Well, here I am sitting in the lobby of the Royal Orchid Sheraton, Bangkok.
Only last week I was shivering in the cold Twickenham mornings wondering what I'd done wrong, when low and behold, my brother conjured up a set of golf clubs and said "here you can have these". Things picked up from there, the French railway workers went on strike so I cancelled the Paris trip and took the time to prepare for Bangkok.
It's 25-30 degrees here, I've been walking around the city in flip flops, that's one of my favourite things about hot countries. I'm going to do it again tonight. Only problem walking around here is the constant offers of strip shows and hookers. I wanted to see the Golden Palace but it closes at 5pm, I'd happily pay someone to sneak me in but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Nevertheless, as research for this bit, I went to see one of the famous shows. I don't know if these shows started out as a sex thing but today it's more of a circus. Tourists come in on buses, at least half of the audience is women (even those with headscarves and long garments - a bit off-putting frankly). There were a lot of "acts" in a one hour show, here's some:
Lady come's onto stage with a handful of ping pong balls and inserts a good few into her "jingle" while dancing in time to a local rip-off of some dance track which I vaguely recognised. Then she ejected the balls into a tall glass filled with water. One missed and bounced off the stage, she asked one of the guests to help retrieve but he refused to touch it, even when she offered a handful of tissue paper. She showed her displeasure before continuing the act.
Next, lady dances around for a bit and suddenly starts pulling a long ribbon out of her jingle. The ribbon has little bells attached to it but the really amazing thing is the length of it, she was wrapping it around four poles on the stage, I estimated it to be about 15 metres long and she was a mere strip of girl.
Similar act, a lady produces a series of dayglo things (about the size of Christmas tree decorations) attached to each other with dayglo string. This was easily as long as the previous one, incredible because of the size of the decorations.
Next lady lay on the floor and fired a "projectile", somebody shouted banana - it would have to be a small one, into the air, caught it and repeated half a dozen times.
This one will make you wince; another string pulling trick but this one had razor blades attached to the string, not just a few, I'd say 30-40. There was a group of women sitting next to the stage on the opposite side (round stage), the expressions on their faces would have made a good picture but cameras aren't allowed. Just to prove the point she then took a piece of paper and shredded it with one of the blades.
The next act was quite impressive, the lady inserted a small "blow pipe" into her jingle while her assistant launched a balloon into the air. She fired something out of the blow pipe and burst the balloon from about 2 metres away. She did that twice and then used the blow pipe to blow out candles on a cake.
Then there was the lady who took the top off a bottle of coke (the jagged metal tops), another one with metres and metres of neon ribbon, then a comedy act. This lady took some water from a small coke bottle and ejected it into another bottle, the trick being that the ejected fluid looked just like cola, it did raise a laugh.
Next, lady rolls up a sheet of A4 and inserts into jingle followed by felt tip marker pen. After much jiggling about she retrieves the paper and proudly displays the writing "welcome to Thailand". That brought a new twist to the art of sign writing and an end to the show, well the closing "act" was an erotic simulation by a couple of young ladies but no one was interested in that, people made their way out and the next bus loads came in. It was bizarrely not-erotic, all I felt was hungry and so I also left.
I wandered around and looked in at some of the street food stalls but I wasn't actually sure which were selling food and which were souvenirs, trays of brightly coloured things everywhere, I could smell food but I didn't recognise any. None of the vendors spoke English. I ended up in a Thai Restaurant (they just call them Restaurants here), sitting outside by the riverside, very nice. I'll tell you what, the chili sauce doesn't leave you wanting! I've got to bring some of that back. The restaurant is called "Sala Thai", joke for Punjabi speakers there.
Other than that there's the weirdo news typical of dictatorships. Today's Bangkok Post headline was that the Princess Royal has released a diary of her photographs of flowers taken in the Palace gardens. The second spot; "Thais Happier than at any time in Past Year", they have an actual Gross Domestic Happiness Index which is at record levels since the military coup two years ago (when they ousted Thaksin Shinawatra whose key foreign policy was to buy Liverpool FC from the proceeds of a Thai National Lottery). The GDHI is now 6.90, the maximum being 10. The reason for this happiness is that the King just came out of hospital after successful treatment for a blood clot.
One of the chaps in the office told me about the military coup. There was a general announcement that no one should go to work that day and military were posted on all street corners. That's it, children were running around and playing on the tanks, and few days later life went back to normal. There'll be an election next month but there's no rush.
