Cloverfield: My Review. With a lot of spoilers.

The Tradition of ‘Apocalypse’ 

There are two core themes that run through every great tale of apocalypse, especially in the science fiction variety.

Firstly, a moral statement is made about contemporary society. This can be traced all the way back to the first great apocalyptic sci-fi story, H.G.Wells’ War of the Worlds. The brutal and efficient annihilation of the world’s greatest imperial power by strange and impossibly advanced extra-terrestrial colonialists is a blunt and (even more so at the time) terrifying metaphor about how the European powers were treating the rest of the world at the time, and how objectionable it was.

It is also a theme well implemented in Steven Spielberg’s recent remake of War of the Worlds, and while blended with his own personal ideas, comes across terrifyingly well as America is ‘pacified’ with ease by alien invaders. An intended lesson in the dark side of imperialism.

This theme of moral judgement via apocalypse obviously goes much farther back, and has Biblical connotations too. But within the realm of modern civilisation, it has really been science fiction authors that have managed to continue this theme effectively. The threat of apocalypse has been an ever present one after all, with two world wars, the Cold War, numourous pandemics, global warming and the ever expanding domain of science, and it is only expected for those who are brave enough to think about what tomorrow might hold to consider that it might not hold anything very pleasant, mainly as the result of man’s greed, immorality and lack of empathy for the world around him. It’s almost as though it has gone full circle and ended up in the same place as the Book of Revelations 2000 years ago.

This is an idea that is also prevalent in Far Eastern science fiction, which through a combination of Buddhist ethics and it’s own recent history has arrived at similar conclusions, and is probably most easily visible in the seminal monster-flick Godzilla. Here man’s hubris becomes his own downfall by the father of all by-products of nuclear testing, and it is man who will pay the heavy price for trying to sieze control of such terrible power.

The other great theme that runs through tales of apocalypse is in the final moments of the story, the idea that we should pity those perpetrators of disaster. The aliens in War of the Worlds, for example, are a great, sentient civilization. Having destroyed their own planet, they are in one, desperate last attempt to survive by fleeing to Earth and creating a new homeworld. It is an attempt which ultimately fails (by no act of man), and an entire species with all its history, culture, technology, loves and beliefs is destroyed in an orgy of violence and death of its own making. This is a theme which again still continues up to this day. I guess ‘most’ recently in I Am Legend (which is of course a remake of The Omega Man from the 50’s. But the fact that it is still included in I Am Legend shows you its importance to the genre). You can see it in Godzilla, too. The monster may have wiped out a sizeable area of the city, but it is not the monster’s fault. Man made the beast, and it is man who should be judged morally, not the beast itself.

That’s All Very Well, but What Does It Have to Do With Cloverfield?

Well. You see, after Godzilla came out, as everyone is probably aware, the whole creature-flick B-movie genre was born. Gone are the deep and sombre lessons of judgement and pity, and in comes… well, a guy in a rubber suit jumping on lots of cardboard cut-outs of buildings.

Cloverfield contains nothing of the great themes of the apocalypse genre. There’s no obvious statement on the contemporary nature of New York (or global) society. There’s no attempt to enduce a state of pity for ‘It’ as it rampages around Manhattan. Perhaps that is the film’s great statement. The pure, unfounded meaningless of it all; people run around, get stomped on, die. The end. Perhaps the total lack of a plot is also geared towards this end: some people are at a party, they get separated, they try to meet up, then they all die in an emotionless vacuum and we all leave feeling none the wiser about anything we have just seen.

It is not a good film. Everything feels lazy and under-explored on an emotional level. Not just through what the characters say or do (which is the director’s preogative after all) but through what goes on around them, the situations they are thrown into. We expect mind-boggling stupidity, cliches about love and all of that nonsense, but there’s just nothing to it – these aren’t events that exist to one side of a storyline or a plot, they are the entire film. I walked out the cinema feeling like I couldn’t give a toss about anything that I had just witnessed and it was almost quite frustrating. I really wanted to be sympathetic and engaged by the decisions and reactions of the characters in the film. I really wanted to feel gutted that after so much they had been through they didn’t make it in the end. Instead, I felt like I had just witnessed so much meaningless nonsense there really wasn’t much to think or feel about. Nobody, characters or audience finished that experience feeling like they had learnt anything.

The beginning of the film starts with that long sequence at the party. Clearly I thought influenced by that whole genre of New York-based character driven stories (all that stuff from Woody Allen style indie movies up to Sex and the City etc) and it really seemed like it was going somewhere. But what was the point of it all? Nothing, it turned out. Was it trying to send up that genre, or even take a positive influence from it? No, neither. It didn’t do anything with it. It was just like the first twenty minutes were: “Here are the characters, this one fancies this one, this one doesn’t like this one, bla bla bla, ok, now let’s forget all that and have them running around in circles with a big monster.” 

And then comes the monster’s entrance, which is dramatic and well put together. But I still take issue with it. The whole Statue of Liberty’s head-thing was rediculous. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly likely occurence, even if a giant monster has just touched down to trash New York. And it seems so deliberately put in just as a mechanic to make the audience go “Oooh” that it loses all its impact. Then the immediate scenes of New York being destroyed are clearly taken from video footage of 9/11, which is either impressive on a technological level, or pretty tasteless and perhaps a little objectionable on a moral level – they are using an actual disaster where it actually happened again, just as a very basic mechanic to make the audience go “Ooooh”. Incidentally, isn’t it funny how nobody ever mentioned 9/11 the whole of the way through the film?

The film increasingly decends into stupidity to the point that by the end of the film, you could be watching a really awful B-movie on Cinemax or something. I take no issue with movies like that, they’re great when you haven’t paid to see them and they know how dumb they are. Cloverfield takes itself very seriously though, and I did pay to see it. A lot of the stupidity that really flattens any immersion revolves around ‘bad science’, which I’m going to leave an entire section to since there’s so much of it, but there are other things too. Characters often make incredibly unlikely and stupid decisions just as a reason to drive the action forward. The monster shows up just when they least expect it to – but when the audience most expects it too, unless they haven’t ever seen an action movie in their lives. You almost expect one of the characters to give a Homer Simpson-like “Doh!” after they run down a pitch-black subway tunnel only to find that, whaddaya know, there’s a massive bunch of aliens behind them. But it’s ok, cos guess what? There’s a door right next to them! That’s lucky! And then, it connects to an army field hospital! Jeez if they had gone down that tunnel 30 seconds before or after when they did, they never would have been so lucky!  

It is not a good film. The basis for any story at all is that the guy (Rob Hawkins is it?) is trying to find the girl who just dumped him after a desperate phone call, in Manhattan which is evidently the new ’stomping ground’ for a big monster from outer space. Apart from the reason that it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting if it did, why does the monster never leave Manhattan? Never explained. Why does the monster have such a massive chip on its shoulder? Never explained, alluded to or even guessed at. What did the main characters learn by the end? That a monster that is no more than a plot device for a story that is no more than “Girl dumps man, man finds girl, girl and man make up, girl and man die” is no monster at all. Just, effectively, a guy in a rubber suit jumping on lots of cardboard cut-outs of buildings. Though of course the guy is in one of those blue anamatronic suits now and all the buildings are computer generated. 

And most irritatingly of all, we don’t even see the if the monster dies or not! Cheap movies with lots of explosions and aliens are great, but generally speaking, even if humans aren’t winning, those explosions aren’t very entertaining when they don’t do anything! Think Starship Troopers or the Tremors movies. They are good wholesome brainless movies about humans and monsters. When humans are absolutely powerless it sucks all the fun out of it - which is fine when there is some deeper more significant theme being considered, e.g, War of the Worlds, Alien or even King Kong. but as I think is pretty obvious, nobody in the development of this film considered it worth implanting any sort of statement about anything into this film.

Bad Science in Cloverfield

Well, there is too much of it. Far too much of it.

Let’s start with the monster. Ok, I have no qualms with a giant monster, it’s logically possible. It’s got… a number of legs. That’s ok. It’s got tentacles. Haven’t they all? It’s a big pink squishy tripod, basically, without the deathray. Incidentally, I do think they way the monster is introduced is done very well, even quite far into the film you still don’t know what it really looks like. It is quite scary. Well, until the end when you do get to see it and it isn’t nearly as ugly as you were expecting.

Basically though, the problem is that a monster that was that big, operating under Earth’s gravity, would require a lot of energy to keep going. Apart from one of the characters near the end of the film, it doesn’t appear to ‘eat’ anything. How does it take energy in? How does it keep walking, and roaring, and dropping lots of little aliens out of its rear end? It must be burning a hefty number of calories. Perhaps one argument would be that it can somehow transfer kinetic energy through its ’skin’ thereby gaining the ability to keep functioning – thus making all those explosions that keep ricocheting of it an ample supply of food. But think about it – an organism that needed to constantly hit itself against stuff to gain energy would not last very long in the evolutionary chain, would it? Eventually it’s going to injure itself quite badly, or just plain run out of things to hit to get enough energy to do stuff. Specially if it has been travelling through space for a fair while.

The other main problem with the monster is that it just can’t be that invincible. Ok, so munitions just keep bouncing off its somehow impenetrable hide, but it’s got a big mouth, and eyes, and a nose (I think it does anyway) and those funny little gill things. Are you telling me not a single stray bullet would have hit it in the eye? I’m not going to believe it’s got bulletproof eyes, that’s just stupid. And not a single piece of shrapnel went down one of its gill-holes? That would have done some damage surely.

