The week that was in Thailand news: Give the tourists amulets and get Big Vera - you know it makes sense!

[rooster59]

 

The week that was in Thailand news: Give the tourists amulets and get Big Vera - you know it makes sense!

 

 

"Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common infection caused by a group of viruses. It typically begins with a fever and feeling generally unwell".

 

So begins a Wikipedia page that I consulted this week after feeling a bit under the weather. It was also interesting to note that the most common cause is the "coxsackievirus".

 

At that point - and having been ignored by Mrs Rooster for a few days - I thought it must just be a common cold and a reaction to translating  too many stories about the dank interior of caves.

 

Besides, I was soon sidetracked from my annual snuffles by the thought that so many Thai officials suffer from the far more virulent and all pervading condition for which there appears no immediate cure: "Foot in Mouth Disease".

 

This, I have witnessed over the best part of four decades, is a common condition whereby Thai officialdom say things in response to a crisis that usually worsens the problem and makes them look more idiotic into the bargain. If that is possible....

 

Suffering this week from a particularly virulent strain of the disease commonly referred to locally as "Roke thao tit paak" was the hapless minister for tourism Weerasak Kowsurat. 

 

He has been scurrying around in recent weeks trying to put a positive spin on the death of so many Chinese tourists under his watch. This week he came up with a "cunning plan" that even Baldrick of Blackadder fame would have rejected as a potty, non-starter:

 

Bung a GPS tracker on the tourists and make sure they have health insurance.

 

Yes, that'll fix the problem, the story said, helping to "boost safety". The Thai proverb about encircling the enclosure when the cow has fled the scene came to mind but none of the reporters present at the tourism fair seemed to have challenged the minister who I must now re-christen as Wearysak. 

 

Minister, I urge you to get attention for your Foot in Mouth syndrome. Start off by resigning and taking a long period of convalescence. Many in your position before have found that this simple step makes the need for expensive medical care almost unnecessary.

 

Of course the GPS tracking idea is just in case Mr Chin and Mrs Lee wander off the beaten track and lose sight of the lady ahead with the flag on the pole. But the idea that insurance will solve anything except save the government a few satang is of course absurd. 

 

Wearysak bemoaned that the Phoenix boat disaster in Phuket had cost him 64 million baht and he had no idea how he would scrape together enough Yuan if those wretched boat guys set off in the monsoon squalls again. 

 

However despite his Harvard education he was missing the obvious solution that would be a win-win for Thailand - flog everyone those renowned protective amulets at the airport. Job done. 

 

I mean to say in a week when the driver of a Ford Ranger that got wrapped around a pole in Pathum Thani AND the father-in-law shot at six times in Cha-Am both emerged with barely a scratch to fondle the saviors dangling around their necks, who could say that amulets would not be a spiffing idea. 

 

There could be a table or two set up at Swampy and Don Muang with the most powerful ones costing a few baht more. This "Luang Phor" for boat trips, that "Phor Tuat" for going into caves, you get the idea. Great for the coffers of the state and guaranteed safety for the tourists though they would need to check if the power works on non-Buddhists. 

 

They could set up a committee to survey that eventuality just to be on the safe side.

 

Indeed, it was the usual nutty week as those barking officials, the population who aid and abet them and the many foreigners who haven't a clue about what is really going on provided yet more evidence that Thaivisa is the place to be not just for news but a jolly good rip-roaring chuckle. 

 

Leading the way - and well ahead of Wearysak's pronouncements - was the general PM who has required countless surgeries for his own foot in mouth outbreaks.  That is why he doesn't smile much. This week he suggested helpfully that he would punch his critics in the face though he did hurriedly add that he wouldn't hurt anyone. 

 

Perhaps injuries would be lessened by the amulets.

 

Prayut caused further worry to those concerned about his fragile health and ego by suggesting that no one would criticize him if they just didn't read the news for five days. This had me going to my Scrabble dictionary just in case there was a word "TRUMPLIKE". There wasn't but in these days of fake news there really ought to be. 

 

The week had begun with the sage words of a battleaxe of an octogenarian  woman in Blighty who I suspect would have no need of an amulet even if confronted by a gang of Thai thugs in Hua Hin's Soi Bintabaht like Rosemary Owen a few years back. 

 

This was 88 year old Mrs Vera Unsworth - I jest not - who made sure that the Chiang Rai cave drama stayed at the top of the news by suggesting that Elon Musk should be put up against a wall and shot for calling her Vernon a pedo. 

 

Well done Vera - with this decisive plain speaking might I suggest that you pop over to the Land of Smiles tout suite and usurp the tourism minister. Thailand needs you!

 

Mrs Unsworth could also consider becoming the next head of the Met police. Thai Rath gave us a long piece this week in which they conjectured about who would succeed and who would fail in the upcoming civil service reshuffle for the top roles in the RTP.

 

Naturally Big Joke Surachet is in line to be Bangkok's top cop after all those black people he has sent back to Africa and he is also a pal of Big Pom (otherwise known as DPM Big Rolex). Mind you Big Bua (head of immigration) is a friend of Big Pe (Jakthip the national chief) and neither he nor Big Pat at Region 1 can be ruled out in the Big Too (Prayut) decision. 

 

Whatever; surely it is time for Big Vera to step up and be counted. 

 

The police merry-go-round is always eagerly anticipated and more than ever it is not just the Thais that know the "Big" players involved in the annual drama. Thaivisa - and for this you must blame or praise Rooster - has been using the nicknames ad nauseam. Consequently foreigners looking in on the Thai news are better able to offer a worldly opinion.

 

Personally I shall be sad to see the present Bangkok incumbent Pol Gen Charnthep retire. One of his first and only pronouncements was to stop his minging minions doing roadside checkpoints limiting their "fleece-point activity" to nighttime alcohol busts. 

 

I was one of many skeptics who said "Yeh, right" after having had what must have been 100 roadside 'conversations' with the constabulary over the last 30 years. But true to his word the checkpoints on the main roads have completely stopped at least on the many routes that Rooster roams. I fear that the new man will simply resurrect the practice meaning tunnels and bridges will once again be off limits to us motorcyclists desirous of getting from Gor Gai to Khor Khai in a hurry.

 

A woman that was clearly in a marital hurry was the Thai bride at the center of social media's tear-jerking drama of the week. The bride was viewed 3.6 million times after going onstage to explain matters when her good for nothing groom failed to show up. 

 

Fair play to HIM actually. Subsequent news showed that the bride had rather coerced him into the marriage and he'll  probably be better off waiting a few decades before he grows up and is ready to tie the knot.  It would also likely save him millions in the long run and ensure that he has much more sex....

 

Not that Rooster is averse to marriage - it's such a wonderful institution that I did it twice and usually only regret these unions for a small part of days that have a Y in them.

 

Regret was a word that featured in many thoughts in Bangkok as a father of a son who was murdered threw himself out of the Rachadapisek court window to his death when the suspect was acquitted. 

 

But if that was not bad enough the police exhibited more "F in M" disease by saying that the case would now be re-investigated. Nothing like being in time....

 

Top crimes this week featured the usual family disputes that have forum posters pointing their cyber fingers at Thai society convinced that it is the norm and getting worse. Believe me, it has always been this bad but let's face it, it is the same the world over. 

 

Just thank goodness that Thailand doesn't really do Christmas; a season of goodwill when more Brits have a pop at each other than any other time of the year. 

 

This week we had the man slashed by his missus and left by the road in Chumpon , the assistant nurse who dispatched her boyfriend in Bang Na when he drove her away for sex and that son-of-a-bitch-son-in-law in Cha-Am who couldn't shoot straight that led to the latest amulet revelations.

 

The latter had been in jail since 2016 for attempted murder and was just let out. I'd feel safer if those who attempt murder could sample a little more rice gruel while contemplating the error of their ways....just to keep them away from my family. 

 

And so to this week's Rooster awards. For services to Thailand in "Promoting the Bleeding Obvious that Thais are More Honest than Everyone Else" award I give to all of us at Thaivisa for yet more stories translated from the excellent Thai media about honest cabbies and maids.

 

It would be terrible if - rather like those dastardly Holocaust deniers - people were allowed to come out of the Thaivisa forum woodwork and get away with their unfounded accusations that Thais are not the most honest people on the planet. 

 

Many posters  - such as Colin Neil this week - call Thaivisa out on the stories screaming BS.  I don't believe this is the case but I do have my suspicions about a media - indeed a country - who might feel it necessary to bang on about the honesty of its people. Far be it from me to say but one could almost quote Khun Shakespeare as having said: 

 

"The country doth protest too much, methinks".

 

For now, just enjoy the "honesty" stories that Rooster invariably translates and slathers in sarcasm like HP sauce on a full English. Sarcasm that appears to go over the head of non-native speakers.......like Americans. 

 

My second award is the "Freeze! It's the Keystone Kops" prize that goes to the Chainat constabulary for their work with tent poles and nets in apprehending a gold shop robber who took a woman hostage. 

 

OK, it was just a drill but the actor was not hurt a bit; I wonder if we could have said such a thing if this had occurred in the suburbs of LA and been for real. 

 

Finally, Rooster, somewhat warily, spent most of the last seven days away from the peace and quiet of Bangkok in Hua Hin this week. Pattaya has finally been ditched as a family destination after seeing all that beach trash - the litter not the foreigners -  in recent visits. 

 

At least the seaside at Hua Hin is relatively clean though it was a tad disconcerting to see one of the ponies for hire that ply the sands in the central area drop its load in the briny next to where i was frolicking with my two year old. 

 

I was tempted to tell the operator to get Shergar to relieve himself on the sand in future so I can collect it for the 'dork kulaaps' (roses). Tempted.....

 

In the end I resolved the Rooster angst by putting my little one on my shoulders as I walked home past the pony operators muttering in the Thai vernacular under my breath that a ride on this farang would be just 250 baht undercutting their requested 300. 

 

No one smiled. 

 

Readers of this column will know that Rooster is a self-confessed and die-hard Bangkokian. Though I have been to virtually every one of the kingdom's 77 provinces it is always with great relief that I return to the relative sanity of Krung Thep where no pony would dare to tread. 

 

Bangkok is reckoned to have the longest place name of any in the world but to me since 1982 it warrants but three words.

 

Home Sweet Home.

 

Rooster

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2018-07-28

 

[MaiDong]

Wearysak , hahahahahahahehehehehehehehehahahahahah

[MaiDong]

All spot-on, as usual, Rooster, weddun.

[Black arab]

Pony and trap on the beach lol

Nice one Rooster?

[Stevemercer]

What about the poster who translated the PM's tirade into a new motto for the regime:

 

'Happiness is a punch in the face'.

 

Shades of 'truthspeak' from  '1984'. He deserves a Rooster award.

[Puccini]

23 hours ago, rooster59 said:

...This had me going to my Scrabble dictionary just in case there was a word "TRUMPLIKE"...

 

I hope I am not going too far off topic with this but having learnt English the hard way, ie as a foreign language, questions like these always pique my interest.

 

It is unlikely that TRUMPLIKE will ever make it into the Scrabble dictionary because when the two words refer to a human they are hyphenated, ie Trump-like, unlike with animals, where there are adjectives such as birdlike and wolflike.

 

I don’t know about the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, but I have come across the occasional adjective derived from a person’s name with the use of the suffix –esque or –ite in common dictionaries, eg:

Rubens  -->  Rubenesque
Thatcher  -->  Thatcherite

 

I suggest that we leave it to Rooster, since he brought up the subject, to make the choice between Trumpesque and Trumpite and then we, the members of Thaivisa, spread this newly-created adjective throughout the world until it makes it into the dictionaries, hopefully also into the Scrabble dictionary. Or should we make a poll, but what forum would be suitable for it?
 

[Puccini]

1 hour ago, Black arab said:

Pony and trap on the beach lol

Nice one Rooster?

 

Rooster has such a beautiful way with words, often bringing back old memories (but we didn't go on a sandy beach with with the trap, of course)

 

Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tudedude/37301362156/

 

Edited July 29, 2018 by Puccini
added photo (not of me)

[Stargeezr]

Rooster, glad you had a break from BKK and enjoyed the ocean at Hua Hin.

  It is still a great place to get away to and the prices are not to extreme.

   Night markets provide some evening entertainment, and lots of

places to eat as well. Thanks for your entertaining weekly report.

[TPI]

Thanks mate for brightening an otherwise dull day!  ?

[lamyai3]

On 7/28/2018 at 4:56 PM, rooster59 said:

 Bung a GPS tracker on the tourists 

Not the first tourist minister to hasten their early demise with this inane idea.. 

[GarryP]

An enjoyable read. One of your better ones. The break must have worked.