Family Money: Private Portfolio Management (Part 2)

By Leslie Wright

Last week we started looking at some of the aspects that need to be considered when constructing an investment portfolio, and specifically how my firm goes about doing this for our clients (since I cannot really comment on how others might go about it).

First, the risk-aversion profile of the client has to be determined and understood by both sides. Many investors do not look at this all-important criterion as objectively as they should. All too often, their portfolio is either too aggressive or too conservative for their circumstances and investment objectives.

The base-currency of the investment then has to be decided (which is also not as obvious and straightforward as many might think).

Having determined the risk profile and base currency, we then establish the client’s time horizon. How long can he or she expect to leave the investment to grow before requiring access to the capital?

This will determine the sort of investment vehicle that might be appropriate for this particular client, and the proportion of cash to bonds to equities that might be incorporated within his or her portfolio.

Active or Passive?

The next step is establishing what sort of participation the client wants to have in the decision-making process: whether he or she wishes to be active or passive in deciding the components that will make up the investment - the horses that will pull the cart, if you will.

This determines whether the investor will be an advisory client or a discretionary client.

Some clients may want to have a 90% input to what they invest in and a 10% sounding board service. Other less sophisticated clients may want a 90% or even 100% input from their advisor.

If a client wishes to participate actively in the management of his/her account, this is accommodated (within reason and within the limits of what is administratively practical).

Some sophisticated investors have the time, interest and access to the required specialised information (and this does not mean the business news on CNN or CNBC!) to manage their own portfolios, and merely require an administrative conduit to the investment institution that is holding the portfolio.

Others freely admit they don’t follow the markets, and haven’t the expertise nor the interest to participate in the day-to-day decisions on what constitutes their portfolio. These clients either want active portfolio management from a qualified and experienced advisor (for which they’re prepared to pay a fee), or regular meetings with their advisor to review market conditions and be provided sound advice of how best to adjust the portfolio to meet changing conditions.

These parameters are discussed in detail with the client and the goalposts set at mutually acceptable points.

At the same time, we agree on how frequently and by what mechanism reports are furnished to the client. Monthly as e-mail attachments? Quarterly in face-to-face meetings to discuss hard-copy valuation reports? Or once a year when the globetrotting client passes through Pattaya? Some people like to analyse their investments to death; others just want the bottom line.

It’s important for the portfolio manager to understand what each individual client expects; but also for the client to understand what can reasonably be delivered.

After all, how would you like to be called up on a Sunday evening because of some news your advisor saw on TV? This portfolio manager also takes a dim view of his Sunday evening being disturbed by a client fretting about something neither of them can do anything about until at least the next business day.

The Asset Allocation Matrix

Only after all the conditions discussed above have been clarified and agreed upon can one actually start constructing the portfolio.

The technical term for what will be the proportion of cash to bonds to equities in any given portfolio is its “asset allocation matrix” or AAM for short.

“Diversification” is a term often misunderstood by investors. It does not mean several blue-chip stocks in their home market, plus a few bonds and some cash in the bank. It means having a flexible, strategically-diversified mix of cash, bonds and equities spread around the world in the markets and sectors deemed most likely to produce the desired results in the short, medium, and longer term, and within the set parameters discussed earlier.

Thus a recommended mix of appropriate collective-investment funds investing in bonds, equities and alternative investments, back-tested to show performance, would be presented to the client for his approval before any final decision were taken.

This might comprise only 4 or 5 funds; it might constitute 25. The number would be determined by several factors, not least of which is the amount of capital available to spread the risk, and hence the investment vehicle most appropriate to the client’s particular needs and circumstances.

The relative volatility of each component fund would be explained; and the client then decides if he would have been happy with the performance, and the peaks and troughs. If not, the AAM is modified.

It is worth bearing in mind that the past few years have been a particularly good period for the major markets of the world. If historically you were expecting 12~15%, now you should expect 8~10%. There has been a downturn in returns but not in volatility. If anything, in a period of uncertainty such as is prevailing now, there is more volatility than in the ‘good’ times. And hence, a portfolio manager has to work harder to limit the losses and reduce this volatility to levels acceptable to his clients.

Of course, investment preferences of individual clients are noted when making the actual investment choices. A client might have strong views - either positive or negative - on certain markets or sectors, and these prejudices have to be borne in mind.

