Bits and Pieces

MOSQUITOES (just spent five minutes researching the plural spelling!)
Alfred has already warned me about going on about mosquitoes - he says that if you choose to move to a country with mosquitoes, there is no point complaining about them all the time. But, having invested in an electric tennis racquet for swatting them, I then decided to try and find some sort of electric mosquito-killer that I could just leave on all the time and this brought about an exciting foray into the world of Chinese electronic products! I will let the pictures speak for themselves - suffice to say that reading the English-language instructions on Chinese products continues to be a never-ending joy! (Alfred: Do pay special attention to the instructions and don't be distracted by the amazing visual design concepts!).

             

















TEACHING
So we are both teaching now, Martine in the Institut Français on Lane Xang and me in AVIS Rent-a-Car plus Maurizio, with a few other possibilities in the pipeline. Teaching in AVIS is fun though the 'classroom' does present some interesting challenges! Originally, the classroom (usually used as a storage room plus lunch space) looked like the first two pictures.

 
Then Keo added a proper whiteboard and a magnetic board (which is really useful). Now, however, due to space shortages, some additional desks have had to be moved in, at some of which people actually work during my class!!

 


Now, there are 37 people working in AVIS but, thankfully, turnout at class has been comparatively low because, let's face it, where would I put them!! They are lovely, enthusiastic students and not at all shy or reticent about joining in or taking part in activities but they do range from people with Intermediate-level English to those who don't know the Western alphabet or numbers, so that's a bit of a challenge!!

READING
One of the great pleasures of moving here has been the chance to catch up on reading. Currently I am reading two books - 'Killed at the Whim of a Hat' by Colin Cotterill (because I have finished his series of books set in Laos, so I have moved on to his Thai novels)(Alfred: the title is a quote from George W. Bush, by the way, in case you were wondering) and 'Exquisite Revenge' by Abby Green (Mills & Boon)(Alfred: .............em, ...wh-....., sorry?), which is the first Mills & Boon I have ever read  (Alfred: Hello? Mills & Boon? This is a departure from the norm ..... oh, hang on: Abby Green? That's really Daisy Cummins, isn't it. Checking up on your past pupils again, eh?). Two really excellent books by Robert Cooper on Laos have been invaluable, a pile of old Science Fiction and some new stuff as well (strongly recommend Paolo Bacigalupi's books set in a futuristic Thailand) and rereading old favourites like Barbara Tuchman, Anthony Beevor, Stephen Ambrose, Iain M. Banks and so on. Having a Kindle app on my phone is amazing (Alfred: Just as well there are plenty of bathrooms in the house, for Martine's sake and that of visitors!).

A couple of recommendations:
All the Dr Siri books by Colin Cotteril (see previous blog entry)
Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The WindupGirl by Paolo Bacigalupi (SF)
Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words by Bill Bryson
Selected Essays by Gore Vidal
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin (an old old favourite)
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Alfred: Actually, Ruairí and Martine listened to this as an audiobook - read by the amazing Fiona Shaw, brilliant performance!)
The Crimean War by Orlando Figes
Das Reich by Max Hastings
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (Alfred: But we now know it is really J.K. Rowling)
Old Man's War series by John Scalzi (SF)
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

(Alfred: Oh yes, if you DID read the last blog entry you may remember our confusion over the identity of the real writer of the series set on the West Bank. Well, when Ruairí followed the blog link on Colin Cotterill's page, it took him to the International Crime Writers' blog and the entry quoted was from Matt Rees, not Colin Cotterill! But they look good and I figure that may be our next read).

I also tried reading The Lord of the Rings in French ... and gave up almost immediately. Mind you, it's hard to read it in English at my age, rather more heavy going than one remembers from one's teenage years!

TRIPS TO THAILAND
As neither of us have permanent visas, once a month we have to travel across the Friendship Bridge into Thailand in order to return and renew our visas. The first two times was pretty heavy going - interminable queues and a real sense of a day wasted - but now that we have explored Nong Khai a little more, we look forward to these trips (Alfred: Let's be honest, since you found out where Tesco's is). A chance to stock up on items we can't easily find here or, to be honest, that are of much better quality in Thailand. Our shopping list this time consisted of:

• bike lubricant
• socks (men's)
• A4 plastic folders, coloured card and a stapler that takes No. 10 staples
• shoes (women's)
• tops
• plant food

But we also ended buying a few more things, as one does!

• sheets
• deep-fried marinated pork bits
• spanners
• a door-knob
• Thai Basil
• four miniature pineapples
• green beans
• fresh ginger (surprisingly hard to find good ginger here)
• gardening gloves
• three different kinds of mushroom
• yoghurt
• pulses (including the charmingly-named 'Job's Tears')
• paper napkins
• a kit for refilling printer cartridges
• hair dye

There may have been more. And we had an amazing Japanese meal which left us both so stuffed we swore we could never eat again (Alfred: They did).

Mammy visits Vientiane!

MAMMY'S VISIT - PICTURE ALBUM

I have just left Mammy at the airport for her long trip home, amazed again at the efficiency and helpfulness of Asian airlines - checked in in four minutes with boarding cards printed for all three flights, luggage checked through and the wheelchair assistance had arrived by the time check-in finished! (Alfred: She just emailed to say that the flight to Bangkok is delayed by three hours. So that means three hours in the Air Lao VIP lounge with free food and drink and internet access and her stopover in Bangkok cut from seven to four hours - even the delays work in her favour!). It has been a whirlwind month with a lot seen and more remaining to be seen the next time she comes. And, in the next couple of weeks, we have my uncle Alex, Martine's mother, brother and sister-in-law and my brother Aindriú's best friend, Eddie Smith and his partner.

Anyway, here are a few highlights from the visit (Alfred: Leaving out Luang Prabang which we did in the last post).

Wat Si Muang

Wat Sisaket with Maurizio

Wat Sisaket

Wat Sisaket

Wat Ho Prakeo

Wat Ho Prakeo with Corinne

Phat Tich Vietnamese temple

Phat Tich Vietnamese temple

Maurizio - our Italian friend and my English student - was a godsend and last Wednesday we did a tour of the city, including as many of the important locations from the Dr. Siri books as possible (Alfred: Dr. Siri - you know! Oh, well, a guy called Colin Cotterill has written a series of detective novels set in 1970s Laos and featuring the Lao National Coroner Dr Siri. Even if you aren't interested in Laos, these books are a joy - well-written, well-plotted, witty and extremely varied from volume to volume - nine so far. Follow this link if you would like more info. And ALL the royalties from the books go to fund education projects in rural Laos, just saying.) So we headed off and (Alfred: Hang on, hadn't finished. You should actually visit Colin Cotterrill's website anyway because it is bloody hilarious!! And there are links to his very entertaining blog, even more almost as entertaining as this one. So, follow that link!) ... we headed off and visited Wat Sisaket, the oldest surviving Wat in Vientiane - the Thai army destroyed all the others and depopulated the city but this one remained in use (Alfred: Had a couple of Thai royals buried there, that's what saved them. Wise corpse investment.) and Wat Si Muang which contains the zero milestone marking the centre of the city and which is (apparently) guarded by the Sacred Maid - she wasn't there when we visited. We also went to the Ha Prakeo museum where Mammy met a young Englishwoman - Corinne - who had just arrived from Japan and was waiting for a job interview with the British Council in Myanmar. And we finished off with the Vietnamese Temple - Phat Tich - which is amazingly different to anything you can see in Laos.

So a great day and (Alfred: OMG, the blog is really brilliant! And apparently he writes thrillers set on the West Bank as well! Look at this bit from a blog entry in 2009:

There are, of course, Arabic phrases like this for so many situations and they often convey something beyond the basic meaning of the phrase. For example, in THE SAMARITAN’S SECRET, my latest novel, a character tells a priest “Long life to you.” Omar and all the other characters present understand immediately that this means someone else has died. (The unspoken part of the phrase is, “…but eventually you’ll die like the guy whose death I’m going to tell you about.”)

How does this affect the plot or pacing of my books? Well, in some thrillers, a character can jump through a door and start berating everyone in sight, even beating them up. In Palestine, he has to—absolutely has to—wish them blessings from Allah and inquire after their health first.

If he didn’t, he’d be showing himself to be a really, really bad guy. And that would be giving away the ending. )

Enough already! 

HAIR
I haven't had a haircut since I got one of my usual shaved looks last August. But eventually it just threatened to get out of control and the question arose - where to get a haircut? And, lo and behold, it turns out that my student Maurizio, as well as being a great cook, Adobe Photoshop expert and willing chauffeur, was also in a former existence a professional hairdresser! So, Martine, Mammy and I all got our hair done, and for free, and he cooked us lunch too!!

Me a week before (early morning -
Alfred: never would have guessed!)

 

(Alfred: Hang on - I have just been searching for 'The Samaritan's Secret' and it was written by someone called Matt Rees. Pseudonym? Wikipedia says  Rees was born in Newport, Wales. As a journalist, Rees covered the Middle East for over a decade. He was TIME's Jerusalem bureau chief from 2000 until 2006, writing award-winning stories about the Palestinian intifada. He also worked as Middle East correspondent for The Scotsman and Newsweek. Sounds like a different person. Watch this space - Dr Siri is not the only detective around!).