LatASIA

Well, here we are. 2009 is here and the parties have begun around the world. I hope that you are those close to you have a very successful, happy and contented year in 2009.

A cheeky little new year greeting for those of you who appreciate a sexy butt

I am really looking forward to 2009. I have made my new years resolutions and they include:

• Not watching CNN for more than 7 hours a year
• Not watching anything that mentions Barrack Obama
• Spitting in disgust every time I hear the words "Gordon Brown"
• Not getting annoyed by developments at Heart of Midlothian Football Club
• Getting down to Krabi Town or Phuket more often
• Enjoying my job much more than I have done
• Being nice to everyone I meet, with the proviso of  restricting my contact with some of the looney expat contingent in Bangkok, including Brazilian fruitcakes!

I will keep track of these and let you know how I get on next December.

This past year has been a fast one. We have all sat and watched the Obama circus show on television for what seems like an eternity.

It is undoubtedly a very good thing that the USA has at last matured enough to make a black man president. But please spare us the endless barrage of crap on CNN, BBC World and crappy newspapers such as the Bangkok Post on what Obama had for breakfast, what colour underpants Obama wore on Sunday and all of the other mindless drivel they produce.

Let's just wait until the man actually has a job to do, and we have seen how he performs, before we start all the tedious crap being streamed into our lives.

After all, we have seen Reagan, Clinton etc in the USA and Tony "Freakin" Blair in the UK who have all failed quite spectacularly in trying to fulfil the promises they made in their election campaigns.

This year has had some really sad news too, with the constant killing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa as well as the terrible slaughter in Mumbai.

On the lighter side there was the lovely Ronaldo, one of the best footballers in recent times, allegedly picking up three prostitutes, who all turned out to be ladyboys.  I mean, what was that all about!!

Here in Thailand we have had Gary Glitter trying to get into the country to join the other Asian and Caucasian pedophiles that we have here.  Thankfully, he was sent packing. 

Thailand has suffered from unrest for the entire year, driven by the self interests of the elite and rich in the country.  For the majority of people life went on as normal and the weak but sensationalist reporting from CNN and the BBC was laughable to those of us who have lived here and never witnessed a single incident that even came close to what we were watching and reading in the world media.

I guess it is one of the hazards of 24hour news channels that they have got to generate stories that appeal to their viewers as opposed to reporting in context.  When I was younger you used to be able to rely on institutions like the BBC and independent news channels in the UK to produce high quality, insightful news and current affairs programmes.  I am still relatively young and this makes the speed with which News International, CNN and the BBC etc have managed to completely dumb down the news so that it better suited to light-entertainment category than News and Current Affairs.

These people have a lot to answer for.  It is even worse here in Bangkok, where we get the third rate journalists who are not allowed to cover countries where real news happens.

The airport closures in Thailand were a national disgrace and brought shame on the nation and all of its politicians.  The Democrat Party now sit smugly in office, happily ignoring the fact that they supported these protests and sat on their hands whilst the elite, apparently assisted by the military top brass, made the country suffer.  

I have got no time for Thaksin or his party.  I think it is a good thing that he is out of office.  But it seems to me that Thailand has still not got a government that cares about the welfare of all Thais.  Whilst he seems to be yet another 'puppet' Prime Minister, this latest one seems to be much more of an intellectual than the last three and hopefully his strings will be loose enough to actually implement some policies that will halt and reverse the 60 years of decline in standard of living that the majority of Thais have had to tolerate.

As for my own year, 2008 has been a good one for me.  Highlights included:

• banishing a nasty little Brasilian from my life, after putting up with months of being cheated and lied to.  It was one of those silly situations where my friends were telling me to ditch the nasty piece of works, but I kept kiddng myself that he would prove to be a good friend in the end.  As is always the case with nasty folk, my life got a lot better immediately after he was removed from the scene.
• I had a pig sacrificed in my honour.  I am not sure how this came about or whether the pig agreed to participate in this ritual, but it was a strange feeling to be told that a pig was going to be offered.
• I had a visit from friends from the UK.  It is always nice to get a visit and on this occasion it was even better as they are my closest friends.
• I met some new Thai friends this year.  Some really nice people including a group of girls who work for a training company.  Hopefully nice things will happen to them in 2009.
• I met a guy from the USA who was a former Missionary here in Thailand and a devout Christian.  He is a nice enough guy but I have to confess that I found him full of shit as well as being riddled with hypocrisy.  That said, I still wish many good things to happen to him and his family in this coming year.
• I moved house during the year and feel a lot happier in the new place.  The old rental agreement was a monumental mistake.  We live, we learn.
• Somewhat ironically, I was cheated by a company that claims to be the approved agents for "ethical auditing" for companies like K-mart, Target, AMC, JC Penney, Kohl's and Sears.  The low life people that run the company got me to do several months work for them, including designing a website and writing all of the copy.  Still not been paid a penny by them.  What's worse is that my ISP contacted me to let me know that this "Ethical" auditing company had submitted fraudulent documents to the ISP to gain access and control of my web domains and email addresses.   You got to hand it to the Americans and their agents in Thailand. They know how to lie and cheat in business.  They are still using my work on their website.  Every word and page is my intellectual property.  You can tell it is not theirs as none of them have the English language skills required to do business with reputable firms.  I shall certainly think long and hard before I buy anything from these retailers, having seen how they like to do business. It occurs to me that the reason that we still read about child/forced labor scandals in Asia is because they use firms like this as their official agents.  It is all a sad joke and we, the customers, pay for it through higher prices.
• I have been drunk on many, many occasions.  And loved every minute of the process leading up to being drunk!

For me, the biggest thing about 2008 was the friends, old and new, I had the pleasure of spending time with throughout the year.  One of the great things about South East Asia is the variety of people that you meet here, the majority of whom are warm and wonderful people.

To all of my friends and to every reader of this blog, Happy New Year!