REGULARS
The down at all time high
Many investors were pleased, as I was last week, to see the DJI reach an all time high (at time of writing).
So what does that mean?
You would think that all those people who lost a fortune on the markets in 2000/1 during the dot.com disaster had at least recovered all their losses and were now starting to forge ahead.
Well I'm sorry to disillusion you. At times the media can distort the facts a little to change our perception of the real issues.
In early 2001 when the NASDAQ stood at over 5,000 and money was piling in, starry-eyed investors could not see the wood for the trees. Bucketfuls if not to say container loads of money was being thrown at every crazy technology scheme and young men and woman fresh out of school were running around in top of the range Italian and German sports cars with millions in their current accounts.
When the bell tolled we all know what happened. Bankruptcy for some .-abject misery for many.
Five years later we can look back and say those were crazy times and think they will not happen again.
The reason- even though the Dow has reached an all time high, the poor investors who invested in the NASDAQ at over 5000 are to day sitting at just over 2,500. That means their road to recovery is still a long way off.
Remember if your investment loses 50% you need to grow at 100% to break even, which is a tall order in anyone's language.
Let's say Client A suffered this excruciating painful experience, pulled his money out of the markets and put it safely in bank. Probably fifteen years later 2022 he would be back to where he stood in 2007 expect his losses would be considerably more depending on the rate of inflation over years.
Client B switched his investment into Barings' Hong Kong and China fund at the end of 2005 and achieved over 100% growth on the investment in the last twelve months saving him 14 years of bank deposit hard labour.
You may think that this was really the sensible thing to do not only to recover losses but to make some quick profits as well.
If you think that, are you not back in 2001 a NASDAQ technology fund?
Remember client B could have lost all his money over the last twelve months and would today look with envy at client's modest progress in the bank.
I guess we have arrived at the big question for investors. What is your risk tolerance?
The above two clients are extreme examples of investor profiles.
Most people fall somewhere in between both.
A financial profile of you is just as important as selecting investment funds or a good broker.
What benefit is there for you, when your money makes over the odds, if you cannot sleep at night worrying about potential loss?
If on the other hand you see International banks prospering with your money you many feel a tinge of resentment if you are not in there for slice of real action.
If your broker sits you down and tries to get a full understanding of your risk tolerance and your financial objectives then there is a good chance you can finish up with a portfolio within your risk tolerance and one which should achieve your financial objectives.
Nobody but a fool would stick their complete savings into a China fund and await the result.
It's somewhat similar to a complete novice walking on a tightrope over Niagara Falls . You will be a national hero if you succeed, but the likelihood is you will fall.
You would also be amiss if your portfolio did not include some high-risk funds like China , Eastern Europe and India .
Always make sure that if you are adding these funds to your portfolio that you arrange the purchase so there are no entry fees and no switching out charges.
This gives you the ability to switch in an emergency in to deposit or money market funds with little risk.
The other thing to remember in trying to avoid past mistakes is to try and buy funds, which have had a few bad years.
Many fund managers are now recommending technology stocks but I know that some will not have the stomach for them especially those who have already sustained losses in this area.
However many analysts think this is one area not to be missed for the foreseeable future. And finally make sure all your investments are based offshore. Having lived here for over a decade the worst word in investing for me is tax.
Please avoid it.
For further information please contact jerry@swissinvestcenter.net
ARTS & CULTURE
Abstract Expressionism to Arte Provera
This month's art period will be more familiar to readers as it is coming into the post war era, as Abstract Expressionism greeted the new world order, and sparked other movements, most notably Pop Art, many of which still exist today in one form or another.
Abstract Expressionism was an American post-World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and also the one that put New York City at the centre of the art world, a role formerly filled by Paris .
The term was first applied to American art in 1946 by the critic Robert Coates.
Technically, its most important predecessor is often said to be surrealism, with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of Max Ernst. Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his “white writing” canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the “all over” look of Pollock's drip paintings.
The movement gets its name because it is seen as combining the emotional intensity and self-expression of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as Futurism, the Bauhaus and Synthetic Cubism. Additionally, it has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic.
In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work that is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic “action paintings”, with their “busy” feel, are very different both technically and aesthetically to the rather violent and grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning (which is not particularly abstract) and to the serenely shimmering blocks of colour in Mark Rothko's work (which does not seem particularly expressionist), yet all three are classified as abstract expressionists.
