The agitation over the automatic pay rise for Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor may literally be a battle over nothing.

Her pay is linked to Hong Kong's consumer price index, which produces various figures, including this one just two weeks ago: "On a seasonally adjusted basis, the average monthly rate of change in the Composite CPI for the three-month period ending February 2020 was 0.0 percent, and the corresponding rate of change for the three-month period ending January 2020 was minus 0.5 percent."

I think a negative pay "rise" could even get pan-dem approval.

* * *

On a related note, Lam and other government officials have all given up a month of salary to charity this year - equivalent to an 8 percent pay cut.

"The past 12 months has not been a good year to be a government official," said my civil service source. "Way less money and way, way, way more stress."

* * *

Sneaky Hong Kong high school students are sabotaging their classes by posting their online classroom links on the internet.

Evil strangers then disrupt classes by interrupting them or even beaming in pornography.

After it happened at Christian Alliance International School in Kowloon, online teaching had to be halted until a security system could be set up.

A school in Pok Fu Lam tried to hold an online assembly for students and teachers - but it too had to be abandoned.

* * *

Not sure how you pronounce "4rd," as seen in the pictured sign from the Julian Club Hotel in Marmaris, Turkey.

* * *

The arrest of old men violating the "no gatherings" rule by watching a chess game in Kwai Chung came from a 999 call, police revealed. I wonder how that conversation went?

"Police? There are men standing outside our building."

"Triads? Bank robbers? Murderers?"

"No, old guys watching a chess game."

"OMG, DON'T MOVE. Dispatching raptors now."

* * *

I was sorry to hear that a woman died of an accidental fall in Mong Kok on Sunday, but the news sent me digging up statistics. About 1,650 people die of falls in Hong Kong every year. Or, to put it another way, 400 times as many people are killed in this city by falling over than have been killed by Covid-19.

* * *

A Hong Kong firm named Prosper Construction Holdings told reporters that it would go ahead with extraordinary general meetings but would not go beyond the "four-persons-at-a-time" rule.

Will they do it as a kind of relay race - dividing their shareholders into groups of four and having them jogging in and out of the hotel ballroom?

* * *

A Hong Kong woman from an Indian background is by herself in Pune, near Mumbai - and an air travel lockdown means she can't get home.

Kavita Khosa looked for other Hong Kong people trapped in India, and found about 600 of them.

"All of us would like to get back to our families," she said.

It's tricky. I know two guys who sent their wives and children out of Hong Kong to Western countries "for safety" in February - and soon realized it was the worst thing they could have done.

* * *

Imagine if you robbed a bank in Hong Kong this week. Police: "What did he look like?" Teller: "He was wearing a surgical mask and sunglasses." Police grab 7.5 million suspects.

Talk to me! Send ideas and comments via the Facebook pages of the author or The Standard

Index-linked hike could get critics on side