Another two months and we are still alive!!
But everything depends on what we have to do with Elodie...so please bear with us!!
Friday, June 20, 2003
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Jonathan Raban: The greatest gulf reminds of the standard of journalism that ought to prevail but rarely does. I wonder what the widely held view of 'The Arab World' is in the US? As with many places I have some cultured, sophisticated and knowledgeable american friends; but I have, indeed in major universities, been asked questions by professors about Europe and the UK that revealed stunning ignorance...I dont think any of us will forget being asked in one unversity what language Rhodri and I were speaking together-was it Yugoslav-whatever that language might be!-not even Serbo-Croat! But of course that was before Bosnia.
I wonder too what the generally held view of 'democracy' actually is. The ideologies of capital accumulation are after all not coterminous with democracy.
Anyway lighten up Thomas. Life in the orient where there are no such razor edges to be walked and plutocratic nepotism reigns
The heat continues oppressive. Cannot think straight really!
However as I have said we seem on course for the great retour!
The Visa francais is still causing us some problems.
It is not so much that it is all such a complicated game that is annoying but that the rules and laws keep changing and no-one can actually keep up with it. I have recently read that actually all of this is unnecessary and that if you are married to an EU citizen all your residential status derives from them.
Indeed on the French government website is the delicious statement that as the wife of an EU citizen wishing to stay in France:
" You should apply for a Visa de Court Sejour, never mind how long you plan to stay!"
While of course there are then pages of stuff about whether you should apply for a visa de court sejour, long sejour, circulation or Schengen with or without multiple entries.............etc!
Elodie is heavily into Shoes.
She now has 2 squeaky pairs, one green and yellow, the other with eyes. £1.20 a pair. Should we import them? She wakes and imperiously summons shoes to be donned. Then totters around aided or not variously. She walked the whole way up to the main road with me this morning squealing with delight. However continuous aid is necessary!
And Teeth. the two she has she now tries to show off by baring her gums in a most simian manner!
I do not know what season of the year it is really. I suppose middle summer. In the Chinese year it is half way between Great Rain and Grain Full. Guyu and Xiaoman. But I suspect those must be Northern China seasons. Anyway no sign of the great rain which is supposed to follow Songkran!
The garden is dripping with mangoes and lychees. The mangoes are a virulent green like a frog and when opened a vivid and rather electric yellow. Not at all like those green and pink things from Brazil that you get in Tesco. I am planning mango chutneys to put Sharwoods and Mrs Balbi to shame!
The lychees are bright red and a bit prickly. Even E wont put them in her mouth, though she munches them when they are popped open. They are quite small-the size of large strawberry so I suppose the ones in tins must be super-lychees. But these are sharp and sweet. MM Anyway at least it means she eats something other than rice soup and pork satay!
The european contribution to this profusion is 2 tomatoes which are growing surely if a little slowly! The courgettes got some horrible blight, the oregano is nowhere to be seen; but the mint thrives!
I think as I gey older I am having difficulty 'seeing' Thailand or anywhere else. Coleridge writes somewhere about getting older and he says 'I see, not feel, how beautiful it is.' I am not sure I even see any more.
Or maybe I am turning Chinese
I have often wondered whether to try and do the almost impossible which is to describe the anarchic solipsism of Thai daily life. I do not think I can. It infuses every individual action. As it happens I usually sleep alone, which I do not like-it is just that K and E sleep on the floor! Again as does everyone else. Only the rich sleep on beds and mattresses. I wake alone, wait for E to squawk in my ear, play with her, shower alone, go to the market and buy food for myself. I do not any longer ask anyone else what they might like to eat. I eat my breakfast alone. Everyone else in this and every house appears to do the same. People are forever sidling off to be discovered feeding their faces alone.. Then, if there is work, we go and do it.. Almost no conversations or communications take place here. Which, of course leads to endless misunderstandings . They drive and walk in the same singleminded entirely self obsessed way ..which probably goes some way top explaining the traffic statistics below. I have wondered if this is something to do with me being european in the midst of this,, but I think not.
They think I am mad for talking all the time to E. I remonstrate quite frequently and say..'Talk to Elodie.' This is considered mad. Eventually someone said to me. What are you worried about? She will learn to talk. Yes, I said, but what kind of language? Blank stare. But then they also think I am mad for picking her up, cuddling her and even playing with her. Partly it is a guy thing...guys do not do it and partly well..I am bats! Actually most of the children I see live in a state of emotional, linguistic and sensory deprivation by the criteria of home.
K is considered to have been tainted by this foreign madness as she breastfeeds E. This is considered an outrageous intrusion on the mother's individuality. I have not seen ONE other breastfed child, ever! Everyone asks and a look of horror smudges faces when told she is not bottle fed! The proof, to everyone, of our stupidity is that at 12 months she is 7 kilos whereas the ideal weight for a Thai baby at that age is considered to be c.about 20K. The children, and not a few adults are as obese in the main as Americans ..less so here than in Bangkok
My nice author Mr Austin Coates , he of the Myself a Mandarin fame.. comments on this seeing and hearing problem.
He asserts that if, say after a short car journey, you asked a european what he saw he would probably come up with two or three memories, but if you asked a chinese he would say truly he had seen nothing. He explains it as total self absorption.. I am not sure. What is the explanation of this? I asked K about the not wearing of helmets... apropos of the extensive road deaths. She said; ' Oh you cannot tell Thai people what to do and anyway they cannot listen..'
Cannot? I queried. Oh yes not don't listen... cannot!
So they cannot listen and also they cannot ask questions or ask for information...result: a sort of hiatus in life!
The saga of the apartment cheque was a good example of this.
Me: Where is the money?
K. Dunno
Well why don't you go and ask the bank?
Cannot
Why
Oh just be patient
But the bank said it would be a week to clear the cheque. It is a week already
If I go and ask the bank they will think me rude.
Me:Um ..Well I think it is rude of them a. Not to transfer the money and b. Not to tell you where it is or when it will come.
K. Oh you are too impatient to live in Thailand
Me. Too true
So K goes to the bank. No sign of the money.
Against all her instincts, with large foreigner glowering she tremulously asks why the money has not been transferred.
One lady cashier, one brusque youth in startling floral shirt and one v. fat Chinese manager dripping gold confer about this. Much flurrying of papers and opening of ledgers.
" You have to wait one week"
Me. She has waited one week already
Silence
Repetition by boorish foreigner
Me. Why is no-one listening?
Eventually :One week more
Why?
One week.
Me. Yes you said that already. Why?
Me. Where is the cheque. Why don't you just give it back to her if there is a problem and we will take it to Bangkok?
K. Oh my head hurts. Stop asking questions
Me. Makes the outrageous 4 days to clear a cheque in the UK look like the three minute mile.
We wait.
30 minutes go by.
Me. What are we waiting for? Everyone is busy doing other things
K. Just wait. They are checking!!
(While all this is going on there are Chinese matrons in their late 50s and 60s depositing and withdrawing sums between £3000 and £10,000-the most I saw- in cash, pulling it out of and stuffing it into cheap plastic handbags and cruising out into the road. Muggers paradise bro!......there is a policeman on 'guard' in the bank but I have yet to see him awake and another outside who spends his time explaining the intricacies of the ATM to bemused peasants...who nonetheless still manage to get a grand out of it! One of them asked K the other day to put her own ie K's card into the ATM and get some money from the peasant's account. K explained that this was not possible. Why not? Um well this card is for my money and your card is for your money. Yes but I can't remember the PIN number ..so you do it for me!)
