Receive a letter from my ex-employer. Every year they write to me to advise me that my pension is going to be increased by an amount so small it is hardly worth bothering to tell me. They also give me an update on the performance of the company over the previous year. Clearly there is no link between the obscene profits being earned and my pension increase. Then they tell me about the 6,000 jobs that have been cut in the name of efficiency and point out, rather obviously, that this has made it a tough year for many people. They conclude with: “as ever, we have done our best to show respect for the individual”. Yeah, right.

A frustrating week. Some domestic appliance issues, of which more later, plus the processing of all the shots from last weekend’s polo tournament.

The Thursday and Saturday shoots were no problem; but Sunday’s match was played under inadequate floodlights, and it was a processing nightmare.

Ever tried shooting in the near dark? The obvious approach is to use a flash; but flash is only effective for a couple of metres. All those flashes you see from the stands at sporting events? Completely useless. And if you are shooting at ten shots a second, and I am, then the flash will give up and sulk after a couple of shots, complaining that it needs to take a rest and recharge. So it is available light only; which means low shutter speeds and very high ISO, which in turn means noisy images.

Here’s a shot from one of the afternoon matches:

“Motor racing? It’s just cars going round in circles” my friends would sneer; fresh from ninety minutes watching retards kicking a ball from one end of a muddy field to another. What a simplistic view (unlike my accurate description of their obsession). Could they not appreciate the thrill of competition, the technical challenge, the cars battling for position, the sights, sounds and smells of highly developed engines and pit girls?

I love motor racing. Spent too much money doing it (full size, 1/8 size and whatever size Qon’s little machines happen to be), spent too much money going to watch it, spent too much time playing motor racing games. For goodness sake I even follow Jenson Button’s girlfriend on Twitter (the fact she is a lingerie model and occasionally posts photos is incidental). Happy to watch any form of racing, but of course Formula 1 is the pinnacle. Watching the lesser formulas just isn’t the same. The British Touring Car Championship, for example. Five abreast into corners. Tyre smoking, body contact action with overtaking everywhere throughout the race. Nothing like Formula 1 at all, where overtaking and excitement is just a distant memory.

And I have the memory. The likes of Ronnie Peterson for example, sideways in a Lotus in a corner. Nigel Mansell sideways everywhere. And plenty of overtaking. But then the aerodynamics became so advanced it was impossible to follow another car closely. The brakes became so advanced that braking distances became almost non-existent. And drivers changed from beer-swilling party animals surrounded by multiple hookers, to professional sportsmen who could drive flat out for two hours without making a mistake and then go home to their professional lingerie model girlfriends.

And the result has been boredom. The races have become increasingly processional, with any overtaking happening during a pit stop. The only chance of any excitement is the arrival of rain or someone being caught cheating. Something had to be done.

So the rules were changed for 2010 to ban refuelling. And we saw in Bahrain what a great idea that was. Relieved from the need to make multiple fuel stops, teams made a single stop for a tyre change; leaving the drivers with nothing to do except to run the rest of the race pursuing a tyre conservation strategy; i.e. driving slowly and not even attempting to overtake. It was so pathetic that even the drivers were complaining afterwards that something would have to be done to spice things up.

Fortunately for me, I had a new toy to play with which relieved some of the boredom. An application which streams live race data to the iPhone. There’s a map of the track and race positions:

I am not sure how I survived so many years sitting in an office, being forced to address issues that were of no importance to me, for people I did not respect (there were some exceptions; and if you are one of my ex-bosses, you were one of them). There were a few mitigating factors. I worked with some amusing people, I lived in some interesting places, and there were endless opportunities for mischief in the form of disruptive emails.

A couple of weeks ago I met up with one of my readers. He lives in Bangkok, but was visiting Pattaya, and suggested lunch. She who must be obeyed, who considers it part of her job to take an obsessional interest in my well-being, was convinced I would be snatched and sold into slavery; but after 32 years sitting in an office for an oil company, slavery was something I was used to. And anyway, as I pointed out from a distance, I was married to her; so how would I spot the difference.

Anyway, she had nothing to fear, because my lunch companion, let’s call him Jim, was a fine fellow and we ended up in conversation for two hours; and he even paid for the meal. He makes his living from the internet and gave me many tips on how I could make some cash out of Pattaya Days. Given that my daily readership hovers around 200, I rather doubt I will be buying a Ferrari any time soon; but maybe I will give it a go. For a start, you can all send me $100. Thank you.

I follow Jim on Twitter, and yesterday afternoon he posted that the red shirts were outside the Esplanade shopping centre in Bangkok, and that, from his condo window, he could see a stage being erected. This provoked pangs of jealousy and regret in yours truly; because at the time I was covering a polo game on the outskirts of Bangkok; and questioning my decision not to fight my way into Bangkok after the game in order to make my way to the stage that was being erected outside Jim’s window.

If I had a “ten favourite bands” list, and I probably do have one somewhere, then Placebo would be on it. They might even make the top five if they asked me nicely. I have every album they have ever released, DVDs of their live performances, and the obligatory T-shirt. But I have never seen them live, and that is a failing I would like to rectify (it’s on my “seventy four things to do before I die” list, along with less likely activities such as the one involving Jennifer Love Hewitt and baby oil). They came through Bangkok a couple of years ago, and I missed them. And they were playing last night, and I missed them again. It was always going to be a little difficult because I had a polo game to cover first, which meant a bag full of camera gear to stow somewhere; but then the red shirts chose the day to do their grand tour of Bangkok; and I just couldn’t face the hassle. Next time. Maybe.

Perhaps the real reason is that I am just getting too old for this sort of thing. I stood in the rain for five hours to watch The Rolling Stones. I endured a couple of hours in the mosh pit when I experieced the Red Hot Chili Peppers in Bangkok (damn, they were good), but after a couple of hours in the sun with a camera, I am ready for a sit and a gin & tonic. This must be what they mean by the long, slow decline into senility and death.

But it has been a busy week. A day with the bikes on Wednesday, and then a four hour round trip to the polo field in Bangkok on Thursday where “my” club are playing in a tournament. They win their first match.

Excellent headline from the BBC.

Now guess which city in which the offense took place (assuming it is regarded as an offense in that city).

No surprise that is Jock’s home town of Aberdeen. The only surprise is that it was not Jock’s willy doing the assaulting.

Comments 🔗

2010-03-18 | Billy says

Nah, his willy only returns to its native Kincorth once as year for a week or so … and even then spends most of its time with old friends …

Or rather, Graham’s got a brand new bike.

A busy day at Bira (bike photos to follow unless you behave). I carry all my gear around in the car, and the take out the camera and lenses I think I will need at each shooting spot. Given my atrocious memory, especially when I am deeply involved in something, I have a tendency to finish up with less gear than I started with. There then follows a frantic chase around my shooting locations to gather up abandoned equipment.

Today I lost my 70-200mm lens. It was quite some time before I discovered it parked on the main straight…..

She who must be obeyed is away. Off to a family function which involves a grandfather joining the monkhood and all the assorted ritual that this entails. She knows me too well to ask whether I want to attend, especially as her mother, grandmother and sister all came to Pattaya so the four of them could fill a car with chattering females and endless snacks. No thank you, I will stay and keep the cats company.

She is gone for less than an hour when the first of many SMS messages arrive. I will spare you the details but it involved her bowels and the need to empty them. I am used to this. Many a journey has been interrupted by the need for she who must be obeyed to find a toilet. Immediately; or else bad things are going to happen inside the vehicle which may require a surcharge at the car wash. But I was at home and she was somewhere en route to Bangkok, so not clear what role I could play in a solution. Presumably it was just so I could worry about her remotely. So I did.

Then she called me to tell me that my truck indicator lights were not working. Her mother had driven behind when going out for breakfast and reckoned that my indicator lights were broken because I had not indicated when I normally would. She was not being facetious, my mother in law genuinely believes I am a good driver and a wonderful person; both of which are true of course. It’s also true that I only indicate when I think it is required to inform other drivers on the road of my intentions. I feel this is is more indicative of thoughtful driving than using them all the time, or never using them, or selecting a direction at random and then doing something completely different; which seems to be the norm around here. I certainly would not bother indicating left when I am in a left turn only lane and the driver behind me (mother) knows exactly where I am going. But there is no point in explaining this over the phone, so I express concern and promise I will check.

Don’t forget, you know what you are like. I won’t (she is right, I probably will forget). Write a note to yourself. I won’t forget. Tie a reminder to your car key chain. I WON"T FORGET!!!

I forgot. But when she asked me about them last night I told her they were fine. I will check later on today. Unless I forget.

Back from windsurfing and we have a chat. I confess my back is a little sore. She reveals a secret stash of Lush bath bombs and instructs me to take a hot bath. This suddenly seems like a good idea so I run the water, turn it frothy orange with a bath salt father Xmas, and ease my aching limbs into the mix. Most relaxing.

When I first fitted out the condo, I fitted a whirlpool bath in one of the bathrooms. Trouble is, while we both take at least two showers a day, we rarely take a bath. I reckon I use it a couple of times a year. In between the bathing events, the water in the pipes of the whirlpool unit has time to fester; so when I press the button to start the water jets, a load of disgusting smelling water is ejected into the bath. You can emulate this. A meal of Guinness and beans, a couple of hours fermentation time and then into the bath and fart. See what I mean? Revolting. So I jump out of the bath and take a cleansing shower.

Freshened up and I embark on my evening project. SMS from the boss asks how I am getting on and I reply: “In the dark in the bathroom with a chocolate covered strawberry, a candle and a camera”. I get the response: “OK, will talk to you later”. My wife knows me well.

Once the word “camera” is mentioned, she knows I am pursuing some pointless photographic mission, and the strawberries and candle are clearly props; no need to ask further.

There was a competition in Gizmodo for photographs that had been lit by a single candle. Nobody had done the obvious trick of using a single candle to set a house on fire and then photographing that, but there were some ingenious offerings and I felt slightly inspired, sufficient to sacrifice a chocolate covered strawberry or two. I had brought home some Chiang Mai strawberries as a treat for SWMBO, and she had upped their desirability by covering them in chocolate. The few that remained were waiting in the fridge for me.

I had a vision of a strawberry, glinting in the candlelight, while molten chocolate dripped off it onto the candle in a sensual, but non-extinguishing, manner. Genius. First I needed a way of suspending the strawberry, so it was out with the blue plastic pipe.

A good wind and a fine afternoon at the beach; but oh so hot. As I supped my drink in the cooling breeze next to the sea, I checked the temperature; 35 degrees. My thoughts turned to the red shirts in Bangkok where the temperature must be way hotter and the air more humid and polluted. After a night in the open, a day of tramping around and shouting, minimal toilets and a lack of washing facilities; things must be getting a little fetid.