Monday 1st

Only  one pupil caught me out today with an April fool so I sent him off to the other side of the campus for a long weight (wait).

Click here for the news from the BBC

Tuesday 2nd

Baby photos arrive from Mom (see last month's request) ... Think she got the wrong child ... the ugly baby in the pictures couldn't possibly have been me!

Wednesday 3rd

While the UK enjoy Easter holidays, we don't break up till Friday. Then it is Songkran, the Thai water throwing festival... great in this hot weather.

Thursday 4th

British Chamber of Commerce seminar at the British Club! Jolly Good Show.

Friday 5th for a fortnight

Phuket here I come!

Reading the morning paper by the pool

Friday 19th

Back in Bangkok after a great trip from the south to the north-east of the country... by train, bus and hired car. Got wet as expected during Songkran (the water throwing festival) and terribly sunburnt down south. Back at work today:

Saturday 20th

So just how corrupt is Thailand? The list is taken from Transparency International, a corruption-fighting organisation based in Germany. The index works like this: The lower the country is on the list, the more corrupt it is. The number in front of the country name is the ranking, the number behind it is the corruption score where 10 is perfectly clean & honest and 0 is hopelessly rotten. So let's look at the bright side... Thailand is still ahead of Zimbabwe!

The 2001 Corruption Perceptions Index

1 Finland 9.9
2 Denmark 9.5
3 New Zealand 9.4
4 Iceland 9.2
5 Singapore 9.2
6 Sweden 9.0
7 Canada 8.9
8 Netherlands 8.8
9 Luxembourg 8.7
10 Norway 8.6
11 Australia 8.5
12 Switzerland 8.4
13 United Kingdom 8.3
14 Hong Kong 7.9
15 Austria 7.8
16 Israel 7.6
15 USA 7.6
18 Chile 7.5
19 Ireland 7.5
20 Germany 7.4
21 Japan 7.1
22 Spain 7.0
23 France 6.7
24 Belgium 6.6
25 Portugal 6.3
26 Botswana 6.0
27 Taiwan 5.9
28 Estonia 5.6
29 Italy 5.5
30 Namibia 5.4
31 Hungary 5.3
32 Trinidad & Tobago 5.3
33 Tunisia 5.3
34 Slovenia 5.2
35 Uruguay 5.1
36 Malaysia 5.0
37 Jordan 4.9
38 Lithuania 4.8
39 South Africa 4.8
40 Costa Rica 4.5
41 Mauritius 4.5
42 Greece 4.2
43 South Korea 4.2
44 Peru 4.1
45 Poland 4.1
46 Brazil 4.0
47 Bulgaria 3.9
48 Croatia 3.9
49 Czech Republic 3.9
50 Colombia 3.8
51 Mexico 3.7
52 Panama 3.7
53 Slovak Republic 3.7
54 Egypt 3.6
55 El Salvador 3.6
56 Turkey 3.6
57 Argentina 3.5
58 China 3.5
59 Ghana 3.4
60 Latvia 3.4
61 Malawi 3.2
62 Thailand 3.2
63 Dominican Rep 3.1
64 Moldova 3.1
65 Guatemala 2.9
66 Philippines 2.9
67 Senegal 2.9
68 Zimbabwe 2.9
69 Romania 2.8
70 Venezuela 2.8
71 Honduras 2.7
72 India 2.7
73 Kazakhstan 2.7
74 Uzbekistan 2.7
75 Vietnam 2.6
76 Zambia 2.6
77 Cote d´Ivoire 2.4 
78 Nicaragua 2.4
79 Ecuador 2.3
80 Pakistan 2.3
81 Russia 2.3
82 Tanzania 2.2
83 Ukraine 2.1
84 Azerbaijan 2.0
85 Bolivia 2.0
86 Cameroon 2.0
87 Kenya 2.0
88 Indonesia 1.9
89 Uganda 1.9 3
90 Nigeria 1.0
91 Bangladesh 0.4
 

Sunday 21st

Today must be a very tense time in the West Midlands. I don't follow football usually but there are times when I must give my spiritual support to my home team Wolves. They have even been mentioned in the Bangkok Post this week. Nick explained the situation about promotion to the Premiere to me:

Two teams get promoted automatically. A third team is promoted when it wins a play off of four teams. So first place is automatically promoted, as is second place.

Third, forth, fifth and sixth place teams play each other in a knockout tournament, the winner of which gets the third promotion place.

So, first place are Manchester City, who cannot be caught, and so are promoted.

Second place is Albion and third place are Wolves. Albion are 1 point ahead of Wolves.