"Nong", calls the manager........ie 'Young Lady'
Your money is here
Oh really? Where was it?
Oh well you have a Bangkok bank account and the money is in the bank in Bangkok but you cant get it for another week if you are 'UP COUNTRY'..' what on the road to Mandalay eh!.......this a country that has an ATM Pool and as I have already observed allows you to transfer money between any bank account at any bank through the ATM in seconds! ....Welcome to the Thai Raj........
But we have specially transferred it. That will be £6 please! ie. several days wages!
I see K ready to say oh well if it is going to cost £6 I will wait a week.
She, of course, belongs to that admirably thrifty set of persons that will spend 100 Baht to save 5 Baht and believes that no garment costing more than £3.50 is worth purchasing. As a result she has two large wardrobes stuffed to the brim with shrunken, discolored, unravelled, mis-shapen and generally unwearable clothes!
No No No!!!!!
I was trying (a while ago before I was waylaid by the bank) to get onto the real effects of this anarchy on driving!
They walk and drive as though there was no one else on the road..there are of course, mostly, no pavements; and where there are they are covered in hawkers stalls, extensions of shops and various poles and pylons. These are also to be found strategically placed several feet into the carriageway and are thus another frequent source of accidents
But at the same time as they walk and drive they afford a wide berth to everyone and everything. Very rarely see people brush each other or barge into each other so a stroll is more pleasant than a trip to the Kings Road or Waitrose let alone a tube station.
No indicator lights are, of course, ever used, so people wait interminably not able to guess whether the oncoming traffic is oncoming or turning off and they flash lights to let you know they are bearing down on you and get out of the way..not to offer a passage! Like the good old days of priorite a droit bicycles and various machined contraptions surge out of alleyways into main roads without looking or slowing; old ladies are regularly to be seen trudging down Sawangkhalok main street somewhere near the centre white line with the traffic weaving around them. Anyone wishing to turn right will drive on the wrong side of the road for as much as 200 metres to avoid actually crossing the carriageway!...result,, more carnage!!
The basic attitude appears to be: I am living my life and doing what I want so f*** you. But of course people are far politer to each other than at home!
And now I just take all this for granted.
Of course all that just means I have as limited and blinkered a view of 'The Oriental' as apparently do Messieurs Wolfowitz, Bush and Rumsfeld of 'The Arab'. However I am not invading Thailand and thinking of turning it into a colonial experiment in Demawcrassy. That has already been done by tourists, a chinese population explosion and and western capital!
I wonder too what the generally held view of 'democracy' actually is. The ideologies of capital accumulation are after all not coterminous with democracy.
Anyway lighten up Thomas. Life in the orient where there are no such razor edges to be walked and plutocratic nepotism reigns
The heat continues oppressive. Cannot think straight really!
However as I have said we seem on course for the great retour!
The Visa francais is still causing us some problems.
It is not so much that it is all such a complicated game that is annoying but that the rules and laws keep changing and no-one can actually keep up with it. I have recently read that actually all of this is unnecessary and that if you are married to an EU citizen all your residential status derives from them.
Indeed on the French government website is the delicious statement that as the wife of an EU citizen wishing to stay in France:
" You should apply for a Visa de Court Sejour, never mind how long you plan to stay!"
While of course there are then pages of stuff about whether you should apply for a visa de court sejour, long sejour, circulation or Schengen with or without multiple entries.............etc!
Elodie is heavily into Shoes.
She now has 2 squeaky pairs, one green and yellow, the other with eyes. £1.20 a pair. Should we import them? She wakes and imperiously summons shoes to be donned. Then totters around aided or not variously. She walked the whole way up to the main road with me this morning squealing with delight. However continuous aid is necessary!
And Teeth. the two she has she now tries to show off by baring her gums in a most simian manner!
I do not know what season of the year it is really. I suppose middle summer. In the Chinese year it is half way between Great Rain and Grain Full. Guyu and Xiaoman. But I suspect those must be Northern China seasons. Anyway no sign of the great rain which is supposed to follow Songkran!
The garden is dripping with mangoes and lychees. The mangoes are a virulent green like a frog and when opened a vivid and rather electric yellow. Not at all like those green and pink things from Brazil that you get in Tesco. I am planning mango chutneys to put Sharwoods and Mrs Balbi to shame!
The lychees are bright red and a bit prickly. Even E wont put them in her mouth, though she munches them when they are popped open. They are quite small-the size of large strawberry so I suppose the ones in tins must be super-lychees. But these are sharp and sweet. MM Anyway at least it means she eats something other than rice soup and pork satay!
The european contribution to this profusion is 2 tomatoes which are growing surely if a little slowly! The courgettes got some horrible blight, the oregano is nowhere to be seen; but the mint thrives!
I think as I gey older I am having difficulty 'seeing' Thailand or anywhere else. Coleridge writes somewhere about getting older and he says 'I see, not feel, how beautiful it is.' I am not sure I even see any more.
Or maybe I am turning Chinese
I have often wondered whether to try and do the almost impossible which is to describe the anarchic solipsism of Thai daily life. I do not think I can. It infuses every individual action. As it happens I usually sleep alone, which I do not like-it is just that K and E sleep on the floor! Again as does everyone else. Only the rich sleep on beds and mattresses. I wake alone, wait for E to squawk in my ear, play with her, shower alone, go to the market and buy food for myself. I do not any longer ask anyone else what they might like to eat. I eat my breakfast alone. Everyone else in this and every house appears to do the same. People are forever sidling off to be discovered feeding their faces alone.. Then, if there is work, we go and do it.. Almost no conversations or communications take place here. Which, of course leads to endless misunderstandings . They drive and walk in the same singleminded entirely self obsessed way ..which probably goes some way top explaining the traffic statistics below. I have wondered if this is something to do with me being european in the midst of this,, but I think not.
They think I am mad for talking all the time to E. I remonstrate quite frequently and say..'Talk to Elodie.' This is considered mad. Eventually someone said to me. What are you worried about? She will learn to talk. Yes, I said, but what kind of language? Blank stare. But then they also think I am mad for picking her up, cuddling her and even playing with her. Partly it is a guy thing...guys do not do it and partly well..I am bats! Actually most of the children I see live in a state of emotional, linguistic and sensory deprivation by the criteria of home.
K is considered to have been tainted by this foreign madness as she breastfeeds E. This is considered an outrageous intrusion on the mother's individuality. I have not seen ONE other breastfed child, ever! Everyone asks and a look of horror smudges faces when told she is not bottle fed! The proof, to everyone, of our stupidity is that at 12 months she is 7 kilos whereas the ideal weight for a Thai baby at that age is considered to be c.about 20K. The children, and not a few adults are as obese in the main as Americans ..less so here than in Bangkok
My nice author Mr Austin Coates , he of the Myself a Mandarin fame.. comments on this seeing and hearing problem.
He asserts that if, say after a short car journey, you asked a european what he saw he would probably come up with two or three memories, but if you asked a chinese he would say truly he had seen nothing. He explains it as total self absorption.. I am not sure. What is the explanation of this? I asked K about the not wearing of helmets... apropos of the extensive road deaths. She said; ' Oh you cannot tell Thai people what to do and anyway they cannot listen..'