I had Pad-Thai for lunch and suddenly realised why I've never liked Thai food before. Here they put heaps of chili sauce and dried spices on it, my host is a German fella and he said he couldn't handle it at first but now he's used to it, it's the only way to eat it. My main experience of Thai food was in Sydney, bland, they don't serve the spices and sauces that are supposed to go with it. I'm happy now I can say I like Thai food, I was a bit uncomfortable with that before because everyone raves about it so much.
And now, off for more Thai food (and Singha beer)
Coule of hours later:
eeeeh! I right enjoyed that, tamarind soup rocks! I had to send the port back though, you can't put ice in a Taylor's! Wait a minute, there's ping pong balls in the soup! no wonder it tastes a bit spicey!
errrmmm... okthengoodnight.
JJ
Monday, 19 November 2007
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Indians!
My Great Great Grand Aunt, thrice removed, was a Fusilli in the Crimean War. It was a messy war, the Crime's were a particularly inventive and slippery people, very hard to prosecute in a civil court, almost impossible some would say.
My Great Great Grand Uncle, thrice removed, was a travelling Yogi in North Western Hindustan (India). He didn't care for war but he didn't care for much else either, marijuana grows wild in much of Hindustan so there are many travelling spiritualists and entertainers who didn't seem to get an awful lot done. In the end they had to compromise his pacifism with her buring desire to be a Fusilli.
Hence the family motto "fight pasta with pasta", we think that's it anyway, it was handed down by some chinese fellas, shortly after they invented pasta (yes, I say the Chinese invented pasta, read it again if you don't believe me). Could've been noodles too "fight noodles with noodles" or maybe it was a mistranslation of "stop throwing your noodles at me". In those days it was considered a great insult to throw a noodle at someone, much like today when Japanese people in hotels and restaurants will be offended if you offer them a tip and they will retort "don't throw your noodles at me!" only in Japanese.
When my ex-wife made pasta she usually added Garam Massala and Chillies to it and I like to put chilli sauce on my pizza. We would often reminisce about our ancestors fighting the crimean war whilst lying on a bed of nails and smoking a huge doobry.
How does lying on a bed of nails equate with spiritualisity? fair question. Well, its the masturbatory equivalent of acupunture, as soon as you lie down all your energy points are connected immediately, so of course it's all over very quickly. Not as good as the real thing but it get's you through the long winter nights. For those who are not so culturally aware, that's the difference between the Asian Superpowers, the Chinese way is driven my method and material profit, Indians focus more on the creative and sensual (I started that rumour).
I've gained over 78 kilos in the last 39 years, Gordon Bennett!
JJ
PS. does anyone know a good French teacher in the Brussels area? What about the Etterbeek commune, do they offer anything? Perhaps someone could teach me the lingo in exchange for computer related assistance or some other service?
My Great Great Grand Uncle, thrice removed, was a travelling Yogi in North Western Hindustan (India). He didn't care for war but he didn't care for much else either, marijuana grows wild in much of Hindustan so there are many travelling spiritualists and entertainers who didn't seem to get an awful lot done. In the end they had to compromise his pacifism with her buring desire to be a Fusilli.
Hence the family motto "fight pasta with pasta", we think that's it anyway, it was handed down by some chinese fellas, shortly after they invented pasta (yes, I say the Chinese invented pasta, read it again if you don't believe me). Could've been noodles too "fight noodles with noodles" or maybe it was a mistranslation of "stop throwing your noodles at me". In those days it was considered a great insult to throw a noodle at someone, much like today when Japanese people in hotels and restaurants will be offended if you offer them a tip and they will retort "don't throw your noodles at me!" only in Japanese.
When my ex-wife made pasta she usually added Garam Massala and Chillies to it and I like to put chilli sauce on my pizza. We would often reminisce about our ancestors fighting the crimean war whilst lying on a bed of nails and smoking a huge doobry.
How does lying on a bed of nails equate with spiritualisity? fair question. Well, its the masturbatory equivalent of acupunture, as soon as you lie down all your energy points are connected immediately, so of course it's all over very quickly. Not as good as the real thing but it get's you through the long winter nights. For those who are not so culturally aware, that's the difference between the Asian Superpowers, the Chinese way is driven my method and material profit, Indians focus more on the creative and sensual (I started that rumour).
I've gained over 78 kilos in the last 39 years, Gordon Bennett!
JJ
PS. does anyone know a good French teacher in the Brussels area? What about the Etterbeek commune, do they offer anything? Perhaps someone could teach me the lingo in exchange for computer related assistance or some other service?
Sunday, 11 November 2007
Doncaster Rock City
My old mate Dave built a lawnmower out of motorbike parts and I said to him "you know, if you swap the 'D' and 'v' around in your name and add 'r' it spells Vader" and he said "I've fuckin told you to stay the fuck out of my garden, and stop telling people we're mates". Ungrateful bastard, he didn't complain when I let his mom stay at my place so that he could get his end away with the woman from the post office.
One time he called me in the middle of the bloody night, apparently the woman suddenly came-on while they were at it so they had to wash the sheets afterwards. He wanted to ask his mom where the fabric conditioner was, so I took the message and said "Hang on, I'll see if I can wake her". Wasn't too tricky because she was on her hands and knees at the time chomping away at the old pork sword, I just needed to buy a few seconds to let her get her composure. I was as cool as cucumber of course.
A few days later I bumped into Dave at the pub and he was giving it the usual "how come you haven't got a girlfriend eh? what's the matter with you? you don't bat for the other side do you?" and all that, I just kept saying I was waiting for Miss Right and all that, I was thinking "'cos I'm getting free shags off your mom without all the whiney bitchy crap you have to put up with from that tart at the post office" she wanted to marry him but Dave was his own man, meaning he fancied himself more than he fancied her.
Eventually she ditched him and took up with Shane, the guy who did the karaoke on a Friday. It was shame, he on only knew "Blue Suede Shoes" and he could only do it with so much echo on the mike you couldn't tell if he was singing or having a fit. Dave was gutted but not as much his mom was. Me? I just moved on to the next town and the rock rolled on.
Awesome.
JJ
PS I'm in England again, going to Paris and Bangkok in a few days, I'll tell yer all about it later
One time he called me in the middle of the bloody night, apparently the woman suddenly came-on while they were at it so they had to wash the sheets afterwards. He wanted to ask his mom where the fabric conditioner was, so I took the message and said "Hang on, I'll see if I can wake her". Wasn't too tricky because she was on her hands and knees at the time chomping away at the old pork sword, I just needed to buy a few seconds to let her get her composure. I was as cool as cucumber of course.
A few days later I bumped into Dave at the pub and he was giving it the usual "how come you haven't got a girlfriend eh? what's the matter with you? you don't bat for the other side do you?" and all that, I just kept saying I was waiting for Miss Right and all that, I was thinking "'cos I'm getting free shags off your mom without all the whiney bitchy crap you have to put up with from that tart at the post office" she wanted to marry him but Dave was his own man, meaning he fancied himself more than he fancied her.
Eventually she ditched him and took up with Shane, the guy who did the karaoke on a Friday. It was shame, he on only knew "Blue Suede Shoes" and he could only do it with so much echo on the mike you couldn't tell if he was singing or having a fit. Dave was gutted but not as much his mom was. Me? I just moved on to the next town and the rock rolled on.
Awesome.
JJ
PS I'm in England again, going to Paris and Bangkok in a few days, I'll tell yer all about it later
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
This Sauce is OK
A short play about three evil Golf Club Presidents and barbecue sauce.
The Players:
The General. Leader of one of those foreign countries that no one hears about unless there's a flood, earthquake or war. A military dictator, obviously.
Vlad the Inhaler (he's out of his tree!). A popular leader, very successful at home but we don't like him because "he's foreign so he must be up to something".
Small Bush. The Boy-King of The Empire, some people say he's simply too young to understand what's going on around him, others say he's just simple.
Act 1. After the summer break, the evil geniuses get together around a jacuzzi in Geneva.
Small : Surprised to see you here General, I heard you were going to be electrocuted
The General : Elected you idiot, I was going to get elected but I changed my mind. There's too much risk of losing if you ask people to vote
Small : But you're not supposed to stay after two "Turns" it has to be someone else's Turn now, it's in the constipation, I read it.
The General : Nah, I declared a state of emergency, I can play as long as I like now
Small : Wish I'd thought of that
Vlad : That's your trouble, you can't think, you're a fucking idiot. What about my idea of being "Prime Minister" I can do that and still play for free.
The General : Forget it Vlad, the Boy will never work that out, he'll have to re-write the constitution and frankly I'm surprised he can write his own name.
Small : I'm not listening to you guys, last time those little yellow guys told me they had a way of scoring 100% in every electrocution. When I tried it I only got 44, then daddy and Jeb had to stay up all night and make new tickets to put in those funny little boxes.
Vlad : Like I said, you're an idiot, you don't deserve to win.
The General : Tell you what Small, I'll send some more of those blowy-uppy people over to your place then you can declare a state of emergency too.
Small : I dunno about that, it's a bit scary, I'll have to ask my dad. Why don't we just pay the membership out of our oily dollars?
The General : haaahaar, ha ha ah ah, raahaaah! love American comedy, this boy kills me, he really does
Vlad : ha! membership?? can I have extra sauce on mine? ah ha ah ha
Fade and pan left, focus on a picnic table supporting a bottle of OK Barbecue Sauce bathed in the morning dew as the sun sets in the distance and crickets cry "owzee!"
Roll Credits
Roll Debits
THE END
Well that's what I think. I'm not sure I like The General using my palindromic laugh though, and Vlad is definitely up to something with his cut down version, or is that just his accent? I can never tell with these things.
Hot Dog.
JJ
The Players:
The General. Leader of one of those foreign countries that no one hears about unless there's a flood, earthquake or war. A military dictator, obviously.
Vlad the Inhaler (he's out of his tree!). A popular leader, very successful at home but we don't like him because "he's foreign so he must be up to something".
Small Bush. The Boy-King of The Empire, some people say he's simply too young to understand what's going on around him, others say he's just simple.
Act 1. After the summer break, the evil geniuses get together around a jacuzzi in Geneva.
Small : Surprised to see you here General, I heard you were going to be electrocuted
The General : Elected you idiot, I was going to get elected but I changed my mind. There's too much risk of losing if you ask people to vote
Small : But you're not supposed to stay after two "Turns" it has to be someone else's Turn now, it's in the constipation, I read it.
The General : Nah, I declared a state of emergency, I can play as long as I like now
Small : Wish I'd thought of that
Vlad : That's your trouble, you can't think, you're a fucking idiot. What about my idea of being "Prime Minister" I can do that and still play for free.
The General : Forget it Vlad, the Boy will never work that out, he'll have to re-write the constitution and frankly I'm surprised he can write his own name.
Small : I'm not listening to you guys, last time those little yellow guys told me they had a way of scoring 100% in every electrocution. When I tried it I only got 44, then daddy and Jeb had to stay up all night and make new tickets to put in those funny little boxes.
Vlad : Like I said, you're an idiot, you don't deserve to win.
The General : Tell you what Small, I'll send some more of those blowy-uppy people over to your place then you can declare a state of emergency too.
Small : I dunno about that, it's a bit scary, I'll have to ask my dad. Why don't we just pay the membership out of our oily dollars?
The General : haaahaar, ha ha ah ah, raahaaah! love American comedy, this boy kills me, he really does
Vlad : ha! membership?? can I have extra sauce on mine? ah ha ah ha
Fade and pan left, focus on a picnic table supporting a bottle of OK Barbecue Sauce bathed in the morning dew as the sun sets in the distance and crickets cry "owzee!"
Roll Credits
Roll Debits
THE END
Well that's what I think. I'm not sure I like The General using my palindromic laugh though, and Vlad is definitely up to something with his cut down version, or is that just his accent? I can never tell with these things.
Hot Dog.
JJ
Friday, 2 November 2007
Le Constitution
The You-Are-Peeing Constitution according to John Prescott.
1. The Presidency.
There's no fuckin' way that Nancy Boy Blair is gunna be President, I'm sick of the bloody sight of him and his cheesy grin. I tell you what, I'd love to wipe that grin off his face, he's ruined t' Labour Party, whole thing's a pile of shite now and I'm glad I'm out of it, I was gunna pack it in anyway, bastard.
2. Common Foreign Policy.
'Ow can yer 'ave a Foreign Policy when yer 'aven't got a bleedin' Army? It's common sense innit? So let's start from t' beginnin'. Military Service for everyone at 18 years old, except girls and puffs obviously, we won't need them anymore 'cos we've got more people to choose from. Then we'll build a massive fuck-off army and park it on t' Russian border, how do like that idea Igor? whatever your fuckin' name is.
While we've got the army we might as well invade Norway and Switzerland, they've been mincin' around too long now, if the Brits can sign-up then so can you.
3. Qualified Majority Voting.
Now that there's 27 countries we'll get nowt done if everyone has to agree all t' time, either that or we'll only pass watered down useless laws like American beer, fucking gnat's piss. But we want a strong union with a strong leader, he should be able to over-rule "certain" cuntries (that's deliberate 'cos you know who I'm talking about) if he don't like 'em and it's for the greater good. Someone who's 'ard, maybe an ex-boxer who isn't scared to punch some fuckin' hooligan in the eye even when it's on tv and he's wearing his best Armani suit.
