BOOM!......then everything went black, including my flatscreen TV. 

 

It was 2.17 am on Thursday morning in locked down Bangkok and what Rooster and many others had been waiting for for 55 years - an appearance in a major football final - went blank. 

 

A transformer or something had exploded nearby plunging my condo into total darkness and robbing me of England vs Denmark. 

 

Minutes later the overhead fan came on at half-cock, it was now a brownout as the Americans say. Hopeless for internet box and TV. 

 

Major life crisis! 

 

Turn on phone and follow text. Misery as Denmark score, and I feel totally helpless. Muted joy as an own goal puts us back in with a chance. Half time - now what to do?

 

I was beginning to panic, convinced the blackout would mean a Denmark victory. Quick think  - Thailand usually comes through in a crisis in my experience. Then I remembered.

 

The neighboring estate at the end of the soi had an old boy security guard in a shack with an ancient TV.

 

He might just be awake and……

 

Throwing on clothes and remembering my mask and bike keys I drove past our own building’s security guard at breakneck speed.

 

You could see him thinking: Where’s that loony going at this hour (now 3 am) surely Nana Plaza is shut?

 

Five hundred yards down the soi there was Loong - he’d never met me nor I him - but at least he was awake even if the TV was off. He didn’t seem freaked out by this masked raider arriving on a Honda 250 and screeching to a halt. 

 

Time to practice my best Thai starting with a mild admonishment, Thai style. 

 

“Loong krap, why the hell aren’t you watching the football!! 

 

“I’m an Angrit guy. We’ve had a “fai dap” and I can’t watch the match….

 

“Oooo, khrap”, he replied, grasping my predicament and admitting he’d forgotten all about Euro 2020.

 

He insisted it was on Channel 36 despite me saying “chong song na khrap, chong song”. Going down through the channels was laborious and the second half must have started. I took charge of the remote and keyed in 002.

 

Joy - it was 47 minutes in and still 1-1. 

 

Loong, 75 if he was a day, was chuckling uncontrollably at the turn his normally quiet night had taken. He offered the weird foreigner his comfy seat and a draft of Leo - both politely declined remembering “kreng jai”. 

 

Besides, a plastic stool was bliss and I didn’t need beer - like millions of Brits, and Danes, worldwide our collective stress levels and adrenaline were through the roof. 

 

What fun we had, Loong and I, until the icing on the cake after 4 am when England scored and we triumphed. 

 

Cue Englishman dancing impromptu jig and Thai “yaam” almost swallowing his false teeth. 

 

I “wai-ed” my new friend deeply and thanked him. Joked that I’d be back for the final if the electricity authorities didn’t get their act together and headed home.

 

Like Harry Kane and his recovery from the missed penalty, Rooster, with thanks to Beautiful Thailand and its Beautiful People, had found a way to watch the Beautiful Game. 

 

Like those who remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, I'll always remember where I was when England beat Denmark 2-1 after extra time. 

 

Sleep only followed after completing my work by 9am. My English editor had been awake most of the night,too, so the ASEAN NOW faithful got some early stories from Rooster for a change!

 

The football aside, it was a pretty grim week as the Covid numbers and deaths spiked daily. 

 

One official said that daily infections would hit 10,000 by the end of the year. Maybe something was lost in translation; surely he meant end of the month, even end of the week. 

 

And so it transpired. By Friday cases reached 9,276 with 72 deaths and that’s only what the government is admitting to. 

 

Others started coining a new phrase “fourth wave”. Surely it was only a matter of time before the nation became the hub of waves. 

 

PM Prayut - a loong who, frankly, I’d rather not meet in the dead of night - had a mixed week.

 

Very bad and extremely bad with a touch of utterly atrocious. 

 

Firstly, he had to go into a 14 day quarantine at the army base where he lives. He’s no longer a general but probably feels comforted at being close to the Mess. 

