Month: October 2015

Emirates airlines are currently having a bit of a promotion on Business Class flights from Dubai to Bangkok.

This was perfectly timed (by them) as the promotion was launched 12 minutes after I had booked Miss Tim and I on a flight to Bangkok.  Bastards.

The problem with cheap business class seats – is you attract a lower-class of person.  No, I am not being a snob, but at the front end of the plane you expect a certain kind of behavior from people.  Hell, I ‘expect’ a certain kind of behavior from people all the time, but am always disappointed.

Last night Miss Tim and I boarded the A380 as per usual.  Took our seats, got comfy, settled down for a movie and bit of a nap.  Smiling faces, pearly white smiles all around and everyone being over polite.  A bit of me that.

However, since the ‘raff’ were now on the upper-deck, the nice ambiance was compromised.

It’s a night flight – all lights out, people tucked up in bed sleeping.  Not the ‘raff’.  Oh no,  they need to stand up and talk as loud as they can to each other.

They need to drink as much as they can at the bar and chat up the cabin crew.

They need to walk around the plane with their crying little bastard babies.

They need to keep opening the windows to see nothing but bright light beam across the cabin

They stuff their faces with every available bit of food on the counters (at the bar)

They need to keep taking ‘selfies’ every 7 minutes.

One guy (total weirdo) had the hiccups and made the most absurd, loud noise I have ever heard come from a human.  The guy just sat there hiccuping as loud as he could. – tosser.

When I run the world,  I think I’ll make it compulsory to have everyone sit an interview before being allowed in the Business section of a plane.

When we disembarked the plane – the cabin looked like the insides of one of those tour buses that has rolled down a mountain in the French alps.   Bloody peasants the lot of them.

There is no way I am paying more than double to fly 1st class – so I guess I’ll just have to sit it out and wait until the promotion ends and normal service is resumed.

Until then I will just shake my head as these scumbags go in and out of the toilets in bare feet or socks.   Do they think that is water on the floor in there?

For those of you who have seen the Emirates advert with Jennifer Aniston looking for the shower – please don’t be fooled into thinking this is anything like the reality.

Right now I am in soi 8.   Got some errands to run and then hitting the town later.

Tomorrow night should be a big one.  Was supposed to start at lunchtime but Jonas is getting a bit old for it all and can’t start until 4pm.  And even then he is having a ‘quiet-ish’ night.   What’s wrong with these people.

Time to find a Gory Bell…..

I’m a Glasgow boy – born and bred. I heard a bit of history about Glasgow recently and I thought to myself, “bloody hell, some things don’t change” On the Southside of Glasgow, just over the river from the City Centre, is a district called the Gorbals.

The Gorbals is infamous and is associated with all the things wrong in Glasgow of old. Things like poverty, slum housing, over crowding, violence etc. In the middle ages the area that is now called The Gorbals was the home to a leper colony.

One of the myths surrounding how the name of the Gorbals came about is that the good charitable people from the city used to give food everyday to the lepers. So as not to have any contact with the lepers they would leave food on the bridge that ran over the river.

A bell would then be rung to tell the lepers that the food was there. The ringing of the bell and the sight of the lepers coming out to collect the food became know as the “Gory Bell”.

Gory being a word for horrible, gruesome, bloodshed etc. This phrase “Gory Bell” over the years transformed into the word Gorbals that the area is known today.

Right, so that story that got me thinking was that on my second last visit to Thailand I went into a bar on Soi 4 early doors for my breakfast. I won’t give the name of the bar, but it is a bar that I like and will be my HQ now that The Mango is no more. It must have been about 10 in the morning and I had been going in over the last 3 or 4 days for breakfast.

There was only about 3 or 4 girls working and I decided to be Mr Jai Dee, Billy big bollocks and ring the bell. Before you know it there is a posse of girls coming down from upstairs where they have been either sleeping or eating. Probably the evening crew who haven’t got their make-up on and it was not a pretty sight. Maybe a few rough ladyboys thrown in as well.