Cannot? I queried. Oh yes not don't listen... cannot!
So they cannot listen and also they cannot ask questions or ask for information...result: a sort of hiatus in life!
The saga of the apartment cheque was a good example of this.
Me: Where is the money?
K. Dunno
Well why don't you go and ask the bank?
Cannot
Why
Oh just be patient
But the bank said it would be a week to clear the cheque. It is a week already
If I go and ask the bank they will think me rude.
Me:Um ..Well I think it is rude of them a. Not to transfer the money and b. Not to tell you where it is or when it will come.
K. Oh you are too impatient to live in Thailand
Me. Too true
So K goes to the bank. No sign of the money.
Against all her instincts, with large foreigner glowering she tremulously asks why the money has not been transferred.
One lady cashier, one brusque youth in startling floral shirt and one v. fat Chinese manager dripping gold confer about this. Much flurrying of papers and opening of ledgers.
" You have to wait one week"
Me. She has waited one week already
Silence
Repetition by boorish foreigner
Me. Why is no-one listening?
Eventually :One week more
Why?
One week.
Me. Yes you said that already. Why?
Me. Where is the cheque. Why don't you just give it back to her if there is a problem and we will take it to Bangkok?
K. Oh my head hurts. Stop asking questions
Me. Makes the outrageous 4 days to clear a cheque in the UK look like the three minute mile.
We wait.
30 minutes go by.
Me. What are we waiting for? Everyone is busy doing other things
K. Just wait. They are checking!!
(While all this is going on there are Chinese matrons in their late 50s and 60s depositing and withdrawing sums between £3000 and £10,000-the most I saw- in cash, pulling it out of and stuffing it into cheap plastic handbags and cruising out into the road. Muggers paradise bro!......there is a policeman on 'guard' in the bank but I have yet to see him awake and another outside who spends his time explaining the intricacies of the ATM to bemused peasants...who nonetheless still manage to get a grand out of it! One of them asked K the other day to put her own ie K's card into the ATM and get some money from the peasant's account. K explained that this was not possible. Why not? Um well this card is for my money and your card is for your money. Yes but I can't remember the PIN number ..so you do it for me!)
"Nong", calls the manager........ie 'Young Lady'
Your money is here
Oh really? Where was it?
Oh well you have a Bangkok bank account and the money is in the bank in Bangkok but you cant get it for another week if you are 'UP COUNTRY'..' what on the road to Mandalay eh!.......this a country that has an ATM Pool and as I have already observed allows you to transfer money between any bank account at any bank through the ATM in seconds! ....Welcome to the Thai Raj........
But we have specially transferred it. That will be £6 please! ie. several days wages!
I see K ready to say oh well if it is going to cost £6 I will wait a week.
She, of course, belongs to that admirably thrifty set of persons that will spend 100 Baht to save 5 Baht and believes that no garment costing more than £3.50 is worth purchasing. As a result she has two large wardrobes stuffed to the brim with shrunken, discolored, unravelled, mis-shapen and generally unwearable clothes!
No No No!!!!!
I was trying (a while ago before I was waylaid by the bank) to get onto the real effects of this anarchy on driving!
They walk and drive as though there was no one else on the road..there are of course, mostly, no pavements; and where there are they are covered in hawkers stalls, extensions of shops and various poles and pylons. These are also to be found strategically placed several feet into the carriageway and are thus another frequent source of accidents
But at the same time as they walk and drive they afford a wide berth to everyone and everything. Very rarely see people brush each other or barge into each other so a stroll is more pleasant than a trip to the Kings Road or Waitrose let alone a tube station.
No indicator lights are, of course, ever used, so people wait interminably not able to guess whether the oncoming traffic is oncoming or turning off and they flash lights to let you know they are bearing down on you and get out of the way..not to offer a passage! Like the good old days of priorite a droit bicycles and various machined contraptions surge out of alleyways into main roads without looking or slowing; old ladies are regularly to be seen trudging down Sawangkhalok main street somewhere near the centre white line with the traffic weaving around them. Anyone wishing to turn right will drive on the wrong side of the road for as much as 200 metres to avoid actually crossing the carriageway!...result,, more carnage!!
The basic attitude appears to be: I am living my life and doing what I want so f*** you. But of course people are far politer to each other than at home!
And now I just take all this for granted.
Of course all that just means I have as limited and blinkered a view of 'The Oriental' as apparently do Messieurs Wolfowitz, Bush and Rumsfeld of 'The Arab'. However I am not invading Thailand and thinking of turning it into a colonial experiment in Demawcrassy. That has already been done by tourists, a chinese population explosion and and western capital!
Friday, April 18, 2003
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
If these were figures for the Easter weekend in Britain or France...what would happen? Road carnage claims under-15s as toll soars
Anyway we have survived.!!
Chugged out to the main troad to watch the mayhem. Elodie in very high spirits wishing to dance with every passing group of inebriates and waving her wrists in most authentic Thai dancing mode.
High spot of the parade of floats expalined why Saddam could not be found by the US...he was here in Sawangkhalok riding a jeep amidst the flower bedecked maidens....photos in a day or two. He had a log conversation with the well soaked traffic cop-face smeared with gold and alumina powder, decked in flowers with his radio in a 7-11 bag. I particularly liked the float from the Department of Ground Water Control (sic) which was a tractor towing a mega sound system powered by a petrol generator... the whole covered in black plastic like some punk shop. I think they must be the sewage dept.
Anyway we have survived.!!
Chugged out to the main troad to watch the mayhem. Elodie in very high spirits wishing to dance with every passing group of inebriates and waving her wrists in most authentic Thai dancing mode.
High spot of the parade of floats expalined why Saddam could not be found by the US...he was here in Sawangkhalok riding a jeep amidst the flower bedecked maidens....photos in a day or two. He had a log conversation with the well soaked traffic cop-face smeared with gold and alumina powder, decked in flowers with his radio in a 7-11 bag. I particularly liked the float from the Department of Ground Water Control (sic) which was a tractor towing a mega sound system powered by a petrol generator... the whole covered in black plastic like some punk shop. I think they must be the sewage dept.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Well
Here is a post-modern posting.
Some people will have read about Andre Breton's STUFF................ others not! When I used to be an active book dealer we used to play this game of WHO??? is still alive and who dead.....Actually it did not matter....the issue was.....where were their books!! All kinds of people ...editors, critics, friends, enemies managed to accumulate immensely valuable collections of works.........let us get our paws on them.........One person I knew confessed to having tossed the majority of Gertrude Stein's and Nancy Cunard's stuff down a well......irrecoverable I thought...?? Though strangely a lot of Ms Cunard's correspondence surfaced later in Los Angeles so maybe it was not that deep a well!! Anyway The Hours Press had its DAY
Here I am feeling v. hacked off in Muang Thai. The continuing saga of the Apartment Cheque has something to do with this,,,,,,,,,,,,!!Today's question is......Is it better to be Rich in Thailand or POOR in France......you know what IIIIIIII think!!!!!! Today??No??
Here is a post-modern posting.
Some people will have read about Andre Breton's STUFF................ others not! When I used to be an active book dealer we used to play this game of WHO??? is still alive and who dead.....Actually it did not matter....the issue was.....where were their books!! All kinds of people ...editors, critics, friends, enemies managed to accumulate immensely valuable collections of works.........let us get our paws on them.........One person I knew confessed to having tossed the majority of Gertrude Stein's and Nancy Cunard's stuff down a well......irrecoverable I thought...?? Though strangely a lot of Ms Cunard's correspondence surfaced later in Los Angeles so maybe it was not that deep a well!! Anyway The Hours Press had its DAY
Here I am feeling v. hacked off in Muang Thai. The continuing saga of the Apartment Cheque has something to do with this,,,,,,,,,,,,!!Today's question is......Is it better to be Rich in Thailand or POOR in France......you know what IIIIIIII think!!!!!! Today??No??
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
These are rather strange 'limbo' days.
And this is a RANT
Well everyone does it why not me??????
I think we both thought we had pretty much worked out that we would move to Chiang Mai and buy a house, send the girl to school..and then..maybe..in a few..ie 10 years come to Europe.
Then, when the child was injured, and as it looked as though she needed more immediate care, we thought we would come to Europe more quickly.
Now we are not so sure. We are both very suspicious of early surgery. She is so little..still only 6.5 kilos..that we both worry about her ability to survive a major operation.
Better alive with a colostomy than dead.
And
The whole visa problem winds me up.
Sure There must be a few people each year who conduct unlikely marriages in order to try and get to the UK. I particularly like the injunction that says: 'if you have more than one wife, only one wife will be allowed to apply for UK residence.' !! Says it all.....All the forms are written on the basis that you are trying to cheat/lie. Questions like: when did you last meet your sponsor...ie husband/wife... sponsor????? Oh when we got up and he went to work...oh he is standing beside me...oh about 10 years ago in a brothel in Djibouti...what!?
And to come to the UK and then go to France!! Alors!
Must spend six months of the first year in the UK to apply for residence. Not automatic, of course. Probably have to join a queue in Croydon for a week and then answer some more questions about your husband's favourite toothpaste.
If you have a Schengen visa you can go to France for 90 days, but cannot apply for another Schengen visa until another 90 days have passed. All visas must be applied for in Thailand, unless you have resided in the UK for a year.
A French visa de long sejour requires a medical report. The report must be carried out within three months of arrival in France. Therefore application for visa de long sejour cannot be made six months in advance. And of course if it is three months in advance it must be made in Thailand...........etc.
Why do we want to go to the UK..Well we are beginning to think this is a very good question.......
Last time we arrived at Heathrow a 'colored' immigration officer, with a far from perfect grasp of English, tried to suggest, with no evidence, that K and I had met on the plane. When I suggested that she might like to look at our documents from Bangkok, she snapped: "I am far too busy to ask for papers. You should have showed them to me already" Oh welcome to London.
Of course, unlike Ladprao General Hospital, Her Majesty's Immigration Service has not been able to acquire ISO9002.
Actually we do not want to go, given the prevailing attitudes...but ..well for the child....Where is the evidence that the child is ill? Would you like to inspect her colostomy? No. Where is the evidence? So we have that.
Where will you live. OK.
Next
You are not allowed to go to the UK on a tourist visa and then get married. Oh? Really? Who says? If that is true, how come we were able to do it? Oh, the Registrars cannot be expected to know that you are acting illegally. Oh, where does it say this? It does not. It says you should apply for a fiancee/marriage visa. Why? Oh then we can charge you a lot more money. Is the marriage valid? Oh of course. We cannot invalidate a properly conducted marriage......................
And we are rich, white, well educated..................
How did one get to be so ANGRY?????!!
And this is a RANT
Well everyone does it why not me??????
I think we both thought we had pretty much worked out that we would move to Chiang Mai and buy a house, send the girl to school..and then..maybe..in a few..ie 10 years come to Europe.
Then, when the child was injured, and as it looked as though she needed more immediate care, we thought we would come to Europe more quickly.
Now we are not so sure. We are both very suspicious of early surgery. She is so little..still only 6.5 kilos..that we both worry about her ability to survive a major operation.
Better alive with a colostomy than dead.
And
The whole visa problem winds me up.
Sure There must be a few people each year who conduct unlikely marriages in order to try and get to the UK. I particularly like the injunction that says: 'if you have more than one wife, only one wife will be allowed to apply for UK residence.' !! Says it all.....All the forms are written on the basis that you are trying to cheat/lie. Questions like: when did you last meet your sponsor...ie husband/wife... sponsor????? Oh when we got up and he went to work...oh he is standing beside me...oh about 10 years ago in a brothel in Djibouti...what!?
And to come to the UK and then go to France!! Alors!
Must spend six months of the first year in the UK to apply for residence. Not automatic, of course. Probably have to join a queue in Croydon for a week and then answer some more questions about your husband's favourite toothpaste.
If you have a Schengen visa you can go to France for 90 days, but cannot apply for another Schengen visa until another 90 days have passed. All visas must be applied for in Thailand, unless you have resided in the UK for a year.
A French visa de long sejour requires a medical report. The report must be carried out within three months of arrival in France. Therefore application for visa de long sejour cannot be made six months in advance. And of course if it is three months in advance it must be made in Thailand...........etc.
Why do we want to go to the UK..Well we are beginning to think this is a very good question.......
Last time we arrived at Heathrow a 'colored' immigration officer, with a far from perfect grasp of English, tried to suggest, with no evidence, that K and I had met on the plane. When I suggested that she might like to look at our documents from Bangkok, she snapped: "I am far too busy to ask for papers. You should have showed them to me already" Oh welcome to London.
Of course, unlike Ladprao General Hospital, Her Majesty's Immigration Service has not been able to acquire ISO9002.
Actually we do not want to go, given the prevailing attitudes...but ..well for the child....Where is the evidence that the child is ill? Would you like to inspect her colostomy? No. Where is the evidence? So we have that.
Where will you live. OK.
Next
You are not allowed to go to the UK on a tourist visa and then get married. Oh? Really? Who says? If that is true, how come we were able to do it? Oh, the Registrars cannot be expected to know that you are acting illegally. Oh, where does it say this? It does not. It says you should apply for a fiancee/marriage visa. Why? Oh then we can charge you a lot more money. Is the marriage valid? Oh of course. We cannot invalidate a properly conducted marriage......................
And we are rich, white, well educated..................
How did one get to be so ANGRY?????!!
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Just in case one believes one's personal tragedies are all embracing......there are othersKenzaburo Oe - Personally speaking And he is a great fan of RS. His most recent novel is awash with quotations!
Monday, March 31, 2003
Monday, March 17, 2003
March 03, 2003
Whom Bomb?
Here's a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum:
China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991-99
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
In how many of these instances did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result?
Choose one of the following:
(a) 0
(b) zero
(c) none
(d) not a one
(e) a whole number between -1 and +1
This quiz compliments of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Ben Chitty USN 65-9 VN 66-7 68 NY/VVAW peaceCENTER
Posted by Ron Silliman at March 03, 2003 01:47 PM
Whom Bomb?
Here's a list of the countries that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum:
China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991-99
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
In how many of these instances did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result?
Choose one of the following:
(a) 0
(b) zero
(c) none
(d) not a one
(e) a whole number between -1 and +1
This quiz compliments of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Ben Chitty USN 65-9 VN 66-7 68 NY/VVAW peaceCENTER
Posted by Ron Silliman at March 03, 2003 01:47 PM
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
These are the beautiful little fantails
There are three pairs of Pied Fantails-Rhipidura javanica nesting in the garden and each has built an exquisite little grass basket about 2" wide by 3" high..and each nest has two eggs. The female sits happily while dogs, cats, motorbikes and loud music are at hand, while the male sits about 6 inches away and sings to her. Every hour or so they fly to the cables and have an animated chatter and snog
They fly with little swoops and dips, like an animated cross between a flycatcher and a butterfly.