That said, abstract expressionist paintings do tend to share certain definite characteristics, such as a fondness for large canvases, an emphasis on the canvas's inherent flatness, and an “all-over” approach, in which all areas of the canvas are treated with equal importance (as opposed to the centre being of more interest than the edges, for example).
As the first truly original school of painting in America , abstract expressionism demonstrated the vitality and creativity of the country in the post-war years, as well as its need (or ability) to develop an aesthetic sense that was not constrained by the European standards of beauty.
The style attracted the attention, in the early 1950s, of the CIA. They saw it as a means of promoting the idea that the USA was a haven of free thought and free markets, and also as a means of challenging both the socialist realist styles prevalent in communist nations, and the dominance of the European art markets. The book by Frances Stonor Saunders (The Cultural Cold War - The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters aka, Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War) details how the CIA went about financing and organizing the promotion of American abstract expressionists, via the Congress for Cultural Freedom from 1950-1967. Other good books on this subject include “Art in the Cold War” by Christine Lindey, and “Pollock and After” edited by Francis Frascina.
By the 1960s, the movement's initial impact had been assimilated, yet its methods and proponents remained highly influential figures in art, and influenced profoundly the work of many artists who followed. Movements which were direct responses to, and rebellions against, Abstract Expressionism had begun, for example Pop (notably Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenberg and Roy Lichtenstein who leapt to prominence in the US, accompanied by Richard Hamilton in Britain, as well as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in the US, who formed a bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop), and Minimalism, exemplified by Artists such as Donald Judd, Robert Mangold and Carl Andre.
However, many painters, such as Fuller Potter and Jane Frank (a pupil of Hans Hofmann), who had produced abstract expressionist work continued to work in that style for many years afterwards extending and expanding its visual and philosophical implication.
COLOUR FIELD painting was an abstract style that emerged in the 1950s after Abstract Expressionism and is characterized by canvases painted entirely by large areas of solid colour.
Colour Field is related to Suprematism, and Abstract Expressionism. Colour Field painting sought to rid art of references to nature, and any recognizable references to past or present art. In pursuing the direction of modern art, the artists presented each painting as one, cohesive, monolithic image.
In distinction to the emotional energy and gestural surface of Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Colour Field art was cool and austere, effacing the individual mark in favour of large, flat areas of colour, which these artists considered to be the essential nature of visual abstraction, along with the actual shape of the canvas, which Frank Stella in particular achieved in unusual ways with combinations of curved and straight edges.
COBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1949 to 1952. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen , Brussels , and Amsterdam .
COBRA was formed from an amalgamation of the Dutch group Reflex, the Danish group Høst and the Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group. The group held two large exhibitions, one at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1949) and the other at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège (1951). The primary focus of the group consisted of semiabstract paintings with brilliant colour, violent brushwork, and distorted human figures inspired by primitive and folk art and similar to American action painting. Cobra was a milestone in the development of European abstract expressionism.
There is a COBRA Museum in Amstelveen , Netherlands , displaying works by Karel Appel and other international avant-garde art.
POP ART was a visual artistic movement that emerged in the late 1950s in England and the United States . Characterized by themes and techniques drawn from mass culture, such as advertising and comic books, Pop Art is widely interpreted as either a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism or an expansion upon them. Pop art, like pop music, aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture. Pop art at times targeted a broad audience, and often claimed to do so. However, much pop art is considered very academic, as the unconventional organizational practices used often make it difficult to comprehend. Pop art and Minimalism are considered to be the last Modern art movements and thus the precursors to Contemporary art or Postmodern art.
The term was coined in 1958 by British critic Laurence Alloway (in response to works by Richard Hamilton, among others) and a “pop” movement was widely recognized by the mid-1960s. In the meantime, the movement was sometimes called Neo-Dada, a name that reveals some of the thinking behind this type of art, and the strong influence of dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp on such seminal pop figures as Hamilton, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol.
