We Decided To Go To Jomtien to Meet Mike and Riza For A Late Lunch/Early Breakfast,

so we went to Saloto,

it is about 200 meters past the Boathouse,

looking across the road from the restaurant,

towards Sattahip,

and towards Pattaya, a nice menu with as usual lots of pictures,

and as a surprise the prawn salad looked better in real life than it did in the picture, 100 baht, I decided not to have the sauce, part of the diet! Mike had a full English breakfast, whilst Riza the American and Diana rice prawns and asparagus,

Riza and Diana said Mike looked so sweet as he held the sauce basket!

eyes down and tuck in!

after the food all smiles from the girls,

we decided to spend the afternoon on the beach, the sea was rough to say the least with a strong breeze blowing all afternoon,

Diana decided to have a paddle, but got soaked by the next wave, I said she should have brought her swimming costume!

but all dry and warm now with a fresh coconut to drink,

Mike had a foot massage on the beach, then decided to change chairs so he would be near the table, forgetting about the bamboo chair at Tom's, he sat in this one, after an ominous 'crack!' as his butt hit the sand and the people on the next table burst out in laughter we all knew he had done it again! rotten wood you see, the beach although it was Sunday seemed pretty quite, although in truth we were aways along it, but the downside is whist the beach was low on tourists it more than made up for it with people selling goods and food,

some times I go past the Eden, to look at this, I swear every time I go past this eclectic pole is leaning a few degrees further over the road, in fact looking at the photo it does not look so bad, but when drive the other way I always feel sure I am going to hit my head on it if I get to close or it is going to fall on me as I go past!

after Mike and Riza left it was feet up to watch a couple of DVD's, first staring one of my favorite UK born actors Charles Laughton in 'The Hunchback Of Notre Dame' as many critics have said it did not do so well in the Oscars as 1939 was by all accounts a bumper year for movie releases, it was in competition with such titles as Gone With The Wind, The Wizard Of Oz, Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Of Mice And Men, for a fuller list look here,

and then for some thing completely different, Brazil, a futuristic 1984ish movie film much of it shot in Croydon, just down the road from me in the UK, with stars such as Ian Richardson playing his FU character from House Of Cards but at turbo speed, the more I watched the more people in the film I recognized, but could not remember their names, for Diana and myself a very enjoyable if slightly strange film, then off to bed!

A New Type Of Political Correctness Is Sweeping The Land,

it has been called 'geographical correctness phenomenon' first noticed by the Mail’s Science Editor Michael Hanlon, noting: ‘Scotland (population five million) usually gets about the same amount of airtime as England (52million)’ it was confirmed that the 'L' word should not be mentioned on air by GMTV weather girl Clare Nasir who said there was a lot of pressure not to focus too much on London, in case viewers elsewhere across Britain complain of favouritism, the 39-year- old, who is five months pregnant, said: ‘Almost all the weather programmes are broadcast out of London, but you will rarely find weather presenters saying the word “London”, although TV viewers have long suspected it, the forecaster finally admitted yesterday that they daren’t mention the capital for fear of getting a deluge of complaints about being London-centric, so there you have it, PC weather forecasting, I wonder what the PC brigade will think of next, PC traffic reports perhaps?

In The UK We Do Not Have ID Cards,

but as I have mentioned before the government is intent on introducing them, again I have to ask why? the cost has already spiraled to £5billion, it has just emerged that the Home Office spent an astonishing £140million on consultants last year, up 44 per cent on the previous year, they were paid large sums for planning a vast Big Brother database to store the details of every Internet click and telephone call made by UK residents, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP) but wait for it, both policies have since been downgraded, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: ‘We’re now finding out more and more about the true cost of the Government’s abortive ID card project', but the worst part of this fiasco is that when it is all finished having a card is not even compulsory! in fact if you want one you have to pay for it, only £30 each, start forming the queue in a ID card office near you!

