This is my photo of ’Pong taking this photo in Bangkok. Recursion is always an interesting phenomenon.
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Speaking of my journey to Thailand, ’Pong has just published a bunch of photos of me he took there, only one of which you’ve seen before. Some of them are not particularly flattering.
When I went to Thailand last year, Thai Airways International was generally excellent — except for their choice of in-flight movies. Sorry, but even after a couple glasses of wine and several brandies High School Musical is a piece of shit.
I’d originally guessed that it was only screened because it somehow matched the Thai sense of sentimentality. But no. I soon discovered it was such a success — it even won an Emmy! — that Disney made a sequel with the imaginative title High School Musical 2.
I was really, really hoping that was going to be the end of the story. But no (again). Touring Australia in April and May is… High School Musical: The Ice Tour.
Sadly, this show doesn’t involve the dentally-perfect racially-balanced lead characters in some meth-fuelled rampage but… yes… ice skates. Somebody get me a bucket.
“I warned these people about their noisy karaoke parties,” said Weenus Chumkamnerd, 52, after his arrest. “I said if they carried on I would go down and shoot them. I had told them if I couldn’t talk sense into them I would come back and finish them off.”
A neighbour said that the karaoke group normally sang Thai pop and southern Thai ballads, but one particular western tune could be heard often — John Denver’s Country Roads… the neighbour said the revellers had been singing it over and over again.
Khun Weenus was so furious with their awful singing that he didn’t notice he’d murdered his own brother-in-law. (Thanks for letting my know, Richard.)
’Pong’s photos of the urban decay in Bangkok are much better than mine.
Everyone needs to know — you need to know — that the answer to all of the world’s problems is tub wan (ตับหวาน). I learned this after wide-ranging discussions in Bangkok with ’Pong’s friends. And about six bottles of whiskey. So it must be true.
Perhaps my Prediction number 6 for 2008 won’t come true. The wife of former Thai president Thaksin Shinawatra, returned to Bangkok yesterday and was immediately taken to the Supreme Court to face corruption charges. Pojaman Shinawatra, 51, was charged with using her husband’s influence to buy real estate at one-third its value. She was released on bail of 5 million baht ($171,400) and ordered not to leave the country.
OK, I’m meant to be clever, so here are my predictions for 2008. The Snarky Platypus didn’t help me with these, as we decided we had better things to do on New Year’s Eve (gin and tonic, for example). So blame me alone.
- The Joy of Chairman Rudd’s Iced VoVo Revolution will be dulled by the end of January when they take some stupid actions which demonstrate that they are, after all, politicians like all others. Actually, this has already happened with the announcement of mandatory Internet filtering by ISPs. I’ll write more about that soon.
- At least one member of the (former) Howard cabinet will be charged with a criminal offence over something they did in office. I’d like it to be Brendan Nelson, because that deal to buy $6 billion worth of Super Hornet fighter aircraft stinks — mostly because the air force doesn’t want them and the process was, erm, rushed to say the least. However I suspect it might be something to do with the AWB scandal.
- Channel 7 will continue to win the Australian TV ratings. Channel 9 will fail to reinvent itself now that its owned by an investment vehicle and not a media proprietor.
- Telstra will be forced to separate its wholesale and retail businesses. Meanwhile the Sol Trujilo-led management team will continue to play nasty with the government, causing them to be increasingly sidelined — especially over the Rudd government’s new broadband rollout.
- Barack Obama will win the US Presidential election. I know Hillary Clinton is currently the favourite, but I have the gut feeling that the Oprah factor will be important, and that Hillary’s dirty washing will be aired.
- When former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra returns from self-imposed exile on 14 February the new government, which is a coalition led by a Thaksin-supporting party, will somehow drop the corruption charges against him. Another military coup will follow.
- At least one Australian company will suffer a major leak of its customers’ private data, prompting new laws on dealing with such things (like they already have in California).
- We’ll finally figure out what the Storm Botnet, the world’s largest network of hacked computers, is for. My guess: whatever the hell the designer’s paying clients want it to be for.
You might also like to read the interesting predictions from The Australian (not really predictions, but obvious events following on from their news calendar), advertising agency JWT, Peter Black and Rachel Polanskis, and predictions about toy names for 2008.
What are your predictions for 2008? And how do you think mine rate?
’Pong’s movie Bangkok Express slices through the city at the height of the motorway. Yes, you can see urban decay, but it’s abstract, in the distance. The train slices the city differently: just above human eye level.
The photos I took from the train in Bangkok reminded me that a sign at Ashfield Station in Sydney has got it all wrong. That sign tells us that railway stations are for catching trains — and if I’m not catching a train right at that moment then I’m not welcome. I might be a terrorist. Move on, nothing to see here.
Bullshit.
When the Thai economy was booming in the early 1990s, construction started on a 60km high-speed elevated train and motorway link from central Bangkok to the international airport at Don Mueang. However when the currency collapsed in 1997-98, work was abandoned.
These stained concrete fragments (pictured) are all that remains of the Bangkok Elevated Road and Train System (BERTS) or Hopewell project. They line the old diesel-fuelled railway through northern Bangkok like a modernist Stonehenge.
For just one day in Thailand, we got out of the 10-million-person wonder that is Bangkok and headed East to Rayong. We had lunch with ’Pong’s parents. Over a mountain of ultra-fresh seafood and a bottle of rum, we watched this view. Need I say more?
In the Old City of Bangkok, on the afternoon of Wednesday 28 November 2007, this barber (pictured) gave me the best haircut I’ve ever had.
It wasn’t because I looked particularly handsome afterwards, though it was an improvement. It was the meticulous care and attention shown.
’Pong took the photo with a proper camera, not a telephone. He’s got a better eye than me, too, and he’s certainly captured the mood.
One of the most important differences between Bangkok and Sydney is that Bangkok isn’t full of arseholes. I’ve already mentioned that Skytrain security staff are helpful. Unlike CityRail’s. But it goes way beyond that…
In virtually every bar in Bangkok, you don’t pay for your drinks up front. You sit, you order your drinks, they go on your tab, you consume, you enjoy the company of your friends. And when you’re ready to leave, then you get the bill. In virtually every Australian bar, though, you pay for your drinks in cash at the time of serving, thank you very much.
In other words, Australian pubs operate under the assumption that you’re the kind of arsehole who’d leave without paying.
Something I didn’t see in Thailand, because we didn’t go to Chiang Mai, but worth mentioning. Thailand’s first worker-owned sex bar, fully compliant with local labour laws, has just celebrated its first birthday.
Leena Jangjanya (ลีนา จังจรรจา, pictured above) is the most beautiful, most sexy woman in all of Thailand.
She’s usually just called Leena Jang, and since she’s a candidate in Sunday’s Thai general election her posters are everywhere in Bangkok’s northern suburbs. There’s three versions, including one in her graduation robes (law) and one where she’s looking like a successful businesswoman in white. You can see them both below.
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