UKIP Are Awful (18th April)

With the UK General Election just a few short weeks away, there's been more and more press coverage of the UK Independence Party, and their leader Nigel Farage.

He looks exactly what you'd expect a man named Nigel would look like.

Now I don't want to waste all my ammunition on Nige and UKIP; after all, I anticipate that there will be many more editions of UKIP Are Awful before the election on 7th May. However, for the uninitiated...

Proust Questionnaire (Part 2 - Truth)

In my last post I talked about the Proust questionnaire, and how for the first question I decided that my favorite virtues were compassion and truth. For what it's worth, here are some thoughts on truth, and the relationship between truth and honesty. Incidentally, I wrote this earlier in the day when I was far less frazzled, so I hope it's slightly more readable than the last post...

Proust Questionnaire (Part 1 - Compassion)

Forgive me if this is a little rambling and self-indulgent (what's new, amIright?!), but it's 4 in the morning, I can't sleep, and I felt a burning need to write something. Without further ado:

Oh Proust, you old cad.

I recently bumped into the famous Proust questionnaire online, in which the renowned author famously answered some questions about his thoughts and beliefs. I got bogged down in the first question: "Your favourite virtue"? After a little introspection, I came up with two joint favorites; compassion and truth. Here, I'm going to write about compassion.

Songkran

Songkran has been and gone for another year, as three days of water based madness come to an end. 

To the unfamiliar, Songkran is a holiday celebrating the Thai new year (and also lines up with Buddhist new years in other countries too). In the olden days, it was traditional to pour water on people to absolve them of sin committed in the previous year. 

As you may have gathered, this nugget of tradition has transmuted itself into an annual watery riot from 13th-15th April. The undisputed centre of festivities is the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, where the central moat around the old city becomes the focal point for all forms of liquid-based frivolity. 

Pro-tip: Always aim at trucks. They're like getting five or six birds with one stone.

In my humble opinion, Songkran acts in much the same way as The Purge; it's a limited-time opportunity for people to go crazy, let off some steam, break normal rules and taboos and have a bloody good time doing so. You want to douse a policeman? You want to crack open a Chang tower at noon? You're a guy who doesn't feel like wearing a shirt, or a lady who wants to wear an outfit revealing your shoulders (both ordinarily scandalous)? You want to drive a pick-up truck full of your friends after drinking a bottle of whisky? Sure, sure, sure, and (sadly) sure. Drink driving aside, Songkran remains a fantastic occasion and one of the highlights of the year for many people.


With that in mind, here's a check-list of some of the sights, sounds, and other assorted assaults on the senses that you might find at Songkran next year:

☐ Slag wagons/hunk trucks: never ones to miss an opportunity for exploitative advertising, many of the country's top brands have branded pick-up trucks drive around the moat with scantily clad models perched precariously on top. These inevitably attract a great deal of attention, and watery ammunition.

☐ The look of pure evil on a little girl's face: Of all the people playing with water at Songkran, I swear that little girls are the most conivingly evil souls of all. There was one little girl this year (probably no older than 7) who hit me with an ice cold bucket, laughed as I cleared my eyes, and then hit me with a second bucket whilst cackling. Beware! 

☐ The bro-tastic foreigner who takes things too far: He's got a super-soaker, and he's aiming directly for the eyes. Impervious to the confused, disapproving looks of those around him, he's rather missed the point of a playful water fight. I'd love to do a cautionary PSA for this next year: Don't be a bro, aim for the torso.


☐ Go-Pro douche: a slight variant on the above bro, this one has fitted a $200 camera onto his $3 water gun. It'll no doubt make a great segment in the compilation video of his "Amazing Gap Year". I definitely saw at least three of these guys (and they were all guys), though there were probably many more. As you can probably tell, though I hate this kind of person I'd also really like to have their camera too. I suppose I'm part of the problem here.

☐ The middle-aged tourist who had no idea it'd be this crazy: typically Chinese, but occasionally farang, this person wanders around in far-too-nice clothes with a dazed, shell-shocked expression on their face. They had heard what Songkran was about, but sadly they hadn't quite prepared themselves for the more modern experience of throbbing techno and wall-to-wall watery carnage.

☐ Free Red Bulls: We came upon a truck with people dispensing free little bottles of Red Bull. Sure, they only cost 10 Baht, and we could have easily just walked into 7/11 and bought one, but these were free, dammit. We joined a crowd of about 20 people following the truck, with arms outstretched like starving refugees or zombies hunting for braaaaaaiiiiins.

☐ Corporate stages: a slight variation of the aforementioned slag wagon/hunk truck, these huge corporate stages pump out awful electronic music at volumes loud enough to vibrate the windows of the car next to you. In these situations, the sartorially challenged sexy people are typically manning hoses. They share the stage with a DJ and a man who's probably on steroids imploring the crowd to once more "PUT CHA HANDS UP!". It is unclear how long this has been going on for by the time you arrive, but it's probably several hours.

Pictures lovingly swiped from BBC and Wikipedia, all depicting Songkran in Chiang Mai.

So, that was part of my Songkran. I like to be snarky and cynical, but it really was a fantasticly joyous event. If you haven't yet been, I implore you to come- you won't regret it. See you next year!

Kiva - Making things slightly less awful, $25 at a time

Hello again! 

I originally posted this on my old Tumblr blog, but neglected to transfer it over. I decided to post it here because I got an email the other day updating me about the loan I made to a Palestinian guy (a picture of him is in the post below). His loan was funded, and he made his first repayment of 70¢. It was a timely reminder of how important the loans can be to people, regardless of the amount borrowed or repaid.