Fiery Jack

Soi 7 beer garden really is a pitiful beast, a living advert for euthanasia or at best suicidal alcoholic despair. The last time I saw such a shockingly motley bunch of miserably unattractive, deeply unnerving, palpably desperate and clearly mentally unwell females under the same roof was decades ago at the ouch drunk fight club known as Champers Nite Club in my UK hometown. and that's why I have not lived in Britain for the last 25 years. Yes, you are a prostitute. Yes, you are desperate. Yes, it's a shit world. But stop staring/gesturing/shouting at me like a deranged harridan from across the fucking room. It draws attention to you and, more unforgivably, to me. I would, after some careful consideration, rather stick a red-hot steel poker up my arse than have any form of sexual contact or even be seen in public talking to you. No, I am not going to beckon you over, just as I wasn't two minutes ago, or on the other 23 times you've tried to engage my attention in the 30 minutes since I crossed the threshold to this hellhole. Dignity is, of course, priceless. Which means it is free. These morons don't get that. (Anyway, I probably shagged you 10 years ago, when you were young and pretty, and so was I. Let it go. Let it go.) I have 4 bottles of beer and go home. My world is blurred and skewed and warped in ways it never used to be. And yet some parts are clearer. jack

Touchdown on Thursday afternoon. Nana Hotel please. Check in 5pm. Bag dumped. Key dropped. Start the show slowly with five happy hour pints of stout in the Irish pub near Bus Stop on Soi Nana. Hanratty's? Hanrahans? Some murderous name. It's shit and expensive (100 sheets a pint even during guzzler's hour) but it's air conditioned thus not treacle-muggy, and you don't get hassled by slack old bangers who look like extras from the Addams Family and want 'to be your friend' (see under Morning Night/Stumble Inn as poetically rendered, with some poignancy, in that old six-triggered rogue Fiery Jack's second last brilliant Trip Report). The birds that serve in Hanratty's/Hanrahan's are all tastier than the beer too (though no doubt much more expensive): I tip my trilby to the manager. The one that brought me a dull-looking platter of cardboard 'fish and chips' was full of fun and wouldn't have looked out of place at Rainbow (or on the end of my cock, come to think of it). Lovely tits and nipples like chapel hat pegs under a Liverpool (or was it Chelsea?) shirt that looked like it had been sprayed on by a particularly skilful pervert. Or maybe that's the manager's job as well as hiring? If so, I tip my titfer in his direction once more. I thought about suing the menu writer, for in my fish-and-chip dish fish there was none. Plenty of batter, but scant piscatorial flesh to speak of. I had a sixth pint and staggered out into the treacherous arms of another sultry Thai March night. Get as far as Golden Beer Bar where I hurtle into the leery intoxicated gaze thence wide-open arms of a not unattractive freelancer I do not know from Adam but who claims she 'have good boom boom' with me in January. Good news: the memory's gone but the pussy radar's still functioning, even under a fierce deluge of beer, it seems. Why not? I accompany her to my Nana Hotel room and have my first soberish (though not sobering) sex for some time. She is kind and attentive. I feel less than lonely awhile: this is okay. I will remember this hour, and some things I thought were frightening won't be so scary any more. We part cordially in the Nana lobby after, my wallet 2000 baht lighter, cheap price to pay for the way I feel now. She heads 'home'; I enter Nana Plaza. It's all a storm of tequila and Heineken thereafter, waking at 5am in my room with a chubby young bird, of who's provenance I am unaware (Rainbow 4? I remember being in there at some point, but she seems too rough-looking. Maybe a takeaway from Nana car park? That would seem to be more her league) pulling her pants up awkwardly beside my bed whilst trying to keep a towel on (a sort of poor persons' arse-backwards Houdini act) and three discarded condoms on the carpet (all empty). She trousers 3000 baht and bids me farewell. No idea whether I shagged her or not. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet on the latter (though the odds would not be good). What was that I was saying about the FJ Pussy Radar still being reliable even under a gallon of wines and spirits? Maybe not. (But I shagged the other one, and it was sublime. Swings and roundabouts, and the moral is, just keep moving.) I rise at 11 with a heavy heart and a whore of a hangover. I write this. More will follow. jack

