Welcome to rascott.com.
This is a personal site that reflects my interests in news, current affairs, aviation and travel.
email me at robert@rascott.com
Photo Albums
My
photographs have been moved off this site and are now stored on Picasa. They
were simply taking up too much space on my web host.
Please use this link to see my list of photo albums.
Some
Useful links:
Information:
Met Office Volcano watch
World Time Clock
Exchange Rates
Journalism:
Nationsonline.org
Project Syndicate
Amnesty International
Reporters w/o borders
The Guardian - UK
BBC World News
CNN Asia
Bangkok Post
Daylife.com - news
Gulf News
Arabian Business
Good causes:
Sister
Joan - Bangkok
Regional Info:
BKK Magazine
HK Magazine
In
Singapore Magazine
TimeOut Dubai
Travel:
Circle of Asia
Tales of Asia
Smart Travel Asia
Finance:
FinanceAsia
Aviation:
Amadeus (airline
schedules)
Airliners
- aviation forum
Thailand Info
thailand.com
learningthai.com
sawadee.com
bangkok a-z
Back in the UK:
Newton Ferrers
Government:
The
"new" White House
Photography
Denis Olivier - black and white
And for fun:
Lin Ping live panda tv
EarthCam
The opinions expressed on these pages are entirely personal unless they are credited; you may not agree with all, or anything, that I write. So please use the feedback page to respond, comment or berate me.
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An Occasional Blog
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Thailand Blogs Bangkok Pundit - politics Bangkok Metblogs - city life Thai-blogs.com - rather serious
2bangkok.com
- not really a blog but always up to date
on Bangkok news
BKKOK.com
Thai Girl The exotic
adventures of a literary sexagenarian.
Thai Films
dxbae
- picture blog
Al - Emarati - English language
UAE blog
In China Danwei - media and advertising news from China
Shanghai Diaries - self
explanatory
My Olive Tree
- Macau blog In Singapore: Xiaxue - self-confessed mean, bitchy, sex goddess who says "wah" a lot!
Mr Brown
- colourful commentary from Singapore
In Canada:
Media:
Tabloid
Watch (UK) Aviation Amadeus (airline schedules) Airline meals - see it b4 you eat it !
Airliners
- aviation forum, trip reports and pix
archive Planenation - commercial aviation news Airchive - a web museum of commercial aviation.
CrankyFlier - mainly US
commentary
Sharjah - 1937 News The Guardian - UK
Arabian Business China sites Bangkok info sites Worthy Sites Niall Ferguson - my favorite modern historian
Rconversation - from Rebecca MacKinnon, ex-TV
reporter-turned-blogger. Fun Sites
Penguin baseball Technology Ideas
Stuff -
gadgets The Rest
Black Flamingo - recipes and
life (no golf!)
Author
Robert Scott lives and works in Dubai; born in England I have since lived in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. I am very happily married to Tai.
If you want to know more you only need to ask! ask.
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27 July 2010 Thank god for The Sun:
26 July 2010
******************************** Interesting!? 25 July 2010 Landed in Dubai at 1.40am. Immigration was fast. Bags were not. Out of airport about 2.55am - into 36C heat and a huge taxi queue. Unusually for this flight most passengers got off in Dubai - huge number of people coming back to Dubai at the end of the weekend from holiday. And the number of bags they have with them !! And before 8am the contractor was on the hoist drilling outside our window. Impossible to sleep through that noise. And at 2.30pm the upstairs apartment wants to have a Madonna disco. Have these people never thought about their neighbours ? ******************************* The images of recent royal events, archive pictures of the Queen, Prince of Wales and other members of the monarchy can be seen from Monday. Of course you cannot see those pictures if you are in the UAE as the Flickr web site is blocked. 24 July 2010 Totally depressed. Long story. Not one to bore my dear reader with. *************************** 23 July 2010
Today cannot go by without a hap-tip to one of the great cricketers -
Muttiah Muralitharan, a spin bowler with a disability who survived years
of allegations that his bowling action was illegal to become the most
successful Test bowler in history, has become the first bowler to take 800
wickets in Tests. He finishes his test career with 800 Test wickets at 22.72 in 133 Tests. He took five in an innings on 67 occasions. What will Sri Lanka do without him? ******************************** How do you defame a system? The background: Alan Shadrake's new book is called "Once a Jolly Hangman — Singapore justice in the dock." The analysis covers cases from the early 1990s to nearly the present, many of them ending with the prisoner meeting Darshan Singh, Singapore’s hangman for the last half-century. But some of them do not meet this fate, and therein lies the twist. The book compares how one case was handled with another that had similar circumstances or gravity. What emerges is a very unflattering but not unusual pattern of inconsistent “justice”. Many nations have identical issues. Particularly in how justice is served differently to simply the rich and well connected as oppose to the poor and "low-class". *************************** So little has changed. There are new condo developments. Some new offices. But the infrastructure has not changed. The roads still flood as soon as it rains. The traffic is worse than ever. There is much to like and much that is simply annoying.But best of all I can walk out of the hotel and walk to a 7-11 or a coffee shop or to the local park at Lumpini. I cannot do that in Dubai. 