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Family Money: Not
only the Big Boys
By Leslie
Wright
When seeing the word ‘portfolio’ frequently
mentioned in these articles, some readers may have assumed I’m referring
only to millionaires’ investments, and not to “small” investors.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Anyone who is holding assets which comprise more than a
checking account has an investment portfolio, however modest this may be.
Even a savings account could be considered an
investment portfolio - albeit comprising just one asset in one asset
class.
The term ‘portfolio’ is typically taken to mean a
complex set of investments, traditionally comprising stocks & shares,
government bonds, properties, and various bank accounts.
That was certainly the case in the old days before
financial services became such a sophisticated major industry, and before
communications shrank the world to the global marketplace it is now.
In the old days, those with more than modest means
would peruse the financial pages on the way to their offices and call
their stockbroker and buy a few stocks, or sell a few others. These would
typically be in the stock market of their home country, and little
attention would be paid to the goings on in other countries.
All that changed with the advent of collective
investment schemes.
Collective investments
Mutual funds were launched in the US and unit trusts in
the UK, whereby hundreds and thousands of “small” investors
effectively pooled their resources together and hired a professional
manager to manage this money for them and undertake the buying and selling
of investments on their behalf.
Through collective investment schemes, small investors
were in effect now able to own stocks and shares in many different
companies that would have been way beyond their means had they wanted to
invest directly.
The fund manager was responsible for making the
decisions on what to buy and when, and received a fee or percentage of the
fund for doing so.
In the early days, fund managers could do just about
anything that they liked - and this led to some disasters.
So, to protect the groups of small investors who liked
the idea of being able to play the same game as the big boys, but without
the knowledge or sophistication to understand the risks or how it all
worked, the regulatory authorities stepped in and made the burgeoning
collective investment industry clean up its act by putting restrictions on
what the fund managers could and could not do, and appoint trustees to
oversee their activities.
They also required each fund to declare in a prospectus
what its investment goals & objectives were, what it would be
investing in and where, etc. In other words, laying out the ground rules
so investors could know exactly where the goal posts were.
The cart before the horse
Banks and insurance companies in particular saw the
potential to utilise the monies they were already holding on behalf of
depositors and policy-holders - and attract additional investors - by
launching a multitude of funds, each appealing to a different type of
investor. It was starting to become a competitive industry.
These institutions then added an extra layer to allow
small investors even more freedom of choice: the investor bought a
‘plan’ (either with a lump sum or regular savings) that in turn
accessed several collective-investment funds, which could be
‘switched’ (i.e., bought & sold) at any time.
This simplified things a lot for small investors who
had neither the time, interest nor expertise to track a ‘traditional’
portfolio. They were simply buying a ‘cart’ to which were tied a
number of ‘horses’ which could be swapped around more cost-effectively
than buying or selling the ‘horses’ directly, and providing them
greater diversification at the same time.
Competitive choice
Nowadays the financial services industry has grown to
the point where there are thousands of collective-investment funds holding
billions of dollars of “small” investors’ money. These invest all
over the world in all industries and all asset classes: pure cash
money-funds; government bonds in both developed and developing markets;
shares in publicly-traded companies both large and small; commodities like
oil and precious metals; and even options & futures.
Investors are no longer restricted to selecting just a
few blue-chip stocks in the traditional home market: one can choose a fund
that tracks the whole market; or one that invests in stocks throughout a
whole region, such as Europe or Asia or Latin America; or that
concentrates on just one sector of a market - such as technology or
telecommunications, or leisure & tourism, or healthcare, or even the
privatisation of publicly-owned utility companies.
Or for those who don’t have the interest to follow
the markets and choose which country or sector to invest in, there are
funds that do this for them: the so-called ‘Managed’ funds (more
properly termed ‘Asset Allocation funds’) which can move into or out
of markets at the managers’ discretion, and increase or decrease the
fund’s exposure to equities, to bonds, to cash, as market conditions
change. And even with these, one can select aggressive, neutral or
defensive funds to suit your own risk-aversion profile.
New funds are being launched every week, catering to an
ever-more sophisticated public who want to put their hard-earned savings
to better use than just sitting on deposit in the bank, but don’t have
the time, knowledge or resources to play the investment game directly.
Nowadays there are funds to cater to the cautiously
conservative investor who wants an absolute guarantee that he won’t lose
his capital; and at the other extreme for those adventurously aggressive
investors who want to dabble with ‘hedge’ funds and leveraged options.
And of course all stops in between.
Also, the range of plans which can access these funds
is very wide too, with all sorts of additional ‘bells & whistles’
to meet special needs, and catering to virtually every set of
circumstances imaginable.
