Answer: Have the photo taken by a Panasonic micro four thirds camera, such as the GF1.

Forget about lighting and make-up, or even the fact that your face is often compared to the back end of a pig that has recently been involved in a serious road accident; all you need is a GF1.

When I lived in Bangkok I would spend many a happy hour in the Kinokuniya bookshop. I would usually go home with a couple of selections, put them on the bookshelf, and then realise that I was too busy (playing computer games, chasing women, occasionally working) to make time for reading. But never mind, once I retired I would have more time.

Nowadays, I do have more time (no work and I am not allowed to chase women), and I am slowly working through the backlog. I occasionally add to my collection, but the bookstores in Pattaya are limited, and purchasing books from Amazon in the UK costs me more in postage than the price of the book.

Last week, she who must be obeyed switched on her solemn expression and said: “there is something I want to discuss with you”.

This has happened before, in fact it is a regular occurrence. The subject matter is invariably something intended to improve our lives; but it also is invariably something I can’t be arsed to do anything about.

A recent example was “I think we should go out on our bikes and exercise every day”. The appropriate response to this would be: “The bikes are in the basement covered in dust and with flat tyres. I would have to drag them up to the condo to clean them and apply oil to the chains (and my T-shirt and, inevitably, the cats), then we would go for a cycle and be attacked by soi dogs and get hot and sweaty and decide never to do it again”. But then she would accuse me of being negative and not being receptive to her suggestions, so I have learned that, in these circumstances, it is best to agree vigourously and suggest we start “tomorrow”. And as James Bond would tell you, tomorrow never comes.

I find myself spending more and more time every week at NanoTrax. I am still shit at driving the radio controlled cars, but the racing is fun and the company is amusing; none more so than the owner, Q’on.

Q’on is American, and you don’t need to meet him to discover this. Only an American would write a report and describe someone being beaten in a race as being “pimp slapped” (which is not a term I have heard before but intend to use in future whenever I deem it appropriate).

Being British, I waste no time on berating him on his appalling mutilation of the English language. A favourite and obvious provocation is to ask him to pronounce aluminium. Of course he pronounces it “aluminum”, and would probably spell it that way if he could find an excuse to use it in a sentence. “If Chuck had used aluminum wheels he would not have gotten pimp slapped, y’all”.

This morning I was delight to discover that the aluminium/aluminum debate has spread wider than the confines of the NanoTrax club. Gizmodo has a report on The Greatest and Most Dramatic Wikipedia Edit Wars, and alumin(i)um is right up there alongside The (the) Beatles.

The latest entries are rather lacking in the professional niceties one would expect from academics.

If you are a reader of the comments on this organ, you will have noticed regular remarks by “genuinej”. It is interesting that, contrary to the standard laws of the universe, he has chosen a name that does not start with a capital letter; because his special interests are drinking, spelling, grammar and more drinking, and he is quick to point out what he believes to be errors; especially after six pints.

He obviously relishes his visits to Pattaya Days, maybe because there is so much to snipe at; and after a recent lapse in my posting frequency, he churlishly suggested that the site be renamed “Pattaya Somedays”.

Just another genuinej gibe and I forgot all about it. After all, the man is a model of physical perfection with a razor intellect, ready wit and a disarming smile. And he brings me chocolate eggs.

But Billy, another regular commenter, decided to embark upon some investigative journalism; and came up with this:

A five day road trip in Thailand may not be considered as a sufficiently robust test of the iPad as a photographer’s assistant; but it’s the best I can do unless someone is prepared to sponsor a six week tour of Iceland.

What you need:

1. A camera
2. An iPad
3. An iPad camera connection kit

The latter is a somewhat contentious add-on for the iPad. Some feel that a slot to read cards should be built into the device. I can see that this would require additional internal space, weaken the overall structure, and provide a second hole to fill up with dust. If I didn’t intend to use it, I would rather my iPad didn’t have it. So I am quite happy with the camera connection kit, I just think it should come free with the iPad.

