The Laurus Nobilis

by Dolf Riks

Many years ago a friend of mine by the name of Hazel brought me a small Laurel, or Bay tree from England. I potted the plant and waited for it to grow so that I would have bay leaves whenever needed. It seemed to be healthy for a while but did not grow any taller, until one day it developed a sprout out of the lower stem. This sprout had decidedly lighter leaves, it grew fast and I rejoiced until all of a sudden the entire plant died. Friends told me later that this was a kind of parasite called sucker and I should have cut it off right away.

Bay leaves are one of the main stays of European cooking, often in combination with cloves. It seemed to be a native of Asia Minor and was used all around the Mediterranean at a very early age. It was dedicated to Apollo the Greek God and a crown of Laurel leaves was used in Greece as well as in Rome to honour great heroes, sages and Emperors. It was also supposed to keep away lightening and it is said that the Emperor Tiberius always wore a laurel wreath during a thunderstorm. The priestesses of Delphi were said to have a laurel leaf in their mouths when they pronounced their esoteric truths.

The botanical name of the Laurel is Laures Nobilis from the Lauraceae family and in French and Dutch it is called "Laurier", in German "Lorbeer", in Italian "Alloro" or "Lauro". Only the English call it differently: Bay Leaf, the "Bay" originally meant berry because when the plant is mature it produces berries like small olives. Strangely enough it is of the same family as the Cinnamon, Cassia and the American Avocado plant. Cassia leaves are much used in Indian cooking and in a few Thai dishes like Geang Massaman. The flavour is different from the true Bay leaf and not as strong. In Indonesia yet another leaf from a small tree is used in cooking called Daon Salem "Eugenia polyantha" of the Myrtaceae family of which the Nutmeg is also a member.

In some European countries, like the Netherlands, pots with small bay trees are sometimes used to decorate the sidewalks. They are placed outside in the spring and taken into a sheltered place in the fall. Bay trees are pretty and usually grown as a bush, sometimes trimmed to form a sphere or something. They never grow very tall.

No kitchen where western food is made should be without a Bay tree or a pot with dried bay. The latter should be well closed, as the leaves will lose flavour when too old. Dried bay leaves should be greenish brown, dried in the shadow to keep their aroma. They are used in soups, marinades, sauces, stews, pickles and sometimes also in sweet dishes like wine sauce, custards and creams. In Indian cookbooks bay leaves are often mentioned but according to my knowledge this is not the true bay but the above mentioned cassia leaf, called "Tej Pat" in some places. The flavour is quite different.

It is very strange that although the bay leaf is very popular in Dutch cooking, in three of my (Dutch) books about herbs, I can not find a reference to it.

Varuna founders together: Varuna founder? - never!

by Peter Cummins

It was indeed a night to remember as several of Royal Varuna Yacht Club’s founding members gathered at the Club sea-front property at South Pattaya last week for a night of reminiscing and snippets of the Club’s rich 41-year history.

A toast to the Varuna Royal Patron, H.M. the King (L to R) Sid Watkens, Walter Meyer, HSH Prince Bhisatej Rajani and Rachiman Gintzburger. Photo Peter Cummins.

The meeting was a re-affirmation of the Club’s viability far into the future: "The Club we founded will never founder," announced Walter Meyer at the outset. "Thank you, Walter; you have just given me a ‘gem’ for my headline," I told the founding ‘Flag Commodore’.

HSH Prince Bhisatej (Peter) Rajani, Walter L. Meyer, first "Chairman of the Board" (alias "Flag Commodore") and Rachiman Gintzburger, three of the four founders, were joined by second Commodore Sidney J. Watkins who had come to Thailand and Pattaya from his home town of Mullumbimby (yes, that is a REAL place) on the coast of Victoria, Australia.

Walter Meyer hosted the evening which included Charlie Zbinden, a long-time Varuna Club stalwart and Peter Cummins, tenth commodore and perennial Club scribe. Incumbent Flag Commodore Lawnin Crawford had to cancel because of pressing business back in Bangkok.

When Walter hosted a similar event (lunch, that time), way back in July, 1957, seeking "friends interested in forming a boating club," he set in motion the makings of the then Varuna Marine Club and became the first Chairman. In those halcyon days, none of the founders knew much about such clubs, thinking ‘Commodore’ was the title of a naval officer.

Walter thus served as chairman from 1957 until 1964, when Sid Watkins took over as second commodore until 1966.

There they were last week, together for the first time in 32 years, with a total age of 305 years between them: one octogenarian (Walter, 83) and three septuagenarians Bhisatej (77), Rachiman (73) and Sid, the ‘baby’ of the group, weighing in at a mere 72 years-of-age. Or, as Bhisatej remarked, "are we talking of total age or combined weights here?" Which, of course, sparked a new round of stories.

Walter raised a toast to honour Varuna’s Royal Patron, H.M. Bhumibhol Adulyadej who graciously assented to become the Club’s Royal Patron in 1965. Walter also revived the memory of some of the illustrious early sailors who had passed on, particularly Prince Birabongse Bhanubandh and Dr. Rachot Kanjana-Vanit.

Each one of the founders was a mine of information about a former Pattaya and environs that the rest of us could only dream about: sparkling white sandy beaches and the shimmering water of the Gulf so clear "you could almost drink it," as Sid noted. "Perhaps, in Australia, you DO drink sea-water?" was one retort.

The days of the late fifties and early sixties were recalled - a ‘golden’ era when members of the Royal Family graced the fledgling club with not only their presence but also with competitive dinghy racing.

Prince Bhisatej, who was the Marine Club’s "commander of sailing", according to Walter, set the Club onto a vigorous sailing programme from its pristine site at a South Pattaya village of some 20 fishing families. Bhisatej introduced His Majesty to sailing and, together with the King, built several boats, including Enterprises and OK dinghies.

His tutelage paid off when the King won a sailing Gold in the OK class at the Fourth South East Asian Peninsular Games (now, the SEA Games), in 1967. The King actually came equal first with his eldest daughter, Princess Ubolratana - a record unlikely to be equaled in sporting history.

Although Bhisatej had a hard time convincing his fellow-founders that he was seven times a national champion of Thailand, nevertheless, after his stories, the anecdotes flew, increasing in tempo in proportion to the ‘flow of the vino.’ All agreed, however, that even with the enormous changes that have befallen Pattaya, the spirit imbued in the original Varuna Marine Club, in 1998, is alive and well.

Now known as the Royal Varuna Yacht Club, after H.M. the King bestowed Royal Patronage on 26 April, 1965, the anecdotes still fly, the vino still flows, as the founding fathers intended it and the racing continues unabated, albeit with vastly different craft to the dinghies of yore.

Those who have the good fortune to descend on Royal Varuna after a frantic work-week in the capital, "are forever grateful to the founding fathers" - to quote from a recent Varuna publication - "for the foresight and the wisdom of our early Commodores, which gives us sailing, fun and sunsets, right along our shores."

The day I discovered the spider web

by The Urban Peasant

A couple of months ago, you might remember that there was big news about a couple of teenagers planning their "Our first time dot com" on the net. Before anything materialized, the website had crashed because tons of people bombarded their site. I still don’t understand why people were rushing into the website 3 weeks before schedule. To get the best seats on the net?

Well, not only people in the States got excited about it, but Thailand panicked as well. Newspapers reported that schools were informed to keep their students from logging on the internet on that day to prevent them from reading "www.our.firsttime.com". They sure did a great job in informing of the website location where the students were not supposed to go into.

Ok, enough of their first time, let’s talk about my first time. That I discovered the net of course - don’t think too much.

You see my children wanted so much to have the internet because they said they needed to do school project research, and of course they would not be able to go to Harvard or Yale or Oxford if they didn’t get enough information for their projects from the net, and of course the library was too small.

Thus the net was installed and they went their busy ways working toward Yale, Harvard and Oxford. They were punching away at the keyboard when one day I noticed that the projects were getting too amusing to be submitted to the teacher. They would sit and type and laugh at the computer. I thought they were studying too hard and were going nuts.

It took me a while to discover that they were also chatting on the net. It was their local school community chat and they were more or less talking alien languages.

"Tum Arai Ja?"
"Teacher Kot ngee ngao loei wa."
"Chai laew... ga ga ga ga ga."

Asked what ga ga ga was, they said it’s laughter sound. It took me sometime to know that they were actually using Thailish language, that is you speak in Thai but print in English. It was all... serious nonsense.

One time I was looking over my daughter’s shoulder while she was chatting, like a good inquisitive parent should, and discovered some kids were using a lot of four letter words, so I told her to warn her friends that this is very public and they would not know who’s inquisitive mother is watching.

She typed in what I said and they all went quiet for 5 minutes. After they recovered from the shock, one boy bravely came in and said, "Oops... sorry mom," and went dead.

One day I got so bored that I actually tried to get into chat myself. My children assured me that there were no chats they know of that cater to the "oldies", and to go ahead and talk to kids and pretend. They all do here, they said. So I did talk to an 18 year old once and pretended I was 17. After some small talk, he was hooked. Begged me to call him or let him call me. I glanced at my daughter who was sitting beside and coaching me and said, "No, can’t, Mom is very strict. She’s here all the time."

In the end he got desperate, gave me 2 home numbers, 1 cellular phone number, and 2 pager numbers. The comp screen was full of his numbers.

After a while I got fed up with conning the kids and wanted to try my expertise with the older ones, but didn’t know how to go about it, so I messed around with the comp a lot.

Got myself into a site called "Yahoo". It sounded exciting, like a cowboy yelling on a horse. Wondered why there wasn’t a site called "Yeeeehaa!"

Anyway, a few days after I found that cowboy site, I stumbled into another one which was more exciting because it was called "Excite".

Ok, good enough. I was satisfied. Talked a bit to people in the chat rooms and even learnt how to use the locate buttons. Wow! I was getting smart, I thought. The problem was, because I stumbled into the site by accident, I couldn’t remember how I got into it. Took me another three days of messing about to get back to the same site, and this time I even wrote down the location.

The net adventure had started. I always went in as a guest and people would ask why I didn’t download.

"Nah, I prefer it this way. I’ll just stay a guest until I wear out my welcome."

The fact was that I couldn’t download, but you can’t go around telling everybody how dumb you are, can you?

Every time I tried to download, it said, "Not enough space... (duh)."

That was not the only problem. In fact everything was a problem. There were days when I could not log on at all. I don’t understand why computers play hard to get, and to think that they are not even virgins. Sometimes even the rat, I mean the mouse doesn’t work.

The messages that come up are fit for Martians to understand.

"Verification error."
"Applet won’t start." What is applet? Can bananalet do? I wondered.
"No class." Now I have to have class to come in. Should I dress in evening gown and pearls every time I log on?

"This program is illegally operating and you will be shut down now." I was accused of illegal operations, what next? The insults you have to swallow to get on the chat community.

And the community is no better. You get these small screens popping up asking if you want to cyber. What the heck is cyber? I thought.

It took some conversations with a few nerds to know what they were talking about, and when you say you’re not interested, "POOF!" They vanish.

Sometimes you do get to talk with people who enjoy intelligent conversations at your level, and ooohh...we talked about lots of intelligent things like;

"Tam arai ja?"
"Ga ga ga ga ga ga."

There are other things you get to learn on the net: .using the symbols on the keyboard for certain expressions, like: lol = laughing out loud, lmao = laughing my a... off, and if this is not enough to show you are really laughing, Roflmao = rolling on the floor laughing my a... off.

When I see someone using this so often, it makes me wonder how many a... does he have, cause if it is "off" one time, he can’t laugh it off again.

After a while on the chat, which is about nine months, you start to realize that this is serious nonsense. You finally think that this is full of lies and make believe and you miss the chance of living in reality and socializing with real people because you are spending too much time resting your behind in front of the computer, expanding it to as far as the island now. Yes, your behind, that is, no joke.

So you try to cut down your chat hours - from 20 to 18, a day.

Why do people get hooked on the net chat?

International survey, researched locally, like within my own home, states that it’s because people are lonely and want to talk to someone they can’t trust. (Hence, the lies on chats)

Personally, I think it serves a purpose. It saves you money from going to the shrink. The process is the same. You talk and talk and talk and the other may just listen and say a few words like "oh" ..." "I see"... "Go on"... "Uh huh".

You’d think the person is a good listener, but the fact is that he could not do touch typing, so it’s useless for him to try to say much on the comp, but to acknowledge with the fewest words possible.

You would know your therapy time is up when you talk and talk and talk and press enter, the small screen pops ups with a message, "Sorry, the person you are talking to is gone." He either got booted, called it quits or had a nervous breakdown with your story and had gone to see a shrink.

Then you know it’s time for you to switch off. Some people just don’t know when to switch off until the net bill arrives, or the server just disconnects them altogether, the way it happened to me. So now I have cut down drastically. From 18 hours a day to 17 and a half.

Well, enjoy the net and look me up sometimes at my website at "ga ga ga dot com".

Gay Frankenstein

by Barrie Kenyon

Horror movies traditionally reflect the fears of the audience. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has been so popular because it demonstrates that a serial killer might be the nice boy next door. Giants such as the first Godzilla and The Beast From Twenty Thousand Fathoms argue the terrible consequences of nuclear explosions. At the close of the twentieth century, we are seeing horror films about viruses which wreak havoc on humankind and the awesome results of our species’ destruction of its own environment.

At the time of the early talkies, memories of the first world war were fresh in people’s minds: blood, gore, fire, terrible technology capable of causing huge explosions. These are precisely the agenda of the 1931 movie Frankenstein which was directed by James Whale, a working class Englishman, who made twenty Hollywood pictures before his suicide in 1957. James Curtis has written an insightful account of the director in his James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters, Faber and Faber paperback 1998, which is a must for movie buffs.

Whale’s Frankenstein was such a success that Universal Pictures patented the monster’s face, which explains why other studios’ bolt heads could not look like Boris Karloff in his makeup. It’s all there: perverted science, graveyards and dead bodies in a laboratory setting. Whale’s 1935 sequel The Bride of Frankenstein was perhaps the most accomplished horror film of all time, although it failed to do justice to Elsa Lanchester with her electrified hairdo. Whale’s clever blend of horror and humor broke revolutionary ground: the evil Doctor Pretorius who offers the monster a bottle of gin and takes a break from grave robbing by eating a chicken dinner astride a coffin lid.

Although Whale’s output was not limited to the horror genre by any means, he also directed the 1931 Dracula, the most frequently depicted mythical creature in the history of the movies. The best remembered line is probably Bela Lugosi’s refusal to drink alcohol with the hapless Jonathon Harker: "Thank you, I never drink ... wine." The director’s innovative use of dusty, Gothic castles, light and dark shades and offbeat close-ups set a trend which lasted for decades, notably in Roger Corman’s 1960s movies based on Edgar Allan Poe and mostly starring Vincent Price.

Whale was homosexual but there are few, if any, traces of his proclivities in his movies. It can be argued that The Bride of Frankenstein is high camp drama, with the mad scientists cavorting around like Frankie Howard, or that women tend to play subordinate roles in a crazy world dominated by single men, but that’s about it. However, Whale did organize wild parties at his Hollywood home which would certainly these days attract the attention of Pattaya’s finest.

The director’s other excursion into horror was The Invisible Man starring Claude Rains in 1933. Arguably the strangest character ever created for the screen, Claude Rains as the invisible madman cavorts around hitting luckless people on the jaw and smoking cigarettes in a rocking chair as he desperately seeks the antidote to bring him back to normality. But, in the end, he is killed. Wales understood evil - after all he had fought in the trenches in World War One - but never allowed it a permanent triumph on screen. His novelty as a movie maker lay in the fact he succeeded in alternately making his audience shudder and chuckle. That is why his contribution to horror has survived for six decades. Look out for another rerun soon on TNT and the Cartoon Network or, if you have the Internet, there are several web sites with little known on set photographs of Boris Karloff taking tea and Bela Lugosi getting his cape caught in a revolving door. Pure nostalgia.

