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Thanks Mott from Mark Lavallee from Landsend

Hotel New Year profiteering

Thanks Mott from John McGlasson

Don’t worry be happy

Thanks Mott from Mark Lavallee from Landsend

Hey there,

Fred Hunter just sent me your review of our latest album. Very flattering review, thank you so much.

Work is nearly complete on the next double album. Again a CD of new material, and a CD of “vault” material. We’ve just got two more new songs to finish writing and record, the guests from Lower Depths will definitely be on the next album, there’s a lot more vocals from Bruce already finished. More of Cathy’s wonderful voice, and more guitars.

Aside from that I have an entire album’s worth of material for the album after that (time for the ultimate prog rock clich้: the dreaded concept album.) A concept I’ve been working on for years, a dark chapter from my life that’ll make a great album. I hope!

Fred also has about an album’s worth of material for the one after that one. No more 7 year gaps between albums I promise!

Thanks again,
Mark Lavallee
Landsend

Hotel New Year profiteering

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you with regards to what seems to be profiteering taken too far by certain hotels in Thailand over New Year and Christmas. I think we all know and understand that rooms have seasonal rates, and this is acceptable to all but the most unreasonable people. No problem there.

Extreme Sports Cafe Co. Ltd. operates in Thailand to bring people to the country for various Extreme Sports and other outdoor activities. Our remit is promoting tourism in Thailand, and for the last two years we feel we have worked very hard and had great results.

We support every facet of business here. From the small individual operator to the large corporate chains. We pride ourselves on tailoring our experiences personally for each client, and dealing with their wants and needs. Our job is to make sure they get safe, cost-effective packages and have a great time.

We use various hotels in Thailand through an agency, much like we do overseas. Some seem to have the same view as us. Others seem less caring. Such is life.

Over New Year we have clients in the Jomtien area who are not particularly interested in paying a vastly inflated price for a gala meal and dinner on New Years Eve. They will in fact be going on a trip with us.

To this end I was surprised to find a charge added to our booking for them which comes to almost as much as four nights in the hotel for a ‘New Years Eve Gala Dinner’.

Whilst we understand that globally hotels and businesses offer these sorts of ‘packages’ and try to package them with rooms as much as possible they are usually an option which you can choose not to take part in.

Hotels in Thailand already inflate prices for busy periods such as Chinese New Year, Christmas, New Year, and this is understandable. People are not always happy, but they understand and accept this.

Assuming this was a mistake I contacted our agents who told me that it was part of their contract with the hotel, and that there was nothing they could do.

My next port of call was to the manager of the hotel. I explained to him who we were, as we had previously dealt with the hotel through our agents. He was, however, aware of us and I proceeded to explain our problem.

He was quite frank. He stated it was a “good way for the hotel to make extra money over holiday periods”. I said I understood (although his frankness surprised me), that my clients will not be in the hotel on New Years Eve, do not require the meal, and are unhappy (as I would be) about being forced to pay for a meal they do not want. He said that is the case with many visitors but they still must pay for this meal they will not get! I asked him if he would like to be forced to pay for a meal he did not want when staying at a hotel. He declined to comment.

We touched on many viewpoints in our conversation and I even appealed to him as a company that sends him many clients each year to please waive this charge on this one occasion for these specific clients. He refused, but was unable to give any reason why our clients should have to pay for this ‘service’ they don’t require apart from the fact that it was standard practice globally (which is not true!), and the possibility of making an easy buck as he stated earlier in our conversation.

We will be pulling all future clients from this hotel and advising any who ask to stay elsewhere next year. We feel it is time some kind of stand was made for people coming to visit Thailand and would be grateful if you could publish this letter so that we can get people’s viewpoints on this subject.

For 2006 Extreme Sports Cafe will not be supporting any hotel in Thailand that has this kind of policy over holiday periods. We feel that seasonal room rates serve this purpose well enough and the shortsighted business practice of profiteering from customers when they are unlikely to have much choice when it comes to alternate accommodation at a certain time of year is shortsighted and immoral.

Kind regards,
Stephen Northcott

Thanks Mott from John McGlasson

Hello Mott,

Thanks SO MUCH for the wonderful review of VF’s album. It was very touching to read, and feel, your emotion that we share when it comes to VF’s music. And what you said about my label was deeply touching to me, thank you again, and you can be sure that we will live up to your review for decades, bringing the world truly original music. Please stay in touch, you can be sure that we’ll do the same.

Sincerely,
John McGlasson
o.i.e.Records, Ltd.

Don’t worry be happy

Dear Editor

I haven’t written to Mailbag for ages, the wife having threatened to cut orft my fingers unless I desisted. I joked with her that my mother used to threatened to cut orft another part of my body when I was a kid if I ‘Didn’t stop fiddling with it’ but luckily she never carried out the threat.

‘Well I am not your mother, you are no longer a kid and I bloody well will’ was the curt reply, from what I can gather. So for a while I was too scared to write; then, having summoned Dutch courage I thought I would venture one last letter as your Mailbag seems to have been getting pretty thin on the ground of late.

Seeing a water truck trundling along the walkway on Dongtan Beach and ending up at a resort I thought, hang on a moment, we are almost in the middle of November, supposedly near the end of the rainy season, and water has to be delivered to the resort, what’s going on here with regard to the water supply? End of rainy season, beginning of high season, already so soon continuing water problems! Oh Dear, are we going to be begging for divine intervention rather than thanking the Hindu Goddess of water, Mae Khongkha, for what we ain’t got come Loy Krathong!?

Then the advice of a friend of mine came to mind: ‘Look, don’t expect any logic or common sense in anything that goes on here. Just relax be happy and if something is not going to make any difference to you in ten years time don’t let it worry you now.’

That was some time ago and I have finally decided to take that advice to heart with slight time scale difference. I have upped the ten years to twenty, by which time I will be in that paradise up there rather than the one down here, Hopefully, as I have become used to ending many sentences with. Solvrem plobbed Notting gona worry me no more!

I’m just going to relax, enjoy the wonderful climate, the wonderful food, the wonderful friendly Thai people, the majority of them that is, which is more than can be said of the natives of many other countries I have visited, and forget about the bribery and corruption, the escalating problems in the South, etc. I might feel a bit aggrieved at not being able to have a shower or flush the toilet later on in the season, but hey, those will just be minor inconveniences compared to what’s happening to folks in other parts of the world.

Perhaps if my philosophy on how to live happily here can help just one other expat relax and accept the Que Sera Sera Thai Karma I will feel it was worth the risk of having my fingers cut orft. My wife is visiting her mother, she has so many ailing relatives who need operations, houses that need renovating and sick buffalos to look after it might be forever, so I might just get away with it, Hopefully!

Best wishes as ever,
Richard Walton

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