The week that was in Thailand news: Putting the craic in crackdown despite not cracking The Guinness Book

 

 

When I first came to actually "live" in Thailand I had a very important three point strategy to ensure eternal happiness in the Kingdom. I had come here a couple of times as a tourist but now it was time to take up residence.

 

I was still 23 and it was 1985. My three pronged plan was simple.

 

1. Make enough money to be able to live in Thailand.

2. Learn to speak, read and write Thai.

3. Engage with as many "ladies of the opposite sex" as would be humanly possible in a standard three score years and ten time frame hopefully one day attracting the attention of Mr McWhirter over at Guinness for a new category in the record book: Most Thailand Based Shags in a Lifetime by a Feebly Frail Farang. 

 

It started off swimmingly. Teaching English I got enough in one hour to buy four happy hour beers in Patpong. Work for a morning and I'd have a bar fine. For number 2, that fed into the success of number one, I quickly embarked on a wonderful solo and team journey that has given me hours of untold pleasure and riches un-imagined back in the 1980s.

 

Number three's World Record Attempt came to an abrupt and inglorious halt when I got married. 

 

Of course there will be people who would say "if you believe that you'll believe anything". I wouldn't deign to suggest how you should think. I'm not a true Thai teacher, you see.

 

Life changes for all of us when a stable relationship blossoms and develops. Especially when the clank of a ball and chain barely drowns out the screams of the hungry children.

 

I digress. In a sense failing miserably at number three was a blessing in disguise. My first marriage was fiery but resulted in two healthy children. My second marriage continues to grow and dare I say thrive. Rooster and Mrs R come from backgrounds and cultures so different that to combine them would be like mixing chalk with cheese. 

 

But our greatest success - putting two growing babes aside - is the ability to meet roughly in the middle. As we approach our third decade together I have conceded (without a giveaway smirk) that there might be ghosts and never complain one iota when obliged to sit downwind of Mrs R demolishing Isaan som tam laden with fermented fish and field crab.

 

For her part she has appreciated that Finland might, just might, be a good model on which to base an education system, perhaps even a little better than Thailand's and she has learnt that following through after a good Indian is not the end of the world.

 

Even if we have run out of Breeze detergent.

 

We are friends and have stood by each other throughout all the difficult times that any relationship entails. We have moved and changed with the times. We have history......and hopefully a long and interesting future too.

 

History seemed to be repeating itself in Thailand this week with lashings of stories from titillating to titter raising. All human life was there as well as some that looked more Neanderthal.

 

But there was craic among the crackdowns and some gems of vocab and parlance on Thaivisa if you only took the time to read the stories. 

 

First off, and rather in the manner of getting him out of the way before the saucy stuff starts, it was announced this week that Pope Francis will be visiting Thailand in November. I am absolutely sure that when the Thais hear about the Pope-Mobile they will try to change their network provider to get a heavenly deal. 

 

Pope Francis is celebrating Catholicism in Thailand that stretches back 350 years or around the time when Galileo was being put under house arrest for reporting what he had seen in the cosmos.

 

Top titter-fest of the week involved Thaivisa's favorite whipping boys of recent weeks, the Immigration police. This time we were told that they had come up with a new weapon in the fight against foreigners enjoying themselves in the kingdom. "Foreigners beware! Big Oud's "Smart Van" is coming for you!"

 

Of course this highly popular nonsense smacked of Rooster but it was all based on strict adherence to facts and the highest principles of journalistic integrity this side of the Saudi Embassy in Turkey.

 

I mean the vehicle was called 'atchariya' or 'smart' in Thai and inside was a laptop and a cunningly concealed and retractable shelf, known in stewardess insider circles as "tray table". It all functioned effectively. The hapless Cameroonian language teacher who was arrested with the help of the van became an overstaying sideshow to the main feast. 

 

Fortunately Thaivisa has a reasonable crowd on its forums when they put aside their agendas and angst. Thus those who appreciated the humor and ridiculousness of the story far outweighed the curmudgeons who believe that Immigration are waiting to pounce on every unsuspecting foreigner.

 

Titters from across yonder ponds also played a big role in the lives of expats in Thailand. In the US of A Mr Trump who had exonerated himself over election dealings with Russia was  un-exonerated when Mr Mueller tried again to speak.

 

While over in the land that the pound forgot there was the sterling arrival of his Rt. Honorable Rotundness Boris Johnson.

 

Both new PM Mr Johnson and his rival for the Tory leadership Jeremy Hunt have had slip-ups related to Asia. Mr Hunt forgot that his wife was Chinese and called her Japanese at important international talks. While BoJo didn't know that he was "on air" in Myanmar when he was praising the attitudes of Rudyard Kipling in subduing the restless natives. 

 

"Not now", said the ambassador, "Righto!" said Boris like a naughty public schoolboy.

 

News Thump summed up the activities on both sides of the Atlantic well this week with their observations regarding the arrival of the Eton Mess:

 

“I think everyone is overreacting. It’s not like there is any sort of precedent for a nation electing a blond philandering gaffe-prone New York-born anti-establishment candidate who went on to make the nation his own personal plaything and a global laughing stock'.

 

More stories of doom and gloom for Thai tourism followed this week. As the ministry tried and failed miserably to convince us that arrivals were up 0.89% came news from industry man Ekkasit in Pattaya that everyone was going to Vietnam. 

 

In Chiang Mai the tourism sector was described as "decimated". Pattaya Plod had a fun evening surrounding and cracking down on Arabs riding motorcycles and then the authorities tried to bring good humored order to the minivans and taxis touting for business at the Bali Hai port.

 

Similarly Big Oud - immigration chief Sompong Chingduang - was stepping up his welcome to tourists by holding a huge seminar in Bangkok to advise hotel operators and landlords how to report the precise whereabouts of visitors.

 

It appeared that the welcome was not matched by some of the rhetoric of the Article 38 policy. 

 

Sompong used to be in charge of the border police down south before he replaced poster boy Big Joke. He's dour in comparison and hardly represents a welcoming face to the tourists he says he cares so much about. 

 

Many people are seeing the heavy handed approaches by Thai immigration as discouraging both tourism and long term expat residence. This is no laughing matter but at least with the Smart Van story they still appear to have a sense of humor. The same could be said for a hotelier who suggested on Friday that Pattaya's salvation was in attracting millionaires. 

 

Methinks if I was a millionaire i might choose somewhere other than Pattaya for my hols.

 

Earlier in the week some Bangkok residents thought a coup was underway as tanks rumbled along northern streets in the capital. The government were quick to deny rumors that the military were overthrowing the military. It was all just for His Majesty the King's birthday celebrations that will take place today and tomorrow. 

 

It reminded me of teaching English in the Regent Hotel in 1985 when there was one of the almost monthly coups. The maids were struggling with their "TH" sound as in "Thanks". I got my first real Thai laugh pointing out  that in the hotel they should say "many thanks" - it was outside that there were "many tanks". 

 

And so to a few Rooster awards. "The Keep Your Pecker Up" prize goes to the Turkish man called Ahmet who was caught making Kamagra jelly in Bangkok. Speaking in Thai he was full of bonhomie and explanations saying that he was just making the Kamagra taste yummy by adding glucose syrup. 

 

Trouble was the cops also found a bit of "ice". He'll do longer for that 0.3 grams of crystal meth than the 46,700 sachets of erection enhancer he had made but, hey, at least he gets to stay in Thailand. 

 

The "Clean Up" award is shared jointly by Erich the Swiss and Andrea the Italian. Erich is trying to clean up the klong next to his house and was featured on national TV outlining all the nasty throwaway habits of his neighbors. Andrea - an exponent of Brazilian jiu jitsu - got an alleged thief at his Jomtien sauna in a headlock before the cops arrived. He is clearly trying to clean up crime.

 

Well done to both of you - foreigners in Thailand who take action CAN make a difference. Just watch your backs now lads.

 

Finally, the Thai department of pubic health once again warned the nation's menfolk not to try and enlarge their manhoods. My editor, inserting such a story for translation in Rooster's inbox (ooh er missus), should be arrested for causing criminal damage.

 

You see, with stories like these, this 58 year old man child is usually thrown into convulsive cackling fits like a pre-pubescent teen, laughing uncontrollably at the ideas jetting about in his boyish head....and spewing coffee thus damaging the laptop.

 

The editor's demands resulted in a story love-laced with innuendo (well, I was writing it on my 58th birthday and Mrs R had just given me my present...). Amid the "stiff sentences" we were told that some quacks were injecting all manner of oily and fatty substances to make "Little Willy" stand up and be counted.

 

The headline I chose reminded me of an English cartoon character known to aficionados as "Sid the Sexist". (End the column there (and click 'like') if you take either Boris or Donald seriously. The following is not for you, trust me. Click Conservative.gov or tune into Fox instead - Rooster).

 

In a sequence entitled "Oot on the Tap" (available on YouTube) loathable Geordie Sid talks about a "lass" he had met who insisted that any suitor must have 12 inch tackle.

 

"That's a bit much," says his sympathetic mate Bob.

 

"Aye," says Sid. "I'm not having six inch cut off my tool for nae lass". 

 

Later boastful Sid is heard to say that he: "Pumped her full of man fat". 

 

My editor's cautious headline smacked of a staid, broadsheet age. I much preferred mine: 

 

"Lard Won't Make You Hard".

 

Rooster

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-07-27

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11 hours ago, rooster59 said:

"Lard Won't Make You Hard".

Lard is a common form of shortening... 

 

I too moved here at the age of 23, after a few visits in my earlier twenties, but for me the year was 1977.  I was also hanging around the Regent Hotel in the mid-eighties when Clyde Min was the GM and left when Black came in.

 

I remained single for the first twenty years so I got further along in category 3. than you did I suspect.  Those were interesting times.

8 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

Lard is a common form of shortening... 

 

Very true....my mum used to put it in Spotted Dick.

 

Rooster

Lard in Plum Pooding for Christmas!

At 58 lucky boy!

Ladies of the opposite sex..... Care to elaborate? ???????? apart of this, I generally like your column, although I do not always agree..

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that I envied your regular column and you suggested I start a blog.  So I did - this is your baby;   https://mwbell2000.wixsite.com/mikebell

 

I have written twice to Thaivisa to pay to advertise the site but received no response.  Have you got an inside line to the Advertising team?

Just checked & no sign of my emails to this site in my sent folder.

Will try again.