For instance, one might develop investment themes. If the client wants to pursue the demographic theme, the ever-ageing population would support pharmaceutical stocks and funds that invest in healthcare. Belief in the up-and-coming ubiquity of broadband and the ever-greater use of satellite communications and cell phones might lead one to invest in the telecommunications sector, or an over-weighting in technology (despite this sector’s recent volatility).

These themes would be included in the portfolio based partly on the preferences of the client, and partly on what leading institutional analysts believe are growth areas going forward. The balance between these would depend on what had been agreed as to the client’s participatory input in the decision-making process, and how much discretion had been allotted to the portfolio advisor.

But “going forward” are the key words here. Stellar performance last year of any particular geographical market or market sector is not necessarily an indicator of good performance continuing in that same market for the coming 6-12 months. In fact, rarely is past performance an indication of future performance.

For this reason, it makes sense to incorporate an internal hedging mechanism in your portfolio.

Hedging the bets

There are literally hundreds of funds to choose from for any particular market. For example, one of the leading tracking services includes over 400 funds in the European equity sector alone. How do you choose the best ones to include in your portfolio? Past performance is the single criterion by which most amateur investors make this decision. But that is not the end of the story by any means.

While you are at least comparing apples with apples (as opposed to bananas or oranges), you find on closer inspection that these apples come in all shapes and sizes, and various colours and flavours.

One European equity fund may be required to invest not less than a minimum in each of the countries of Europe, while another may be required to invest not more than a certain maximum in any one country of Europe. This may seem a subtle difference, but in fact is a fundamental one. The management style - and hence the volatility and performance - will be quite different between these two funds.

A third may allow the manager more discretion to invest into quite narrow sectors, or pick stocks which he particularly favours. Such a fund may outperform the first two by a wide margin - or it may under perform. It will inherently tend to be more volatile in the short term.

It would make sense then to hedge your bets somewhat by including not just one but several funds for each sector you want to invest in, each perhaps managed in a different style.

The chances of undue volatility are reduced, while your chances of having picked a winner are increased.

In times of uncertainty, using several funds which can invest globally at the managers’ discretion, but managed in slightly different ways, serves to spread the risk and optimise your growth potential.

If the fund managers are doing their jobs correctly, they will buy into markets and sectors as they see opportunities arising in the short term, and sell out as they see peaks or danger signals. They have teams of analysts and economists to help them do this, and their very jobs (and income) depend on getting it right more often than they get it wrong.

You as an investor get to benefit from this expertise, and optimise your growth potential while minimising your risks. And at the end of the day, that is what capital investment is all about.

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

By Mirin MacCarthy

Dr Frank Schroeder was born in Marl, the Ruhr region of Germany forty years ago to a family of an industrial chemist father and bank officer mother and one younger sister.

As a youngster Frank showed he had an inquiring mind, “I was a very curious boy. I wanted to learn the reason ‘why’ to everything. I had an interest in natural science, following in my father’s footsteps I suppose. I chose physics, though not chemistry, but physics gave more answers to the questions of nature.”

His thirst for answers was intense because straight after high school Frank then spent eleven years studying and working. Five years at the University of Dortmund studying the equivalent of an M.A in laser physics followed by six years undertaking a doctorate in mechanical engineering, specializing in quality testing of materials by holography, artificial intelligence and image processing. That’s a real thirst for answers!

Concurrently with his studying, Frank, now Dr. Frank, was additionally working at special projects in industry as well as starting a family, since after completing his Masters in Physics Frank had married his wife Claudia in 1990.

While studying for his Doctorate Frank also became European Quality Manager for the German Society of Quality in Frankfurt. Then he became scientific co-worker, then four years as department head Dortmund University Chair of Quality Management, Optical Inspection Systems.

In 1996 Dr. Frank then changed career directions to become special projects manager for Grohe and Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of sanitary faucets and fittings, with 5700 employees located in Hemer Germany.

By this stage, Dr. Frank was now the father of two children and in 1997 he was offered the position to come to Thailand as managing director of Grohe Siam Ltd. here. Dr Frank laughed and said, “Luckily my wife followed me and our children go to school at the ISE. At the beginning it was very difficult for her because the plant is in Rayong Province miles away from anywhere.”

