One of the feuds of the past decade is over. Best-selling author Simon Winchester (above) is allowed to fly Cathay Pacific again. Moreover, its stewardesses have resisted pouring hot coffee in his lap.
The row goes back to March 1992, when penning a foreword for a photobook Hongkong: Here Be Dragons, the writer (who has since built a global reputation with the best-sellers The Professor And The Madman and The Map That Changed The World) had the audacity to observe sexual relations between Western men and Eastern women.
He reported: 'Seemingly rolled out and snipped off in six-foot lengths of pinstripe, they take their Cathay Pacific stewardesses [known in the local argot as LBFMs, Little Brown F****** Machines] to the discos and bars scattered around the territory.'
In the furore that followed, Winchester was unceremoniously thrown off a Cathay flight to Hong Kong, threatened with legal action and banned by the airline indefinitely.
Yesterday, snug in his favourite Mandarin Grill armchair, he admitted that although 'as far as he knew he was still banned' he had 'sneaked on' to the odd Cathay flight. Cathay however, in an e-mail to SAR, said a decision was taken 'some time ago' to allow Winchester back on board.
But whether memories will die so quickly remains to be seen. He has written 19 books and millions of words. But he says: 'I sometimes think Hong Kong will remember me for just those four letters.'