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Growing old disgracefully
MC Richard Silverberg
introduces the PCEC’s guest speaker, Dr. Iain Corness and describes his many
talents. Dr. Iain is well known to the Pattaya Expat community; not only as
a consultant with Bangkok Hospital Pattaya, but as writer, race car driver,
restaurant reviewer, and wine connoisseur.
“Don’t worry about old age. It doesn’t last that long,”
quipped Dr. Iain Corness at the Sunday, November 16, meeting of the Pattaya
City Expats Club. Dr. Iain is a medical doctor who works as a consultant at
Bangkok Hospital Pattaya. He was speaking on the topic “Growing old
disgracefully.” Dr. Iain has spoken to the club on numerous occasions. In
addition to racing cars he has many interests, including writing several
weekly columns for the Pattaya Mail covering restaurant reviews,
photography, and automobiles. He has also written two books about Thailand
entitled “Farang” and “Farang the Sequel.” He moved to Thailand in 1997.
A member takes advantage of
the free blood pressure checks provided by a nurse from Bangkok Hospital
Pattaya at the PCEC meeting on Sunday, November 16; a regular feature when
the speaker is from the hospital.
He began by pointing out that aging is a natural process.
Further, as you grow older, you lose some elasticity in the tissues. As a
result, your muscles don’t work as well, your ligaments toughen up and your
skin tears more easily. You develop mechanical problems such as arthritis.
The knees and hips are the first to go. Dr. Iain says they have been
genetically programmed to last about 70 years. And that’s just the physical
dimension, Dr. Iain said. On the mental side, for example, you may search in
vain for a word you know you should remember, only to have it suddenly
resurface twenty minutes or several hours later.
Dr. Iain Corness explains to
PCEC members how to grow old disgracefully. He asked what can be done about
aging? His answer was you can’t reverse it, but you can adapt to it.
What can be done about aging? You can’t reverse it, he said. But you can
adapt to it. For example, he remarked that old lions don’t race around
catching animals for food; they leave that to the younger lions. Dr. Iain
mentioned that he is in his 49th year of racing cars. Whereas he used to
work hard using a spanner getting the cars ready for racing and squeezing
every last bit of speed he could from the motor, the tires and car body. Now
he just races; he leaves the preparatory work to others. “When I was young,
racing cars was dangerous and sex was safe,” Dr Iain said. “Now…”
Being overweight accelerates the wear and tear on the body, so losing weight
is a good strategy, Dr. Iain explained. Some older people like to jog. “Have
you ever seen a jogger who enjoys jogging?” he asked. “It just increases the
strain on your joints.” Exercise bikes aren’t any better. Also, the stuff
you do at a gym doesn’t help much after age 60. Keeping mobile is a good
idea. Taking long walks is okay, but it still wears out your joints. The
best form of exercise is swimming because it is not weight-bearing.
MC Richard Silverberg gives
Dr. Iain Corness a Certificate of Appreciation for his interesting and
entertaining presentation to the PCEC.
Regular check-ups are also a good idea, Dr. Iain
explained, because they help you spot a problem in its early stages when it
can still be treated. For example, having an elevated blood pressure can be
a sign of kidney problems. Other warning signs include high blood sugar
levels or arteries in which blockages are forming. Some people don’t want to
know, but he said that’s a pretty short-sighted approach.
After his presentation to the
PCEC, Paul Strachan with Pattaya Mail TV interviews Dr. Iain Corness about
his topic of “Growing old disgracefully”.
Some people go to the other extreme. Now that genetic
profiling is available, you can find out if you might be a candidate for a
particular condition. He mentioned that the actress Angelina Jolie had a
double mastectomy as a preventative measure after she found out that she has
a mutated gene known to raise a woman’s risk of breast and ovarian cancers.
Dr. Iain said that he thought this was an over-reaction. The presence of
marker genes only shows a tendency, not a certainty. “My father was so
impressed by what he read about smoking and lung cancer that he gave up
reading,” Dr Iain joked.
When you grow older, the brain needs to be exercised just like the rest of
your body, he stressed. The best way to exercise your brain is to be
passionate about something - a hobby or anything at all. People watching and
drinking beer in a bar on Soi 6 doesn’t cut it, he added.
After the presentation, Dr. Iain was interviewed for a television segment by
Pattaya Mail TV. This interview is available on You Tube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQHX5 qAlpH4&feature =youtu.be.
After the presentation, MC Richard Silverberg updated everyone on Club
activities and upcoming events and then called on Roy Albiston to conduct
the Open Forum where questions are asked and answered about Expat living in
Thailand, especially Pattaya.
For more information on the PCEC’s many activities, visit their website at
www.pcecclub.org.
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Pratamnak Lions donate 15,000 baht to Father Ray Day Care Center
Children at the Father Ray Day
Care Center say thank you to members of the Lions Club of Pratamnak for donating
rice, food and supplies.
Jetsada Homklin
The Lions Club of Pratamnak Pattaya donated 15,000 baht in rice, food
and supplies to the Father Ray Day Care Center as part of its monthly charity
outreach program.
President Rattana Pinthong presented the soap, toothpaste, shampoo, and clothing
to Rapeepan Puangcharoen, manager of the center which cares for children ages
4-7.
Rattana said the club has a project to donate food to help organizations every
month. It’s also an opportunity for member to do charity activities together
using the money raised from the donations of members.
Rapeepan welcomed the Lions along with children at the center.
The Endless Summer Came to Mantra
The Amari’s Mantra restaurant a
tribute to the Endless Summer, with Pattaya’s “Beach Boys” led by Barry Upton on
lead guitar.
Dr. Iain Corness
The Amari’s Mantra restaurant presented another of their tribute events
last weekend, this time being a tribute to the Endless Summer. With Pattaya’s
“Beach Boys” led by Barry Upton on lead guitar, the diners were entertained with
over 40 numbers relating to the heyday of the beach genre of music.
Starting off slowly, the audience was delighted to hear “The Warmth of the Sun”,
a piece that even Barry admitted was much more difficult to play than would be
expected for such a “simple” number. Also in the first set was the “classic”
beach number “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” complete with
interjections of “What did she wear?”
The menu which went with the evening’s musical theme was another of executive
chef Leonard Faust’s tours de force. Starting with tuna carpaccio with king crab
and avocado and black caviar the set menu went on to a foam veloute with a plump
seared Alaskan scallop and then to a main course of either beef tenderloin or
wok-fried snow fish. My partner had the beef and was highly complimentary,
whilst I had the snow fish, which was superb.
The culinary treat continued, as the endless summer music rolled on with “Girl
from Ipanema” (Beach Boys), and the “Summertime Blues” (Eddie Cochrane) and
more, while we enjoyed a cheese assortment and then into a dessert of Chocolate
and red wine torte with fresh berry yoghurt and pistachio brittle.
By this time the band had warmed up to “hot” and the diners likewise, with a
great surfer medley with “Wipe Out” and “Pipeline” and more. There was even the
classic Chuck Berry number “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music” which had even more on the
dance floor.
After two encores, the final part of the evening was GM Brendan Daly and new RM
Richard Gamlin congratulating the band and thanking the audience. A wonderful
evening of food, fun and fab music. Let’s do it again, Mantra!
Barry Upton leads the group on
lead guitar.
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The Monarch of the Glen comes to Pattaya
The highly informative
presentations gave the guests a real insight into the processes involved in
creating a Glenfiddich Single Malt and of the distillery itself.
Dr. Iain Corness
Dicey Reilly’s Irish Pub was the venue for a most interesting tasting of
whisky, distilled in the north of Scotland by a family company. This was
Glenfiddich, from the grey granite distillery, and one of the world’s most
popular tipples.
Glenfiddich is owned by William Grant & Sons, an independent family-owned
distiller founded by William Grant in 1886. Today, the luxury spirits company is
run by the fifth generation of his family and distils some of the world’s
leading brands of Scotch whisky, including the world’s favorite single malt
Glenfiddich®, The Balvenie® range of handcrafted single malts and the world’s
third largest blended Scotch, Grant’s.
The facilitator for the Glenfiddich tasting was a fifth generation Australian
Scot, Matthew Fergusson-Stewart, the regional brand ambassador. Matthew turned
out to be a very knowledgeable young man who not only educated the 30 thirsty
souls, but also kept their attention with his witty delivery.
There were three ‘vintages’ of Glenfiddich to be appraised that evening, the 12
year old, the 15 year old and the 18 year old.
What was previously not well understood was the fact that these three are
completely separate types of whisky. For example, an 18 year old is not a 12
year old that has been stored for the past six years, each of the three is
matured in different ways. This means that an 18 year old Glenfiddich has been
matured for at least 18 years, and in fact could be several years older, as
opposed to the aging of wine in the bottles.
Matthew took the tipplers through the simple origins of whisky with the three
ingredients of water, malted barley and yeast and then on to how the different
years 12, 15 and 18 become individual whiskies.
The 12 year old has its maturation in American and Spanish oak casks, the 15
year old is kept in sherry, bourbon and new oak and then left to marry in a
Solero vat and the 18 year old matures in Spanish Oloroso casks and traditional
American casks and then married in wooden tuns.
Matthew covered the sometimes contentious subject of adding water to his
whiskies. He personally drinks them neat, though the addition of a small amount
of water is sometimes claimed to release the flavors even more. However,
Matthew’s water addition was more like two or three drops administered using a
straw as a pipette!
As to be expected, the drinkers that evening were divided in their appreciation
of the three different scotches, but the majority went for the 15 year old, and
both Matthew and myself were in agreement with the 15.
Following the education, the whisky drinkers then went outside to the terrace
and continued sampling and enjoying the “uisge beatha”, the Gaelic for the
“water of life”, otherwise known as “whisky”, and Glenfiddich in particular.
Although this was a Whisky
tasting, guests were welcomed with a glass of award winning Hendricks Gin &
Tonic.
Brand Ambassador for Glenfiddich
Matthew Fergusson-Stewart keeps the talk very interesting by interacting with
the guests.
The chef at Dicey Riley’s
complimented the tasting session with tasty snacks.
Guests were taught how to
distinguish the characteristics of the three whiskies on offer.
Inside Dicey Riley’s the table is
set to welcome those with a keen interest in Single Malt Whisky.
Three single malt whiskies were
served up for the tasting event, namely the Glenfiddich 12 year old, 15 year old
and 18 year old.
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