And we have been gardening again!!
Will these grow?!
Squash Chips??

























So we have been to Samui again. A great deal of building work-Tesco apparently doubled in size-but the beach at Lamai hardly changed. Though the great waves that have been attacking Southern Thailand are in evidence here-great 2 and 3 metre breakers which makes swimming impossible for babes, including me who likes to drift on my back for hours.

The hotel, which is the same one we all always stay in, has invested in 3 Jet skis, unfortunately, which appear to have cost more than our Chiang Mai house and the owner has swapped his Mercedes for a huge Lexus Off Road monster. They are building a few more rooms which is a nuisance.

He and his wife and the palsied child sit looking at the dusty patch at the back of the house while we all gaze at the sea. K was trying to work out how much this few hectares of land, let alone the business must be worth. The ‘resort’ pulls in about £6000 a week I should guess, year round; expenses minimal-electricity and water, small labour costs, and the land must be worth upwards of £10 million so ‘comfortable’ I guess! And of course the family has lots more land elsewhere. Fruit farms and forests! The resort provides work and a life for dozens more people than appears necessary, which is no doubt to the good. It takes half a dozen people alone to look after the jet skis! And another half dozen to cook and manage the eight or so restaurant tables.

I have read the Kaplan, the Sijie and the Pamuk. I am lucky I can continue to unearth good books without reading acres of critics. The Kaplan and Pamuk particularly good. Pamuk on Istanbul evokes whole areas that echo Thailand and the Thai melancholy.I have always thought that the stress they put on smiles and cool hearts was nothing other than a mask for melancholy, together with a degree of surliness and a measure of suppressed rage1 just like anywhere elsi, I suppose.

One sees Pamuk detail the sensibilities and neuroses of Istanbullus in much the same way one could of Bangkok. Kaplan just made me realise what an appalling so-called Classical Education I had and how ignorant I was when I went to Sicily, Tunis and elsewhere.

Have also read:

John Keay Mad About The Mekong.
( Deranged Affluent Brit, with history of mad journeys etc. follows course of equally deranged French Expedition up The Mekong River)

Sherrill(sic) Tippins(sic)-yes I know..but,.. February House
Well written account of the unbearable Auden and various perverts…Britten, Bowles..McCullers, Gypsy Rose Lee in bawdy house in NY 1940s

But then I don’t think I have ever been either a very ‘good student’ nor perhaps been very intelligent in taking enough time to look at what I was seeing let alone reflect on it. My journeys of the 1960s were conducted at top speed, or what passed for that when hitch hiking was the mode of travel and my journeys of the 80s and 90s to Europe and the US were undertaken too at the behest of work and in such a state of perceived illness that I reflected little, also.

Now it sometimes seems that we live at the polarities of the present. In rural Wales, where the land based population is rapidly diminishing as the economic viability of agriculture disappears and there has been an exodus to the cities; to be replaced by an aged pleasureocracy fuelling their last years on pensions and the proceeds of vast housing profits. In the Orient where pricing is cut throat, the struggle for social mobility intense, the aspiration for consumer goods and education vibrant, governments either autocratic or somewhat unstable-unable to deliver social services and the rule of law, here, we are living in the future.

Everyone here is fundamentally aware of the resource issues of the future-oil and gas, water and power generation, financial services, the availability and development of technology, (China, Korea and Taiwan, let alone Singapore, and no doubt other places, have their universities stuffed with science and technology undergraduates), the productivity of the agricultural sector, urban/rural divides and their accompanying income and wealth disparities. In Europe and the US?
After reading Pamuk and Kaplan I was reflecting on Cities of The Future. Not futuristic or futurology but how this might pan out. Reading the evolution of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul and the sudden rises and falls of Mediterranean empires and city states (and elsewhere some theory that both the Tang Dynasty and the Mayan were destroyed by drought, turned my thoughts to..where? Beijing and Shanghai, Kholkata and Mumbai, Caracas, Sao Paolo, Doha, unheard of cities in the Barents Sea and Siberia, Istanbul, Tehran and some again unheard of oil rich city in Somalia/Ethiopia, Moscow and Baku, Almaty(Turkmen and Kazakh) places unseen on the current political map. Will that change? The emergence of new empires, return of old ones. Was that what the 4 horsemen are really all about?!
If you watch Al Jazeera in English, which we do, you see and learn about the real news of the world. Not the froth of what happens in London, Paris, New York, LA, but what most of the population of the world are experiencing. We think Europe and the US have entirely lost touch with reality, though to be fair German, French, Spanish, Scandinavian TV have lost it a good deal less than the BBC and Fox News.
I suppose this can go on as long as US/European Money and Arms prevail…but for how much longer can that be?
Are there too many places to which I have neither been nor read about? What would it profit? Always too many lives not lived and too many lives misunderstood,, not encompassed; too little time, too little compassion or empathy. It would be more than the ‘Renaissance man’ to so do, do you think?
In a sense that is a problem wtih novels and why I tend to avoid them. They draw me into an illusion that I can both ‘know’ the characters and also recognise them in ‘real people’ and vice versa. On meeting anyone, though, they seem hopelessly too complex and individual to characterise. K. E and Granny have been to the monkey show. E very taken with the monkey that held her hand!

We came across this 'unusual' volume selling like hot cakes in 7-11
How To Get A Foreign Boyfriend/Husband!!

RS had his portrait scanned for Christmas!




















Though I rather prefer my portrait of him, don't you. Probably not worth £2000 like the other, though



















While I was burbling about Thailand:

Could Thailand ‘Unravel’?

Could Thailand become a ‘failed or failing state’?

The present rather more than usually ‘byzantine’ state of politics makes one wonder..

All of us who live and work here, permanently, or are on visa runs, or on regular (or even irregular! visits), have a more than vested interest in the health and security of the Thai state.

The insecurity and hazardousness of many countries outside some of Europe, Australasia and N. America have shown Thailand to be a haven of security, prosperity and well being for many of us—whatever moans on the Forum might indicate.

It has always appeared to me that Thailand has developed a rather unusual symbiosis
whereby things generally work. Banks, hospitals, airlines, hotels function. There is a judiciary, a civil service and a tax system. Until the New Year there were no bombs on the street unlike London or Madrid, the country was not ghetto-ised like the US, there were almost no ‘no-go’ areas unlike France, you can buy a house, or at least rent one, without the death of an aged aunt or a 200KGBP mortgage unlike the UK. Food is abundant and cheap as are most goods and services.

It would be very sad were this situation to deteriorate or disappear.

But do you think it could happen?

I have listed some of the main resources on this rather contentious topic:

Failed States

Foreign Policy

Fund for Peace


While there have been episodes of violence and bloodshed here in recent history, there has been no equivalent to what happened in Vietnam or Cambodia; and the military coups have not engendered the kind of events that took place in Burma or even Laos. The communist insurgency of the 1960s was not on a scale of that in Malaysia-and besides there was not the complicating factor of British colonialism.

But there has been, neither, one of the kinds of coloured popular protest movements resulting in political change that have been seen in Eastern Europe and in The Philippines.

There is a present continuing danger to the artificiality of the Thai State of the Southern Insurgency, but it is difficult to see how, without foreign intervention, that could seriously threaten the core of the State.
The real dangers could therefore, variously, be organised soldiers or policemen who perceive their influence under threat and maybe an unresolving and continuing war of attrition between, and within, elements of those two power groups, a resurgent or new demagogue, a proxy conflict between various cliques that have been described as ‘old’ and ‘new’ money with the attendant threat to legal and illegal business interests, and any challenge that might be addressed to the monarchy.
There exists considerable wealth in Thailand; but as with other countries in, say, Latin America let alone the emerging situation in the PRC there is also a great disparity between the wealthy and the relatively poor.
As I understand it one of the perceived reasons for support for the deposed Prime Minister Taksin Shinawatra was his program for an apparent redistribution of wealth. One of the problems seems to have been was that he was distributing wealth that was either non-existent or not available for ‘redistribution’ and that simultaneously he was enriching his family and his supporting ‘clans’, through the corruption of the state contract system.

There also exists a latent xenophobia which, while no where as near the surface as in Indonesia or Malaysia could be fanned or exploited. And while there is little of the anti-western fervour of some Islamic states there, again, is a slack noose on foreigners that can be easily tightened from time to time.

Critically there is the health of the Thai economy. Presently, whatever moans there may be about exchange rates, the exporting strength of raw and processed goods is considerable and the domestic ‘self supporting’ economy appears strong also. Of concern is what we notice as a weakening of both those strengths as a result of diminished global demand for Thai products and the relatively unremarked consequences of natural phenomena, particularly flooding. In the North and North centre of Thailand it would appear there as been significant damage to the economy as a result of flooding

Were there to be an accompanying diminution of revenues as a result of a coming together of a significant downturn in tourism, whether as a result of weather or politics, a strong currency damaging exports, further damage to the agricultural sector, a lessening of Japanese, Chinese and western capital investment, an increase in the Islamic insurgency, a perceived insecure situation in Bangkok, further increase in oil prices, etc.etc. then that economic health might not look so blooming.

And were there to be any significant damage to the labour market and distress to both the rural and urban poor it is easy to see that social unrest might be the thing that started the ‘unravelling’.

It is difficult to see Thailand going the way of the kind of failed state where interpersonal and state violence are endemic, or the kind of failed state where foreign intervention and war destroy institutions and structures. In many ways the economy is already too advanced for that; and the culture would seem to preclude the violence associated with ungovernable states.

But that really raises the question of what success and failure are in a state or country. Citizens are leaving the UK at an unprecedented rate-does that suggest some perceived or real failure? The US appears entirely dependent on its so called military-industrial complex, which requires the waging of wars to bolster production and employment and with serious inter ethic problems-is that a failure? Where is ‘successful’?

I have at last managed to buy a thermometer! Having avoided several offers of clinical ones I tracked it down in the stationery shop. Much mystification as to why I would want such a thing. Tasks such as this, which would be simple even in Pwllheli-quick trip to the hardware shop where I did indeed acquire two- a simple one and one of those that record how cold or hot it has been-are fraught with obscure problems here. Turns out that there are of course three words for thermometer. I had avoided the clinical one, but of the two remaining candidates I chose the wrong one-the Thai word. In Thai a thermometer is, of course, a Turmommeter…Oh well.

So, today at 6.00 am it is freezing at 14 degrees. Another hour and the population is still covered in anoraks and furry hats. By 8.30 it has risen to 20 degrees and now at 10.00 it is 25 degrees. Still considered a bit chilly. Hats been removed but not coats. As K says, what you really need at 8.00 am is a nice hot bath to warm you up..

Have been assembling books for Samui: Orhan Pamuk-Istanbul, Robert Kaplan-Mediterranean Winter, Sherrill Tippins-February House, Dai Sijie-Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstresses, John Keay-Mad about the Mekong, Alain de Botton-How Proust Can Change Your Life. Some debate as to whether to actually take any Proust which languishes on the bookshelves! Whether this is a case of, in his own words, "Negligence deadens Desire", I am not sure. Certaily negligence on my part and little desire. My oft repeated defence is that it is being saved for the end when, I hope at least, I shall not have to lie in bed for several years writing a weblog, In Search of Lost Posts!

I bought several others In BKK last week but seem, inexplicably, to have read them. How I find the time to do this I fail to understand.

Here is a funny uneventful arrival of New Year. Well it seems so by comparison with the last few years! And for us, though not so uneventful elsewhere in the orient.

Life seems amazingly tranquil by comparison with other years. We are not rushing anywhere. The house project continues at a leisurely pace. E goes to school. The
Radio Station prospers. Reading my tortuous reports of other Januaries, one can only suppose they have helped write things into stupor! Though the accounts of other Januaries have proved a reminder of things forgotten. In 2005 K’s sister went to see the witch doctor who said she would not live long with her ‘husband’ and never get to buy the house in Korat. As of now all come true..so K is keen on his prophecies of further daughters!! In 2004 we sat and gazed at the sea in Pen Llyn and in 2003 wre so consumed with Elodie’s problems we scarcely thought.

This year we have assuaged the ghosts of France, and some other places, and no longer find ourselves consumed with a desire to be there, or indeed in other places.
Of course there are always demons in the cupboard!..Discovered I could buy a seaside estate in The Pelopponese…why not? I think not.!
What really strikes me is how easy it is to forget and thus how much I have forgotten. Even reading what I wrote last January reminded me that without it having been written I would have forgotten most of what was going on, and certainly would not have remembered when it was happening. When I say this to K, who forgets nothing, misses nothing, she looks pityingly at me and ruffles what passes for hair. It must be age? Though I suspect more likely idleness. I notice a great difference from the days when I noticed everything, missed nothing. I don’t miss much now, I just forget about it as it seems unimportant; except when it relates to E or R.

R and A are skiing in Val Thorens. I suppose he is gliding on snow rather than grass!
They rang me to tell me that R had ‘set fire to himself’, which is, I suppose, one way of seeing in the New Year

Some idiots have decided to fill BKK with bombs. It would be a great shame if the troubles of the world came here. Who would do that? Taksin? Possibly. Islamists? Does not seem likely? Will we ever know? Lingeringly awful pictures of blood on the streets and bits of people. Will probably have to be circumspect in the airport and on Samui….

New Year may have been cancelled in BKK, certainly not here where another ear splitting cacophony has been in progress, as usual. K went to an alumni fest at school; seems they spent most of the evening sending SMS messages to each other.
Tonight the ‘Police’ have sanctioned a disco in J’s hotel. Presumably because they have been a. Invited and b. Provided with bottles of Chivas. I shall tell you J’s story in a while!

But I look back. It has been a year when I wrote very little. I am not sure why. Maybe just consumed with daily life. Though, of course, we have had another medically dramatic year with the operations at Moorfields on Elodie’s eyes. Not a great success in our opinion-though improved. Time may well tell.

We spent far too much time on Byron’s book and some more on the Fulmar ‘Film of the Book’. The book is pretty good and may well help in the humanising or de-demonising of RS. The film a curate’s egg, appropriately enough. Too little time; though amusing to go back to Manafon in the pouring rain. Still trout and kingfishers, though, in mid winter, hardly any echoes of that upland summer idyll!

E’s going to school and coming home speaking Welsh probably the most significant thing! She sits and counts in 4 languages, much to her satisfaction! The school is wonderful and I have to retract all my reservations about her going to school there-well at this age. Later who knows? She misses it and her friends dreadfully and for a long while refused to go back to school here on the basis that it was, by comparison, quite accurately, boring! However the prospect of dancing got her there. She has been besotted with Angelina Ballerina, and her own tutu and leotard are not often removed.
And of course I am a princess and Snow White















Anyway enough of all these festivities. Time for sleep with the 'Teddy Dog'