I am curious about that too. I live in Japan, so perhaps I feel some sense of being 'at home' in there, for better or for worse. I dunno. Where would you recommend? Also, I'm almost always roistering solo, and I know (where 'know' means when I nod at them they nod back) a few of the birds in there and they 'know' me well enough not to hassle me, at least until I'm blootered enough not to care. I'm over 50 now and I have I crossed a line somewhere. (I've crossed various lines in my life. We all have. Some we chose to cross, and some we just crossed without realising.) This particular line (traversed during my 40s, unchosen and unwittingly) was the one the previous side of which housed the land called Devil-May-Care where I felt wholly comfortable waltzing into any bar in any town in any country on my own. The side of that line I now live on is a trickier place, where I tend to feel awkward and self-conscious whooping it up solo, very (self-)conscious and wary of coming across like the sad old loser that I most certainly am: a risible mix of misplaced vanity and abject self-deception, but the way I roll these days, trivia fans. Put plainly, I like to know what I am getting into now; before the whole point was the radarless, mindless, mapless, reckless, empowering, intoxicating, exciting journey into the great unknown. So nowadays it's better the shithole I know than the one I do not, and thus my boots point towards Rainbow whene'er I enter the Plaza now. It's an age thing, of course, like most things are. I am hesitant now where I used to be a hedonist. This disabling hesitancy is, for me at least, one of the many side-splitting things that came as part of the general 'Becoming Middle Aged' bumper package of bad surprises and daily disappointments. Having said which, when I was young and wobbly, 90% of the decisions I blithely (and usually drunkenly) made on my own were disastrous ones, so maybe I'm better being cautious. Dull though, this 'adult' life, this looking so long before leaping. Duller than it was before. But less disaster prone, perhaps. And happier. I apologize for being such a pussy. (Apologizing for everything is another part of the 'Becoming Middle Aged' package.) (As is not saying 'F*ck's sake!' very loudly every time a spellchecker changes a British 's' to an American 'z'.) Anyway, I'll be back in BKK next month, on 'business' again. Champing at the bit. In Rainbow, predictable as snow, I suppose. Unless you tell me different, lads. jack Edited to add a bit more shite.

