Just Stop It

This is the work of Adam Crowe who has a remarkably sparky intellect and a feisty can-do attitude (as do all the gang I've met that work at Imagination). He has also developed a brilliantly conceived greasemonkey script that changes the word 'consumer' to 'person/people/public' in Firefox browsers. There is also a Facebook group for likeminded people who have had enough of this derogatory term.

The quicker we drop this deeply patronising word that implies a discernment on the part of our fellow human beings that is bordering on an automaton/amoebic level, the more likely it is that the good folk we fight like hell to secure as customers, might just begin to reciprocate with a little respect for the marketing and advertising business.

Nice one Adam. I'm beginning to feel momentum on this issue.

Mobile Life

Losing mobile phones is something I do so well that without wanting to come across as achieving enlightenment on a detachment level I think I’m entitled to say that for some time now each phone loss now feels as disappointing as say having a pint swiped in the pub. It happens, at least 20 times or more now. Yes it’s annoying but there’s no point beating myself up. I’m a complete loser (or champion winner) at losing stuff, and mobiles top the list.

It does feel beyond absurd though when I’ve resorted to calling my number once I get home, on the off chance I can retrieve it by negotiating with cab drivers to bring them back for a price that suits us all. Often they just switch it off once I start calling. Its me thats in negative equity, not them.

Haggling for something that belongs to the owner anyway is something everyone should try at least once in their life for the humility it fosters.

Some time back I also lost my Sony T1 camera and predictably a while later my mobile phone too. Some time late last year after all this; an amazing local Thai brand called i-mobile brought out a 5 mega pixel camera phone pretty much before anyone else so I thought I’d go for it. I lost that too eventually but not before many enjoyable attempts at experimenting with it.

Anyway, just before a trip to the middle Kingdom last week that I couldn’t Blog about because China is a bit fussy over Blogs, I unexpectedly met a cashier acquaintance at the new Boss Bar in Phrathunam, who I’d inflicted with some amateur photojournalism using the i-mobile 902 late last year. I promised to post the pictures I’d taken so here they are plus a few others (thats the girl on reception crashed out in the wee hours above, plus erm my foot ) from a phone that despite some shortcomings and an all too brief relationship was a brilliant bit of kit that makes me yearn to get back into the kind of spontaneous photography that only a mobile phone camera delivers comfortably.

The i-mobile 902 phone also had an FM radio, voice recorder, and mp3 player with speaker, blue tooth and few other features that I’ve probably forgotten about.

www.bedsupperclub.com

OK, I know Rob hates Bed Supperclub but its a great design and some mates DJ there on a Monday, plus we laugh at all the Friday and Saturday night cattle class clubbers just as much as him and usually turn up for the last hour to watch the preening set get silly on too much alcohol and questionable happy hardcore bollocks.

Royalists

Gadget

The King of Thailand was born on a Monday. To celebrate the reign of the worlds longest serving monarch his people wear yellow shirts. Steering a country like Thailand which is built on power play and political intrigue through a volatile century that saw the Japanese annex Thailand in the Second World War through to the Vietnam war which effectively rolled out across Indo China is remarkable in itself but the strongly paternal figure of the King is the last dramatisation of a living deity we will probably ever see.

Westerners don't fully appreciate that word but if you want to see an instant lynch mob just set fire to a banknote in Thailand. Strong leadership will always raise question marks for continuation of stability and this will (not can, but will) play itself out in the natural transition of life expectancy that all humans are subjected too. That's as good as I can get on the topic without offending my hosts, because the Kingdom of Thailand dispenses Lese majeste writs much more easily than for arguably more important matters such as the breaches of human rights that the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra stands accused of. A little matter of 2500 extra judicial killings in 2003 springs to mind. I guess Manchester City Football club have shown how many dollars they can be bought for.

Anyway its Royal Monday here in Bangkok and we're happy that its probably only the UK which prefers to stalk its Royalty to death for the newspapers that apparently nobody reads any more. There's been a couple of things that seem to have changed in the last few months. The first is that I dropped by the high end Gaysorn Plaza over the weekend and all the luxury boutique owners were moaning that the economy was starting to bite into their wealthy customers pockets. Its cause for concern in luxury brand obsessed Thailand when the not inconsiderable wealthy elite begin to slow down their spending. The other point is that they are ostensibly searching peoples bags as they make their way into the underground for bombs. I'm not sure why the skytrain isn't subject to this kind of search yet but the congestion around rush hour will be paralyzing if this happens. I'll finish this one off later, as my net time is going to run out v. shortly.