What you get in the camera connection kit are two devices that plug into the iPad. One accepts the SD memory card found in most smaller cameras. The other one contains a USB port, into which you an plug a card reader for non-SD cards; such as the CF card I use in my Canon 1D. This device will also accept some other USB devices, including keyboards.

Any street in Thailand is a mess of telephone and electricity wires. It’s a mystery to me how they keep it all working (most of the time).

The wires are a necessary evil of life, but they do interfere if you want to parade large candles. The solution is men with long sticks.

My iPhone bores me.

Never thought I would say that. When I first got my hands on one, it was a delight. Neat web browsing, e-mail, and loads of nifty games to amuse me when I needed to be amused. And it served me well, until the iPad arrived. Then everything was possible in a larger scale, and lounging around with a big screen was always preferable to fiddling with a small screen.

The iPhone still serves when I am out and about; but all I use it for nowadays is web, mail and the argument-saving potential of the satnav and Google maps; and I could get all that on a cheaper Android phone. And on an Android phone I could create a wifi hot-spot and connect my iPad to the web in the middle of a field. But Apple doesn’t want me to do that.

The world of Apple mobile devices is a walled garden. You can only install the applications that Apple allows into their App store. The upside of this is that you know that the apps you download will work, and because this approach secures revenue for developers, there is a huge choice. The downside is that Apple may not want to let you do all the things you want to do. On balance, for me, the Apple walled garden was full of enough goodies to make me happy and I had no need to knock down the wall. Until I really wanted to increase the usefulness of my phone and turn it into a wifi hot-spot.

Cracking open an Apple device to make it available for applications outside of the Apple store is known as jailbreaking. I had jailbroken (probably not a word) my first iPhone and it was something of a challenge. You had to get your hands on the latest Apple firmware, download a cracking program, and then run it against the firmware package. This produced a revised firmware file, and all you had to do then was get it into your iPhone. Then came the clever bit; you had to put your phone into DFU mode. DFU is Device Firmware Update, although it should really be Doesn’t Fucking Understand; because it was a real pain to put the iPhone into DFU mode. You had to press combinations of buttons at precise time intervals; and if you got the combination or timing wrong, then you had to start all over again. The whole process took at least an hour and it was invariably stressful. Furthermore. not that it worried me, there were concerns that it was not legal.

In the last week, the jailbreaking world has changed. Firstly, the FCC in America have declared that jailbreaking is legal; so there is now no likelihood of being extradited to Guantanamo Bay for cracking open your phone. Secondly, a very smart group of hackers has produced a wonderfully simple jailbreaking tool. Here are the instructions:

1. Go to www.jailbreakme.com on your iPhone (Touch, Ipad)

The main candle festival procession was scheduled for Sunday morning; but there was something planned for the Saturday evening so we decided to check it out.

Had to leave early in order to find somewhere to park, then a long walk; but eventually we were jammed against a barrier opposite the VIP stand. It was going to be one hour wait, and then we discovered that it would be a two hour wait. Then it was delayed by a further 30 minutes; by which time my legs and back were aching and I was feeling pretty pissed off and wishing I was somewhere else. Then it started to rain.

Up with the umbrella and we took it in turns to hold it while the other took photos. I might as well not have bothered with the photo bit. The GF1 has an on-board flash, OK for close-up shots but no good for longer distances. She who must be obeyed has an external flash for her Olympus; but the best I could do was strap on the monster flash from my Canon. Plenty of power, but no communication with the camera; so everything had to be set manually and the usual result was disaster. One shot that I really liked, even though it was the result of substantial under-exposure.

Candle festivals were held all over Thailand last weekend; but the biggest, best and original gathering of candles can be found in Ubon Ratchathani. Temples from the city and surrounding regions compete for trophies which are then displayed in the temple in a very non-Buddhist fashion.

To create an entry capable of winning, a temple will need sponsorship to purchase the vast amounts of wax required. Less affluent temples are limited to a small display: