Family Money: A Competitive Environment

By Leslie Wright

Consumers benefit from commercial competition.

When several firms producing similar products are competing in an open market, all trying to sell their products to the same customers, they have to think up new ideas or add beneficial features to their products to try to attract more customers.

When one firm adds a beneficial feature to a product, competitive firms who want to maintain their market share - to keep up, in other words -usually soon add a similar feature to theirs also.

As a result, in a competitive open market, we consumers year by year have the choice of ever better products, or extra features, or improved service.

An example is the addition of fluoride to toothpaste. When it was first discovered that fluoride helped reduce cavities, adding this ‘magic’ ingredient to toothpaste was just a clever marketing ploy to increase sales. Now it has become a standard feature throughout the industry, and we all benefit in reduced dental bills.

Similarly the addition of vitamins to breakfast cereals was originally to attract increasingly health-conscious consumers who didn’t want their children eating ‘junk’ food, and boost falling sales. This marketing ploy increased sales sure enough, but also made for a better product, and has become a ‘standard’ throughout the industry.

Price wars

Sometimes a product by its very nature cannot have ‘extra’ features added to it.

In such cases a manufacturer will sometimes lower its price to attract customers away from its competitors. Often, the competitors quickly lower their prices also, in the hope of winning those customers back, and a price war ensues.

We’ve all seen this happen many times, and the oil industry and soft drinks industry are just two examples.

Again, we consumers are the people who benefit most from this competitive commercial activity.

Special Offers

Another way both manufacturers and retail outlets compete for market share is by making special offers.

A short-term reduction of price on some items may attract additional customers into the store, where they will be tempted to buy other items at the same or perhaps an even higher price than at a competitive outlet, thereby increasing the store’s turnover and overall profits.

One may wonder how a manufacturer or retail outlet can afford to make such highly attractive offers as "Two-for-the-price-of-one". A cynic would say that it just shows how much profit is built into the product’s price.

However, in many cases the manufacturer or retailer does in fact make a loss on such special offers. In marketing terms these are known as "loss leaders", where the loss incurred on the special offer (sometimes on slow-moving items) is compensated for by the increased revenue generated, or profits gained from the sale of other items bought by customers at the same time.

Competitive financial services

You may be surprised to learn that competitive marketing is also applied to financial services. You may then wonder how.

For many years now the large financial services houses have competed for market share - that is, how much money they can attract from investors both domestic and international.

International banks compete for your deposits by offering slightly higher interest rates than their competitors, or a range of other bells & whistles attached to their services, such as free credit/debit cards, or free currency swaps for example.

Similarly, unit trust and mutual fund companies compete to attract investors.

Some offer services such as website listings of their funds or on-line dealing to make things easier on technically minded (or busy) investors who want either to track their existing portfolio, or add to it; others compete by providing enhanced administrative services such as same-day fax or phone dealing.

The most competitive ploy - and most attractive for many investors - is reduced charges.

Investment products

The large international insurance companies who run unit-linked investment funds have taken this one stage further by packaging their investment instruments into a whole range of sophisticated financial ‘products’.

These cater to both lump-sum investments and savings plans, and one buys the product (the ‘cart’) rather than the underlying investments (the ‘horses’ that pull that cart).

This is not simply a marketing strategy, however.

Such packaging usually enables you to construct a more finely tuned portfolio than just buying a few unit trusts or mutual funds, and rearrange same more cost-effectively when necessary. It also makes administration of a complex portfolio a lot simpler. Plus a whole load of other potential benefits over alternative forms of investment.

(But I’m not saying this is the best route for everyone; just for some. It’s a matter of choosing horses for courses.)

Each of these so-called ‘plans’ has its own structure, and its own set of charges. The former has been carefully worked out to fit a niche in the marketplace, and the latter to be fair to both parties.

For example, a long-term pension plan may or may not have a high degree of flexibility, and its charging structure will reflect this.

If you require a degree of discipline in your savings, a more rigidly structured plan may be the best route to go, and the ‘loyalty’ bonuses which are typically offered with such plans tend to reduce the charges to a beneficially competitive level, which are often spread out throughout the term of the plan.

This makes such plans highly cost-effective for longer term savers.

On the other hand, these sorts of plans usually carry higher penalties for stopping them early, thereby providing the disciplinary encouragement (or perhaps one should say ‘discouragement’) to keep them going to maturity.

More flexible plans tend to take all the charges early on in the plan, on the valid premise that most investors don’t keep them going for a long term.

However, many investors are put off by the somewhat complicated and sometimes confusing (even to brokers) charging structures that typically apply to longer term plans; and others are discouraged by the seemingly higher charges that apply to short term or more flexible ones.

How then can the firms offering such plans compete against other forms of investment and against their rivals to attract new business?

One way is by offering a more efficient administrative service; but this is a nebulous factor at best, since most investors are not in a position to find out how efficient or otherwise one firm’s administration department is until they’ve already invested with that firm.

Another is by offering an ever wider range of top performing investment funds to choose from (the ‘horses’ that will pull your plan’s ‘cart’), and free switching facilities to encourage you to keep your money with that firm rather than take it to another which offers a wider or, alternatively, a more specialised range.

The most obvious and immediately appealing to most investors is, of course, the charging structure.

And this is where we start to enter muddy water.

Competitive charges

Unlike unit trusts & mutual funds where interested investors can approach the institution directly (which is fine so long as that investor has the time, interest & expertise to construct and manage a portfolio on his own, which many don’t), unit-linked plans in most cases are available to investors only through brokers who have agency or intermediary agreements with the institutions concerned.

The theory is that the broker will recommend the plan which is most suitable for the investor’s individual needs & circumstances, and be able to explain clearly how the plan and its charging structure work in practice.

As noted earlier, most unit-linked insurance products tend to have a more complicated set of charges than unit trusts & mutual funds.

On the other hand, they quite often carry ‘loyalty’ bonuses or other benefits which unit trusts & mutual funds do not.

In many cases, the net total of charges & bonuses over time can cancel each other out, making these vehicles highly cost effective and thus very competitive against the simpler and more readily understood charging structure of unit trusts & mutual funds.

Most investors, however, tend to be swayed more by the charges than the benefits and structure of the plan in their overall financial planning.

We all quite naturally want as much of our money working for us as possible, and making a clear profit as quickly as possible.

And unfortunately, some less professionally scrupulous financial consultants pander to this and ‘sell’ the client the easy plan to sell rather than recommend the one that is most appropriate to their particular needs and take the necessary time to go through the sometimes tedious process of explaining clearly how the charges work, and how the plan will benefit the client more in the long run than another, perhaps simpler, plan.

And the firms which offer such plans know this all too well, and compete to gain a greater market share by cynically making ‘special offers’ from time to time on their products.

What’s on offer?

It is coincidental perhaps (but I don’t think so) that these ‘special offers’ usually apply to investment products which are very similar to a competitor’s but are less cost effective - and hence sell less well.

Such offers usually appeal directly to the greed in all of us by giving an enhanced allocation (how much of your money actually gets invested), or a bonus of an ‘extra’ month’s contribution for free if you start the plan by X date...

On rare occasions these temporary enhancements become permanent features, and the product becomes truly competitive and its benefits clearly apparent and appraisable on a level playing field.

Then we consumers benefit from the enhancement, and we have a real addition to our effective range of choices. (And brokers to their list of recommendable products.)

A good example comes to mind of a long-term savings plan from a very sound firm that had been losing ground to innovative competitive products that had more recently come onto the market.

Their marketing people and actuaries put their heads together and came up with a substantial enhancement to the first year’s allocation that suddenly shot their product to the lead in overall long-term cost-effectiveness.

Competitors, crying sour grapes, pointed out the quite heavy penalties that still applied if investors stopped that plan early.

The rejoinder to this quite valid criticism is that an ethical client-orientated broker would ensure that the client clearly understood that aspect, and should only recommend this particular vehicle to serious long-term investors who are prepared and able to continue contributing into the plan until maturity.

Otherwise, this plan is indeed still relatively expensive, and a more flexible plan which carries lighter or no penalties would be more appropriate.

But in my view one should never let one’s long-term investment decisions be clouded (nor should ethical client-orientated brokers be influenced) by short-term ‘special offers’ which may only mask what may still not be a more cost-effective vehicle (and therefore not really competitive) overall.

And that’s my point.

In my opinion, your financial planning and investment strategy should not be thought of like buying cornflakes and soap powder in a supermarket.

It should be carefully considered, thoroughly appraised, and the most appropriate vehicle for your own particular needs and circumstances identified.

And this is the vehicle you should be buying (and an ethical client-orientated broker be recommending to you), not the one which happens to be on ‘special offer’ this month.

It is entirely possible that that particular investment product is indeed the ideal vehicle for your needs and circumstances. In which case, you’ll be getting a very good deal indeed!

But in many cases this will be a happy coincidence, rather than the basis on which your financial decisions - especially long-term ones - should be made.

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.

The computer doctor

By Richard Bunch

From Peter Mitchell, Pattaya: A few months ago you kindly gave me some advice about my problems with Apricot and reading incoming e-mail. I changed to Loxinfo and they could not have been more different! A reply to my first e-mail came within a couple of hours. I still, however, could not read incoming e-mails on Outlook Express; so I changed to Netscape Communicator where I can. I found, however, that I could not type or receive Thai (except in an attachment) - the regular information from Loxinfo is always gibberish in the Thai version. Today I have finally succeeded in downloading Internet Explorer 5 and find I can both read e-mails on Outlook Express and type in Thai. And now I have to return to Spain to wrestle again with the Spanish version of Windows 95!

Computer Doctor replies: I’m glad to have been of help. Good luck with the Spanish, remember we’re only an e-mail away and the Pattaya Mail is on-line, so should you run into difficulties help is to hand, albeit at a distance!

From Chris John, Pattaya: Re your article on 9/4/99. Can you recommend a good programme to combat Melissa and CIH viruses. Have heard that Macafee 4.2 will do the job. Is it on sale around Pattaya? I am a bit wary of downloading, as I always seem to get disconnected when I try it. I have version 3.0 but this is not updateable, as it is a copy. If I change do I have to uninstall the existing software first?

Computer Doctor replies: There are of course many manufacturers of Anti-virus software, whilst some are worse than useless, reporting inaccurate results, etc., others cause operating systems to hang and other equally undesirable side-effects. From preference, I dislike Macafee, personally I use Antiviral Toolkit Pro from Kaspersky, the latest release being version 3.0 build 129. Although you are wary of downloading, this is a fairly small program of 4.1kb and can be purchased on-line from URL http://www.avp.com. If you suffer from disconnections, I suggest you install a program like Gozilla or GetRight downloadable from http://www.gozilla.com/ or http://www.getright.com/ respectively. These will allow an interrupted download to resume at the point where the interruption occurred, thereby eliminating the need to start the download at the beginning again. Finally, you should uninstall any previous anti-virus software before installing the new one.

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, providing total Information Technology solutions to clients on the Eastern Seaboard.

Successfully Yours: Neera Sirisampan

by Mirin MacCarthy

How does a tall, elegant, good looking, articulate Thai woman become the Manager of the Director’s Office and International Department of the Bangkok-Pattaya Hospital? The answer is - via America, study, lots of hard work, vision and some heartache along the way.

Khun Neera Sirisampan is a well known and respected Pattaya community member who, in spite of her furiously demanding position, always keeps her finger on the pulse and continually works behind the scenes to help out the less fortunate.

Neera was born into a family of six in Bangkok forty odd years ago and went to the Queen’s School in Bangkok, then Chulalongkorn University where she took a bachelors degree in Political Science. After this she left to do her Masters in Administration in Kansas, USA. There she met and married an American fellow university student, had a son and worked in administration in the American Insurance Industry for twenty-two years.

Many years and a divorce later, she decided to return to Thailand with her son. This was in 1995. She wanted her son to learn Thai and meet his relatives here. She could also be close to her mother.

Neera chose Administration as her field because even back in her Uni. days she could see the need for administrative organization in Thailand. "I felt that if I studied personnel administration I could come back to Thailand and teach it."

Her current position has certainly thrown her in the thick of it as it includes being Quality Manager Representative for the ISO 9002 project for the hospital. This means that she is responsible for producing Quality Control protocols, which have to be written in minutiae, and on every work procedure of each hospital department and inter-coordinated as well. Her position additionally involves management and administration of the Director’s office and International Department, helping English speaking patients, community liaison and teaching staff. A tall order, although Neera always appears serene and elegant.

In her infrequent time off she loves walking, shopping, dining out, going to the theatre, listening to soft jazz, reading and researching the internet a lot, but about serious subjects like arts and health issues.

Neera is really very respected in the community. She has been made a Life Member of the Jomtien-Pattaya Rotary Club for her work with them on several community projects. For the past year she has been a board member of the Banglamung Boys Home, helping raise funds and formulating activities for the boys. One that she has commenced is a monthly birthday project. She is also coordinating a building project to build an all purpose sports building there. Part of this will be used as a small restaurant to afford vocational training in cooking, management, advertising, marketing, and business accounting, giving them much needed future skills. "We do not want to give them fish to eat, but teach them how to fish," she added sagely. She is currently looking for volunteers who can donate their teaching skills, money or even birthday presents.

Neera measures her success solely by her inner peace and happiness, not by any other criteria. What she values most is honesty and reaching out and helping people in need. "I don’t like to stay still. I like to help, but don’t make me sound like a saint. I’m a very simple person, really down to earth, not complex or unreachable."

Her advice to young Thai women who want to succeed in business is "Work hard and get a better education. Always look at the big picture because it keeps changing and if they don’t see this they will be left behind. Know where they are and where they want to go."

Neera has followed this dictum all her life and it is indeed a successful formula.

Snap Shots: Running, Jumping, Standing Still!

by Harry Flashman

The title of this week’s column was actually the name of a film done by the Goons (Seccombe, Milligan, Sellars and co.) many long years ago. However, the connection with still photography should be obvious. Most of the shots you will ever take are of subjects running, jumping or standing still.

A different view.

But this week I want to use those words to show that you can take your photographs in different ways other than standing still with the camera at eye level. A different camera position can produce very different photographs.

This different camera position really came home the other day when I was taking a photograph of a lady outside a shop. Looking at some way of taking the shot away from the humdrum, I sat on the ground and angled the shot upwards. In this way I could exaggerate the perspective of the shop columns, get all the shop front in and get the lady as well. One of the partners in the business was so taken with me sitting on the ground that he ended up taking photographs of me shooting his shop! "I’ve never seen anyone do that before," he said. That reminded me just why so many people take the same old boring pictures!

So this week let us look at some different camera view points you can use, with any camera, to get different pictures. The first we have mentioned already. Getting down low, sitting on the ground and shooting upwards will give you a different shot immediately. If you have a wide angle lens or a "landscape" setting (as opposed to "portrait") you will heighten this effect even further. Buildings will lean in on both sides and even three storey shop-houses will look like towering skyscrapers. Even people can be shot from this viewpoint. The effect may not be flattering, but it will be dramatic.

Shooting from an elevated viewpoint will also give you a different photograph. Stand on a wall or on the top of a ladder and take a picture of a group of friends looking up at you. The resulting photograph will appear to "say" something. Think about how many times you will have seen a picture of a Pop Group done this way - just to give a greater visual effect.

Now let’s look at the "running" position and I am going to give you one of my best secrets on how to take moving subjects. The super pro trick is to be moving yourself while taking the shot of your moving subject. This is the trick Harry Flashman used to use to take cover shots of autos for motoring magazines.

Take, for example, the shot of someone on a bicycle. Sit in the passenger seat of a car with the window wound down. Select 1/30th of a second shutter speed (if you have manual control on your camera, if not do not worry) and get your driver to maintain the same speed as the cyclist. A wide angle lens is best because you do not have to be too far away from your subject and just compose and shoot. You will get a great shot of a sharp cyclist with a totally blurred "speed" background.

Taking a car is just the same, but another good position is to sit in a pick-up and shoot the car as it runs behind you. This shot gives you a sharp image of the car and a moving blurred ribbon of road underneath it. A real "action" shot. You can even do this with someone running behind you. Action photography made simple! Try it this weekend.

Modern Medicine: Fluids only!

by Dr Iain Corness

I’m sure you have visited someone in hospital and seen a "Fluids Only" sign above the bed. From our health’s point of view, fluids are very important and in fact very necessary for us to exist.

Did you know that you can do without food for 14 days but you can only live without water for 7. In other words, water is twice as important as food! Our bodies are made up of a large percentage of fluid and much of our biochemical systems are involved with just maintaining the fluid levels. For example, the colon is a water absorbing organ, the lungs excrete water as well as the kidneys, the blood is just water with cells and electrolytes in it and even the skin is involved in fluid balance.

Water can be a therapeutic measure as well. What is the best treatment for chronic constipation? Double your fluid intake. What is the most important factor in the treatment of diarrhoea? Fluids, fluids and more fluids. What should you take for a hangover? Fluids (but not alcoholic I hasten to add)! Sunstroke? Fluids. The list goes on.

One of the greatest threats to young babies is dehydration. With the diarrhoea of infants, it is not an infection that kills - it is the dehydration that does it.

So just how much fluids should we have in a day? Well, the first thing is to qualify what we mean by "fluids". These must be water based and not alcohol based. (Unfortunately alcohol tends to stimulate the kidneys and increases fluid output, putting the system into dehydration. It is that dehydration that gives you the hangover headache!)

The physiologists would tell us that we should drink at least one and a half litres of fluid a day, and that is a lot more than most of us take. Put one and a half litres of water in the door of your fridge and drink from that container all day and see what I mean. If you work a lot out of doors and sweat heavily, then you should increase the fluid intake even further.

So the next time you "Chok Dee" and clink glasses, make one of them water. Your body will thank you for it. The elixir of life is here already. It is called drinking water.

Dear Hillary,

I am very confused. I met the most beautiful girl in the world the other night in a bar in South Pattaya. She is not like the other girls I have met in bars here and I have been in Pattaya for two weeks now. I have never seen anyone as gorgeous, she is tall, even taller than me, with long hair and a stunning figure. She can speak English but prefers to whisper in my ear rather than talking out loud in the noisy bar area. Hillary I am worried because she seems so reluctant to talk that she may have something wrong with her throat. To be perfectly frank, could laryngitis be a symptom of some other disease, even A.I.D.S perhaps? I feel I have to know before I go any further in this relationship. I would hate to find that I would have to be a nurse-maid to her or lose her to some terminal illness. Can you tell me how to check?

Confused

Dear Confused,

Have you stopped to think that her "laryngitis" might be normal and nothing wrong with her voice at all? There are probably some other anatomical factors you should check before looking for "diseases." Start by observing the size of her adam’s apple before venturing further south. To be on the safe side stick to girls your own size or even smaller.

Dear Hillary,

I have been living with a wonderful man for the past few weeks. He is a fairly recent arrival in Pattaya and does not seem to be part of the go-go scene crowd. However, he does follow the football. When I mentioned the other night that I wanted to go out dancing, he said he was staying in to watch a football match and I could go on my own. Hillary, how do I get him to be more aware of my needs? Should I sleep in the spare room to make him see it is football or me? Or should I just forget him? Please let me know as I do think he is the right man for me, but I do not want to play second string to a football team.

Left Right Out

Dear Left Right Out,

That is a dangerous game you are playing. For many men, kicking balls is a religion. There is only one Manchester United, but there could be a lot of eligible young ladies like you. If you are not careful you could end up getting a red card and missing the matches all together. Hillary suggests you go dancing on nights when the Football Team is not playing or you will find yourself in the Left Right Out or Drawback positions forever. Learn to shout "Foul" at the appropriate moments and you will get a secure seat in the supporters club.

GRAPEVINE

Dining Out: Family fun at the Admiral’s!

Food should be much more than a means to stay alive. Food should be fun! This week the Dining Out Team went to the Admiral’s Pub & Restaurant (bottom of Soi White House, Jomtien) for their Wednesday Pizza Night.

The concept for this type of evening was brought to this country by one of the partners in the restaurant after seeing it in Italy. In essence you select your pizza base, which is already pre-cooked. You then build your own pizza and it is cooked for you in the big pizza oven they bring outside for the occasion. While you are waiting the 15 or so minutes for the pizza to cook you can serve yourself from the "all you can eat" salad bar. Great idea! So how did we get on?

Pizza night at the Admiral’s Pub.

Selection of your pizza base is simple. Just pick one up from the table and head for the bench loaded with the toppings. First you spread the tomato sauce (freshly prepared from ripe tomatoes) all over the pizza base and then begin to add your choice of toppings to it. The choice is fantastic. There is onion, garlic, sweet corn, prawn, salami, bacon, beef, pork, chicken, eggs, capsicum, mushroom, ham, pineapple, sausage and tomato. There are also some small containers with pepper, chili and oregano to sprinkle over the lot after you have arranged everything to your satisfaction. We were told that the oregano really adds to the flavour of the pizza, so we duly sprinkled some over the lot. Next is to cover the pizza with thin slices of cheese, so that when it cooks the cheese melts through all the other ingredients.

My partner had built her pizza with prawn and bacon as the principal items, while I had a ham base with pineapple and prawns. Dutifully we took these to the pizza oven where we were given a number in exchange for our pizzas. We waved them farewell and made for the salad bar.

A very nice potato salad with lettuce and tomato was in order, plus some prawns with a little Thousand Island dressing splashed on top.

The Admiral’s Pub has a good selection of wines to go with the pizzas, including a Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Cabernet (an excellent wine) and the South African Two Oceans red. Singha Gold is available, plus all the usual beers and Carlsberg and Heineken on tap.

Our pizzas arrived at our table. The individual nature in building your own showed through straight away with my partner’s looking like Mt. Vesuvius while mine looked more like a normal pizza! The taste of both was great (though I liked mine best) and we both agreed that this had been a good, fun experience.

The children amongst the diners obviously thought so too, and there were many families who have made Wednesday night their family pizza night. At 160 baht for a pizza and "all you can eat" salad bar, this represents excellent value.

A word of warning - do not load up your pizza too high or you will be there all night trying to finish it! You will not leave the Admiral’s Pub feeling hungry. That is guaranteed!

Animal Crackers: Readers Stories

by Mirin MacCarthy

Here are two readers’ funny animal tales to share with you.

Away with a Toilet Lid

"Friends of mine have a fox terrier puppy who is very hyperactive and just loves the snappy interaction he gets with the toilet seat lid. He continually wedges his nose between the lid and the porcelain rim and barks at the sound he gets when the lids clack together like a duck’s beak. My girlfriend has put the puppy, Rastus, on a natural food diet with no preservatives in the faint hope that it will stop his hyper-antics. Meanwhile, it has started lots of family debate on their open ensuite bathroom. Do they leave the toilet lid tied up so that when they need to sit down they untie it or do they simply unscrew the lid and just squat on the rim? Judy’s husband is all for the latter solution, but Judy is not so thrilled, especially as she has read it is bad Feng Shui to leave the lid off the toilet seat. The old male versus female debate whether the lid should be left up or down for convenience didn’t even get a look in this time. The males won and their top loo cover is now permanently tied up. They decided it was a saner alternative for all of them. All I can say is some families have crazy pets!"

Margaret Kendall, Coolum Australia.

Our Brat Kitty

"We call our cat "Bratcat" because she behaves just like a very naughty puppy. She was a starving stray that we rescued from a rubbish dump. Quite thin, fearful, and flea bitten at first she has now settled down to a contented ball of mischief. The only problem is she thinks she is a dog. I have no idea where she got the idea but she retrieves small articles and trots around with them in her mouth just like a dog with a bone. It doesn’t matter if it is a watch, glasses, pens or keys, anything left on a table is fair game.

Cat with piano with tuna.

Her favourite place is the bathroom. The other day I saw Bratcat trotting proudly over with a squeaking yellow bird in her mouth. "Oh no, now she’s learned to hunt," I thought. But fortunately it was baby Sis’s rubber bath toy. Bratcat also never misses an opportunity to sneak into the bathroom as she has a fixation for toilet paper. She pulls it off the roll, then trails yards of it through the house and shreds it. Even when we put the toilet rolls up on top of the tank she just climbs up on the seat and retrieves them. Her special delight is shredding up the bath sponge into little pieces. In spite of this you can’t help laughing at her."

G. Ritchie, Devon U.K.

I am always on the lookout for funny animal short stories and I will print the best ones each month. Please keep them down to this length, around 200 - 400 words or we run out of space! Fax the Editorial Office on (038) 427 596 or email to [email protected]. Keep them coming!

Auto Mania: I’m in Love!

By Dr. Iain Corness

Yes, those old feelings have risen to the surface again. That quickening of the heart, urges in the underpants thing. This is Love with a capital "L". (Or perhaps it’s just "LUST" all in capitals!)

I met the Jaguar XKR at the Motor Show in Bangkok. It was red. It was lying in wait for me. I touched its flanks. It pounced. I was gone!

Jaguar ZKR.

Make no mistake about it, the XKR will make anyone with any pretensions about being a sporting motorist, drool and dribble. The designer managed to incorporate C Type, D Type and E Type elements into the body. This is a Jaguar - the long louvered bonnet, the famous crouched stance, the oval air intake at the front, the hippy rear wheel arches. It is one of those designs that is doing 100 m.p.h. standing still.

Since FoMoCo took over the famous Jaguar concern, the engine configuration has changed from the 6’s and 12’s to V8. In the XKR is a supercharged all aluminium 4.0 litre V8 developing 370 BHP at 6150 RPM - a more than healthy number of neddies, you must agree. This is enough for the XKR to return performance figures of 0 - 100 kays in a shade over 5 seconds and have a top speed (limited, mind you!) of 155 m.p.h.

Twin intercoolers are used, one for each bank, and the 86 mm square engine (bore and stroke, not overall dimensions, Veronica) produces 387 foot pounds of torque at 3600 RPM. Enough grunt to tow the Queen Mary down Beach Road.

The publicity blurb from Jaguar (thank you for the English language version, guys!) states that it is exceptionally fuel efficient and low in emissions as well. Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn if it blows a hole in the ozone layer 300 miles wide. This is a car for driving! The only emissions I would worry about would be the nocturnal variety if I had an XKR sitting in the family driveway. I do want one!

There is only one problem with being in love with the XKR convertible. Jaguar also offer the XKR coupe which looks even better. What a choice. Nick Scheele, the Jaguar Chairman and CEO said at the launch of the car, "XKR provides an unrivalled blend of styling panache, supercar performance, handling precision and outstanding value for money." What he really meant to say was that XKR is one absolute cajone crusher of a motor car and I’d happily give my left one to own one.

Mother Tucker!

Since a whole bunch of you out there showed so much interest in the "Cyclops" eyed Tucker ’48, I did a little research on this car myself with some very interesting results. Rather than being "the first completely new car in 50 years" as the publicity blurb of 1948 would have had us believe, I have a sneaking suspicion that your mate Mr. Tucker, the individualist, was very heavily influenced by one Hans Ledwinka from Czechoslovakia. For the Americans out there, I can hear the hackles rising from here - but wait on a little.

Tatra.

The Tucker had a rear mounted alloy block engine with three headlights at the pointy end, the centre one of which swivelled with the steering and came out in 1948. Now our Mr. Ledwinka also made a car with an alloy rear mounted engine and three headlights - the centre one of which swivelled with the steering! Trouble is, Ledwinka’s one came out about 14 years before Tucker’s. It was called the Tatra and the model number was, I believe, the 87. Now all I need is the stub from the plane ticket to show that Preston Tucker spent a holiday in the Balkans in 1935 and it’s a lay down misere. However, if anyone out there would like to present the case for the defence I’d be happy to print it.

Autotrivia Quiz

We slid into Citroen territory last week and I asked about the braking system on the old DS 19’s. The difference between Citroen’s brakes and everyone else in the sane world was that instead of depressing a lever to generate pressure in the brake lines, Citroen took the pressure from the engine-driven suspension pump and bled some of it into the brake system. Thus there was no moving brake pedal with a couple of inches travel like other cars - it was a button mounted on the floor and was a bleed valve control. Anyone who has ever driven an early DS will tell you how strange it all felt. You put your foot on the button and the car came shuddering to a halt. It was very difficult to be progressive in braking with a "pedal" that didn’t move.

Citroen were also the ones who had an illuminated message that would come in the instrument binnacle saying "Stop! Brake failure!" I must admit I’ve always had trouble with the French sense of humour.

One interesting little side-line of combining the suspension with the brakes is that if you split a hose in one system, it also totally stuffed the other - so you get a double failure. Not fun, and I’ve had one in a Citroen I once bought under the influence of anaesthetic drugs or some other excuse! Split a hose and you have no brakes, no power assist in the steering and no suspension. Well done Monsieur Citroen!

Of course, the "different" engineering as produced by Andre Citroen eventually crippled the company - the "Traction Avant" (front wheel drive) being enough for it to fail financially and it was bought by Michelin. Since then it has been taken over by Peugeot, under who’s umbrella it remains. Au ‘voir Andre!

So what about a question for this week? We started the column with Jaguar, so let’s finish with Jaguar. For this week’s FREE beer, be first in with the correct answer to this: How did Ecurie Ecosse, the Le Mans winning Jaguar team in the early 50’s, visually differentiate between their three cars? Fax to 427 596 or email [email protected]. Good luck!

Fitness Tips: “When am I buring fat?”

by David Garred
Club Manager Dusit Resort Sports Club

G’day Pattaya.

People ask me two questions that relate to my field; "When is your next step class" by one group of people who know the answer to the next most popular question, "When am I burning fat" - something we all would like to know the answer to.

So let’s go there.

Questions like "When am I burning fat?" and "What kind of exercise is best for losing fat" need to be addressed very carefully. Dieting does not work for far too many physical and psychological reasons and we know that low to moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise has been the ‘pop’ answer until very recently. A recommendation such as this is prudent, especially for individuals beginning an exercise program, and it is consistent with health related fitness goals for the general population. This still holds true but is there another way, which possibly is better for some people?

Yes, and we will examine that today.

Total energy expenditure

This recommendation regarding fat reduction stems from the text book axiom: the lower the intensity and the longer the duration of the exercise, the greater the reliance on the body’s fat stores as the fuel source, hence, a greater overall amount of fat will be used. This is true (at least during the exercise period), but it is not so relevant with regard to total fat oxidation over a 24 hour period. Here what is important is the total number of calories burned (even if those calories are mainly derived from carbohydrates). This is contrary to the popular notion that high intensity exercise, which is driven mainly by carbohydrate, is inferior to low-moderate intensity exercise as far as promoting loss of body fat.

24 hour fat oxidation

This seems paradoxical! How does an individual reduce body fat through exercise that uses mostly carbohydrate as fuel? The answer lies in what takes place after high intensity exercise, when the body’s glycogen levels (which are very small) are reduced. It appears that the restoration process is assisted through a greater reliance on fat as an energy source after exercise.

In a recent benchmark study, subjects exhibited similar 24 hour substrate oxidation (‘off’ hours fat burning) after low intensity exercise when compared with high intensity exercise. In this way, more carbohydrate is then available to restore the body’s glycogen supplies, and over a 24 hour period, total fat oxidation is similar for low-moderate intensity and high-intensity exercise.

The implications are that all physical activity is beneficial, that the total energy expenditure is most important and that performing a variety of activities of different intensities is probably most beneficial. It should be considered that the prescription of high intensity exercise is, more often than not, impractical and generally not advisable. Thus for the non-regularly training masses low-moderate intensity exercise still makes the most sense especially for maximising well being, minimising the risk of injury and optimising enjoyment.

As a result, for anyone who has been working out for a long period of time (6 months +) and regularly (3-4 times per week) during that time, the occasional hit out of high intensity exercise will be great for variety and you still get all your usual benefits. Be careful so as to not do it too often (1-2 times per month) for you will put yourself at risk of sustaining a repetitive stress/strain injury. Such injuries normally take months to heal completely, all of that time you are basically inactive and going backwards on the goal achieving path.

Foot Note: none of these results include the affect of resistance (weight) training on the body. Remember that a good resistance training program that is adhered to will increase the body’s lean muscle mass, and this new muscle requires energy to perform the prescribed low-moderate intensity exercise. Thus a good weight training program in conjunction with cardiovascular exercise ensures that you are burning your body fat to your optimum potential.

Carpe’ diem

Copyright 1998 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand 
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
Created by Andy Gombaz, assisted by Chinnaporn Sungwanlek.