All down because they heard the bell and they were due a drink. I now realise that I had rung The Gory Bell!

Been sooo busy lately, not had time to catch up with the blogging… .so where was I?  Oh yeah,  in Munich….

With less of a sore head than expected, my pal Ross and I decided that when in Germany, we should visit a Concentration Camp.  Of course we should.  We all learned about them at school, so I was interested in seeing it for my own eyes.

Dachau was the one close to us.  We hooked up with a tour and set about doing the tourist thing.

‘Tourist thing’ sounds wrong.  If you were to go back 80 years to those poor bastards and tell them they are basically in a start-up tourist attraction, they’d never comprehend it.

I don’t need to give you the ins and outs of Dachau – if you’re interested, here is the link.

One thing though, it didn’t come across as a dark, haunting place that it should.  With it’s fresh paint, nicely trimmed bush, it made for a rather pleasant place to be.  Obviously no longer under Nazi occupation.

After we finished the tour by poking fun at an American who was sobbing like a little bitch for the entire tour (poking fun = me shouting ‘cry-baby’ every 7 minutes at him) we headed to the BMW museum.

A major part of the BMW museum is dedicated to the Mini.  We all know of the new style Mini being German, but the original was (is) British.  Surprising then how they have so much info, cars, pictures on the Mini that was not theirs to begin with!

Lots of old cars, bikes and engines – if you’re a petrol head then its worth-while.  If not, forget it.

The rest of the stay in Munich was pretty uneventful.  A few bars around the Oktoberfest were visited as that was the only place I could get a Vodka in the vicinity of a beer festival.

With the weekend over, we headed back home to Dubai.

Only a few days in the land of the sand and it was time to head to the UK for a bike show.

As much of a car nut as I am, I have a bit of a passion for bikes too.  I can’t say that I have ridden much these past few years as I’ve not spent much time in the uk where my bikes are – so these past few years I have become more of a collector that a rider.  I have a few garages full of bikes.  For the bikers out there… R1 (x2) 916, 900 Ninja, V-Rod, some RG Gammas and a show-piece American Custom Chopper.   It is because of the chopper I was heading back to the UK.

My Dad is in a bike gang.  Not quite Sons of Anarchy, more Sons of Democracy.  My Dads gang was spending a weekend there, where by they sit round a fire and shoot the shit and burn stuff – with the odd mention of bikes here and there.  A good bunch of people who enjoy a laugh.

My involvement was I had my $75k custom chopper on show and I had to be there to make sure my Dad and his pals didn’t use it to deliver pizzas on.

Unfortunately, the chopper never one any prizes that day.  Never mind.

A weekend in the UK was good.  The next time I shall visit will be at Christmas time.  Miss Tim and I are heading to London for the festivities.    For some reason it just doesn’t feel right, celebrating Christmas in the sun.  It needs to be dark, cold, grey, miserable and wet. That’s the way it is.

No time for resting – back to Dubai where Miss Tim was also heading.  It’s been 6 weeks since she was last here – due to family weddings and feeding of the stray cats.

We’ve been hitting the Marina a fair bit in the last week.  We like the restaurants and bars there – although would not want to live there that’s for sure.  My lease is up in 3 months, so need to think about either moving or staying put.  I’ve a pretty nice place but it’s a renters market right now.  Might have to see what else is on offer out there.

Out and about in Dubai, Miss Tim and I went to look at a Lamborghini…… my birthday is coming up in a few months – and what better way than to deny that I am getting old is there than buying a car that I have to make noises to get in and out of?

Whilst at the shop…  we saw this…!

Not sure if it’d fit in my parking space at work?

Time flies and in 12 days time Miss Tim and I are heading to Bangkok.  I am only there for a weekend – so need to start planning a meet up with all the Rats.

So if anyone is around on Thursday 29th?……

As you were.

Before I start, I want to make it clear that this is no disrespect to Thai people…It is for guys that are in long term relations with a Thai lady.