A gallon of ale in the airport pub and onto the plane and up, up, and away: I'm on my way from misery to happiness today. Touchdown. Taxi. Check In. Beer. Across the noisy road, to the Plaza. Pig after truffles is me. Somebody recommended a bar on the left on the ground floor. I can't remember the name. So I go in all three bars on the left on the ground floor and have a beer in each, just to be on the safe side. That's 20 minutes taken care of. It's quiet, very quiet, but the few folks there all seem to be having fun. I am not hassled by anyone. So far, so good. Seem to be quite a few white birds trotting about in pairs, studenty types just having a look. They're all gorgeous. If only. I must be getting old. Fuck it. it's 10PM. Rainbow. In Rainbow, among the usual phalanx of intense Japs all 'enjoying themselves' in a studious, sober, silent way they've probably conned up on in some manual or guidebook somewhere :grinyes: :grinyes:, there is a moderately famous British actor. He may be even He looks shifty, nervous. I don't know his name. He's a northerner. Little rat-faced dude. I think he was in Coronation Street, and he was in a drama called 'Prey' about a copper who gets framed for murdering his missus and goes on the run. He has one beer and fucks off looking sheepish. I have five beers and don't. The mama-san (for I presume this striking bold creature to be such a venerable personage) comes up to me, a robust leather-faced lady of some 40 summers in a coat of many colours who sounds like she's been gargling gin and domestos since dawn, and smells a bit like it too. She looks like Michael Douglas playing Liberace, like she applied her make up with a shoe horn. She has noticeably huge breasts, and I'm half-trollied, so the game's afoot. She greets me like a long lost sibling returning safe from war. She doesn't know my name, and I can't remember hers. She tells me she has a sore throat, in a pointedly melancholy gravel throated tone suggestive of someone who reckons a double scotch might ease the pain. I buy her a large scotch. It arrives and she downs it in one. My kind of woman. She asks if I fancy a takeaway tart for tonight. I tell her I'll shag her if she's game. She laughs like I've just told a show-stopping gag, slap me on the back and fucks off to talk to a purple-faved liverish old Jap sitting nearby. I gaze at the stage. One topless bird sports her black thong atop nothing bar a fetching pair of chunky black battered-up biker boots. Looks like she just rode in on a Harley. Sadly, her face looks like she fell off the fucking thing a few times on the way here. Ah well, you take the rough with the smooth. Home alone. Almost. A very cute little angel-faced page-cut bottle-blonde in a red dress outside Nana car park asks me how I am as I brush past. For once, I am honest. I tell her I am sad and alone. Five minutes later, in my room, I realise she is a lot less attractive than when first I met her, and a hell of la lot older than I remember her being all those seconds before in the darkness. That's what time does, I suppose. She may well be thinking much the same about me. We shower and shag and it's amicable and lovely. She's cheerful and cuddly. This makes me happy, I realise. I could spend some time with this type of person, but of course I don't and I won't. She leaves once I've huffed and puffed and shot the paste. I can't remember how much she asked for or how much I gave her. I can't remember her name. Maybe I never even asked her. But I look for her after that every night in the area around Nana. She's never there. At breakfast two flamboyant nancified preening obvious shirtlifters approach my table: a table for four with hungover moi the sole current occupant. 'Mind if we sir here?' Well, there's loads of other spare seats, you fucking dipstick, but if you fucking must... Why do I attract these cunts? I spend the next ten listening to how lovely a batik shop in Rayong is. Next night, in Rainbow again after a hard afternoon's boozing in Soi 7 Beergarden. The mama-san greets me like a long lost sibling returning safe from war. She doesn't know my name, and I can't remember hers. She tells me she has a sore throat... (see above). A yellow jerseyed dekserve takes some sheets of bog roll from a stash behind the stool I'm sitting on and blithely informs me she's going for a pee. I spend the next few minutes trying to work out whether that's sexy or not. And when she returns I spend the next few wondering whether she washed her hands or not. Home alone. Relatively incident-free breakfast, bar the obligatory Drunken Scotsman sitting red-faced on his own sucking off a bottle of heineken with his eggs and bacon. Nana shampoo is good as ever. But the body foam has changed. In Rainbow for the third night running after a hard afternoon guzzling tequila , I look for M, the bird I shagged in my last Trip Report. I'd sort of forgotten about her, but now I am remembering. I rapidly realise I have no idea what she looks like, although I had sex with her four months ago. This will hamper my attempts to locate her, I surmise. I recall that she was young and tall, which narrows it down significantly, and pretty, which narrows it down even more. A brazen topless girl walks over and winks at me. I wonder if it is M. I stay stony faced, and she glides past me into the arms of a jap half my age. She isn't M, and she wasn't winking at me. Fuck it, I'll rattle up to Cowboy. What was I saying about how the mighty (i.e. me) are fallen? Long Gun. They're all naked when I arrive, but that's a cautionary note of criticism, rather than a recommendation, lads. Surrounded by stubbly shavers, one bird's still got a strip of pussy hair. Makes me think she's somehow cool and exotic. In here, and now. (I remember when shaven snatches were exotic: that's how old I am.) Thump thump thump: the sound of fat bare legs bouncing off the Perspex stage. How many cigarettes can a girl stub out in one lifetime? The more a bird's prepared to take off, the more desperate she is: goes for clothes as well as prices, I suppose. :hum: Dollhouse: plenty of pussy in here, all shaven. Plenty of blokes in here too, all losers. Present company included. I walk home, past persistent prostitutes and persistently pissed punters. I like the feel of a drug deal. 20 Valium palmed. I'll be okay now. Wake up with a bagful of cheap souvenirish street-stall tat: presents for my girlfriend at home. Suddenly remember I was dumped by her six months ago. Must've forgotten that last night. Four similar days later, a Thai pop song on the taxi radio as I'm airport bound. The chorus seems to say, 'only ever, only ever...' I'm only ever this beguiled by here. jack

Good call. I think so many of us old stagers on here could say the same thing. I know I could. (And yet, still, I'll be jumping on a plane to BKK next month like a pig after truffles... ... braced for another series of crushing disappointments. ) And, while I am on, THANKS, sincerely and especially, to Stickman and KS and a few others like them. Honestly, thanks, fellers. Stuff — ideas, descriptions, tips and warnings, ways to win, imaginings, possibilities — you've made, done, put out there, facilitated and inspired others to do is a part of my fucking life now, and has been for the many years I've enjoyed visiting Thailand. And I am glad of that, gladder than I could ever explain here. All of these people are friends I've barely, and in some cases never, met. You are friends nonetheless and (in a manly, non-lavender way ), I love you. jack Edited to add a bit more shite.

... Clearly posted by hapless folks who'd booked the joint blissfully unaware that it's a glorified (and not all that glorified) knocking shop. There are some corkers. Trip Advisor's the best. These are from there: Poor old Sebastian got a shock... But, wait a minute, Karen from Gillingham, UK, has got the right idea! (Oh, she's being ironic? ) A "girl from Finland" didn't get the holiday she bargained for... Mr Peter Winn from Seamer gives the Nana a one star rating: But Colin E. from Aberdeen gives a glowing recommendation. When can I go? Taxi! Guarisharma from New Dheli had a brief but memorable stay: H. Shah, from Chichester UK, even made friends with the gentleman in the room next to hers. I just booked a room there. Can't wait. jack

