Archive for July, 2009

It’s understandable if you are Jenson Button; sackfuls of cash, a supply of beautiful girlfriends, and the fastest cars in the world at your disposal.

But what if you are Dean? Hard-working engineer, not only capable of doing up his own shoe laces…

…but intelligent enough to earn a reasonable salary and live well in Thailand. What makes him donate a substantial portion of his salary to the maintenance of a racing car which he will only drive for a few weekends every year?

I’ve owned racing cars and I know how it feels. On one hand there is the black hole into which you throw cash to keep the beast in running order and looking pretty.

On the other hand there is that hollow feeling you get in your stomach before an event when you wish you had taken up flower arranging instead.

No, no, I don’t want to drive, get me out of here!

Maybe the answer is the adrenaline rush, maybe it is the thrill of competition; or maybe, just maybe, it is the pit girls.

I have several more photos of Dean driving his car, I also have several more photos of pit girls. Click below to find out which I decided to post (hint: not the car). More >

Phone call from she who must be obeyed this morning. She is on the way to work and wants to know if I am interested in photographing a homeless man. Naturally, I need to know more; she is happy to oblige.

“He is at the junction of Theppasit and Theppraya every morning. He has his belongings in plastic bags. Lots of plastic bags. Like if we have had a big shop at Carrefour. And each is tied tight at the top. He has a plastic water bottle which he pretends to play like a musical instrument in the middle of the road. Then he jumps around and dances a lot”.

pause.

“I think he’s Italian”.

My wife is extremely perceptive. Although I would have guessed French.

A degree of incredulity regarding my proposal in the previous post to pick up a brush and paint. A couple of reasons, the first being the alternative.

It is true that for not a lot of money you can employ workers to slap some paint over any surface in brush range. But the hassle factor is very high. You can’t just go away and do something else while they are “working”, you need to be around to ensure they are not painting the wrong room with the wrong colour, or stealing anything that is not nailed down (and if they happen to have a claw hammer in their feeble collection of damaged tools, being nailed down is no obstacle to theft).

The entire extended family will arrive to “help”. Last week I had a toddler beating out a tune on my polished furniture with a metal set-square, at which point I was meant to smile and tolerate the local culture, rather than drop-kicking the little shit over the balcony.

There will be hassles, there will be errors, and the end result will never be something you can admire as a fine example of artisanship by craftsman whose skills have been honed over generations. What you get is something produced by an occasionally sober farmer with a squint and a hammer.

The second reason is not so obvious and only dawned on me yesterday as I found a certain peace; perched on a ladder, spotted with paint. I haven’t done this for years and I rather enjoy it.

The last house I owned was in Aberdeen. It was next to the sea which was very pleasant, but therefore required external painting with marine paint every year, which was not so pleasant. But I rather enjoyed the process and there was satisfaction in standing back and finding a small part of one window which I had not smeared with paint, from which the family could watch a gathering storm.

Then I left Aberdeen and for the next twenty years or so I moved to various places around the world where I lived in accommodation either owned by the company or rented by the company for me to live in. Which meant that any form of home improvement was not an option. There is an upside to this of course. Living in one place for 3-4 years is just enough time, provided you live carelessly and have a lot of parties, some of which include indoor fireworks which are meant to be outdoor fireworks, to reduce your home to uninhabitable rubble. Then you move on and start all over again in another unsuspecting property.

My last posting was in Bangkok where I initially lived in a 300+ square metre monster apartment with appalling furnishing. I fought back by installing a Persian cat which systematically destroyed the mosquito screen doors by launching itself at them and then hanging there like a Garfield toy on a car window until they collapsed. I also installed a girlfriend whose contribution was to spill a full bottle of nail varnish remover across the top of a rather nice (up to that point) 3 metre polished wood dining table.

After the Persian cat experimented with jumping off the 21st storey balcony to see if if could fly (it couldn’t), and the girlfriend experimented with giving me hell for months to see if our relationship could continue to fly (it couldn’t), I moved to a very smart, brand new pad in All Seasons Place for a couple of years.

During this time I bought my current condo. It was new and bare. No flooring, no aircon, no nothing. With an extremely competent Pattaya-based manager from Finland, I wrote cheques while a motley collection of labourers fixed, broke and then fixed again until I had the semblance of somewhere I could move into once I finished work in Bangkok.

That was about seven years ago, which is why we are now getting into the cycle of needing to refurbish, and why I feel the need to wield a brush again after twenty five years free from trying to get the paint out of my hair.

And so yesterday I painted. For about five hours straight. Then I read the tin and it said I could apply a second coat after allowing four hours drying time. So I had some noodles and then launched into a second coat for another four hours. Then I had a large meal, two beers, and a very good night’s sleep.

Still some finishing off work to do this morning, but it all looks very smart; the colour is a richer green than portrayed by the camera, a good selection by she who must be obeyed.

The computer room now awaits the delivery of the furniture, the installation of which will no doubt wreck much of my good work. The focus now moves to the bedroom which is a bit more challenging and will probably keep me busy for the next three days. After which I expect I will have had enough of being a handyman and will go into DIY hibernation for the next twenty five years. Anybody want to buy a brush?