Less than welcome News

Mostly he enjoyed these activities separately, but from time to time he would enjoy them together, and was renowned for his occasional tumbles, from which he never seemed to come to much harm.

Sam had one such tumble recently, and  again seemed to have come to no harm, but he died peacefully at home in his sleep a few days later. It is quite probable that his death was nothing to do with the fall. Above Sam enjoying a beer with Giulio and guest celebrity Telly Savalas at the Meeting Place, and left Sam and his wife enjoy a Spy Wine Cooler at Giulio's first curry evening.

Arising from Episode 45

via email from Rupert : VERY SNEAKY I SEE. WELL AT LEAST YOU HAD THE DECENCY TO SHOW A PIC OF ME  SMILING.  ANYWAY NOW THAT IM CHEF OF THE YEAR HERE ( WELL IN BROWNS AT LEAST ) I AM PERFECTLY POISED TO CONQUER THE WORLD. SOON ILL BE ABLE TO AFFORD STYLISTS , PERSONAL TRAINERS , AND PEOPLE TO HUNT DOWN BAD EX PICTURES OF ME AND DESTROY THEIR MAKERS. WELL THATS THE THEORY ANYWAY.    MWA HA HA HA HA HA HAHHHHHHHHH   .....................ETC.   YOUR LUCKY IM NOT FROM SCOTLAND OR ID GET A PERSECUTION COMPLEX ABOUT YOU PICKING ON ME .

Sorry Rupert, but I just couldn't resist including your further comments, together with a picture of you not smiling. The sweat on your forehead combines brilliantly with the red-eye. Guess those hunters will now be working overtime? Lucky for me that I'm leaving the country next week!

I included this picture of John in the last episode, but had forgotten the name of his son Daniel. I found it when looking through earlier episodes to part 36 when he was asleep on a table in the Outback after apparently drinking four beers. See part 36 for the various jokes. He has grown a lot since then.

Two Wheels Biker Bar

By strange co-incidence that same episode 36 also featured Derrick with girlfriend Noot in the Outback bar, but on that occasion Derrick was wearing a Beer Laos T-shirt rather than the Beer Chang T-shirt shown here. I wonder whether Derrick follows Pete's custom of wearing sponsored clothing? I find Derrick and John look similar, although in this photo of them together the differences are more apparent, but look at the photo below, and see how quickly you can identify which one of them it is.

Given that it is in fact John left in the motorcycle 'colours' and Derrick above in them, I did accuse them of trying to cause deliberate confusion, rather as Ian and I used to do. ( Part 09 ). Naturally they denied it, but then I spotted that they have different tattoos. In fact in the photo above you can't see Derrick's tattoos at all, because they are hidden by the sleeves of his T-shirt.

John has taken over the Two Wheels biker bar which is of course the reason that John insisted they pose in front of the Two Wheels sign. John is slowly changing the menu to a more international cuisine. It sounds interesting.  I wish him well and look forward to eating there.

Choconomics

Another recent book loan was ' The Paradox of Choice' subtitled 'Why more is less', by Barry Schwartz. Barry makes the point that when choosing anything, the first choice you make is between the goal of choosing absolutely the best and the goal of choosing something that is good enough. If you seek and accept only the best you are a 'maximizer'. The alternative to maximizing is to be a 'satisficer'. I am a satisficer.

Barry develops the argument that the drawbacks of maximizing are so profound and the benefits so tenuous that we may well ask why anyone would pursue such a strategy. The first explanation is that many maximizers may be unaware of this tendency in themselves, and the second is a concern with status, where only 'the best' assures success in a competition with everybody else.

It is often assumed that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction, but choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them. Barry makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety and busyness of people's lives. As a satisficer myself, I consider that if stress, anxiety and busyness are reduced, one should be less unhappy, that is to say, one should be happier. I wrote about money and happiness in part 40.

There is a saying in English about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. To me this is akin to maximizing, but for reasons that I hope are completely obscure to all but one other, I am going to call such knowledge 'choconomics'. I will be developing the theme of choconomics in future episodes.

Dan and I in La La Land

I wonder how many other people spotted this sign in Pattaya? It appears to be an apartment block named 'Shagwell Court'. Hm, well I also wonder who dreamt up that name?

Although the colour scheme may be a little off-putting, Dan and I were pleasantly surprised by the standard offered at this hotel for a modest 550 baht per night. It has the delightful name of the 'Crystal Palace'.