There are three pairs of Pied Fantails-Rhipidura javanica nesting in the garden and each has built an exquisite little grass basket about 2" wide by 3" high..and each nest has two eggs. The female sits happily while dogs, cats, motorbikes and loud music are at hand, while the male sits about 6 inches away and sings to her. Every hour or so they fly to the cables and have an animated chatter and snog
They fly with little swoops and dips, like an animated cross between a flycatcher and a butterfly.
Monday, February 17, 2003
Friday, February 07, 2003
Anyway. Life has been subsumed by decision to go to the UK. National Trust, Great Ormond Street, Banks, trip to France to sort out the house for maybe next year...........Going on Feb 25 for 10 days......I would like to see you!! Want to see me?? I doubt it.!!
What I will do without my babe for 10 days I cannot imagine. Hug the big one I suppose.
What I will do without my babe for 10 days I cannot imagine. Hug the big one I suppose.
Monday, February 03, 2003
We have had one(another) of those 'difficult periods'. Elodie continues physically still very unwell, so we were stuck in BKK for longer than we wanted. However she walks by pulling and propping herself around and laughs and squawks a great deal. She is not the least interested in toys only real things and books. Presently her favourite 'toys' are the Epson Printer with its little silver nipples, the keyboard, a deodorant stick which rolls, any plastic bag and the clothes horse which she uses as a climbing frame. Her favourite book came free with a packet of washing powder-it is the best because it is plastic and can be eaten. It has pictures of giraffe, zebras and tigers-all of which she went to see in Chiang Mai Zoo!
She has already eaten most of The Insects of Thailand which was a board book. Heavily into Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See and Spot-also a bizarre book which Thai Airways gave her featuring elephants treading on rabbits!
I asked the very good Doctor Tongkao at the Childrens Hospital how many Posterior Sagitttal Anorectoplasties he had performed and he grinned...so that was not encouraging...Elodie certainly not going to be his first however much we like him.....while probably in Great Ormond Street it is routine, which is not encouraging either.
We went on a peculiar trip to the Hospital.. Ladprao that is... at their request.. to 'discuss' matters. We are waiting on the upshot of this. Anyway me, K, her sister and husband.. and E went with two lawyers to talk, as we thought, to the assembled might of Lasdprao.. which amounted one very short, clever, Chinese guy from Chicago. We discursed about all matters medical for three hours, while he tried to persuade us to bring E back to the Hospital, or at least send her to Chula.. the University Hospital...while we mournfully said ...no.. we were going to the UK if she needed the operation.
So we have arrived at a point where 'yes maybe the doctor made a little error..but let us not dwell on that, rather look to the future and see how Ladprao 'can help you'! He said he has to talk to his Board of Directors, however it appears the hospital belongs to him! We shall know the extent of their 'help' in a couple of weeks. No 'help' we will be off to the courts, which they certainly do not want.............!! The help only amounts to enough to go to GOSH privately. As we said to him if this was the UK or US you would be facing a claim for £30m.
Anyway then my friend Chulee arrived with her two daughters aged c20, her brother, her grand-daughter and some Iranian she appeared to be trying to marry off to one of the daughters....so we buzzed about a bit, looked at ruins and rivers, and made fabulous pork and shrimp BBQs...then went to Chiang Mai....the Rose of the North.....well once. Chulee kept dragging her daughters into the Wat at every opportunity and conversing at length with any monk she could find, which was a bit tedious for them. In the Wat at Tungsaliam-which is about 30 kilo from Sawangkhalok her younger daughter came across a woman with a mongoose tied up in a sack. As it ibrings good merit to release a caged animal the mongoose was purchased. It then had to sit snarling and spitting in the car until a suitable release terrain was found..I suggested we should find a snake, but this was not thought amusing. I am amazesd no-one got bitten. However on being tipped out of the sack the mongoose sat and sulked..so maybe it was a 'tame' one after all.
It suddenly struck me, looking out the hotel window, how like Tucson Chiang Mai is. The mountains rise above it in shapes very similar to Mt. Lemmon and it stretches for miles., now, East and West as well as down to Lamphun. And the town is awash with Spas, herbal soaps, massage oils and other organic confections as well as an array of tatty handicrafts, very beautiful antique and modern furniture and artefacts, and the usual Thai tat...but it is still a lovely city and has an exquisite flower market. And the restaurants by the river are magical.
We went on a completely batty excursion to the Burmese border and looked at caves, elephants and even more long-necked Karens in their little village zoo. Unlike the Karens in Mae Hong Son, many of these girls were teenagers...must be an amazingly good business..but what a one......the minibuses roll in..about 10 an hour every day I should say...buy some tat, take photos, shell out guilt money/......yuk. In Mae Hong Son you have to get in a boat to get to their villages and the exhibits are the same ones I saw in the Geographical Magazine 40 years ago.......Most depressing was the number of 'Salvation' Churches we passed. I see that that part of N. Thailand appears on the Missionary maps as 'Evangelised' Bad Luck.
European and American Missionaries speak Thai(and other dialects) far better than any one else..which speaks something for their motivation, if not training, as opposed to any one else!
For some reason there seems to be a preponderance of Finn and Lutheran missionaries..why?
When we went to BKK this time we stayed, for reasons unclear to me, in a hotel that belonged to a university! It was full of Americans, who I rather naively thought had come to learn Thai...well of course they had...but then on Sunday morning I viewed the announcement board advertising the day's conventions and Room 101 was 'The Bible' Ah!
K bought a ton of antique silver bracelets and is now weighed down like a hill-tribe maiden........all you can say it is cheaper than gold, which with the approach of Chinese New Year on Saturday has soared to 7,200 B (£110) for One Baht...(gold is weighed in baht..one baht is about 13.grams)...Chulee appeared dripping in gold.. which says something for the casino business in London! She stuck some of it on Elodie's ankle, so now she looks like a chained monkey.
Anyway once the Chinese have showed off for a day or two it will sink back to 5,000 or 6,000 depending on Mr.Bush. Of course when I first came here the exchange rate was 40 Baht to the GBP, now it is 67 Baht and in the heady days of the wonderful Mr.Chavalit, when we sold everything to raise money, it went to 90Baht to the GBP!! Maybe Dubya will be as successful.
In our lengthy and unsuccessful discussions with the bank we did explain that this was one of the reasons why we did not keep all our money in their bank....the banks appear incapable of comprehending that money can come from abroad. I asked the guy in the Bank of Asia how it was then that Thailand was able to export so much and presumably get paid in Yen and Dollars if they could not understand that K had money from the UK. I just think they cannot read English, though most of the important stuff is translated into Thai, and are too lazy to go and see the condo.. the condo company said no-one from a bank has been near the place.
We went(to Chiang Mai that is!) and came back through a province I was not much familiar with...Lampang...The most striking aspect of which were the houses. 16 twenty foot tree trunks about 18 inches plus wide forming the frame of the house, to which all the floors and walls are attached, and then on the top a myriad of roofs, balconies and porches. Exquisite in ochre, burnt sienna and blue, which then ages to a silver grey..not the blue roof which comes from Australia...before there were shingles..but these are a dying breed, of course.