From small acorns
A ‘traditional’ portfolio would have comprised
perhaps a few blue-chip stocks, options in the company you work for, a
second house which is rented out, a few units in mutual funds or unit
trusts. All of these are assets, and together would in fact constitute a
fairly complex portfolio, even if the overall value was relatively modest.
Today, every “small” international investor will be
holding a portfolio, even if he doesn’t fully realise it. This typically
comprises bank accounts in each of the countries in which he spends money,
the houses he owns (yes, these are investment assets which should be
counted as part of his portfolio), and of course what he thinks of as his
investments - the various bits & pieces he’s accumulated over the
years such as insurance policies, perhaps a few shares in three or four
companies (typically those he’s worked for, or which he had “a
feeling” about), and some unit trusts or mutual funds which he quite
possibly bought on a whim and has held ever since.
He probably has only a vague idea of the current worth
of these holdings or how they’re performing.
The fact that our “small” investor has never given
much serious thought to his financial planning or strategic portfolio
construction doesn’t detract from the fact that he has one.
In fact, it is the modest investor who needs help with
his financial planning and portfolio management even more than the
substantial sophisticated investor, who already knows he can get
professional help at any time from his bank, his accountant, stockbroker,
or financial adviser.
The modest investor will be shooting in the dark most
of the time, either not being aware of the multitude of investment
opportunities open to him, or being overwhelmed or confused by them - and
doing nothing to improve his position as a result.
So even a “small” portfolio needs properly looking
after, and with some professional guidance could perhaps be restructured
to help the “small” investor grow into a big one.
Leslie Wright is Managing Director of Westminster
Portfolio Services (Thailand) Ltd., a firm of independent financial
advisors providing advice to expatriate residents of the Eastern Seaboard
on personal financial planning and international investments. If you have
any comments or queries on this article, or about other topics concerning
investment matters, contact Leslie directly by fax on (038) 232522 or
e-mail [email protected].
Further details and back articles can be accessed on his firm’s website
on www.westminsterthailand.com.
Editor’s note: Leslie sometimes receives e-mails to which he is
unable to respond due to the sender’s automatic return address being
incorrect. If you have sent him an e-mail to which you have not received a
reply, this may be why. To ensure his prompt response to your enquiry,
please include your complete return e-mail address, or a contact phone/fax
number.
The Computer Doctor
by Richard Bunch
I am turning this week’s article over to an issue
which has received quite a large postbag and could potentially affect all
of us whether directly or indirectly. What is this topic? Well it relates
to ISP’s.
Regarding the ISP issue, although thus far this
particular problem is only small scale, if the trend spreads then the
consequences are unthinkable.
Let me explain. A large corporate client, well versed
in the Internet found that he couldn’t send email through his own
registered company domain using Jasmines Ji-Net. He carried out some
investigation, using various tools and discovered that the Ji-Net proxy
server had been set to refuse all SMTP requests to servers except their
own.
This effectively means that anyone with their own
company domain, such as pattayamail.com, microsoft.com, etc, cannot send
email using Jasmine as an ISP, effectively forcing users to use the Ji-Net
email service. They also turned off FTP access, so anyone with their own
website can no longer maintain it, or upload content to it, unless it is
hosted with Ji-Net.
He approached them with the details, initially they
denied that anything had been changed but eventually their customer
support manager admitted that they had made the changes, and defended it
claiming it was to combat spamming. For the uninitiated, this is not the
way to prevent spamming. In reality JiNet should only be worried about
spammers using their own servers, which are still wide open; instead they
have shut down access to all external SMTP servers. This is a bit like the
Thai Police imprisoning the entire population on the pretext that they
would be sure to have caught all the criminals!
Jasmine also informed him that INET and KSC were going
to adopt the same policy and certainly there have been similar reports
regarding INET.
The worrying thing is that the ISP’s are licensed,
and therefore one would surmise, regulated. If this is the case then the
regulators need to step in before irreparable damage is done to
Thailand’s Internet. Of course, if the market was opened up to free
competition then...
Send your questions or comments to the Pattaya Mail at
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, 20260 or Fax to 038 427 596 or
E-mail to [email protected].
The views and comments expressed within this column are not necessarily
those of the writer or Pattaya Mail Publishing.
Richard Bunch is Managing Director of Action Computer Technologies Co.,
Ltd., providing professional services which include website design,
website promotion (cloaking), turnkey e-commerce solutions, website
hosting, domain name registration, computer and peripheral sales service
and repairs, networks (LAN & WAN) and IT consulting. Please telephone
038 716 816, e-mail [email protected]
or see our website www.act.co.th
Successfully Yours: Bjorn
Naglestad
by Mirin MacCarthy
Bjorn Naglestad does not walk, he runs. He does not look at
all solemn, he laughs a lot. He is also the Managing Director of Jotun
Thailand, the most modern paint manufacturer in this country.
With May 17th being celebrated as almost an “Independence
Day” for Norway, it was an auspicious time of year to interview this man,
being one of the May 17th Norwegian medal committee. Bjorn is Norwegian, as is
his company; and is proud of his nation, but he is also proud of his company.
Before we began the interview he insisted we walk upstairs
at the Royal Cliff Beach Resort where he was holding a two day get together
for his “family” of 240 Jotun employees and their children. He strolled
easily through them all, a joke here, a back slap there and a friendly word to
the somewhat hassled “nanny” for all the children. He comes across as a
real family man.
However, his background was not one of coming from a large
family; in fact he was the only child of a chemical engineer father and an
administration officer mother. Born in Sandefjord, an old Viking town on the
coast of Norway, he completed all his schooling locally before taking off to
do his year of compulsory Norwegian National Service.
By that stage he knew that his future was not in the
sterile world of chemical engineering and he went to Sweden to study Business
Administration and Economics for the next three and a half years, in a course
set out by Gothenburg University.
At this juncture he began to give a little glimpse of what
makes Bjorn Naglestad tick when I asked about his course - “I wanted to work
with people rather than chemistry. I’m curious about people.”
Following graduation, he returned to Norway and accepted a
position as a Financial Controller with the DYNO Company for four years, but
then returned to his childhood region of the country in 1980, joining Jotun,
the largest paint manufacturer in Norway.
At Jotun he settled into another Financial Controller post
but realized he wanted to “spend” money, rather than just saving it.
Approaching the company, they moved him into Marketing, where he took to it
immediately and was soon promoted to being Marketing Director with
responsibility for marketing Jotun decorative products world-wide.
At that stage, Jotun had 25 independent companies
manufacturing in different companies and had a physical presence in another
25. Bjorn’s concept was to introduce globalization to the far flung Jotun
‘empire’. To do this he boarded a plane and set off around the world to
sell his basic ideas.
This was not an easy call, and Bjorn soon saw that in the
very diverse regions it was necessary to “Understand and appreciate that
people are different.”
While travelling, he fell in love with many countries - and
one of those was Thailand. In 1993 Jotun offered him an overseas posting. “I
chose Thailand. It has such beautiful people.”
And so Bjorn Naglestad, with his wife and three children,
arrived in this country in 1994. He had two immediate ambitions. The first was
to strengthen the position of his company here and the second was to build a
new factory.
He has certainly managed to complete those two items. Jotun
is now a well-respected household name, and the factory? “It is the largest
Jotun factory in the world and the most modern. It is real state of the art,
and I am very proud of it.”
Bjorn finds that the people in Thailand have many
similarities to those in his native country. “We share the same basic
(concept) with the Thais. We love our King, we are proud of our freedom and we
support family values.” He went on to say that he always introduces himself
as being from the Kingdom of Norway.
When I asked him what success meant to him he replied,
“Getting groups of people to work together to achieve something they could
not do as individuals. Communication, co-operation and sharing things.”
Bjorn’s hobbies are almost as diverse as the man himself.
He considers his executive positions that he has held in the Scandinavian
Society and the Thai Norwegian Chamber of Commerce to be hobbies, as is his
being the Editor of their newsletter. He also plays golf, works out a little
(he looks very fit), reads books and is a keen student of human beings and
what makes them tick.
Being only forty-seven years old, I was interested to hear
what his ambition was going to be. “To have fun,” was the reply and then
he sat back in the chair and laughed. The studious Norwegian sitting in front
of me just wants to “have fun”? I looked a little incredulous and
mentioned that this concept did not sit well with the cold stereotype of the
Norsemen, but he quickly shot back, “Even the Vikings had fun!”
Bjorn Naglestad is one of the most positive people you will
ever meet. He does not need to know where he is going next. It makes no
difference, as he will make the most of his time, no matter where.
It was a most enjoyable interview and it was only afterwards I realized I
had not checked if he had paint on his shoes. Jotun certainly have the
world’s most positive ‘house painter’!
Snap Shots: Exposure
tricks! Or tricky exposure?
by Harry Flashman
When you are learning the art of photography, getting
the correct exposure probably does not rate high in most people’s minds.
Finding the subjects to photograph always seems uppermost. After all, the
camera with its automatic light sensors and magic brain does all the
technical stuff for you. Or does it?
The truth is, it doesn’t. No matter how many
“zones” the camera takes the exposure from, it must, by its very
nature, come up with an ‘average’ reading. The result will be an
‘average’ print. That is fine for all those people who want average
prints, but if you read this column, then you probably want something a
little better.
 Your
camera will go nuts over exposures like these.
