Friday 1st

Charles, you were right, another excellent recommendation, an Italian restaurant with no menu and only six tables. The starter was a mix of Italian coldcuts, salad and many things I wasn't exactly sure what they were but had that strong, delicious Mediterranean taste.

Saturday 2nd

Trying my best to avoid the "Sad Bloke Police" (thanks sam) I made the pilgrimage to Pantip Plaza in urder to upgrade my computer. I thought it was about time my Pentium two processer had a rest and I thought I could replace it with a Pentium three or four.

You should have been a fly on the wall. After they convinced me that a Pentium 4 (1.7 GHz) was what I needed they then explained that I'd need a new motherboard.

Of course the new motherboard won't fit into the old case so I'll need a new case too.

Aha the new case won't support the hard drive configuration so I'll need a new hard drive too.

etc etc

So I ended up paying twice as much as I planned but have now got the Rolls Royce (or probably some other more modern fast car) of computers proudly supporting Windows XP.

Sunday 3rd

So finally I got along to Silom on Sunday. An interesting mix of market and music as the road is blocked to traffic for the day. Enjoyable but you can't help comparing it to pedestrianised areas in other capital cities and it still has a long way to go.

Monday 4th

The world travellers report in by email:

1. Cambodia

I have just had an e-mail from Stu, he has finally arrived in Cambodia after setting off a day late!!

He is finding it really difficult to get a flight from Cambodia to Singapore, so he might have to come back to Thailand, and he has already had another bout of food poisoning.
Michelle

2. New Zealand

Just a quick note to say hello from a very hot New Zealand.

A great place and I can highly recommend a visit.

Bye for now

Andy

3. Peru

As I am always looking at your diary perhaps you would like to see some photos of where I have been in last few days.

Saludos,

Mark

P.s. There are 36 photos http://communities.msn.com/LifeaBeach/shoebox.msnw?Page=1

The wonders of modern technology!

Tuesday 5th

Surjit Sahota lands up... sans his band of brothers
HARNEET SINGH
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 03, 2002 10:16:08 PM ]

CHANDIGARH: The band Sahotas conjures up the image of five brothers mouthing Teri Meri Gal Ban Gayi. Considering that their first album was a sellout, expectations from this England based band are high, especially with their recently released second album Dil Vich Tu Basdi. Coupled with all this hype came the news of their arrival in the city to promote the album and with much gusto a press conference was arranged so that the scribe fraternity could meet up with this popular bhangra band. Imagine one’s disappointment when expecting all five of them to turn up, we were confronted with just one Sahota! Anticlimax is perhaps the best way to describe our state of mind but Surjit Sahota more than made up for the absence of his brothers who according to him missed the flight because they are busy working on the next album.” Surjit, who is the lead singer of the band, went through the whole, “I cannot express how happy I am to be visiting Punjab,” routine first. “This has been a cherished dream of mine for the past 33 years from the time I was born. Although last year we had done a number of shows in India in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore, somehow Punjab got left out and I am glad that at last came here.” As a matter of fact, Surj (as he prefers to be called), did a little bhangra when he entered the stage. The city also seemed to have made its way to his heart through his stomach because he finds the food here “great, exactly like my mom used to make.” About his music, Surj said, “The band was formed in 1987 when we took part in a national competition for musicians organised by the national television of UK. The competition provided us with an opportunity to perform at the Royal Albert Hall and the fact that it was a huge event and also that it was being televised, gave us the kind of recogniton we wanted. We then came up with our first album, Gidda Pao which we released in UK.” After this the going has been fairly smooth for the band, which has now released seven albums till date (just two out of these have been released in India). Said the vocalist, “Our music is not just the standard dancing bhangra, we have tried to make innovations and thus have reggae fusion as well as ballets in ourmusic.” Quite happy with making music with the family, Surj said, “We are thinking about going in for collaborations and we might come up with a joint album with either Apache Indian or Malkit Singh.” Their audience he said, “consisted mostly of university students who really love the Punjabi music.” His brothers would be joining him soon since the band is all set to perform in Punjab on Baisakhi day. Check them out!
 

Wednesday 6th

Dinner at "Cabbages and Condoms" with the UK Scout Jamboree Management team... a laugh a minute!