4. Language.
You see how I've wrote title of t'Constitution in French, how hard is that? Instead of "The Constitution" it's "Le Constitution" there's fuck all to it, obviously we'll write everything in proper English and then all the foreigners can translate it into whatever language they speak back home. I've been to Mallorca and fuckin' Ibiza, they all speak English, they love it and you can get egg 'n chips and all day breakfast.
Anyway, if you think I'm writing this bastard out again in French and Spanish you've lost it mate. And as for fuckin' Estonia and Latvia I don't know what language they speak there so just forget it, they'll have to Google the fucker.
5. Common Currency.
I'll tell you sumthin' you aven't thought of, Roman Empire had a common currency and it was bigger than this Union but where is it now? eh? When you use your bank card abroad the money comes out in Euro's anyway so what's the bleedin' point of changing all the money back home? Forget common currency, we don't need it and if the Germans want to go back to using silly coins wi' holes in't middle or whatever, that's their look-out, nowt to do wi' us.
'Ow do you turn this fuckin' spell checker off again? I can't properly proof read this fer all t' squiggly lines.
THE END
Hmmm.. Thanks for that JP, is that last line supposed be in the final draft?
Vote JJ for higher taxes and pointless form filling!
JJ
(Disclaimer: by 'John Prescott' I mean that fella who sings "Ring of Fire" on the metro to Herman Debroux at 8am every day, not the former deputy cheesey grin).
1. The Presidency.
There's no fuckin' way that Nancy Boy Blair is gunna be President, I'm sick of the bloody sight of him and his cheesy grin. I tell you what, I'd love to wipe that grin off his face, he's ruined t' Labour Party, whole thing's a pile of shite now and I'm glad I'm out of it, I was gunna pack it in anyway, bastard.
2. Common Foreign Policy.
'Ow can yer 'ave a Foreign Policy when yer 'aven't got a bleedin' Army? It's common sense innit? So let's start from t' beginnin'. Military Service for everyone at 18 years old, except girls and puffs obviously, we won't need them anymore 'cos we've got more people to choose from. Then we'll build a massive fuck-off army and park it on t' Russian border, how do like that idea Igor? whatever your fuckin' name is.
While we've got the army we might as well invade Norway and Switzerland, they've been mincin' around too long now, if the Brits can sign-up then so can you.
3. Qualified Majority Voting.
Now that there's 27 countries we'll get nowt done if everyone has to agree all t' time, either that or we'll only pass watered down useless laws like American beer, fucking gnat's piss. But we want a strong union with a strong leader, he should be able to over-rule "certain" cuntries (that's deliberate 'cos you know who I'm talking about) if he don't like 'em and it's for the greater good. Someone who's 'ard, maybe an ex-boxer who isn't scared to punch some fuckin' hooligan in the eye even when it's on tv and he's wearing his best Armani suit.
4. Language.
You see how I've wrote title of t'Constitution in French, how hard is that? Instead of "The Constitution" it's "Le Constitution" there's fuck all to it, obviously we'll write everything in proper English and then all the foreigners can translate it into whatever language they speak back home. I've been to Mallorca and fuckin' Ibiza, they all speak English, they love it and you can get egg 'n chips and all day breakfast.
Anyway, if you think I'm writing this bastard out again in French and Spanish you've lost it mate. And as for fuckin' Estonia and Latvia I don't know what language they speak there so just forget it, they'll have to Google the fucker.
5. Common Currency.
I'll tell you sumthin' you aven't thought of, Roman Empire had a common currency and it was bigger than this Union but where is it now? eh? When you use your bank card abroad the money comes out in Euro's anyway so what's the bleedin' point of changing all the money back home? Forget common currency, we don't need it and if the Germans want to go back to using silly coins wi' holes in't middle or whatever, that's their look-out, nowt to do wi' us.
'Ow do you turn this fuckin' spell checker off again? I can't properly proof read this fer all t' squiggly lines.
THE END
Hmmm.. Thanks for that JP, is that last line supposed be in the final draft?
Vote JJ for higher taxes and pointless form filling!
JJ
(Disclaimer: by 'John Prescott' I mean that fella who sings "Ring of Fire" on the metro to Herman Debroux at 8am every day, not the former deputy cheesey grin).
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