A 100 square metre house is £12,000 without the land.....and the villages were up on a sort of plain, surrounded by mountains.....a bit like the Causse if it was surrounded too. The land poor, but the forest rich.
The trouble is it is nearly impossible to transport timber from one province to another. You need to bribe so many policeman it is prohibitively expensive.
This prohibition does not, of course, extend to the businesses of Thai MPs denuding Burma of its teak forests. They have already wrecked the forests of Thailand, much to the aggravation of the Japanese, who now have to get their chipboard from the rain forests of Indonesia. (They use tropical rainforest hardwood chipboard to fence off building sites in Japan)
Here in Sawangkhalok the long progress of marriages and deaths continues accompanied by ear splitting Likkei theatrical performances, with of course the Grade A sound systems, which wind to a crescendo at 4.00 am before the monks come in and drone for an hour or so at 8.00. K assures me that it will end on the 31st! I bought some more ear plugs in BKK but they are sponge and not so good as the wax ones. Bought them in Boots which appears to have no clue as to how to market and sell things here. The shops are like in the UK, clean and bright but empty. Everything expensive, while Watsons the Hong Kong Chemist is a mess, cheap and buzzing. Sell your Boots shares now before there is another disaster, like in Japan. I suppose the co. is so rich it do not care. Suppose, too, that is why pile it high and sell it cheap Tesco is thriving here.
I also managed to buy some binoculars in BKK and an excellent Birds of Thailand by Craig Robson. So I can now tell you that these flighty little birds in the garden that are so skittish, loquacious and charming are White Throated and Pied Fantails -Rhipidura albicollis and Rhipidura javanica to you!. Other than that we have Common Ioras -Aegithina tiphia, Oriental Magpie Robins-Copsychus saularis and Mynas-both Acridotheres tristis and grandis in abundance. Also a pair of Black Drongos - Dicrurus macrocercus which have a nest and call a great deal!
I have got some more pictures, now, so I will put those on the weblog as they are easier to see there. In fact I might put all of this too! So everyone will know what I write to you!
Meanwhile the road saga continues. Apparently Fiona Reynolds is going to go and 'SEE for HERSELF'...sounds like a Royal Progress to me. We have been reading all kinds of bad things about the NT that the House of Lords dragged up.. let us hope they will see sense in this case.. Cannot say I am hopeful. Apparently they can make 'laws' of their own which are directly contrary to UK law! They are certainly exempt from normal Planning and Housing legislation. How did this come about?
She has already eaten most of The Insects of Thailand which was a board book. Heavily into Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See and Spot-also a bizarre book which Thai Airways gave her featuring elephants treading on rabbits!
I asked the very good Doctor Tongkao at the Childrens Hospital how many Posterior Sagitttal Anorectoplasties he had performed and he grinned...so that was not encouraging...Elodie certainly not going to be his first however much we like him.....while probably in Great Ormond Street it is routine, which is not encouraging either.
We went on a peculiar trip to the Hospital.. Ladprao that is... at their request.. to 'discuss' matters. We are waiting on the upshot of this. Anyway me, K, her sister and husband.. and E went with two lawyers to talk, as we thought, to the assembled might of Lasdprao.. which amounted one very short, clever, Chinese guy from Chicago. We discursed about all matters medical for three hours, while he tried to persuade us to bring E back to the Hospital, or at least send her to Chula.. the University Hospital...while we mournfully said ...no.. we were going to the UK if she needed the operation.
So we have arrived at a point where 'yes maybe the doctor made a little error..but let us not dwell on that, rather look to the future and see how Ladprao 'can help you'! He said he has to talk to his Board of Directors, however it appears the hospital belongs to him! We shall know the extent of their 'help' in a couple of weeks. No 'help' we will be off to the courts, which they certainly do not want.............!! The help only amounts to enough to go to GOSH privately. As we said to him if this was the UK or US you would be facing a claim for £30m.
Anyway then my friend Chulee arrived with her two daughters aged c20, her brother, her grand-daughter and some Iranian she appeared to be trying to marry off to one of the daughters....so we buzzed about a bit, looked at ruins and rivers, and made fabulous pork and shrimp BBQs...then went to Chiang Mai....the Rose of the North.....well once. Chulee kept dragging her daughters into the Wat at every opportunity and conversing at length with any monk she could find, which was a bit tedious for them. In the Wat at Tungsaliam-which is about 30 kilo from Sawangkhalok her younger daughter came across a woman with a mongoose tied up in a sack. As it ibrings good merit to release a caged animal the mongoose was purchased. It then had to sit snarling and spitting in the car until a suitable release terrain was found..I suggested we should find a snake, but this was not thought amusing. I am amazesd no-one got bitten. However on being tipped out of the sack the mongoose sat and sulked..so maybe it was a 'tame' one after all.
It suddenly struck me, looking out the hotel window, how like Tucson Chiang Mai is. The mountains rise above it in shapes very similar to Mt. Lemmon and it stretches for miles., now, East and West as well as down to Lamphun. And the town is awash with Spas, herbal soaps, massage oils and other organic confections as well as an array of tatty handicrafts, very beautiful antique and modern furniture and artefacts, and the usual Thai tat...but it is still a lovely city and has an exquisite flower market. And the restaurants by the river are magical.
We went on a completely batty excursion to the Burmese border and looked at caves, elephants and even more long-necked Karens in their little village zoo. Unlike the Karens in Mae Hong Son, many of these girls were teenagers...must be an amazingly good business..but what a one......the minibuses roll in..about 10 an hour every day I should say...buy some tat, take photos, shell out guilt money/......yuk. In Mae Hong Son you have to get in a boat to get to their villages and the exhibits are the same ones I saw in the Geographical Magazine 40 years ago.......Most depressing was the number of 'Salvation' Churches we passed. I see that that part of N. Thailand appears on the Missionary maps as 'Evangelised' Bad Luck.
European and American Missionaries speak Thai(and other dialects) far better than any one else..which speaks something for their motivation, if not training, as opposed to any one else!
For some reason there seems to be a preponderance of Finn and Lutheran missionaries..why?
When we went to BKK this time we stayed, for reasons unclear to me, in a hotel that belonged to a university! It was full of Americans, who I rather naively thought had come to learn Thai...well of course they had...but then on Sunday morning I viewed the announcement board advertising the day's conventions and Room 101 was 'The Bible' Ah!
K bought a ton of antique silver bracelets and is now weighed down like a hill-tribe maiden........all you can say it is cheaper than gold, which with the approach of Chinese New Year on Saturday has soared to 7,200 B (£110) for One Baht...(gold is weighed in baht..one baht is about 13.grams)...Chulee appeared dripping in gold.. which says something for the casino business in London! She stuck some of it on Elodie's ankle, so now she looks like a chained monkey.
Anyway once the Chinese have showed off for a day or two it will sink back to 5,000 or 6,000 depending on Mr.Bush. Of course when I first came here the exchange rate was 40 Baht to the GBP, now it is 67 Baht and in the heady days of the wonderful Mr.Chavalit, when we sold everything to raise money, it went to 90Baht to the GBP!! Maybe Dubya will be as successful.
In our lengthy and unsuccessful discussions with the bank we did explain that this was one of the reasons why we did not keep all our money in their bank....the banks appear incapable of comprehending that money can come from abroad. I asked the guy in the Bank of Asia how it was then that Thailand was able to export so much and presumably get paid in Yen and Dollars if they could not understand that K had money from the UK. I just think they cannot read English, though most of the important stuff is translated into Thai, and are too lazy to go and see the condo.. the condo company said no-one from a bank has been near the place.
We went(to Chiang Mai that is!) and came back through a province I was not much familiar with...Lampang...The most striking aspect of which were the houses. 16 twenty foot tree trunks about 18 inches plus wide forming the frame of the house, to which all the floors and walls are attached, and then on the top a myriad of roofs, balconies and porches. Exquisite in ochre, burnt sienna and blue, which then ages to a silver grey..not the blue roof which comes from Australia...before there were shingles..but these are a dying breed, of course.
A 100 square metre house is £12,000 without the land.....and the villages were up on a sort of plain, surrounded by mountains.....a bit like the Causse if it was surrounded too. The land poor, but the forest rich.
The trouble is it is nearly impossible to transport timber from one province to another. You need to bribe so many policeman it is prohibitively expensive.
This prohibition does not, of course, extend to the businesses of Thai MPs denuding Burma of its teak forests. They have already wrecked the forests of Thailand, much to the aggravation of the Japanese, who now have to get their chipboard from the rain forests of Indonesia. (They use tropical rainforest hardwood chipboard to fence off building sites in Japan)
Here in Sawangkhalok the long progress of marriages and deaths continues accompanied by ear splitting Likkei theatrical performances, with of course the Grade A sound systems, which wind to a crescendo at 4.00 am before the monks come in and drone for an hour or so at 8.00. K assures me that it will end on the 31st! I bought some more ear plugs in BKK but they are sponge and not so good as the wax ones. Bought them in Boots which appears to have no clue as to how to market and sell things here. The shops are like in the UK, clean and bright but empty. Everything expensive, while Watsons the Hong Kong Chemist is a mess, cheap and buzzing. Sell your Boots shares now before there is another disaster, like in Japan. I suppose the co. is so rich it do not care. Suppose, too, that is why pile it high and sell it cheap Tesco is thriving here.
I also managed to buy some binoculars in BKK and an excellent Birds of Thailand by Craig Robson. So I can now tell you that these flighty little birds in the garden that are so skittish, loquacious and charming are White Throated and Pied Fantails -Rhipidura albicollis and Rhipidura javanica to you!. Other than that we have Common Ioras -Aegithina tiphia, Oriental Magpie Robins-Copsychus saularis and Mynas-both Acridotheres tristis and grandis in abundance. Also a pair of Black Drongos - Dicrurus macrocercus which have a nest and call a great deal!
I have got some more pictures, now, so I will put those on the weblog as they are easier to see there. In fact I might put all of this too! So everyone will know what I write to you!
Meanwhile the road saga continues. Apparently Fiona Reynolds is going to go and 'SEE for HERSELF'...sounds like a Royal Progress to me. We have been reading all kinds of bad things about the NT that the House of Lords dragged up.. let us hope they will see sense in this case.. Cannot say I am hopeful. Apparently they can make 'laws' of their own which are directly contrary to UK law! They are certainly exempt from normal Planning and Housing legislation. How did this come about?
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Sunday, January 05, 2003
Thursday, January 02, 2003
Just In Case You Thought Thais were sane and I mad........Remember all that stuff about Japanese snow not being appropriate for Swiss Skis and Japanese blood being different from western blood??..so that is why they did not get AIDS..oh yea!! Thais are loopy about bras. Not to wear one...even if, as is often the way with many young Thai girls they barely have any titties, is considered like you or me going out with no trousers/pants on......... Foreign bras not fitted for Thai bosoms
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
I sent this to my friend
Would that I had a Penguin contract to scowl at...it has taken them two years so far.. the book is supposed to be published in March. A week before Xmas they came up with the stunning proposal that they would pay a 6% royalty, down from 10% a year ago; and that Orion had asked for 5% and was that OK. More than the turkey to be stuffed I think!
Anyway Residues has sold 3000 copies, so not all doom and gloom.
Though in fact it is overcast and freezing. .I have 2 T shirts on!!
And ain't it lucky that Thai Babygros are £2.00 as opposed to the £25.00 I saw they were in Peter Jones.
My answer to the pensions crisis for all..leave..it s just the geriatric care I worry about.
My mate at TVU got them to continue her PPP , but she kept that little secret to herself, so though others of us asked we were not granted...not that it would be any help here. BUPA quoted a premium of £1800pa for Thai Health Care!! In addition to the UK premium!
So Christmas 2002 has been and gone. Remarkably I achieved a fairly decent menu, even if the wine list was notable for its absence. Christmas Eve we had large shrimps stewed in butter, then red cabbage with apples, bacon and a good dose of the Remy Martin, Pommes Parmentieres and the birds. They, while deliciously roast, with an exquisite gamey flavour, and with red currant jelly, were smallish, about the size of a decent partridge - unfortunately of an unknown species-but probably on the verge of extinction- with bills about the size of a woodcock....if only..!!
I had been wandering about the market in the vague hope I could raise a duck that had not already been subject to vicious Chinese treatments. .alas none.. when I heard a girl say.. yes I have birds...but they not come yet...Mee nok, yang mai ma...There are indeed a variety of partridge which are excellent, so I had been in hopes. However this lot, when they 'ma laew': 'Come already', turned out to be what I believe is known as a 'mixed bag' in that I was lucky to find three the same size and species. They had all been well singed, which made any identification remote. On quizzing the bird seller as to their names I came up with nok yai, nok noi and nok nam ie big bird, little bird and water bird...helpful! Anyway the Remy took our minds of the WWF and the EU Habitats Directive for a while.
Christmas Day we took all the shoeless and semi-sockless children
to eat BBQ by the river. For some reason there were only BBQued shrimps, pork and pork liver to be had,-there is usually some beef and squid else at least,- but they wolfed it all down and then stuffed Strawberry Cornettos and Chocolate Slurpies to finish. They have been so well brought up, or cowed into submission, that every time you put a miniscule little piece of pork on their plate they have to drop their forks and chop sticks and bow. I cannot see how Elodie is going to come to terms with this culture of obeisance!
Christmas Day was enlivened, too, by the appearance of an extremely dark, ragged and shoeless person sporting a little axe at his waist, about 7.00 am- a time when, of course, I am enjoying a cup of Earl Grey, reflecting on at what precise minute the morning star will become invisible and holding a consonant rich conversation with E about the merits of playing with the electric cables or the sockets. I said to E. He looks as though either he has come to murder us or he spends his time climbing trees. To my gratification and relief, he proceeded to walk effortlessly up the nearest coconut tree and kicked down 35 coconuts, which he purchased for £2.20. No-one could explain why he ignored all the other trees.
The children had a predictably riotous time opening presents and admiring our tree and balcon so elegantly adorned with the most tiny white lights-much abhorred by the residents who said sneeringly that they supposed white bulbs were cheaper than coloured ones! Again a real party would have required a new set of speakers.
Boxing Day I managed to construct not only an excellent loin of pork, with a marmalade and honey coating and nicely larded with garlic, but also an outstanding Pate de Foie de Volailles au Poivre Vert (Prik Thai to you) which even those Thais who have expressed the utmost scorn for the delicacies of French Cuisine were persuaded to eat with some little dishes of olives and cornichons. Though I did spot one gentleman adorning his little amuse geules with several 'kee noo' ie. mouse shit chilhis, (nearly the hottest) from his pocket, which would have beefed them up a bit.
