The Fountain

The fountains today ... macro lens, hot off the press.

Oh! Here's an Oleander Hawk Moth caterpillar ... that was BIG!

DW

9.2 out of 10

I have just been browsing to see how my latest book, The Bookkeeping and Accounting Coach, is doing. I have no idea how many copies have been sold but it is very widely available, world wide.

On one site, it shows reviews of 9.2 out of 10 after 10 reviews. I couldn't see any of the reviews but 9.2 is very good!

DW

The Bird and The Snake

You know already that someone broke into our house on Friday: unpleasant and unsettling.

On Wednesday I was working in my office when a small bird flew in and sat looking at me. I flapped my hand a little to try to encourage the bird to leave but it wouldn't. I stood up, grabbed a cushion and moved to try to encourage the bird to leave. It left. No stress. No harm. I closed the window.

Thursday, I was standing next to our fountain in the front garden when I noticed a metre long, slender snake on the ground next to me. Yikes! It moved. Yikes! In the end, after a short spell during which the snake and Ginger the cat sparred, I used a stick to help me to release the snake.

Friday, the snake came back. I was working on the advice of my son Andrew who said, never harm a snake. After a tussle, I got the snake out of the garden unharmed.

If you believe in omens, here are two. Feel free to interpret them!

DW

The Break in at No 125

Last night Namwan and I were both sitting on the kitchen patio surfing the web as our WiFi system is down and we get a good connection on the phones on the patio. Namwan had to go to the bedroom for something and as she opened the door, she was confronted by a strange man: someone had just walked into our house and had been wandering around. Namwan ran away immediately, sensible girl and shouted to me, My dear, someone’s broken into our house. At this stage I didn’t know what had happened so I ran into the house, Namwan had run outside to alert her parents and sisters and I armed myself and went in search of the burglar. I didn’t find him: he had run into the bedroom and opened and jumped out of a window. Was I ready to belt him with my metal shafted spade, I don’t know! I asked Namwan why she thought we had had a burglar when nothing seems to have gone missing and she explained that she had been two feet away from the small man in a green tee shirt. She had met him! Well, lots of milling around and I took off in the car to look for him … what and who I was looking for I had no idea! I found no one. A while later someone said that there were four young men on two motorbikes who had been interested in our house just before Namwan found the burglar. Then a little while later they came back: one motorbike with two or three men on it rode slowly past the house again but I was not there to chase them or I would have! We went to the next village along to see if there were people there who might have seen or heard about the likely lads … nothing and no one about. We bumped into Namwan’s brother in the village and she went and talked to him. In the meantime I said, although mother and sister are at home, I don’t like it that our phones and my laptop are on the settee and our front door is unlocked. I went back and tidied up! As I was returning to the village I spotted lights approaching through the trees so I stopped the car, left the engine running, turned out the lights and waited. A car went past, I turned my face to remain anonymous. Then a motor bike. The bike beeped its horn twice: a warning to the car driver that he had spotted me? After all, they had been to my house and must recognise the car! I let them go for 5 … 10 seconds then turned round and followed them. I spotted them at the far side of the village and increased my speed enormously to make sure I didn’t lose them: car in front, bike behind. Suddenly I was on them: I was going so fast and the bike was in the middle of the road that I had to slam on the brakes to avoid the possibility of running them over … much as I might have felt that that might not be such a bad thing! The tyres squealed, the boys must have been terrified! I easily kept up with the bike: light blue football shirt with number 13 in pillion position and a dark green tee shirt driving. I was making so sure that nothing bad happened that I didn’t make a note of their number plate! Then something flew off the bike and landed on the road in front of me. Something small and brown … they slowed a little and indicated left. I slowed and let them pull away a little as I knew I could catch them on the open road at any time. They stopped about 200 metres ahead of me and their car turned round to face me as I turned round to see what they had thrown or dropped. It took me about 10 seconds to find a baseball cap in the road … brown … small. I took it and drove off. I went back to the village where Namwan was and told her about the cap I was holding and football shirt number 13. By now everyone seemed to have worked out who these loafers were and a little later an uncle called the police who said they didn’t recognise the name they had been given but would check in the morning. I said I want to go and talk to the boy … Namwan said her brother and others would do that, if not the police! So we all milled around a bit more and as the loafers realised that I had got some evidence against them, they were probably not feeling so smart. However, at some stage in the evening, someone had met the boys and they had talked about going somewhere to pick up a knife or a gun! Scary stuff. Thailand is a peaceful place and when someone does something like this, the whole community gets involved. No one likes this kind of thing even though we think nothing was stolen and no one got hurt. I was happy to have found and chased them and to have given them pause for thought. I just hope it all ends here! DW