Fully booked on the dates I want, mate. But thanks. jack

Like a moth to a flame — a stinking decrepit flame well past its sell-by date whose carpets are musty, whose clientele (and I include myself) resemble a ragbag assortment of alkies and weirdos and loons and goons and ne'er-do-wells that make the f*cking Addams Family look normal — I return to the Nana Hotel, time after time, as old Cyndi Lauper sings. I tell myself that there are 2 good reasons for this. In fact there are 3. (Reason 3, trivia fans, is that once old Fiery jack's got a few drinks down his throat he's drawn to Nana Plaza and the tuppenny tarts therein like a pig after truffles. ) The 2 reasons I more readily, and more publicly, admit to are: 1) the Nana Hotel and surrounding area are great for 'people watching' , and, 2) I like a good outdoor pool (and one that's bigger than a postage stamp, thank you kindly) and I haven't found a hotel with a better or better-sized pool in Bangkok, though surely there must be one? To cut to the chase (or as near to it as your old pal Ramblin' Jacky's ever gonna get... ), I'll be in BKK next week and have already booked online at the Nana Hotel, but I can always cancel that without loss of monies or face, since all they ask for is your, ahem, 'name'. To be honest, the last time I stayed there (last September: see Trip reports) I did find myself thinking 'F*ck's sake, this place really is a f*cking dump!' on more than one occasion (in fact one every occasion I was sober (so, in fact, on exactly one occasion: when I checked in)). Plus, it's not that cheap now, considering what a shit hole it has become. And, anyway, I'll be over on a 'business' trip , so I won't be paying. QUESTION: Are there any decent, tart-friendly hotels on (Lower) Sukhumvit that have a good outdoor pool? (Hotels farther afield considered, as long as they're tart friendly.) Thanks, lads. Hope someone can suggest somewhere, or Nana it is, again... jack

November 2001, was it? Christ, it's all been downhill from there. jack

Hokey dokey, Belgian Boy, old scout, that'll be my first port of call next week. I'll let you know how I get on. I already have an inkling. jack

I'm never sure, mate. I did know, and like, that song when I was younger, and it might subconsciously have called. The moniker 'Fiery Jack', like so many things in our cluttered lives that begin as casual asides and end as irksome burdens, was something I hastily typed in on the spot when I first joined this board (Christ knows when that was: late 1990s? I have no idea. Is there a way a feller can find out?) and never thought to change. It suits me well, for I am indeed 'fiery' (in that, to my shame, I am hot-tempered and reckless), and a 'jack' (-ass, and master of none of the sundry trades I have tried down the decades). (I sometimes think it could and should have been, and possibly almost was 'Saucy Jack', a phrase that appears in the seminal movie 'Spinal Tap', of which I am fond. I often wonder why that didn't bubble up and pop out of the stewy mental vaults, and Fiery Jack did. Who could say?) Like old Glendower, I can call spirits from the vasty deep, or so can any man; but will they come when we call for them? jack

Or, alternatively, pull up a lunchtime stool in Soi 7 Beergarten. There's always some, ahem, 'amusing and scary' old bangers frothing at the gash in there, mate. :_pumpkin: Or a mid-afternoon stroll down the side of Lower Sukhumvit opposite Nana, past the Subway/Starbucks stretch. That's an 'amusing/scary' walk on the wild side. Those pesky-pushy f*cking freelancers get uglier and weirder every year. And thanks for the kind words, lads. I'd love to write more shite, I really would, but I'm just to busy with the drudgery of real life these days. Will be in BKK next week though, on 'business' , so I'll file another report. jack (Edited to change it a bit.)

