Uncle and Neice do Bangkok

When there a few people in a family who can't sit still, it's great when travellers' paths cross.

As I came back to Bangkok for the final leg of this two month stay in Thailand, my neice was also here on her stopping off point as she tripped off to Bali for her hols. We arranged to stay at the same hotel in Bangkok and met up on my arrival last night.

Had a nice dinner at the Metropolitan Hotel and then on to the Brown Sugar jazz club cum pub on Sarasin Road.

From the Met, we zig zagged across Bangkok trying to find a taxi driver who knew where we wanted to go.

Eventually we ended up in the lively Brown Sugar. During a conversation I got animated and started flailing my arms. I accidentally knocked my glass (Sprite!) and it ended up smashed on the floor.

We didn't hear that much music due to the lateness of our arrival and we realised it was time to leave when they turned all the lights out.

A late night but a good one.

DW
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Sweet Sue Cupcakes 2

Following my earlier post on Sweet Sue's cupcakes, take a look at the photo below and then go to this web site again: http://www.sweetsuecupcakes.blogspot.com/

Don't forget, if ever you're in Kuala Lumpur, you probably need to buy some of Sue's products.

On the screen of the laptop(!) is the word Acer ... attention to detail or what?!

Nice cakes.

DW

Burnley Promoted!

Fantastic Burnley have just beaten Sheffield United at Wembley and they are now a PREMIER League team.

Can you see how it's done Shearer?

Brilliant Owen Coyle's the man!

DW

Back the Losers why don't you?

I wrote in my Blog this morning about the FORMER Premier League football team Newcastle United and its latest manager. Well, I want to say how sick to death I am today. On the BBC there has been Shearer this and Shearer that. Shearer coy about his future. Shearer says we weren't good enough.

We KNOW you weren't good enough because you were relegated. Two other teams were relegated. More than that, what about the teams that achieved something. What about lauding managers like David Moyes at Everton and Martin O'Neill at Villa? Two great managers for whom I have huge amounts of time and respect.

Let's have an interview with Martin O'Neill. After all, even the late great Brian Clough was in awe of O'Neill's vocabulary and use of language. Unlike the burbling, erm, Alan, erm, Shearer, erm.

I really do despair at the agenda of these oafs at the BBC. Everyone loves an honest John but why do they want to ram the losing Newcastle United down our throats?

DW

Sweet Sue CupCakes

You've got to go here http://www.sweetsuecupcakes.blogspot.com/ and if ever you're in Kuala Lumpur, you probably need to buy some of Sue's products.

I am working with Sue this week and I have ordered a cake for later in the week and I will report back. They look fantastic.

Well done Sue, a new small business that deserves your support I think.

DW

Zapper!

If you are a fly or a mosquito or other such flying object, do NOT read on.

Forgot to tell you about the fantastic tennis racquet I saw in Chiang Rai the other week. Sitting in a massage parlour one evening, having my FEET massaged, we were all being bombarded by flies, mossies and the like. The man of the house came along with a tennis racquet and started wafting it about in my vicinity.

Suddenly, tzzzz! Then again, tzzzz! This tennis racquet was a zapper in disguise! Maybe through evolution flies have become familiar and unafraid of tennis racquets but zappers dressed up as tennis racquets seem to have them fooled.

I want one!

Then again, how about a tennis racquet shaped Swine Flu zapper!

You heard it first!

DW

Wemberlee, Wemberlee, Wemberleeeeee!

Apart from the FA Cup all domestic football issues have been settled, bar one: the final promotion place from the Championship to the Premier League.

Burnley is the team in my sights and many members of my family are wending their way to support that self same team at Wembley later today. Here's hoping their journey isn't in vain.

Under Owen Coyle, Burnley is a team transformed. I saw them at Turf Moor shortly before Coyle took over and then again about a year after he'd arrived and what a transformation.

Then there has been the Capital Punishment meted out this season. Now we are Daring to Dream: let's change places with Newcastle United, that grossly over bloated FORMER Premiership team.

I don't wish any teams' supporters any harm but that oaf Mike Ashley has tried to make many millions out of buying and selling a football club and I am happy to say it back fired on him catastrophically. I was also happy that Alan Shearer, surely the worst football pundit ever, has failed as a manager: the over bloated status bestowed on this man is too much to bear. Now we know Shearer is as clueless as a manager as he is as a pundit. Then again, reports are that he has been rewarded to the tune of £1 million for the eight games he has been in charge so he should worry.

DW

Time Zone

As you travel from one time zone to another and a mobile phone doesn't change the time properly and you KNOW that, make sure you know what you are doing when you use that phone to set the alarm to wake you in the morning

You wouldn't want, effectively, to wake up two hours early would you?

DW

Trousers

If you insist on wearing trousers you have owned for years and that you know have a slight tear near the back pocket, make sure the seam in the vital area is in tact.

Wouldn't want any embarrassment would you?

DW

Well done Sunderland

Another season of Premier League football at the Stadium of Light. Well done everyone.

How about mid table or better next season, though, eh?

DW


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Haway the lads!

Having lived in Sunderland for a few years and having supported the team flawlessly in that time, let me urge the Black Cats to play their hearts out today as they face Chelsea and the drop out of the Premier League.

Don't bodge it today and let the Magpies off the hook. If one of you goes down, let it be them.

DW


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Yoghurt pots

This has been bothering me for years but I have finally snapped: no reason, I just snapped!

Has anyone designed a yoghurt pot that doesn't involve the need for moebus strip mathematics to empty? Since I eat yoghurt from pots in many countries, I don't think so.

