A Very Brief Post This Morning,

as we are waiting for a taxi to take us to Bangkok,

first thing as the printer repair shop had not called we decided to pop inti TukCom just in case it had been repaired, the good news was that it had, just that they forgot to call, even better news was that I wanted to buy some new ink, I was told as usual 490 baht, when I asked for the bill for the ink and repair 500 baht! you could have knocked me down with a feather, just 10 baht for the repair, to be fair the last time it failed I now remember the same thing happened I bought the ink and was not charger for the repair that time either, well done Inkman! their main shop is here, but I used the stall between the elevators on the third floor of TukCom,

but onto the aquarium, as we are going to Bangkok tomorrow I decided to do a 25% water change as if we have time we will call into Chatuchak Weekend Market, although it is a week day the animal and fish stalls are open every day except Mondays, we plan to buy a few fish and some food for them, during the day Mark called round for a tea and a chat, we nattered on about stamps issued for the Queen of England's Royal Tour of 1953/4 and the stamps that were issued to commemorate it, in the evening feet up to watch a few DVDs,

Atlantis was first, a beautifully photographed under water film, the only soundtrack was music so you could put your own on if the supplied music was not to your taste,

the History Channel  St. Valentine's Day Massacre was next on our list seven men are brutally mown down, some almost cut in half by the hail of bullets, with the exception of Dr. Reinhardt H. Schwimmer these men were mobsters working under the leadership of gangster and bootlegger, "Bugs" Moran, within a few seconds, while staring at a bare brick wall, these seven men had become a part of Valentine's Day history: the St. Valentine's Day Massacre,

another family adventure, City of Ember, when mankind is about to come to an end, a group of scientists decide to create and populate a city deep underground, the city of Ember is to last for 200 years after which its inhabitants are to retrieve from a strong box instructions to return to the surface, great special effects, I remember watching a BBC series about the same theme, but the population was on a spacecraft which eventually landed ion a new world, I forget what it was called but it was back in the1950/60s,

to round off the evening Supernova, a watchable si-fi movie, Supernova chronicles the search and rescue patrol of a medical ship in deep space in the early 22nd century and its six-member crew which includes a Captain and Pilot, a co-pilot, a medical officer, a medical technician, a search and rescue paramedic, and a computer technician, they find something in space but is it friend or foe? then for us off to bed.

Just When We Needed To Print A few Things,

my printer decided to become hysterical and not print firstly red,

then as I cleaned it using the clean programme the yellow and blue went on strike in sympathy, only the black was now working and even that was a bit poor, the strange thing is we wanted about six things printed, the first two 100% OK, the next copy, 'the computer says no!', so off to TukCom we went,

 I also called into the bank,

 then to the other bank,

the guy in the shop where we bought the printer said he would call when it was ready, we hoped about an hour or so, the same as last time, so we decided to cross the road from the bank on Beach Road,

and have breakfast in the Pattaya Beer Garden, hoping that the call would come before we went home,

 grey skies over Pattaya bay,

 the good news was that the rain held off,

the bad news was that we finished the meal, stir fried chicken and vegetables for Diana, chicken korma curry for me but the phone did not ring, so home we went,

in fact the phone did not ring at all, so it must have been a bigger job than last time or there were more printers in front of ours to be repaired, so feet up and watch a few DVDs,


I remember exactly where I was when we heard the JFK had been shot, subsequently over the years I had heard many theories, so I was looking forward to watching the History channel DVD, the problem is it raised more questions than it answered, for instance I did not know a motorcycle policeman's radio was stuck in the 'on' position, so all of the shooting was recorded,


when analysed by an expert there were five distinct shots shown on the sound recording graph, but then another expert said four shots, one echo, another expert stated three shots, two echoes, and so it goes on, crime scene evidence lost, procedures for forensics ignored, original documents and pictures replaced with Xerox copies, will we ever know what really happened? but I have to say a riveting DVD to watch,

another family adventure was next, The Water Horse, the filming of the village was spot on, beautiful scenery and Nessie was quiet realistic, a boy finds an egg and hatches it, eventually releasing back into the loch where it grows,

love him or hate him Mel Brooks for me has made some memorable movies, this is one of them, High Anxiety, playing Dr. Richard Thorndyke, he arrives as new administrator of the Psychoneurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, a parody of many of Hithcocks' works, the film works well on many levels,

over the past few days we have been also watching To the Ends of the Earth, a television mini-series released in 2005, in the early 1800s young Edmund Talbot travels to New South Wales to take up a post with its governor, he keeps a journal, recording his impressions of crew and passengers, all of the film so far has been based on board the ship,


we are about three quarters of the way through the series, running time about four and a half hours, the sets are superb, the interior of the ship leaning off of the vertical but with water and clothing showing that the set rather than the camera is being tilted, it is going to be a bit of a shame when the voyage is over! with that we were off to bed.

Do You Ever See Photographs That You Know Do Not Look 'Right'

but have not been edited in Photoshop?

like this one taken by French artist Philippe Ramette, no messing with computers, just a click of the camera,

there is of course a slight trick, before taking the shot he builds metal support structures that allow him to stand or sit at impossible angles, now that is what I call thinking out of the box!

also unlike other 'anti gravity' pictures I have seen there are no wires being taken out of the shot after the photo shoot, I must admit for me the work of Philippe looks really neat.

