Friday, 28 October 2016 to Thursday, 3 November 2016
We had a busy but relaxing Friday and before we knew it, it was evening and time for supper. I have not had a pizza in yonks so we agreed to put the pizza voucher we received on Wednesday at the movies to edible use. We arrived at The Pizza Company, hungry as horses, ready to have our hay or anything else that was on offer. Now you may remember that we ate at The Pizza Company in Khon Kaen a while back and that their pizzas were rather okay but nothing special, so tonight we were not expecting any miracles as we browsed through the menu.

One of the provisos of the two-for-one voucher offer was that your selection must come from the gourmet pizza page and within that page we went for the ultimate extreme version which comes with the crust pumped full of cheese. Man, these things came loaded with ingredients, cheese and all, we ate and we ate until we could no more… luckily we ordered the medium size. There were still three pizza pieces left when we raised the white flag. We now know never again to order the “normal” pizza, always go for the one with the cheesy crust, it’s really good. But of course, for the best pizza in Thailand, go to Frank’s at Cheunjai Resort in Nong Song Hong.

I read an article where Tony Blair suggests that the British people deserve another vote on Brexit. That part I agree with as I believe firstly that it was a protest vote by the people which went horribly wrong, too many protesters you see. And secondly, I believe that the Leave Campaign used scare tactics feeding the populace with grossly inaccurate, and at a minimum, misleading information. I am 100% sure that should another referendum be held today, the Remain Campaign will win with an overwhelming majority.

But here’s the thing, Blair seems to suggest that the UK should first negotiate a Brexit deal with the EU and then have another referendum if the deal is not good enough, as per the following extract. “If it becomes clear that this is either a deal that doesn’t make it worth our while leaving, or alternatively a deal that’s going to be so serious in its implications, people may decide they don’t want to go“. Quite frankly Blair, you can’t have your cake and eat it… regurgitate it and eat it again. Once Article 50 is invoked by March 2017 it’s over and done with. If there is going to be a second referendum it has to be before Article 50 it invoked. For the British people’s sake and sanity, I sure do hope that there will be another referendum.

And by the way, a few weeks back I railed against AIS whose top-up was no longer available at 7/11. I read an article that seems to suggest that it is not AIS that is die drol in die drinkwater (the turd in the drinking water), but rather 7/11 who wants a larger slice of the pie, as per the following extract:“A telecom industry source said CP All (7/11) is still negotiating for a possibly higher share of the sales of AIS refill cards at its 7-Elevens. During the bargaining, CP All has suspended stocking the refill cards from AIS.” Seems like they also want their cake and eat it…

Can you believe that Elvis Presley, 40 years after his death, broke the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist, his 13^th, beating his own record of 12 which he shared with Madonna. I know Andre, an Elvis aficionado, will revel in this news. In the same article it lists this week’s top five albums and can you believe, Leonard Cohen’s latest album called You Want It Darker came in at number 4; he’s still going strong at 82! As I’ve said before, he would have been a much more worthy recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature than Bob Dylan.

Needless to say, breakfast Saturday morning was the cold leftover pizza pieces from last night. Leftover pizza should never be warmed up; it somehow loses its zest and charm becoming all floppy and yeasty. But maybe it’s just me being lazy.

I made mention of Duterte, the foul mouthed president of the Philippines last week. This week he was once again in the news as he was ordered to clean up his vocabulary by the highest authority, God himself, as per the extract. “The inspiration for cleaning up his vocabulary came from God himself, Duterte said, as he was flying back to the Philippines from a state visit to Japan. Everybody was asleep, snoring, but a voice said… ‘If you don’t stop (cursing), I will bring this plane down now.’ And I said, ‘Who is this?’ So, of course, it’s God,’ the President recounted after he landed Thursday at Davao International Airport.” This man is mad…

CNN reported today that Chinese President Xi Jinping, in addition to his many other impressive titles, is now officially referred to as “The core of the Chinese Communist party“. Like Hu Jintao before him, he was up to now known as “the first among equals”, which by the way I think is a wonderfully descriptive and useful term. But it now seems like “Xi Jinping is no longer the first among equals, he is now clearly the leader”. They say “Absolute power corrupts absolutely“… Too much power in one man’s hands is rarely a good thing, look no further than SA’s Zuma. I trust that Xi will use his newfound title and power solely to serve his country and his people better.