We will hear arguments to do with shipping, stacking, filling machines and so on but what about the consumer? Moreover, what about all of the yoghurt that inevitably gets lodged in all those crevices and left behind?

End of this rant.

DW




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Hotel Fodder

I am staying in a good hotel but having been living in hotels non stop since early April, I am in need of my own bed now. Still got around 10 more nights to go before I can crawl into that bed.

Let me show you where I am staying until tomorrow: in Bangkok and in a hotel I have not stayed in before: the swissotel Nai Lert Park on Wireless Road. You will see that it's set in a fantastic garden considering it is smack bang in the centre of the city.

Love the roots

Traveller's palm 

Waterfall 

Pool

DW

The BBC's Ethical Man

They've done it again, the good old BBC. They ran a series on BBC TV in the UK in which a reporter changed the way he and his family, living in London, were living. The car went, they insulated the loft and all the rest of it, to try to show us what it would be like to minimise our personal carbon foot prints.

So, having done that, they decided, as they usually do, that this programme had so much more to offer but that the UK was just too confined a space in which to operate. So, they send this reporter off, doubtless with a large and/or expensive team, to the USA for him to learn what it's like over there.

They are interviewing hippies who are lobbying Congress, hick farmers sitting on a train for 22 hours at a time as they travel to Florida from Chicago. They were delighted to meet the likes of Darryl Hanna on a train, too, as she was expressing her right to lower her own carbon foot print.

In other words, this reporter is doing NOTHING that he could not do in the UK. If I could I would withdraw my TV licence as I really do not support the way they dash off to the USA at the drop of a hat as they forget that the acronym BBC stands for BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation.

Clots!

DW

Coming to the end in Thailand

Thanks for the messages asking me where I am ... I've not been blogging so often and you are missing me! Aw, isn't that nice?

New Seminar

I am coming to the end of my two months in Thailand now. In about two hours I will begin my two day assignment here. Looking forward to it as it is one of the best chances I have had to run a seminar where the delegates really will be at the centre of their own world.

The seminar is on cash flow and working capital management. I have prepared everything on the assumption that the delegates are coming to talk about THEIR cash flow and THEIR working capital management problems. So that's what's going to happen.

Bridge Over the River Kwai

Such a beautiful setting and such a nasty piece of work. I went to the River Kwai for the first time on Monday and it's difficult, impossible for me, to walk through the museum of the death railway with feeling really sad for the men whose plight we cannot in any way empathise with. Moreover, revulsion at the people, yes people, who made our men and boys live and work in such conditions. Humans doing this to humans.

Anyway, here are two photos of me for your consumption: one of me on the iron bridge over the river and the other of me with one of the railorries they built: lorries converted into railway trucks.

Overall the trip I was on lasted a whole day, 13 hours from door to door and was a good experience: the cemetries are fantastic and a lasting tribute to the men of many nations who suffered so much.

 

The Future

From early June I will be spending a couple of weeks at home <gasp> and can hope, horrible word that, that I will put my photos and videos together in some semblance of order. Lots to see.

Moving to Thailand

I have been asked if I am thinking of moving to Thailand to live and the answer is yes, I have been thinking about it. Might still think about it. I will reflect on that over the next few months so let's see what happens.

Thanks again for the support I get via this blog and thanks for thinking about me!

DW

Al Rehab

I kid you not, the cafe in the foyer of the Intercontinental Hotel Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia is called Al Rehab.

Ironic considering Saudi is a dry country!

DW


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Burnley FC one step nearer ... and a top tip

Whilst Burnley FC were bounding through to the Championship play off final at Wembley in almost two weeks, I know someone who was patiently waiting in Saudi Arabia for the match to be screened live on the telly in his hotel room. Here's a top tip: don't wait for such a major event whilst you are tired with the television SWITCHED OFF. Otherwise you might find yourself waking up three hours later having missed the entire game. DW

Dream on

Burnley 1 Reading 0

Championship Play off 1st leg.

Good start.

Up The Clarets!!

DW


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Novotel at BKK? No!

Just spent a ghastly night at the Novotel at Suvarnabhumi Airport Bangkok.

Slept really badly.

Air conditioning unit as noisy as a 737 at take off. Switch off the unit and boil to death.

They increased the rate by 10% between saying yes to staying and having checked in. Then I found out it was room only. Add another 12%.

TV remote control packed in at 2300 just when I needed it most: when I was in bed.

All of this and I am a Novotel Gold card holder. Such benefits!

Told them I wouldn't stay there again.

DW


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Hello, we're from Florida

Ever lived in dread of hearing someone belching out the words, or something similar, in the title of this post?

It happened a couple of weeks ago as I was having breakfast in my hotel in Chiang Rai, Thailand. My partner Tar and I were the only two people in the restaurant when another couple arrived and sat themselves at the table next to ours.

We were eating and chatting and they were organising themselves.

Suddenly, out of the blue, "Hello, we're from Florida. Where are you from?" Well, for Tar it's a bit of a give away as she's definitely a Thai lady!!

I took the bait and responded. A simple conversation took place and it turns out that he's a dermatologist, plastic surgeon he said, from Florida and she's an investor in property in Florida. Quite wealthy between them I think.

I am sure these are good people and no better or worse than anyone else but I have to say I was surprised at a plastic surgeon having brought to the breakfast table a container into which he piled pieces of fruit and into another container bread and meat for their later consumption! Bit tight that with food in the Chiang Rai area being so cheap.

DW