“Do you want to photograph a lizard?” enquired my wife. “Is the pope Jewish?” was my unambiguous reply.

Sadly, my wife has no idea of the spiritual basis upon which the pope operates and took me to a lizardy thing perched on some flowers. “Now I have to whistle” she said, and she did. I stood and listened; she was not very tuneful.

“Quick, take you photo while I whistle; it won’t move while I whistle”. So I did, then the son wanted a go and I had to whistle because she who must be obeyed’s lips were tired. Photos over, we all stopped whistling; but the lizard made no attempt to bugger off.

She who must be obeyed explained that when she was young she would capture lizards by whistling and then picking them up. Very tasty after frying apparently.

Not sure this shot was worth all the whistling.

Yes, sorry.

After a hot and sweaty afternoon at a beach near Rayong; we head to The View for dinner. As evening approaches I look forward to some sunset shots.

With The Son wishing to wield his camera, we take a trip to Nong Nuch Tropical Garden. As a resident of Thailand, I can flash my driving licence and pay the same as a Thai: 100 baht. But everyone else has to pay more. This dual pricing policy is employed in many places and is considered as reasonable through to downright racist, depending on your point of view. My view is that attractions can set a price that tourists consider reasonable; but that Thais consider extortionate; hence double pricing to maximise the numbers and the profit. It’s not racism, it’s just business.

Nong Nuch used to charge 300 baht to tourists; triple the Thai/resident price; but not too bad given the size of the gardens. But when we arrived this morning the price had been increased to a wallet-lightening 500 baht; which is a total rip-off. The solution to this is easy, I will never take guests to Nong Nuch again. But The Son paid up and we wandered around for about three hours before the midday heat sent us home. There was a new flower I had never seen before in a number of places, and it seemed to be pretty much all I photographed. A shame that I have no idea what it is called.

Off to Nanotrax for my weekly dose of radio controlled racing action. Extra pressure this week because our visitors come to watch; and it’s always important to show your son what a race ace you are.

Things go surprisingly well when I qualify 3rd out of six; much better than usual for me. And, in spite of my propensity for stuffing the car into the barrier, I manage to get through the first twenty minutes of the thirty minute race in third position, albeit hotly pursued and occasionally overtaken by young Australian who is much easier to beat when he is pissed; which he wasn’t this evening.

Off to the airport to collect The Son and his girlfriend. Worried unnecessarily about being late; only for the excellent immigration service at the airport to impose a one hour delay courtesy of massive queues.

Home eventually and it was time to compare lens collections, and receive an offering of chocolate; sufficient to keep me in calories until genuinej passes this way again:

The Son sent me a couple of very fine Grand Theft Auto IV posters and my plan was to have them framed and stick them up on the wall. This was not she who must be obeyed’s plan.

“We’ll buy a mirror, scratch off some of the backing, and then stick the poster behind it”, was her proposal; and she was not to be swayed. So off to a local glass shop where we acquired a large sheet of mirrored glass. The plan was to remove the backing with sandpaper, and it soon became clear that this was going to be a disgusting job that would take hours by hand. So I made a suggestion:

How about I use an electric sander?

No! No! It has to be done by hand or else it won’t look “edgy” enough.

OK….

Forty five dusty minutes later:

Well, maybe we could use the electric sander.

So I did, and we soon had a ripped out section through which you could see most of the poster. Then off to the glass shop to have it trimmed and then to a nearby frame shop to have it mounted in a frame.

Impossible to photograph so it doesn’t look that good here: