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HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:
 
Family Money: Managing debt
 
The computer doctor

Successfully Yours: David Gomm
 
Snap Shots: You should be on the stage
 
Modern Medicine: Have you got sugar?

Heart to Heart with Hillary
 
Grapevine
 
Animal Crackers: Lizards
 
Auto Mania: The Baht Bus to Nakon Nowhere!

Fitness Tips: Fit Facts

Family Money: Managing debt

By Leslie Wright

Cash flow is a term often heard, but sometimes misunderstood.

Basically it is the difference between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money going out.

Having a positive cash flow simply means you (or your company) have more income than you spend, while a negative cash flow means you are spending more than you’re generating.

As Charles Dickens’ character, Mr. Micawber, so succinctly put it: "Income twenty shillings, expenses nineteen shillings and sixpence - result happiness. Income twenty shillings, expenses twenty shillings and sixpence - result, misery."

Everyone, everywhere

Cash flow management applies to individuals, to businesses big and small, and even to countries. It affects everyone, everywhere.

No matter whether you’re an individual, a company, or a country, positive cash flow allows you to accumulate capital from savings. Negative cash flow gets you into debt.

Without effective cash flow management it is very easy to spend more than you earn. It takes self-discipline to keep spending within your income limits.

One often hears the droll comment that Thais always have too much month left over after their salary.

This adage partly derives from the low income that many Thai workers receive; but it also reflects the local attitude towards money, discipline, and thrift.

Thrift always comes a long way down the list of priorities, while fun comes almost at the top.

And, it is worth noting, this is not a trait exclusive to Thais.

Sufficient for today

Some individuals find it very easy to spend. And when they have no more money in their pockets or the bank, they spend money they don’t have by running up credit card debt, or by borrowing money from other sources.

Some people get their personal finances into such a mess that they actually borrow money from one credit card to pay off the debt on another one.

The very high rates of interest that apply to this vicious cycle adds to the burden by accumulating further debt, which escalates month by month to the point where someone (usually the credit card company) has to break the cycle.

This is usually quite painful to the debtor, and can ruin his credit rating for several years.

However, if you exercise some self-restraint and discipline, credit cards can actually be used to your advantage, and even to make money!

How? Easy.

Charging purchases to a credit card and then paying off the bill in full when it becomes due usually incurs no credit charges.

In the meantime your money is earning interest in your savings account, rather than having been withdrawn to make cash purchases.

In effect, you can put off actually paying for your purchase (or dinner) by as much as 4-6 weeks this way, and earn interest on that money in the meantime.

However, as was recently reported by one of the largest local banks, over 40% of their credit-card holders have stopped paying their bills altogether. As a result, Thailand’s major banks have also stopped issuing new credit cards.

Many locals regard a pawnshop as virtually the same as a bank, but in reverse. In hard times they make a deposit, and in good times they make a withdrawal.

Similarly many Thais regard the local gold shop as the equivalent of a flexible time deposit.

A gold chain - ("to help me remember you" is the line often used to acquire one or several of these) - can be carried around anywhere, and whenever cash is needed, can be deposited at the gold shop, and may be redeemed when the good times come around again... perhaps during your next trip to Thailand.

High season always brings lots of activity to both these Thai equivalents of Savings & Loans.

A vicious spiral

If you’re running a business and have extended credit to others, and these debtors are reluctant or slow to pay you, you will have bills to pay yourself but possibly no money to pay them with.

While you are thus suffering what is termed by bankers and economists "a short-term liquidity problem brought about by negative cash flow" - or in layman’s terms, you’re short of cash - you may be forced to borrow money to keep your business going.

Inevitably, you will have to pay interest on this money, and be expected eventually to return the capital.

In the meantime, you are, in effect, financing the bad business practices of others.

To make matters worse, local banks nowadays are at best reluctant and at worst unwilling to lend money to small businesses.

In most cases, unless you are able to come up with substantial collateral, your request for a bridging loan or additional operating capital will fall on deaf ears.

Needless to say, even if you have the collateral, the interest rates being asked are still expensive; and if you’re unable to borrow from the bank and have to go elsewhere, the rapacious rate of interest demanded by moneylenders can be potentially crippling to your business.

And, it is worth noting, if you’re unable to repay the ‘vigorish’ on time or at all, this might be crippling to your body as well! (In Hong Kong the standard "example to others" used to be severing your Achilles tendon with a set of bolt cutters; in the Philippines and Thailand the punishment tends to be even more permanently incapacitating.)

Your business may have been doing well, but collection problems forcing this additional debt burden upon you may make all the difference between continued success and your business failing.

The banks: lenders or borrowers?

In the past it was fairly easy for people to borrow money from banks in Thailand, provided they were willing to pay the relatively high interest rates being charged.

This option has now become very difficult for most people, despite government pleas to ease credit to stimulate economic recovery.

Except of course if you, your brother, wife’s brother or cousin happen to be a shareholder-director of a bank, and even better if you’re a poi (which in this context is not a type of decorative pond fish; on the contrary - it’s an acronym for a potentially dangerous big fish called a "Person Of Influence") then it’s apparently very easy to borrow money, and in the past you didn’t even need to put up any collateral. And probably won’t even have to pay back the debt either!

Even with the new laws governing seizure of collateral (assuming there was any to seize), it could take up to 10 years for the banks to go through the laborious court procedures to get a judgement against you.

Nowadays it seems the ultimate status symbol in Thailand is no longer to have a BMW or M-B (there are plenty of those around already) but to have an NPL.

A nation’s debt

When a country’s spending exceeds its capacity to pay for its purchases, three things can happen.

One, if more goods are imported than are being exported, the balance of payments’ deficit increases; or if the money was spent by the government, its national debt increases.

One solution to this problem resorted to by most governments in the past was simply to print more money. Then the amount of money in circulation becomes more than the reserves which support that money. In turn, the real purchasing power of that money - its true value - is lessened.

And this is basically what creates inflation.

The second scenario that can result from poor fiscal management or overspending is that the nation’s economy shrinks, the currency comes under pressure and may even be devalued, and the economy then shrinks further, leading to unemployment, diminished tax revenues, and a greater burden on the government’s already-diminished coffers until its goods once again become competitive at lower prices on the international market, and the balance of payments’ situation starts to improve.

However, this ‘independent’ scenario can only exist if the nation’s capital reserves are sufficient to weather the storm.

The third ‘solution’ of a country overspending and running short of capital reserves is to be forced to borrow money from overseas institutions - the IMF, for example - to prop up its economy.

Any bank imposes conditions on its loan to a borrower, and the IMF is fundamentally no different.

The fact that any particular government doesn’t like the conditions, which are often harsh, is irrelevant: they should perhaps have kept their house in better order and taken steps before the crisis to prevent it, thereby avoiding having to go cap in hand (almost) to avert disaster.

Carping after the event is really only a prelude to the oft-practised ploy of renegotiating the terms which they were more than willing to accept when first they desperately needed the bail-out, and subsequently to buy more time to gather in the money needed to keep to the restructured payment schedule.

Borrowing cheap can be expensive

Borrowing dollars abroad at low interest rates and using this money locally for various things - including speculative investment - was a pastime favoured by many local corporations and individuals before the currency crisis hit.

They imagined that the Baht - which had been stable for a long time at around 25 to the US$ - would maintain this strength indefinitely, and enable them to make windfall profits on the relative difference in interest rates at home and abroad, or use low-interest dollars to expand their production capacity, in the expectation of being able to repay the ‘cheap’ loan from the anticipated profits.

However, when the crisis hit and the Baht tumbled, the situation was made worse because these debts to foreign institutions still stood in dollars, and strangely enough, most foreign banks do expect to get paid.

At the height of the crisis, when the Baht stood at 55 to the US$, the overseas debt had effectively more than doubled in local terms, and many of these debtors - both corporate and private - were unable to repay their overseas loans.

What can the banks do? Seize the collateral? In many cases they couldn’t, because of local laws not providing for this. (Hence the demands for reforms, which, naturally enough, have been resisted so vehemently by those such amendments would affect.)

And even if the overseas banks had been able to seize the collateral, if this was local real estate, for example, to whom were they going to sell the property to recoup their cash? The property sector was one of the hardest hit by the crisis, and no-one was buying.

All the banks can do, effectively, is give the debtor the opportunity to renegotiate the loan, in the hope that they will at least eventually recoup some of their capital, and the debtor will keep to his agreement to pay a more modest rate of interest in the meantime.

This ‘restructuring’ applies to individuals, to corporations, and even to countries.

Banks are interested only in money. So long as they have an income stream - debtors paying interest, customers making deposits - they are able to lend this money out to others, and earn a profit from the interest (provided the borrower keeps to the repayment schedule); or in the current situation, increase their capital to make provision for the bad debts they will soon have to write off because so many borrowers have chosen not to keep to their repayment schedules.

Banks are not in the real estate business, so seizing collateral property which they can’t turn into cash flow does them no good at all.

Similarly, having to sell off assets at a considerable discount doesn’t make their books look too good either.

But at least that is better than having assets on paper - in the ‘receivables’ column - which aren’t moving, and aren’t being collected, and thus unavailable to pass on to borrowers from whom an income stream and profits can be generated.

Thus the need for the hard-pressed local banks to generate new sources of capital, by floating convertible bond issues, debentures, preferred shares, etc.

These banks will then still have the legally-required capital base when they are forced to write off the enormous sums of NPLs, and still have sufficient money to lend to new borrowers (or old ones, once their loans have been restructured), from which they will be able to generate income from the relatively high interest rates they will still be charging (despite these having been lowered over the past several months) when compared against the interest they will be paying out to depositors (lowered even further in recent months) and the dividends to their new capital partners who’ve effectively lent them the money to continue this cycle - at least until the next crisis.

The question still remains, though, how well future debt will be managed, by individuals, corporations, and nations.

If you have any comments or queries on this article, or about other topics concerning investment matters, write to Leslie Wright, c/o Family Money, Pattaya Mail, or fax him directly on (038) 232522 or e-mail him at [email protected]. Further details and back articles can be accessed on his firm’s website on www.westminsterthailand.com.

Leslie Wright is Managing Director of Westminster Portfolio Services (Thailand) Ltd., a firm of independent financial advisors providing advice to expatriate residents of the Eastern Seaboard on personal financial planning and international investments.

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The computer doctor

By Richard Bunch

From Jim Smith, Pattaya: I have recently gone from Windows 95 to Windows 98. I have a hard disk of 4.2Gb partitioned into 2.1Gb in each partition. Can you tell me what the advantage would be if I converted to the FAT32 file system? Thank you in anticipation.

Computer Doctor Replies: The FAT32 storage system will give you about 20 percent additional disk space over that of FAT16 since it offers better management of clusters with less wasted disk space.

From Nick Fisher, Jomtien: I use Loxinfo as my Internet Service Provider. To be able to open a web page or download e-mail in a reasonable time it is necessary to be connected at a speed of 28,000bps. Unfortunately, in the Jomtien area where I live, I am regularly connected at 16,800bps or less which makes it near to impossible to access any web site. The TOT have checked their lines and can find no problem. Have you any suggestions please? Loxinfo don’t have any! Also can you advise how I can disconnect "call waiting". Every incoming call knocks me off the Internet. TOT just shrugs their shoulders and tell me to get a separate line.

Computer Doctor Replies: This is a common problem, and trying to get the telephone providers to take responsibility is virtually impossible. You need to do a few checks yourself before going back to the telephone company. You can undertake these yourself if you’re DIY inclined, or failing that get a decent electrician in. First you need to check the voltage at the junction box where the telephone company cables join to your house cables. Whist at this box check the security of the cables and the earth breaker for insect infestation. Next go to the outlet in your house where your modem is connected. If there is a drop then there is a problem with your own installation, which can be easily remedied. You may also like to try a different ISP, you can buy a temporary connection with Internet East for 500 Baht which will give you ten hours of time. If this improves the problem then you know Loxinfo is your problem, if it doesn’t then go back to your telephone provider armed with your test results.

Your second point also is a common problem here. One reason that the telephone companies don’t understand your requirement is that they use different terminology. For ‘call waiting’ read ‘second line’, it doesn’t make a lot of sense but it’s true, TIT. In any event it is easy to disable this facility yourself, from a touch-tone telephone carry out the following procedure, a word of warning though, it’s irreversible… #43#

The comments contained within this column are not necessarily the views of the author or Pattaya Mail Publishing Co., Ltd. Letters may be edited.

Send your questions or comments to the Pattaya Mail at 370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, 20260 or Fax to 038 427 596 or E-mail to [email protected]

Richard Bunch is Managing Director of Action Computer Technologies, the One Stop Shop for all your computer and Information Technology needs.

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Successfully Yours: David Gomm

by Mirin MacCarthy

David Gomm, the Golf Professional at Greenway Driving Range, decided his career choice early on, after his first golf game as a teenager. "A golf career was a dream since I first picked up a club at fourteen. It just took over my whole life. I am not saying I was a natural, just that I didn’t want to do anything else. Other kids were phoning me to go out and party but all I wanted to do was play golf."

