AOB Sept and Oct 2005

	January and February2005
	November and December 2004
	September and October 2004
	July and August 2004
	April to June 2004
	February and March 2004

The Author

Robert Scott lives and works in Asia; born in England I have since lived in Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore. I now work mainly in Bangkok.

If you want to know more you only need to ask! ask.

31 October 2005

Cheesey moments from Wallace and Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Book titles: "Fromage To Eternity" and "East of Edam." Art Garfunkel singing "Bright Eyes" on the Anti-Pesto van radio, an opening scene that is a spoof of launching Thunderbird 2 !

All very British - and must be completely bewildering to a Thai audience. How do you do a northern accent in sub titles !

29 October 2005 - just

I hate Khao San Road - leaves me feeling old and depressed. Am I the only person there that does not smoke...

***********************

The 2006 Football World Cup is about 8 months away - and with England having scraped their qualification, out of an easy group, the English are now thinking about the new D-Day landings...the following is from "popbitch".....

"Currently doing the rounds of the record labels in London is a demo for England's World Cup song for Germany 2006. There's apparently a lot of interest.

The song? It's called "Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Klinsmann?" A new, jingoistic version of the Dad's Army theme tune. Ant & Dec are being approached to sing it, with Gazza, Amir Khan and Peter Kaye the main targets for the video. Makes you proud to be English..."

Out with the all the old songs - the Dambusters theme and choruses of there is only one Winston Churchill!

28 October 2005

Will be back on the golf course on Sunday for my first game since September 10th. Did practice last night at the driving range - it was not pretty - in fact it was very average and felt quite unnatural. But my elbow was not too sore afterwards so should be OK to start playing.

**********************

A new Kate Bush CD - her first in twelve - yes twelve years !! A double CD - Aerial - is released by EMI on 7 November. Her first CD - the Kick Inside - remains an all time favourite. 1978 and I was still an university. "Wuthering Heights" was breathtakingly different; "The Man with the Child in his Eyes" has haunted me (a good word for Halloween) for 27 years.

26 October 2005

It will be back to the simulator for the crew of TG981 - a Thai Airbus A340-600 which botched its landing in a windy Melbourne at midday today and blew a couple of tires in a landing described by frequent flyers on the plane as their worst ever!

*************************

My mood lightened briefly this morning as I walked to work. Coming through U Chu Liang I walked past a quite stunning woman; tall, confidant, self assured, slim, legs up to here and a short fitted white skirt. Great eyes and an easy smile. I walked past; our eyes connected for the briefest of moments as she turned to the elevator bank. I refused to look back; it would simply be too obvious and she deserved better; so I marched remorselessly on to Chateau Potash.

By the time the elevator doors had closed she would have forgotten me.

25 October 2005

I can be such an emotional wreck when I am on my own...by chance I ended up watching "Empire of the Sun" this evening. Directed by Spielberg with a script by Tom Stoppard I have not seen this movie for years; not since I came to Asia and not since I had a boy of my own.

It is real (a boy's survival story in a world that he is too young to understand and a story of acute loneliness) and it is unreal; the Basie character (John Malkovitch).

But its historical perspective is rivetting; a world in turmoil; the war in China; the shift from colonialism to self determination.

And the strangest of British style reunions at the end; tentative and uncertain and rather stiff; as I guess you always know it will be.

Separation from someone that you love unconditionally is the hardest possible event to survive.

24 October 2005

Depressing article in Sunday's SCMP about how bad the air quality is in Hong Kong. It is hardly new news. But it sounds much worse than the authorities will admit to.

19 October 2005

I went to meet at friend in the Kerry Center Hotel lobby in Beijing at 9pm last night.

As my taxi pulled in there were dozens of hotel meet and greeters nervously shifting from foot to foot. Not, sadly, for me.

I loitered in the lobby out of curiosity and yet more hotel staff and management filled the lobby.

Then the stretch limo pulls up outside with the US flag. Out pops Donald Rumsfield and his entourage. His suit looked almost creased as he did. He walks with a limp and looks tired. He is smaller than I had expected arguably the most powerful man in the world to look.

There were many Chinese and US bodyguards. So running over and asking if he was looking for weapons of mass destruction was not my best idea.

Strangely he did not look over and say - hi Robert, love the blog !

18 October 2005

No CNN in the Intercontinental Hotel in Beijing this morning? What have they done wrong this time?

16 October 2005

Am sitting in a formal curtained meeting room on Beijing - it is a glorious sunny autumn day in Beijing. For three days I have not been out of the hotel, taxi and office building.

No chance to explore; the view from the Hyatt bedroom is of a sea of cranes; Beijing is building quicker than ever.

11 October 2005

I am back from three nights in Phuket. There really is no evidence of the 26 December tsunami in Patong. The trouble is Patong always was a half finished mess and that's what it still is. The only sad news was that La Salsa; a tapas bar that served great calamari and better margheritas is closed and under renovation.

I always wonder why I go to Phuket. It really is over priced and over rated.

4 October 2005

Lots of evening storms; and last nights was a big storm even by Bangkok standards. Was stuck in Suan Lum night bazaar; waded out in the rain and in water that was calf deep.

