(Partly a response to Annie R, Paul in the Village, etc, who asked for specifically Thailand-related stuff a few days ago.)
Well, we're now in our new abode, and thank you for all the nice messages sympathising with the ordeal of The Move. It's a stressful, soul-destroying experience, but you can always learn a few things. In this case: a) the best soundtrack to a move is mid-'70s funk (especially Kool & the Gang and Rick James), played on a rackety old gehtto-blaster; and b) my brother-in-law, who used to occupy the spare room at our old place, appears to be an avid collector of surreally erotic Italian graphic novels.
Chez nous is now a little further out of the centre of BKK, in a self-contained residential development. It's a peaceful place, with an air of gated community about it. There are private security guards, and apparently we will be issued with flags that must be flown on national holidays. Everyone smiles. There's a running track, a little playground, and even a stretch of gravel for boules. Taxis don't tend to venture in, so there's a fleet of bicycle rickshaws that can ferry you to the main road.
It's a bit like living in The Village. But in a nice way.
10 comments:
my sympathies on the move ordeal. god how i always hated it.
when they make that announcement about the balloons? pay attention.
surreal erotic graphic novels, eh? milos manara, by any chance? (asks the former subscriber to and rabid fan of 'Metal Hurlant' magazine)
Ahh, congratulations, and all the best to you and Small Boo for the new home.
Am enjoying the Radiohead book immensely, btw. There's a strange sort of purity in reading about songs you've never heard.
When are you going to be issued with a number?
And a nice pinstriped suit?
surreally erotic Italian graphic novels>>
???
Is that posh-speak for 'porn'?
And my book has finally arrived so I dug out my copy of OK Computer which is a dodgy cassette I bought in Bangkok some years ago. I'm particularly enjoying the footnotage and the fact that you snuck in a quote from Frankly Mr Shankly on, like, Page 2.
I second your opinion on Music for Moving (they should make a compilation CD set ...). Though I tend to favor old Commodores ("Brick House" is a good one) and Wild Cherry...
i have friends moving to bangkok this summer; they will be teaching at an international school there. and we (my family and i) are planning to visit them in a year or so. which makes any of your posts about life in bangkok extra interesting to me. i love your description of the place you have moved to - but it sounds foreign and odd and like something in a japanese novel (yes, i know thailand is not japan).
Emm.....apologies for the out of place/irrelevant/marvellously interesting piece of news that a newcomer I have posted on your Pelevin post of some time ago. This might have been worth pointing out had I posted something interesting in that there place but alas no...
http://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/search/label/Pelevin
Milos it was, FN. So you're a devotee of the ooh-crikey-all-my-clothes-have-fallen-off-in-the-desert school of art?
I'm going to nick your purity line, P, be warned.
Not pinstripe, Billy. Piping. And my number is 13.
Don't talk about the footnotes, Spin. I'm still annoyed that they got shunted to the ends of the chapters. But the BKK cassette is pretty appropriate - see chapter 25. And yes, it's porn. But soft.
'Brick House' was indeed in the mix, Valerie, as were the Ohio Players and Parliament. My groove thang was shaked.
Amylola, that's odd - I'm reading a Japanese novel at the moment (In Search of a Distant Voice by Taichi Yamada). subconscious literary osmosis?
Andrew: Welcome, and thanks. Will read it when I've applied lotion to a dog...
One must never shirk on the applying of lotion to a dog.
How weird — I was in Portmeirion with my mother on Sunday and I think we may even have been discussing your book. It was the first time I'd been there, despite growing up down the road from it.
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