Diana outside the restaurant, the road was pretty quite,
if you are coming from Pattaya and look back and see this sign you have passed it!
nice view of the sea, over the past few weeks city hall has been carrying on an aggressive tree punning program, in some places you could not see the sea, but here now all is well, we normally have a chat about what we are going to do for the rest of the day/evening, but today our attention was taken by the local police, basically beach vendors who supply tables and chairs on the beach rent their space on the sand from city hall and supply anyone sitting there with food and drink, but then vendors who do not rent space walk up and down on the sand selling shrimps, ice cream, sunglasses etc, but do not pay city hall, so if the police catch them on the sand they are fined and their goods confiscated, but, if they make it to the land side of beach road they can not be arrested,
well some one must have complained about the vendors, police on bikes continued past us non-stop through the meal, one stopped just past the Opal, the officers dismounted and separated to close in, but the vendors spotted them so it was a race to the road, in this case police 0 - vendors 6, when we finished our meal and started to return to Pattaya another 6 bike loads of police started out to join their colleagues, as I said some 26 years when watching this then, the easy way would be to license the individual vendors and give them a city hall vest and ID card, that way the numbers could be controlled and not have tourists being pestered by so many vendors, then random checks in case it is a false vest, which also means more revenue to city hall, but there must be a flaw in my plan as it has never happened,
on to the food, I normally have a prawn cocktail, but they do not sell them here, so I settled for a prawn salad the reason being the lettuce and tomatoes must be doing me some good, not sure about the sauce though! Diana had a spaghetti bolognese, soda for me, ice coffee for Diana 285 baht, good food and a clean place,
then off to Friendship for a bit of shopping, prices have been going up and the strong baht does not help, I forgot to mention when I first got back to the UK I sent my years money over to qualify for my retirement visa, not as good as last year as the rate was 55 baht to the £, last year 61, but down to immigration on Tuesday, left my passport and paid for a multiple entry visa, only one person in front of me and picked it up on Wednesday all done and dusted,
then off to buy the top Diana saw the previous evening and pick up the evening meal of soup,
again quite busy here,
some boiled sweet corn for later in the evening,
and a few bananas for desert, then a bit of TV till Mike and Riza called round for a drink and a chat, in the background we watched Futtocks End starring Ronnie Barker, after we watched a bit of Planet Earth, there is still some of it I have not seen, the photography is stunning especially in HD, after Mike and Riza left we watched the first 3 episodes of Quatermass and the Pit, when Jil and Epril were here we started to watch it but did not get past the first couple of episode, but as a kid I remember watching it in the late 50's really scary! it was famously said that the pubs emptied when 'Quatermass and the Pit' came on, the final episode attracted 11 million viewers, one of the highest viewing figures of the decade.
8 comments:
Great blog, Stan - keep up the good work.
Interesting what you say about 'Quatermass and the Pit' clearing the UK public houses during it's heyday. There have been a few TV programmes with this pulling power.
I am a great Tony Hancock fan, and 'Hancock's Half Hour' used to regularly 'empty the pubs', with at it's peak, almost a third of the population watching!
It was even said that a general election of the time, had it's polling-day date changed by the PM of the time (Macmillan?, Eden?, Douglas-Home? not sure which one) as they were concerned of low voting numbers, due to HHH being on the TV at the same time!
We must remember though, only 2 or 3 TV channels to choose from in those days, and no videos/ DVD's etc.
Are you a Tony Hancock fan, Stan?
Dear Anonymous, we watched the last part Quatermass last night, we finished about 2 in the morning! I remember 'Handcocks Half Hour' it always made me laugh the blood donor sketch especially where he says something like, "you want a pint? but that's a whole armful" for me it was 'Steptoe and Son' I am not sure about which of the two comedy shows were rated higher and all in black and white! those were the days! best regards, Stan and Diana.
.. and interesting to note, both HHH and Steptoe, were both written by the same writers : Galton & Simpson.
Talented guys!
Dear Anonymous, I am trying to think of a moderen day great team, but nobody really springs to mind, best regards, Stan and Diana.
I guess the one recent pairing (and even this isn't that recent!), would be Ben Elton & Richard Curtis of Blackadder fame.
I wasn't a great fan of The Young Ones (too crude at times); but the Blackadder series, I thought was genius.
Dear Anonymous, how about Bottom? just out of interest last night we watched the first episode of the first series "I Didn't Know You Cared" for me great fun, Diana laughed a few times but I think it might take her a bit of time to get use to the characters, it was written by Peter Tinniswood, I will be putting it on the blog later, best regards Stan and Diana.
Ah, yes .. "I Didn't Know You Cared", I vaguely remember this programme.
Wasn't there an old Uncle, with a catchphrase, "I heard that! Pardon?") and always appeared with the ashes of one of his comrades from World War I - in a box around his neck!
Very Funny ..
Dear Anonymous, yes, it was Stavley, in the first episode the buns from Uncle Mort's wife's funeral are severed up in the box of ashes that his best friend’s ashes are in, great fun! best regards, Stan and Diana.
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