Successfully Yours: Andre Machielsen

by Mirin MacCARTHY

The jovial Managing Director of the security firm Master Safety Enterprises has many interests, including travel, Thai food, good weather, electronics and surfing the Internet.

Andre Machielsen.

Starting out on his adventures as a teenager in the late sixties, "A great time to be young," he laughed, he left home at eighteen with a shopping bag of undies and ended up in Africa one and a half years later, via Syria and Damascus. "I even found a group of Dutch friends in Marrakech. Places like that are like opening a door into another world. I traveled everywhere and always alone. That way you are more open to experience."

‘Andre’ is usually thought of as French, however Andre Machielsen was born in Amsterdam of Dutch parents. "After the war it was fashionable to call kids foreign names," he explained. "But I’ve always been uncomfortable with ‘Andre’. I worked on an oilrig for ten years with rough and tough guys so I called myself ‘Andy’. ‘Andre’ sounds like a hair salon to me."

To emphasize the point, he has even named his Thai son Sam, so the young boy will not have to spend his lifetime spelling his name!

Andre is proud of his naval family background because of the discipline it taught him. However, he opted out of the family fold early, travelling the world for years with nothing and on nothing! Eventually he arrived in Thailand in 1975 as a stopover. "I was on my way to Polynesia and stayed. I liked it here. It was nice and warm. If there is ever a sunny day like today in Holland it is a national emergency, everyone just stops working. And the food is exquisite, I’m a food lover as you can see," he said, patting his belly. "... and to be honest, Thais are my size. I’m short and Dutch people tower over me. So here I fit in!"

Andre’s first jobs in Pattaya were with the dive shops. Then one day he told the guy next to him at a bar that he would like to work as a diver off shore. He was surprised by the reply; "You’ve got the job." His companion was the offshore diving company recruitment manager!

Six weeks later he was in Singapore taking the plunge into the deep. He spent the next ten years working in many aspects of the unglamorous work, from deep sea diving, to air supervisor and salvaging, finally ending up as Safety Officer.

In 1987 he returned to Thailand with his family and one year later started his own security company. "I started in Pattaya and then expanded to Bangkok with just a computer and a leased office. One of my first customers was a major bank and I grew from there. I’m very happy, because I enjoy what I’m doing," he said, adding, "I think that everything with a stomach is corruptible, so I believe in electronics!"

Andre believes that working here is 180 degrees different from overseas. "The goal posts are constantly being shifted here, there is no open discussion. You just have to read between the lines. A lot of people value perceived authority and ‘face’ here, but to me ‘face’ is for the neighbours, honour is for yourself. The most important qualities for me are honesty and fairness."

Accordingly, his advice to anyone thinking of starting business here is to think very hard first as holidaying here is very different from working. Then find who you can trust, persist and never ever consider giving up, and join a businessman’s group like Rotary or Lions as it is impossible to succeed as a loner drinking in a pub.

Andre’s goals are to build the best quality security business possible, and on a personal level, to be able to spend more time with his family. His dream is to have an Ayutthaya Thai style teak house with antiques upstairs and modern electronics and computer downstairs. I am sure both he and it will be safe and secure when that time comes!

AutoMania

by Dr. Iain Corness

Growth of the Jolly Green Giant

BIG news in the international financial circles a couple of weeks ago, was the merger of BP and Amoco. This has produced the third largest oil company in the world after Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Corp. Net value is $110 billion say the bean counters.

What will this mean for you and all the millions of car drivers / petrol users all over the world? Nothing, other than decreased service from an industry that runs its businesses from outlets laughingly called "service" stations.

"Merger" is just "industry speak" and covers the fact that they will close some of their service stations down so they don’t compete with each other and the 3rd largest oil conglomerate will pocket the savings, thought to be in the vicinity of $2 billion a year.