On the left we have an ordinary beach scene from Pattaya, but what is that in the background? Yes, it is a submarine. Surely not a common sight at the beach, but no-one apart from me appeared to take any notice.

In past episodes featuring Dan, he has always suffered from a deluge of Thai women wishing to know him. To some extent his time in February staying in the Magic Kingdom was much the same, but this time there was a subtle difference. Dan had met a girl called Bia (or Beer) in Pattaya, and had decided that she was someone special. So special in fact that in his wish to know Bia he rejected a lot of offers from other women who wanted to know him.

It was with that classic Thai irony therefore that on the night Dan forfeited his chances to know so many other women, and staked it all on knowing Bia, she received a call from her Australian boyfriend asking her to go and live with him.

What was she to do? She couldn't decide and turned to Dan for advice. Perhaps not surprisingly, Dan found this an incredible turn-off. So although he understood Bia a lot better, he never got to know her. Personally, I found it completely hilarious.

Nevertheless, it wasn't all bad news, as Dan managed to meet up with this teenager the next evening and get to know her. Her name is Ghai, which some will recognise as the Thai word for chicken.

While Dan was having in his words 'an amazing time' getting to know Ghai, I was with 'A' (right). The look on her face gives you a good idea what sort of time I had with A.

But it wasn't all bad for me either. In an eventful few days I managed to meet and get to know Neung, Jane, Dao and Peng, above L to R.

I also met Tikki left, and so enjoyed talking with her and getting to know her that I arranged to meet her the next day. I was therefore surprised when I was addressed by the woman on the right the following day. It turned out to be Tikki with complete makeover. I would not have recognised her.

Royal Cliff Hotel Pattaya Re-visited

While Dan and I do not pretend to be epicures, we do nevertheless appreciate the various (some subtle) ingredients of a fine meal. Apart from the obvious (food), one must also consider, inter alia, ambience, service, wine and presentation. When we first came to La La Land in 1984 (although then we called it Pattaya) we stayed at the Royal Cliff Hotel. And yes these photos taken in the Royal Cliff of myself with Eet and Dan with Jim are from our maiden visit.

Close to the Dusit Resort, at the north end of Pattaya there used to be a fine Italian restaurant called 'La Gritta'. Dan and I have enjoyed some excellent meals there in the past, but like so many things in Pattaya, it has gone. So Dan and I headed to S. Pattaya and Jomtien in search of a suitable replacement, and eventually found ourselves in a fine Italian restaurant that is now a part of the Royal Cliff complex. (It was a hotel, now it is a 'complex'). They offer a menu of the week for a modest figure per head. As it was six, yes, 6 courses, and meant that we did not have to deliberate over the menu we opted for it.

Ambience: We had this delightful trio playing Spanish style music during our meal. We were NOT hassled to tip them, or to choose tunes in order to solicit payment, they were very good!

Food: I intended to keep the menu to refer to, but failed. Apart from the antipasto (not pictured) and selection of Italian bread including breadsticks which I adore, our first listed course was Porchetta (centre above). I have no memory of eating Porchetta before, but I would definitely eat it again. I didn't photograph the second (soup) course of double baked rabbit consommé with date garnish, but (almost) needless to say it was again delicious. The third course was potatoes and bacon bits, but had a fancy Italian name which escapes me. Yes .... it was delicious too.

Wine: Dan graciously deferred to me on the choice of wine. I was perhaps lucky to make a choice of a 2004 Medoc which turned out to be the perfect complement to our meal.

Food: (continued) The main course was a medallion of steak, which was cooked to perfection and melted in the mouth. Suitable words to describe it are beyond me. You would have had to have eaten it to understand. The fifth course (centre) looks a bit like ice-cream, but was naturally far more. Again delicious.

Just writing about the experience makes me want to go back again and again. It was a wonderful meal that was a true delight to all of the senses. It is almost impossible to believe that it cost just £50 (80 Euros) for the two of us.

Wedding in Kalasin

As I now know Dao fairly well, somehow, sometime I agreed to go to the wedding of her younger brother Am (centre, Dao is far left) in Kalasin. The word fiasco does not fall easily from my lips, especially in Thailand where such events are not 

at all rare, but getting to the wedding  proved somewhat more difficult than even I had expected. At one point I saw it as a test of my stamina to see the thing through. In the end I did get to the remote rural village where the ceremony was being held, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

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