Madness, Or Lack Of Common Sense,

still stalks our stores,

when Elinor Zuke, 25, was told by the self-service checkout at Sainsbury's that she needed age verification as she tried to buy a £1.19 pack of spoons she was naturally somewhat taken aback, in a blinding lack of common sense a shop worker claimed they could be used as drug paraphernalia,


after recovering from the shock that the worker had virtualy called her a user of a illegal Class A drug - so it is irrelevant whether someone is over 18 - the spoon should not be used for that purpose anyway, she waited to see what would happen next, a call to the drug squad perhaps, maybe a raid on her home?


but it was a mistake, a spokeswoman, (person, please be PC!) said: 'the self-scan system recognised the spoon's SKU as one for a knife, this had now been rectified', but what a lack of common sense in the first place, still it all ended well, 'we are very sorry for any inconvenience caused, our Think 25 policy is designed to ensure age-related products are sold safely,'


age related products at 25 years old? I did not think there were any products you have to be 25 years old to buy, I always thought the legal age for buying alcohol is 18, but not living in the UK I must have missed the change of law.

Sunday Again,

so off to Sunday lunch,

 for today we decided on the Robin's Nest on Soi Diana,

 first the good news, lamb was back on the menu,

 then the bad news, they had run out of red wine, so a glass of white had to do,

 the price had stayed the same at 249 baht including ice cream and a fresh fruit cocktail,

 in the afternoon we watched a DVD, then glad rags on,

 we were off to watch the International Bed Race, a yearly event to raise money for charities in the area,

as we walked to the motorbike taxi our next door neighbour said instead of the guard dog looking after her, she was spending more time looking after it,

Jake's street cred took a bit of a bashing yesterday when he got mugged by the local cat, also if the rumour mill is to be believed one of the gang of tree squirrels is up for a rumble,

 but one day Jake will grow up to be one of these, a Boxer, this is a picture of one of his parents,

as we made our way into town, work had started on what was Coyote ago-go in Soi Marine Plaza, it has remained empty for a couple of years now, but it seems like it has now received a new lease of life,

also as you walk into Soi Blues Factory the first bar on the left has been demolished, so a new beer bar will rise Phoenix like from the ashes in the weeks to come,

 the television at the entrance to the street is still working, as we made our walk along Breach Road,

 just as we were doing so, Mr Glitterman came into view,

 I am not sure what the story is, but he is a regular sight on the streets of Pattaya,

 we decided to take a seat and wait for the race to begin,

 naturally it was thirsty work all of this walking,

 so Diana popped onto the beach to buy me a beer,

 'Cheers!',

 the sea and sky were both looking grey, then the rain started,

 so it was to a restaurant on the other side of the road to wait out the rain,

 Diana finished the chips in no time at all!

 the rain finally came to a halt,

 then the procession began, first a patrol car,

followed by a marching band,

 then various clubs or bars efforts came past,

 many of which I have not seen before,

 the pool party looked popular,

 as did the Champagne ago-go bed,

 I had always thought that beds had to be of the same size,

 but it appears anything with 4 wheel would past muster,

this is the Rotary Club of Pattaya, every year they hold a cross Pattaya Bay swim, last year donating over 200,000 baht,

 and of course The Mercy Centre that we all try to help,

 the centres bed,

 the Central Festival bed,

 and Perfume House,

 the show girls from Alcazar made a visit,

 The Pattaya People newspaper put on a show,

 though I am not sure who these people represent,

 or these,

I think this is the Pattaya Floating Market bed, at least that is what is embroidered on their shirts,

 no mistaking the Hardrock Cafe and restaurant,

 and bringing up the rear, Murphy's Law,

great fun was had by all, also hopefully some funds will have been raised by the evenings end for some charities, we made our way back along a quiet Walking Street, well it was still before 7.00 in the evening so there were only a few beer bars open,

 the presentation stand was being prepared for the contestants, as we went past,

 Diana was hungry,

so we bought a few things on sticks, we next made our way to the motorbike taxi stand, only to find no one was there so we sat on a couple of plastic chairs,

 in doing so one of the local cats woke up,

it could smell Diana's food, the cat stalked her down the road when she came back terrified of the cat Diana of course gave me the food bag,

 so I was trying to keep it out of reach of the cat,

 much to the amusement of several tourist who were waiting to cross the road,

at last a taxi bike appeared so we made our way home, feet up and watched a DVD with a medicinal red wine,

in The Secret of Moonacre, Maria Merryweather must unearth the secrets of the past before the 5000th moon rises and Moonacre disappears into the sea forever, Maria discovers that she is the last Moon Princess and guided by an unlikely mix of allies, she must overcome her family's pride, it is a fantasy adventure, it could have been so much better, but it just seemed to plod along,

Coming to America on the other hand was by contrast a riot, I had watched the film before, many years ago, but this was the first time Diana had seen it, also she picked up on the previous Murphy film when Prince Akeem gives two down and outs a wad of money, they were of course the brothers Mortimer and Randolph Duke from Trading Places,

for anyone in Pattaya with some time on their hands there are a couple of things to do which might interest you, firstly Pattaya Baywatch Bikini contest,

also Pattaya's top Coyote dance contest, first prize 20,000 baht, crikey I might have a go myself! leaving you with that thought, me in a Bikini we were of to bed!