So here I come. So here I am. While I still can. Here again. My friends. It's that sad and fattened alcoholic old tosspot Fiery Jack. Remember he? Some persons here have been my friends, through good good times and shit times. I love that. So I write this, hoping they still listen, still remember, still return. I'm a humble man. From whence I came, to where I am. It's been a long time. I arrive at 8pm. I write this on an iphone I will later lose, but not before I've mailed this to myself... 9pm. Nana Hotel. Hello hello. Same same. Check in. Shit. Shave. Shower. Out. My first foray: Bar 4. Get the motor running. Beer in the quiet. But bonkers woman pushing 45 with a face like a Motörhead B-side , rolls up to ruin it. Clearly on speed and a bipolar high wire, this asian Susan Boyle lookalike makes my life (which was going great guns) an immediate magical misery tour. I thought this was meant to be good. Suddenly, it is not. Moments ago I was happy. Now I only wish she'd go away. That is the biggest thought in my little mind. I wish this tedious bore would go away. I try to be as unpleasant as I can, without being rude. Water off a duck's back to her. I say, 'Please go away.' She stays. I wish she'd go away. I go away instead. 2 beers and a ruined repose: 160 baht. Up the road. Stumble Inn: anything now for a quiet life. But the horror show continues. 3 old bangers who look like the mothers of the toilet cleaners (who, yes, I know, are better looking than the barstool gals) in Soi 7 Beergarden approach me with the subtlety and speed of Joey Barton in for a career-ending tackle. 'Mistah, you want a friend?' Yes, but what's that got to do with you, you 3 hideous witches? No thanks. They disappear. Like magic, not like magi. 3 beers: 320 baht. Nana Plaza then. Cut to the chase. Spanky's! Yes, Spanky's! Spanky's never lets you down! Spanky's lets me down. Didn't this place used to be good? Hmmm. Bob Dylan was right. Overweight pot-bellied mediocre girls thumping the floor aimlessly with rolled up black plastic tubes that look like they might contain college diplomas but, here and now, they clearly do not. Sad, in a way. Not sexy, in any way. I'm outta here. I request the bill. The DJ, a disgruntled stocky Thai gentleman who looks as world wearily bored as I am, brings it to me. Okay Rainbow 4. You can't go wrong there. Past the scrum of katoeys trying to block my way to anywhere apart from having my wallet stolen, and I'm in. Rainbow 4. Ha! 90% Japs. :grinyes: As expected. And Japs equal money. So... Most gals passable, 7/10. 3/10 for their scattershot English; more for their focused Japanese. Stage packed. Shufflers. Doing the stub-a-cigarette-out two step. A couple of them have their small tits out, maybe one in ten. Others keep bikinied and on-the-spot shuffling like they're waiting for a bus and busting for a pee, still stubbing out that pesky invisible Marlboro butt. This is my Rainbow now. Very Japanese punters doing that very Japanese thing: solo seated, studiously studying the bit between the dancers' thighs as if it's a Petri dish specimen. No one speaks. From where I lurch I can see two other white guys. No blacks. And about 50 japs. :grinyes: But things change here. First good looking bird of the night accosts me, and we have a few jars. beer: Feisty M from Isaan. Been here for 3 weeks she says, as liars do. One kid. Husband a wife-beating gambling alkie. The usual story. Tequila then. And again. I'm getting pissed/interested. She has to dance. On stage, I realise she's fatter than I'd hoped. Big tits and spacehopper hips. She's here again. Harro hansum man. And I fall from this Edenic height like an old pack of blistered ripped-up drink-stained cards. I am lost luggage, but I'm on the carousel. Bill! Bill paid, all honest, I almost sidle out of the door like a shoplifting thief. I am scared of this. I am scared of my life. I am not drunk enough. I am never drunk enough. I should be sober. I should be better. But I'm not. I am definitely not. Tequila goggles keep me where I am. And this is okay. We stay. Tequila! Four more tequilas later, it's all good. Of course it is. I knock a beer all over a Japanese guy, but he's red round the gills and gravitating fast toward the floor: he deserves it, complains little. Viewed through the warm tequila haze, M is now an oil painting. Quite possibly the most beautiful woman I have seen if not ever then at least tonight. Bar fine. Back to mine. Nana Hotel. The chilly room and the awkward shower. She's a big girl, and she's a good girl. She's had one baby but she's firm. She lays me down, not that I need much persuading. She could suck a wine gum through a keyhole and, minutes later, she's a shouter. The usual clumsy gymnastics. I awaken five hours later. Three condoms strewn on the carpet round the bed. All of them empty. She is gone. Wallet still here. Good. Good. All is calm. I am here. I walk to the window and watch the moon through smudgy glass. It's beautiful. Stunning and super. It's always a super moon. You just have to be there. And, in this moment, this time, there is where I am. It reminds me. I knew someone once who used to just stop, wherever we were, if we were outdoors or there was a window nearby: walking home blootered, running for an angry morning bus, late for an evening train, standing in the pissing rain, even crossing a busy street or whatnot. She'd stand still. She'd say, 'Look. Look at the sky. Look how beautiful it is. Why doesn't everyone always just look at the sky?' And she was right. I look at the sky whenever I can. It is always beautiful. It is always new. I think about her and I look at the sky. jack

My own pet, Tarby, died last Sunday, so I know a little of how you and your family feel right now, my friend. It's awful, I know, but we have to keep pushing on. Find the next stepping stone; don't sink. All the best KS. Be well. jack