The roofing for the 'summer house' has arrived today, also. 75 36" by 18" thatch panels £8.00 the lot. There is a lively debate as to whether the structure should be made of bamboo or eucalyptus. Bamboo is considered expensive and short lived. I am in favour of eucalyptus, not only because one stout pillar will cost £1.50 but anything that can be done to destroy eucalyptus plantations must be encouraged, ruinous plants. However the bamboo, which comes in poles about 6 " thick, would be prettier. There has been much discussion of how to adapt one of my 'handmade houses' ,from the enduringly charming Guide to the Woodbutcher's Art by Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro, to the Thai manner. A soaring curved triangular roof is much admired, but they doubt the reed thatch can be fitted to shape! There is some enthusiasm for the summer house being a scale miniature of the planned real house, which has its attractions.
In what passes for the real world, Honda has had such a successful year it is paying bonuses of, never mind the thirteenth month, 6 months salary. Followed not that far behind by Toyota. Clearly firemen and others could learn a thing or too here. The cash economy remains as opaque to me as ever. Actually I think it simply boils down to spending next to nothing. K's sister appears to amass large sums quite effortlessly, in spite of a small salary. She does this by spending about £1.00 a day....Though the gaps in my fingers have closed up I still cannot achieve that level of scrooginess! Also the recycling business is extremely well developed as everywhere in the tiers monde. A guy gave me what appeared to be a very jazzy embossed silver business card a day or two ago which on inspection was, of course, made from a recycled set of Chivas Regal cartons.
What the New Year will bring.........at the best a well child...and abandoned road building....at the worst highways in the garden and heartbreaking times in Great Ormond Street. Hope you have less stark choices!
Much love
G
Would that I had a Penguin contract to scowl at...it has taken them two years so far.. the book is supposed to be published in March. A week before Xmas they came up with the stunning proposal that they would pay a 6% royalty, down from 10% a year ago; and that Orion had asked for 5% and was that OK. More than the turkey to be stuffed I think!
Anyway Residues has sold 3000 copies, so not all doom and gloom.
Though in fact it is overcast and freezing. .I have 2 T shirts on!!
And ain't it lucky that Thai Babygros are £2.00 as opposed to the £25.00 I saw they were in Peter Jones.
My answer to the pensions crisis for all..leave..it s just the geriatric care I worry about.
My mate at TVU got them to continue her PPP , but she kept that little secret to herself, so though others of us asked we were not granted...not that it would be any help here. BUPA quoted a premium of £1800pa for Thai Health Care!! In addition to the UK premium!
So Christmas 2002 has been and gone. Remarkably I achieved a fairly decent menu, even if the wine list was notable for its absence. Christmas Eve we had large shrimps stewed in butter, then red cabbage with apples, bacon and a good dose of the Remy Martin, Pommes Parmentieres and the birds. They, while deliciously roast, with an exquisite gamey flavour, and with red currant jelly, were smallish, about the size of a decent partridge - unfortunately of an unknown species-but probably on the verge of extinction- with bills about the size of a woodcock....if only..!!
I had been wandering about the market in the vague hope I could raise a duck that had not already been subject to vicious Chinese treatments. .alas none.. when I heard a girl say.. yes I have birds...but they not come yet...Mee nok, yang mai ma...There are indeed a variety of partridge which are excellent, so I had been in hopes. However this lot, when they 'ma laew': 'Come already', turned out to be what I believe is known as a 'mixed bag' in that I was lucky to find three the same size and species. They had all been well singed, which made any identification remote. On quizzing the bird seller as to their names I came up with nok yai, nok noi and nok nam ie big bird, little bird and water bird...helpful! Anyway the Remy took our minds of the WWF and the EU Habitats Directive for a while.
Christmas Day we took all the shoeless and semi-sockless children
to eat BBQ by the river. For some reason there were only BBQued shrimps, pork and pork liver to be had,-there is usually some beef and squid else at least,- but they wolfed it all down and then stuffed Strawberry Cornettos and Chocolate Slurpies to finish. They have been so well brought up, or cowed into submission, that every time you put a miniscule little piece of pork on their plate they have to drop their forks and chop sticks and bow. I cannot see how Elodie is going to come to terms with this culture of obeisance!
Christmas Day was enlivened, too, by the appearance of an extremely dark, ragged and shoeless person sporting a little axe at his waist, about 7.00 am- a time when, of course, I am enjoying a cup of Earl Grey, reflecting on at what precise minute the morning star will become invisible and holding a consonant rich conversation with E about the merits of playing with the electric cables or the sockets. I said to E. He looks as though either he has come to murder us or he spends his time climbing trees. To my gratification and relief, he proceeded to walk effortlessly up the nearest coconut tree and kicked down 35 coconuts, which he purchased for £2.20. No-one could explain why he ignored all the other trees.
The children had a predictably riotous time opening presents and admiring our tree and balcon so elegantly adorned with the most tiny white lights-much abhorred by the residents who said sneeringly that they supposed white bulbs were cheaper than coloured ones! Again a real party would have required a new set of speakers.
Boxing Day I managed to construct not only an excellent loin of pork, with a marmalade and honey coating and nicely larded with garlic, but also an outstanding Pate de Foie de Volailles au Poivre Vert (Prik Thai to you) which even those Thais who have expressed the utmost scorn for the delicacies of French Cuisine were persuaded to eat with some little dishes of olives and cornichons. Though I did spot one gentleman adorning his little amuse geules with several 'kee noo' ie. mouse shit chilhis, (nearly the hottest) from his pocket, which would have beefed them up a bit.
The roofing for the 'summer house' has arrived today, also. 75 36" by 18" thatch panels £8.00 the lot. There is a lively debate as to whether the structure should be made of bamboo or eucalyptus. Bamboo is considered expensive and short lived. I am in favour of eucalyptus, not only because one stout pillar will cost £1.50 but anything that can be done to destroy eucalyptus plantations must be encouraged, ruinous plants. However the bamboo, which comes in poles about 6 " thick, would be prettier. There has been much discussion of how to adapt one of my 'handmade houses' ,from the enduringly charming Guide to the Woodbutcher's Art by Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro, to the Thai manner. A soaring curved triangular roof is much admired, but they doubt the reed thatch can be fitted to shape! There is some enthusiasm for the summer house being a scale miniature of the planned real house, which has its attractions.
In what passes for the real world, Honda has had such a successful year it is paying bonuses of, never mind the thirteenth month, 6 months salary. Followed not that far behind by Toyota. Clearly firemen and others could learn a thing or too here. The cash economy remains as opaque to me as ever. Actually I think it simply boils down to spending next to nothing. K's sister appears to amass large sums quite effortlessly, in spite of a small salary. She does this by spending about £1.00 a day....Though the gaps in my fingers have closed up I still cannot achieve that level of scrooginess! Also the recycling business is extremely well developed as everywhere in the tiers monde. A guy gave me what appeared to be a very jazzy embossed silver business card a day or two ago which on inspection was, of course, made from a recycled set of Chivas Regal cartons.
What the New Year will bring.........at the best a well child...and abandoned road building....at the worst highways in the garden and heartbreaking times in Great Ormond Street. Hope you have less stark choices!
Much love
G