There is one game left for each team, this Sunday afternoon [today]. 3 ponts for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss. Work out the Maths on that.
Whatever happens on Sunday determines the second automatic promotion place.
Whoever fails to get that, goes into the lottery of the knockout tournament for the third spot.

Nick is a lifelong Wolves supporter and JP is just as crazy about Albion.

Can someone email me the results as soon as they are in ....

Monday 22nd

A draw for Wolves but the scoreline was academic as West Bromwich Albion took three points off Crystal Palace to secure the second automatic promotion spot.

Seven thousand travelling Wolves fans, plus a further 10,000 at the Molineux beamback, had their hopes raised by an early Wanderers’ goal. But the initial excitement was flattened as news filtered through of Albion’s brace at the Hawthorns. The visiting fans, however, did raise a cheer for the efforts of their team as the final whistle signalled Wolves’ entry into the play-offs.

Tuesday 23rd

The great thing about the web is that old friends occasionally will look you up and send an email. I heard from Nigel Blount yesterday who since I last saw him has got married and has a three year old boy.

Received a video of British TV (well Frazier actually) from home, thanks

Wednesday 24th

I never cease to be amazed by the power of the web. I am using Outlook more and more to organise my contact details and everyday I find something new. Today I realised that if you have entered someone's address into your address book there is an icon you can click on which will find a map showing you exactly where they live! I tried it for mark McCabe out in the states and got this.

Thursday 25th (Pay day)

Well I put that bit about Mark's house in yesterday's diary not thinking that he'd be reading it straight away... but sure enough in this morning's e-inbox was:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?mapdata=UrVYjtEIiZ9qsF2vsZrwrN%252bqYQBsNPoUEIO%252bGNuTjQtAq1UcZui9EdG2pD8g2SoviOm5B8a72BCs%252fdnH853lP6xIVkBStRtzRoLtOXCjFiWtky1C4VgSxEvezdocQw%252bUaQRKtZr16IdjzUDKrYhoHz5QZf8RhUU1tcUo6uTqEJoJ%252b0o5I3KLoy23Xr8J77KTQU54smGKaGqUtaUQuuhdqQQFPMTQq33p87h2mhuZdDQp%252fYRkPo6ahfQIKHRUg02HwJNpoAOcnuxK2ITrIuV9DFmrE4wN3zfeNx%252bEtRsPjYO%252f0F1QICUPeeRUYunmktG14uU%252bbOCaKG99giO%252fvyso8Ko4yUsvnQk0O08bDJnmp4YCDWkU%252brA7UulOSawgzkxxeOT1%252flJMzcKXwRvBOOAfBA%253d%253d&click=center&map.x=107&map.y=184"> Here's an aerial photo:  Our house is the sixth on the left as you count down from the corner (dead center in the picture).  The red blob in the driveway is my truck.  It's a pretty current picture as the grass is turning green, probably five weeks old.  Come visit!

Having just seen ET (20th Anniversary edition) ... it reminds me of the house they used in the film.

Nice truck Mark .... the wheels are a bit dirty though!

Friday 26th

Hey! Hey! Hey! I see that I'm the 2000th customer on the Diary Web-site. Do I win a prize?

Shep
 

Saturday 27th

Are you too smart for your salary? Let me know.
 http://money.guardian.co.uk/work/iqtest2/
 

Thailand is the "Land of Smiles" but it is also the land of special offers and promotions. I once remember waiting at a counter at a hotel and seeing a computer print out of the names of the guests staying in each of the rooms. One column of the table listed the amount the guest was paying per night. Because of all the special deals and arrangements I noticed that no to guests were paying the same.

I am always getting vouchers and cards for cheap deals on all sorts of things. Today it way half priced buffet lunch at the Novotel in Siam square:

Sunday 28th

Just 10 weeks of the school year left. Mike, Jo, Nick, Julie, and Heather all leave at the end of term. They all started at Patana the same time as me. . . . I'm getting a bit of a "left behind" feeling [must be the way I'm sitting!]

Monday 29th

No I know that modern technology is a little confusing for the elderly but when I sat down to watch my Frazier tape sent from home I was treated to:

1. The second half of a Frazier programme

2. A documentary about the Acropolis in French

3. A advert for an upcoming Frazier programme

4. An hour of the Shopping Channel

5. The closing credits of a Frazier program

6. Brookside

7. An interview with Joe Frazier the boxer

8. Twenty five minutes of the test card

9. Forty five minutes of interference

10. Ten minutes of the milk race

11. An episode of Frazier that I'd seen before!

Only joking (apart from the Acropolis and Brookside bits!) ... :-)

Tuesday 30th

Thinking of buying a car at last. Anyone got any advice?