Temporally, the British pop art movement predated the American one. However, American pop art is said to have its own origins that are separate from the British. The movement was a response to Abstract Expressionism. It marked a return to sharp paintwork and representational art. It was an appreciation of previously unappreciated objects and images of mass culture and ordinary commerce. In the American pop art movement the groundbreakers, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, were not actually path setters. Roy Lichtenstein was the most popular and one of the most consistent pop art practitioners using stencil-like dots to represent comics or later the simplification/parody of fine art from the vivid pop art perspective. Andy Warhol became the most famous American pop artist using a pseudo-industrial silkscreen process for painting commercial objects such as Campbell 's Soup Cans, Coca-cola bottles, for portraying raging celebrity such as Liz Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe and for portraying the deadpan and banal. Warhol extended his artistic contribution to film direction yet managed to avoid social commentary in his art. James Rosenquist brought pop art to enormous billboard painting. Lichtenstein at times extended his dotwork to this grand scale where the artist's skill is challenged by limitations on visualizing a gigantic work while attending to a small section of it. Wayne Thiebaud attended to similar subject matter (common food) as Warhol and Lichtenstein touched upon, but with the meticulous detail.
In Spain , the study of Pop art is associated with the “new figurative,” which arose from the roots of the crisis of informalism. Eduardo Arroyo could be said to fit within the Pop art trend, on account of his interest in the environment, his critique of our media culture which incorporates icons of both mass media communication and the history of painting, and his scorn for nearly all established artistic styles. However, the Spaniard who could be considered the most authentically “Pop” artist is Alfredo Alcaín, because of the use he makes of popular images and empty spaces in his compositions.
Also in the category of Spanish Pop art is the “Chronicle Team” (el Equipo Crónica), which existed in Valencia between 1964-1981, formed by the artists Manolo Valdés and Rafael Solbes. Their movement can be characterized as Pop because of its use of comics and publicity images and its simplification of images and photographic compositions.
Pop art in Japan is unique and identifiable as Japanese because of the regular subjects and styles. Many Japanese pop artists take inspiration largely from Anime, and sometimes Ukiyo-e and traditional Japanese art. The most well known pop artist currently in Japan is Takashi Murakami, whose group of artists, Kaikai Kiki is world renowned for their own mass produced but highly abstract and unique Superflat art movement, a surrealist, post modern movement whose inspiration comes mainly from Anime and Japanese street culture, and is mostly aimed at youth in Japan, and has made large cultural impact. Some artists in Japan, like Yoshitomo Nara are famous for their Graffiti inspired art, and some, such as Takashi Murakami, are famous for mass produced plastic or polymer figurines. Many pop artists in Japan use surreal or obscene, shocking images in their art, which is clearly taken from Japanese Hentai. This element of the art catches the eye of viewers young and old, and is extremely thought provoking, but not taken as offensive in Japan . A common metaphor used in Japanese Pop Art is the innocence and vulnerability of children and youth. Artists like Aya Takano and Yoshitomo Nara use children as a subject in almost all of their art. While Yoshitomo Nara creates scenes of anger or rebellion through children, Aya Takano communicates the innocence of children by portraying nude girls.
NEW REALISM (in French: Nouveau Réalisme) refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by Pierre Restany and Yves Klein. Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto for the group in April 1960, and a joint declaration was signed on October 27, 1960 by nine people: Yves Klein, Arman, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and Jacques de la Villeglé; in 1961 these were joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps. The artist Christo joined the group in 1963.
The first exposition of the “Nouveaux réalistes” took place in November 1960 at the Paris “Festival d'avant-garde. This exposition was followed by others: in May 1961 at the Gallery J.; in New York in 1962; and at the Biennale of San Marino in 1963 (which would be the last collective show by the group). The movement had difficulty maintaining a cohesive program after the death of Yves Klein.
The members of the group saw the world as an image, from which they would take parts and incorporate them into their works. They sought to bring life and art closer together. These artists declared that they had come together on the basis of a new awareness of their “collective singularity”, meaning that they were together in spite of, or perhaps because of, their differences.
For all the diversity of their plastic language, they perceived a common basis for their work, this being a method of direct appropriation of reality, equivalent, in the terms used by Pierre Restany, to a “poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality” (Trente ans de Nouveau Réalisme, La Différence, 1990).
The New Realism movement has often been compared to the Pop Art movement in New York for their use and critique of mass-produced commercial objects (Villeglé's ripped posters, Arman's collections of detritus and trash), although New Realism maintained closer ties with Dada than with Pop Art.
THE HARD-EDGE PAINTING STYLE can be considered a subdivision of Post-Painterly Abstraction, which in turn emerged from Colour Field painting. The term was coined by writer, curator and Los Angeles Times art critic Jules Langsner in 1959 to describe the work of painters from California , who, in their reaction to the more painterly or gestural forms of Abstract Expressionism, adopted a knowingly impersonal paint application and delineated areas of colour with particular sharpness and clarity. This approach to abstract painting became widespread in the 1960s, though California was its creative centre.
In the late 1950s, Langsner and Peter Selz, then professor at the Claremont Colleges, observed a common link among the recent work of John McLaughlin, Lorser Feitelson, Karl Benjamin, Frederick Hammersley and Feitelson's wife Helen Lundeberg. The group of seven gathered at the Feitelson's home to discuss a group exhibition of this non-figurative painting style. Curated by Langsner, “Four Abstract Classicists” opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1959. Helen Lundberg was not included in the exhibit.
“Four Abstract Classicists” was subtitled “California Hard Edge” by British art critic and curator Lawrence Alloway when it travelled to England and Ireland . The term came into broader use after Alloway used it to describe contemporary American geometric abstract painting featuring “economy of form,” “fullness of colour,” “neatness of surface,” and the non-relational arrangement of forms on the canvas.
In 2000, Tobey C. Moss curated “Four Abstract Classicists Plus One” at her gallery in Los Angeles . The exhibit again featured Feitelson, McLaughlin, Hammersley, and Benjamin, and added Lundeberg as the fifth of the original Hardedge painters. This style of geometric abstraction recalls the earlier work of Josef Albers and Piet Mondrian. Other artists associated with Hard-edge painting include June Harwood, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Liberman, Morris Louis, Brice Marden, Kenneth Noland, Ad Reinhardt, Frank Stella, Leon Polk Smith, and Jack Youngerman.
SHAPED CANVAS PAINTINGS are done on canvas in a shape other than the traditional rectangle. This may be more traditionally done by creating a different edge form and retaining a flat painting surface, as in a rondo made on a circular stretcher or panel, or less traditionally by moving the surface by stuffing or padding the surface, or stretching the canvas across a shaped stretcher. In doing so the painter sits at the tide mark between art and sculpture.
Representational modes often require realist paintings to be like a flat windowpane. The neutral form of a flat rectangular canvas is an assumption in painting that is challenged by the shaped canvas. The argument is that all paintings have a thickness that prevents them being flat.
OP ART, also known as optical art, is used to describe some paintings and other works of art that use optical illusions. Op art evolved out of Pop art in the 1960's and developed its own school of artists.
Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in only black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively of swelling or warping.
The term first appeared in print in Time Magazine in October 1964, though works that might now be described as “op art” had been produced for several years previously. It has been suggested that Victor Vasarely's 1930s works such as Zebra (1938), which is made up entirely of diagonal black and white stripes curved in a way to give a three-dimensional impression of a seated zebra, should be considered the first works of op art.
In 1965, a show called The Responsive Eye, made up entirely of works of op art, was held in New York City . This show did a great deal to make op art prominent, and many of the artists now considered important in the style exhibited there. Op art subsequently became tremendously popular, and op art images were used in a number of commercial contexts. Bridget Riley tried to sue an American company, without success, for using one of her paintings as the basis of a fabric design.
Bridget Riley is perhaps the best known of the op artists. Taking Vasarely's lead, she made a number of paintings consisting only of black and white lines. Rather than giving the impression of some real-world object, however, Riley's paintings frequently give the impression of movement or colour.
Riley later produced works in full colour, and other op artists have worked in colour as well, although these works tend to be less well known. Violent contrasts of colour are sometimes used to produce similar illusions of movement.
Other noted op artists include Jesús-Rafael Soto, Cruz Diez, Youri Messen-Jaschin, Julio Leparque, M.C. Escher, Julian Stanczak and Richard Anuszkiewicz.
The term Arte Povera was introduced by the Italian art critic and curator, Germano Celant, in 1967. His pioneering texts and a series of key exhibitions provided a collective identity for a number of young Italian artists based in Turin , Milan , Genoa and Rome . They were working in radically new ways, breaking with the past and entering a challenging dialogue with trends in Europe and America.