Perhaps the most rediculous thing about the big monster is the fact that it clearly breathes, using aforementioned gills. Assuming they have any biological or evolutionary function at all, that would have been its Achilles’ heel. It’s pretty hard to breathe in a firestorm, you know, the fire takes away all the oxygen, suffocating our monster here. But assuming that it didn’t, and this is perhaps a grievous oversight of the U.S. military, you could just dump some anthrax or some such on its head and there you go. Bish bash bosh, job’s a good ‘un, home in time for tea. It’s a space monster, it has no immunity to microbes from our planet, let alone artificial nerve agents. Take away the air, replace it with something much more unfriendly and it’s Humanity 1,  Space Monsters 0. 

Now let’s have a look at those funny little things that drop out of it’s… arse, for wont of a better word. These ‘things’ (from here on referred to as “poop spiders”), these poop spiders are also quite silly. Never mind the fact that they are just minature versions of the bugs from Starship Troopers with a couple of extra legs, there is much more wrong with them than that.

They start life tucked away safely on “It”, the big monster, and then drop a good 100 meters down to the ground. However, hand an iron bar to your average woman in her late twenties and she’ll have it beaten to a pulp in a couple of swings. I’ve always been under the impression that being hit a couple of times with an iron bar, even really hard, is going to do a lot less damage than being dropped to the ground from 100 metres up in the air. The original fall to the ground would easily be the end of the average poop spider. They maybe crazed invaders from outer space, but the laws of physics still apply wherever you are in the universe.

Also, I question the evolutionary purpose of poop spiders. Why shed a whole lot of small creatures that then go running round biting things and making them explode? Haven’t you just wiped out the entire food source for your species? Oh but of course they are space aliens – and probably vegetarian or something. However that still doesn’t explain their single-minded determination to go around killing everything, does it? It sure is a waste of energy to run around and kill stuff for no reason. For me, the reality of poop spiders is negligable. 

So the aliens are highly unconvincing. What about humans? We’ll leave tediously-poor-decision-making-for-the-sake-of-plot-continuation to one side, as this has already been dealt with. I think possibly the most appalling example of bad science by humans in this movie is when they finally make it up the wonky condominium and find the hero’s girlfriend, like all silly, feminine, weak and pathetic women in American action films, impaled pretty seriously on a big iron spike. Well if you will leave big iron spikes lying around in your apartment luv… Anyway, there she is, impaled, barely conscious unable to tell if her hero is real or an hallucination. She’s been there for hours. So what do they do? Lift her off the spike, help her to her feet and within ten minutes she’s running around at top speed bashing up poop spiders here, there and everywhere. Did nobody once stop and think that was a little unrealistic? Aside from the severe blood loss she would have suffered, that open wound would have been more than a little painful, one suspects, especially after her so-called friends just took a great big iron spike and wrenched it through her body. I think it was after this I really lost all interest in this film, it seemed to dispense with any semblance of reality after this point, which was completely at odds with the whole ‘filmed through a video camera’ aesthetic.  

But let’s consider that camera for a minute shall we? It’s a pretty amazing piece of kit. I’m not sure where they got it from but it’s awesome machine. You can leave it running for hours without needing to charge it. You can drop it, let it get eaten by a giant space monster and carry it in a helicopter that is flying higher than the average New York scyscraper only to be chewed on by a giant space monster, fall several hundred metres to the ground get caught up in the resulting explosion and it still keeps going! Then, after all this, the tape will still work correctly after a near-direct hit from some of the world’s most advanced military hardware and (possibly although never directly explained) even a hit from nuclear weapons! That’s amazing!

And of course let’s not forget the mobile phone that works on uncharged batteries you get get from your local electronics shop, that’s pretty impressive as well.

Reasons to be cynical 

It’s fair to say I haven’t been following any of the hype surrounding this film. Of the small amount of stuff I have read about it, it is a little disappointing. It’s being billed as a film for the ‘Youtube generation’ or some such nonsense:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7193692.stm

And to be honest, it is obvious that what the director really means is that he got this idea to take a Youtube video and turn it into a movie that would be interesting enough to make people want to sit through two hours of it. There really isn’t too much to it. As for “living through your wildest fears,” it’s not scary, beyond the fancy camera work, there is no story, there’s nothing to engage you other than the increasingly flawed and rediculous gimmicks and plot devices. It’s just a boring creature-feature from 50 odd years ago done like a viral video to connect with ‘the kids’ of the 21st century, whoever and wherever they may be.

If you want to see a genuinely scary, well thought out film about disaster and apocalypse with genuinely impressive camera-work, this would not be it. I would recommend Children of Men or something like that but I get the impression it’s a bit too ‘grown up’ for Cloverfield’s intended audience. Oh well.

So those are my thoughts on Cloverfield. One thing still bugs me though: why is it even called Cloverfield? 

December – January. Existentialist angst.

Ok, the move is complete. Everything that was originally on Myspace is now here… for better of worse….

 Better by the looks of things though eh?

Before I start though, I think it’s important to mention that this blog comes to you on something of a sad day; Culture 1 Dance festival, Bangkok’s first outdoor dance festival featuring David Morales, Stanton Warriors, John 00 Flemming, Marco V, Brian Cross, a whole load of other people you would be amazed are still doing the rounds, all that Dudesweet malarky (that I still haven’t got round to checking out) and so much else is on today.

But why is that sad? Surely I should be very bloody happy that that’s all happening, and I would be, if I was going. I could blame work, Culture 1 is 4pm – 1 am and I don’t finish work till 6:30 (get home 7:30, shit, shower, shave 8:30, eat dinner 9:00, get down to Bang Na 10:30-ish thereby missing most of it), but I could still see some of what was going on. I could blame the fact (I love that phrase ‘blame the fact’. How can you blame a bloody ‘fact’? Nonsense) that I have nobody to go with again, but after missing Plump DJs that isn’t enough to stop me, although it wouldn’t be all that great all on my own, has to be said. But the real clincher is the fact (there we go again) that I simply don’t have the money. Even doing it on the cheap it’d be 1500 Baht, which shouldn’t be a lot of money, but to me, right now, it is. And now I feel angry and miserable.

It’s a bugger. And it’s also symptomatic of a general trend in my life at the moment. I guess I have an extremely high tolerance for boredom and mentally at least, quite a high pain threshold. I can really get by depriving myself of a lot of fun and excitement, but the couple of years or so, as anyone who had read this blog would be aware, I’ve just been taking the piss in that respect. I mean I just don’t do anything anymore. Enjoying yourself is a vital part of living right? But it just never happens to me. Why is this?

Maybe it’s just because it’s Bangkok. There’s so much temptation on offer the only way to deal with it is burying your head in the sand and trying to ignore it. Waking up knowing you didn’t do anything stupid the night before comes as a relief sometimes, especially when you live somewhere where it’s so easy to do.

Maybe, partly, I’ve just been beaten in to submission by a combination of events, bad luck and no money. It’s tough to keep going when you spend so long at work, you have no mates, no cash and your girlfriend keeps flaking on you when you want to go out for this long.

Oh well. And did you know there’s a dj competition coming up soon over here? Well, without decks and or access to practicing with them, I’m out of it aren’t I? More excitement and good times being waved in your face while you can do nothing about it.

Sorry. lol never blog when you’re feeling pissed off!

So er… yes. Where were we? December. Well, not very exciting I’m afraid. The first couple of weeks were spent doing relatively little here, work dried up and not much happened. Bought all my Christmas presents at Chatuchak in one afternoon. Got to love that place haven’t you? I returned to the UK on the 13th, my little sister’s birthday, via Etihad who are… alright but not nearly as good as Emirates etc. Their music collection has lots of bizarre entries like the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure. Didn’t listen to them.

So I got back on the evening of the 13th, expecting it to be much more of a shock to the system than it really was. Had a nice sleep in my lovely bed, wasn’t capable of a lot else, and woke up the next day, ready to travel up to Manchester for a Team Handsome reunion. The very next day! I was impressed with myself. Four hour train journey, better than I was expecting, met up with Tom and Ed and had a very pleasant time. Met Tom’s new girlfriend and briefly a real-life Frank Gallagher came up to us in a bar and accused us of spreading rumours that he had been sleeping with prostitutes. As if we would muddy the good name of a greasy, drunk, unshaven stranger who came up to us with the intention of starting a fight!

Perhaps unfortunately the chance for Team Handsome to prove themselves on the field of battle was passed over and Frank buggered off. Tom then made a startling revelation about some footballers that would be best left unmentioned on here, and we all laughed. The next day was spent shopping in the day and partying in the night. Fan-fuckin-tastic. By Sunday morning, 22 hours of travelling and a weekend of partying were catching up with me slightly, and by the time I went home I was no longer in a condition to continue functioning as a normal human being, although fortunately this returned a couple of days later.

The rest of my time at home was spent relaxing and preparing for Christmas, which was over very quickly. I got an Mp3 player, but being my maverick self I went for a Creative Zen Stone Plus (think that’s all of it) as opposed to an Ipod. It’s already threatening me with not working but otherwise very good.