Now if those savings somehow ended up in yours and my pocket (as a lower price at the pump, for example) it wouldn’t be a bad idea. But you know and I know that won’t happen. Some pumped up (no pun intended!) Board Member, somewhere, will tell the assembled shareholders what a terrific job they have done and how the shares are now worth 2 cents more on the stock market. Fine for the shareholders, who represent the minority of the world’s petrol paying public, but nothing in the Annual Report for us, the majority users. Once again, you and I are being ripped off.

If Mr. BP or Mr. Amoco would like to refute my last remark I will be very happy to print their rebuttal, but since we know Mr. BP sold his servo’s to Caltex and Mr. Amoco got lost on the way here, there’s little chance of that happening.

Ah well, we can but live in hope that one day an oil company might actually put as much effort into its customers as it does to its shareholders. Don’t hold your breath!

Autotrivia

Want to go racing in a pick-up? I was chatting with one of Toyota Team Thailand works race drivers the other day, who let slip that Toyota are thinking about a "one make" Toyota Tiger series. Concept has been worked out, even a calendar of events. Only snag is the financing of it all. Mind you, I reckon Toyota can always find a budget if they need to! Hope it comes off, as we need some new classes at the local Bira International Circuit.

Autotrivia Quiz

Waxed on so lyrical about Dr. Porsche last week, I ran out of space for the Autotrivia Quiz question. So here we go. Since we have mentioned oil companies, and Mick Jagger and the Geriatrics have been rocking and rolling in Moscow this month, doing a little number called "Route 66" - What was the oil company which used Route 66 in its marketing? The usual Automania Free Beer of the Week for the first correct answer. Fax or email the Editorial Office. By the way, must publicly congratulate local Bob Howlett who correctly answered the GT 40 question a few weeks back. Bob has been correct in previous quiz questions, but beaten to the punch by quicker readers. This time he was first in by half an hour! Well done, Bob!

Road Safety

A mate of mine in Oz, Dr. Michael Henderson, used to say that selling road safety was like peddling cold porridge sandwiches. In many ways he was right, but slowly the message filtered through Down Under and the death and injury toll is very much less these days than it was all those years ago.

The reasons for the drop are many - the compulsory use of seat belts, crash helmets, public education, the manufacturers producing better and safer cars, improved roads, breathalyzers and so on. It has been a long and slow process, but it’s getting there.

On the other side of the earth, and the other side of the coin, we do not enjoy the same statistics here. The area of primary responsibility of the driver/rider seems to be lacking somewhat. Mind you, all over the world, the motoring public had to be forced into seat belts and motorcycle riders had to be compelled by statute to wear helmets. I remember some Sikh in London taking his case to court because he wore a turban and not a crash hat. Cannot remember the outcome, but at least he would have some bandages to wrap round what was left of his head in an accident!

The motorcycle problem is fairly acute here. There are a large number of motorcycle riders compared to cars and by far, the majority do not wear crash helmets. Just love the way the hat is kept in the wire carrier at the front and worn at intersections where the policeman stands!

The medical evacuation groups in Thailand are regularly running severely injured tourists back to their homelands after they have stepped off high powered motorcycles in our Tourist Resorts. It is a big problem.

I know that the Jomtien-Pattaya Rotary, Car World Club and the Ge Laurant Foundation are aware of the problem and have been instrumental in handing out skid-lids and running motorcycle maintenance clinics, but it’s not enough.

Much as I hate "compulsion" we have to get the riders into helmets, of a reasonable safety standard, and done up at all times. For starters, I would ask that the police continue their traffic light vigilance, and show an example by wearing helmets themselves! I would also suggest that all groups or individuals hiring out motorcycles be made to supply a good helmet with the bike. Next suggestion is that all new motorcycle sales must include a helmet to go with it (could even be checked at registration).

Another thought, encourage helmet use and "awareness" by sponsoring competitions for the best decorated helmet, with cash incentives. Get the motorcycle racers of Thailand to come to a family motorcycle rally to present the prizes. In other words, make it "cool" to wear a helmet.

It’s all got to help, surely?