She who must be obeyed takes her job of managing me very seriously. It’s an uphill struggle, a fight against the combined evils of ageing and apathy.

She likes me to smell fresh and I have no trouble with that; even if I am returned to the bathroom for a second attempt when my face smells like cheese, even if I haven’t eaten any cheese. She likes me to dress well, which is in direct conflict with my standard attire of jeans and T-shirt; but at least she buys my T-shirts. She doesn’t buy my underwear which is probably why there are holes where there shouldn’t be.

A constant irritation for her is my facial hair. She can sit me in a chair and attack the hair on my head occasionally, but the hair on my face needs more regular attention which of course I frequently ignore.

Yesterday we were heading out and she looked at me disapprovingly.

If I stand back and look at you, you look like a….a…..a wizard.

What, you mean someone clever and devious with a jaunty hat and long magic stick?

No, just a crap wizard.

There then followed an entreaty that I should remove my facial hair entirely; but this is a bad idea because I may look like a crap wizard now, but I look like something even crappier if all my face is revealed. Which is why for most of my post-pubescent life, I have kept my face partially covered, except for once.

I was working in Bangkok, and for the first and last time in my life I found myself a member of the management team. Most of the other members of the team, and the managing director, were engineers of some sort; so my back-office responsibilities were tolerated as mere supporters of the more important task of sucking oil out of the ground. Still, they were a good bunch and we worked well together and had a load more fun than management teams are probably meant to have. I like to think I was an important instigator of the fun element, to the extent I was once reminded by the MD that I was meant to be employed for more than my entertainment value. High praise indeed!

One of the company traditions was the end of year party, and one of the traditions of that party (started by the boss who fancied himself as a bit of a showman) was a show by the management team. Being Thailand, we were expected to make dicks of ourselves without losing the respect we were due, which was a fine balance, and I expect we strayed into the making dicks of ourselves segment more often than we should.

Still, the previous year had been a success, and we were planning what we should do for the current year. For reasons I forget, the consensus was that we would mime to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, an idea that seemed totally lacking in comedic possibilities; until I suggested that one of us should come on the stage as the uptown girl. This was immediately seized upon as a great idea and everyone looked at me and I felt very proud of myself until I realised why they were looking at me.

“No, no, no. Not me. I have a beard, wouldn’t work on an uptown girl.” “Shave it off”, said the drilling manager who was big and Dutch and scary.

“Good”, said the boss, “that’s decided then”. Even though it wasn’t. Shit.

The Thais in our company were bloody good at organising things. Example: at the end of my time there we sold the company and my IT division had two weeks to completely dismantle the IT infrastructure installed by the old owner and replace it with something new for the new owner. I really doubted this could be done in the time available; but they came up with a plan which filled every one of the fourteen days, and they did it; albeit by filling some days with all 24 hours. Heroes.

So imagine how well they could plan something which involved lots of food and endless sanuk?

Once my role was made known to the secret party planning committee, I was taken under their wing and trasnported to a place in Bangkok that hired party dresses, no questions asked as to the sex of the renter. I was exceedingly embarrassed to enter such a place, but I need not have worried; every single customer trying on a dress during their lunch break was a man preparing for their company’s end of year party.

Dress selected (and matching high-heeled shoes and god knows what else), I turned up for the party, face hair intact. About one hour before our show, I left the main room and headed for a secluded toilet. Moment of truth, and before too long my beard and moustache had been transferred from my face to the sink and I suddenly didn’t recognise myself. No time to scream; because I was then put under the enthusiastic care of a bunch of ladyboys who took great delight in layering several inches of make-up onto my resigned face. Finally the transformation was complete and I was ejected onto the stage in a flurry of lace and a stumble of high heels.

Picked up the Lomo photos from the shop last night and they were at considerably less crap than expected. In fact they were less crap than I hoped, I thought that the whole point of Lomography was to to produce shit photos and pretend they were art.

She who must be obeyed was quite enthused and was off this morning to find another film and a battery for her camera flash. I spent time scanning some of the shots so she can share them online.

