Bbc Excess Baggage 2008-12-06

[phaethon]

BBC Radio 4just broadcast a book-plugging interview with Andrea McNicoll:

Andea McNicoll currently works in social care. She’s recently published her first novel Moonshine in the Morning set in Thailand which presents ‘an unforget­table cast of strong-minded women and their wayward husbands clinging to village life in Thailand before the relentless advance of modernity’.

Andrea travelled to Hong Kong in her early twenties and ended up in Thailand where she fell in love and eventually moved there permanently in 1981. After her wedding Andrea went to live in a village in the highlands of the North West where she and her husband ran a restaurant. Later Andrea moved to the city of Chiang Mai in the north east towards the Burmese side of Thailand and worked as a translator and interpreter for NGOs. She moved back to the UK in 2001. Moonshine in the Morning is Andrea’s debut novel.

Full program will be available as a podcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/excessbaggage/ soon, give it an hour or so.

Presenter Toksvig claims to travel a lot in Thailand, yet still cannot pronounce Phuket...

McNicoll lived inthe North for 12 years and her novel is a fictionalized satire of village life. She says expats go through three stages: 1. Love, 2. rebellion and 3. acceptance. The police are corrupt, drunken gunslingers and she doubts the current problems will be over soon. She and her Thai husband have 'parted'.

[JetsetBkk]

...Presenter Toksvig claims to travel a lot in Thailand, yet still cannot pronounce Phuket...

Maybe she asked a Thai person "Is it pronounced 'foo-ket'?", and they just smiled at her, which she took as a "yes".

[Briggsy]

I listened to the interview. Andrea McNicoll sounded very balanced. Haven't seen the book yet.