My only pair of casual shoes and still soaking wet 24 hours later. They may never recover. And buying size 12 shoes in Bangkok is not easy !

3 October 2005

I spent Saturday night in Singapore. There really is not a lot to tell you about. Some book shopping which was not much fun due to the crowds. And a very good night's sleep at the renovated Oriental hotel where you can plug your ipod into the surround sound system in the room.

30 September 2005

Old Jokes Home:

A man was hit by a sofa, a pillow and a cushion

A hospital spokesman described his condition as "comfortable".

27 September 2005

Sitting in Chateau Potash today we decided to resolve the major issues by flipping a coin - shades of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern....in Tom Stoppard's play Guildenstern asks:

"Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it."

26 Sept 2005

Am I the only person who finds the FCUK brand objectionable. Our new Boots in U Chu Liang is prominently displaying FCUK toiletries for men. Well they can go and **** themselves as I have no intention of buying their products.

*******************

I know the Aussies are upset at the Ashes defeat but really even their crocs are upset...Australian crocodile kills Briton

*******************

A visit to Chatuchak market yesterday; I really do not know why I go; it is crowded, hot, chaotic, occasionally depressing and I never buy anything.

It is a long way to go for two small plants (baht60) and a minor bout of food poisoning which left me spending most of the rest of the day in bed !

*****************

Starbucks, the Seattle-based group said its latest opening is at Badaling, a heavily touristed section of the Chinese Great Wall about 25 miles north of Beijing. Is there no where that we can escape this perfidious brand ! The bidding should be in what year will Starbucks open their first lunar branch - ok how about 2050. This makes the assumption that in order to avoid gravity issues the first long distance interplanetary flights will need to be launched from a lunar base. Sadly not in my lifetime

22 Sept 2005

George Bush was asked at a press conference if he had an opinion on Roe Vs Wade. He responded that he didn't care either way how people left New Orleans.

20 Sept 2005

The search for that small measure of peace that we all seek and few of us ever find......

19 Sept 2005

It is depressing when you read the CEO of the company that you left in 2001 describing the company at that time as a "basket case", an "ugly duckling" and a "toxic waste dump."

14 September 2005

The latest mainland pollution threat at the new Disney Hong Kong is from kids (or from parents who let them) who feel free to use any place in the theme park for a pee.

If it works on the streets in Guangdong why not on the streets of Mainland USA!

11 September 2005

It is the fourth anniversary of 9/11 and it is worth taking a long pause to remember a day that really did change the world - as the world's most powerful nation suddenly realised it's huge vulnerability. Four years on Bin Laden is still a free man and the war on terror, this monster that was created by 9/11, remains a fight that has no obvious winner and no apparent end.

**************************

I do wonder what gives white south africans such a sense of self righteous, white superiority. Sorry, this was prompted by something someone said yesterday that really was the sort of inflammatory, throw-away, line that should alarm us all.

10 September 2005

I have not mentioned my golf for a while - but if you saw how I have played the last two weeks you would know why - a dreadful round at Bangsai a week ago and a horrible round at Muang Kaew yesterday. Maybe I do see things slightly differently after the Lasik - perhaps??? But it was so bad at times yesterday that I stopped enjoying the game - the last few holes saved the day....

9 September 2005

Last night I was having a quiet game of pool in the upstairs pool room of a soi 33 bar. About 12.30am as I am finishing a game and about to head home a policeman comes up to play on the next table. Gun in the holster around his waste.

At that point it was time to go - just in case he lost !!

There is something slightly intimidating about being within feet of a man with a gun!

6 September 2005

Predictably Hong Kong was wet and horrible on Sunday and was quite glorious on Monday.

I was up at the Peak on Sunday evening taking in the view. Hong Kong (post 1997) is full of new rules so that the city can look ever more like Singapore; but this instruction was going a bit too far !

If I want to take my paraphernalia with me to the Peak then I will.

I am sure it says something completely different in Chinese. Something got lost in translation.

*****************************

Mickey Mouse is everywhere in HKG. Although the soft opening for a Charity Day on Sunday was by all accounts horrible. One to two hour queues for everything and anything. The park opens officially on 12 September. Maybe Mr. Hu can go there as his Washington trip got cancelled. Halt, Hu goes there !???

******************************

Pick your favourite SuperVoice Girl !Always up to the challenge - left side (yellow top) and lowest (white top) - I have no idea who is who !

2 September 2005

Baghdad or New Orleans: "A series of huge explosions were reported along the riverfront today as hundreds of US troops with orders to shoot-to-kill looters and gunmen were sent into the flooded city."

1 September 2005

It is the first day of the month and for some reason I feel really down. Did not sleep well last night and for reasons that I do not want to, or cannot, explain here I was inexorably sad last night.

Mai pen rai. Jai yen yen, and all that! But sometimes it needs more than comforting words

*******************

T shirt slogan on a girl outside Chateau Potash at lunchtime - "Guys make Good Pets".

*******************

Two bits of good retail news: Boots is opening in U Chu Liang and Au Bon Pain re-opens tomorrow in Chateau Potash!

********************