Been off for a few days with a team from the Crime & Investigation Network. I cannot talk about the programme. But I can say I rose to the call of duty.
Yes you have guessed it I was in Pattaya where a film crew at a beer bar is as welcome as skunk at a lawn party, or, er, dog in a game of skittles etc.
But not this time. It seems down in Pattaya some people seemed to be queuing up to shake my hand.
One lovely chap who was profusely thanking me for something or other seemed like a good candidate for a short interview. He was in the real estate business. “Totally straight. Good products” and he knew something about the character(s) I and C & I were interested in.
He sort of agreed. Then he had that ‘Swimming to Cambodia’ moment and the deal was off. It was not because he had been court martialled in the services for ‘robbery’ – more to do with the fact that a big contract was in the offing. So it was off to find someone without a record.
They were even quite charming down at the Pattaya Provincial Court.
The closest I got to agony was having to drive at a very slow pace with my windows open down Soi Yodsak – or Beach Road, Soi 6, Pattaya’s daytime street of shame. The first time was fine. The retakes were agony.
(Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – TP films)
By the second time a girl was enticing me: “Peter – Come inside please” or something like that. Peter? I kept my eyes rigidly ahead. Do I have a clone with that name? Third time, more humiliatingly, the girls we’re calling me Pappa. I hoped sound was not picking this up.
What the incoming crew was unaware of was that to do the circuit one has to go up a narrow parallel road and this is the haunt of some pretty fearsome lady boys. Soon one was ‘shrieking’ as I passed and lifting up her micro skirt. And I was only driving the Honda – not the now legendary Porsche.
Approaching the producer who was situated some 30 yards before the camera I pleaded ‘Last time?’
Round the corner in the back alley I am sure, as a Pattaya Brit would put it: “One meat and two veg” were waiting.
Agreed.
I’m not sure how all that is going to look. But with the windows open I must have been sweating heavily. Oh dear. On to the Buffalo Bar!
Finally got back yesterday to find that my daughter Annie was waiting, not so much for her Dad, but her Dad’s IPhone. I meanwhile was reeking. I had not been able to change my shirt – for reasons of continuity.
It walked off to the laundry basket by itself.
All that perfectly taxable income, instead of allowing women with few choices to contribute to society, is going to the pimps and bar owners, who then pay off police and politicians. Seems to me this exploitative industry is the basis of Thailand's problems with corruption. Take the pimps out of the equation, then give the women safe working places instead to create a better way of prostitution. Simple.
Not convinced Drummond! Caught on soi 6 (back lane) and thats the best you can come up with 🙂
My dear Lee, I have had my moments but I have mellowed. I have gone out for lunch in Fleet Street and woken up in Montmartre having spend the night in the Folies Bergere and gone downhill from thereon. I have broadcast 'live' from the Tory Party conference in Brighton, when in fact I was propped up in a phone box in Chelsea after an all night party while my colleague (er partner) was making seagull noises outside. I have gone out in Copenhagen on a Friday and not returned until Monday having jumped in a police car I thought was a taxi. I have checked into a hotel in Florida and wondered why I was signing a document saying I was sexually rehabilitating. I have even broadcast live from Bangkok only to get a return call from the gallery who were concerned I had been eaten by a crocodile. And I cannot even bear to talk about Turkmenistan or Izmir, where I escorted a prisoner out of jail who had not seen a woman for 13 years. But wild horses would not drag me down that alleyway without the armour of my car. As it is I parked up and walked thru to check the producer had got enough only to find that a bag of rags I stepped on came alive and was a person.
Seagull noises outside…how gullible do you think we are.
As for Christy, put the government in charge…good one. Then who is going to manage it …women ??
Sam, er, I did get her to shut up. Yes the noises were not convincing.And I am sure the listeners would not have been convinced. Oi vey.
Why not a woman Sam Just think of Bhutto, Aquino, Thatcher, Yingluck, oh er.