There are many situations where the camera’s little
electronic silicon chips cannot cope, even though the little book that
comes with the camera says that it can. Backlit subjects, a dark subject
against a dark background, a dark subject against a white background (and
their reverses) are notable for confusing your camera’s diodes. There is
also the situation, which the book generally does not even mention, when
you have placed the subject off centre and the light absorbing electronic
bits have no way of knowing what it is you want to feature in this
photograph. No, electronic bits are not mind readers! Only you know what
the subject really is in that viewfinder.
So how do you work it all out? This is actually very
easy, but takes time and a little work from you. Firstly, buy some slide
film, Fuji Velvia is nice, and load that in the camera. Why slide film?
Because it does not have the “latitude” that print films have. ‘Near
enough’ is not good enough for slides, and you can evaluate the results
easier.
The next item is a notebook that you take with you
everywhere. Divide each page into four columns, one large one called
Subject and two small ones being aperture and shutter speed and the last
called “? Correct”.
Now go out and take pictures, but here’s the
exercise. First shot you use the suggested aperture and f-stop the
camera’s light meter indicates. Note that in the book as “Blue car,
back lit, f 8 and 1/125th second.” Now take two more shots, one
‘underexposing’ and the other ‘overexposing’ by one complete f
stop, so the next entries in the book are, “same subject, f 11 and
1/125th” and “same subject f 5.6 and 1/125th.”
Do this for 12 different subjects, noting shots against
the sun, with the sun, light colours (especially white), dark colours
(especially black), distance shots, close-ups, etc.
Next step is very important! When you go to get the
film processed, tell them to leave the film in strips, not mounted as you
would usually get slides. Just pop them in negative holders, just the same
way as they return negatives to you in the transparent material, six rows
of six.
Now when you get the slide film back, you have all the
exposures side by side with the values of “normal” (as per camera
meter), underexposed and overexposed. You will find that under some
conditions, the camera has not got it correct, but to render the image
correctly it needed under or over compensation. Make a note of these in
the notebook in the fourth “? Correct” column and next time you meet
the various situations you will know exactly what to do to get the correct
exposures. For example, to get blacks really black you have to
“underexpose” and to make whites really white you have to
“overexpose”. And by how much? The invaluable experience you have from
the slide film exercise and the annotations in the notebook will tell you!
Try this exercise this weekend and you may be amazed at
how often your camera’s magic eyes seem to be closed!
Modern Medicine: What
on earth is PNI?
by Dr Iain Corness
One of the newer “buzz” acronyms is PNI, otherwise
known as PsychoNeuroImmunology. This is a science, even if at this stage,
a fairly ‘inexact’ science. What PNI is doing is measuring the
physical response of the body caused by the psychological insults to the
mind. This is, of course, an oversimplification - but will give you an
idea of the murky waters in which we are trawling for information.
It was noted in some studies many years ago, that those
people with a positive outlook on life survived cancer much better than
those who “dropped their bundle” so to speak. We had no real idea of
why.
However, with the increasingly detailed knowledge of
the workings of the human machine, we began to slowly develop a pattern
that might just explain why. Over the past two decades, enormous strides
have been made in the study of the immune system, with the growth rate
being exponential since the advent of the HIV AIDS phenomenon. All of a
sudden, we were able to measure “immune” responses and such items as
T4 cell levels became common place indicators.
The next step was to measure such things as ‘survival
rates’ compared to ‘stressors’ experienced by those unfortunate
enough to have a cancer. It was at this step that medical conflict
occurred. Some studies showed strong relationships between adverse life
events and cancer/cancer outcomes, while others did not show any
connection at all. Again, were certain sections of the research community
fooling themselves, or were others missing the point?
Now this is where PNI comes in. By being able to
actually ‘measure’ some physical response it became possible to see
the body’s response to the ‘stressors’ of the adverse experiences -
and guess what? Not all of life’s bad times produced the same response
in different individuals.
Now it became obvious that we could not say that, for
example, divorce is a stressor and divorced people were more likely to
suffer from XYZ. Likewise, we could not say that getting cancer A was a
stressor and so all those with cancer A would have the same end. It was
that all those with a poor measurable response to divorce or cancer A that
ended up with the lousy outcome. In PNI terms, those with positive
outlooks and good coping skills had immuno-enhancement while those with
negative outlooks and poor coping skills ended up with immuno-suppression.
This was, believe me, a real breakthrough.
It was now time to repeat all those ‘inconclusive’
studies and research, in light of the individual’s response to the
stressors or life’s adverse events and a very much more conclusive
pattern emerges. The British Medical Journal now reported a very strong
relationship between breast cancer and women who were handling stressors
poorly. In fact, another study showed that women who measured high on
depression scales were almost four times more likely to die from all
causes over a 5 year follow-up than those who were not. Another study
following the progression of HIV showed that those with immuno-suppression
(from poor coping skills) doubled the rate of progression of the disease.
So how do we learn to cope? After digesting this
week’s news, I’ll deal with coping skills next week!
 Dear
Hillary,
I would like your advice on a sensitive situation. We
have an attractive daughter and we entertain a lot. She has many female
Thai friends. They are all welcome to our house, but I ask you, they all
sit cross legged on our chairs and you can imagine many wear mini-skirts
or baggy shorts, which can be very revealing. Should I mention this to my
wife or just sit back and enjoy the view.
Confused of Jomtien
Dear Confused,
You don’t seem very confused to me. You seem much
more like a dedicated dirty old man. I wouldn’t mention this to your
wife, but when your daughter brings her friends home I suggest that
instead of hanging around, you go out to Mike’s Department store and
hang around the lingerie section. Just remember to wear your raincoat!
Dear Hillary,
This is a response to the Western letter writer who
asked why do western men fall in love with Thai girls (Pattaya Mail # 16).
I’d like to answer her question on this subject.
First, Thai women have a great sense of loyalty to
family. My Thai step-mother has been married to my father for over 24
years and always took care of the family when my father was at work. In
exchange, he took care of their needs, and still does to this day. My
step-mother is a beautiful person in looks and soul, and remains loyal to
her family in the U.S. and in Thailand.
Second, Thai women know how to have fun. Not once did
any of my Thai girlfriends ever give me a hassle about low funds or being
bored. They each surprised me when I was low on cash, to show me more of
Thailand’s inner beauty, like the beaches and their friends.
Third, a significant portion of Thai women and many
other Asian women do not butterfly — it’s not a part of their culture.
These women remain monogamous to their man.
Fourth, Thai women are very feminine (to me) with their
beautiful faces, bodies, and souls. I love their display of the motto, The
Land of Smiles; their sense of shyness at first, then friendship
afterward.
Fifth, Western women are boring. A significant portion
want to know from a man what kind of car he drives, his job/career, will
he take care of her so she doesn’t have to work, etc. Straight out:
Western women make good friends/buddies, but lousy girlfriends &
wives. Until the Western women change their attitude and learn from Thai
and other Asian women about how give their heart to a man, then
“Wondering Westerner” will have to figure out how to land a Thai man.
For some reason, Thai and other Asian men love Western women.
I’m not trying to be mean, but you deserve an honest
answer to an honest question.
Terry-ajossi
Dear Terry-ajossi,
Wow! That’s telling ‘em. I’m glad you feel that
Western women can make good friends/buddies, though I doubt if you’ve
got any left after they read your letter!
Dear Hillary,
My Thai wife and I had a boy seven years ago, but two
years ago she abandoned us. On his birthday last year we got a postcard
from Australia, but nothing since. My big problem is that I cannot renew
his passport because she is not here and so I cannot take him abroad with
me. Please can you explain what I should do?
Worried Father
Dear Worried Father,
You need more than Hillary’s help here. This is an
area where you will need the help of a good Thai lawyer, but first I
suggest you talk to the people at the Pattaya Orphanage on Sukhumvit Road,
even though your boy is not an orphan. They get passports for their
orphans, so it is possible to get a passport without the natural mother
being present. You sound like a good man and I wish you well.
Dear Hillary,
Why are floors in buildings numbered incorrectly in
this country? For example, the Food Court in the Royal Garden Plaza is
advertised as being on the 3rd floor, when it is actually on the second
floor up from ground level.
Waygood Otis
Dear Waygood,
Probably for the same reason that in your country there
is no 13th floor. In your neck of the woods the lifts go from the 12th to
14th floors - have a look next time you’re home. Superstitious lot you
all are. You also have a strange floor called the “mezzanine” which
doesn’t get any number! However, getting back to numbering here in
Thailand, from the Thai point of view, the floor on the bottom of any
building is the “first” floor you stand on. The next one up is then
obviously the 2nd and the one after that is the 3rd. Just don’t try
going to the 4th floor of the Royal Garden Plaza - there isn’t one.
GRAPEVINE
Come
fly with me
Very angry expat Laurence Tourville is
looking for someone to sue after being hit by a flying traffic cone on
the notorious Pattaya Klang Road. He had just been to pay his domestic
phone bill, and was heading north on foot to have breakfast, when the
large red and white object struck him nastily on the shoulder.
Hospital charges already are said to be in the region of 30,000 baht.
He explained he had already been to a top lawyer to try and press
charges against the civic authorities. However, the lawyer, after
taking detailed notes of the incident and charging a princely sum, had
suggested instead that he pay his future phone bills by direct debit.
The last gasp
Pattaya tourist Oliver G. Sands will be
appearing in court after beating up an old school friend he met by
accident in a Beach Road bar after twenty years. They had last been
together when taking their GCE examinations in 1980. Sands told police
that the friend had given him his first cigarette behind the bike
sheds whilst they were both waiting to take their written tests in
religious knowledge. He has smoked ever since and is now on 60 a day.