Thursday 7th

Sak's cooking has made it into print. I have just received a copy of the UK Scouting magazine which features his original recipe for "Kanom naa moo". He's chuffed.

Friday 8th

Hmmm, I thought Thai was a difficult language to learn:

Why English is the hardest language to learn
1, The bandage was wound around the wound.

2, The farm was used to produce produce.

3, The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.

4, There is no time like the present, so he thought he
would present
the present.

5, When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

6, He did not object to the object.

7, The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

8,The oarsmen had a row about how to row.

9, he was too close to the door to close it.

10, A stag does strange things when the does are
present.

11, After a number of injections my jaw became number.

12, The artist saw a tear in his painting and shed a
tear.

13,She had to subject the subject to a series of
tests.

14, An army chef decided to desert his dessert in the
desert.

There are no eggs in an eggplant, no apple or pine in pineapple.

Quicksand works slowly.
Boxing rings are square.
Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea or are pigs.
Writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't
groce and hammers
don't ham.
If a vegetarian eats veg, what does an humanitarian
eat?
A slim chance and a fat chance are similar.
So are quite a lot and quite a few.
But overlook and oversee are very different.
You fill in a form to fill it out.
An alarm goes off by going on.
when the stars are out, you see their light but when
the lights are
out you see nothing.

Thanks Sowi.

Saturday 9th

Received a postcard from The Jones' stuck in Banff due to avalanches blocking the road to the airport.

Sunday 10th

Housework day!

Monday 11th

An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn''t get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on the foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer''s mouse.

Tuesday 12th

Happy New (Chinese) Year. I think I'll spend this evening in the oriental fantasy that is Chinatown. How exotic!

Wednesday 13th

Never, ever, ever, let me go to Chinatown on Chinese New Year ever again. I spent a month there last night!

Chinatown is on the far side of Bangkok from here, it is the older part of the city with small chaotic streets. The traffic is normally bad but on this special day it was horrendous. After taking an age to get there by bus and tuc tuc I soon found myself in the middle of human gridlock jammed amongst thousands and thousands of people. Quite a frightening experience, despite the fact that I was taller than the locals and could see over their heads. 

The cultural experience was as interesting as a 20 second clip on a news programme would have satisfied. Instead I spent an uncomfortable four hours doing very little. Happy New Year.

Thursday 14th

It is Valentine's Day. The Bangkok have a curfew today, anyone under 18 seen out after 10pm will be arrested!

Friday - Sunday

Sak's Graduation was the only event this weekend but with all his family staying with me if was big. To do full justice to the event I would have to write reams but as I'm fighting to keep up to date with my work at the moment I'll have to postpone it till... (when I retire!)

Monday 18th

Hot news from Chandigah:

Two rickshaw-pullers were arrested by the police for reportedly plying their rickshaws on the wrong side of the road near the Sector 17 bus stand.

Poor guys ... if their job isn't difficult enough! This story is in the Chandigah Times, not a newspaper I read every day but there was an interview with Surjit in it:

Tuesday 19th

Had my renewal of contract medical examination today. Passed with flying colours though it was hardly very rigorous. Two nurses were in fits of hysterics when I was doing the eye test. They thought it was really cute when I peeped using both eyes when I was supposed to be testing the left eye.

I plucked up courage and drank the pale yellow liquid they give away to waiting patients.

Wednesday 20th

Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?

Thursday 21st

Nine hours working on "Blackbaud", the school administrative software, today. Had a breakthrough and at last managed to import huge amounts of data. Exhaustion showed with a 9pm bedtime!

Friday 22nd

Why are there 5 syllables in the word "monosyllabic"?

Saturday - Tuesday

Off to the beach:

Wednesday 27th

There is a report in the Bangkok Post that the Government is proposing that all taxis here be fitted with a plastic guard to enclose the driver. I don't know why because there is not a big problem with violence towards taxi drivers and I remember that the cages the taxi drivers of Beijing sat in made them seem like wild animals.

Thursday 28th

The last day of a short month. Less days till next payday... not that I'm broke but I seem to be paying for a lot of holidays at the moment and treated myself to a new watch today. Half of my salary is pain in sterling and half in baht so I am never sure whether I want the exchange rate to go up or down.