Born in the UK and attending school in Surrey, David’s early obsession with golf paid off with an apprenticeship as a golf professional. That is something that you don’t win unless you have an initial handicap of 5 or 6. The three years training refines playing ability, teaches the rules and etiquette of golf and well as repairs, merchandising and most importantly, how to teach.

suc.jpg (29707 bytes)By the time David was 23 and a little tired of England, he decided to travel. He had saved so he took a ticket to Bangkok, intending to make that his base for his travels. Once in Thailand, however, more travel lost all its appeal and he began to see the potential for golf here after friends persuaded him to have a game with them.

David has now been here for nine years and is full of praise for Thailand’s golf facilities. "The pricing, quality and courses are the best in the world. It’s very good value here."

David’s entire life is golf, golf and more golf. He teaches six days a week from nine a.m. to nine p.m., leaving little time for anything else. "My life is work and family, golf is so time consuming. At the end of the day I am happy to just go home and read a book."

So what is the secret to improving your golf game? According to David it is practice. "Start as young as you can. You must be prepared to set aside time to practice and study. To get to a capable level you first have some instruction in grip, swing and technique so that you are not reinforcing bad habits, then make the time to play nine holes a day for six months."

Mentally reviewing my own golf handicap of somewhere over 200 I wonder aloud, "Would watching golf videos and visualizing help improve my game?" David smiled. "People learn in all different ways. Sure, some learn by seeing, some by hearing and others by touch, feeling and doing. But there is still no chance of improvement without studying the basics first then committing the time to practice. A lot of people are wary, they don’t want to think too much. With golf, if you start off from scratch it is important to get all the thinking checked at the start, after three to six months it starts to become natural. Otherwise there is just too much to correct."

David has advice for any would-be golf pros, "You must be dedicated and determined and be prepared to sacrifice a lot of time. Get the proper qualifications and try not to take too much advice. Just listen to one or two people who are qualified and stick with that."

The most important values to David are the two items he spends his time between - family and work. "I aim to do my best to be a good father and husband, and to do my best at work while I’m teaching people how to fix their golf swings. That is success to me, doing your best."

Davis has no future plans to leave Thailand. "I’m happy here, life is good if you go by the system. The weather’s good and you can teach golf the whole year round."

Words from a contented golfer who has his game well planned and takes his sand wedges to work!

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Snap Shots: You should be on the stage

by Harry Flashman

It was Harry Flashman’s father who said, "Son, you should be on the stage - scrubbing it!" Harry Flashman senior was always known for his somewhat pithy wit! So what has sarcasm got to do with this week’s photography column? Well, I thought it was a good enough introduction to the requirements needed for stage photography, an exciting and different application for the photographic art.

With live theatre and stage performances you have some very difficult composition and lighting problems to contend with. You cannot quite ask someone in the middle of Othello’s death bed scene to hold that pose and say "Cheese". The lighting, too, is quite different from that you normally experience. Stage lighting is generally tungsten based and sharp (what we call "spectral" lighting). Spots for the performers and floods for the background are the hallmarks of the usual stage lighting. The use of spots in particular is used to highlight the principal performer or action on stage.

Successful "stage" photographs have managed to retain that "stagey" lighting feel to them, so that instantly you look at the image you know it is of a performer on a stage somewhere. Remember that as a photographer you are recording events, people and places as they happen. You are a mirror of the world!

The secret of retaining that stage feel is in the lighting. Because it tends to be dark, we all break out the super-pro flash gear, or activate the in-built flash that comes with the camera. Unfortunately, the flash can overpower the stage lights and you lose the effect. All you get is someone dressed in strange garb, flash-lit at night. Not Othello at all!

snap.jpg (27223 bytes)Liza from Malibu Cabaret.

Harry’s first tip - get hold of some "fast" film. 800 ASA if you can, but 400 ASA will do. It is a good all-round film that does not give too "grainy" an image, yet will allow for handholding the camera in the stage situation.

The next tip - leave the flash in the bag, or turn it off at the camera. Now I know it is dark, but you are trying to retain the stage lighting effects. In other words, you are going to let the stage’s lighting technician be the source of light for your photograph. With some point and shoot cameras this is actually quite difficult to do, but if in doubt, read the instruction manual (see last week’s column).

Tip number 3 - get as close to the action as you can. Now I know us pro types get to walk right up on stage, shoot the performer clean in the eye and shuffle off stage left. You will probably be thrown out on your ear if you try it, so please don’t. However, get a seat as close to the action as you can, and then select a lens that can allow you to fill the frame with the performers. Shots that show an entire dark stage with two tiny little people spot lit in front are not good stage shots. In fact they are not good anything shots! If all you have is a fixed lens point and shooter, get as close to the front of the stage as you can. You can still get the scene stopping shot - you have just to get very close. OK?

Now then, as far as f stops and the like are concerned - if you are confident in these things, then monitor for the central subject. If you are unsure, just set the camera on "Auto" - with the 400 ASA film loaded there will be enough light to run the "auto" settings.

So there you are. Get close, use fast film and no flash. Try the Malibu Cabaret as a good place to start. You can practically sit on the stage and the performers will "stop" the action for you! Have fun.

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Modern Medicine: Have you got sugar?

by Dr Iain Corness

Well, to be technically correct, I hope you do have sugar in your blood or you will not last long! Sugar is a requirement of human metabolism and is therefore a necessary item in everyone’s diet. Now before you start shoveling sugar into your coffee - read on further! The "sugar" we talk about is not necessarily the white sweet crystalline variety.

Our bodies need a controlled amount of circulating blood sugar - and that is where we have problems - that word "control". If the control mechanism goes awry, the concentration of sugar rises and you have the condition called "Diabetes Mellitus", or as some people call it "Sugar".

Diabetes in its various forms is fairly common, with around 2% of young adults with it. This percentage rises to around 8% in the elderly, so it is a fairly important ailment. Its effects are also such as to make testing for Diabetes an important feature of any medical "check-up". Diabetes is implicated in blindness, kidney failure and hardening of the arteries, just for starters.

Diabetes is actually not a disease, but is a syndrome which may be caused by different disease processes. The first form is called Type I or Insulin dependent Diabetes Mellitus (usually abbreviated to IDDM). However, the second, Type II or non-insulin dependent (NIDDM) Diabetes is the commonest form.

IDDM as its name suggests, is caused by a lack of Insulin being produced by the Pancreas, so the person with this type of Diabetes requires Insulin injections every day in order to function. This is a permanent condition.

With the commoner NIDDM, whilst not requiring Insulin injections to keep the sugar under control, it is still a very important disease requiring careful monitoring.

So how do you know if you have a problem in this regard? Well, intense thirst, frequent trips to the loo and weight loss is common in IDDM, while weight gain along with the thirst and loo trips are the norm for NIDDM. If you have a family history of Diabetes, there is a fairly good chance you are in line for it too. However, the definitive diagnosis is based on blood testing, including fasting tests to see what your base-line sugar level is running at.

So you can see, Diabetes, whether NIDDM or IDDM is not diagnosed at home, but is diagnosed and confirmed by laboratory testing. If you are over 40 years of age and haven’t had a blood test in the last twelve months then you should! Just make an appointment with your doctor take it from there!

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Dear Hillary,

Last week I was driving on Beach Road. As we passed Mike’s Mall my driver suddenly, in a state of unprecedented exuberance, exclaimed "My friend Madame, My friend Madame" while pointing towards the entrance of the aforementioned Mall.

As I looked I was very surprised to see one of my dear friends and co-member of the Pattaya International Ladies Club among the few people on the sidewalk.

The other people clearly where tourists, and surely no acquaintances of my driver.

Dear Hillary, is my driver stealing my friends?

Worried

Dear Worried,

I can certainly understand why you are worried, as I would be worried too. But don’t worry, I’m sure in the end it will not be your worry. It could be someone else’s though.

Your mentioning your driver’s "unprecedented exuberance" did worry me a bit though. From this, I gather you had never seen him that exuberant before. This could mean a world of things. I won’t go into what this might be.

Very worrying is that one of your friends from the Pattaya International Ladies’ Club was on a sidewalk! This is unprecedented in itself and a bit shocking too! What on earth was she doing standing on a sidewalk. Members of this group seldom descend from their conveyances.

Another serious question I would ask is "What is your driver’s age?" If he is younger than 35, I would say this could be a real ‘plus’. Think of all the speculation you could cause.

As to him "stealing" your friends, I doubt if this could happen. Most people are out for "cheap thrills" and don’t take other people’s employees that seriously. It’s merely a "heat of the moment" matter but it could provide you with fodder for "luncheon conversation" for the next few years!

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GRAPEVINE

To catch a thief
A desperate farang prisoner, sentenced for trying to sell his condo twice over, spent two days covering his body with a yellow marker pen in order to fake a bad case of jaundice. His plan was to escape on the way to the Chonburi isolation hospital. But he was thwarted when an alert guard noticed him having difficulty painting his private bits after the ink ran dry. Muscovite Igor Rostvaroff admitted he got the idea from a useful article in a famous Pattaya publication.

British antics again
UK’s Channel 4 TV has commissioned a no holds barred documentary series examining what the British get up to in Thailand. Called Bangkok Bound, the six part mini series is expected to air this upcoming summer after shooting in Bangkok and Pattaya during March and April. Using DV cameras, the series will trail Brits visiting, or involved in, the country’s sex industry. To avoid too many accusations of sleaze, the programs will also include visits to places of interest including the graves of soldiers killed in the second world war. Of course, Pattaya doesn’t have many of those.

Credit’s the limit
A farang husband returned home last Monday to find his wife trying to put a plastic credit card into the computer’s floppy disc drive and complaining it would not fit properly. He inquired what on earth she was trying to do. "I was shopping on the Internet and they asked for a credit card number, but unfortunately it looks like they don’t take Mastercard."

Signing on
Notices seen around Pattaya this week. "Do not attempt to use the lift when organizing a fire" … "Please note that the toilets are now next to Memorbumillia" … "You can collect your air ticket when we are closed by waiting until we are open again" … "Following recent complaints, please do not put your grand piano on the balcony to disturb others."

Beer hall putsch
A group of wily farangs insisted that the empty bottles of beer they drunk in a famous South Pattaya disco were left on the table in order to check the final tally. Preparing to leave, they counted ten empty bottles @ 60 baht equal 600 baht, or so they thought. But the waiter insisted they had drunk twelve bottles and calculated the bill at 720 baht. When the group objected, the waiter apologized and asked them to wait a moment. He returned five minutes later carrying two empty beer bottles which he solemnly added to the other ten. Case of Thais 1, Farangs 0.

Fake smokes
Smokers are being warned about counterfeit cigarettes which are said to be widely available in disreputable parts of South Pattaya. They come in packs which are a fair imitation of the original Marlborough and Benson and Hedges and are difficult to spot, especially at night. Sixty a day Yorkshireman Alan Holmes said the criminal manufacturers had been very convincing. "The only way I suspected I had been cheated was when my mates complained I smelt like an elephant with diarrhea, but I thought nothing about it as they often say that."

Prison regulations
If visiting a friend or relative in Chonburi Central Prison, and it does happen, it’s best to arrive around 10.00 am or 1.00 p.m. You present your passport for ID check at the booth manned by two prison officers – it’s the crowded area ahead of you – and give them the name of the prisoner. You then wait for the prisoner’s name to be called on the speaker system and follow the crowd. You can no longer take inside parcels of goodies but can purchase items at the nearby prison shop. It is possible to put cash into a prisoner’s account at the same time as you register.

Adult education
From a reader. The following women only evening courses are to be offered in your area.

Telephone skills: how to hang up

Oil and gasoline: your car needs both

Advanced Parking: reversing into a space

Cooking I: bran and tofu are off limits

Cooking II: bringing back bacon and eggs

Sex – it’s for married couples too

Bathroom etiquette – his razor is his

Undiscovered banking – making a deposit

Integrated laundry – washing it all together

Postscript
You know you’ve been in Pattaya too long when … the tailors on the Walking Street ignore you.

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Animal Crackers: Lizards

by Mirin MacCarthy

Lizards are good to keep as pets both in their uniqueness and for the sheer enjoyment of observing them. However, it is a sensible idea to read up on the different types and their diet and care before you make a choice.

Creepy Crawlies

Some types of lizards are insectivorous and need an embarrassingly wide variety of insects in their diet. You can occasionally supplement insectivores with egg yolk, low fat minced beef or beef heart, and canned dog food other than fish, when you get tired of spider hunting. Mind you, perhaps the odd person might enjoy either spending lots of time in the bush with sweep nets catching little critters, then subsequently freezing them to eliminate parasites, or alternatively cultivating crickets, grasshoppers, earthworms, fruit flies, snails, maggots, cockroaches, mice and such.

animal.jpg (42253 bytes)Iguana.

Lizard Lounge

Many lizards have to be provided with a high humidity rainforest type environment. Most, except the nocturnal types, need sunlight and all need calcium (scraped cuttlefish bone) and vitamin powder dusted on their food.

Green Meanies

Iguanas that seem to be sometimes available in the markets here would be a good choice because they grow up to be good veggie eaters. There are many different varieties of iguanas, though they all hail from Central and South America. The common green iguana is large and impressive and reminiscent of the dinosaur. Their natural habitat is jungle trees, rarely descending to the ground. House them either in a huge cage with small trees and branches and a rainforest set up with a drip system of water or give the larger ones the run of the house. The good news is that adults are mainly herbivorous, munching a range of fruit, vegetables and flowers with just the occasional insect or mouse. As young, though, they are mainly insectivores.

Colourful Characters

Chameleons range throughout North Africa, Europe and India. They have a distinctive appearance with long coiled prehensile tails, helmeted eyes that move independently with only the pupils visible, and fused pincer like toes all the better for grabbing branches with.

Most chameleons have the ability to change colours in response to excitement, breeding, temperature and light changes or rival males. They have incredibly long sticky tongues, up to two thirds of their body length, usually kept bunched up in their throats but shot out rapidly to catch unwary prey. Chameleons are delicate and very difficult to maintain in captivity. Insectivores, they dine on spiders and a wide variety of insects. Their survival rate is better if kept in outside cages with access to sunlight and living plants and bushes. Provide them with a constant water spray or drip system.

Stress

Walk the dog and not your lizard. All lizards are easily stressed and taking them outside with you can cause pneumonia and a series of other health problems. Next week more on geckos, tokays and water dragons.

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Auto Mania: The Baht Bus to Nakon Nowhere!

By Dr. Iain Corness

The observant ones amongst you will have noticed a new and decidedly different Baht Bus has been patrolling the streets of Pattaya in the last couple of weeks.

Rather than going to Nakon Nowhere, it actually has a very fixed destination, and as opposed to the normal Baht Bus there are no arguments about the charge for the fare.

auto.jpg (43333 bytes)Owned by the Top Class Entertainment group, this silver and multi-signwritten bus has as its destination Soi Pattayaland 2. Pick up from anywhere, but set down in Pattayaland 2.

Charge? It’s free, mates, free! But remember that its purpose is to take customers to the various bars and restaurants in Pattayaland 2 - the Top Class people aren’t silly.

Crash testing and its relevance

Saw a reprint of Autocar’s Crash Tests in one of the Bangkok English language dailies the other day. Ratings from two stars to four depending upon how well the cars went being crashed square head on into the concrete block at 80 kph.

Now I am sure that there are a lot of people who have put a lot of thought and research into all this and with today’s over-legislated, overbearing governmental controls in the western world, great stock is placed on these results. Manufacturers being sent back to strengthen "weak" areas being just one example. Benz are quoted as going back to the design table because one door sprung open in the test of the ugly little A Class. (Wait till you see one, they should crash test the entire year’s production.)

At the risk of being called a philistine (again), I reckon these tests are just so much pseudo-scientific hogwash. Any practical engineer will tell you there is a big difference between driving head on into a flat concrete block and driving into the front of another vehicle, with all its lumps, projections and different crumple rates. The relative stresses produced are quite different, so the end result distortion in the vehicle is different. Again, in all my years of being involved with motor cars, I have yet to see someone drive head on into a flat concrete block, but quite a few try other cars, trucks and telegraph poles.

Take a look at the wrecks littering Second Road opposite Soi 8. How many of those drove square head on into anything? Try none! (Why they don’t tow them into the vacant block of land there is beyond me. The shattered wrecks do not do anything for Pattaya’s image.)

The American concept of having several metres of sheet metal between you and the outside world isn’t a bad one. If I’m going to have to hit something hard, I’d rather do it in something large that gives me plenty of survival space inside the cabin.

In actual fact, we can already design and produce cars that can withstand all kinds of accidents leaving the driver to step out unscathed. It is not beyond our technology. They are called racing cars, and I am talking about the sedan type ones, not F1. With a decent roll cage and a good set of seat belts you can step out of almost any bingle. I walked away from a 170 kph rear-ender. The car was a bit second-hand, but I walked. However, the general public would not accept six point race type harnesses and cross braced roll cages in their bread and butter transport, I’m certain!

Safety versus "fun". Is it a fair trade-off?

