Search Results for: hi-so

Dei ex machina and laid-back hi-so hysteria

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It’s been hard to focus on work, what with the pace of events, the phone calls and the temptation to check the Twitter and e-mail universe every minute or so for breaking news.

Yesterday I also kept finding myself drawn to the roof of our apartment building for a panoramic view of events. (These photos were taken by the lovely Ms. Plug, a downstairs neighbor and freelance photographer who joined me.) What with the spotter plane soaring around the Baiyoke … Read more

Premature evacuations offend spirits of the place

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Here on my eight-floor balcony, watching the sun retire across the river to the west, I can almost hear the waters advancing from Saphan Kwai. Or is that merely the kerfuffle of conflicting rumor? For weeks, here in Phya Thai District, we’ve awaited the floods from the north as they advance with glacial alacrity. One of the many rumors, inconsistently promulgated by government officials, was that we might well be spared altogether.

Ultimately, though, it seems the hi-so spirits of … Read more

Karmic comeuppance impending

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Bad karma comes knocking.

This is Thailand’s worst flood in 50 years and, judging only by the music and, perhaps, the fact that people didn’t have to check Twitter feeds every minute or so throughout, the 1942 version (video link) looked like lots more fun.

 

 

 

 

4.30pm. Mon. 24 October 2011. Up to the minute report from inner-city Bangkok (Soi Ari–Saphan Kwai).

A trickle of water is emerging from a drain on Phaholyothin Road in … Read more

Get your new words while they’re hot (warm, anyway)

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Watch the English language evolve! Here are some of this site’s neologisms—original, borrowed and even commissioned—from my posts over the past year or two. The numbers refer to how many hits each gets on Google as of right now.

* Cymbalalalazophobia (fashioned to order by Dr Anthony Alcock, coiner of words for our age extraordinaire). 0 hits (a big surprise) 

* Iktsuarpok (with thanks to the Inuit and to Adam Jacot de  Boinod for collecting this specimen). 7,570 hits

 … Read more

Starbucks and the social construction of reality

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Sara and I are having breakfast at Starbucks. Being a kee niaow species of curmudgeon, I’m complaining about everything from the prices to the clonish docking of people and their digital devices. Discerning impatience in her manner, I eventually desist.

“Give me a break,” she says, going on to explain that Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee; it sells a lifestyle experience, and I should dummy up about it, she’s trying to relax.

Ah, I reply. So we’re banking some sort of … Read more

Pretty good sandwiches. Questions of relativity and quantum theory

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The other day I went to meet the charming Ms. Weow at the new Dean & Deluca coffeeshop, a glitzy branch of the New York deli in what’s to be the ground floor of the Ritz Carleton Residences, still under construction.

On my way over, I phoned her to check that I had the correct location.

“Right at the Chong Nongsri BTS Station,” she said.

“West side or east?”

“Which way are you facing now?” she asked me.

“What do … Read more

Starving writers & gouty moguls

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New penance for starving writers: black-pepper oatmeal cookies (from Scotland, culinary capital of the universe). I have them with sencha tea.

My companion du jour says they aren’t sweet, aren’t delicious and are way too expensive (only available at Villa, in Bangkok). Neither has she any use for hair shirts or unheated garrets.

Actually, in Bangkok all garrets are unheated, at least by human design. Same goes for the penthouses, for that matter. What do starving writers and gouty moguls … Read more