Art Exhibition - “Look at me”
An exhibition by Patricia Tardy. “Look at me” is the title of French artist Patricia Tardy's first solo exhibition in Bangkok . This solo exhibition comes after successful shows in Vietnam and China . In this exhibition Patricia shows us her portraitist talents. Patricia creates her characters by focusing simply on their eyes. Her attention to detail and the use of a subtle and warm palette of colours results in real life portraits. They look at us and question our recognition of the other. They question what we share and what makes us different. Patricia's figurative oil paintings have a mysterious quality that remains with the visitor well after one has left the Gallery.
“The life begins where the look starts...” This beautiful sentence by Amélie Nothomb might have inspired Patricia Tardy to write but Patricia chose painting, and not literature as a means to express herself. Inspired by the eyes, she has always painted beautiful and emotionally striking portraits. These paintings attempt to capture on the canvas the unfathomable mystery of the faces she meets while travelling.
With a scientific background, Patricia very early on gave up a career in engineering to follow her husband to Saigon, Shanghai and then to Bangkok. Influenced by the exotic charm of the South Eastern visages, she was able to perfect her art. Combining meticulous rigor and an insatiable curiosity, Patricia found in Asia a challenging source of resource material.
The exhibition runs from 1-30 March 2007. The Rotunda Gallery is located at the Neilson Hays Library, 195 Surawong Road , Bangkok , and the opening hours are: Tuesday – Sunday 9:30 - 17:00. Tel. 02-233-1731. Web www.neilsonhayslibrary.com.
THE TICKET 
F1 Season
Once again there have been a variety of small changes made to the rules and regulations for the new F1 season, as well as reducing the number of races due to some circuits being dropped and not replaced. Changes also in some of the teams, with a raft of new drivers coming in, most notably Lewis Hamilton joining McLaren.
2007 FIA RULES & REGULATIONS CHANGES
ENGINES: Engines approved and used during the last two races of 2006 must now be used during the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons. Although this move, designed to cut development costs, has been widely described as an ‘engine freeze', some limited development work will be allowed. This will, however, be strictly controlled by the FIA.
The two-race engine rule will no longer apply to Friday practice sessions. This means any driver starting a meeting with a fresh engine will not be penalised for an earlier failure. It also means drivers may opt to use alternative engines on Fridays and save their race engines for the remainder of the weekend.
WEEKEND SCHEDULE: In a slight change to the Grand Prix weekend format, Friday's two practice sessions have been extended from 60 to 90 minutes each.
TYRES: With Bridgestone becoming Formula One racing's sole supplier for 2007, each team will receive only two specifications of tyre per event. However, they will get more sets - four per driver on the Friday and ten for the remainder of the weekend. Each driver must use both specifications during the race.
SAFETY CAR: In 2007, safety car regulations have been modified to prevent drivers diving for the pits the minute the safety car comes onto the circuit, and to stop backmarkers interfering with the leaders during a race restart. No car is allowed to enter the pits until the field is bunched up behind the safety car and before the safety car returns to the pit any lapped car running between cars on the lead lap must overtake those cars and the safety car before taking up their correct position at the back.
FRIDAY PRACTICE: Third cars will no longer be allowed, but all teams are now permitted to run one additional driver in each Friday session. This additional driver may use either of the team's race cars.
SAFETY: A GPS marshalling system, involving a cockpit light display of flag signals in each driver's car, is being introduced. This will allow Race Control to alert drivers to potential hazards more effectively.
All cars must also now be fitted with a medical warning light just ahead of the driver's cockpit. This is to provide rescue crews with an immediate indication of the severity of the accident and is connected to the FIA data logger.