Since I am already a philistine (see above), I may as well also be a heretic. There is an insidious development in the automotive industry which comes under the general heading of "safety", but in my books comes under the heading of "Taking away my fun".

These new movements are towards making it well nigh impossible for the car to lose traction, no matter what the road conditions are like. This is accomplished by the all overseeing hand of the computer that will selectively reduce power to this wheel or that, apply brakes individually and make it such that the cars of the future never "step out of line."

Now, while this sounds like a great step forward, I have driven some of these cars with the early stages of this development. Throw a Benz with this technology into a corner and flatten the accelerator and the engine responds by cutting the power by 50% - so as not to induce wheel spin. Try and opposite lock a 7 series BMW in the wet and the same engine sensor, power reduction technology bobs up again.

The end result is cars that are so DULL to drive you’ll have an accident because you’ll fall asleep. Anyone who has driven a Lexus LS400 will know what I mean. Brilliant techo cars and dull, dull, dull to drive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against "safety" but I still do enjoy "driving" as an art form. So do you, or else you won’t have read this far anyway!

Autotrivia Quiz: There’s no substitute for cubic inches

In the land of the bent 8 they dreamed up that phrase "There’s no substitute for cubic inches". The Americans making bigger and bigger V8’s with more and more torque. Some of the larger engines would pull Pattaya City Hall down North Road.

A 5 litre Ford V8 would develop prodigious horsepower, but these engines were fairly small compared to some that have been used in some production motor vehicles over the years. My favourite had a 21 litre engine and was only a 4 cylinder. For those of mathematical bent, that’s five and a quarter litres per hole! Peak revs were 1200 RPM and it was geared to do 98 MPH per 1000 RPM in top gear. Imagine flogging down the road, doing the ton (160 kph) with the engine barely off idle speed! That really is what cubic inches could do.

So for this week’s Autotrivia quiz - what car was this 21 litre monster? Fax (038-427 596) or email the Editorial Office [email protected]. First correct entry wins a FREE beer. Start thinking!

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Fitness Tips: Fit Facts

by David Garred
Club Manager Dusit Resort Sports Club

G’day Pattaya. Stress is a major issue that needs to be addressed and effectively dealt with in modern society. Increasing pressures in every facet of our lives will eventually get the better of us if healthy coping mechanisms are not put into play.

This week in Fitness Tips I want to take a two-pronged look at stress.

The first is a general coping mechanism that all human beings can use to alleviate pressures imposed on us.

The second is for the ladies, a suggestion on how to reduce the stresses placed on your bodies during labour.

Go with the flow

The stress reducing benefits of Tai Chi have long been widely accepted in the Eastern world and more recently in the Western world. Now a new study into the affects of performing regular Tai Chi exercises has shown that individuals have experienced another benefit of reducing blood pressure.

Sixty-two sedentary adults, essentially spending their time in chairs or in bed, of 60 years and over were assigned to one of two groups; the first participated in a program of brisk walking and low impact aerobics, while the second group was taught Tai Chi. After 12 weeks both groups demonstrated a significant drop in systolic blood pressure. On average the aerobic group dropped about 8.4mmHg, while that of the Tai Chi group lowered by 7mmHg. The researchers admitted to being very surprised at the results, anticipating only a minimal change in the Tai Chi group.

Interpretation: if brisk walking and / or low impact aerobics are not for you then perhaps Tai Chi is the form of exercise that will be what you are looking for.

Walking in labour

Already I can hear some of you mothers scoffing and cringing. However, after years of forbidding it, most labour wards in the Western world these days are encouraging mothers-to-be to get up and walk about during labour. It is hard to imagine that it does any harm, but even so, the risk verses the benefits haven’t been well studied until now.

One thousand women going into full labour at the University of Texas South western Medical Center in Dallas were randomly chosen to be kept either in bed (apart from going to the bathroom) or told they could walk about with nurses measuring the amount of walking.

The research showed no difference in any aspect of the labour or delivery. Labour wasn’t shorter, didn’t involve any less intervention such as forceps or episiotomy, and the same number of drugs were used. The babies also did just as well.

Most of the women in the walking group seemed to like it and said they’d do it again the next time they were in labour. Interestingly, one in five chose not to walk even though they were in that group. So it isn’t for everyone. The implication is that walking in labour is a neutral activity. Do it if you like and it makes you feel more comfortable. Be happy in the knowledge there is no harm being done, but don’t force yourself because you think it might be doing some good.

Carpe’ diem

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