I also read today that Bob Dylan has finally accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature and the reason for his late response was that he was left speechless, yes, apparently speechless for two weeks. He then told the Telegraph in an interview that he will be at the Nobel Prize ceremony, “If it’s at all possible”. Why not just confirm that you will be there and spare us the details of your busy schedule, Bob. Schmuck!

Today I rediscovered the AppleTV remote app on the Iphone. There’s nothing wrong with the physical remote but with the app it is just so much easier to search for information via the keyboard in the app, rather than having to play snakes and ladders going up and down and all around to select each character of your search criteria individually.

Today was National Cat Day, I kid you not… but then you knew that. After reading this article I let the cat out the bag when I told Adri that we’ll be going to the Cat ‘n A Cup Restaurant to celebrate this most significant day. It was late afternoon when we clawed our way through the door of the said restaurant. There is a reception, or rather a holding area, before you enter the cattery through a glass door, where you have to place your order. I fancied an Americano – the coffee – Adri a cappuccino frappe, or pan. We found a place to sit amongst the cats and some people, enjoying the feline company that was all around. Some were on top of tables, some snoozing on the floor while others were warily watching from their pedestal. The coffees were great, the cat company was great, a truly enjoyable and unique experience. Donald Trump would have loved it in there.

At the Saturday Street Market tonight we once again had a mixed bag of food for supper. There was a bag with potato samosas, another bag with spring rolls, one with vegetable-type-non-sushi-like-but-looking-like sushi dish that we first encountered in Nong Song Hong, and lastly one with a barbecued chicken sausage. The main reason we bought the latter was because it looked like a boerie or boerewors (farmer’s sausage). It tasted nothing like a boerie though. It was chicken and it was spicy, it was great but it was no boerie, at least it had the appearance of one.

Tonight at the Saturday Street Market I bought a beer under the table, literally… I was really aching for a Chiang, a big one, but there was no booze stall in sight although I saw some people sucking secretly at a Chiang. I took a stroll around but a booze stand eluded me and in exasperation I headed to a mineral water stand, hoping to get directions to the beer stall. Asking for a “beer CHI-aaAANG!!” just like Oi taught me, she nodded her head. OK, maybe she did not understand me but before I could implore her further she reached under the table and produced an ice-cold Chiang, placed it in yet another bag and charged me a very reasonable rate. My frown turned to a broad smile as the old lady shot a knowing smile right back at me.

Tonight I drank myself under the table, literally… Showing respect for the King by not drinking too openly in public, I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible so left the beer in the bag and on the ground under the table, taking a swig as and when the need arose. It was a while later that I noticed that most people around us were doing the same thing, we all seemed to be on the same page…

It was just before 20:00 that we were ambling back to the bike when the lava mass of people came to an abrupt halt. The Royal anthem had just started playing over the city’s loudspeaker system when everybody stopped, mostly bowing the heads to show their respect to their beloved King Bhumibol. We of course joined in with this showing of respect. A minute or so later the mass continued on its journey.

Later on I found the probable reason for the above occurrence. Today marked the first day that King Bhumibol’s body could be viewed by the public which is lying in state in the throne hall of Bangkok’s Grand Palace.

Later still I read an article regarding a Thai woman on Koh Samui who allegedly posted disrespectful comments online and will now face charges of insulting the monarchy in accordance with the strict lèse majesté laws in the country. This woman was just plain stupid, or maybe she was drunk or on drugs, but you just don’t do this type of thing… you just don’t.

It was mid Sunday afternoon when we cleared out the crumbs of the carrot cake that Adri baked earlier in the week. Adri immediately started rummaging through the fridge and found some bananas that were busy negotiating terms with their expiry date. There were also some carrots left from the previous bake-off and would you believe, after a quick search Adri found a banana and carrot cake recipe. Luckily it made no mention of dated bananas, so all was okay.

While we were on the topic of cakes and all, I stumbled, really, just stumbled upon an easy recipe for cheesecake. Now cheesecakes are not always the easiest to make but I found this “Three-ingredient Japanese cheesecake” which looks pretty good. I had a feeling, or rather I was hoping, that this one was on my short-term agenda, but I can only hope.

It was nearly dusk when we went for a walk around the hood and came upon another street market that sells mostly fresh vegetables and fruit. And there I saw my most favorite vegetable, or rather fruit… avocados. Yes, apparently avocado is technically a fruit and more specifically, a single-seeded berry. Anyways, at 70 baht per kilogram I was going to carry a kilo home but alas, we had no money with us… who takes money with them when they’re exercising…? Hmm… maybe I should re-look that wisdom.

After a long hard day of doing plenty nothings Adri was determined to keep it that way. Supper was not going to be made but was going to consist of whatever was available and already in edible form in the fridge and/or cupboards and/or elsewhere. Out came the Chinese made Hup Seng cream crackers (wonderful stuff by the way), cheddar cheese, cream cheese, green olives and leftover pork mince from a day or two back. Was that great or what!

We watched a documentary tonight called Particle Fever described by Netflix as “The creation of the Higgs boson particle, an elusive key to unlocking the secrets of the universe, unfolds on camera in this landmark documentary”. A few years back I read a book called The God Particle written by experimental physicist Leon Lederman which deals with the history of the Higgs boson which is also sometimes referred to as the “God particle”. One of the main reasons behind the creation of the Large Hadron Collider by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was to prove the existence of the Higgs boson which by the way was done back in July 2012. Particle Fever is about that discovery and if you are interested in this kind of stuff you will be fascinated by the documentary.

Subsequent to the documentary I was craving lighter material and turned to the NFL match of Week 7 between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots. I was not rooting for either of the teams purely because both quarterbacks are rather controversial characters. Tom Brady of the Patriots was suspended for a while due to his involvement in the deflategate scandal last year and Ben Roethlisberger from the Steelers was twice accused of sexual misconduct. Anyway, it was a pretty good game with the Patriots winning 27-16.

It was just after a full Monty breakfast on Monday that we got a message from our landlord that he was coming to collect the rent. I was fresh out of beer and decided to stock up with a few cold ones from 7/11, just in case we wanted to get stuck into a few like I did with Jan, our landlord in Hua Hin. After selecting my team I was ready to part with some baht but the lady at the 7/11 counter just stared at me, as if she’d never seen a farang before, I know that stare. She had a quick discussion with the lady next to her and then they both just stared at me. “Scan the shit!” I thought irritably but then a third lady came and pointed at her watch. Uh-oh, it was just past 14:00 and no way near 17:00, so no-buy-booze hours in Thailand. Drat, I will never get used to this nonsensical rule.

I was just about to turn back into the condo complex when I realized that I had forgotten to buy the milk that I promised to get Adri, with beer on the brain that was not too hard to do, so I traipsed all the way back to 7/11. There is a small little shop at the condo that sells some emergency items so obviously they have a good selection of beers, no milk though. I guess the lady’s watch did not work, just as well, I walked out of there with the same team selection as earlier with a smiling spring in my step. After all that palaver, when I walked through the door of our apartment Adri noted ”That was quick”. I did not know whether she was being sarcastic or not.

Our landlord, or actually his nephew, phoned from downstairs, he did not have access to come up to the eighth floor, of course we had the access card. We went downstairs to meet with him, so much for our beer drinking, and paid over the negotiated baht. Baptiste, I guess in his early thirties, is a musician from France and does his magic at a hotel in Bangkok. What a lovely decent young chap.

While we were chatting away he waved an older gentleman over who had just entered the condo. It was his uncle Oliver who was the real landlord, the owner of several apartments in the complex, with Baptiste managing them via Airbnb. And what a nice guy Oliver also turned out to be. He is from Provence in France, spends summers in France and the French winters in Thailand, what a life!

As a general point, I must admit that, for at least the last few months, I have had US election fatigue, it has gone on for far too long, don’t you think? What’s the purpose of keeping this monster alive for one and a half years, it’s preposterous! Five months tops, not two seconds longer, hell, four months would be even better. The election has been like one 18 month continuous episode of the Jerry Springer show, low class with not much substance. Really quite pathetic, not what you would expect from a supposed first world country. And the US likes to refer to itself as “the greatest nation on earth”, or “the leader of the free world”! Who decided that!? Who gave you the authority to use those titles!? This all sounds suspiciously like Trump-talk to me. Has this election finally highlighted the real America that lies beneath that thin veneer?

And just when we thought things could not get worse… it does! The FBI weighed in and interfered in the election process by announcing this weekend that they may have found Clinton emails on the laptop of Anthony Weiner (low-life dude, another sordid story), but they were not sure… but maybe. There was obviously strong reaction from the Democrats who noted that the head of the FBI, James Comey’s actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. The release of this thin-on-detail information by Comey is surely a blatant attempt to influence this election, no question about it. But could Comey somehow have been forced into releasing this information? Who knows, he’s not talking, so this is another question for another day.

With all the above shenanigans I needed some comic relief… and I found it in the John Oliver video below. I loved the way he described that the election process has steeped so low, “We have burrowed through not just rock bottom, but through the core of the earth, and we’ve come bursting out the other side, startling kangaroos, and we’re currently hurtling toward outer space where there is no up, down, light, or darkness ― just an endless void in which death comes as sweet, sweet relief. Please let this thing be over soon!” I love this man’s work; you simply have to watch this video!

And if you did happen to watch the above video and you were wondering about the dog in the YouTube video that John Oliver was referring to, here it is:

And then, back in our very own little third world, the NPA or National Prostituting Authority, sorry, that should read Prosecuting… I think, withdrew the summons against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan long after the announcement to charge him which wiped R50 billion off the Johannesburg Securities Exchange almost immediately. Shaun Abrahams, head of these prostitutes, hang your head in shame.

Tuesday morning after coffee, yoga and a breakfast of oats and fried apple slices with cinnamon sugar a noise most vile reached my cochlea, and it wasn’t pretty. Some Thai’s were having fun again with their power tools, they so do love those. There was this dreadful drilling going on somewhere directly upstairs or downstairs from us, could not quite place the source of this vile rile. Adri went downstairs to reception to find out how long this was going to last but the lady just shrugged… Adri could not determine whether she did not know or whether she did not understand the question.

With the news that there was no news, I decided that we needed to get out of zees place… so we packed out bags, this time laptop in tow, to head out to someplace more Zen like. We took the stairs and as we descended the noise increased with each step we took… was that even possible? On the fifth floor the sound reached a crescendo and helped us to identify the offending unit. It was the unit directly below us… but three floors down, wow, seemed like they were doing the maintenance right in our apartment, incognito you know.

We entered the unit and immediately recognized the offending tool, a mini jackhammer with a huge voice, peeling old tiles off the wall in quick succession. The foreman knew why we were there, we assumed, he held up three fingers. Did that mean they will end at 3PM or within three hours, or within three days or… we managed to confirm that it was indeed three hours when all will be finis, as per the foreman.

We ended up at the Lavaladee Restaurant on the Kok River, right next door to the “restaurant whose name may not be mentioned”, i.e. the one my stomach had a disagreement with last week. Lavaladee is just so much nicer than the joint next door with its vrot (rotten) food.

I ordered a big Heineken, Adri ordered a watermelon fruit shake, that fruit shake was pure bliss, the Heineken was better. The supplied beer mug came with the bottom-half all iced up with, well ice. The same beer-with-ice procedure as the other day applied, small amount of beer, drink fast, repeat. At some point that ice puppy moved up from below the beer line to float at the top of the beer, I did not mind. The Heineken did not last long; the second one only slightly longer. The second one was ordered with a Sprite, the girl did not know what it was. After repeating it several times she acknowledged with “Suh-Pe-Rite”. Yes, “Suh-Pe-Rite” I confirmed. I remembered that Steward from Media Kids always used to joke that the kids called him “Suh-Tuw-Ward”, that’s just the way they pronounce things around here.

While sitting there on the bank of the Kok River I saw a piece of driftwood drifting by on the river tide. It reminded me of an old SMS joke I received a few years back, and it went like this.

“Twee piesangs sit op die wal van die rivier. ‘n Drol dryf verby en skree vir die piesangs ‘Kom in, die water is heerlik.’ Die een piesang kyk vir die ander pieang en sê ‘Kan jy die kak glo?’”

I suspect that in English it may be slightly less amusing, but here goes… “Two bananas sit on the riverbank. A turd drifts past and it shouts out to the bananas ‘Come in, the water is divine.’ The one banana looks at the other banana and says ‘Can you believe this shit?’”

One of my young colleagues named Jaco was nicknamed Piesang, in line with this joke. When die ooms (the uncles, i.e. myself, Mikey, Johan and Cobus) shared this joke with him he simply could not stop laughing, he was shaking all over, he just could not help himself… For the next few weeks, whenever we saw him he spontaneously burst into fits of laughter… we decided he needed a new name… But then this new name turns out to be not so odd after all, you will remember that there was a teacher in Nong Song Hong that was called Banana, and he did not even know about this joke!

We spent a lovely two hours or more at the restaurant working, drinking and watching the river rush by, very relaxing. We eventually got home and watched the live courtroom drama of Zuma’s bid to stop the release of the Public Protector’s report on State Capture which implicates him and his nefarious cohorts. It made for interesting watching, it was better that any soap opera, we could not tear ourselves away from the screen. When all was said and done we simply could not wait for episode two to commence tomorrow at 15:00 Thai time.

You may remember my commenting last week that I was impressed with the growing up that Julius Malema had done over the last year or so. Well, after the court had adjourned he spoke to some of his supporters outside court and made mention of the old white advocate who was ill-prepared to defend his client. Up to this point I totally agreed with him, this old white advocate was pretty useless, even pathetic, and came with an attitude to boot. But then Juju went off the rails and started ranting about the racist court that was even prepared to listen to this old white man, they should have shut him up… No Juju, that is what the court is there for, to listen to everybody and yes, also to useless old white advocates… and then make a decision based on all the evidence… that’s what they call democracy. It seems like Juju has some growing up to do still.

The mini jackhammer with the big voice started up again just after 10:00 on Wednesday morning. Man, this was much worse than sitting in a dentist’s chair, more painful as well. And just when I thought it could not get worse, it did… a second mini jackhammer started up leaving not one second free from polluted airwaves. This was crazy mon. There was one positive to this though… maybe now they would finish the job in half the time?

I was dying to do some yoga but Adri was the one doing the dying this morning. She was still not feeling 100% after starting to feel woozy yesterday on our return from the restaurant. It could not have been the booze, she only had one large shandy, maybe a spot of low blood pressure again? But fortunately after breakfast and another Ibuprofen she was feeling just fine, she could not wait for the soap opera to commence.

I was also feeling just fine when breakfast appeared with a mound of French fries that was placed alongside the toast, bacon, eggs, cheese and tomato. I thought the chips were made especially for me but I was wrong, Adri was craving chips… with lots and lots of salt and tomato sauce. I did not mind though, I benefitted either way.

We received a message from Thea from Koh Samui to check whether we were okay… Apparently there was a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Chiang Rai which we were unaware of. We assumed that it was overshadowed by the constant magnitude 9.3 earthquake and its resultant tremors created by that mini jackhammer from a few floors below. You can read about it here, the earthquake that is.

The court case soap opera did not disappoint and after Zuma withdrew his case, he knew it was going nowhere, the three High Court judges demanded that the report be made available to the public on the Public Protector’s website by no later than 17:00 SA time. Another win for the people, another win for democracy, another blow to Zuma and his deplorable cohorts.

I downloaded the State Capture report via Scribd and could not put it down; it was like a real life mafia thriller. Zuma, his deplorables and that despicable Gupta family have been relieving SA of its riches for the longest time. They have gotten this State Capture thing down to a fine art but I believe they became too greedy too quickly, and that’s what will ultimately sink them. I sure do hope they cannot swim… sick shits.

Thursday morning all the news sites were abuzz with the release of the State Capture report that was released last night. The best synopsis of the current situation in SA I found on the Guardian site. If you have not followed the SA news or just want a short summary of the state of affairs there, look no further than this article.

Thursday, being our off day, we slept late and after breakfast decided that we needed some provisions from Makro. On the way there we stopped off at the Art Bridge Gallery that we read about where local artists gathered to participate in a 17-meter mural painting of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The painting portrays the life of King Bhumibol and his royal contributions to the people of Chiang Rai. This mural was completed a few days ago and the result we saw today was simply stunning. The art gallery contained an exhibition by two Thai artists and had I lived in Chiang Rai fulltime I would have walked out with a number of those watercolours under my arm, guatanteed, wonderful works of art.

Leaving the art behind us we rode past Makro and on to check out the airport and from there on to the local Immigration office which we would have to visit in a few weeks’ time. The complex is rather impressive and a far cry from the dump we visited in Chiang Mai.

Back at Makro we stocked up on veggies, chicken, pork, pork ribs, butter, tea, coffee, frankfurters, bacon, you name it. We tried a new brand of bacon last time called Roy’s Products and I must admit, this was the best bacon we have come across while in Thailand, so that’s the one we went for again today… I so do love my bacon.

We tried a new filter coffee brand, this one was from Aro and I’m being generous when I say it was pretty awful. Methinks another trip to Makro for filter coffee is in my immediate future.

We spent the rest of the day reading and blogging and relaxing at home. Supper was pork ribs and chips, no surprise there, and after this lot I will probably never order ribs in a restaurant again. Why should I if I can have better ones at home?

Bojo, or is it Bobo or Bozo, you know that Boris Johnson fellow who is now the UK’s Foreign Secretary, said at an event that “The UK’s exit from the European Union will be a ‘Titanic success’. Ahem, what exactly did you mean by that, Bozo?

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