AOB Nov&Dec 2004

The last two school holidays, Easter and Summer, I have taken my little guy down to Phuket for a week. Christmas was a toss up between staying in Thailand or coming to Whistler, BC. A white Christmas was a good choice.

Awful Tsunami hit Phuket, Aceh in Indonesia and much of the Indian Ocean. Alex's bar in Phuket was on the beach. It won't be there now. It is going to be a very hard and desperately sad new year for many people.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful day in Whistler today. Cold! But a stunning, cloudless blue sky. And with lots of new snow on the ground the resort is busy !

It was a day when a trip to Seventh Heaven would have been spectacular.

25 December 2004

It is Christmas Day and we have a white Christmas in Whistler; a little snow overnight and some more snow today. How appropriate!

Question of the day from my little guy:

"Dad, is Bethlehem more modern now? Are there some new hotels?"

The idea of being born in a barn worries him !

24 December - 4.40am

Jet lag is such a drag. The first night in Canada I slept well. Then was up all day yesterday. Went skiing; nothing too strenuous. Had a nice dinner. Went to bed about 11.30pm. And woke at 3am. And have been awake ever since.

It was a lovely sunny day at Whistler yesterday. They so need a bit more snow though. The slopes are getting icy.

I have to confess that I wish I had started skiing when I was younger. My parents had never been skiing. And in the UK when I was growing up skiing was a rather elitist activity. Now the European low cost airlines take people to the ski slopes for next to nothing.

But with snow all around; a blue sky, and a view that seems to go on forever there are few better places than on the hills at Whistler/Blackcomb.

And after Bangkok's heat and pollution just standing on the mountain and sucking in the air feels so good.

21 December 2004

I was on my way to the airport last night - and for once read the huge billboards along the way. It is amazing that advertising companies get paid large sums of money for company tag lines that make such little sense.

Chevrolet has a sign: "Chevrolet; we'll get there."

What does this mean? Get where? We'll go somewhere else. Very strange.

20 December 2004

Great start to a Monday morning - there was a lady in the elevator of Potash Towers this morning staring intently into the mirrored side of the elevator happily squeezing her zits....

18 December 2004

I don't know where the time goes. Have not been sleeping well but have also been too tired to write or too stare at the pc. Time for a holiday. Bit of a crisis; have not bought a single Christmas present yet.

But I did put the tree up at home!

9 December 2004

Au Bon Pain - the coffee shop at the ground floor of Chateau Potash - has its Christmas offerings in the store - alongside the Gingerbread Men and Christmas Tree cookies are American Flag cookies. What on earth has the US flag got to do with Christmas?

8 December 2004

Sorry this page has been quiet! I guess the TagBoard has taken over some of the more immediate comments.

And I was away in Hua Hin for four nights at the weekend.

Hua Hin is a nice quiet seaside town. At this time of year with cooler temperatures and sea breezes it is a very pleasant place to be.

The trip was spoiled by the journey back. Having booked at the hotel and paid them for a taxi to Bangkok I jumped in the taxi on Tuesday morning. We got as far as Cha-Am when the driver says that he needs to stop for gas and asks for money. But I already paid the hotel. He says the hotel had not paid him and that he has no money. So the only way we were going to move is by me paying another Baht 600 for gas.

I phoned the hotel to complain and was ritually passed from person to person. No one said sorry, no one said it is our mistake, and no one said this is how we are going to fix things.

It is not so much the money - it really is not that much. It is just being ripped off that bugs me.

1 December 2004

Watford 3 Portsmouth 0. Ok it is only the League Cup (Carling Cup). But it was a quarter final and it was another Premiership team.

It is 20 years since the glory days when Elton John and Graham Taylor ran Watford and a front line of Barnes, Blissett, Jenkins and Callaghan used to terrorise the then first division defences.

But the hornets are a two legged semi final away from the final and a possible Uefa Cup spot. Better still it is good money into the club! I may be a long way away but I still follow the club week after week.

30 November 2004

What is it about movie stars (and the rich and famous) that gives them the right to saddle their offspring with the most bizarre of names?

Julia Roberts ties to portray this leave me alone modestly. Well, she deliberately chose names for her twins that will get attention and derision. Phinnaeus (the boy) and Hazel.

I am very grateful that my parents were down to earth folk. Robert is just fine, thank you!

26 November 2004

Crisis - the penguin baseball link is now dead! Sorry. This used to be such good therapy ! I will try and find a replacement.

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Chateau Potash had a fire drill today. Totally unreal of course. We trudged down the fire stairs with all the lights on full, not emergency lighting. As you get to the lower floors the stairs narrow until you enter a long and narrow dark passage to the exit at the side of what could be a flaming building.

The car park had been closed off to allow the tenants to gather outside the building. W all went to our assigned tree. Each tree had a company name pinned to it !

