HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Family Money

Snap Shot

Modern Medicine

Heart to Heart with Hillary

A Slice of Thai History

Bits ‘n’ Bobs

Personal Directions

Social Commentary by Khai Khem

Women’s World

Family Money: Hedging your bets?

By Leslie Wright,
Managing director of Westminster Portfolio Services (Thailand) Ltd.

In a period of economic uncertainty, investors have been looking beyond traditional investments to optimise returns. Once perceived as a high-risk niche that appealed only to sophisticated investors with nerves of steel, hedge funds have become an increasingly popular addition to a retail investor’s portfolio.

As a result, this sector has ballooned to the point where there is now estimated to be over $6 trillion invested in hedge funds worldwide.

Not that the average retail investor has any greater understanding nowadays of how hedge funds actually work - just that they are “suitable alternatives” to mainstream investments, with the perceived potential to make money when markets are falling (although it’s rarely explained how) as well as rising.

Yet it is important to avoid having an over-simplistic view of them. So before looking at some of the strategies that hedge fund managers employ; it is useful to explore the differences between traditional investment theory and that underpinning the hedge fund.

Traditional theory

Traditional asset management focuses on predicting individual stock price movements using fundamental or technical analysis and without considering risk or volatility. In the 1950s, Professor Harry Markowitz of the City University of New York developed a new approach to investment: Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). MPT looks at the performance of a portfolio of assets based on the combination of its components’ risk and return.

This evolved into Post-Modern Portfolio Theory (PMPT) which measures the standard deviation of the observations around a target benchmark (or zero) and considers risky those rates of return that fall below that benchmark.

The development of computers capable of handling complex calculations has meant PMPT has become a practicable investment theory, which can assist a manager to construct a portfolio around the basic objective of increasing returns, while reducing risk and volatility in terms of both risk and return.

This is precisely the approach taken by hedge fund managers: they look to maximise returns for a given level of risk. By using a diverse range of strategies, such as going short in the market, or taking arbitrage positions, they can add significant value to a portfolio. Correlation with traditional investments is also significantly reduced - a product of the emphasis on absolute returns - while correlation between individual strategies can be very low too. All of which strengthens the case for the inclusion of hedge funds in portfolios as a means of reducing risk.

Hedge fund strategies

Although definitions of what constitutes a hedge fund vary, it is widely accepted that the asset class is defined by its characteristics.

These include strategies other than traditional long-only investment, an emphasis on absolute returns (rather than comparison with any benchmark), and some form of performance-related fee structure.

A follow-on factor from their aversion to losing money in any period, including down markets, is a risk control process designed to reduce the volatility of returns.

This desire to limit risk will doubtless come as a surprise to those not familiar with the industry, but it characterises all but the most extreme strategies.

Another common misconception regards the level of borrowing used by hedge funds: many managers shy away from this and will typically have a low net exposure to the market.

The range of strategies employed by hedge fund managers is extremely wide, with many operating specialised techniques. In broad terms, the most commonly used are as follows:

* Long/short equity hedge. This is the closest to a ‘traditional’ strategy in which managers buy undervalued securities and sell short those they consider overvalued. Exposure on both the long and short side can be varied so that funds may opt for either a market directional or market neutral bias.

* Global macro: the strategy for which the likes of George Soros are best known. This involves taking large, opportunistic and generally leveraged bets on key macro-eco nomic events, for example interest rate or currency movements. Returns can be spectacular, but these are reflected in high levels of associated volatility.

* Relative value strategies. These include various sub-strategies, but are generally characterised by consistent returns with low volatility. They will typically have an absolute target of between 10%-15% year-on-year and are not correlated with the direction of traditional markets. Also known as ‘arbitrage’ these incorporate: fixed income arbitrage, convertible bond arbitrage, statistical arbitrage, mortgage backed securities investing and some futures and options strategies.

* Event driven. Involves investing in situations where a corporate event occurs. Merger (or risk) arbitrage is the best known, but the strategy extends to include restructurings, recapitalisations or spin-offs. Distressed securities investing is a sub-sector of the event-driven class. This strategy focuses on the purchase of securities of companies in reorganisation as a result of financial distress. Positions are usually taken in debt obligations and may involve the active participation by the hedge fund manager in the reorganisation process.

* Short selling. Consists of the sale of borrowed securities considered overvalued in anticipation of re-purchasing them at a lower price in order to realise a profit.

None of these strategies alone is inherently low risk and most hedge funds available to retail investors combine a number of these strategies in the form of ‘fund of hedge funds’ vehicles. They minimise risk by incorporating a broad range of complementary styles. This mix is usually determined by the fund’s desired level of return and its acceptable risk parameters. The result is wider diversification, reduced volatility, and more consistent results.

Due Diligence

The fund-of-funds approach also overcomes the issue of transparency. One of the key barriers to investing in hedge funds has been the ability to conduct due diligence on the often complex or opaque strategies employed by some managers. In a fund-of-hedge funds, this process, along with continuing monitoring, is undertaken by the organisation which runs the fund, thereby removing a costly and time-consuming constituent from the investment process.

Unlike traditional investments, hedge fund vehicles seek to deliver absolute returns for a given level of risk. The relationship between risk and return is usually illustrated by the Sharpe ratio, which indicates the level of out-performance over cash per unit of risk. (The higher the Sharpe ratio the better: a ratio above one represents a potentially attractive investment.)

Increasingly volatile markets have caused investors to seek alternatives, and as hedge funds continue to lose their ‘buccaneering’ image, they are likely to become ever more popular with mainstream retail investors.

Snap Shot: Kids! Kids! Kids!

by Harry Flashman

Having just been through the Jesters Care 4 Kids charity “week” complete with all the fun of the fair, the subject of shooting kids pics came up again. Taking photographs of children can be wonderfully rewarding, especially later, when you look back through the family albums, but getting good kiddypix is not easy and fraught with many problems - but do not despair, the cavalry has come! Help is right here.

Take a look at the photographs with this article. These were taken at the Children’s Fair by my photographic friend Howard Greene. Now Howard is a great “people” photographer, but his “tricks” are not beyond any one of you. There are some very basic rules to follow when photographing kids, and you too can get great shots like Howard’s - even of your own kids!

The first, and as far as I am concerned, most basic rule when photographing children is to get down to their level. If you shoot from adult height, then you are looking down at the child, thereby distorting the proportions. With a wide lens you will get a kid with a big head, with a longer lens you will get a kid who looks like a dwarf. Whilst many kids seem to have big heads these days, you still want to make the child look normal! Sit down on the ground for very small children, or kneel for larger ones. No matter what focal length lens you use, the child will be in proportion.

The next problem with shooting children is the inherent short attention span belonging to all our offspring. Children can remain engrossed in something we want them to do for only 4.2 nano-seconds at most, (however, they can remain totally fixed on the cartoon network when there are dishes to wash). If you don’t get that shot of little Willy straight off, you are not going to get it on the 4th re-take. No way! Like the boy scout, when shooting kids you have to be prepared.

Part of the preparation is to make sure you are loaded with film and all the exposure settings on your camera are correct. Children will not hold that appealing pose while you put another roll of film in the point and shooter.

The other part of the preparation is called “pre-focussing” and this is the same whether you have an auto-focus camera or manual. You have to get the camera focussed before you make yourself known to the subject. It’s all to do with those 4.2 nano-seconds, remember!

Now it is time to get technical. If you have a choice of lenses or have a zoom lens, start looking at a focal length longer than the “standard” 50 mm. In general, the further away you get, the more natural the photograph you will get. So, a medium zoom lens (70-210 mm) works very well in this situation as you can get far enough away from the subject without invading the child’s “personal space” and producing shyness or forced behaviour.

Having now got all the physical and technical details out of the way, it is finally time to take the shot. Call the child to attract his or her attention and be ready to snap that first moment of recognition, or the first natural smile. Do that successfully enough times and you can change your name to Howard Greene!

Modern Medicine: Anaphylaxis. Anna who?

by Dr Iain Corness, Consultant

The difficult sounding name of Anaphylaxis is just a fancy word for the most severe form of allergic reaction you can have. Those people who have experienced this will attest to just how frightening it can be. And they have good reason to be frightened - it is classed as a medical emergency as people can die from this reaction. It is also much more common than you would imagine. The quoted figures from America are that Anaphylaxis occurs at an annual rate of 30 per 100,000.

The causes are multiple and include food allergy, penicillin, cephalosporin and sulfur drugs, intravenous contrast medium (used in some special X-Rays), aspirin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, walnuts, cashews and pistachios and insect stings. The commonest food allergy is peanuts and again going to the American figures, peanuts cause 30,000 documented cases of Anaphylaxis every year and 200 deaths within that figure. (And you never imagined that those nuts on the bar were killers, did you?)

The symptoms include a very sudden and severe breathing problem (bronchospasm - the basis of asthma), itching around the mouth, flushing of the skin with large swellings plus swelling of the face, tongue and mouth, some gut pains and sometimes nausea and vomiting and finally a lowering of blood pressure and increasing difficulty in breathing.

Although Anaphylaxis does mimic an asthmatic attack, the difference is in the speed of the attack and the rapid progression of the bronchospasm, plus the skin effects that come with it.

With Anaphylaxis, the patient should be hospitalised, even if they appear to have recovered from the acute symptoms as there is something we call the “biphasic reaction” which sees a recurrence of the symptoms. This can be even more severe than the initial attack, so we recommend that patients be kept in hospital under observation for 12 hours, in case there is a biphasic reaction.

The treatment of the acute phase is injection of Adrenaline 1/1000 strength, oxygen by mask or by tube if the swelling is producing too much of an obstruction, intravenous saline to boost the blood pressure plus intravenous steroids and even some antihistamines. Not the sort of things you keep at home in the cupboard above the bathroom sink!

The management of the condition from the long term point of view goes into trying to find out and eliminate the allergen causing the problem. With the food allergies this is very difficult, and involves withdrawing each “perhaps a problem” food from the diet, one at a time. But start with peanuts, if peanuts are something commonly eaten, and something that was eaten on the day of the last attack. Do not suppose that the triggering item is bananas if you didn’t have a banana before the last episode of Anaphylaxis.

So what should you do if you are a person who suffers from these acute allergic responses? Well, if it were me, I would alert those around me to the dangers and advise them on what to do - mainly to get you to the hospital as soon as possible - remember that this is a medical emergency. I would also be looking at keeping a supply of 1/1000 Adrenaline injectable for immediate use. There are commercially available auto injectors in some overseas countries called “Epipens” for this purpose.

Heart to Heart with Hillary

Dear Hillary,

I am an attractive Caucasian girl with my fair share of rich male boyfriends. I am taken out to expensive restaurants where I am wined and dined. At the end of the evening my partner always gives me a gift. My problem is that I am sick and tired of receiving the usual diamond bracelets, gold watches or precious stoned pendants. I would die for a box of chocolates or a bottle of champagne. Hillary, I am aware that you are able to procure these simple gifts from your many male admirers. I need to know how you do it. I was hoping that we girls could get together one night, frock up in our best evening attire and strut our stuff along Walking Street. Are you willing to share your tactics with me?

Minnie Mouse

Dear Minnie,

Hello again Minnie, and I am glad to see you are starting to let us all into the secrets of your life. And what a spoiled little coquette you really are. The reason you don’t get chockies and champers is quite simply because you are too easy with your favours. Hillary could get cartloads of Cartiers and diamonds from De Beers too, if she were to let her standards slip. No, young girl, keep them at arms length, don’t be an easy mark or lay, down too quickly. Tell them firmly that it’s chocolates and champagne at best, nothing else. I am sorry too, that I can’t get together with you, but the night air is not good for me these days, and all the champagne makes my head spin. By the way, why don’t you try and meet up with Mighty Mouse, you would be able to send each other into a mindless vacuum. Finally, remember Eric Althwaite? Interests were local rain gauges and shovels. He seems an exciting individual these days.

Dear Hillary,

This week I prepared some food and packed a picnic basket. I found a peaceful location on Pattaya Beach, directly opposite the Royal Garden Plaza. On a large blanket I laid out the food. No sooner had I set everything up when a mob of free loaders arrived. Six obnoxious baht bus drivers devoured my mushroom, tomato and caramelised onion croutons. A putrid mob of septic tank cleaners slid in and dug their greasy fingers into my salad of foie gras, quail eggs and chicken with truffle oil dressing. Next, three beggars from Beach Road hobbled over and filled their McDonald drink cups with my chilled French champagne. The kateoy’s ate the lamb shanks with tomatoes, capsicum and kalamata olives and a tour of Chinese tourists walked off with my lemon meringue pie and flaming bomb Alaska. My picnic was ruined. How can I stop these intruders for my next picnic?

Mighty Mouse

Dear Mighty Mouse,

You can stop these intruders very simply, my hungry Petal, by inviting someone else to share the picnic with you, instead of being such a selfish glutton. Of course Hillary also realises that this is a fictional account. You begin with, “a peaceful location on Pattaya Beach, directly opposite the Royal Garden Plaza.” Since this particular part of Beach Road has more baht busses per cubic metre than any other strip of concrete in Pattaya, it is hardly “peaceful.” You followed that up with, “On a large blanket I laid out the food,” just who are you trying to fool? You would have had to divert three busloads of Taiwanese tourists just to get onto the sand, if it were in the morning, and if it were in the afternoon there would have been no space left after the rows of plastic plates with photographs of several, sundry assorted Mr and Mrs Kims on board the Koh Larn cruiser during their holiday in Pattaya. When you finally get around to this idyllic picnic, just let Hillary know and I’ll show you a really deserted beach. Just make sure the champagne is really cold. Chilled is not enough.

Dear Hillary,

My work colleagues have all decided that I am gay because I don’t live with anyone, while they all are living with a succession of local girls. Every week I hear another tale of woe and how they have been cleaned out. Every week I thank my lucky stars that this is them not me. They just go straight back into another relationship, which ends up just like the previous ones - a disaster. They seem to think that I have something against women, while I don’t, but they keep on saying over and over, “Got a feller yet?” I haven’t got anything against gays either, it’s just that I’m not one. How do I get them to understand at work?

Getting Annoyed

Dear Getting Annoyed,

Jai yen yen! Maintain a cool heart! They are only keeping this up because you continue to rise to the bait. When they get no reaction from you, they will eventually stop. It may seem hard, but just a “suit yourself,” response and nothing else will produce the desired result. By the way, don’t comment on their relationships and they will give up commenting on your (lack of relationships) too.

A Slice of Thai History: The birth and growth of squash

by Duncan Stearn

The large influx of foreign - mainly British - expatriates to work in the growing and lucrative timber industry in the northern part of Thailand during the latter part of the nineteenth century was largely responsible for the establishment of the game squash, known then as squash rackets, in the Kingdom. The game had originally begun around 1820 at Harrow School in England.

The first squash court, made entirely from teak, was erected in 1895 at the Chiang Mai Gymkhana Club in the first year of that organisation’s existence. Sadly, the court was demolished in 1985 after some 90 years of use.

In 1905 the Royal Bangkok Sports Club (RBSC) mooted the possibility of introducing squash to the capital by constructing a dual-purpose facility. At the time there were around 30 regular squash players living and working in the city and due to the lack of facilities they were compelled to compete with each other on a private court owned by an expat named Eric Lawson.

Given the pace of progress in Thailand it’s probably not surprising that the RBSC’s first squash court wasn’t opened until 1908.

In 1910 David McFie, a founding member of the Chiang Mai Gymkhana Club, sponsored the first organised squash competition, a doubles event named the Chiang Mai Challenge Cup. The Cup was held in Bangkok at the Royal Sports Club and it is still running, undoubtedly one of the oldest squash competitions in the world.

The first squash competition conducted at the Chiang Mai Gymkhana Club was held in 1911 and known as the Lowe Cup.

Squash achieved Royal recognition in October 1926 with the RBSC sponsoring the King’s Cup. The winner’s trophy was presented by King Prajadhipok (Rama VII), himself a keen squash enthusiast who had been introduced to the sport while attending Eton College in England.

The King’s Cup, recognised as the national open championship, has been held every year since then with the only break coming between 1942 and 1945 when Thailand sided with the Japanese during the darkest years of the Second World War.

The first local champion to emerge out of the sport was Yong Hoontrakul who snared the King’s Cup eight times between 1928 and 1938. His son, Sudhanan Hoontrakul maintained the family tradition by winning both the King’s Cup and the RBSC singles title three times during the 1960s.

Kevin Crump, an Australian expatriate, proved to be the most dominant local player in the 1970s with a staggering seven consecutive King’s Cup victories between 1972 and 1978. During the same period he also annexed the RBSC singles title and the Queen’s Cup doubles competition four times each.

When his reign ended the mantle was immediately taken by an Englishman named Steve Balme who won the King’s Cup in 1979 and 1980 as well as the RSBC singles in 1979. At the 4th East Asian Squash Championships, held in Bangkok in April 1979, Balme was voted the number one player.

In 1977 the Thailand Squash Rackets Association (TSRA) had been established and was instrumental in forming squash leagues and competitions and generally promoting the sport. To this end the TSRA was largely responsible for bringing world class players for exhibition matches in Thailand.

In the 1970s players like Geoff Hunt - an Australian who in 1976 won the first official world championship and held the title until 1980 - Ken Hiscoe and Cam Nancarrow came to Thailand.

In 1984 Jahangir Khan from Pakistan, acclaimed by some pundits as the greatest squash player of all time, came to play exhibition matches in Thailand. He won the world championship six times from 1981 to 1985 and again in 1988. He had been unbeaten from April 1981 until the World Championship final of November 1986.

During this time some of the better Thai players were people like Chirayu Issarangkul na Ayutthaya, Punthavit Wattanasiri and Peerapol Poonsiri, the latter considered the best of his compatriots.

Bits ‘n’ Bobs

Personal Directions: “… It is the customer who pays the wages.”

by Christina Dodd, founder and managing director 
of Incorp Training Asssociates

Have you ever noticed that when things go “off the rails” – it all seems to happen at once? I noted with interest this week how seriously lacking many places are in terms of the level of customer service they provide. Most establishments, offices and places I went, where I was a customer, did very little to make me feel satisfied or to make me feel that “the customer is king!”

Customers are really getting a bad deal these days. It is indeed a rare occasion to find a thoroughly satisfied customer! And when you do find one, it’s almost as if they want to go out and celebrate their good fortune. It’s like winning the lottery. I know I’ve felt that way when it has happened to me. The thing is too that you then want to go and tell everybody about it because it’s just so unusual!

In many industries, however, there is a lot of emphasis on customer service and customer related training with vast budgets allocated annually to stay ahead of the competition. For these companies and organizations it is their lifeblood and if customers aren’t happy, then they simply won’t remain customers. They all seem to realize that there’s enough competition out there and plenty of other places where a customer can go to feel as though they and their pennies mean something.

But I really wonder how many of these companies deeply understand the need “to excel” in this service, as opposed “to just provide” it. It is very evident to me that no amount of training is going to bring about the desired results unless those staff involved in customer service really want to be there!

There is an urgent need for employers, on any scale from airlines to hypermarkets to bookstores and even noodle shops, to take particular note and pay much more attention to the staff they select to be up-front with customers. They owe it to their customers!

It’s no longer the case of a pretty face and a nice smile to keep customers satisfied. It is not the case of what kind of degree someone has or what school they went to, or moreover - who they know. The people who are employed in the field of customer service have to want to be there, doing their job and enjoying every minute of it! Indeed they have to have a passion and a love for it. They have to be service-minded and to be service-oriented in all aspects of their work with a sincere and genuine desire to give their very best without condition.

“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve ... you don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

You know yourself that when you are faced with having to undertake a task you don’t really enjoy or like then you don’t give it your full attention or effort. It’s a simple fact. We get on with it because we have to – not because we want to and when that situation exists, the results are dramatically different.

How many times have you been served by staff who have it written all over their face that they would like to be somewhere else? I come across this so often that it is almost routine. The number of times I see sales staff slouching against walls or counters playing with their hair, or all standing around having a great old gossip – are too many to count. And I have seen this activity in the same store for almost twenty years! I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had this experience and continues to have it.

At check-in counters at airports, have you ever felt like you are talking to and looking at a piece of cardboard? This is becoming the norm these days and becoming more frustrating for customers. Hotel reception staff appear more concerned with taking details of your credit card and having you complete the registration form than they are with exchanging pleasantries. And if there’s a computer or cash register anywhere near you if you are making any sort of enquiry, then you have no hope because the computer is always right – isn’t it!

As Henry Ford said many years ago:

“It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.”

There are of course many instances where the customer does come away satisfied with the service they have been given and we as customers have all been on the receiving end of good and sometimes exceptional service. But these instances are becoming fewer and fewer and the level of service lacking in what one could simply call “spirit”.

There needs to be a revolution in how we regard people and care for their needs. We have to take a long hard look at how we handle enquiries and provide assistance and where our responsibilities begin and end. Being service-minded is the very first step and an integral part to great customer relations. Then comes the human element or human factor and having an understanding of how we behave both from the service provider and the customer perspective. Then there is training … training … and more training to excel in the specifics and to perfect job performance.

Knowing how to handle people doesn’t mean you have to be a psychiatrist (although I have had experiences where having one around would have been handy). When I train people in customer service I place a lot of importance on this aspect because it is becoming increasingly necessary in view of the fact that people – customers – have far greater and seemingly more urgent needs than before. Stress plays a major role in a lot of encounters and unless handled carefully and competently, can turn a general complaint into an enormous problem. Rather like having what seemed a mild sea breeze turn into a raging hurricane!

Recently I witnessed an incident at a hotel where a complaint was made to the front office staff about a power shortage in a guest’s room. The details were recorded and information immediately passed on to the relevant department, in this case the engineer’s office. When the guest returned much later that evening, the room was in darkness with no power and worst of all no air-conditioning! The guest, who had gone to the room thinking that his initial complaint had been rectified, had to come all the way down thirty five floors to try to get sense and an answer as to why the problem wasn’t fixed. You can imagine the stress levels rising at this stage!

To cut a long story short (no pun intended), the front office staff had done the right thing but had failed on one major point – they “assumed” the problem would be fixed and didn’t follow-up with the engineer’s office to see that it had actually been fixed. To take responsibility and to ensure that a problem has been fixed even though it takes more effort is giving true customer service. Knowing where responsibility begins and ends is critical to providing excellence.

It is worthwhile remembering that:

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

- Bill Gates. Business @ the Speed of Thought

Have a great week!

Christina can be contacted by email at christina.dodd@ incorptraining.com or directly at Incorp Training Associates in Bangkok, tel. (0) 2652 1867-8, fax: (0) 2652 1870. Programs and services can be found at www.incorptraining.com

Social Commentary by Khai Khem

Three-minute speed dating

I ran into an energetic young professional woman in the street the other day and while we were chatting I imagined she used the bizarre term “three-minute dating.” Surely I heard her wrong. Perhaps she said ‘three-minute call-waiting’, or ‘free-style skating’. Having a conversation on Second Road is like balancing your checkbook inside a big bass drum.

I was tempted to let the whole topic go and skip to the weather or shopping but confusion and curiosity got the better of me. Three-minute dating? Yes, I’d heard right. I quickly herded her into a shop for a cup of tea. This was a subject I needed to know about. Something told me I was seriously ‘out of the loop’.

As we talked it hit me that there are moments in life, probably after the age of 35, when one must come to grips that the older generation is stranded in the quicksand of modern pop culture which is pretty much the same all over the world these days, and we are no longer on the cutting age, but lagging a few steps behind fast changing trends. That’s fine with me. I’m happy to leave the pierced navels and multi-colored hair, the revival of gaudy tattoos gouged into sensitive places of human anatomy, and Yuppie quests for modern Holy Grails to those with more greed and energy than I now possess.

As this young lady started to explain the latest rage in relationships, I suddenly realized this was not one of those moments. I wasn’t lagging a few steps behind. I’d been left abandoned in a cave housing artifacts from the Bronze Age.

According to her, three-minute dating is a variation on speed-dating, also known as flash-dating, or fast-tracking the dating scene. For example, groups of guys or gals get together at a bar, then whisk from one conversation to another, each lasting for 3 minutes before they excuse themselves with a “Bye now” and move on to meaningful banter with the next Leo, Gemini, Virgo, lawyer, stockbroker, or real estate developer.

At the end of the three-minute ‘date’ participants can mark yes on their scoreboard if they like someone. If that someone likes you too, the event organizer supplies you with the other person’s email address.

My friend, who’s a partner with a successful law firm, can zip through 30 or more dates in one night. Lawyers learn to size up people very quickly. They seem to have more stamina than mere mortals and are trained to go for the throat. As she went on I secretly thought about entering some Special Forces Vietnam combat veterans I know as to make these nights out a little more interesting.

Then she asked me if I wanted to come along one evening. I blanched. I’d have sooner attended a public hanging, but told her I’d think about it and privately hoped she’d lost my telephone number. I’ve been known to do a little ‘table-hopping’ at favorite restaurants where I run into groups of friends. But the thought of 30 self-revealing conversation-dates in a row with total strangers packing scorecards made me want to swallow my tongue. I could feel my hair turning white as we spoke.

As she babbled on I kept wondering about the limit of three minutes. It’s shorter than a pop song on the radio and barely the length of a commercial TV break. I can’t fix a sandwich that fast. It takes me longer to get undressed, although she assured me that was not part of what happens at a three-minute dating event, except in the imagination.

One upon a time a date used to mean dinner and maybe a movie or a nightclub. That was too much investment for the fast-paced professionals who helped make “It’s Just Lunch” a 1990s dating phenomenon. In the 21st century, lunch is an eternity to waste on a jerk. So we now we have speed-dating. I predict that as the Millennium goes forward this phenomenon will shrink to 60 seconds.

As I struggled to come to grips with this new-found information, my thoughts turned to the criticism directed toward foreign men in Pattaya who hang out in Walking Street and shop around for young Thai girls half their age who work in bars, barely speak their language and perhaps require a little monetary recompense in exchange for lots of tender loving care.

At least they get more than 3 minutes of attention for their baht’s worth and if she’s got a scorecard, at least she’s discreet about it. When the relationship ‘goes south’ after a few months, along with the bank account and the new house or condo; as one gentleman said, “It’s only money.” I’m all for letting the poor chaps have their fun if it last more than more than 180 seconds.

Women’s World:A mother’s worst nightmare Part 2

by Lesley Warmer

Some people might ask, “How can you write about something as personal as this?” The way I achieve peace of mind is to write. It’s the best therapy for me. I’m a mother and I write a woman’s column, only another mother can understand how I feel. (A father will feel as bad but in a different way). I want any mother reading this column to be sure to give their daughters or sons an extra cuddle and tell them how special they really are.

At this point it is important for me to write that Emma has many friends in Pattaya and I would like to thank them for their kind wishes and the flowers and cards that she has received...

As I stood beside the bed I understood what it means when someone says that they had an ‘out of body experience’. I felt as if I was watching me watching Emma from somewhere up above - it was a most peculiar and very real feeling. I looked down at her unrecognizable face, made worse by the gravel burns, swelling, and water retention (I later found out caused by the drugs). The left side of her face, including her eye, was covered in bandages. Her hair was literally still caked in dried blood and the left side of the head raw where she had been scalped. Her left shoulder and right hand were oozing blood through the bandages. I dreaded to think what was under them. My chest began to get tight as I tried to get near her through all the paraphernalia separating us. I leaned down to find a part of her ruined body where I could kiss her or touch her, her legs were the only part of her not damaged.

I knew she had been a passenger in an open top Suzuki jeep with two other girls; the other passenger suffered some nasty injuries but not life threatening. I later found out (not from Emma, she still has no recollection of that day at all) that it was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, so the girls went to the supermarket shopping for a barbecue, laughing and happy. Emma sat in the middle in the front with her friend by the door. They had tried to get the seat belt around the two of them but it wouldn’t fit. The driver was wearing a seat belt and she walked away from the crash with a bruised knee. But it was later discovered that she had drunk well over the allowed limit - she will be prosecuted.

The car went into a skid, a witness said it went up into the air. Emma was holding onto the roll bar with her right hand, and her hair must have become wrapped around the bar as the car rolled and she fell out, then it rolled over her. The driver rang Emma’s husband and he got there before the ambulance to find his wife crawling around the road in a mass of blood crying “help me, please help me.” The poor man has trouble closing his eyes at night and not seeing this dreadful image. I had come along the same part of the road to reach the hospital, past my daughter’s blood on the road. There were police signs asking for witnesses; it’s strange how all the family said we felt isolated as we looked at the people around us. They were all going about their daily business having no idea of the nightmare screaming inside us. When you have contact with someone in the future and you have cause to say “miserable bitch, she didn’t even smile or say thank you,” spare a thought that maybe there’s a good reason. All this was going through my mind as I stood there just looking helplessly at the bed.

A nurse came over to me and I asked for an explanation of Emma’s injuries. The nurse said, “She has 10 broken ribs, 2 broken collar bones, both shoulder blades broken, right hand with several crushed fingers, broken wrist, punctured lung, bruised heart, left eye damaged, considerable flesh missing from the forehead and temple, severe wound on the left shoulder caused by the shoulder blade and collar bone piercing it and a considerable amount of hair ripped from the skull.” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe that this was my daughter they were talking about.

I turned and walked out of ICU in a numbed state it was suddenly, oh so real, I wasn’t going to wake up, and no one had exaggerated.

(To be continued…)