October 30 2006
Pattaya: City of Whoremongers
In a bid to buff-up Pattaya's tarnished reputation, Egg TV has assembled a peerless cast of boggle-eyed freaks and dyed-in-the-wool whoremongers to sing the city's praises in a crudely edited documentary called "Pattaya: City of Smiles."
While showing off his heavily tattooed forearms and gold sovereign knuckleduster, the bullet-headed proprietor of the hooligan-friendly Dog's Bollocks pub complains that the Western media always portray Pattaya residents as either sex tourists or brothel owners - before revealing that his own prostitutes are tested for sexually transmitted diseases every fifteen days.
August 14 2006
Bangkok Dangerous: Nicholas Cage hits Soi Cowboy
Looking dangerously shifty in a Hawaiian shirt and black wig, Hollywood superstar Nicholas Cage was, last night, spotted lurking outside the Tilac Bar on Soi Cowboy - the very same Bangkok go-go bar where fellow thespian Hugh Grant famously had his tackle felt.
Unlike Hugh, however, Nicholas Cage was in Soi Cowboy on business filming a big-budget remake of the Pang brothers' cult gangster thriller, Bangkok Dangerous.
Signs warned Bangkok revellers that, by entering the area, they were consenting to being filmed - so it probably wasn't the best night to go striding down Soi Cowboy arm-in-arm with a six-foot transsexual.
July 13 2006
One Night in Bangkok: Lyrics & cheesy video
Despite being banned in Thailand, One Night in Bangkok is a go go bar anthem and, on any given night in Patpong, Nana Plaza or Soi Cowboy you'll hear it played many times.
Murray Head's cheesy 1980s video rendition is wickedly funny (unintentionally, of course) and we'll have a giggle at that later.
Ostensibly the rantings of a prudish chess master, One Night in Bangkok is stuffed with sexual innuendo and it's hard to believe that the song was penned by those nice beardy blokes from ABBA (with a bit of help from Tim Rice).
Benny and Bjorn obviously know their way around Bangkok so it's no surprise that they subsequently dropped the frumpy Agnetha and sun-dried Anni-Frid like a bad smell.
May 5 2006
James Bond does Bangkok
A shark pool, some lethal gadgets and a bowler hat-hurling midget in formal wear are the essential ingredients for some James Bond-related fun in Bangkok. Blofeld might fit in quite well here too.
Everyone's seen the famous dwarf doorman at the Check Inn 99 on Sukhumvit Road. I ventured inside once but the drinks were massively overpriced and the pervasive stench of wee left me shaken and most definitely not stirred.
The stylish Sin bar, situated in the unglamorous-sounding Raja Hotel Car Park, has a real-life shark tank. Unfortunately, however, it hangs from the ceiling so feeding your bungling subordinates to the fishes would take considerably more effort than a simple button-click.
In these far from ideal circumstances, unless Mr Bond was first relieved of his versatile Rolex and chained safely to a pulley, blurting out your fiendish plans for world domination too early would probably be a mistake. Personally, I'd just shoot the bugger at the first opportunity but, with Blofeld, you might as well be talking to a first-time tourist in love with a bar girl.
I asked the bartender what happens when the sharks get too big.
"We get new ones."
The food at Sin is quite nice but, when the sharks shrink overnight, it might be wise to avoid the "tuna" salad for a week or two.
March 16 2006
Thai TV on the Internet
Keeping your Thai wife happy in Farangland just got easier. Thai TV is now available over the Internet - and it's absolutely free. All you need is a decent broadband connection and you can get all the terrestrial Thai TV channels plus loads of other goodies.
Your teerak can now fill her boots with nauseating teen romance, overblown bitch-fights and mindless cross-dressing tomfoolery.
http://thaitv.webcindario.com/
(MS Internet Explorer only)
January 20 2006
Thai superstars face their dhoom dhoom doom
Tata Young's tribute to the Artful Dodger.
In Bangkok, you see Thai celebrities just about everywhere - if your girlfriend can be bothered to point them out. The Thai public are far too polite to gratuitously hack their superstars to death or even to pester them for autographs so famous folk have no reason to hide themselves away.
When she was still at school, my girlfriend and a classmate knocked on the front door of Thai superstar Thongchai "Bird" McIntyre's Bangkok home. Pee Bird wasn’t there, of course - he lives with some farang bloke in Switzerland - but his mum invited the girls in, showed them round and served up a tray of cold drinks. They were thrilled.
It's hard to imagine the same thing happening in the West. If the girls had gone round to Britney Spears house they'd have been Tazered to the ground and savaged by fierce dogs before even making it past the security fence.
Bangkok's most reliable celebrity-spotting venue is probably The Emporium. At lunchtime, the food court is often heaving with TV personalities but, in the flesh, they're a surprisingly ordinary bunch. As one famously tousle-haired Channel 3 presenter reached for her purse, her blouse rode up to reveal stretch-marks that looked like a ploughed field.
April 25 2004
Major Cineplex price hike imminent
Though they always deny it, struggling Thai businesses normally react by upping their prices rather than their competitiveness. Every message board in Thailand is cluttered with nightlife-related postings from outraged farangs who think that they are the first person to point this out.
However, I've never heard the explanation couched in such fine terms as those used by the Bangkok Post's business staff, reporting the 20 baht per ticket price hike planned by the Major Cineplex Group.
Major CEO Vicha Poolvaraluck yesterday hinted at the price rise while denying that it was motivated by the company's desire to generate more cash to compensate for a recent slowdown in the cinema business.
By committing these words to memory we can, together, raise the level of farang debate taking place every night on the shabby velvet bench-seats of the nation's go-go bars.
April 10 2004
Tony Soprano's Thai blowjob surprise
The Thai media censors have no objection to programmes showing mangled corpses or deformed babies but they draw the line at someone puffing on a cigarette. By pixellating the thing out, they respond as if the smoker was waggling his genitalia.
The funniest example of this nonsense was in a Thai-sreened episode of the Sopranos. Tony Soprano is lying in bed, holding a big Cuban cigar beside his left hip. As his mistress leans forward to light it for him, her head disappears into the pixellated area and it looks like she's performing a service of an entirely different nature.
April 3 2004
The Eye 2
The Eye isn't just a great horror movie; it was a revelation. Free of stodgy romance and katoey-related tomfoolery (See Bangkok International Film Festival), I thought it was the best Thai film of all time - until I found out that it was actually made by the Pang Brothers from Hong Kong. It was mostly filmed in Thailand, though.
With a pedigree like this, The Eye 2 had to be worth a look - particularly as it stars the delicious Shu Qi (See Shu Qi: Actress and nude model). Undeterred by a poor review in the Bangkok Post, I went to see for myself. In all honesty, though, I'd watch a lengthy documentary about the manufacture of Thai handicrafts if Shu Qi was in it.
In my view, the critics got it wrong. The Eye 2 is almost as good as its predecessor. It does employ similar scare tactics but, so long as you don't watch both films in the same month, they still work.
February 9 2004
SF Cinema City: Buy movie tickets online
Turning up at a Bangkok cinema on spec usually means waiting around for an hour or two in an upscale shopping mall. Your Thai girlfriend would be delighted to go shopping but, for any farang male, it's the ultimate nightmare scenario. The very thought of it makes the blood drain from my wallet.
Fortunately, credit card holders can now pre-book cinema tickets through the SF Cinema City website. You have to register first but it's straightforward enough. The main SFX cinemas are at Mah Boon Khrong (MBK) and the Emporium but there are also others at Bangkae, Bangkapi, Ngamwongwan, and Ladprao.
January 17 2004
Bangkok International Film Festival
Thai films rarely get international recognition and, judging by recent releases, it's easy to understand why. We have bank-robbing ladyboys, cheerleading ladyboys, a boxing ladyboy (saving up for his operation) and screaming ladyboys lost in a forest. Do you see a pattern emerging? Incidentally, the last London Film Festival featured just one film from Thailand. Can you guess who was in it? That's right - more fucking ladyboys!