20 July 2010 A day in Hua Hin - 18 holes golf - market - 2 hr massage - dinner - karaoke - shower show - street food. 4.00am it is time to sleep! My caddy was a Tom - My masseuse was her grandmother ! Do I detect Tai's influence !? Oil massage in HuaHin - she was trained at Guantanamo - and combined brutal thai massage with liberal use of cooking oil ! By the end I smelled like I had been deep fried. 19 July 2010 Dad would have been 77 today. Happy birthday. Miss you. *********************** But it is good to get away and be here. ************************ Emirates now have the following fleet (and orders) Emirates airline is set to place a $5 billion order for 20 Boeing (BA.N) 777 wide-body jets, aviation sources said on Saturday. Sounds about right. And some will be for early delivery as EK takes over other airline's delivery slots. The order will be placed in the opening days of next week's Farnborough air show. 16 July 2010 A quick note for friends at EK - EK Staff Travel department have apparently stated that they are putting an Embargo on staff travel on the DXB-SFO flight with immediate effect due to Payload Restrictions. No great surprise after EK225 had to put down at Seattle this week to refuel en route to SFO. ********************** And McIlroy, so inspired yesterday, looks totally out of sorts today. And he should know how to play links golf - he is 6 over today after 11 holes compared to 9 under over 18 holes yesterday. He will struggle to break 80 today. ********************* Heaven forbid that you want to read anything pro red shirt or that questions the government's actions in killing at least 90 people back in April and May. Links from this web site are blocked. Including Thai Political Prisoners, New Mandala and ThaksinLive. If you are Thai (or I guess even foreign) media, you are expected to believe all and every statement from Suthep - the unelected Deputy PM; from the all powerful CRES and from other government sources. "Together we can" trumpet posters around the city. It is depressing. |
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15 July 2010 It is the 150th British Open and here is a guy who can play at St. Andrews - Rory McIlroy's last 9 rounds on the Old Course: 69, 69 (both as amateur), 67, 68, 67, 68, 65, 69, 63. ********************** Tai and I are in BKK - for Amp's wedding this weekend. A collection of friends all flying in from Dubai and trying to get on using standby tickets on flights that are already full. Challenging! 11 July 2010 Tai is back from Houston and a 48 hour stop in the rain. And when Tai goes to Texas the question is Who is JR? rather than Who shot JR? And no visit to the Houston Space Center either - why go to Houston and not go to the space center? 9 July 2010 Scary headline - Goalkeeper's lover 'fed to dogs' - it was in Brazil! ************************ It is a tax. And just makes travel more expensive. It will not apply to transit traffic. But presumably will apply to passengers on UAE stopovers. Maybe 20 million passengers at AED30 each is AED600 million for the UAE annually. 8 July 2010 At 11.30pm Skype is showing 19,856,418 online users. I wonder what is the number on MSN at peak times. !9 million users Impressive. 7 July 2010
A British man imprisoned in Dubai for kissing a woman in public has spoken
about his experience in jail. An excerpt from his interview is here. ***************************** Even at 6pm with the sun going down it is still 42C. And I tried to play golf today - it was way too hot to play - and a 7.00am start after 3 hours sleep did not help. The birdie on the 16th was spectacular - drive, 9 iron and a tap in putt. Tai by the way is on her first trip to Houston. 6 July 2010
Air Berlin from 03NOV10 launches 3 weekly Berlin Tegel – Dubai service
with Airbus A330-200. Schedule below: 5 July 2010 Move over James Bond - here is real life. Anna Chapman - my kind of spy !
**************************** **************************** *********************** 2 July 2010 We started to move Tai out of Millennium Tower today. someone has to explain to me why girls like to hoard and keep everything and anything ! There must be something other than empty shoe boxes that can be thrown out ! 1 July 2010 Golf today as Al Hamra. It was so hot. And after a while it gets unpleasant as a mixture of sweat and sun tan lotion gets into your eyes! And then the glare makes it almost impossible to look at the ball as it sits in yet another bunker. Though the two shots into the green on ten were two of my best. ************************* *************************
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