Whatever your view of Google, it must have taken some serious managerial balls to decide to stick cameras on top of cars and send them out to photograph, well, everywhere. Today they announced that they have snapped more than five million miles of road in fifty countries, and have released their biggest ever update to Google Street View which includes, wait for it, Pattaya!

So now you can cruise around Pattaya without having to come here. And you can take trips around the surrounding countryside, the extent of the coverage is very impressive. Here is a familiar view if you recall the original Pattaya Days layout, taken down a nameless track road out in the countryside:

For as long as I can remember, my breakfast has been a glorious amalgamation of muesli and yoghurt, with a banana thrown in the mix should one be available.

This is an excellent breakfast because it is quick and easy to make, you only need to ensure you have a stock of two items, and you can convince yourself it is good for you; or at least not as bad for you as a “full English”. It is also an excellent breakfast for me, because really enjoy it, even after at least fifteen years of routine consumption.

During that time, my choice of muesli has fluctuated, mainly driven by availability. My current choice is Alpen, the “no added sugar” variety; although I am sure there is still plenty of sugar hidden in there somewhere. For a long while my yoghurt choice was driven by whatever I could find in 7-11. But then I found Yolida yoghurt, which proclaimed itself to contain “live active lactic acid bacteria culture”. It’s a bit more expensive than the 7-11 varieties, but tastes much better; and I’m worth it.

But then I stumbled across a forum discussion about making yoghurt at home, a process which required a “live” yoghurt; which I just happened to have in my fridge.

Which is why she who must be obeyed came home last night and discovered me with a bubbling pan of milk and a thermometer.

What are you doing? Making yoghurt! Why? Because it will save me some money. How much money? Oh, maybe as much as 100 baht a week…. Is it worth it? (as she surveyed the well-distributed mess in the kitchen) Well, there is the joy of creating your own food, and…

But it was too late, she was off to the shower, shaking her head at her deranged husband.

So I carried on stirring my two litres of full-cream milk that I had put in a saucepan and was heating to 85 degrees (hence the thermometre). This apparently breaks down the milk and makes it easier to turn into yoghurt.

Once it had been simmering at 85 degrees for a while, I plunged the saucepan into cold water to bring down the temperature to 45 degrees. At this point I transferred the milk to one of those cheap plastic cool drink containers and stirred in a small pot of yoghurt.

Then comes the making yoghurt phase, which requires the mixture to be kept cosy and warm for about ten hours. You can buy a yoghurt maker for this purpose, but a kitchen in Thailand is pretty warm; so just wrapping the container in a couple of towels and leaving overnight is meant to do the trick.

This morning I ripped off the towels with a flourish and inspected the contents of the container; before tipping the resulting putrid mess down the sink.

Or at least that is what she who must be obeyed predicted. But amazingly the contents of the container looked like yoghurt and smelled like yoghurt, so I concluded it was yoghurt and stuck it in some small containers and into the fridge to cool.

Well, that’s Songkran over for another year, collective sighs of relief all round.

This year there was a change in the rules, with the Ministry of the Interior banning the carrying of water containers and the splashing of water from pick-up trucks. Given that 90% of the gridlock in previous years was caused by pick-ups laden with barrels of water and people to chuck it; it was hard to see how people would manage their mobile festivities.

It’s more than seven years since the mega-tower that will be Ocean 1 was announced. Construction was then meant to start in August 2006 with completion by December 2009. Unfortunately, construction start-up was slightly delayed, to the extent that it hasn’t quite started yet. Even so, I am sure many investors remain optimistic that their dream condominium will be completed one day.

I have charted the progress, or lack of, on this site via a number of posts (just stick “Ocean 1” in the search box). Sadly, the official Ocean 1 website has been less forthcoming, the latest news item was several years old and announced the arrival of a concrete batching plant for the construction of the condo, (which in the event was used to supply concrete to other developments before being dismantled and taken away).

So it is probably not a surprise that they have failed to announce the latest development, which appears to be some form of court order banning usage or sale of the land. This notice was fixed to the wall next to the entrance of the site; and then a day or so later it had been ripped down:

The current release of Lightroom is version 4. Adobe’s approach to new releases is to make them available to users so we can play with them; and then fix the bugs and tweak the product based on feedback. Hence the release of Lightroom 5 Beta yesterday.

It sits separately from LR4 on your computer and conversion of existing catalogues is currently disabled, so there is no chance of screwing up your existing set-up. Just import some photos and have a fiddle. So I did, and here are some of the upgrades I particularly like:

Non-circular healing Previous versions of LR have a healing brush which was designed to remove spots. This was fine for spots on the sensor and other circular objects you wanted to remove, but useless for other shapes. You either had to make multiple circular adjustments or head off to Photoshop to use the Clone Stamp or similar.

In LR5, all you have to do is paint over the area you want to “heal”; ideal for telephone lines! In this example I want to remove the greenery top left.

There have been no macro shots for a while, because our usual macro location was laid bare by large machines for no apparent reason; wiping out all insect and plant life. We have searched some other potential spots; but the dry weather and heat, combined with uninspiring locations, has meant that my macro lens has not been pointed at an insect for a while.

This morning Nick and I were out at the ridiculously early time, for me, of 0700 to check out another possible target; a large lily-filled lake with surrounding brush. We found no insects, and discovered that wellies would be a prerequisite for a proper investigation. So we gave up and headed for a coffee at a cafe that turned out to be shut for Songkran; double disaster.

On the far side of the lake there were some attractive bushes, inhabited by a large bird. I just happened to have my 100-300mm lens with me, so snapped this and stuck it through Silver Efex Pro for what I hoped might be a Chinese porcelain decoration effect, but probably isn’t:

I live in a country where fresh fruit and vegetables are available in abundance, but I am painfully aware that I consume very little. With she who must be obeyed working, I tend to eat alone at Thai restaurant chains, or roadside restaurants; where the food is tasty enough, but mainly sugary, processed crap with a smattering of vegetables. As for fruit, I occasionally purchase some, although it seems I only do this for the subsequent enjoyment of watching it rot in the bowl. Time for an apple? Too late, it’s mush.

I know that the lack of decent food is not good for me; if nothing else it probably explains why my immune system gives up the ghost and presents me with man flu whenever I get even slightly damp. Longer term, who knows what collection of delightful afflictions await me if I don’t sort out my diet.

Now, I have. When I called together the contents of my fridge for a photoshoot this morning, I was shocked at the abundance of good food contained therein; a stark contrast to the usual half consumed chocolate bar and the tube of super-glue which normally rattle around the vacant space: