Hot weather

About this time last year back in the UK I drove from Northampton to Reading in my Peugeot 206cc with the roof down. It was fun and as it were a final goodbye to the car which I had to sell due to taking up an assignment in India.

Here in Chennai I reckon you’d have to be crackers to drive an open top car. Far from having a cooling effect you would probably end up hotter than ever. After a few days of rain as Chennai caught the edge of a cyclone the daytime temperature has been hitting 40 C. Air conditioning in both the home and the car is more or less essential to survival – especially when you come from a country with a climate like England.

I did have a worrying moment last Friday when a fuse blew in my flat and the living room was deprived of air conditioning. I did wonder if I was going to have to spend the weekend in the bedroom (where it still worked) but the landlord got it fixed the next day.

This meant I was still able to watch the England versus Bangladesh cricket on TV. Not the most exciting cricket – but credit to Bangladesh for a good effort. The only problem with cricket on TV over here is the repetitive adverts – at the end of every over, at the fall of a wicket, at the time of a drinks break, or even when a batsman makes a 50 or 100 and is stopping for the applause.

And it’s the same set of adverts every time – as if repeating the same thing will make me buy a TV recorder, a mobile telephone or some fruit juice.

Probably the worst of the lot are ones for some football tournament in South Africa. Like I care – who needs football when you can watch cricket?

Life goes on as normal

Whislst HMG advises against travel to Thailand and events in Bangkok seem to be taking a turn for the worse Pattaya (where I'm on vacation) seems to be splendidly indifferent to it all. Other than a few less people the nightlife continues just as it always has.

24 Hour News

Trying to figure out what was going on in the UK Election from afar isn’t easy – especially if you are not permanently wired to the net and travelling from country to country.

I’m not sure whether the “24 Hour” news channels are a help or a hindrance either.

When I left India on Friday night it was fairly obvious that there were three alternatives – a minority Conservative Government, or a Coalition/Alliance of either Conservatives & Liberal Democrats or Labour & Liberal Democrats.

Yet somehow the news channels managed a nonstop stream of pundits, experts, ex- MPs, activists, political hacks and activists endlessly speculating and offering their ten pennyworth as to what was going to be the outcome.

So it came as something of a surprise to get an e-mail asking my opinion of the new government on Wednesday morning as I’d gone to bed the night before assuming that we were in for more of the same.

Back in 1997 I was on vacation in Phuket and came back from the beach to see pictures of Princess Diana on the TV screens. As anyone reading this probably knows she died in a car crash in Paris. This didn’t stop one of the “24 Hour” news channels posting a man outside Buckingham Palace at seven o’clock in the morning.

So what did he have to report at that time of day on a Sunday? A bus load of Japanese Tourists had turned up, had their photographs taken, and gone.

Such is the nature of 24 hour news.............................