It was not immediately known whether Sands or his erstwhile friend,
who is in intensive care, actually passed their examinations or not.
The agony of isolation
A lonely British pensioner, whose wife
deserted him thirty years ago and who can’t afford a trip to the
mystic Orient, has been cheated by a telephone chat company offering
“Listen To Genuine Asian Transvestites On Line”. He complained
that he had to hang up after twenty minutes as they were speaking only
in Thai and had ignored his persistent shouts that they were boring
him stiff. Halliday Crookshank, 71, added that he had previously been
cheated by the same company “Bored Asian Housewife On Line” which
turned out to be a married lady describing a typical day as a shop
assistant during the rainy season.
Good summer upcoming
It looks like Pattaya may be the beneficiary
of rising air fares within Europe this summer. With London based
airlines now charging three hundred pounds or more for a seven days’
stay in Spain, punters are now realizing that it is worth the extra to
holiday in Thailand. Some Pattaya packages are offering three weeks’
accommodation thrown in for less than five hundred pounds, around
thirty thousand baht. The only drawback is that the cheapest deals are
using charter flights or indirect routings which are less comfortable
as a rule. Now that word is out that Phuket is becoming very expensive
for entertainment, expect Pattaya to be the major beneficiary.
|
Sex jab for gabbers
The latest research from USA is that men
with high levels of the hormone testosterone are better at chatting up
the opposite sex, or the same sex come to that. Doctors can now
provide a jab to improve your verbal fluency when meeting a femme
fatale for the first time. One boffin in New York said, “So
while a bloke might find it easy to chat up a girl, he might get so
involved in the conversation that he forgets to invite her back to his
place by the end of the evening.” Which just goes to show that not
all American research applies to the Pattayaland sois where intense
debates about the price of plums or whatever are a rarity.
Quiz boob
Pattaya’s pub trivia masters, probably to
be numbered in the hundreds by now, who complain about mistakes by the
question setters can take heart from gaffes by burger giant McDonalds.
Their scratch card quizzes for cash have boobed twice. Prince Edward
is described as Earl of Essex instead of Wessex. And the answer to the
question, “What was Prodigy’s first UK hit?” is given as Breathe
when the right answer should be Charly. Incidentally, the real Earl of
Essex is Robert de Vere Capell who had the title bestowed in 1661. OK
if you wanna be pedantic. His ancestors did.
UBC Blues
After a shaky start, Thailand’s premier
satellite TV company is much better organized. There’s lots of
choices on the English language channels including sport, movies, news
and light entertainment. But there’s still room for improvement on
the farang marketing front. Pattaya Mail readers complain that their
request for subscription information to the Bangkok e-mail address and
fax line are ignored whilst neither the web pages nor the in-house
magazine are currently showing in English the details of local agents
who can install the system. And why not open a permanent and prominent
UBC sales office in Pattaya with its swelling expat numbers? Bound to
be a winner.
Stats and more stats
Reader WA, Grapevine’s unofficial
statistician, offers you the following bits and pieces to add to your
collection. There are currently fourteen Indian restaurants in
Pattaya, but only one Thai outlet offering exclusively vegetarian
food. A Singha beer now costs you between 35 and 200 baht according to
where you drink it. However, in the most expensive booze zone, the
nuts are thankfully free. There are more establishments here catering
for a gay clientele than in Paris or Frankfurt, whilst the number of
second hand car dealers on Sukhumvit Highway has tripled in twelve
months. Now we know. |
Dining Out: Olala
- the best steak in Pattaya?
by Miss Terry Diner
Miss Terry does not mind it being known that she is a
committed carnivore. After all, since it has taken millions of years for us to
get to the top of the food chain, why revert to nibbling on nasturtiums? So
when the Dining Out Team was asked if they would like a steak when visiting
the OLaLa restaurant in Soi 7, the answer was a resounding Yes! The result
also got a resounding Yes! - but read on.
This restaurant is one that many people may have missed.
Opening last year, the OLaLa complex hit some snags, and it was temporarily
closed while restructuring took place at director level. Following this, a
“soft” re-opening happened two months ago, and it is now truly open for
business. While the total scope of the complex is outside the parameters of a
food write-up, it should be noted that there are also private function rooms
for 30 to 40 people on the second level and a games room on the third, as well
as a well outfitted pub on the ground floor.
The restaurant area is very well appointed, with
tablecloths on the tables and good quality cutlery and glasses. In the far
corner is an open plan stainless steel kitchen with three chefs behind a glass
wall, one of whom was spirited away from a five star hotel.
