The week that was in Thailand news: Welcome to the quirkiest nonsense on the planet.

[rooster59]

The week that was in Thailand news: Welcome to the quirkiest nonsense on the planet.

 

 

Back in the day before the internet when we all lived in caves and were hunter gatherers, I was a cub reporter in South London getting my proverbial knackers chewed off every five minutes by a news editor with exacting standards.

It was a good training ground in journalism and taught me some life lessons about management and relationships. Both how to do and how not to do.

It was a poorly paid job though it has to be said that all earnings went on liquid refreshment guzzled before 2.30pm and between 5.30 and half ten. Which is probably why I never complain if there is an early closing crackdown in Krung Thep….

With money being short reporters were constantly on the lookout for stories that we could flog to the national papers – something called linage – which we could charge for so long as our local newspaper coverage was not gazumped.

Good payers were tabloids on the lookout for quirky stories – and I remember “getting a nice little earner” from a page five spread in The Sun about a resident’s pet python that was killed by a mouse that she fed to it.

Unfortunately those days are gone as online information is invariably owned by no one leaving little opportunity to make a few sobs on the side.

And more’s the pity – for with each passing week it seems like the stories that would have made me a fortune years ago are cropping up every single day on Thaivisa.

Is it just me or does Thailand throw up some of the quirkiest nonsense on the planet?!

When I first came to Thailand in the early eighties I realized that journalism didn’t pay so I turned to teaching carving myself a niche both in delivering English then later a lucrative nest egg garnered by teaching Thai.

But a love of the news always stayed with me so I make no excuses this week for virtually ignoring the dull and dreary serious news in favor of the fun and frivolous that puts a smile on our collective faces day in and day out.

Top billing – and certainly in the “couldn’t make it up category” – went to kindhearted gran Bang-orn who decided not to press charges against a stranger who had his way with her pet dog in a nearby deserted house.

The reason, she said, was that “Jao Jut” went willingly, wagging his tail in anticipation as he trotted off to the rogering rendezvous.

Talk about Thais finding a compromise everywhere.

Next up was the lady who “issued an internet warning” about buying on the cheap. I imagined she meant her words for only the 65 million Thais out of 67 million who do just that, no matter what they say about the cost if asked.

This lady’s beef was with some 50 baht cushions that she had been sleeping on for several years and had frayed. Inside as stuffing were sanitary towels and nappies.

We didn’t need to be told they were used. For me it brought to mind all those occasions when I had hung the wrong smalls on the line, put my feet on a pillow or similarly committed one of the seven thousand Thai cardinal sins that most farangs fall foul of.

Online reaction was of course indignant with the smug saying you get what you pay for while they secretly had a look inside their own 49 baht cushions.

Best crack of the week came from forum wag Juan B Tong who commented on the story: “OTOP – one tampon one product”, a delightful play on tambon or sub-district, for the uninitiated.

Continuing the quirky – though in this case it was criminal – were the two Indians passing off play money for a “song thaew” fare in Pattaya.

The forum went into a tailspin as the Schadenfreudian curmudgeons of keyboard gave a massive “som nam naa” to the driver for thinking he was on a winner with two ten pound notes with Chinese writing on them.

The appearance of Charles Darwin on the back further amused many, leading to the hapless driver being compared to one of Rooster’s evolutionary challenged ‘originals of the species’.

In most countries the driver would have taken it on the chin but there he was, bemoaning his fate to the most unsympathetic and invariably uninterested creatures on the planet – the Pattaya police.

Also coming a cropper in QUOTES – the Queen of the Eastern Seaboard – was the Iranian robbed by a lady on a motorcycle who turned out to be anything but.

Hardly news but the translator was clearly enjoying himself with his assertion that the middle-easterner only realized his mistake when he was trying to find something to hold onto to avoid falling off the bike.

Causing him to grab some extra tackle.

Going viral on the forum was the story of the cheapskate groom who turned up at his wedding with only half the agreed dowry.

What is it about dowries that seems to enrage westerners so much? I get the feeling that many have spent their money chasing what Bernard Trink used to call the “demimondaines” and are thus outraged at still paying for it when it comes to marriage.

Bless and double bless! If anyone thinks that marriage is cheaper you must be as barking as the dog that went so willingly to his fate in Pattaya.

Rooster, being a fair fowl, never thought twice about all that money laid out on the floor of the ramshackle hut in Loei that the soon to be Mrs R called home.

But I must admit I did feel a tad peeved when all those twenty and fifty baht notes that had been thrust into my wai-ing hands by every single person in the village similarly went the way of she that must be obeyed #2, the mother-in-law.

Also coming in twos were a pair of stories about trains that tickled Rooster’s ever-ready ribs.

The first was the transport official who echoed Titanic-ally that the high speed service from Bangkok to Korat could never possibly fail.