2007
Teams and Drivers
RENAULT
Giancarlo Fisichella
Heikki Kovalainen
HONDA
Rubens Barrichello
Jenson Button
RED BULL RACING
David Coulthard
Mark Webber
MIDLAND
Christijan Albers
Adrian Sutil
FERRARI
Kimi Raikkonen
Felipe Massa
BMW SAUBER
Nick Heidfeld
Robert Kubica
WILLIAMS
Nico Rosberg
Alexander Wurz
SUPER AGURI
Anthony Davidson
Takuma Sato
McLAREN
Fernando Alonso
Lewis Hamilton
TOYOTA
Ralf Schumacher
Jarno Trulli
SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO
TBC
TBC
BAFTA Winners
BEST FILM:
Winner: The Aviator
BEST BRITISH FILM:
Winner: My Summer of Love
BEST DIRECTOR:
Winner: Vera Drake - Mike Leigh
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Winner: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Charlie Kaufman
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Winner: Sideways - Alexander Payne / Jim Taylor
BEST FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
Winner: The Motorcycle Diaries - Michael Nozik / Edgard Tenembaum / Karen Tenkhoff / Walter Salles
BEST ACTOR:
Winner: Jamie Foxx - Ray
BEST ACTRESS:
Winner: Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Winner: Clive Owen - Closer
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Winner: Cate Blanchett - The Aviator
BEST MUSIC:
Winner: The Motorcycle Diaries - Gustavo Santaolalla
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Winner: Collateral - Dion Beebe / Paul Cameron
BEST SOUND:
Winner: Ray
BEST EDITING:
Winner: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Valdís Óskarsdóttir
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN:
Winner: The Aviator - Dante Ferretti
BEST COSTUME DESIGN:
Winner: Vera Drake - Jacqueline Durran
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:
Winner: The Day After Tomorrow
BEST MAKE-UP AND HAIR:
Winner: The Aviator - Morag Ross / Kathryn Blondell
BEST ANIMATED SHORT:
Winner: Birthday Boy - Andrew Gregory / Sejong Park
BEST SHORT FILM:
Winner: The Banker - Kelly Broad / Hattie Dalton
Golden Globe winners
Here is the full list of winners for the 2007 Golden Globe Awards, which have been held in Hollywood :
BEST FILM (DRAMA):
Babel
BEST FILM (Musical or Comedy):
Dreamgirls
BEST DIRECTOR:
Martin Scorsese - The Departed
BEST ACTOR (Drama):
Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland
BEST ACTOR (musical or comedy):
Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat
BEST ACTRESS (drama):
Helen Mirren - The Queen
BEST ACTRESS (musical or comedy)
Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Letters From Iwo Jima (US)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
Cars
BEST SCREENPLAY:
Peter Morgan - The Queen
BEST ORIGINAL SONG:
The Song of the Heart - Happy Feet
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:
Alexandre Desplat - The Painted Veil
CECIL B DEMILLE AWARD - lifetime achievement:
Warren Beatty
TELEVISION CATEGORIES
BEST SERIES (drama):
Grey's Anatomy
BEST SERIES (musical or comedy):
Ugly Betty
BEST MINI-SERIES OR FILM MADE FOR TV:
Elizabeth I
BEST ACTOR (drama):
Hugh Laurie - House
BEST ACTOR (musical or comedy):
Alec Baldwin - 30 Rock
BEST ACTOR (mini-series or film made for TV):
Bill Nighy - Gideon's Daughter
BEST ACTRESS (drama):
Kyra Sedgwick - The Closer
BEST ACTRESS (musical or comedy)
America Ferrera - Ugly Betty
BEST ACTRESS (mini-series or film made for TV):
Helen Mirren - Elizabeth I
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Jeremy Irons - Elizabeth I
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Emily Blunt - Gideon's Daughter
Useful Telephone Numbers for Hua Hin
Railway station
032-512 770, 032-511 073
Bus station of Hua Hin
032-511 654, 032-512 543
Bus station of Prachuabkirikhan
032-601 901
Bus station of Pranburi
032-621 443
Hua Hin Hospital
032-520 401
Dog Rescue Center
0-1981 4406
Wild life Rescue Center (Tayang)
032-458 135
Department of Land Cha-am office:
032- 430 846-7
Department of Land Hua Hin office:
032-536 164, 032-512 407
Department of Land Prachuabkirikhan:
032-611 211
Department of Land Pranburi
032-622 199
Local Government (Hua Hin)
032-521 340, 532 471
Local water supply
032-511 677
The Power Board of Hua Hin
032-512 215, 032 513 165
Observer office:
032-531 078
Red Cross.
032-512 567
San Paolo Hospital
032-532 576-85
Polyclinic International
032-516 424, 032-516 425
Shell Cooking Gas
032-511 144, 032- 515 620
The Communication Authority of Thailand
(Hua Hin)
032-511 351
Rotary Club of Hua Hin
0-1916 6637
Meeting every Thursday 8.pm
at Hua Hin Grand Hotel & Plaza
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