Wednesday 19 May 2010

Up Early To Continue My Diet,

after finishing the blog breakfast, one coffee, no sugar, one banana, then on to Friendship to park the bike and look around Soi Bukaow market,
there are a few bamboo plants at the base of the shrine in the car park,
they are called Buddha's Belly Bamboo, (Bambusa ventricosa), because the stems look like a Buddha belly,
no parking on this side of Pattaya Tai today, the police pick up truck is ready and waiting for the unwary,
a very quiet entrance along Soi Bukoaw,
the second hand market on the other side of the road,
turn right to go into the main market,
past the fruit and clothes stalls,
I know Diana will like that one!
a fish stall in the middle of the market,
cosmetics and hair products,
toys! and lots of them,
then on to the pet section, I am always amazed out here at the number of rabbits for sale as pets, I remember one day walking into the dentist and nearly trod on one by the chair in the surgery, it had disappeared by the next week, so I guess someone did tread on it!
lots of plants and flowers as usual,
if only I had a larger garden I would buy a few,
lots and lots of orchids,
these are 3 for 100 baht, a couple of things we picked up from watching that excellent series A Year At Kew, if you look at every flower species that flowers in the world 1 in 12 would be an orchid, it is a huge group, also if you take every specie of flower in the world there would be 6 types of fungi for each flower, if you study fungi it is called Mycology, I only know that because the old Mycology building at Kew was pulled down last year,
one of the many mobile stalls in and around the market,
walking past the shirt stall I bought myself one for my upcoming trip to the UK,
when we arrived home Diana had a look at her new dress,
later Phil called round for a tea and a chat,
then keeping to my diet, prawn salad, followed over the course of the evening by some lychee's, we watched the final DVD of A Year At Kew, what a wonderful series, every episode a joy, then The Kings And Queens of England, 1837 to the present, there was so much I did not know, Diana watched to too, I know she enjoyed it as she paused it when she got up to make a drink,
followed by life in Victorian Britain, for so many those times were so cruel, unfortunately there were a number of passages that were read from writers at the time, which did go on a bit too long, but with little movie footage from early Victorian times I guess this was done to give a oral picture of the hardships of the times,
then a magical film Fitzcarraldo, a part real life adventure and part fiction, in real life a boat was taken apart moved over a mountain and reassembled on the other side, in the film a 340 ton boat was hauled with out special effects up a 40 degree incline, the film maker Werner Herzog had more than a few problems in making the film it took 3 years, two of the lead actors dropped out, Jason Robards in the title role, Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones as his assistant, so the film had to be re shot, Klaus Kinski stepped in as the lead role, there were plane crashes, 5,000 extras, one of the crew was shot by a native with an arrow, with only a crew of 16 to film it, 6 of whom were injured in the boat scene as it goes down the rapids,
worse still Klaus Kinski was known as a temperamental actor, he constantly argued with Herzog and he threatened to leave the film set before finishing, he was also a constant source of tension as he argued with the other members of the film crew and locals as well, alienating the local population, one of the local chiefs told Herzog he would kill him, this unique and difficult film, won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, if you get the chance see it!

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