Those of us who remember when a cleaner left the brake off six locomotives coupled together in Bang Seu causing them to speed driver-less towards Hualampong Station in 1986 may beg to differ.

The aforesaid accident – that killed six – was a Thai classic that everyone was talking about. I had missed the news but was freaked out later in the day when I heard the gabbing maid at home talking about “rot fai chon gan” – a phrase that literally means trains colliding but is used much more frequently to describe when one’s mistress inadvertently meets one’s wife.

Fearing those knackers were once again at risk I prepared for the worst with ‘er indoors – how relieved was I when discovering it was actually trains that had ‘collided’, on this occasion with the station itself.

Also causing merriment was the feasibility study for a train to run between Chumporn on the Gulf and Ranong on the Andaman. It was reminiscent of one of Thailand’s oldest plans known as the Kra Isthmus project to build a canal between the two seas.

Plans that have been talked about as much as Britain’s Channel Tunnel. That eventually got built but one wonders about these train projects – especially when, or if, Thailand is returned to some form of democracy.

You know, where you vote for someone.

The military seem to be able to sign off on anything and with the Shinawatra’s either banished or soon to enjoy porridge will anyone elected have the clout or gonads to get things done. Whatever your views on Big Too’s crew some things have been achieved.

It is not just a question of telling him to stick his junta up his jumper!

And so to this week’s Rooster awards. The “Good Luck With That One” award goes to the anguished mum of the Belgian woman found hanging in Koh Tao who was on her way to Thailand to “get to the truth”.

I have only been to Koh Tao once – and that was quite enough. Not that I felt unsafe as they weren’t murdering each other just yet. No, it was just that the island resembled a building site with 7/11s on every corner.

So much for paradise – if I wanted that I could have just driven down to Tops.

While the “Good Luck With That 2” award goes to the engineers in Pattaya who said that the tunnel would now be finished in August.

Honestly, you’d think they were building the eighth and ninth wonders of the world combined there have been so many deadlines and delays. Now they need some “expert staff” to man it, something they seem to have only just thought of!

While the “Good Luck With That 3” award goes to Phuket for vowing, if a province can vow, to become the first of its kind to be corruption free.

I wonder if they are paying for that?

Finally, it was interesting to see that almost 8,000 bikers have been nabbed for being on the footpath or going the wrong way in Bangkok in the last two months. Police should be watching the red lights – I have never seen so many bikers risking their lives as in recent weeks.

Their antics remind me of an experience going back home at 2am one night. The motorcyclist next to me went forward on green and was creamed by a pick-up. Rooster was first on the scene some 50 meters down the road where the man was trying to get up having been relieved of one of his legs.

When I got home and hugged the wife closely that night she wondered why I couldn’t sleep.

And wasn’t feeling romantic.

Rooster.

 

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-07-02

[KIWIBATCH]

Another good read from Rooster...I look forward to it each week.

[Grumpy Duck]

21 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Finally, it was interesting to see that almost 8,000 bikers have been nabbed for being on the footpath or going the wrong way in Bangkok in the last two months. Police should be watching the red lights – I have never seen so many bikers risking their lives as in recent weeks.

Their antics remind me of an experience going back home at 2am one night. The motorcyclist next to me went forward on green and was creamed by a pick-up. Rooster was first on the scene some 50 meters down the road where the man was trying to get up having been relieved of one of his legs.

Recently I had just made a ฿1000 donation (for a ฿500 fine) at a police checkpoint for the crime of failing to ride in the far left lane, (which was a left turn only lane) blocked by other vehicles stopped at the checkpoint. I  later stopped for a red light after other bikes ran the light. Several drivers layed on their horns, imagine a MC waiting for a red light to turn green on phetchaburi rd. I pulled to the left curb and the others proceeded thru the red light. 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Grumpy Duck
Senility?

[Marvo]

Another full bag of nails hit with wit and precision squarely on the head

Can't help wondering how many cheekily crafted salient quips sail undetected over the crania of TV's highly cultivated and astute Sunday morning audience 

[graemeaylward]

An excellent article Rooster, but one thing you could add to your amazing, amusing, or annoying list is "The Nation" logo! It irks me every time it appears at the end of an this hallowed site. "The Nation Thailland's Independent Newspaper" !!! Now call me old-fashioned, but I do like things spelled correctly, especially when it is the name of a country even if the apostrophe is correctly used! But maybe I have missed something and a double "I" in Thailand is the Welsh spelling :-) In the interests of economy, I will stick to one "l" :-)

Sent from my Lenovo A3000-H using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[graemeaylward]

Another thing that annoys me is when people leave out part of a sentence as I have done in line 3 above which should read "at the end of an article on this hallowed site" lol

Sent from my Lenovo A3000-H using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[lamyai3]

Reluctant to challenge a renowned wordsmith, but shouldn't it be "a few sovs"?