Scary Man Chuwit

When I lived in Thailand there was a particular politician who at the time I always referred to as "The Scary Man" Khun Chuwit was a very outspoken, loud and aggressive fellow who always spoke at 3 times standard decibels.

His past is very colourful! One time being known as "King of Commercial Sex" in Thailand, he owned and ran several of the biggest commercial brothels in Bangkok,his cliental included all the movers and shakers in Thai society. Even though the industry skirts legallity in Thailand a brilliant network of bribes and paid police networks kept the business's going. He used to be an MP, but in 2005 he lost his seat and I remember seeing him flooring a reporter who was asking the wrong questions on TV. All this and a very public eviction of squatters next to his HQ on Sukhumvit 10 and 2 failed attempts to become Bangkok Governer made him take a back seat for a few years.

Now everything is different, or so we are made to believe, the brothels have been sold and business is of the legitimate side. He is now trying to launch himself as a bastian of anti corruption. Give this guy his due, his recent antics in the Thai election that saw his party ( Rak Thai ) win several seats. His election posters were by far the best, showing him frustrated in traffic, in despair and with his favoyrite trusted English Bull Terrier "Moto Moto". He promised to end the endemic corruption that prevades the whole of Thai society. Up until now he as kept his word, more so than any other of the political parties that were contesting the election.

His latest crusade is against illegal casino's. He made a video of a massive gambling den which was operating right under the nose of the local police. The Police denied the casino existed, so Chuwit showed a video in Parliament with pictures showing were the Casino was. Low and behold, the next day the police raided the place and found the remains of a Casino, it seems they had had a tip off of a raid and had moved. It seems it was in the interest of the local Police to let them know, it seems they were running the Casino. No matter, Chuwit had a video of the Casino being moved and were it had gone, it took the Police three days in which they denied the existance of thenew Casino to raid the new location, only to find yet again it was gone. Things were going to far, The Bangkok Police Head Office had to act, but instead of suspending 3 high level Officers and 5 Juniors whilst the crime was investigated and possible charges against them, they have been moved for 30 days to Inactive Posts! Which means in 30 days, they'll be back at their day jobs, running Casino's. Only in Thailand!!!!

So its hats off to Chuwit, this type of actions are earning more respect than scorn. His goal of making Thailand graft free are probably three generations off ever happening, but if this poacher turned gamekeeper is serious in his new quest, good luck to him.

He's still a bit Scary!

Zante 2011

Last week, Elizabeth and I found ourselves on the Greek Island of Zante or Zakynthos, which ever takes your fancy. We were due to go to Turkey, but as I explained in a recent post the holiday company went bust. The holiday on Zante cost £200 more than the original and sad to say, it was worth only £200 all in...

Because of the lateness of tthe booking, I could only get a B &; B holiday in the lively resort of Laganas on Zante, you hear the horror stories of the 18-30 brigade stripping the resort and Island of any dignity. Well, its true. The behaviour of the young british holiday makers is true, they seem to have lost all respect and inabitions that I would have considered a bare minimum 25 years ago. Sadder still is that alot of the young girls are behaved worse than the lads.

You can see how the Greek economy is suffering, there are plenty of business's either closed or not even bothering to open, Restaurants, shops, car hire, bars and clubs. Nothing seems to be spared. The Hotel we stayed in was ok, if the louts hadn't been there, then it gave you exactly what it says on the Tin. The one outstanding feature of the Hotel Perkes is the Night Porter, Tony takes no shit, male or female are treated the same, up to 2am he is understanding, after that, any major hassle and he takes the keys off the trouble makers and goes and gets their suitcases. He did it to two sets of revellers, they weren't impressed, however neither was the 2M tall Tony....

Towards the end of the week, we hired a car for a couple of days, we saw the interior of Zante and this made up for Laganas. We saw the famous Shipwreck Cove and travelled to a small Island connected by a wooden walkway. We saw some Loggerhead Turtles and the sea was so clear.

Overall, I'm struggling to recommend Zante, there are a lot of better places in the Med, if you do go there, avoid Laganas at all costs.

WTF

Over the last four nights in England there have been major riots and to be quite honest with you, I can't remember such lawlessness.

I remember the riots in Brixton, Toxteh and St. Pauls in the 80's, These riots were down to the shocking social injustice that were being faced by the communuties were facing at the time and whilst not justifiable they were seen as a sign of the times.

This new set of riots were supposedly set off by the killing of a gang member in Tottenham and the protest outside a Police Station by his family. I don't know exactly what went off but this turned into a night of rioting and looting. This spread the following nights to other boroughs in London and culminated on Monday night the level of looting was at a level never seen before.

This is were I get labelled a racist because from what I've seen, a majority of the mob seemed to be of black (Not sure what the current PC term is?) background, although due to them not wanting to show their face they wore scarfs over their faces. The news coverage as been wall to wall, which I firmly believe as fuelled the copy cat trouble in other cities in England as avoided this side of the argument so far.

The Police have been conspicuous by their lack of profile, politicians have done their usual and not answered a question properly and the media is getting a hard on about the whole thing.

The situation seems easy to me, let the Police force be a force and not a comunity service. Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire. Their are several sayings tht spring to mind,"Spare the rod, spoil the child", "You reap what you sow", "HE who lives by the sword etc...". You get my meaning.

This is making England look even more stupid, Countries are wondering why we haven't used force to quell the troubles? So have I!

The most troublesome thing to me is that the Ferule Rats of yobs are not scared of the police or rule of law. They also seem oblivious to the consiquences of their actions, people could have been killed, but then again they wouldn't care anyway!

Yingluck Shinawatra

Thailand awaoke this morning to its first woman Prime Minister.

Yingluck Shinawatra was endorsed yesterday by the King of Thailand, it seems winning the election was the easy part!

Most people except the Yingluck is a mere puppet of her brother, Thaksin and this is just an attempt to get him back to Thailand. The scenerio goes that national reconcillation will be negotiated and Thaksin will have charges and crimes dropped against him, he'll probably get his seized money back too. On the other side of the political devide, the Generals and politicians who were involved in the savage crack down last year will have the slate cleaned, AGAIN!

Then there is the list below:

Rich poor divide
Looming financial turmoil
Mending Thailand damaged image
Maintaining the growth of industry
The troubled south

Don't get me wrong, I really wish her well, however I lived in Thailand during the last populist Government. While most ordinary people seemed happy with Thaksin, the Army and the institution were'nt and all this resulted in a coup.

If Yingluck rattles too many cages?????

One thing that does remain, Yingluck is pretty hot still!!!!!!

Diabetes and me Day 365

I've just got back from the Doctors with the results of tests and the first anniversary of me finding out I was type 2 diabetic.

The results were on the concerned side of OK! My average MMO levels came in at 7.2, this better than a year ago when they were 12 so this as got to be good. Unfortunately it seems that only the medication I'm taking are keeping things at bay.

I got the expected lecture about loosing weight and trying to watch the amount and type of sugars I eat.

My cholesterol levels were ever so slightly raised, so the nurse were going to ask about putting me on Statins. She actually just phoned back and told me that my liver results were again slightly high so I've got to go for another test and a scan on my liver before they'll prescribe statins. Great!

I have been told to increase the amount of Metformin I take, I now have to take 3 x 500mg a day. I don't mind this.

I will knuckle down and try to eat better, I will watch what I eat as well. So here we go again.....

No Holiday

(TOSSERS)

I had a phone call this afternoon to tell me that the holiday I booked last week is not going to happen.

The company Holidays4U have gone into administration and this is who our flight to Turkey were booked with. There is a ATOL bond, but we are'nt going to get our money back overnight. We have been quoted any time between 2 days to 1 year to get the money back. So in the mean time we'll try and pursue the money through Visa.

The company I booked with "Sunshine.co.uk" have done as much as they can, they have refunded the cost of the hotel and transfer.

What as been a downer is the large travel company's have taken advantage of the situation. A flight this morning from Manchester to Bodrum on the 15th August was £255 per person, when I last checked this evening the price was £464 per person! This is just taking the piss, yes people need to make a profit, but that sort of increase is a little obscene.

I'm going to wait till this time next week, see if there are any bargains, if not its hello N. Wales...

Diabetes and me Day 363

In a couple of days I've got my first annual diabetes check up and boy Am I dreading it.

I Since the new year I've slowly but surely dropped off the wagon. I do try and eat better and look after myself, but it just isn't happening. All the weight I lost last year, I've put back on and more. I feel bloated and horrible and my face feels very flushed. I can tell in my self that things are getting bad again, I'm hoping that the visit on Thursday will look at help rather than advice.

On Sunday I went out on my bike for nearly two hours and felt great even though I went on a hard route, I'm sure if I can loose some weight things would get better.

I took my MMO/L reading last night, it came out at 11.0MMO/L, which isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. These prick tests are only a snap shot, the blood test I had last week is a more overall picture.

I'll let you know how I go on later in the week.