And probably ã”ã¨ã—, not 後ã¨ã—. jack

Never heard that one before, mate. Without the kanji I can't be certain, but it would seem to mean (literally) 'Containing depth, travel similarly empties the spirit'? Or 'Deeply accumulating travel, the same as an empty spirit'? æ—…è¡Œã¯æ·±ãåƒã—ã¦ã€è™šã—æ°—ãŒå¾Œã¨ã—。？ Where did you hear that one, chief? jack

By way of illustration, allow me a resurrection... It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a single pair of shoes, must soon be in want of a mender. Being a tight-fisted cunt, I took a pair of ancient, forlorn summer sandals with the left sole hanging lolloping off like a tired gundog’s tongue to the local ‘Mister Minute’ shoe-fixer place inside our goodly neigbourhood department store one Saturday, only to find that the cobbler's booth in question had recently gone arse-upwards and closed down with a frozen yoghurt and crepe emporium standing proudly in its stead. Undeterred, I lurched along to a nearby smallish easily missed joint further down the road that's a dry cleaners by name but, I'd been told, also does alterations to clothes and, more importantly to my good self, offers a shoe-repair service to, erm, boot. I should mention right here that I lived at that juncture in a small rural city in southern Japan, for it may soon become relevant to this narrative. My local dry-cleaning place was manned, ironically given their gender, by three Japanese females. :grinyes: It's a bit of a ‘Generation Game’ sketch, to all extents and purposes: Meet the Shimizus! The miniature leather-faced old crone that sits on a stool at the end of the counter looking and speaking as if she’s been gargling sake for most of her days, bewildered and staring into space; her middle-aged daughter, a rotund and ruddy-jowled excitable woman with breasts like melons who barks at customers with a rasping growl that sounds like she's made of gravel; and the grand-daughter, a jolly wee bundle of dentally-challenged energy of some twenty summers whom, given half a dozen tins of strong beer and previous access to internet pornography, I'd definitely shag, once she'd taken her bottle-end specs off and made friends with a toothbrush and some mouthwash. Anyway, the damaged shoe sole in question seemed to be crying out for, basically, a smattering of glue. Mister Minute would have bonded and set it to perfection while I waited, polished the healed footwear up a bit on his spinning brush-wheel, told me about the time he went to Oregon to visit his sister who married a lumberjack with a penchant for domestic violence, and charged me the princely sum of 200 yen (just over a pound) for the entire, smooth 20 minute operation. I say this with unbridled confidence, for Mister Minute had done exactly that to this same pair of shoes 6 months ago. With the Shimizu clan, however, a very different scenario rapidly unfolded. You see, they don't do repairs in situ but, rather, sub-contract the job to some bloke somewhere else. It'll take about a week, sir. The elsewhere bloke will look at the skis and give the goodly Shimizus an estimate for the job. If you agree to elsewhere man’s quote, he'll proceed to fix them and you can pick them up chez Shimizu when they're ready. Fair enough: how do I know what the estimate comes to? No problem: leave your phone number and we'll ring you before Wednesday with the price. :grinyes: I gave mid-range Shimizu my mobile number and wrote my address on a form for her in scribbled kanji that were much admired by all three ladies — ‘He can write Japanese characters! It’s unbelievable!’ — the more as the calligraphy flowed from a non-Japanese hand (never minding the tiny fact that kanji were imported to Japan from abroad in the first place). In short, we had no problems communicating and I left the store with a spring in my step to the usual chorus and catcalls telling me how amazingly stunning and fluent is my Japanese. (One initially flattering but thereafter increasingly tiresome aspect of the gaijin experience is Japan is to be told that one’s Japanese is fluent after uttering a simple ‘sayonara’ in however clumsy an accent, just one prominent example of Japanese politeness to ‘outsiders’: the word gaijin literally translates as ‘outside person’). Imagine my surprise, then, when I check my mobile messages some days later and there's one voice message. I recognise the voice. It's Rotund Shimizu, and I can hear Grandma and Jack 'o Lantern Teeth in the background filling in the harmonies. It goes like this (in translation that is my own): Rotund: Oooooooh hell!. What shall I do? He's a gaijin, won't understand a word of Japanese even if I leave a message? What shall I do? Grandma: Get a move on! Rotund: Maki, you can speak English can't you? get on this phone, now! Jack 'O' Lantern Teeth: Get lost! Why don't you speak to him in English, Mum! Beckham! Fish and chips! Merry Christmas! All: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!... Call abruptly terminated. I called them back (their number was displayed on my phone). It went like this (in translation again): Rotund: Hello, Shimizu Cleaning. Me (in Japanese): Hello, I'm the foreigner who can't understand Japanese. You called me earlier and left a message. I presume you've got a price for my shoes? Rotund: Eh? How did you know... Me: I heard your message, and realised who it was. Rotund: But I didn't leave a message. Me: But I heard you talking, saying that I wouldn't understand because I'm a foreigner. Rotund: Oh, sorry, sorry. I'm so rude. I'm sorry. Me: I thought it was funny. Rotund: You speak very good Japanese. Unbelievable. Me: How much are the shoes going to be. Rotund: Erm..... 4,600 yen. Me: What! I paid less than that when I bought the bastards. They only need a bit of glue. Mr Minute charges 200 yen for fixing the bloody things. Rotund: But we have to send them to Osaka. Me: Bugger that then. All bets are off. I'll pick them up tomorrow and take them somewhere else. Rotund: Okay. You speak very good Japanese, fluent... jack Edited to alter it a bit.

If they're anything like a lot of insular-minded jingoistic doss Japanese cunts I meet in Japan (after having lived here for over 2 decades, fluent in Japanese etc. etc.), yes. jack

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8154497.stm Ho hum. Nicking stuff. My kind of thing. Jap bookstores are about the easiest type of store from which to shoplift. I haven't bought a book for years. You'd have to be daft to waste your money on books when you can pinch them so easily. Here's how. If your pockets are small or you're a bit bervous of stuffing stuff down your trousers or inside your jumper, go in carrying a stack of 2 or 3 books or A4 folders/magazines under your arm and looking like a 'bookish' type. Select the book you want to nick, stand and flick through it while you make sure no c*nt's watching you and you're not in the direct line of a security camera (up on the ceiling, usually near the wall or in a corner: if one's trained on you, carry the book somewhere else where a camera isn't snooping or a shop assistant loitering), then, once all's clear, swiftly and blithely — naturally — add the new book to the pile under your arm (slip it between two other books), browse a bit more (again to make sure no store detective c*nt or assistant is on your tail) then pretend your keitai's gone off. Get it out of your pocket, flip it open and start speaking English into it: stroll out of the shop pointedly while talking on the blower like you own the f*cking place. If any c*nt comes flying out of the shop and stops you (or a security alarm goes off, which it won't), just act stupid or pished, go back into the store and say you had to take that important call and reception was better outside, forgot to go to the cash register (make sure you've enough money to pay for it in your wallet just in case you get huckled, soft lad). I picked up the Oxford History of English Literature from a bookstore in Shibuya last week, and that's a hefty piece of wood. I nicked the Rough Guide to Thailand, too, a few months ago. Why not? They're asking for it. Shoplifting books from the massive bookshop on three floors of the same building that Muji is in in central Kyoto is as easy as taking f*cking candy off a bairn. Just get in there with a big coat on, pet, and you'll be walking out with reading materials for a few months and not a penny poorer. Large selection of English language paperbacks (though not as large a selection as it was before your uncle Deke waltzed out of there with bulging pockets last weekend, trivia fans). They've got security cameras but they're obvious and all pointing away from the decent nicking spots. And the staff are loopy-lou, useless as a chocolate kettle, standing there gassing with one another at the cash tills mostly, the soft c*nts. Game on. 99% of store detectives ("stoa gee-manu" the japs confusingly call the c*nts) employed by jap stores are obaachan old bags. They look scruffy, one step up from homeless c*nts, wrecked faces and sad-shit permed hairstyles, wear jeans or slacks and tatty jacket coats, look very like the old f*cked-mess birds that hang about near knocking shops in Kabukicho/Shinsaibashi trying to snag punters to shag the Chinkie tarts upstairs. They are always carrying a carrier bag. They're obvious as snow. If one's on you, ditch your swag and f*ck off. Don't risk it. If you're huckled with goods over 1,000 yen, they will call the fuzz. Under 1,000 sheets, you'll get a warning, but they'll take your name and address and you won't be able to nick from that shop again for a long while as the bastards will be all over you like a Star of Light employee on a punter's cock as soon as you set foot inside the store for months after. When I went back to the UK last summer for a fortnight of boozing and blawing, I was amused to note that, in most supermarkets now, batteries and razor blades are no longer displayed on the open shelves. Instead, there's just a wee card thing that you take to the register and the bird exchanges it for the batteries or blades that are now kept in a drawer under the till. The reason for this: ‘if they're on open display, every c*nt just nicks them’, I was told by a comatose-looking assistant bird I asked in Boots. They're expensive, and easy to pocket, so no need to pay for them unless you're daft or have more money than sense. Thankfully, jap supermarkets haven't cottoned on to that very reaonable line of thinking yet, and I have never, so far as I recall, paid for a razor blade in this country in 2 decades of living here. Batteries I pinch from the stock cupboard at work. In fact, I enjoy nicking stuff. I can sympathise with that bird Winona Ryder. It's a thrill, fills in the dead hours. Things I have shoplifted recently in japan: razor blades, toothpaste, tins of anchovies and kani-miso (f*cking outrageously expensive), a pair of nice shoes from Daiei (just left my old skis on the shelf and walked out with the new ones on LOL), a belt and numerous pairs of socks from Uniqlo, a pair of nice expensive cufflinks from a Paul Smith outlet in Tokyo, a swiss army knife, an official jap national team soccer shirt from a sports shop (just put it on under my shirt in the changing room: it had no electronic tag on it and was 10,000 yen f*ck that), a leatherbound diary, a silver ring, chewing gum from convenience stores (straight in the pocket with that shit, you just spit it out anyway), novels from bookstores, designer spectacle frames that I get lenses put in in Thailand for tuppence, sunglasses, a leather wallet from some poncey GAP shop, loads of fruit and vegetables from wee roadside stalls in the countryside where they trust you to put 100 yen in the wee box. Things I swipe from work: batteries, a coffee maker, blank CDs/video tapes/MDs, arse wipe, pens, trash bags, air freshener things out of the bogs, a nice set of ramen bowls with kanji on them from the staff kitchen, washing up liquid, a DVD-video deck that some c*nt had ordered but was waiting in the corridor outside his office one weekend, a telephone/fax machine out of the main office, just unplugged the c*nt and took it home after my own blower conked out. I don't think I'm a kleptomaniac because I only nick things when I need them (bog roll, shoes) or, if nicking wasn't an option, if they're things I would definitely buy (the cufflinks, the jap soccer shirt that I wanted to send home to a mate). I definitely get a buzz out of it, but I don't pinch things I don't need or wouldn't otherwise buy. No point in that. Scud mags? Actually, I've never nicked any porn in japan. Convenience stores have loads of security cameras so apart from easily-pocketed items such as chewing gum or fag lighters, I don't chance my arm when I'm in that type of joint. I tend to buy saucy mags only when I'm pished out of my box and rolling home at 3AM feeling rather sorry for myself, which has the ‘two birds with one stone’ effect of simultaneously letting the cute female staff of the conbeni (at least one of whom I will have soberly chatted up and been charming in the presence of in the past) know I'm both a pisshead and a filthy old loser if truth be told. Anyone else got light fingers? It's great fun, like. jack

Two panty pads walking down the street, see a couple of tampons across the road. 'Shall we cross over and say hello?' says panty pad one. 'Naw,' says panty pad two. 'It's a waste of time talking to tampons. They're always stuck up cunts.' jack

I had a blur. Will be back in September for more of the s(h)ame. —> —> jack

I'm in Scotland right now. Pint of decent lager's about 3 pounds and 50 pence, equals 190 baht. Cheaper in a spit and sawdust fight pub, but then you get your face smashed in. First pint I ever drank in a pub cost me 29 pence (16 baht!). It was a college bar (thus the ale prices would've been subsidized and cheaper than a regular boozer) in England when I was about 16. Late 1970s. First of a million kisses, that bastard. jack

Well, being a complete dick myself, known almost as well for my pedantry as for my alcoholism, I have to point out that the words uttered in Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet are, properly, 'wherefore art thou' (meaning 'why are you'). Now so obsolete as to be only used by old twats such as myself, 'wherefore' is indeed a compound of 'where + for', but since 1200 has been spelled as a single word with the final 'e'. So stick that in your pipes and smoke it, lads. jack

Thought I'd post this now, as I'll be too, ahem, tired to post it once I'm there. (Departure from Tokyo Narita) (Morning Arrival at Suvarnabhumi ) (Mid-morning Arrival at Sukhumvit) * (Midday arrival at Soi 7 Beergarden) (Early Evening Arrival at Nana Plaza) (Mid-evening at Nana Plaza) (Midnight Departure from Nana Plaza) (0.05am Arrival with BG at Nana Hotel) (20 minutes later after BG's departure from Nana Hotel) (Rude Morning-After Awakening to empty wallet and unfocused guilt feelings at Nana Hotel) (What have I done? I am unclean, I am a loser. Solo breakfast at Nana Hotel.) (Oh God. Did I wear a condom? What was her name? Midday, weeping in Nana Hotel Room alone.) (Aw fuck it. Hair of the dog at Soi 7 Beergarden, Midday) * (then repeat cycle from * to * for the remaining 3 days ) Hope that's helpful. jack

In any pub or club in the UK, mate. Some big girls in Britain these days. jack