Off to a wedding in the north of the country tomorrow and then three nights in a very smart hotel in Bangkok to relax with she who must be obeyed and watch the fireworks on the river for New Year.
No camera, no computer, no postings. Byeee, see you in 2009.
When I was a young lad my parents bought me a Scalextric set for Xmas. I was pleased, and so was my father, and we spent the morning playing with it. More precisely, we spent around 45 minutes of the morning playing with it before one car started smoking and both controllers failed. Rather took the shine off Xmas; but it was better than the bloody cardigan my aunt sent me.
It’s the same every year, millions of electronic gadgets are thrust into eager, grabbing hands on Xmas morning; and a fair percentage of them are junk before lunchtime. After the holidays there is a rush to the shops and service centres to complain that little Timmy’s toy should not have stopped bleeping, and Uncle Marty only spilled a small amount of cheap sherry into the workings.
It was with this in mind that I decided to take some photographic gear to Canon in Bangkok today, before they are swamped with the inevitable boxes of buggered gear that are given as presents for New Year.
First, a cultural note. Thais do not celebrate Xmas. It is not a public holiday. Of course this has not stopped the fake snow, the cardboard sleigh and reindeer, the bloody awful songs, and all the other commercial trappings; but this has been morphed into linking with New Year when Thais do give each other presents (even though the real Thai new year is in April). After several years of working on Xmas day, I have rather given up on the whole occasion. And with she who must be obeyed in the office today, it seemed as good a day as any to venture to the Canon service centre in Bangkok.
The reason for my trip was to present them with the camera gear that had been in my car on the day it barrel-rolled down the highway. One lens had since refused to produce sharp images, and the other had produced photos that looked like this:
Well, you might say,, not a great photo, rather poor composition, but you can’t blame the lens for that Mr. Spike. Look closer. The man’s face is in focus, but as you move down his body, it goes out of focus; but the leg of the man standing behind him is in focus. Something is wrong here.
After many test shots and much pondering, I discovered that a piece of metal where the lens attaches to the body was slightly distorted, putting the lens at a slight angle and producing these strange effects. Using my favourite precision instrument (a hammer), I reduced the distortion; but thought it best to let Canon check it over properly (they will probably use a Canon certified hammer). And I also gave them the camera body to check out; seems to have survived the impact OK, but you never know.
So I marched into the Canon service centre and emptied the contents of my camera bag onto the counter. “Two months ago I brought this lens to you for calibration”, was my opening sentence, and you could see them shrinking back; another crazy foreigner who is going to bitch and complain. “And then on the way back home from Bangkok, I did this to my car”, and I showed them a photo of the wreckage as they considered whether this story was going somewhere or if I was just mad.
Once they had ascertained that I just wanted the gear checking as a result of the accident and I was prepared to pay for them to do it, they came over all efficient. Whether they will be efficient enough to finish the work before they close for the new year holidays next week remains to be seen.
Drove home over the road where I had had my mega-crash. It was a strange feeling and a little disquieting. Went for a not at all festive Japanese dinner with she who must be obeyed. Now I think I will have a Christmas drink and find something electronic to spill it over. Some traditions must be maintained. Cheers!
Wandered out to the nearby store for a bottle of milk this morning, to discover Santa Claus dancing and singing on the pavement. He was singing that traditional Xmas favourite “I am from Russia and I am drinking vodka with my friends”.
His “friends” were bemused bike boys who were tolerating him whilst making short work of his bottle of vodka. They would then spend the rest of the day ferrying tourists to and from the beach on the back of their bikes. Someone would be spending Xmas day in hospital.
(apologies for the photo, into the sun with a phone camera)
So what stunt could Jimmy do for Xmas?
Dressing up as Father Christmas is just too damn obvious. Motorising a Christmas tree was too much of a challenge. Draping the bike in fairy lights was too gay.
So the obvious solution was to soak the back tyre and surrounding area in petrol, light it, and then spin the wheel. Very festive, if you were celebrating the anniversary of fire worshippers.
Luckily, yours truly came to the rescue. We had been walking past Toys R’ Us and they were demonstrating a bubble machine which looked cool and we were sure would delight the cats. It didn’t, they were terrified. So I took it down to the track in search of problem needing a solution, and voilà, a festive scene featuring a slightly mad Jimmy, a bike that is almost on fire, an out of control petrol fire; and bubbles!!
And if you take a lot of drugs and narrow your eyes, the flames are in the shape of an Xmas tree; is that festive, or what? So if you happen to celebrate Xmas, have a good one and best wishes from Spike and she who must be obeyed (who has to work on Xmas day; hah!).
Finally found out the name of the new bike babe, Khun Narin for those who like to put names to faces. And her phone number is…… Read more…
Back to Bira and some more shots of the new biker babe. Read more…
After missing the last event, I drag my buggered back down to Bira for another Highside Tours session. The lovely, but completely self-obsessed, Deuan has gone; to replaced by another young lady whose name I have forgotten, but who photographs rather well.
There are plans for cunning Xmas stunts and, if you are good, more photos and the name of the new female member of the crew. Watch this space.
An unfortunate combination of grammar and punctuation provides this Thai magazine with an eye-catching front cover:
Seen at The Bangkok Bugle.
In a previous life I worked and lived existed in Brunei; possibly the most boring country on the planet. There is little to do, unless you make your own entertainment. So I windsurfed and biked and formed PALMS (Panaga Awfully Loud Music Society).
Panaga was where we lived, a camp of sorts with reasonable housing close to the beach. The official justification for PALMS was that it was a select gathering of individuals who would meet on a regular basis to play and discuss good music. “Good” in this instance was anything that me and my co-founder Rene considered acceptable. The real reason for PALMS was an excuse to throw a nominated wife out of the house for the evening, drink too much beer and junk food, and discuss the attractive women in the office. We played music too of course, taking it in turns to play a track, at ever increasing volumes as the evening grew longer and the beer supplies grew shorter. At the end of each offering there would cries of “good choice brother” or “load of bollocks”; the level of critique was indeed impressive.
From time to time we would have theme nights with titles such as “Female singers whose music we like and would want have sex with” (the theme title was abbreviated to the first two words for official publication to wives). One night the theme was “your personal top twenty”, which had all of us pouring over our collections for weeks in advance, trying to perfect our list. I can’t remember my complete list, but I do recall that it included Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley.
Hallelujah was written by Leonard Cohen, the croaking poet composer of many classics. Sometimes his lyrics are fairly straightforward, such as:
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
and stuff it up the hole in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother:
it is murder.The Future – Leonard Cohen – lyrics reproduced without permission
Actually, I am not sure what that means, but it sounds good.
Hallelujah is more dense. Based around stories from the old testament, it’s about sex and death and sado-masochism, spirituality and, apparently, orgasm. If you’re going to sing it, sing it with feeling and some interpretation of the words. Of all the offerings, Jeff Buckley’s yearning, haunting voice seems to suit the song best and is regarded by many, including me, as the definitive version. Screw with this classic at your peril.
And now someone has. I get a mail from an acquaintance, who never fails to inadvertently wind me up, raving about some woman who has won a UK TV talent competition called the X-Factor. In the final she sung, or should I say destroyed, Hallelujah, turning it into a gospel/pop shout with an unnecessary key change and zero emotional input. My acquaintance feels that emotion is conveyed by bawling out the words and crying a lot, I think it’s just a karaoke display from yet another publicity-enhanced product of Simon Cowell’s money making machine.
Simmering, I listen to Buckley’s version again, and wished those who voted for the X-Factor junk could hear the real thing.
Then I discover that there are others who feel the same. 126,334 others as of this morning, all members of a Facebook group dedicated to getting the Buckley version up the charts for Xmas. Won’t displace the X-factor selling machine, but number 2 is a possibility; and it will remind the world how this song should be sung.
If you would like to hear he magic of Mr. Buckley, go here.
If you would like to hear the karaoke krap X-Factor version, go here. (Link removed by the taste police).
It’s hard to describe my passion for football. To say I would rather have a hedgehog stuffed up my backside while sumo wrestlers dance on my nipples, than watch a football match; does not do sufficient justice to my level of disdain for the game.
But, there is a beach tournament underway on Jomtien beach, so I had to go and point a camera at it. Players were all ages and sizes. The German goalie was particularly bulky, and the Norwegian’s star player was half the size of everyone else (and a quarter of the size of the German goalie). Read more…