I may have neglected to mention that when I bought a Lomo for my wife for her birthday, I got a bit carried away in the shop and ended up with two cameras… After all, if she is going Lomo shooting, she is going to want company; and that is my excuse. And so it was I found myself with three cameras round my neck yesterday; the Panasonic GX1, my Kiev film camera which had a roll to finish, and a Lomo.

A Lomo is fun to shoot with. It’s all plastic so it weighs very little. Bugger all to set other than the distance scale, for which there are limited options. Then just shoot and hope something works. One of the extra features I wanted to play with was the ability to take two shots on a single frame. Take the first shot, then press a lever on the bottom of the camera and you can take a second shot (or a third) without winding on the film. To be successful, you need to think about what you want to achieve and make sure you arrange light and dark areas so the right pieces of each shot shine through. Which means most of my attempts were a crazy mess; but this one gives an idea.

She who must be obeyed started her weekend today and announced she wanted to go and try out her new Lomo camera. This sudden enthusiasm was in no way related to the constant nagging she has been receiving from me (“don’t you like your present?”, “when are you going to use that camera I bought you?”, “if you loved me, you’d use it”).

Luckily, we had a new place to go. Kwan, owner of the RC car racing track, has spent the last few months eating less and working out more and has transformed himself from Mr. Fatty to Mr. Toned. I was impressed, not so much with his new body because I could never look like that, but with the location where the photos were taken; an abandoned nightclub with a load of graffiti.

My only hiccup when using the new 75mm lens, was that it sometimes slowed down a little when focusing.

Thought I should check this out further, and see how the lens performed on an Olympus body; so I borrowed Nik’s EM-5 for a few hours. This also provided the opportunity for a camera porn shot; don’t they look lovely together?:

It is a time honoured tradition that anyone who acquires a new camera must immediately take photos of their cat and publish them over the wide wide world of web, simultaneously announcing “I have a cat!” “I have a new camera!” and “I have no idea what else I am going to use it for!”.

Not wishing to break with tradition, I made sure that the first photo I took with my new Olympus 75mm was of Gabrielle, taking the afternoon sunshine in the back bedroom and checking out my new acquisition with some disapproval through the bars at the end of the bed. Never got round to the web publishing bit of the tradition though; so here we are:

I reckon it was a government plot.

A stunning opening ceremony, followed by two weeks of (mainly) sunshine, epic sport, many medals and worldwide plaudits for a job well done. There was a real danger that we Brits could start to feel good about ourselves, and goodness knows what horrors that might lead to. Time to gently lead us back into reality with a totally shit closing ceremony.

The high point for me was a video of a dead man singing “Imagine”. The low point was the rest of it. A bunch of self-absorbed tossers, all past their sell-by dates, singing mainly out of tune to the accompaniment of a “show” which lacked imagination, pace or relevance. Spice Girls: Do you wanna be my lover? No, but I could use a sniper rifle. The Who as a closing act? My Generation was my generation; hardly relevant to most people today; is that really the best you could do?

Some interest expressed in comments on previous posts as to the current state of the Koral development.

I went yesterday and there is good news!! Although building work on the main structures may have fallen a little behind schedule, the landscaping efforts to develop the “beautiful gardens” have been extensive since my last visit, with the natural look clearly in evidence.

At the beach this afternoon, taking some videos of SUP action for Craig, and I spot these two posing for self-portraits. Full marks to the Panasonic 100-300mm which has a reputation for being a little soft at the long end, but it nailed this moment very nicely.

Many countries have a nominated father’s day and mother’s day. In some places they are merely sponsored events by greeting cards companies; accepted by the weary populace as another necessary evil. Not so in Thailand, where both days are linked to the birthdays of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen; so these these days are treated as something special, with fireworks and parades being the norm.

Today is mother’s day; and as well as many Mums being trailed around shopping malls and inserted into restaurants, we had a parade for the Queen planned in Pattaya. Such parades are good to watch and fun to photograph and I set off early to be there on time. Traffic would be terrible, so I parked a long way away and walked to the start point.

The sky looked ominously dark and, sure enough, ten minutes before the planned start there was a massive storm. I joined hundreds of prospective marchers in a local shopping mall, and we waited.