Arry Has Been Doing Some Work,

to the house next door,

 and today his work is finished, so noticing he had a pressure jet wash I asked him to give the outside a spray over, Diana and myself had tried with out success a few times to get rid of the dark algae growing on the sand wash finish on our driveway and around the house,

 when new it looked so smart,

 but now it just looks untidy,

 and a bit of a mess, we had tried various chemicals, they worked for a few weeks then the black algae came back,

 before and after using the jet wash,

 so Arry started about 10.00 in the morning,

 not sure what the make was but it worked pretty good,

 anyway we left him at it,

 and went to the market, we parked near TukCom as we wanted to have look inside on the way home,

 I noticed this bike in the street,

 the front and rear tires reminding me of the ones fitted to the Sunbeam motorcycles of the late 1940 to the mid 1950s, the models S7 and S8,

 Pattaya Tai was crowded,

 with parking on the streets and pavements,

 as you might expect traffic quite often came to a complete standstill,

 there are normally taxis waiting here on the corner of Soi Bukaow,

 which made the congestion worse,

 but none today,

 so Soi Bukaow itself was quite empty,

 so into the market,

 past the household goods stalls,

 and past the live fish stall,

 lots of colourful tops for sale on this visit,

 I made my way to the pet section,

 to the aquatic shop that is a permanent shop,

 for some time we have noticed that we are losing a few fish every week, we suspect the yabbies,

 so I bought some food just for them,

 I bought 20 small fish at 5 baht each,

I started on my way back to meet up with Diana, going past the roasted chicken stall,

 to the plant section to buy a couple of cactus,

 trying to cross the road was a trial,

 the drivers were not taking prisoners!

 the Friendship car park was packed, as we made our way past it,

 work had continued whilst we were out,

 everything looking so nice,

 almost as good as new,

 Arry was now going along the side of the house,

on our way back we stopped off at a mobile shop selling just these small oranges, 4 kilos for 100 baht, we had our evening meal when Mark called in for a coffee and a chat, Arry was determined to finish the job tonight and at about 9.30 in the evening it was finished, he had brought huge lamps with him, after saying our farewells to Arry and Mark we settled down to watch 2 more out of the BBC box of Sherlock Holmes, both staring Peter Cushing, The Sign of Four and The Blue Carbuncle, next a couple from Rumpole and we were off to bed,

There Is A Children's Song,

about going to the woods today,

titled Teddy Bears Picnic, the opening lyrics, 
'if you go down to the woods today, you better go in disguise',
but the thing is if you go down to the land of the Jaguar you might have to change the lyrics to these, 
'if you go down to the woods today, you could be in for a big surprise! 
you had better watch what after shave you are wearing,

if you watch nature programs you will be aware of camera traps, a camera is positioned on a tree or rock that is a known animal trail, every time a animal passes it breaks a infrared beam and a picture is taken, if it becomes night a flash is also used to capture the shot, so set up camera retire to base camp sink a few cocktails pick up film the next morning and home for tea and medals, but here is the rub, sometimes you have to attract the animal you want to walk past your camera trap, now lets say you are in the Amazon or the jungle in Nicaragua and you want a picture of a Jaguar, how do you attract one to walk past?

use after shave! according to Miguel Ordeñana, a biologist with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and an expert on camera traps, not any old after shave, only the best is attractive to wild Jaguars, in this case Calvin Klein Obsession for Men, the idea belongs to a Bronx Zoo researcher who tried a bunch of different scents before discovering the jaguar’s affinity for Calvin Klein, what’s special about the cologne is that its two main ingredients – civetone and vanilla extract – create a combination that’s irresistible to these big cats, 

civetone, one of the world’s oldest perfume ingredients, is a chemical compound derived from the scent glands of civets, small nocturnal cat-like animals that are native to the Asian and African tropics, it is thought that the civetone resembles some sort of territorial marking to the jaguar, and so it responds by rubbing its own scent on it, vanilla is believed to spark the cat’s curiosity, I wonder if it would work on other difficult to photograph big cats?

During The Day,

we had a few visitors call round,

 firstly Mick and his girlfriend Koky, after a coffee or two we said our goodbyes, then shortly after Alex called in for a soda and a chat, later in the afternoon I popped over to Country Favourites to order some Indian food, the take away is going to close for a month till the beginning of February, so we wanted to get a couple of Indian meals in to keep in the deep freeze for later in January,

 if you do call by the restaurant when they reopen there is always a special or two on the board outside,

it s situated on Soi Bon Kai, the Cozy Resort in the distance, after our evening meal we decided to watch a couple of old Sherlock Holmes BBC productions, the Case of the Silk Stocking starring Rupert Everett, followed by A Study in Scarlet and the Boscombe Valley Mystery both staring Peter Cushing, to round the evening off three more from Rumploe of the Bailey and we were off to bed.

I Am Sure We All Know That The Union Jack,

is the flag of Great Britain,

representing the 4 countries that make up the British Isles, namely England, Scotland, Northern Ireland (since 1921 only Northern Ireland has been part of the United Kingdom) and Wales, but it is not so, only 3 countries are represented on the flag, Wales is absent, the reason? Wales was not a Kingdom but a Principality so it could not be included on the flag.

in case you do not know and are interested here is the make up of the Union Jack, as an aside to anyone hoisting the Union Jack please make sure is is the correct way up, the broad white stripe is always at the top of the flag and is always next to the flag pole, it is surprising how many people get it wrong! just in case you thought I have left the people of Wales and Southern Ireland out,

here is the flag of Wales,

and the flag of the Republic of Ireland or Southern Ireland.

I Guess We Have All Bought The Latest 'Must Have'

piece of technology at some time,

only to find in a few months it is now out of date, well not so with these speakers, the thinking behind Boom Boom, a software-upgradable speaker developed by Binauric, is that the speakers are future proofed, as speaker technology changes Binauric issues apps that rolls out upgrades to the speaker, the softball-size unit comes with everything you’d expect from a portable speaker system, 3.5mm audio input, Bluetooth connectivity, volume and power buttons, the battery lasts for 15 hours and in order to stay future proofed the speakers also have four microphones, an accelerometer, and a light sensor, though not needed today who knows if these features may become de rigueur for all speakers at some time in the future, a neat idea, I wonder if all products such as cameras and mobile telephones will be future proofed in this way, so no need to buy the new model every year?

I Have Watched So Many Simpson's Shows,

and this episode from real life reminded me of one of them,

in case you have not seen the show or episode, Homer's car gets wheel clamped, muttering to himself he drives off with the clamp attached, every turn of the wheel as the clamp hits the ground the car lurches into the air, but no problem off he goes, well this lady in Brazil must have seen the same episode as she tries it too, with surprising results.

Keeping To A Motoring Theme,

this seems like a neat idea from Cadillac,

 their new 2016 model CT6 boasts an interesting and innovative feature, a rear view mirror streaming live, high-resolution video from a hidden camera that improves rear visibility by 300 percent, 

the guts of the system are an HD camera and a TFT-LCD display that, according to Cadillac CT6 executive chief engineer Travis Hester, 'reduces glare and allows a crisper image in low-light situations, versus a traditional auto-dimming mirror', the display, by the way, packs 171 pixels into each inch of the 1280 x 240px screen, if only the lady in the previous post had one of these she might have seen the traffic warden coming!

Sunday Seems To Come Round,

so quickly,

 we are having Sunday lunch at home, a chicken and sweetcorn soup for a starter,

 Diana bought some orchids,

 'Cheers!',

 a classic example of why you should never use the flash looking straight at an aquarium,

 the fish were excited, 

 they seem to know they will receive a few extra feeds as we watch them over lunch,

 for our main course Diana had cooked the pork we bought yesterday with lots of crackling, a pig in a blanket with vegetables,

 another 'Cheers!',

 I had thought earlier that Diana was along time in the kitchen and this was why,

 she had made a creme caramel for dessert,

which was delicious,

 Diana looking as lovely as ever,

and as a special treat she did not eat 2 of her Christmas advent calendar chocolates, so we had one each as a after dinner treat, we watched the local TMN channel in the afternoon, later in the evening after a turkey sandwich or two we decided to watch Red Planet, thoroughly enjoyable if you like science fiction films, then a series from the late 1970s, Rumpole of the Bailey, we enjoyed it so much we watch 4 episodes back to back, well Christmas is now over, so from tomorrow back on to my diet and exercise every morning, with that thought we were off to bed.