Kitchen Towel Mayhem

This is what happens when a young dog and a young cat are left alone with some paper towels ...

UPDATE

They did it again last night: half a roll but much more mess. Then I left them alone to drink my coffee and eat my yoghurt only for Namwan to come and tell me 10 eggs had crashed mysteriously to the floor.

It turns out Pongo chased and killed a chicken the other day ... crikey! She's a Beagle and that habit can't be broken I think.

DW

space ... there's nothing to it

I read yesterday about a space craft flying four billion miles in ten years to rendezvous with a comet. Here are my thoughts on that.

forgive the typo in that second screenshot.

DW

Cambridge 2

More Cambridge photos ...

DW

Cambridge

Cambridge is a very photogenic city ... take a look.

DW

Fran: the wedding

Daughter Fran got married on Saturday ...

DW

Oi! Oi!

Some people just don't see the world around them do they?

There I was posing and that old man just stuttered past.

DW

Luanda Done!

In the airport waiting to leave Angola where I have had a good week. I couldn't take many snaps but here are some.

DW

In flight snaps

The usual snaps!

DW

Buriramtastic: the video

Here is one of the videos I made of the Buriram v TOT CAT match the other day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2TahzeqdQ&feature=youtu.be DW

Buriramtastic

I think the level of football is about English league 1 but the atmosphere was equal to the premiership. Organised singing that goes on for beyond 90 minutes.  We left at full time but the choir stayed and carried on singing.

Three decent goals but the opposition was very weak. Two goals were lobs. The second lob almost from the half way line that the keeper had covered.  The ball floated for a long time and as it was about to land in the keeper's arms, the poor lad slipped. 3: 0! The first lob was done really well.

I don't know any of the players but my man of the match turned out to be an Englishman: Jay Simpson. Well done!

Can you spot the ball in photo three?

DW

From Manaus to Buri Ram

Look at this! Find it on a map.

England Unwin

Here i am watching England about to lose to Italy in Manaus.

DW

Doha Airport

Doha Airport has been like a zoo for years. Until now.

After so many trips in which I thought, why do I need this. Moreover, why did we put up with it?

I suppose we were just waiting.

Well, it's definitely better and these few snaps give just a hint of what they have done.

Ginger as I live and Breathe

As I was walking through In Battuta Mall yesterday I saw a cat that looked like a fully grown version of our own Ginger. She saw me taking her photo and immediately came to me to say hello!

Nice!!

DW

Visa ... NO!

I have been swanning around for decades and whilst i have not been everywhere, I have travelled extensively.

I came to Bangkok almost a week ago to get a visa to enable me to go to work in SA.

I did everything and presented it to the agent. The visa agent presented my application to the relevant consulate.

Cut a long story short, they refused me a visa.

No reason. No explanation. No help.

That has never happened to me before. I have had many visas for SA before. Many.

I had three jobs lined up for SA this year ... all evaporated now.

DW

Don't you Just ...

So, your car is ready, parked properly and next to a wall. That wall is about three quarters of a door's width away from the car. You noticed that.

You open the door and make sure you don't hit the wall with it. You make sure the door stops moving in the middle open position.

Don't you just hate it when you do all of that and then crunch, the door decides of its own free will to open fully and as it tries to do that, of course it hits the wall.

Another small chip in the paint work ><

DW

Thailand Coup

I am a guest in Thailand and i am happy to be here.

I have lived in a wide range of countries and although i have lived in a war zone and in unstable countries, i have never lived under curfew before or in a country that is undergoing a coup.

I am happy to say that all i have seen is peaceful people leading peaceful lives even though virtually all power is now in the hands of the military.

I saw the motivation for a coup after months of political paralysis at the hands of people with various motivations.

Thailand relies on tourism to a great extent and i really hope this business does not suffer. Bangkok is the centre of attention and will remain so. The rest of the country should remain calm and relatively free.

Thailand has undergone many military interventions and i hppe no one is killed here and that life can go on as normally as possible.

My long range photo shows soldiers around the MBK Centre, Bangkok.

DW

head in head!

I did this ... using some of the features of Photoshop!

DW

hot dog?

i can across this the other day!

DW

legs alive!

it's Bangkok. it's an hour and a half until curfew time. it's foot massage time!!

DW

Pongo at Three and a Half Months

here she is ...

DW

Bookkeeping Coach Book

These are the links you need from Hodder, the publisher; and amazon, a bookseller, to help you to buy the book!

https://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781471801587 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bookkeeping-Accounting-Coach-Yourself/dp/1471801586/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1399766934&sr=8-16&keywords=Duncan+williamson

I would love your feedback on this book as and when you have bought and read it.

DW

Bookkeeping Book

my latest book has been published now:

Natwest Bank: sack him

I have to say that I find the level of service and competence of the online and business teams is well below what anyone needs. I don't suppose I am alone in receiving consistently dire service.

My conclusion is that these people need a lot of training and whoever is at the head of these teams probably has no idea of what is happening and should resign.

DW

Natwest Bank: why bother?

Twice in the last year Natwest Bank has caused me problems with international payments. Now there's a new one.

Case 1 was investigated by the complaints department and ended with their report containing outright lies from a business team member. I responded to them, they did not reply.

Case 2 cost me money as they made a big mess, transferred weeks later than planned and effectively stole money from me. I lost a business opportunity too that probably cost me £2,000. I talked to Imran about this two weeks or so ago. In the end he essentially called me a liar. I told him I had documented the whole process, which I have. He told me three times that he can find no evidence for what I was telling him. As usual, rather than listening, he tried to talk over me and said things that just weren't true.

Case 3 NEW! A waiter snapped my debit card. A few days later and my credit card chip failed. After going through umpteen people, all with varying degrees of competence and listening ability I was told they could not make an urgent transfer to me because of "all the bank holidays in your region". I asked, what bank holidays? I got back on the phone to them and they then promised to make the transfer immediately. I told my wife, just watch: I think I have just been fobbed off. No immediate transfer made. There IS a bank holiday here, on Monday 5th May ... six days after I made my urgent transfer request. But guess what, the date they gave me for the arrival of my money? 5th May ... just when I can't get it. I am about to check my account again now but I am not holding my breath.

Another Satisfied Visitor

Bora wrote to me last week and asked for my Excellent help. I responded by saying, ok, I can do this on Monday. She replied to say, Wow! I didn't expect you to reply!!

It was an interesting problem: a database with over 41000 rows needs to be interrogated using four variables. I offered two separate solutions: use and sort on an Excel Table and use SUMIFS()

Both solutions worked a treat and Bora was delighted I am happy to say.

Good stuff!

Duncan Williamson

Froggie. You could have looked the other way!

Froggie was just sitting there as I had a peepee. Didn't see him until I had finished!

UPDATE 24th April 2014 ... I found Froggie on the floor in the dining room this morning. He looked very unwell but not dead. Within an hour or so he had died. He dried out very quickly.

This is the second frog to take up residence in the toilet. We caught and evicted the first one!

I have forgotten what I was going to say!

I came here to talk about something specific but got sidetracked for a while. now I cannot remember what my topic was!!! ok! Istanbul. Siri and I went there this week: I was working there. nice city. easy to get around. very busy city. lots to see and do. my work went well, too! I will remember my topic soon!! DW