Saturday Again!

first to arrive were Jay and Precil,

so it was coffee to start with,

but then Mike and Riza arrived, when I went downstairs there was this huge pizza, no prises for guessing it never appeared upstairs,

Diana, Fe, Riza and Precil,

Mr. Tony called in with a message from Mickey On The Hill, Mickey said that the flowers we have that have a lovely smell at night is a jasmine, also I wish Mickey's basil bush a speedy recovery after Mr. Tony took a few leaves, they made Mr. Tony's chicken dish a delight,

Mike and Jay, Keith and Mike called in for a few drinks and a chat,

then the food was served, Diana had made a cottage pie, Big Jim had brought along a roasted duck and chicken,

Mr. Tony enjoying his food,

meanwhile downstairs the girls were cooking their food, a Filipino dish, plus the huge pizza,

it is I believe called pansit, noodles chicken liver and vegetables,

then the girls ate their food,

Mike arranged for the local Indian to bring round some curry pasties, they were so nice I ate two!

the delivery lady named Phon, service with a smile,

naturally after a few drinks we put the world to rights, then on to the joke telling stage like this one,

a police officer pulls over a speeding car,

the officer says, ' I clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir.'

the driver says, 'Gee, officer, I had it on cruise control at 60; perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating. '

not looking up from her knitting the wife says: 'Now don't be silly, dear--you know that this car doesn't have cruise control.'

as the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls, 'Can't you please keep your mouth shut for once?'

the wife smiles demurely and says, 'You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did.'

as the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, 'Woman, can't you keep your mouth shut?'

the officer frowns and says, 'And I notice that you're not wearing your seat belt, sir, that's an automatic $75 fine.'

the driver says, 'Yeah, well, you see, officer, I had it on, but I took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket.'

the wife says, 'Now, dear, you know very well that you didn't have your seat belt on, you never wear your seat belt when you're driving..'

and as the police officer is writing out the third ticket, the driver turns to his wife and barks, 'WHY DON'T YOU PLEASE SHUT UP??'

the officer looks over at the woman and asks, 'Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma'am?'

'Only when he's been drinking.’ Boom-Boom!

How Much Does It Cost To Change This, The Department For Communities And Local Government (DCLG),

to this, Communities and Local Government (CLG)? £24,765. apparently, rebranding it is called, with government departments awash with cash it appears that a a Minister decided that the name change was deemed necessary to ‘emphasise the mission of the department’, you may remember in 2 Jags Prescott's time he spent £645 of public money on a new brass plaque for his office, replacing a sign saying Office of the Deputy Prime Minister with one which read Deputy Prime Minister’s Office,

still small fry when you compare it to The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) it was renamed twice between 2005 and 2007 at a cost of £250,000,

earlier this year, Lord Mandelson decided to change its name for a third time to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS), the Government refused to reveal how much it cost to create the new department, or to rebrand it, Caroline Spelman, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said: ‘This is a Whitehall farce at taxpayers’ expense' well said Caroline, all you have to do now is stop it!

More Working On The Railway,

roundhouse tracks in place, after checking that the motor and gearbox works on the turntable it was time to glue it in place, I want to give the appearance of age, so I am adding plaster between the rails that Diana will colour the next time we are upstairs, I just mix plaster with water and use a large syringe to apply it between the tracks,

it looks a mess, but I know where everything is, I think! and spread with a small brush,

Diana is helping out with "ageing" some of the wagons,

and some of the buffers,

plaster applied so now leave for a couple of days to dry,

when it has dried it is a easy job to clean it from the top of the rails,

Diana has painted this wagon to make it look old and rusty,

all to soon and it is time to go, we are off to Theprisit night market,

I think many stalls must be feeling the pinch, sale signs everywhere,

food stalls at the far end of the market,

this is halfway, if you go down here it will bring you to the car and bike parking,

looking towards the food section,

shoes 120 baht a pair, and that was what Diana was looking for, the day before Diana broke one of her shoes whilst we were fishing so two new pairs had to be bought,

more bargains,

then a phone call from Mike to say he and Riza had arrived, so it was off to the beer bar,

the girls had already meet up and started to bring back shopping for us to look after,

then it was back to eat, in my case sushi and local bits and pieces for the girls, Mike had already eaten,

we then settled down to watch Fred Dibnah, we both thought it would be a series with him as the commentator, but it was made after his death, still worth watching, but after a time it became a sort of "When Fred was around" with an endless number of experts all telling us about Fred, which pleasant though it was it was not what I had expected when I bought it, never mind volume 2 next week!

after that something completely different, Pitch Black, set many years into the future, great special effects, maybe next week we will watch Riddick if Mike has not seen it, then a few more drinks after Mike and Riza left then off to bed.