The menu is quite varied, and there is also a very good
wine list with wines chosen from France, Australia, California and Chile.
The start is Hors D’oeuvres with crab cocktails, crabmeat
suzette (in Swiss cheese), clams or spring rolls, all around 120 baht. These
are followed by eight soups around 100 baht, including a Mexican bean, clam
chowder and Hungarian Goulash. Six salads, 75-145 baht and then into the eight
item continental menu, with Weiner schnitzel (185 baht), Cordon bleu (210
Baht) and blackened snapper with lemon butter sauce (210 baht). The Italian
section is next up with the various spaghetti dishes around 130 baht. The
grill section has spare ribs (195 baht), pork chops (210 baht) and another
couple of items.
The next section is Main Courses, all served with either
baked potatoes or French fries and vegetables. These are eight items and are
mainly meat dishes, with various steaks ranging in price between 185 baht to
520 baht for a Chateaubriand for two. But it didn’t end there! The next page
has eight Chef’s recommendations (around 200-300 baht) with more steaks and
some flambe items prepared at the table including a pepper steak at 255 baht.
It eventually ends after desserts and coffees with a ten item Thai menu at
around 110 baht per item. Whew!
Almost forgot! There are also a couple of house specials,
that night a mixed grill with potato and vegetables for 150 baht or a chicken
Milanaise with French fries and vegetable for 145 baht.
While we watched one other gentleman having a pepper steak
cooked at his table by the ever so efficient waitress, the steak chef went to
prepare ours. While we waited, we nibbled on some garlic bread, baked in their
own kitchen, and indulged ourselves in a bottle of Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay.
The steak arrived - correctly served on hot plates, with
accompanying potatoes fried with onion and bacon, and a spinach and mushroom
vegetable mix. The steak was cooked perfectly to our order, and pocketed
inside was a hefty serve of aromatic blue cheese. The taste sensation of 2000.
It was simply fabulous and a tribute to the chef’s ability.
By the time we finished the steak there was no room left
for desserts (not even for Madame) but we allowed ourselves to be talked into
the OLaLa Kahlua coffee which was a perfect finish to a perfect meal.
OLaLa is definitely worth a visit. The other diners that evening all
echoing our sentiments. We’ll be back to this place.
 Down
The Iron Road:
The ‘Compound’ Locomotive - 1 Mallet
by John D. Blyth
It was the French Engineer Anatole Mallet who first
offered a solution to the problem, already realised, of wasted heat-energy -
resulting from the normal practice of ejecting steam from the cylinders
directly into the atmosphere, while still hot and able to do more work. In
1876 he had a number of small locomotives built for the tiny
Bayonne-Biarritz Railway in S.W. France, in which the two cylinders were of
unequal diameters; that on the left side was the ‘high pressure’ (h.p.)
and that on the right, which was larger, was the ‘low pressure’ cylinder
(l.p.). In normal running steam was admitted to the h.p. cylinder only, and
instead of exhausting to the atmosphere the steam passed into a
‘receiver’ - a pipe connecting the two cylinders, and thus enabling the
steam to work again, at a lower pressure and a greater volume, finally being
ejected through the chimney in the normal way. The locomotives worked well
and economically, and at least one expert known to the writer regards them
as some of the most significant locomotives ever built, as they pioneered
the ‘compound’ system.
 Mallet’s
compounding was applied to an articulated locomotive (Swiss Central Railway,
1898)
Mallet had not finished; he was especially interested in
small locomotives for local railways and so he produced an articulated (i.e.
‘jointed’) locomotive design for Corsica; engineers there hesitated, so
Mallet had small 0-4-4-0T built by the Belgian firm Tubize, for a track
gauge of 60cm, and this was shown at the Paris Exhibition in 1889. The
response was immediate, and similar locomotives of all sizes were soon to be
seen in many countries of Europe, a noted exception being Britain.
The photograph will show the principle: the wheels were
divided in two groups, the h.p. at the rear being mounted rigidly with the
back end of the boiler; the l.p. at the front were mounted on separate
frames, which were connected to the rigid portion by a vertical joint which
allowed the latter to moved laterally and so assist in the negotiation of
quite severe curves. The differing cylinder diameter neatly allowed the
frames at the rear to be outside the wheels, so allowing room for the
firebox, and those at the front could be between the wheels, helping to
contain these cylinders within width restrictions.
This is about compounding, not about Mallet, but it is
worth noting that the Mallet principle of articulation caught on in the USA
and at least 3000 locomotives of this general type were built; the l.p.
cylinders on larger example were huge, in one case no less that 48 inches,
and in many cases there was real trouble in controlling the lateral movement
of the front unit. This led to the introduction of a hybrid, the ‘simple
Mallet’, whose cylinders were all the same size and the compound element
was abandoned. Increased efficiency attained by other means balanced this
out, and enabled some of the largest engines ever seen to be worked in this
way. Mallet, still alive when this first happened, was furious - he was not
interested in the articulation except as a vehicle to carry his system of
compounding.
 Anatole
Mallet’s first compound locomotive for the Bayonne-Biarritz Railway in
S.W. France.
Meantime others had become interested, most notably Webb,
Locomotive Superintendent of the London & North Western Railway (LNWR)
of England, and Alfred-George de Glehn, born in South London to a Balt
father and a Scottish mother - he called himself English!
Webb first converted a small 2-2-2 locomotive into a
2-cylinder compound, and then produced some of the strangest locomotives
seen anywhere; they were 2-2-2-0s, the two pairs of driving wheels not being
coupled - Webb’s reason for this was never quite clear, and he was not the
kind of man to ask! The rear wheels were driven by the h.p. cylinders (two
outside) the front pair by the l.p. cylinder, one only and very big.
Starting a train from rest with limited power and adhesion of the rear
wheels only was always a problem; there was no help from the l.p. side until
the train had actually moved and steam reached the l.p. cylinder. A new
feature which was included in some later locomotives of this type could
possibly allow, in bad and slippery rail conditions, each pair of wheels to
rotate in the opposite direction! Old men swore that they had seen this
happen, but the later generations, too late to see it, still wonder. My
opinion is that it could have occurred, but it needed a set of very special
conditions to be present, and it would be something of a special occasion to
witness it.
For all this, there was quite a lot of interest in the
Webb locomotive from overseas engineers who had been told of their merits
but not of their foibles, and some actually bought one to try. So they
appeared in Austria, France, India and even the Pennsylvania RR of the USA,
but there don’t seem to have been repeat orders!
Whether or not de Glehn actually saw the Webb machine obtained by the
Western Railway of France we don’t know, but he must have been well aware
of it even if not of its faults, for his very first compound locomotive for
the Nord Railway, No.701, and happily preserved in the French Railway Museum
at Mulhouse in Alsace, has clear Webb features, including the uncoupled
driving wheels and it was originally also a 2-2-2-0. Not much seems to be
known of its work, but it is certain that de Glehn was far quicker to spot
faults than Webb had been, and the next de Glehn compound was to embody all
its designer’s ideas, which were to be the hall-mark of many French
compound locomotives in the next half-century. In my next installment we
will look more closely at these very complex machines and some others.
Animal Crackers:
Armadillo
by Mirin
MacCarthy
The Armadillo is one of the more interesting burrowing
animals. Contrary to the Badger from last week, the Armadillo has an
exo-skeleton. That is, instead of having a bony framework with the soft bits
on the outside, this animal has no internal framework, but relies on its
hard bony “shell” called a “carapace” (like a crab or turtle). The
bony plates on the armadillos’ back serves as protective armour from
predators. In fact, the word Armadillo comes from the Spanish word
“armado”, which means “one who is armed”.
Coming originally from South America, these animals have
steadily worked their way northwards and are now very common in America,
especially Texas, where the Armadillo has been adopted as the State animal.
 They
are not as small as many people would imagine, being around the size of a
small dog and weigh between 4 and 8 kg. They have a large shield on the
shoulder and then a number of bony bands till the rump shield. They have
four legs, also armour plated and a long tail with similar protection.
Armadillo is also a toothy beast with 32 peg-like teeth.
The Armadillo needs his little teeth because he is a
voracious eater and it is rumoured they can put away more than 40,000 ants
at one sitting! Some very intense research has actually been done on the
eating habits of these animals and examination of more than 800 stomachs
revealed that no fewer than 488 different food items were eaten; however,
93% were mainly insects and beetles. The Armadillos have been accused of
robbing quail nests, but the research would indicate that birds’ eggs are
not highly prized on the Armadillo menu.
Another very interesting aspect of the type known as the
Nine Banded Armadillo is their aquatic abilities. With their bony carapace,
they sink very quickly, but they can also hold their breath for up to six
minutes. When they cross small streams, they actually walk across the bottom
to get to the other side. However, when they come to large rivers, they
swallow air and inflate their stomachs so they will float and get across to
the other side by that means.
Armadillo reproduction is also very different. These
creatures have identical quadruplets with every litter. The reason is that
the single fertilized egg splits into four during the growth phase; it is
not four eggs that are fertilized.
Young Armadillos are born fully formed and with their
eyes open and begin walking a few hours after birth. The nursing period is
less than two months and within weeks they are out with mother Armadillo
learning how to fend for themselves.
Armadillos are left alone by most animals, but the most prolific killer
of these creatures is mankind, either for food, or running them down as they
cross the highways.
Copyright 2000 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
Updated by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri
Suansuk. |
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