Our messenger is the company fire marshall. That makes sense (not !!) - the one guy who should be out of the office for the majority of his time!

Meanwhile the building management was handing out iced tea. The mc was yelling away over a loudspeaker system especially set up for the event.

In a real fire we will not all be standing around outside the building and the car park will be fully occupied and there will not be company names on the trees.

Unreal !

23 November 2004

I bought the Live Aid DVD when I was in HKG at the weekend. I got it back to Bangkok and the fourth DVD was missing.

I wrote a grumpy note to HMV in Hong Kong and they phoned back immediately. They were very helpful and terribly apologetic for a problem that was not even of their making; the boxed set was shrink-wrapped, presumably by Warner Music.

So Brownie points to HMV - clearly in their words - Top Dog for Christmas.

20 November 2004

Stunning sunset as we fly out of Hong Kong on Dragonair's A330 outbound to Bangkok. Deep orange red sky.

The bad news is that they ration the red wine. One glass with the appetiser; and then nothing else offered - I had to beg for another glass of red wine - literally beg. This is KA's business class. Hardly.

19 November 2004

The weather in Beijing has been good all week. Unusually mild and mostly sunny. A little breeze this morning blew away the week's accumulated smog and left a stunning sunny day.

It is strange to think of Beijing as a breath of fresh air after Bangkok.

But I step out of the hotel in Beijing onto big, bright, wide walkways that are spotlessly clean. There is not a street vendor in sight. I don't have to navigate around illegal dvd vendors, the shoe repair man, assorted bbq, juice and fruit vendors, pavement potholes, and other pavement obstructions.

Yep - more KOK last night - is ever KOK girl in Beijing called Maggie ?!

Highlight of the night - a memorable duet of "Crocodile Rock."

16 November 2004

My loyal reader probably would like to know what I am doing in Beijing.

Picture this; dinner around a large round table in a private room. Great food and plenty of it. Good conversation among friends and business partners. Well translated.

But the highlight was thinking about what to drink next. There were four glasses in front of me. One filled with sweet drinking yoghurt, one with beer, one with red wine and one small glass refilled too often with white spirit.

Imagine all those mixed together and curdling around in your stomach !

This epic meal was followed by classy karaoke - yes there is such a thing ! The evening being ruined for anyone who had stayed up that late by my rendition of Robbie Williams' song "Better Man'.

13 November 2004

Onboard Thai Airways en route to Beijing. And as always with this flight I am major league grumpy before I even get on the plane.

Another 30 minutes of sitting on the ground in stifling heat without air conditioning means that this flight is beyond redemption.

Check in is fast. Although with typical Thai logic taxis are now only allowed to stop at the far end of Terminal One which is the opposite end from where Thai Airways (the major carrier out of T1) has its check in desks.

The shopping mall is crowded. The lounge has newspapers from everywhere except Thailand.

We are off to Gate 5 and a bus to take us out to the waiting 747-300. Forget priority boarding; it is simply a scrum to get through the gate and onto the bus. Sitting there and waiting is a good choice. It is a shambles.

And then we lose some passengers and have to sit on the tarmac for another thirty minutes.

After that it is the usual Thai; friendly enough crew let down by delapidated equipment. The Penfolds Bin 407 would be a saviour but I have to work later ! So show great self restraint.

9 November 2004

Former Liverpool and England captain Emlyn Hughes died from cancer today - he was only 57.

He led Liverpool to European Cup wins in 1977 and 1978. Managed by Bill Shankly that was one of the great footballing teams.

A really honest professional footballer who gave his all to everything he did.

8 November 2004

In a taxi to Emporium today; the driver is sniffing and snorting; he opens the door as we sit in a Bangkok traffic jam, and expels the contents of his nose onto Rama IV.

Gross.

6 November 2004

Weirdest game of golf today ! The nine best holes were played in 3 under par; including a very decent eagle 3 on the par 5 ninth. The other 9 holes were played in 26 over par including an 8 on a par 3 and two quadruple bogies !

Fortunately the weather was stunning, the company was good and the course was in great shape; much better shape than my golf game !

1 November 2004

Another month gone. I have been in Pattaya the last few days; in part for work and then over the weekend playing a golf tournament at Green Valley in Rayong.

Pattaya is the craziest place. Beach Road has road works everywhere. The bars are packed at the weekend. The Marriott hotel is a wonderful oasis in the middle of the mayhem. Well run, comfortable and with lovely lush gardens around the pool. Access from the hotel to the mall means you can miss the worst of Pattaya's excesses should you want to !

The sea breezes keep the town cool (relatively). There was a wonderful sunset on Saturday.

Pattaya is enjoying something of a boom. And my guess is that this will continue. When the new airport opens (2006 sometime is likely) Pattaya will only be a one hour drive from the airport. There is already talk of a fast rail link. An article in the Bangkok Post today estimated that property prices (for quality properties) might increase from 20%-30% next year.