While in Thailand, Dr. Frank has busied himself with learning about the Thai culture and language. He is very much out there and involved in the community. In 1999 he was asked to be Rong Prathan, vice president of the Kathin Ceremony in Ban Na, Klaeng. In February 2000 Dr. Frank was instrumental in the start of the “Private Partnership Project”, which is a two year training project of Thai companies to allow them to be more competitive in the world market. In September last year Dr. Frank was seminar chairman of “The Metal Working Industry, Business Presence in Thailand.” Even more recently he has joined Rotary as a member of the Jomtien-Pattaya Rotary Club.

Dr Frank especially likes the weather and working with the Thais, “It is much easier to motivate Thai employees than Germans. In Germany there are more machines and more mechanization. Here you are relying more on the hand skills of the people. It is helpful too when the first thing you see in the morning is a smiling face. That is something that I have learned that I will take back with me to Germany as well as diplomatic behaviour in discussions, not to let others lose face.”

Dr. Frank is very much the family man in addition to being business orientated. “I don’t really have much time for hobbies now because of my long working hours. I try to spend as much time as possible with my family though, touring and sharing Pokemon games with the children.” In fact Dr Frank and Claudia can often be seen in Royal Garden, at the weekend, shopping for Pokemon toys with the kids.

The most important values to him are diligence at work and a positive attitude. “Even if you have no special talents you can always compensate by diligence. A positive attitude to everything is important also. Even if you have some aspect of a job you don’t like, it is your attitude that changes your ability to do it.”

“I think you can define success as making other people happy. Money is a lot, but it is not everything. If I can keep my family happy and I have positive feedback both from my boss and my employees - then that is success. That is why I fit in naturally with the Rotarians here - it is a group that helps to make other people happy. Rotary has a positive impact.”

Although Dr Frank and his family plan to return to Germany in a few months time he plans on taking the best aspects of living and working here back with him. His advice to farang businessmen is a wise, “Listen to your Thai employees, take them seriously then motivate them. How? First you listen and then have discussions with them. Then you try to follow the Thai way. Don’t to be tough with your decisions. A manager has more power in decision-making here than in Europe. For instance in Germany there are so many unions that limit your decision-making. Then the other important ways of motivation are education and training.”

If Dr. Frank did not have to work he would spend the time enjoying sports, “Jogging and golf, I love to jog and golf too. It is not too hot to play golf even here in Thailand. I like the hot weather. Before in Europe we followed the sun, we went to Greece and Italy for holidays.”

From the boy who was looking for the answers, the man now seems to have them. You can’t help feeling that nothing is impossible for this interested and interesting positive man and therein lies his own success.

by Mirin MacCarthy

by John D. Blyth

12:23, 17th October, 2000 - It is no pleasure, but I see it as a duty to surmise the events of this day, as British people living or staying in Thailand will have heard little of the accident, or its aftermath; even the Bangkok Post gave it no more than four lines. By now, in British publications, and cutting from newspapers, I must have read some fifty pages on the subject.

On 17th October, the 12:10 train from King’s Cross (London) to Leeds had left on time, and thirteen minutes later it was passing Hatfield, 17.7 miles (28.5 km) at the maximum permitted speed of 115mph (185km/hr) - moments later, only the locomotive and two leading coaches remained on the track, the other eight were derailed, and scattered, mainly over the ‘Down Slow’ line to the left of the ‘Down Fast’ on which the train had been running (see diagram). It appears that the buffet car was the only vehicle to turn on its side, and its roof was sliced off by a mast at the line-side, which carried power lines feeding current to the electric locomotive. Four passengers lost their lives, all of whom were in this vehicle - a low mortality figure for such an event, and a tribute to the design and construction of the ten-year old coaches. So much for the bare facts.

‘Railtrack’

The determination of the ruling Conservative Party to ‘privatise’ the railways before the election in 1977 led to a poorly planned scheme of breaking up the system and selling it off in small packages to the highest bidder - seen by many not only as bad business, but fundamentally flawed. Out of it all there arose a monster called ‘Railtrack’, a company which would own and be responsible for more-or-less anything in the rail system that does not have wheels - track, signalling, stations, tunnels, bridges... you name it. It has also a safety element in that all must be correctly designed and located - thus it had an interest in the events at Hatfield. It also has to approve every type of new train or locomotive before it goes into service, in many cases with a limited scope of activity only. ‘Railtrack’ is a huge organization, based on a black tower block near Euston Station, with a number of satellite offices in provincial centres.