After Christmas I met up with Bob, Simon and Andrew, who I don’t think I’ve seen in a good 5 years and it was really ace to see them all doing well for themselves and catch up on old times. Hopefully this time we’ll be able to keep in touch using the wonders of Facebook and our mutual love of rubbish movies.

New Years completely fell through in an appallingly typical way, but there was some good that peversely came out of the situation. I spent the evening at home with the parents and my little sister. We went for an Indian, I had lamb peshwari which I now know makes you fart. A lot. But flatulence aside it was really nice to spend the time with the family, and wake up on New Years Day in my own bed at a reasonable hour not having spent any money and not being rediculously hungover.

The next few days were spent, well, faffing about really, before I made an almost entirely uneventful trip back to Thailand. Unfortunately the last leg of the flight was full of people from all over northern Europe with colds and flu, so I was afflicted with a terrible throat infection that requires all sorts of prescription drugs that cost way more than the 400 Baht my piss-take medical insurance will pay for.

Since then… well… nothing. Nothing at all. The other day I got to work at 10am for my first class – the next one being 2-4pm and the last one 7-8:30. Of course half an hour beforehand the middle class cancelled leaving me with a gobsmacking 7 hour gap (in total) in my working day. By that stage I didn’t really have the time or the inclination to go all the way home and come back again. A boring fucking day like I have never known, that was.

And today a similar thing has happened. Just to leave me with more time to think about my woes and mock me with the thought of the fun I might have known. God I’m depressed… lol.

 Anyway, that’s things as they are up to now. Hopefully they’ll get better soon eh?

Mat

Anatomy of a websearch: how people found my blog this week.

There are some twisted souls out there… I think either the 13th or 14th were the most interesting days

Search Terms for 7 days ending 2008-01-17

Today

Search	Views
go back to days november	2
teaching rant thailand	1
i hate teaching esl in thailand	1

Yesterday

Search	Views
Pattaya Hotels	2
what do thailand people wear on a normal	1
things about thai women	1

2008-01-15

None

2008-01-14

Search	Views
hardcore isan	1
thailand white people	1
post-op-ladyboys	1
thailand – things to do/see	1
i hate thai people	1
thing to see in thailand	1
I hate Thailand	1

2008-01-13

Search	Views
johnny bermuda	1
thai “kii maa”	1
gay blog samui	1
Pattaya	1

2008-01-12

Search	Views
hua hin	1

2008-01-11

None

I want to go back to the days in November – December 10, 2007

10 points to anyone who can tell me which tune that’s from. Anybody? Nobody? You godless heathens.

Well October was obviously a lot more exciting than I originally thought wasn’t it? You know how many views my whole blog had before that? About 400 (mostly due to the ‘phenomenally’ popular July-August episode). You know how many it had afterwards? 800. 400 views in one month. Why? Not one friend request, not one message. Two, maybe three profile views, and 400 anonymous views of my blog.

I’m stumped. And none of you silent bastards are going to tell me how or why you’re here are you?

Sorry for coming across a bit grumpy today, I guess I’m just short on things to keep my enormous brain occupied. Maybe I’ll cheer up as I get into this, who knows? Either way, not a good way to start I know.

Well November then. It started with a trip up to Chiang Mai. Reminded me a lot of Devon for some reason. I went with Looksorn and 2 of her sisters, her mum and grandfather. There’s a scale of fear that increases relative to age with her folks. Her grandfather’s 90. He could still give my arse a good hiding, and he knows it. And he knows that I know it too.

lol anyway… We flew up (always nerve-racking) and landed in rain and low clouds. It was actually cold. We saw a lot of temples and gardens which were all spectacular, saw Laos from across the Mekong and actually visited Burma (it’s like Thailand only a lot dirtier and everyone seems really depressed. They have some amazing food there though). We also visited the ominously titled ‘Hall of Opium’, which, as it turns out, is actually a top notch exhibition centre on the history of opium and heroin production and trade, and the history of the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Burma, Thailand and Laos meet, which is also one of the world’s most productive growing areas for opium poppies). It was genuinely well constructed and very fascinating, especially the stuff on the Opium Wars – interesting to hear the history of the British Empire from the people that got fucked over by it as opposed to the other way round for once.

So all in all, a good break, definitely a sea-change from Bangkok.

On returning to Bangkok, things seemed to progress relatively normally, i.e., very uneventful. However, a few things of note did actually happen.

Firstly, I was on the way to meet Looksorn down in Phrom Pong outside Emporium, when I saw a policeman on a motorbike riding up the pavement towards me. Nothing wrong with that, I thought… well despite the fact it’s completely illegal… But then this particular police cop dismounts comes towards me, and can you believe, routine checked me! He went through my pockets, my bag, frisked me, asked me if I had any drugs on me, demanded my passport to check my visa status. I didn’t actually have my passport on me, being under the impression that I am actually allowed to walk down the street without one “Well, next time, you show it to me” he said. Er, yeah next time. I’ll just be standing round waiting for you to show up then shall I?

I did actually feel like asking “Iz it coz I iz white?” but who the fuck would I be kidding? Of course it was – because I was a young white guy hanging around on my own. I was dressed in my work stuff, so what he really thought he was doing I have no idea. Go and bother some of those smelly hippies that pretend to have lost their plane tickets and live on the streets of Bangkok begging. Cunts. All of them. Anyway, everyone I spoke to about it was equally shocked about it. At the time I figured the fastest way out of the situation was to play it cool, so that’s how it played out. I felt well gangsta afterwards though.  

After this I went to meet Looksorn and her friends in the Dubliner which suprising as it sounds is actually a genuinely good British themed pub in Bangkok. Most of them are horrible, but this actually felt like a good pub you’d go to back home. The food was ace, and most of the clientelle weren’t awful (nice change). The music was even ‘not shit’.

Also in November I even made it to a bar a couple of times. Not that much of any interest happened in them, only me becoming even more jealous that a guy who is that inept at stringing a few house tunes together gets to DJ in a really nice bar while I have to sit there and endure (I know, as much my fault as anyone else’s). But it was good to know Ekkamai and Thong Lo are still there and still rockin’ (oh god “rockin’” with an apostrophe. I am so not down with the kids anymore…).

Well, things at work somehow managed to sail a fine line between the unutterably dull and the vaguely noteworthy.

David came back. David’s an old Australian guy who came to Thailand about a year ago looking to set up a gold trading business and was teaching while things got set up. One thing lead to another, and things were never set up. He got pissed off and I guess about 6 months ago chucked it all in to go to Cambodia and open his own bar with a mate of his (you know, typical old bastard girly place). Everyone else looked a little concerned this plan might not be quite as ingenious as he thought, but he went anyway, never, as we then figured, to be seen again. Nice guy, but with his fair share of faults, I guess.

So it was suprising to see him, ill, dishevelled and extremely malnourished in ECC again. Citing ‘personal problems’ that had almost killed him by the looks of things, he had returned to Thailand “temporarily”. As far as I know he’s still here and looking a lot better now, he does mostly outside projects so I don’t really see him. All I’ll say about those ‘personal problems’ is Cambodian chicks are crazy. It’s pretty scary to think that a guy can get to his age and still be screwed around by girls that much. Doesn’t bode well for guys my age, you tend to think that one day you’ll master control of these unruly womenfolk but I guess not, eh?

 Talking of unruly womenfolk, a new full-time teacher started at our branch, Anna, from Russia, with an impenetrable accent. 22, no experience, no CELTA grade, and the same contract as me. Well there was me thinking my new contract was better cos I’d been at ECC for a year, but oh no, they’re handing them out to everyone. That really pisses me off, makes me feel like a sucker. Anna’s nice though, really friendly, keeps inviting me and Looksorn out for drinks and things, hasn’t happened yet but it’s so relieving to have someone my own age around for the first time in almost a year. Hmm… well, within 5 years of me. I can still pretend to be young right? Right? ahhh…..

Also of note at work in November, Nitiporn, or Prae Thana-aumphut to give her her full name which she actually changed about a year ago, bought me some really awesome biscuits randomly. When your students give you a present in this line of work it’s a pretty big deal, like a sign that they really rate both you and your teaching. All the girls at the front desk were dead jealous, I even didn’t tell Looksorn who gave the biscuits to me, that’s how big a deal this is, even she seemed a little ‘concerned’ that I had been given them at all. What can I say? I have a beautiful famous woman who’s on TV every day giving me biscuits. Nice biscuits too. What is there to say? I’m ace. Simple as that.

Aside from the occasional few days, work has really been drying up though. A lot of my students are privates and cancel all the time, Prae included. It’s weird and shit, I have hardly any work and yet I still feel like I have no time for anything. Jamie, a guy I met out in South Africa a couple of years ago moved to Bangkok back in October and I have systematically failed to meet up with him since then. What the hell have I actually been doing all this time?

Well, I guess I have been spending a whole load of time with Looksorn. We are a disgustingly insular couple, but the thing is not only can we both hack being like this, we enjoy spending so much time together too. I never get tired of her, and she seems pretty much the same about me. It’s sick and wrong, and leaves no time for the normal everyday activities of most human beings (hobbies, friends etc which admittedly I do miss quite a lot sometimes) but she’s just so easy to spend time with and I love her to bits.

Aaaaawwwwww….. *pukes* lol I wonder how many hundreds of people will read this nonsense this time.

Lastly for November, Loi Kratong was at the end of the month. Unlike last year which was really chilled and romantic, this time around the whole of Bangkok seemed crowded, it was hectic and unpleasant, and it was windy too so all the candles on the kratongs blew out as soon as you lit them. I didn’t enjoy it all that much.

Bit of an anticlimax really. 

Well, I think that’s enough. That’s a massive blog actually! I’m back in the UK in a few days, no doubt I shall see a few of you then and regale you with horrendously exaggerated tales of what I’ve been up to, which you’ve heard at least several times before already. Looking forward to it.

Mat

Oh and if you were wondering why there were no pictures like I said there would be (and blatantly you all were) I’m holding you to ransom. Subscribe to my blog, message me, add comments, anything, and I might think about it, until then you people don’t deserve it. Harsh words. Harsh but necessary.

Or me just chatting shit out of boredom. One or the other. Hmm…..

October. – November 6, 2007

There’s not much to say about October really. I didn’t go on holiday anywhere, I carried on working the same as always, i.e., on my own and sitting about not doing a whole lot, and not much really happened.

A couple of things of varying importance did though. Firstly, and probably most importantly, Looksorn’s application for university in the UK really got going. We’ve got a couple of universities that sounded really interested and the UCAS form is pretty much done. The fact that she has no formal English language qualifications doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem really – I guess most universities would be much more interested in the cash that a mature overseas student would bring them than how easily they could study.

It’s all pretty exciting, I’m not sure where it will all lead, but it looks as though we could be back in the UK for the long haul from next summer – which may/may not be a good thing. There’s obviously a lot of things I like about Thailand that I would miss, and there’s a lot of things about the UK that I dont miss. But a lot of the good things about Thailand I have to admit are really hypothetical - the idea of going out to all these fantastic bars and clubs full of gorgeous women, the idea of meeting all these crazy people, the idea of having loads of money while living in Bangkok, the idea of travelling – these are all things that are way beyond my financial and recreational means, and will be for a long time to come. I’m stuck in a rut here teaching English in this half-arsed language school and going nowhere fast. The sooner I get out of it the better. And then that’s just me. Studying in the UK is something that would be so good for Looksorn, such an amazing opportunity, and I really genuinely want that for her, so I don’t think the sacrifice will be too bad.

And of course there are maybe one or two things that aren’t that bad about living in the UK. Nobody said we have to stay there for ever, right?

As for other stuff this last month – the other week I got to Central in the taxi, opened the door to get out and fucking motorcycle taxi went straight into it. Retard. His passenger ran off pretty quick, just leaving me, him and the taxi driver – you might have experienced that feeling you get after a road accident before, the words “OH SHIT!!!” just run through your mind over and over – although this time of course, I didn’t really speak the same language as anyone else involved which heightened the panic further. Although not badly injured Khun Motorcye had a look in his eye of great anger and injustice – I felt kinda bad that I had helped to wreck a relatively poor person’s main source of income (i.e. his bike), but really the way I saw it (and still see it) if you’re riding a motorcycle and the taxi ahead of you pulls up to the side of the road and stops, and you’re close enough to see there’s someone in the back, you should really expect them to get out the car, so driving in between them and the pavement is pretty fucking stupid.

So I turned my back and walked away hoping to God they didn’t come after me. Which they didn’t. Khun Motorcye’s main source of anger was probably that he really wanted to try and get me to give him loads of money in compensation, but couldn’t speak any English. And of course this being Thailand, more specifically Bangkok, the quicker we can all sweep such incidents under the carpet and completely forget about them the better it will be for everybody. So it has been.

I still get anxious walking past all the motorcycle taxis outside Central though.

Last incident of any note for October – I didn’t go to see Plump DJ’s at Q Bar, which was a real shame, I probably should have in hindsight. I didn’t really have anyone to go with, wasn’t quite fussed enough to go on my own (well… maybe a bit scared of going on my own too… I’m sure you’re all familiar with that bit in the Odyssey with Odysseus and the Sirens right?) and wasn’t sure I really had the money to fund the expidition anyway. So I resolved probably the morally and financially acceptable thing to do was to wait until Halloween.

I remember going to Q Bar for Halloween last year, back in the days when house music DJ’s still knew how to play stuff that wasn’t just electro-based, and had a rollicking good time with just me and Looksorn. So we endeavoured to go there again.

Well, Looksorn didn’t finish work till 10pm, we didn’t eat dinner till about 11, and we finally made it to Q Bar about some time after 12. So far so shit. I’d been to the gym for ages that day too so was very tired and in desperate need of listening to some good music (California WOW!’s music policy is somewhere between cheap (and I mean cheap) dance remixes of American pop combined with brutal ‘tranny house’ – I don’t know if that’s a real genre, but it should be).

Well we got in and, usual crowd of dirty old men (AAAHHH!!! The dad-dancing!!! Make it stop, for the love of God make it STOP!!!), and divinely attractive Thai girls (most of whom are, has to be said, high-class escorts on their night off – but you’re drunk, and they are divinely attractive). I don’t know what the DJ at Q Bar was on, but he was sheeeeeeeiiite!! Even having not gone out properly in ages and being able to call myself a DJ under only the most spurious of pretences, I could tell that he was a shit DJ.

It wasn’t house music, it was some awful bootleg mash-up night. It was like 2manydjs gone horribly, horribly off the rails. The guy on the decks seemed completely unaware that music existed outside of the American charts from the last 10 years, and how many fucking times can one man recycle Billy Jean by Michael Jackson in one hour?!

Suffice to say a good time was not had. Though of course it was still nice to get away from stuff and spend time getting drunk with Looksorn which is always a pleasure. We didn’t stay long, since we both had long days the next day, were tired, and having spent time gawking at all the drunk models, silly old men (one of whom brought some six year old Thai girl into the club… er… scuse me?) celebrities, gay dancers and all the menagerie of the Bangkok’s nightlife, we felt it was time to go home at a fairly unimpressive 1am.  

And so, with Halloween over, October finished, and that was that.

Oh yeah and I bought my plane tickets – I’m coming home 13th December to 4th January. Hmm… I wonder how many people that information is directed at will actually read it…

So yes. That was that. The forecast for November is…. well, dunno bit early to say, but I have already been up to Chiang Rai which was a pleasant if bloody cold experience. I have some pictures – you’ll just have to hold your breath till next time though.

Anyway, that’s it from me for now. Back whenever I get bored and run out of things to do.

Mat   

10 things I love about Thailand, 10 things I hate about Thailand – October 24, 2007

Does anyone ever get the feeling that they’re too old for Myspace? Well, I guess I literally am, being all of 26 and everything. Just logging in you get this voice in the back of your head saying “Well this is shit. Isn’t it, really?”. I guess testament to this is that pretty much anyone I ’really’ know seems to have chucked Myspace in too, a long time ago. Don’t blame them. Oh well, I guess despite this I started the blog here, so here it should remain. 

Talking of the blog, looks like the ‘furore’ over the July & August back-to-back issue has died down now, after getting 30-40 + views a week, I’m now back down to… zero. Good! Doesn’t look like September had nearly the impact that the previous two months did. And if I’m honest, this month isn’t really shaping up to be even as exciting as last month – but I’ll hold off until the month’s finished, just in case. You never know.

And so, in the absence of anything anecdotal to write about, I thought I’d bore you with some other shit. Today’s edition comes inspired by a post from the discussion board of the Thailand network on Facebook. I would provide a link but because you already need to be logged into Facebook to reach it, you can either find it yourselves by going on to Facebook, or if you’re some Myspace random who’s ‘too cool’ to be on Facebook, then…. I dunno. I don’t really care.

It’s not like it’s a very interesting thread ok? You’re not missing out!

Anyway. The thread is called 10 things you love about Thailand, and 10 things you hate about Thailand. Given posting in that thread would involve typical weboard arguments, misunderstandings and most of all being completely ignored, I though I would share it with everybody here. After all, what else is a blog for other than being a gobshite?

These things aren’t in any order by the way. Since I love/hate them for different reasons, it seemed a bit hard to put them into any order.

Ten things I love about Thailand:

Women - It’s no surprise, and maybe for some people a bit depressing to see that the first thing a white guy in Thailand says he likes are the girls. I know. I don’t mean ‘I like girls’ in a purely dirty way, although, if forced into a corner (or not even that) I would have to say that being in Bangkok you do see some of God’s finest creations walking around on a daily basis. You want a link to explain further? ok… I’ll see what I can find… here we are, have a rummage through this one http://www.madoo.com/starpic/

But it’s not just that. For whatever reasons, Thai women are just extremely easy to get on with, and fun to be around. They are passionate and fun-loving, glorious in their own sense of empowered femininity… Ok, this is beginning to sound like a load of cliched bollocks. Obviously not all Thai women are that great to be around, but they are generally open, outgoing and friendly and there is never a dull moment with (most of) them. I’m not gonna jump around saying they’re perfect, but they ain’t half bad. And they know how to party. 

Food - Ok, if I’m honest, I don’t like a lot of Thai food, it’s too spicy, it makes me ill, or it just tastes ‘funny’. Some of it is amazing though. And while it’s nearly all the same kind of thing (meat with rice, meat with noodles, the odd carrot thrown in) it all tastes so damn interesting. I’ve never seen a love of food like you see in this country, and it’s a wonder to behold. Plus if you ever get tired of Thai food, there’s plenty of amazing food from other countries on offer. And then there’s so much incredibel fruit here (green mangoes!)

