It’s only a couple of days before the Thai general election and, as an outsider, it would be easy to be smug about the lack of democracy and the assorted puppets and criminals running for office.

Nothing like the UK you might think, where there is a rigorous system of democracy that ensures only the brightest and best political minds reach parliament. People like Ed Milliband…..

Now go to this link and watch all of this.

She who must be obeyed likes to chat. Sometimes she likes to chat with me, and sometimes she just chats to herself. It’s important that I recognise which chat is which, otherwise I might interrupt one of her stream of consciousness offerings which are frequently amusing and best left uninterrupted. Like this one:

Preamble: We were driving down beach road and observed the usual collection of scruffy hookers, waiting for equally scruffy customers. I mentioned that there would be a high risk of disease from an association with one of these ladies. There was silence for a few seconds, and then she started:

Buying lottery tickets.

How many photos have you taken that are out of focus? The answer will be something between “all of them” and “some”.

If you have a small child rushing around, or are trying to focus in on individual people moving down the street; then your failure rate will be very high.

If only there was a camera where you could just snap away and then fix the focus later.

Take the shot below. It’s focused on the girl in the foreground. I wonder what the girl in the red dress looks like? Click on her. Now you know. Click anywhere and that point will come in focus (unless you are using a tablet or IE6).

Our second day in Penang and we woke up to pouring rain. What to do, other than consume vast quantities of roti? Through a blur of cocktails the previous evening, I recalled that the barman had recommended a trip to Penang Hill for a view over the city; followed by a trip to a nearby temple with the best laksa in town available nearby.

It was either that or sit in the hotel feeling miserable; so we hopped on a bus and headed out to the hill. There are two ways of getting to the top. Walk for several hours, or take the recently opened funicular railway. We chose the latter and were soon sitting in the gloom waiting for the ride up the hill.