loved by my European reader is a colourful little finch, that bears not a passing resemblance to the depicted bird. And as a stickler for accuracy I took the precautionary measure of checking how a Chinese Goldfinch might look. I turned to that much thumbed tome,
A Field Guide to the Birds of China by Mackinnon and Phillipps. Now apart from having a mildly pretentious spelling to her name (are 2 Ls and 2 Ps really necessary?) Ms Phillipps' illustrations have had mixed reviews. However I would contend that the Goldfinch is one of her finest and here therefore I take the liberty of reproducing her magnum opus.



Now then, doesn't that look like a goldfinch? Bottom left if you are at all confused and of a non-ornithological disposition. The Causeway Bay bird leaves me baffled. It has perhaps the air of a Glossy Starling but nary a goldfinch. Accordingly, until the situation remedies itself and this splendid restaurant adopts a new image, Mrs. Haa (for so her friends now call her) and I shall be boycotting the place. Indeed I feel a letter to the South China Morning Post coming on.