Dashiell Hammett rides again

I have been the doctor, and am now walking normally again. That was a dramatic opener, wasn't it?

Still, it's true. My groin rash had become so bad last night that I was hobbling about the place, stooped over like a mossy old man. 'Go the doctor!' Maiyuu implored.

At 7.30pm, I dressed myself, slowly and laboriously. Even doing up the buttons on my shirt was a chore.

Maiyuu kicked me out the door, so I had no choice but to limp out to find a motorcycle guy. I felt like a detective hero in a corny crime novel - a lone guy struggling against a windswept, hostile universe.

I had planned to visit the doctor when his clinic opened at 6pm, but then the savage rains came. I waited until they had abated, then staggered out into the unfriendly night.

Oops, there I go again. I really must stop this gay man's tendency to over-dramatise the simplest of things.

On the back of the motorbike, I held up my small portable umbrella to give us cover from the rain. We were going too fast for the poor thing, which turned inside out against the force of the wind.

I folded it up and tucked it under my arm instead, then thought of myself: I am like that helpless umbrella.

At the medical clinic - an outreach centre run by my old friends at Chulalongkorn Hospital, in a slum area close to where I live, I waited with nervous anticipation until my name was called.

Relief! The sole doctor on duty was a man, who had treated me on one previous occasion, for a grisly eye growth.

Okay, I exaggerate. From memory, it was a mere skin tag. On the same eyelid, I had also developed a cyst, caused by an infected sweat gland. He plunged a needle into my eyelid, and the problem went away.

Normally, young women doctors staff the place. While they are always pleasant company, I did not fancy taking off my pants to show a woman my groin rash. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to strip for a man.

'Give me a look?' said the doctor, a chirpy man in his 30s who despite his youth had greying teeth.

I showed him my horror rash. Red, angry, and swollen, it had spread beyond my groin and was now climbing up my legs like a rodent up a drainpipe in Bubonic-plague era Europe.

'It's a fungal infection,' he declared cheerfully, while writing me a lengthy prescription of skin pills, ointment, and shampoo.

Hammett

'Is it diet-related, or perhaps an allergic reaction to chlorine from the condo pool?' I asked anxiously.

The doctor tapped his brown, stumpy teeth. 'Chlorine? The stuff on our teeth?'

No, I thought. The doctor's question brought me crashing back down to earth. Gone were the fanciful thoughts that I was stuck in some hardboiled detective novel set in 19th century England, or even one in mystery writer Dashiell Hammett's era, 1930s America (I read him as a kid). This could only be one place.

Only in Thailand, the cynic in me thought, could a doctor mistake fluoride for chlorine.

No matter. A day after starting my treatment regime, the rash is much better, the stoop is gone, and I am walking almost normally again.

Now I will have to find some new problem to fret about. Global warming? The sorry state of the blogosphere?

Bring it on. I'm ready for anything, sir. Just let me fetch my dirty trench coat and fedora.

Silom darkness closing in, speck of light from the BBC

No food pictures today, but images (through the bird netting) of the early evening view from our place instead.

Boyfriend Maiyuu took these shots of the Silom skyline last night as the skies were closing in and rain approached.

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Thai-based blogger Western Observer has a post up for foreigners wondering how to watch BBC TV channels in Thailand. He rents space on a UK-based VPN hosting provider, which allows him to watch BBC programmes via its iPlayer service.

The BBC normally bars people outside the country from watching its shows on the internet.

However, if you rent space on a UK-based VPN hosting provider, you can log in to your account and gain access to iPlayer via the server instead.

I tried getting access to iPlayer at the BBC's website yesterday using an ordinary proxy server, which didn't work. It knew I was trying to get access to the programmes from outside the country, and told me to go away.

You can read Western Observer's post here (link harvested - it died).

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Martin Scorsese's The Departed gave me bad dreams last night. I didn't start to get decent sleep until about 5am. I stopped watching soon after Jack Nicholson's character, Frank Costello, gets shot. That unpleasant scene by the dumpster haunted me all night.

The only character I enjoyed in that film was the comically foul-mouthed Sean Dignam, played by Mark Wahlberg. I could have done with more of him, and much less of the blood and guts. I could also have done with a better night's sleep.

Escaping the heat, flying farang, Beeb revisited

'I am just sitting inside waiting for the electricity men to finish fixing the pole,' a Thai woman said.

My neighbour was chatting on the phone. I heard her conversation through an open window, as I leant out my own window to take a picture.

The young woman was hiding indoors to escape the heat, after the power company yesterday cut our power for five hours.

To get the picture, I held my hand out the window and pointed the camera in the general direction of a group of electricity workers, who had mounted a power pole and were doing things with the wires.

Unfortunately, you can't see the power workers in the picture - I can't have leaned out far enough. They were the whole point of my taking this image, but never mind. Still, you get a good view of the side of our place (I posted the pic here, but I since deleted it accidentally - sorry).

The power men were fixing several poles in a side street. I heard them calling out orders to each other, so they could get the repairs done at speed.

My neighbour Farang C went out to a local eatery to escape the heat. I visited the condo pool, on the 10th floor of the car-parking building. The power cut also cut power to the lifts in the complex, so it was a good day for exercising our feet.

On the way back, I met one of the cleaners.

'Did you walk down?' she asked.

No, dear - I jumped.

We stood outside our condo building, one of many in the complex. The cleaner knows I live on one of the upper floors, almost as high up as the pool on the other building.

'Will you walk up?' she asked.

No, dear - I shall fly.

After my swim, boyfriend Maiyuu and I asked how we might put the day to good use.

Being good Bangkok citizens, we decided to pack a bag and make a day of it: take in a movie, then walk to a park and visit a local temple.

I lie. No, we didn't. We're not that bloody earnest.

Maiyuu's pizza

After my hour or so by the condo pool, I came home to find Maiyuu cooking.

Howzat? I had forgotten about our gas cooker. You can't keep a good cook down, Maiyuu included.

He made Japanese-style pizza, which you can see nearby. The soft base was made with two types of flour, mixed with vegetables.

By lunchtime, the power was back on.

In mid-afternoon, he made a Korean-style pizza with kimchi (pickled vegetable). Last night, I took another one with me to work.

Back from the office, I found Maiyuu had been busy in the kitchen again. He made a wholesome tomato and vegetable soup for my meal before bed.

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Since the True satellite TV service pulled BBC Entertainment, some foreigners who want their daily dose of the Beeb have found inventive ways around the problem.

True's Platinum package included BBC entertainment before the provider axed the channel from its line-up.

Some creative foreigners have now cancelled their Platinum package, but are still watching the BBC, with a little help from technology.

Farang C has a friend from Britain, who, refusing to concede defeat, now watches BBC programmes here via BBC's own iPlayer, which only works in Britain.

He lives in Bangkok, so to get around the problem, rents an IP address in the UK.

He pays for one with a Paypal card, for the equivalent of just B300 a month. The BBC thinks it is sending the programmes to a local IP, even though it is not.

Farang C visited his friend the other day. They watched BBC programmes on his computer which aired in Britain just the night before.

For a small investment, he can buy a cable connection from his computer to his TV, so he can watch the BBC on the big screen instead.

As I understand it, he can download files from the BBC and watch them any time he likes, though downloads (as opposed to live streaming) have a shelf life of just one week.

As I say, BBC's iPlayer only works in the UK, but if you rent a UK-based IP address, then the Beeb doesn't know any different.

I need more information. At the moment, the boyfriend sounds less than enthused. Unless I can watch the shows easily on a TV screen, then I probably won't bother either. I spend enough time in front of a computer as it is.

Powerless in Bangkok

The power company is coming today to replace an electricity pole nearby.

They need to cut power to this condo complex for six hours, starting at 8am. 'Why can't they bring a generator?' Maiyuu grumbled last night.

Our household will be without power all day. That means, no electricity for cooking, watching TV, listening to music, and perhaps most importantly for a tropical climate such as this one, no power for running a fan, either.

I saw signs left on the doors of both buildings as I went to work last night, advising tenants that their power would be cut.

For all I know, all other buildings in the complex are affected, too.

What to do? 'The condo pool might have to be my close friend today,' I told Maiyuu. I might not be able to leave its side much if the weather really does get hot.

Alternatively, we could go to a department store, which has air conditioning - the way oldies like to do.

'What can we do there? We can't walk around a department store all day,' said Maiyuu.

Cutting a basic amenity such as power for a full 12 hours sounds primitive and barbaric.

Autumn leaves, Darth Vader condo

'Don't you want to get up, and function as my handsome boyfriend, or maybe the gay girl of the house?' I asked Maiyuu this morning.

He had left his bedroom some time before I woke, and curled up on the couch in front of the television to sleep some more.

'I'm too old!' he complained.

'Get in line - I'm older, and deserve more sympathy,' I replied.

See, I told you we are both ageing fast.

Here's another old person's (okay, classic) song which I have enjoyed in the last 24 hours: Cole Porter's Every Time We Say Goodbye, which is so painless you don't even know the song has passed until it ends.

More nostalgia? Edith Piaf's Autumn Leaves. Can you believe that when I was a teenager, I bought an album of original Edith Piaf songs?

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Farang C left a glossy brochure for a condo outside my door last night. It's for a new 20-storey, 187-unit condo, the Ivy Residences (awful name) in Pin Khlao.

We know Pin Khlao well, as we used to drink there. 'It makes the place look so attractive, when we know it's not,' he said.

The brochure makes much of the view, but not a single daylight shot appears in any of its eight pages. All pictures are taken at night, when we can't see just how chocked up the traffic gets in that part of town.

Pin Khlao has no skytrain or subway service - it's part of the old Bangkok, which City Hall appears to have forgotten.

The one-bedroom executive suite is tiny - just 40-48 sq m.

The two-bedroom presidential suite is better: 78-90 sq m. The condo's website, which is also cloaked in darkness, is here (link harvested - it died).