Fortunately, you won't be made to suffer their silly gravel-voiced antics at the Bangkok International Film Festival 2004 because it also features a diverse line-up of art-house classics from around the world. For just 12 days, Thailand's movie fans will get a much-needed supplement to their normal diet of Hollywood popcorn.
Top attraction is Lost in Translation, with Bill Murray as a jet-lagged American who finds unexpected romance at the Tokyo Hilton. Others include Dogville which has Nicole Kidman fleeing the mob and the critically acclaimed 21 Grams with Sean Penn. Naturally, I will be avoiding Zatoichi, a Japanese drama featuring a cross-dressing geisha. It might go down well with Thai audiences, though.
December 11 2003
History Channel: Fill Thailand's knowledge void
Could you tolerate watching the space shuttle explode up to 20-times a night? If so, subscribing to the History Channel could help you to fill the intellectual void of Thailand's TV schedules.
With topics as diverse as ancient mysteries, biography, modern marvels and military blunders, it makes a nice change from dull Hollywood movies, unfunny bloopers and real-life cop shows. Perhaps it concentrates too much on American history but it does offer plenty of intelligent viewing.
Some crap manages to sneak in, though. In a show called The Unexplained, new-age twats and neurotic housewives are given free rein to blather on about ghostly encounters and psychic energy. This show sucks so badly that it creates a near-perfect vacuum around the TV set.
November 29 2003
UBC: Thai satellite & cable TV
Thailand's six terrestrial channels seem to show the same crappy drama 24 hours a day. Rich girl falls for bad boy. Big-haired mum and Benz-driving dad go berserk in their mansion. Siblings, friends and servants pitch in. Later, the bad boy reveals himself to be rich too and they marry. That's it - and there aren't any subtitles either. It's utterly intolerable.
Many apartments offer a cable TV service but this is normally limited to one movie channel, CNN and MTV. Consequently, farang-friendly buildings throughout Thailand sprout satellite dishes like acne.
The choice of satellite TV operators includes UBC, UBC and er... UBC. Yes, it's a monopoly and it behaves like one too - charging whatever it wants and delivering a lacklustre service - but it's the only lifeline in Thailand's TV dead-zone, so we can't get too picky.
October 17 2003
APEC comedy channel
This week, Bangkok is hosting the APEC meeting of world leaders. In the West, yawn-inducing international talking-shops tend to pass unnoticed. Not so here. Unaccustomed to the international spotlight, star-stuck Thai authorities are behaving like gauche teenagers organising their first drinks party. Heavy-handed preparations have brought the city to a virtual standstill.
Don't miss the unintentionally hilarious APEC channel. Broadcast 24 hours a day on UBC 52 and terrestrial Channel 11, it tries desperately to fill the void. Here are today's headlines:
- Exciting bilateral trade deal with Peru - apparently Thailand may build an embassy there sometime in the future.
- The delegates will be served Thai wine (hopefully they have provided enough pot plants for them to dump it into).
- Details of Bangkok road closures (nearly all of them).
The other programs are a predictable mix of propaganda, Thai handicrafts and elephants taking a bath. The Tinglish commentary is delivered by a random bar girl. It's like North Korea producing Thai Airways in-flight entertainment.
September 13 2003
Butterfly Man
Stuart Laing canoodles with sexy Mamee Nakprasitte in Butterfly Man
An Englishman comes to Thailand, meets a girl and totally loses the plot. This familiar tale makes its screen debut in Butterfly Man.
Adam (Stuart Laing) takes his girlfriend on holiday to Thailand in a last-ditch attempt to save their flagging relationship. However, in typical girlie fashion she "finds herself" by shagging the first unsuitable man who comes along - in her case, a long-haired Thai gigolo she meets on Kaosan Road.
Our newly single hero sets off on a quest to discover the real Thailand and makes his way down to Koh Samui. There, he meets a dodgy local farang who introduces him to charming Thai masseuse Em (Mamee Nakprasitte). His life will never be the same again.
Previously
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
December 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