Beaches and islands - Ok, this one doesn’t need too much explanation. Anyone who comes to Thailand is always blown away by the scenery, whether down south in Krabi, around Hua Hin, down near Koh Chang or on Koh Samui. Amazing. Also the nightlife on Samui is amazing, if you can make it past the gogo bars and Green Mango (which is shite, actually – unlike actual green mangoes which are amazing – see above).

Friendliness - It’s the thing they are famous for among tourists, and the thing they are famous for faking amongst expats, but I really admire the sheer determination of Thai people to maintain a calm and pleasant society. It’s a combination of many factors, mainly a strong sense of eastern pragmatism and the idea that whatever happens in public is everyone’s business, and it works so damn well. They may well be ‘faking’ the whole ‘friendly’ thing sometimes, but who cares? A society where people are freindly to each other because they think it’s the best thing to do rocks. Especially in Bangkok, you can see this society being degraded all around you, and it is a genuine shame. 

Isan - Ok, apart from people who are native to Thailand and/or are from other Asian hierarchical societies, who couldn’t love Isan? The people are crazy, the food is amazing and it’s beautiful. Not the most exciting place in the world, and downright terrifying sometimes, but if there’s one region of Thailand who’s culture will outlast all others and resist the tide of westernisation, it’s Isan.

Bangkok’s nightlife - Much has been said about the nightlife of Bangkok. But it is just incredible. The unbelievably sordid and the unbelievably glamourous reside side by side in a way that doesn’t seem like it should work, and yet it does. So well. There’s nothing you can’t find here somewhere – hang on… maybe that’s a bad thing… Oh well, stop thinking, down another bottle of Sangsom, keep talking to these random strangers you’ve just made friends with and head to the nearest illegal after-hours joint! The party never stops (specially since all the ‘illegal after-hours joints’ are actually run by corrupt police officials or the mafia)!

Ok, yeah, I think it has to be said that there are some extremely dodgy (morally and health-wise) places in this city too, but I think I should probably save a description of them for another time… 

The history - Thai history. Amazing. Like the history of every country in Europe all rolled into one. Go look it up on wikipedia or something. But it’s one hell of a story. Alternatively watch historical epic movie Suriyothai or even better The Legend of King Naresuan. Brilliant. And then of course there are the epic ruins left behind in Ayutthaya, Sukothai, Lopburi and all across Isan, which are… epic, for want of a better word. 

Sense of taste - There’s no denying that Thai people have a really good sense of taste. If people want to be trendy they won’t all rush out to go and get the latest look and end up looking like a bunch of pricks (a la UK), they’ll actually make sure that whatever they wear and whatever they do, they’ll look good. Really good. For a Thai person, there’s nothing worth doing unless you can look good doing it. And do it good, too.

Cultural ‘rawness’ - Bit of a difficult one to explain, this one. In the UK emotional strength is defined as the ability to bury your emotions deep inside and forget you ever even had them. Avoid all situations which might lead to strong emotions where possible. The Thai definition is riding out strong emotions, learning to control yourself while experiencing them and learn from what happened. In Thailand, they have no qualms about showing dead bodies on the news. Deal with it. No film certificates. The earlier you deal with it, the better. There is very limited interest in health and safety. Because you’re just supposed to go through whatever happens and deal with it.

I’m not gonna say one way is better than the other (although we all know a lot of other white folks would), because there is a logic to Thai fatalism. It’s a refreshing difference to the British way, and one that give much more practice at dealing with the inevitability of emotions. But then of course I do believe in keeping a stiff upper lip wherever possible, old boy, naturally.

Attitude towards westerners - You have to love the way that Thai people treat white folks. It seems unfathomable to most white people that Thais should treat us with such servility up front and then walk away from it laughing at our attitudes. But that’s how it is. We have this culturally ingrained view that Europeans brought enlightenment to the world, we made it what it is today, and without us those funny little yellow people wouldn’t know shite. But those ‘funny little yellow people’ see us getting angry over nothing, making fools of ourselves and falling for the lies of peasant-girls-turned-prostitutes on a regular basis and think: “how can they be that bloody stupid?”

Remember guys, you maybe the same colour as Einstein, but that doesn’t make you a genius. Which is precisely what every Thai person thinks when you start ‘acting up’ at them and treating them disrespectfully.

Ten things I hate about Thailand : 

Pattaya - “Costa del Sol in Thailand”, expatriate residents and visitors will proudly tell you. “White people own this town, and have made it their own”. Towering hotels and condominiums line the neatly made streets with perfect pavements and roads, western restaurants such as Jim’s Irish Pub (Jim being from Essex and never having visited Ireland, obviously), Jergen’s German Pub, and Sven’s Swedish Pub sit next to sprawling plazas filled with small bars and pool tables. This is clearly a town awash with money and sex. Thai people are in the minority here: it’s all about the grossly overweight retirees plodding along next to their latest Thai wife/prostitue complaing loudly about “F*ckin Thai people, f*ckin fick in’t they? F*ckin lazy too!”

At night the town comes alive as the girly bars swing into action, the tourists decend on them armed with their entire pensions, get horrifically drunk, barfine a girl (or two, or three) and indulge in their most horrible fantasy. 

Everything I hate about Thailand in one place. Though I should point out, some of the hotels aren’t that bad, and some of the ‘normal’ bars aren’t bad either. Finding them’s a fucker though. And at the end of the day, as much as these fat white bastards believe they own Pattaya, everyone else knows that the Thai mafia really own Pattaya, and are farming said fat white bastards for every satang they have.    

The weather - Tropical downpours 8 months of the year, unbearable heat for 2, and that leaves you 2 good months that you can actually leave the apartment without sweating your balls off or getting soaked. And then the smog and humidity in Bangkok sometimes…

Corruption – Corruption is a word that leaps out at you here. It’s everywhere. The precepts of a law-abiding western society have been placed on a consequentialist, pragmatist eastern society, and the result is a bloody mess. You naturally indulge in corruption in day to day life, it’s the only way to get anything done. Thousands of expats have come here trying to do things ‘by the book’ and have ended up out on their arse. Personal relationships matter much more than your skills. Asking those above you in society for ‘favours’ is natural and expected, fiddling figures for your own personal gain is again, expected. By western standards, it’s bad, really bad. But by Thai standards, it’s just the way things have always been done. And who are we to judge that?  

It’s just when it gets to massive corruption that sees the rich getting far too rich, everyone else suffering, and most of all when it impacts on you, you kinda wish things weren’t the way they are.

Pollution – Hideous. Not just pollution though, but lack of environmentalism. There’s so much junk in Bangkok’s canals. No bloody bins anywhere. Expressways throughout Thailand are covered in crap. It’s ok if it’s just the odd bottle or whatever, but there are mountains of it. Sort it out.

Attitude towards work - Pleasing the boss and not causing trouble come first. Hard work, efficiency and organisation are a long way down the list. God have mercy on all the dumbass expats who have been here for years and still haven’t figured it out (there are certainly enough of them). It does get grating when you do actually want to a) do something well and b) be recognised for it.

The fact that they don’t teach kids any analytical skills at school - It’s a well acknowledged problem in Thailand. People can do calculus, but get them to add 2 and 2 together without a calculator and you’ll have them scratching their heads for hours. This has serious repercussions in daily life. Just trying to figure something out for yourself evidently becomes extremely difficult, and tens of millions of people all over Thailand struggle with this issue. The other week I asked an adult student why global warming was bad and they only answer they could come up with was “Because everyone says so”.

Why does it happen? Because at school, kids are taught ‘2 +2 = 4′. They never have to work it out for themselves, nobody ever asks “if you take 2 of something, and 2 more of the same thing, how many do you have?” This method continues up through until they leave school. Not good huh? Don’t worry about the country’s ruling elite though, they all send their kids to international schools where they get taught normally.

Other white expats - There is so much to dislike about so many other white people here. Whether their reason for being in Thailand starts “Well, we saw The Beach and…” or they’re just here to use and (sexually) abuse the local population, or they have steadfastly refused to make any effort to understand or be part of Thai society, or they have made too much effort to do that, or they are proud of how disgustingly overpaid they are, there is just so much NOT to like!

Gay guys who think that just because you’re not out with your girlfriend right now you must be after some cock - Enough said. If you haven’t already, read my blog and you’ll see why I have a problem with this.

Old women who have gay friends and think that just because you’re not out with your girlfriend right now you must be after some cock, and try to set you up with their gay friends - Again, this is just awkward. And again, read my blog if you haven’t already. I admire Thai womens’ attitudes and openess towards sex, I really do, but this is just rediculous.

People who don’t even bother asking if you’re gay and think that you must be after some cock - We’ve all been there. Well, at least I have, and I didn’t really enjoy it. Again, read the blog.

September! – October 9, 2007

And vaguely on time too!

Although if I’m honest, there isn’t really so much to mention about September, it wasn’t very interesting.

One thing that has been bugging me lately - the number of views of my blog on Myspace seem to have gone nuts after my last post. Well… not “nuts”, but I’m getting 30-40 views a week where before I was getting about 10 a month…. Any of you random viewers want to tell me what’s up with that? And how does anyone find my blog anyway? I’ve tried searching for it on Myspace and even I can’t find it! 

Also given I don’t have any new subscribers/friend requests I’m beginning to think something underhand is going on somewhere…

“Well, that’s exciting enough, but what have you been up to?” I hear you ask, by pressing my ear very, very hard against the socket in the wall where the network cable connects to… ah whatever… this is stupid. I could just say ‘Now I’m going to tell you about what I did in September’.

Now I’m going to tell you what I did in September.

September started out unsuprisingly similar to how August finished. I mean I think it did. In other words I can’t really remember, which means I probably didn’t do anything special. More classes got moved around, forgotten about about and then cancelled, so I began to spend more and more time at home, trying to avoid thinking about anything productive.

I did start a new class at an office not far from the branch, and… yes you’ve guessed it already, they tried to set me up with the gay students again. It’s shit that the whole class just assumed I was up for some wild untamed bum-sex without even asking me if I was either single or gay. Also shit that as soon as I eventually told them I had a girlfriend they all seemed much less interested in learning anything. 

Only one really interesting thing happened in Spetember, and that was my birthday. Having had a relatively ’uneventful’ birthday last year, mostly spent denying the fact I was now (or then) 25, this one definitely made up for it. Looksorn really came through and made it awesome.

I already decided that I was going to get a new digital camera for my birthday, and my parents sent me a whole load of money for it. Looksorn also chipped in and I ended up getting a Fujifilm S9600, an absolute bastard of a camera. Sorn also blagged a free camera stand with it using her awesome negotiating skills.

For my birthday itself Looksorn told me to book a few days off over my birthday without telling me where we were going – turns out we were going to Pranburi to stay at Evason Resort and Hideaway (5 star resort!!! Empty beach!!!) and visiting Phra Nakon Khiri on the way. For anyone who’s ever driven down to Hua Hin from Bangkok, Phra Nakon Khiri is that palace on top of a mountain that you drive past near Phetburi that looks amazing. Which it is.

Fair to say I had an awesome time, although couldn’t help wondering if the personal butler service, 2 birthday cakes and a gazzilion other things were a bit more than I deserved, but it was awesome anyway. The resort was beautiful, they even had tennis and archery as activities! How often do you get that?

We spent the time chilling, going for bike rides down the beach, eating lots of food and at night getting embarrasingly drunk in front of lots of rich people (that was the best bit, of course). The camera performed magnificently on its first sortie, dispite a momentary f*ck-up with the memory card…. would you randomly-viewing-wierdo-myspace-types like to see the pictures? hmmm…. go on then….

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57142&l=4570e&id=553525293

Real people (ie people who I actually know) can just go to my facebook page if you haven’ already.

Of course the girls at ECC forgot that I was going and rang me while we were at Phra Nakon Khiri to ask where I wasn’t at work. hmm…. can I be a) justified in ranting about work again and b) fucked? No and no.

Anyway, I think that’s pretty much all my news, not that it was really that much, just a lot of rambling really… anyway there you have it, all I have to say for myself about Spetember. By the looks of things, October is shaping up to be even less exciting, so brace yourselves…

Anyway, in the event of nothing interesting to report possibly expect some blogs about something not related to what I may or may not have been doing.

Anyway. Bane of my sodding writing that word. Anyway anyway anyway anyway anyway. I f I was to count the number of times I had written anyway to start a paragraph, I’d be… a …dweeb.

Anyway. I might be back soon. And I might also be in touch. You can be too if you like, I’m not that fussed either way to be honest.

Mat  

July and August! It’s a bit of a big one, this one…. – September 27, 2007

You know, I think possibly the most depressing thing you can read on the internet is when you’ve just discovered someone writing or developing something really cool, only to find that post that says “Sorry guys, I’m just so busy at work, and ‘real life’ is just getting in the way. I’ll still try to give updates regularly, but it’s not looking good from my end.”

It’s depressing for two reasons: firstly, obviously, its something you were really looking forward to, and you know it would have been good if they had been arsed to spend time on it. Secondly, why do they always have to make some stupid joke like putting the phrase ‘real life’ in speech marks or add ‘(tm)’ afterwards or something equally as dumb? Just makes a disappointing post even worse in my opinion.

So that’s why you should all be thankful to me. I never did that to you! I guess I just let you guess that was what was going on…. which… isn’t a whole lot better is it?

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes! That’s right. I said I was going to give you an update on July and August ‘tomorrow’. Half true, I am going to give you an update, you just had to wait a much longer time for it.

July

So July then. July was dominated by the ‘visit’ of Tom, Matt and Ed (henceforth referred to as Strawberry, Bobby and Teddy respectively, for reasons that are top secret, obviously). I got back to Bangkok a day or two before them, rested, chilled, relaxed etc, and then met the intrepid three on Khao San Road on their first night. Have to say they were all looking pretty good after 18 hours of travelling. Not much happened really, got pretty drunk, looked down our noses at a bunch of drunk Irish football hooligans as they sung their hearts out about football or some shit and shook our heads dismissively as they ‘got in there’ with some ‘lovely’ Cambodian-looking women of ill repute.

Can’t really remember much of the next day, memory is a bit hazy, but it was probably uneventful, possibly had a 2 hour taxi ride to Khao San to meet them with a really nice driver who bought me some fried banana. Ace.

The night however, was much more where it was going to be at. I felt given only a short time in Bangkok it was important to show them some of my favourite sights. First stop was Sukhumvit Soi 38 for some amazing street food that was much appreciated by all. Then a short ride to house music haven Q Bar. The night started fairly quiet, stopping at some interesting looking bars on the way (why where there so many girls in them?) relaxing on the roof with some drinks, but soon it was time to hit the dancefloor. Team Handsome + Q Bar dancefloor. Can you guess what happened next? That’s right. Within seconds the Team was hopelessly outnumbered by women on all sides. I guess those Thai girls just couldn’t resist the Team. I had Looksorn with me, Teddy stood strong and resisted to the end, but Strawberry and Bobby honourably ‘took one for the team’ (each that is, they hadn’t been in Bangkok long enough to become that sleazy yet) and we danced the night away. Much drunken fun was had and while some dropped out about 2:30ish after Q Bar closed, Tommy and Bobby disappeared off to some after-hours place, not to be seen again for a good 12 hours.

The next day again was fairly quiet after finally meeting up we went to Chatuchak, where a waitress spilled Tom’s drink over everything. Again, the night would be more interesting.

Having experienced some of the more “Dionysian” delights on offer the night before, Looksorn was keen to show that the majority of Thai people were a bit more ‘respectable’ when they went out so tonight would be spent in trendy-as-f*ck Thong Lo. The bar we ended up at was Booze, a typical Thai place rammed to the rafters with an impressive house band and lots and lots of whisky. Good fun was had – some of which is viewable in video format on my Facebook page - again the Team put in an impressive performance showing off their whisky-drinking skills, dancing to Thai rock music and mixing with the local trendy kids. We then cruised around looking for after-hours places and headed for Patpong, which unfortunately we never had time to do properly. We spent about 5 minutes in old-skool GC-style trance club Lucifer (which was dead despite playing Tiesto – Lethal Industry!) until Teddy realised his camera was gone. Gutted. Put a bit of a dent in things and we headed home, disappointed that an awesome night ended in… disappointment.

All of this of course was just the beginning, the Team’s Illiad, if you will. Our Odyssey would be spent on the island of Samui. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, indeed if I was to write up our exploits, I would be writing tens of thousands of words, so instead, just enjoy these pictures. They will tell you more than I ever could.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37358&l=d4cb6&id=553525293

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37369&l=f3fbe&id=553525293

And thus the adventure came to an end. Matt headed back after getting back to Bangkok, Strawberry and Teddy ventured on to Krabi and Koh Phi Phi, where tales of slaying dragons, saving kingdoms from destruction and returning the One True Ring to the land of Mordor abound… though you’ll have to ask them yourselves for the details. They eventually came back to Bangkok by bus(!) and after some shopping they too departed for home. I met up with them for a few hours before work which I had just started again. 

Arriving back at work, I found things to be, unsuprisingly, monumentally crap. Turns out that while I was away on my quest, every single teacher had made plans to leave the branch. Vincent (head teacher) got in an argument with the branch manager and was being ‘relocated’. Peter (Czech, nice guy really smart but a bit ‘bookish’) was going to university. Giovani (Italian, bald, 40, not very bright, slightly tubby, very gay and madly in love with me…) was going back home. Vinny (30-ish, um… bit of a ‘bernard’ (I’ll explain that one another time) nice guy though) was leaving to work somewhere else.

Which left me pretty much on my own. A frantic search for a new job was met with employers invariably losing my CV, forgetting applications, dithering about and generally stuffing up resulted in me being stuck forced to sign another contract at ECC much to my disappointment. One by one, the other teachers left, with Vincent predicting a virtual in-branch apocalypse once he was gone. Curiously though, it never happened.

August

August continued this pattern of events. I’d find myself teaching 40 hours one week and 10 the next, with lessons and students constantly being moved about and sometimes totally forgotten about, but it never got unbearable.  

I went to Krabi with Looksorn and some of her work friends at the beginning of August which should have been amazing, only I was struck down with a vile fever the night before (whaddathechanceseh?!) which consigned me to bed for nearly the whole trip and was very crap. Despite this, Krabi was incredibly beautiful and the resort we stayed at was also amazing. I did make it to Koh Hong which is honest to God the most beautiful place on earth and I was well glad I braved the journey there. Have to agree with Teddy and Strawberry’s analysis though, not much to do in Krabi, is there really? Still if you have to be ill anywhere in the world, there’s a good place to do it.

Couple of other events of note that occurred in August: firstly, Looksorn found an amazing Japanese restaurant in Silom and we went there with Nuch (one of her friends). Afterwards ‘just for a laugh’ we went to Patpong to by some ‘dvds’ (ok, we were looking for dirty ones. One I picked up was a Mexican one called Y Tu Mama Tambien which actually turned out not to be that dirty at all, but actually an incredible film that I highly recommend to everyone – over 18 - to watch) and visit some ‘bars’.

The bar we ended up in was called ‘Super Pussy’. Er… yes. A few post-op ladyboys and some fat girls on a stage inserting various things into various parts of their bodies. I never understood all those people that are like: “Ohmygod we’re in Bangkok we’ve just got to go to Patpong and see a sex show”. I’d always though they would be shit, and anyone who’s seen a half-decent porno has probably seen all they’d want to already.

One of the things bars like ‘Super Pussy’ are famous for is scamming you on drinks. They’ll intice you in with lots of offers only to completely shaft you and try and charge you way more than you thought you would have to pay. Well… we bought some drinks, should have been 300 Baht (allegedly) and they ended up charging us 1000 Baht. Typically the next stage after you obviously protest to the waitress is that some ball-breaker bar manager comes out and bullies you into paying up, you then leave pissed off and 700 Baht worse than you expected.

Theoretically. Usually. This is what happens most of the time. Only this time, they were trying to do this to Looksorn.

So, they charge us way too much. The waitress goes off to get the bar manager, and battle commences. It’s a bit like the bit in the movie where the guy starts a fight with Bruce Lee or Tony Jaa or whoever without realising who they’re messing with. Khun Ball-Breaker starts with her usual line of “Why you not pay?! etc, etc, this how much you owe us bla bla bla” and Looksorn launches into full attack mode “Are you taking the piss you stupid bitch?! What the hell are you talking about?! Why would I ever pay that much for a couple of beers?!” Khun Ball-Breaker protests, but to no avail. Looksorn is nowhere near giving up. Shocked at seeing such resistance, and in a sign of desperation, Ball-Breaker wheels out the old classic “Hey, we’re both Thai, why you talk to me this way?!” (Thai people always use their natural affiliation with each other to try to calm disputes, you see). Again, it is useless against someone of equal vocal skill and a much higher intellect “Yeah we’re both Thai, so why the fuck are you charging me so much?!” Ball-Breaker falters – she’s just not used to this. Looksorn strikes the killing blow – “Get the manager” “But the manager will just say the same as me…” “Like the hell I care. I’m bored of talking to you, you’re an idiot.” Ball-Breaker is down and out of ammunition. “Ok… I’ll get you your money back, but really…. ok, ok, I’m sorry about all this…”

And we left. Brave move though, given Khun Ball-Breaker’s manager is probably some mafioso who could have had us all wiped out in an instant, if he was honestly at all interested in 700 Baht, which he obviously wouldn’t have been… right?

Last incident for August is one that is sure to make you laugh out loud. Towards the end of the month I start teaching a course over at an office in Bangkok’s industrial area. Things start off fairly normal, the office is nice, the class is a decent size, quite friendly, totally mismatched to the level of the book they’re studying but we forge ahead anyway. I do notice one quite young and very effeminate looking chap who looked as though he came in his pants when he saw me… slightly unsettling but nothing I’m not used to here.

Next lesson I come back and the class files in again. Young gay chap now has his shirt pretty much unbuttoned to his navel, and two of his ‘associates’ come in. Slightly older, and with a much higher level of English they come in and sit one on each side of me. Smiling coyly they tell me that they’ll ‘help’ me this lesson and immediately start (quite irritatingly) translating everything I’m saying into Thai, rushing around to sort out CD players for me and getting me water. It’s ok, I think, I’m in another company’s office, rise above it, stay professional, it’s a Business English lesson.

Pretty much as I’d have guessed anyway, the ‘questions’ start. “Where are you from?” “England, near London” “How old are you?” “25″ “ooooh so young! Like a baby!” they purr in soft feminine tones and the rest of the class (mostly middle-aged women) titters along with the jokes. I was starting to feel slightly awkward, wondering how long they would keep this up. “How long you stay in Thailand?” “About 2 years, I stayed here for about 6 months, went home for a few months and then came back last year.” “So why you come back?” I saw my chance and grabbed it. “er… to be with my girlfriend.”

The whole room recoils in shock. A gasp of disbelief is followed by a deathly silence. All three of the young gentlemen look distraught. Finally one breaks the silence: “You mean…. you like girls?!” “er… yeah… sorry.” I mumble. The class recovers with giggles and jokes at the three gays look of disappointment. “that’s… that’s ok” one of them says, trying to regain face. The lesson contiues vaguely as normal. 

I didn’t have to teach there again, thankfully but that moment belonged in an EFL-teacher version of The Office. Seriously. You’re just not used to having to openly defend your sexuality in an office environment in British culture, specially not in front of a whole group of people, specially not when you’re a visitor to that company. And having to justify being straight, in an English class, as a teacher, in a company conference room in for crying out loud! Just fucking absurd!

Well… that’s as much as I can remember of the fantastical events of July and August as I can remember them. Hope they were as exciting for you as they were for me. Anyhow, I’m off to rest my tired fingers.

See you all later, stay in touch.

Mat

Goodness? Is that the time? – August 30, 2007

Ok, ok…. there’s only so much apologising one can do sometimes. Everyone knows what it’s like to start off enthusiastically and then drift off after ages. We’re all adults here (at least most of us are. Unless you’re some random child who’s just reading my blog out of boredom. Heh, you think you’re bored now, just wait till you’ve read all the way to the end!), no need for phony excuses, all I ask is for some understanding and forgiveness.

Well now all that gushing is out of the way, I’ll give you guys a bit of a catch-up on what’s been happening.

I’ll start with May, as that’s where I left off. Of course that’s a while ago now, long enough ago for all the stuff I usually ramble about to have been long forgotten.

I’m pretty sure not much of interest happened in May actually. At the end of April I had (what I considered to be) a fantastic job interview with a pretty good language school. Well… it ended with the guy saying they’d be in touch about contracts bla, bla… and guess what? Nothing. So I emailed him back and got told someone better came along. That was a let down.

Also in May, I ‘bought’ an apartment out here with Looksorn. One of those female impulse buy things I think. It was a pretty nice place, reasonably priced, and in a sortof up-and-coming area of the city. Hasn’t actually been built yet. It’s on the BTS route as well… only that hasn’t been built either. So global catastrophes and political meltdowns withstanding it should be completed in October next year. Where me n her will be then goodness knows.

And finally for May, I went to see Joey Negro just before coming back to the UK, that was really cool actually. First time I’ve got off my arse to see a DJ that I liked in a very long time, and well worth running myself into financial ruin. He played ‘Ride the Rhythm’ near the end of the night which rocked.

Incidentally that was also the night of my ‘leaving do’ at work which was nightmarish by comparison (to anything). I didn’t get a say in what happened, we ended up going to the local Karaoke place in Central (despite me hating karaoke and not being able to sing). It was the girls from work, who I vaguely get on with, and Vincent, my headteacher, who I… don’t. Forty minutes of chewing my way through the toughest steak ever listening to some er… singing (I guess you could call it that) while Vincent engaged me in ‘conversation’, i.e., him complaining about Thailand, Thai people, Thai politics, karaoke, China, Chinese people, Thai music, Thai food, western food cooked by Thai people, teaching, ECC, the girls from work, girls in general, his students, my students, students in general, Bangkok, Australia…. I was so fucking glad to get out of there. To be honest I think it just made going to see Joey Negro afterwards even better.

June was a bit different, since I came back to the UK for the month. The journey back was much better than in December, nobody had the misfortune to die this time round which was very considerate. When I did come back I was a fair bit poorer than the last time too, which was a bugger. Still, can’t complain, it was nice to see England in the summer for the first time in 3 years.

Looksorn came over for the first couple of weeks too, but having done the whole tourist thing the last time she was less bothered about going anywhere this time around, so we spent the time just chilling, she got to see England in the sunshine for about 2 days as well. Met up with Ed and Kate, and spent an incredible amount of time looking at flowers in various places. Well, she enjoyed it which is the most important thing I guess, not to say I didn’t like. We did also make it to Chessington World of Adventures which was a pretty awesome day out, has to be said.

As for me, I was just glad to be back for a bit, take in the surroundings as it were, see my folks again, and of course see my beautiful, gorgeous turntables. Spending time away from them is having a pretty negative effect as you’d guess. I can still beatmatch, but stringing a couple of tunes together is painful. I’ve made the decision the future will have to be digital, it’s the only way, but money for CDJ’s or even an MP3 mixing programme for the laptop is scarce now more than ever before. Fucking hate money. Its a pissing shitting cunt of a bitch. Sorry. Just how I feel right now.

After Looksorn went home, I spent the time doing incredibly little for the first time in a very long time. I admit I was appalling at staying in touch with just about anyone and I’m really sorry for that. If I’m honest though, I really needed that downtime. Arguably I didn’t need to get hooked on Oblivion quite as much as I did…. but that’s neither here nor there.

And then of course there was Manchester. Having finally gotten back in contact with the rest of humanity, Tom even managed to quite impressively organise a weekend up in Manc with the er ‘nacent’ Team Handsome - Tommy, Johnny, Bobby and Teddy (honestly. Could it sound any gayer? lol) Obligatory drinking, partying, deep reaching existential discussions and so forth were the order of the day, and much fun was had by all in boho Chorlton. Even a random phone call from Mike, fancy that… (though I don’t think he was aware of our presence). something along the lines of fights with bouncers and being arrested for possession… some people never change eh? Anyway, good weekend and great to see everyone again.

After all that nonsense it was time to head back to Thailand. My transition back to the Kingdom was not a smooth one. 2 days prior some smart bastard decided that it was clearly the will of Allah to set a car on fire and drive into Glasgow airport. As if Allah doesn’t have bigger things to worry about… But to cut a long ramble medium-length, this royally screwed things for me trying to use an airport to get somewhere. Plans were then made to get to Gatwick via the train. That was cool, you can do that from St.Albans, not too far away. It seemed the obvious answer.

Although after getting to St.Albans station, no train showed up. 3 minutes after it was supposed to get there, apparently it was announced it wasn’t coming. For a developed nation, the UK’s rail services sure are on the ball aren’t they? So instead I had to get the next train into London. Having got that far I needed to get to London Victoria. I dragged all my bags towards the exit, used all my English teaching skills to explain yes, I know it says Gatwick on my ticket, and I know this isn’t Gatwick airport, but I’m actually trying to get there. I then got guided to a shuttle bus outside the station, only to be told I needed to take the underground. So I hauled everything down to the underground, got on the train, only for it to stop after about 2 minutes because someone on the next train was sick and had pressed the emergency stop button.

Now in any other country in the world, what would have happened next is said next train would have got to the nearest station asap, offloaded sick passenger and the whole system would have been up and running as fast as possible. Of course being Britain, the emergency stop had to be confirmed by the driver, relayed to central control, the whole line shut down while the problem was verified, then the passenger got taken to the nearest station, very carefully and slowly taken off, and then the whole of the Victoria line had to be shut down again for a further 15 minutes. Britain, Britain, Britain, don’t do anything quickly, especially if it’s an emergency, or people might think you were rushing, and then goodness only knows! Think of what might happen! Think of all the undue worrying that might be incurred!

Fair to say I was pissed off. I had to drag all my stuff off the train, mission across to the other line, and change 2 more times before I finally made it to Victoria station, where nobody was around to help me, and no timetables gave any indication of when the next train was. If it was Thailand I would have been swamped by people giving me information. Finally found the train, and despite being terrified of missing the flight I didn’t, everything went smoothly and I was back in Thailand after a fairly breezy 18 hours.

Right, times up, I’m hungry, and I’m off to get some dinner. I’ll do July and August tomorrow. Honest. Tomorrow, I mean it this time.

Mat  

Er… yeah it’s been a while – May 31, 2007

Hello, ok so technically it hasn’t been a while since I posted something yesterday, but it has been a while since I posted anything to let anybody know how things are and what’s been going on, so it’s probably time I made the effort to catch up with everything.

Well, I guess I should start with April, since the most recent update was about March.

Well, when I think back to April last year, it was a really horrible time. Apartment contract, visa and money all ran out at the same time, I didn’t have a job, and in the middle of all this was Songkran, which included an epic 12 hour overnight car journey to Chiang Mai, which was stressful. Man, some of the car crashes I saw on the way up there were horrific… pools of blood and people lying in the middle of the road… But everything sorted itself out in the end - for me anyway.

April this year was also pretty horrible, but for different reasons, and I suppose it wasn’t quite as shit as last April. Quite early on in the month my girlfriend’s freind’s fiance was killed in a car crash. I new the guy, not too well, but I went to Koh Samui with him. Not a nice way to lose someone you’re about to marry, really, and the funeral was pretty tough. The circumstances surrounding the whole event are incredibly wierd too, but best not speak ill of the dead, specially not in a country this superstitious. 

Things continued on a fairly crappy note this April mainly because my job was driving me into the ground. Not that I’m going to go on about that this time, save to say it involved those fucking holiday classes which still hadn’t finished (9-12 Mon-Fri) and not finishing till 8 in the evening most days. Miserable.

Then on top of all this, I got handed “Banana A”, the Saturday morning kids’ class that included amongst other little bastards, August, the delinquent 6 year-old who for reasons only known to the Thai staff is put in a class with other kids who barely know the alphabet, while he speaks near fluent English. As his “teacher” you are both his servant and climbing frame – a combination that led me to nearly tear him limb from limb on several occassions. And I got handed Amy, Bill and Boat, a family of spoilt and not-to-dissimilar-to-August kinda children. And being a family of spoilt children they spend the whole 2 hours trying to cause as much misery to each other as possible. Fuck trying to teach them anything.

And then, my superstar student Nitiporn Munark cancelled on me for the whole month, something about her having to go to France for an indeterminate amount of time for her radio show…. obviously France and a radio dj career are more important than me! Ha! Well…. that’s just fine because I don’t care. Absolutely not. Not… much anyway. Btw is anyone else getting sick of the italics? Sorry.     

So this is was the general… outlay, if you like, of April. And apologies, I guess I did bang on about my fucking job again. If only I could stop writing everything in italics!!!!  

The main event of April, as with every April in Thailand was of course Songkran. I usually look forward to Songkran with a feeling of dread and misery, and usually end up actually enjoying it, and this was true this year. The aim was to have a traditional Songkran with Looksorn’s family up in North east Thailand, also known as Isan. To sum up the whole experience, I would probably choose the word “hardcore”. Isan in a nutshell is a pretty hardcore place.

It started with a 15 hour car journey from Bangkok overnight to Looksorn’s home village in Si Sa Ket province, with Looksorn and her sisters Aey, Oh and Moo. That was pretty tough.

We got to Isan and went straight to her mum’s (and her original) home which was I guess simple but had a really idyllic “rural Thailand” feel to it, complete with pigs, ducks and chickens in the back yard. The village consisted of a couple of roads, a temple, a school and a whole lot of Isan people who probably hadn’t seen a white person in a very long time. Speaking English was definitely not going to be an option for the next few days.

The first day was really spent recovering, and meeting more of the family at her grandad’s home. He’s 93, and he’s having his house renovated. So where is he living? In his house, on his own. Out of choice of course! Like I said before, Isan = hardcore, no two ways about it.

The next day was spent with the family again, eating honest to God the most amazing food I’ve ever eaten and driving around having buckets of water thrown at the car by very, very drunk Songkran revellers. Two other things that you notice immediately about people from Isan (after hardcore-ness) is their love of drink and their love of their own brand of Thai music, which they were playing on huge soundsystems dragged out to the side of the road, and is for the most part much better than the music you find elsewhere in Thailand. Other Thai people dismiss Isan as being backwards and poverty stricken which is such a shame since I think in terms of modern culture its certainly the most exciting and dynamic part of the country.

The highlight of the visit was, after performing all the traditional bathing all the family elders (alive and passed on) in scented water, going out to ‘play Songkran’ – riding around in the back of a pickup having lots of water thrown at you while you (ideally) throw somw back too. Only we didn’t have any, so it was really a lot of getting wet and being really, really uncomfortable squashed in the back of the truck. Fortunately though we had a ladyboy with us, so even though I was a white guy, I wasn’t everyone’s main target. A relief to be sure.

After a journey of about 2-4 hours we ’apparently’ (this being Thailand nobody told me where we were going, obviously) made it to the Cambodian border to visit Wat Phra Vinhear, an ancient Khmer temple built by the same fellow who commissioned Angkor Wat, and built at the top of a ridge that allows you to see for miles and miles beyond into Cambodia. I guess what made the visit even more amazing was that the temple had been turned into a hill-top fortress by some Khmer Rouge twat-or-other and they had laid down minefields for miles in every direction. Every few 100 metres you were carefully reminded by French government-donated signs that you were ok, but if you left the path you would have your nuts (amongst other things) blown sky high.

By the end of all this everyone was pretty tired and we headed home, through more deluges of water and this time went through downtown Si Sa Ket where lots and lots of other pick ups also were and lots and lots of drunk Isan people throwing lots of water and listening to lots of music also were. By this stage I was too tired and too wet to do anything but just ‘go with it’ and ended up having a really good, if slightly surreal, time. Songkran in Isan (at least where I was) has a real carnival feel to it that made it really pleasant and enjoyable. In Chiang Mai, like most other places these days it’s more about a water ‘fight’ and getting everyone as wet as possible and winning the fight and being a cunt to everyone - in Pattaya there were people on the street (Thai and white) actually pissing into their water pistols and spraying them at passers by. Utter shite.

After all this it was time to go home (it took only 12 hours on the way back which seemed like nothing tbh) and back to civilised Bangkok, and work the very next day at 9am, which wasn’t so fun.

Blody hell, rambled again! Anyway, there’s a good time to finish I think. That was April, I’ve got to go and teach now. I’ll add something about May sometime before I go back to the UK.