 

He’d been in close quarters with Veerasak from the Surin Chamber of Commerce while on the Phuket Sandbox junket on July 1st. Veerasak had Covid. 

 

On Monday a Suan Dusit poll suggested 66% of Prayut’s compatriots thought he was doing a terrible job while a Super Poll suggested he should take a pay cut. 

 

This prompted Big Too - a word meaning to grab something by force incidentally - to announce he would not take his salary and allowance for the next three months to fight the good fight - 376,000 baht.

 

More than a dozen of his fawning cronies followed suit including Thamanat Prompow still trying to repair the damage of, to him, being wrongly accused of heroin smuggling by those nasty Australians.

 

Sanook didn’t let Prayut’s modest display of largesse go unnoticed saying that the National Anti-Corruption Commission were unable to reveal the extent of his assets as there was no provision in the law to do so. 

 

That’s Handy Harry. 

 

All they would say is that he had had 102 million baht before he became PM 6 years and 9 months ago and had earned 10.4 million since. 

 

Somehow I think it unlikely that he’d have just 112 million (plus interest) now. 

 

That likelihood was about as obvious as the National Economic and Social Development Board who pointed out that the rich have got richer and the poor poorer during the pandemic. 

 

One thing I will say though is that those of us who have been lucky enough to keep our jobs - an increasingly rare species in Thailand - have plenty of disposable income but nothing to spend it on. 

 

If and when the pandemic is over, there are plenty of people with money to burn, should they so wish. Clever investment in selected businesses - including tourism - could be big earners. 

 

Apropos, the fallout from the start of the Sandbox continued apace. First off we were asked to believe that foreigners at a market were new to Phuket. They looked like expats having a bite to eat if you asked me. 

 

Then came news that 2,244 visitors had made it in the first week and flights were continuing to arrive almost every few hours……

 

Two of these “tourists” turned out to be an 83 year old man who caused a panic  after getting lost having left his hotel and a guy who nipped off to see his wife at their Rawai home rather than wait at the quarantine hotel for a night for his test result. 

 

Many of these visitors are obviously people looking for a way back in without onerous quarantine at ASQ facilities. Though for Rooster, who has little love for the island, having to spend two weeks there would be torture enough. 

 

Meanwhile the age-old problem of taxi rip-offs on Phuket reared its ugly head. An investigation of sorts went nowhere.

 

The authorities in Samui tried to upstage their Andaman cousins by saying that 80% of taxis and other public transport on their island had joined an app plan to eliminate gouging of tourists ahead of their reopening next Thursday. 

 

Vaccinations continued on the Surat islands including Koh Phangan where foreigners got jabbed with an 80% target now met. 

 

In other vax news it was announced that the US was donating 1.5 million doses of Pfizer. There appeared to be a stipulation that 20% of the jabs should go to foreigners in Thailand though Charge d’Affaires Michael Heath made no mention of this.

 

He went on Facebook later in the week to make a speech in Thai about that “special relationship” between Uncle Sam and Uncle’s children.

 

At the end of the week came some additional nails in our collective Covid coffins. Ten provinces including Bangkok were placed under additional restrictions, a curfew with provisos installed,  malls were ordered shut and the hoarders descended on Makro and Lotus. 

 

None of this seemed to make much difference to us at Rooster Central. Our pool reopened - utter joy - and my eight year old enjoyed her Zoom lessons well prepared by the excellent Thai and expatriate staff at Attamit School - respectful joy. 

 

Mrs Rooster stopped tearing her hair out concerning her daughter’s education and just removed lumps worrying about Covid….oh well. 

 

Penultimately, I would like to wish all Italians the best of luck for the match tonight (2 am Thai time Monday morning) and ask that the England fans remain quiet for their national anthem and put their laser pointers away. 

 

Finally, Rooster has always been a lover of good acronyms with many like SNAFU and FUBAR and being Scrabble word favorites. Google if you don’t know the meanings. 

 

But I particularly enjoyed the highly appropriate one revealed this week for the Disaster Response Association of Thailand.

 

DRAT!

 

Hopefully Englishmen everywhere will not be saying that come 5 am tomorrow. 

 

Rooster 

 

-- © Copyright ASEAN NOW 2021-07-11

 

In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire
To tear their clothes off and persprie.
It's one of those rules that the greatest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry
And one must avoid its ultry-violet ray.

The native grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously definitely nuts!

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun,
The Japanese don't care to.
The Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindoos and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one.
But Englishmen detest a siesta.
In the Philippines
There are lovely screens
To protect you from the glare.
In the Malay States
There are hats like plates
Which the Britishers won't wear.
At twelve noon
The natives swoon
And no further work is done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

It's such a surprise for the Eastern eyes to see
That though the English are effete,
They're quite impervious to heat,
When the white man rides every native hides in glee,
Because the simple creatures hope he
Will impale his solar topee on a tree.

It seems such a shame
When the English claim
The earth
That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth.

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit
Can never understand it.
In Rangoon the heat of noon
Is just what the natives shun.
They put their Scotch or Rye down
And lie down.
In a jungle town
Where the sun beats down
To the rage of man and beast
The English garb
Of the English sahib
Merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok
At twelve o'clock
They foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit
Deplores this foolish habit.
In Hongkong
They strike a gong
And fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand each inmate
Who's in late.
In the mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous
Lie around and snooze;
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday sun.

Is it just me when i see a long and winded post ( however interesting or witty) i just gloss through it or others do that as well?...

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

Is it just me when i see a long and winded post ( however interesting or witty) i just gloss through it or others do that as well?...

I didn't even get as far as your response.

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

Is it just me when i see a long and winded post ( however interesting or witty) i just gloss through it or others do that as well?...

Never read it only this <deleted> "Thailand to the rescue again" Lol don't think so.................................

 

Still can't get over why people get so excited over a game that, not always but often, ends in a 0-0 score. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

36 minutes ago, Zack61 said:

Still can't get over why people get so excited over a game that, not always but often, ends in a 0-0 score. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

I'm with you and I'm a Brit.  I'll watch my national team, or one of the others if mine is knocked out, but for the national bit, not the football bit.  I'd watch tiddlywinks if we were in a big competition.   ????

50 minutes ago, henry213 said:

Never read it only this <deleted> "Thailand to the rescue again" Lol don't think so.................................

 

No mention of Black Dives Matter with a cheating ballerina untouched or lazer in the eyes of Danish Goalkeeper .. No I didn’t think so … Let them show class by booing other countries national anthems .. Yep shows the class

Well I enjoyed reading your post, we must have the same British sense of humour, as for the other replies, those people must be fantastic company on a night out????

29 minutes ago, Millcx said:

No mention of Black Dives Matter with a cheating ballerina untouched or lazer in the eyes of Danish Goalkeeper .. No I didn’t think so … Let them show class by booing other countries national anthems .. Yep shows the class

Italian flags in Italy saying <deleted>#kthe queen, that's class isn't it, Italy booed most of the teams anthems theve played against.

29 minutes ago, Millcx said:

No mention of Black Dives Matter with a cheating ballerina untouched or lazer in the eyes of Danish Goalkeeper .. No I didn’t think so … Let them show class by booing other countries national anthems .. Yep shows the class

The writer addressed two of your concerns (btw it's laser). Try reading next time, if you're able to that is. 

1 hour ago, Muhendis said:

I didn't even get as far as your response.

I didn't ev

I was fully expecting him to have unwittingly passed on Covid to the old security guard ...

 

... that i felt disappointed says something about the times we live in. Plus my parenting.

7 minutes ago, BostonRob2 said:

The writer addressed two of your concerns (btw it's laser). Try reading next time, if you're able to that is. 

 

'Lazer' if he can't be bothered to Google it ... ask me, it's sheer lasiness

2 hours ago, ezzra said:

Is it just me when i see a long and winded post ( however interesting or witty) i just gloss through it or others do that as well?...

I am pretty sure that the group you belong to are the ones the beautiful ladies talk about.

"he must always be in a hurry..... cause he finishes long before i do"

1 hour ago, Zack61 said:

Still can't get over why people get so excited over a game that, not always but often, ends in a 0-0 score. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

I always enjoy the highlights.    "Uhhh,  sorry folks,  no goals to show you today.  But we do

have a short clip of the best "dives"  of the match"

I got as far as Football, and England, and that was it! 

Oh dear , now already a panicking English one ....? What they go do when loosing from Italy ?....Mass suicide?  5555 !

My heart is with England but my tenner's on Italy.

Got to get past Italy .... don't count your roosters before their hatched mate ???? 

The only certain result is that there will be a winner and a loser. Just give a moment to appreciate the extreme stress being experienced by the players of both sides and hope they will be able to deal with it.

2 hours ago, Zack61 said:

Still can't get over why people get so excited over a game that, not always but often, ends in a 0-0 score. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

You obviously have no understanding of sport, which I suppose is your loss. It's the way it's played that is most important, not necessarily the score. Even a 0-0 draw can be very exciting. Cricket, that you can play for five days without getting a winner, I suppose is the most extreme example.

1 hour ago, Jaye Mak Mak said:

I got as far as Football, and England, and that was it! 

What excites you instead? Serious question.

I thought it was a good read, but I stopped after the football drama. Reminded me of when we had a True satellite dish before they installed fibre internet past the house, and I was watching the World Cup final in the middle of the night and lost the signal for 30 minutes. That included half-time though so it could have been worse.

4 hours ago, ezzra said:

Is it just me when i see a long and winded post ( however interesting or witty) i just gloss through it or others do that as well?...

   I didn't read any of it. When I saw who the poster was, I went straight to the comments, which are always easier to read and generally more entertaining.

3 hours ago, Zack61 said:

Still can't get over why people get so excited over a game that, not always but often, ends in a 0-0 score. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

I guess you're not,but then again i guess it's a Brit thing.

VPN and BBC iplayer  on data link back up for when power goes out highly recommended or Doo football also works but lots of scrolling.

3 hours ago, henry213 said:

Never read it only this <deleted> "Thailand to the rescue again" Lol don't think so.................................

 

but the heading was good enough for you to click on the link

5 hours ago, tonray said:

In tropical climes there are certain times of day
When all the citizens retire
To tear their clothes off and persprie.
It's one of those rules that the greatest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry
And one must avoid its ultry-violet ray.

The native grieve when the white men leave their huts,
Because they're obviously definitely nuts!

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun,
The Japanese don't care to.
The Chinese wouldn't dare to,
Hindoos and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one.
But Englishmen detest a siesta.
In the Philippines
There are lovely screens
To protect you from the glare.
In the Malay States
There are hats like plates
Which the Britishers won't wear.
At twelve noon
The natives swoon
And no further work is done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

It's such a surprise for the Eastern eyes to see
That though the English are effete,
They're quite impervious to heat,
When the white man rides every native hides in glee,
Because the simple creatures hope he
Will impale his solar topee on a tree.

It seems such a shame
When the English claim
The earth
That they give rise to such hilarity and mirth.

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The toughest Burmese bandit
Can never understand it.
In Rangoon the heat of noon
Is just what the natives shun.
They put their Scotch or Rye down
And lie down.
In a jungle town
Where the sun beats down
To the rage of man and beast
The English garb
Of the English sahib
Merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok
At twelve o'clock
They foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The smallest Malay rabbit
Deplores this foolish habit.
In Hongkong
They strike a gong
And fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand each inmate
Who's in late.
In the mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There is peace from twelve till two.
Even caribous
Lie around and snooze;
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever done.
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday
Out in the midday sun.