Remarkable that such a key organization should have a chief executive (Gerald Corbett) with no engineering experience, much less any on the railway; he was a financier and had an interest in small businesses. Even more curious is that out of a team of fourteen directors, only two had any railway experience. Corbett was a man of principle, though, and when news of the Hatfield incident came through, he determined that, were ‘Railtrack’ in any way responsible, he would at once offer his resignation. He did so without delay when it became known that a broken rail was almost certainly the cause. ‘Gauge-Corner Cracking’ is the term used for this kind of failure, which usually starts as a hairline crack which gradually enlarges until, for safety, the rail has to be changed. It seems this one had been scheduled for change no less than five months earlier, but it had not been done. Corbett’s resignation was refused as he was seen as indispensable; other pressures, possibly political, prevailed, and in a month he was, in effect, dismissed, turning an honourable departure into on ignominy.

H.M Railway Inspectorate

This once highly respected body of men has a long history; once answerable to the Board of Trade, later the Ministry of Transport, it was always made up from retired officers of the Royal Engineers, men who had railway experience, and the ability to see a long way into a brick wall, to sort evidence and make sense of it, and write reports that even a minister could understand. Reports from those days are a pleasure and a privilege to read. The late conservative government altered all this, deprived them of their unique status, and absorbed them into the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), but retaining their old title, HMRI for short. Some of their responsibility has passed to ‘Railtrack’, but they still take the initiative (except where their new bosses interfere) when there is a major rail accident. So, after the first essentials of getting the passengers to safety and protecting the derailed train had been seen to, it was the HMRI who were early on the scene.

What Followed

It seems to have been plain, although not officially admitted as yet, that the broken rail was the sole cause of the Hatfield derailment; the pattern of the aftermath suggested that the locomotive and two leading coaches had passed over safely, and the rail had disintegrated under the third. It is not clear why the buffet car alone did not remain upright; had it done so four lives might have been saved. But all-in-all a pretty straightforward case; now to clear up... Not so!

Probably on orders from their masters, HSE, the HMRI then started a detailed examination of each coach, and the upright locomotive, as all of them stood; at some stage the British Transport Police got in on the act, and no one but those of these two bodies was allowed anywhere near. This investigation took two weeks, no less, and even then all the coaches and locomotives were ordered to be taken to Crewe for further examination; the buffet car had to be moved in a specially-made ‘cage’, as the HMRI wanted it at Crewe in on piece, not possible as it lay.

Meantime, ‘Railtrack were getting up to some tricks too!

Continued next week...

Expat Living - A Badge of Courage

Ever wonder how the “other half” lives? I mean the other half of the Expat couple posted here in the kingdom: the housewife. Perhaps she deserves our understanding and some sympathy. You see, she works harder at keeping herself busy than most people who actually work at a proper job.

Most of these ladies follow their husbands from country to country, while he follows his chosen career. She stands mute at cocktail parties while people ask him what he does for a living, which company he works for. No one asks an Expat wife what she does. She is obviously one of the ladies who “lunch”. Or she plays tennis at the club, or shops all day, or lords it over the army of servants who slave away in the mansion she calls her humble abode, which her husband’s company pays for. And occasionally she gives her chauffeur a good thump when he misses the turning at her favorite boutique.

We have to forgive these long suffering women if they seem a little lost when they first arrive. You see, they grew up in “First World’ countries. They automatically presumed every family had at least two cars, one dog, a pool table in their recreation room, and a garbage disposal unit under their kitchen sink. It will take a while before they come to learn that most people in the developing world have no shelter of any description, the kitchen is a place where the locals are likely to cook and eat the dog, and in some cultures, there is no word in the language to express the concept of recreation.

Some developing countries are listed as “hardship” posts. Being posted in a hardship area may bring the family special perks and increased salaries to tempt the people involved to tweak their sense of adventure, pack up, ship out, and try their hand at living in one of those exotic lands the travel magazines write about. Sometimes they get a short orientation course before they leave. Usually it is given by some shmuck in the head office who hasn’t travelled any further than to his favorite fishing lake 50 miles from his suburban home. On occasion, the family might be lucky enough to get some real information on where they will be living. Rarely does the reality match up with the fantasy.

The term hardship post is one of those phrases which is totally subjective. Certainly the transfer of space-age technology to the villages of the Hunza Valley, or the Korakoran Mountains would represent a hardship to the middle-level engineer who has visions of using his post as a means of advancement up the corporate ladder. On the other hand, two years in Paris for the tongue-tied American family who has never spoken a word more foreign than “spaghetti” or “taco” might be an experience guaranteed to turn them all into clock-tower snipers in less than a month. One man’s meat can always turn out to be another man’s poison, and it’s pretty hard to predict the chemical outcome until the dish has been digested.

I don’t really know if Thailand is considered a hardship post anymore. But I can imagine that most newcomers may find the whole system here rather overwhelming on arrival. Thailand is one of those places in the world where (even for us “old hands”) just when you think you have finally got it right, what ever it may be, IT pulls a doppleganger on you and changes shape before your very eyes; or behind your back, depending on ITS mood.

Unless the Expat wife has a few former overseas postings under her belt, where domestic help is the norm, this little adjustment to the family dwelling could put a crimp in her style, more wrinkles on her face than the tropical sun, and send her running to the shrink’s couch for a bit of a lie down.

Most people in Western countries would kill for a maid and a chauffeur, and think that Expat families over here who have at least one of each and a gardener to boot are living straight out of scenes from the TV series “Lives of the Rich and Famous”. Not necessarily so, Folks! There is something called the breaking in period to deal with first, which can be as traumatic as an earthquake for the uninitiated. Each family has its own way of doing things, so Thai maids need training. Even then, you will find they have minds of their own. If your motto is “a place for everything and everything in its place”, you had better be prepared for new arrangements of kitchen equipment and household furniture. And all the picture hangings on the walls apparently look better to Thais if they hang at 45 degree angles.

by Richard Bunch

From Sean Jehan, Jersey, CI: My friend’s wife wants to e-mail her friend in Germany, also she uses my PC. Would she need Thai Windows or something to see Thai writing on the screen? I would also like to obtain a Thai/English and Thai/German keyboard, are these available? The reason for this is I have to e-mail in English for her using AOL. Is Dragon Naturally Speaking available in a Thai version? I will be visiting Pattaya in March.

Computer Doctor replies: There are many questions here, taking the easy one to begin with, Thai/English keyboards are readily available in Thailand; they use the US keyboard layout. I have never seen a Thai/German keyboard though, but suggest you can use the standard German keyboard and attach stickers with the Thai characters; once again the keyboard stickers are available here. A Thai language version of Dragon Naturally Speaking is presently not available. With regards to the need to have Thai Windows or some other software to be able to type and read Thai, this rather depends on the version of Windows. The scenarios are: with Windows 95 and 98 a Thai/English version is required or you may elect to use a software switch which will work on the English platform, although this will allow you to read and type Thai it does not use a traditional format and therefore it is possible that work produced in Thai on your PC and elsewhere could be incompatible and of course visa versa. With Windows Millennium (ME) and Windows 2000, the English language version fully supports many languages, including Thai. The former requires the current upgrade available through the Windows Update option in order to support Thai. Realistically, providing your hardware meets the minimum requirements to install Windows ME or Windows 2000, these would be the preferred choice.

From Steven Montgomery, CA: I am married to a Thai and was recently in Thailand visiting relatives when I purchased the Thai/English version of ME as I wanted to upgrade from Windows 98, also Thai/English version. However, although I took the opportunity to do a clean install, something rather odd has occurred, whereby the extended ANSII characters that I used under Windows 98 have a different keystroke under ME. Any ideas?

Computer Doctor replies: Actually this is the second time this week that this question has been posed and to the best of my knowledge there is no way of standardizing this, although you could always use keyboard mapping. However, as these are supposed to conform to the ANSII standard, I assume this is something Microsoft will address.

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.

by Apichart Panyadee

Colours of camouflage

Among the larger animals of the open sea, birds, tuna, sharks, rays, dolphins, and whales, the camouflage colours almost make a uniform. These creatures are counter-shaded. The top half is dark, the bottom half is pale. Seen from above, the creature blends in with the fathomless blue beneath it. Seen from below, it blends in with the bright sky above. Among the minuscule animals of the plankton, crabs, krill, larval fish, and jellyfish, the strategy is different. Most of these tiny drifters are translucent or transparent. They achieve invisibility by reflecting nothing. When invisibility fails them they take refuge in numbers. Prey fish confuse their prey by forcing the predator to choose among a multitude of possibilities. Still another defence in the open ocean is speed. The upper layer of the open sea where light does penetrate contains the realm of the ocean’s fastest sprinters.

The Drifters

The most streamlined of bodies in water (or air) are fusiform; spindle shaped, and tapering at either end. The uppermost ocean is dominated by the fusiform fish. To penetrate this last place of refuse means the predators must be a super-fish. The tuna for example, is amongst the roundest in cross-section, and thus closest in design to an aircraft fuselage. Tuna are built like silvery bombs. Rotund at the midpoint, they taper, needle-like to the tail stalk. Their rigid tail fins are capable of 15 beats per second. Bluefin tuna have been clocked at 40 knots.

Oases in the desert

In the desert of the open ocean, there are oases. Gulfweed or sargassum make such a place. Clumps of weed support varied life in the still, warm, salty, nutrient poor waters of the Atlantic’s Sargasso Sea. Without the weed’s small floating islands of golden brown vegetation, the Sargasso would be among the most barren seas on earth.

The Albatross

Sargassum is an alga. Its small amber floatation bladders reminded the Portuguese sailors of sargaco, little grapes from home, and thus the floating weed gained its name. It belongs to the open sea and spends its whole existence there. The little animals which dwell in the weed take on the same hues of the sargassum. They adopt its shapes and colours and seldom risk the swim from one clump to another, but stay nestled in its safety their whole lives. Little crabs and pipefish undulate in the leafy protrusions. They breed and feed and secure protection from predators. Sargassum grows by partitioning. Whatever colonies are living amongst it when it breaks free, stay with the new clump.

If gulfweed makes one oases, the clear water leeward of the Hawaiian Islands makes another. Offshore from large oceanic islands, upswelling traps nutrients and organic matter where plankton can make use of them. For days one can sail on the open water and see nothing. And then one day the sea gives up her mysteries and one can watch with delight the beaked whale or five different species of dolphin which swim here. A sperm whale passes by, surges steep water and blows into the air.

The open ocean seems trackless to the eye, but in fact, it is all criss-crossed with highways. The lanes and mileposts are geomagnetic, olfactory, acoustic and celestial. And the migratory traffic they handle is vast.

by Marion

by Lesley Warner

Blinked and I missed it: Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed, that nefarious little creature known as High Season seems to have come and gone in a flash. The crowds that were packing Walking Street for night after night seem to have dissipated, although the majority of mid-priced sleeping palaces are still hanging out the ‘Rooms Full’ sign.

During an average evening of perambulation, I might get three ‘handsome man’, four ‘sexy man’ and swags of ‘I go with you’, but come the High Season I’m lucky to get a passing nod from a desperate Beach Road katoey. However, I can confirm the demise of High Season for 2001 as the ‘handsome man’ and ‘sexy man’ exhortations have started once again, even if it is from the staff at the Blind Massage.

It seems to me that the very term High Season is becoming almost mythical, as the boom period gets shorter and shorter. In fact, most of the businesses here in Fun Town are now more reliant upon ex-pats and regular holidaymakers rather than the one-off tourists.

Out of the Rumour Mill: The whisper in some of the darker corners of the street is that Tony’s Entertainment Complex is due to be closed down in February. Why? Well the rumourmongers claim a jealous belief that the playhouse costs a fortune to run and cannot be making any money. I approached the man himself with these rumours and asked a decidedly incisive question: “Is this true?” Tony was surprised by the rumour and answered with a somewhat esoteric, “Not yet”.

Batting for both sides? Construction is well under way for a new daytime beer boozer, nighttime ogling den in Pattayaland Soi 1, just a couple of doors up from the Spicy Girls Too ogling den and the Blue House dine and dash bar. The word on the street is that the name of the new venue is going to be simply, Gulligans. Now, that would probably be quite acceptable in almost any other soi in Pattaya but, in gender-confused Pattayaland Soi 1, it doesn’t really seem like such a good idea, as potential patrons might not be quite certain of just what to expect behind the green door. This is one soi where it is pretty important to determine whether you want your customers coming through the back door or the front porch. The set-up is due to open some time in March.

Holidays in Year Zero: The Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh is becoming more and more of a holiday destination and provides a stark contrast to a place like Bangkok. However, as with the City of Angels, there are a lot of people who really don’t know their way around the French-influenced streets and some who don’t feel comfortable in a place that has had a reputation for not being safe to travel around at night. However, the reprobates in charge of the Spicy Girls ogling den have recently begun doing accompanied tours of Pol Pot’s former fiefdom, lasting between two and three days and happening once a month. The guys definitely know their collective way around the place, from the highlights to the lowlights (and the lowlifes probably). They can arrange flights, hotels and transport. If you want to find out more either e-mail Ewan or Martin at [email protected] or take a wander into Spicy Girls between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. and have a chat with the guy in the K-X1 T-shirt. As it says on the back: ‘If I have to explain...you wouldn’t understand’.

For the Hungry: Ever since the well-known Bangkok noshery-boozer Larry’s Dive opened a branch down along South Pattaya Road they have battled to carve out a niche in the tough Fun Town market. However, they are now beginning to promote their Mexican munchies. Their soft tacos and burritos are first class and Larry’s is slowly building a regular clientele of loyal Mexican aficionados. Given the heavy emphasis on beans (a very healthy but potentially potent ingredient) in Mexican nosh, I would advise people not to stand downwind of anyone who tells you they’ve just munched down at Larry’s.

The other man’s grass is always greener: The Bowling Green (Soi Drarin, off Soi Chaiyapoon and down the road apiece from The Chippy noshery) has had its clubhouse facilities up and running for a few months now and is attracting plenty of interest. However, the main reason for its existence, conducting the game of lawn bowls, has been delayed because the clowns who were hired to lay the playing surface wouldn’t know good grass even if they smoked it. After coughing up a small fortune to the original mob, the Bowling Green bosses were forced to go looking for people who actually knew what they were doing in the grass-growing caper. It looks as though the new team has managed to put things right and it shouldn’t be too long before there are big black balls rolling across a smooth grass surface in the direction of the jack. Watch this space.

My e-mail address is: [email protected]

Good Points: loyal, willing, fine gun dog, excellent nose, good water dog, makes a good pet.

Take Heed: needs training or could end up becoming a destructive hunter.

The Welsh Springer Spaniel is a lively dog with plenty of enthusiasm and endurance. It is somewhere between the little Cocker Spaniel and the English Springer in stature. It is a tireless breed, and, in common with most spaniels, provided it is given plenty of exercise and a healthy diet, it will live to a ripe old age. Longevity in one’s pet is a great advantage and it is not uncommon for Welsh Springers to live to 15 or 16 years of age if proper health care and diet are maintained.

The breed standard requires a symmetrical, compact, strong dog, with a merry temperament. This is a very active dog, lively and built for endurance. Its quick movements display plenty of push and drive. The Welsh Springer has a happy nature and makes a loyal and loving pet.

Size: Dog up to 48 cm in height at shoulder, and bitch approximately 46 cm.

Exercise: Like most spaniels the Welsh Springer is essentially a working animal and is not ideally suited for apartment life or for owners with insufficient time to take it for lengthy walks. Owners who have a large garden or country house will delight in this breed. Active families with children will find the Welsh Spaniel a merry addition to their lives. This breed is loyal and willing. Early training will show results in obedience. This breed may not be ideal for the elderly unless the owner is especially active and able. If country life includes the occasional hunt or walk in the woods, the Welsh Springer is certainly at home in this environment. Although a small apartment is not suitable, with diligent training, this dog can be accommodated in a house and small garden setting as long as plenty of exercise is allowed.

Origin and History: A dog that would seem to be a forerunner of the Welsh Springer Spaniel is mentioned in the earliest records of Laws of Wales, circa AD 1300, and indeed, it appears that even before that time, a similar white spaniel with red markings had been associated with the region. The Welsh Springer Spaniel is, in fact, very similar to the Brittany Spaniel, and makes a first-class gun dog. Nowadays, this breed has become a popular household pet as well.

Copyright 2001  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]