There has been an increase in hits on this site over the last twenty four hours as people search for information following the sinking of a Koh Larn ferry yesterday with six people killed, an unconfirmed number still missing, and many injured.

The reason Pattaya Days was visited was because I had previously reported on an incident where two such vessels collided, leading to death and injury. Local news reported “Pattaya is coming to terms with a boating accident which will undoubtedly lead to a major overhaul of safety procedures for pleasure boats and speed boats and possible criminal charges against the boat operators involved in the accident.”

Two Olympus E-M1 cameras!

Had a mail last week from a “creative agency” in New York, enquiring about the acquisition of one my polo shots for some sort of promotion in Argentina. I advised them that I would be happy to sell them the photo provided they provided me with a reference of some sort, because I have more than 30,000 photos in my polo collection on the web; and one horsey shot looks very like another to me (I didn’t actually tell them that).

It’s a whole month since we went to the opening day of the Teddy Bear Museum, which wasn’t. She who must be obeyed had taken the opportunity of their 10% pricing offer on that day and secured us a couple of bargain tickets; which meant 25 baht for her and 50 baht for me; because teddies are racists.

The tickets were only valid until the end of this month; so we headed to the museum this morning with real anticipation. My wife was in such a hurry that she nearly obliterated a couple of Russian tourists who dared to hover on the cusp of the road before dashing for the comparative safety of the pavement. I saw the look of naked fear in their eyes as we whizzed past.

“He who hesitates is lost” I observed pithily.

“Is that an English saying”, enquired the harbinger of near death, sawing at the steering wheel.

“Indeed it is, do you know who said it?”

“George Michael?”

Of course I had no idea who said it; so I could only answer: “Correct!”

While I furtively looked up the real author of this particularly banal offering (it was Adam Ant), she who must be obeyed was considering what we might witness in the exciting hours ahead. “It’s a museum, so we will find out about the history of the teddy bear? Who invented them, where the name came from, things like that?'

I assured her that that was the case and read out the Wikipedia definition of “museum” in a voice which was meant to indicate that I was defining this from my own massive intellect and not reading it from the wide wide word of web.

A museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary.

After a few more tourist near misses, we parked and made our way to the entrance: