REGULARS
Most of us can never predict change in our lives but the smart ones know the oxymoron that applies to all our lives being that change is the only constant.
Otherwise there is stagnation and who wants that? I think we all know the disgruntled expatriate who made a mistake by moving here. His mind is so closed that nothing is the way he wants it to be. Its’ too hot; it’s too wet; the food is too spicy; everyone is after you for your money; too many foreigners; the PM is too greedy; they don’t know how to drive….etc The problem for him is that he doesn’t have enough money to live in, as he sees it, his Utopian Homeland, and the likelihood is that no place, no person
or any amount of money could make this type happy mainly because of his closed mind. I was reminded of these individuals while talking with an acquaintance earlier this week. The subject of money came up and this guy had the answer to everything. This is impossible in such a complex area as offshore finance but nonetheless what he was doing suited him. In brief he was giving money to a friend and getting 15% return guaranteed. Alarm bells go off in my head when I hear of guarantees over 5 or 6%, so I tried to start explaining the complexity of offshore finance briefly but could have been talking to the chair. His mind was fully closed. Don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying that schemes that offer 15% pa or even 100% do not work. Many indeed do. Even though I have had clients in the times of the dot com era making 100% on their capital in three months the one thing I never did was guarantee that
return. It is very important for any investor to understand risk. Yes it is easy to be wise in retrospect but the truth is that unless you fully understand all the elements of
risk when investing, then you would do better to leave your money in the bank. For me one of the most important elements of investing is of course the return but the single most important item to know is what would happen to my capital if the company in which I had invested went bankrupt? For instance a client I mentioned earlier made 100% in three months. He cashedin his profit and left his original capitalinvested. As it happens if the companyhe invested in had gone bankrupt (which it did not) he would have been guaranteed 100% of the current value of his capital because it was domiciled in Switzerland. As this guarantee comes from the Swiss government it carries a lot of weight. Other jurisdictions like the Isle of Man Jersey Dublin usually carry a 90% guarantee from the relevant authorities which can be relied upon. However a guarantee given by a friend of a friend that in 12 months he will return your capital with 100% profit as I said may work but which would
you feel more comfortable with – the backing of the Swiss government or the word of a friend of a friend? If I know that my original capital is secure then I can take the risk or be very conservative in my choice of funds I select. The risk should be explained
by my broker and I am responsible to make sure it matches my risk tolerance. I have to remember that low risk carries with it a lower chance of loss with a smaller possible gain whereas high risk can carry a higher return but also with a higher chance of loss. The last thing I want to do is convey a cynical attitude like the misfit we talked about earlier. When I read in the press about people being ripped off by some financial scam the first emotion I have is pity but when I explore the scheme by which they were ripped off, I can sometimes sense greed. Going back to the guy with the closed mind who had an answer for everything: my friend with me that day happens to be a portfolio manager with a private London bank currently out here on vacation. He told me to give this guy the ‘sealed envelope’ treatment. I asked him to explain. He told me that in similar situations when confronted with some crazy investment idea that a client comes up with, he gives him envelope and asks him not to open
it until he has lost all his money. Of course the temptation is too much and when the customer opens it, written there is the line ‘I told you so’. My intention is not to scare people away from some excellent investment opportunities the world over but just to assist people to be more careful where they put their life savings. After all ifyou are comfortable with the returns you are getting then I think it’s a bigger mistake to move. I believe most investors can tell a genuine offer from a scam. jerry@swissinvestcenter.net
Mag’s Page
We are inundated these days with ongoing advice on what is good or bad to eat or drink. Hardly a day goes by without some new health scare, and the number of units of alcohol in any particular quantity of drink seems to have increased in proportion to the Government’s drive to make us cut down. When these nasty little unit things were first devised it was two to a pint, or one to a glass of wine. Now the unit factor has miraculously increased to three per pint, and up to three for a glass of wine! The wine issue is explained by larger measures being dispensed as standard by pubs and restaurants. That I can believe, having been served glasses of wine which seem not far short of half a carafe. But surely a pint is still a pint? So where have the extra units come from? And why do we still have pints anyway, metrication has been with us in the UK now for over 35 years? At first the breweries argued that it would be too expensive to change all the pumps and glasses. More to the point was the fact that the great British Public wouldn’t accept the change from pint to half litre. While you are doing the maths though, how does all this supernannying by the State equate with proposals to ban the sale of cigarettes in packs of ten? Beats me, but the argument is that youngsters will be less able to afford to buy 20’s, so will be less inclined to smoke. The latest EU directive on ‘bad’ food just about beats the lot though. The size and number of holes in chip shop salt pots is to be limited, in an effort to restrict our salt intake. If that news had appeared on 1st April it could have joined some of the classic ‘leg pulls’ and would never have been believed. Sadly it appeared in July.... If you are wondering about the point of all this, it is to lead (not too cleverly) to the issue of additives in our cosmetics. The late great Anita Roddick brought us the whole ethic of pure, unadulterated creams and makeup, based on equally ethical ingredients. Millions of women subscribed to the ‘Body Shop’ ideal, safe in the knowledge that no animals were harmed in the production of what we were slapping on our faces in the quest for eternal youth. Then a couple of years ago ‘Boots’ launched a new magic potion which promised to rejuvenate skin and reduce wrinkles - If used regularly of course. At about £15 (roughly 960 baht) for a tube which barely lasted a month it wasn’t exactly cheap, but still within the reach of average women. And reach for it they did in their droves. ‘Boots’ couldn’t keep up with the demand. News of fresh stock spread like wild fire, and the precious tubes were kept under the counter and rationed to one or two per customer. Realising they were onto a very good thing, ‘Boots’ soon overcame their production problems, and extended the range, but the flood gates had opened, while other firms introduced their own promises of eternal youth in a tube. The puzzling thing is all the new additives which are needed to plump, firm, smooth, refine, and reduce the appearance of our wrinkles, pores and shadowy eye areas. My favourite one is ‘Pentapeptides’. It’s a name that just kind of sticks in the brain, despite sounding more like a remedy for heartburn! Having dabbled with these New Wave Wonder Creams I decided, in the interest of economy and common sense, to revert to the old faithful ‘Nivea’. After all, if we have to watch all those additives in our food and drink, surely additives for external use should be
monitored? Now - if I remember correctly – ‘Nivea’ used to have a basic range of basic products. Face, hands, sun, and maybe baby’s bottoms, and that was about it. Several agonising minutes of decision making followed of course, resulting in the choice of ‘Nivea’ with ‘Aqua’, which seemed pretty safe. Then a quick grab for a tube of ‘Neutrogena’ hand cream as an afterthought. You always need tubes of hand cream. Imagine my horror then, while researching this month’s page, to discover that this innocuous dermatologic-ally tested cream contains ‘Active Soy’. ACTIVE Soy? As opposed to the inactive variety we splosh on our fried rice? Or is all Soy active perhaps? Beats me. All I know is that additives in beauty products seem to increase in direct proportion to the reduction of additives to food. Make way for the Peptide Police!
Bricks & Mortar
Any estate agent will tell you that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses. Kitchen refurbishment is the most popular form of home improvement, and one that will add value to your property when the time does cometo sell up. But trends in kitchen décor and gadgetry move fast: are you up to speed with the latest leather-clad cellars, polished plaster worktops or movable walls? No? Then you’d better read on, or your kitchen risks looking dangerously dated. Wine storage: Kitchens in smart new developments now come bristling wit shiny built-in appliances, such as coffee
machines and icemakers. The most popular, however, is the temperaturecontrolled wine cooler. What’s wrong with a fridge, you might ask. A fridgefreezer with a 39-bottle wine cooler attached will cost a mere 120,000 Baht. But if you take your wine very seriously and you don’t have a dank basement or wine concierge at a five star hotel to store your bottles for you, how about installing your very own brand new
cellar under your kitchen floor? Spiral Cellars are being installed in London at a rate of 5 per week. The idea is spreading. The new White Cellar, which costs from 800,000 Baht, also has LED lighting and a leather staircase. Worktops: Polished granite or laminate worktops are starting to look a bit vulgar, particularly the ones with sparkly bits. They’re also a pain to keep clean - a kitchen surface that smears when you breathe in its vicinity was never a practical idea. Cement and plaster are this season’s granite. A top local developer says: “Worktops made from unusual materials such as cement or slate are taking centre stage. High-gloss units are still popular, but over the next few years, matte materials will return.” Colour: The future is bright; we’ve all had enough of acres of sombre steel and chrome that can make you feel as if you’re living in a tin can. This year stores have inserted acidbright accent colours into their kitchens, so it’s a trend that already has gone mainstream. Britain’s top-notch kitchen appliance people, say that consumers go for sharp splashes of colour. Close down the open plan: Open-plan kitchen/dining/living rooms are still popular, but before you rush to knock down your dining room wall, think about the drawbacks: the lack of privacy, having an audience for your every culinary error and the harshness of all that echoing, blank, spot-lit space. Kitchens and dining rooms should be kept separate to give you the choice of informal and more formal dining. A dining room gives dining a sense of occasion - marvellous food appears like magic without guests being able to see the hot and bothered cook. The new trend in open-
to install moveable dividing screens or partitions, so creating a flexible barrier between cooking, eating and TVslobbing. Knight Frank, the estate agent, says that the sliding wall between the kitchen and the dining room can be a major attraction. The trick is to design a semi-partitioned kitchen to create a cooking corner, slightly separated from the main living area. Rob Gelling, director of bulthaup, the German kitchen manufacturer, recommends introducing tall units or sliding doors as room dividers which will conceal the cooking space if you want it to. He says that this is an option favoured by wealthier clients “who may prefer to outsource catering while liking the family room feel”. You can even buy a whole “kitchen system” from Armani, which comes with sliding panels. At the touch of a button a frazzled hostess can choose to screen out her dinner party guests, useful in case of sinking soufflés, chip pan fires, washing-up mountains or when houseprice conversations start to pall. With the spiral wine cellar, beware; it costs more to fill it than to build it.
d'Geek
7 things you should do with your new iPhone 3G 1. Call somebody, tell them you’ve got a new iPhone Hit the green phone icon to launch the iPhone’s phone mode and tap the Keypad icon to dial a number. Say (perhaps somewhat smugly): “Hey, guess what, I’mcalling you on my new iPhone...” Unless your existing mobile phone contacts are duplicated in Outlook, Yahoo! Address Book or a Mac’s Entourage/OS X Address Book, you’ll have to painstakingly enter each contact number by hand. But at least that will allow you to... 2. Get to grips with the virtual keyboard You’ll use the pop-up onscreen keyboard for writing emails, sending text messages, typing in contact information, notes and web URLs. It might feel fiddly to begin with, so type slowly to avoid making too many mistakes. The iPhone will automatically add words
to its dictionary as you use it and soon the predictive text function will anticipate the words that you’re typing. Better still, the iPhone’s dictionary will also auto-correct words if you’ve typed them incorrectly. The iPhone software analyses the keys that you’ve pressed and, if the word makes no sense, it makes a best-guess at a
n alternative. So if you meant to type ‘Tech’ but your fat fingers hit ‘Yexh’ instead, the iPhone considers that the ‘Y’ is next to the ‘T’ on a QWERTY keyboard and the ‘X’ is next to the ‘C’. It suggests ‘Tech’ as the correct word. At least it does on my iPhone. 3. ‘Blue dot’ yourself on Google Maps Unlike the original iPhone, the iPhone 3G features integrated GPS technology. To test it out, run outside, hit the Maps icon and press the small blue ‘locate me’ button in the bottom-left corner. The iPhone’s GPS will triangulate your position and show your current location as a pulsating blue dot. Now run up the street and watch that little dot move! Cool
huh? 4. Take a 2 Megapixel photo Thanks to the GPS technology inside the new iPhone 3G, whenever you take a photo using the 2MP camera you can ‘geotag’ the image with your current location. Your excitement at this feature will only be tempered by the realisation that the iPhone’s camera is, sadly, a bit rubbish. 5. Connect to Wi-Fi While the new iPhone is capable of 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi is faster. To set up your iPhone to automatically connect to your wireless network, press the Settings icon and select the Wi-Fi option. Any networks you register will be joined automatically whenever you’re in range. O2 subscribers in the UK also have free access to over 9,000 Wi-Fi hotspots operated by The Cloud and BT OpenZone. Nice. 6. Set up your email The iPhone can support multiple POP/ IMAP accounts and features one-click setup routines for Yahoo! Mail, Google Mail, MobileMe and AOL. Sure, other phones offer mobile email but few do it so beautifully and easily as the iPhone. You’ll find the Mail option in the Settings menu. If you’re still feeling smug, set your default email signature to ‘Sent from my iPhone 3G’. 7. Go portrait. Go landscape. The iPhone’s accelerometer auto-detects the way that you’re holding your iPhone. The best demonstration of this is when you’re browsing the web. Fire up the
Safari browser and load up the TechRadar home page – www.techradar.com. (Other
websites are available...) Now turn your iPhone 90-degrees to rotate the view from portrait to landscape mode. Note: if you rotate the iPhone 3G’s Calculator app sideways it activates the new scientific version.
Earth report
George W Bush lifted a presidential ban on oil drilling off American coastlines that was first signed by his father - A symbolic move aimed at pressuring Congress into
lifting its own similar banSkyrocketing gas prices in the US have set off feverish political debates over offshore drilling, which was banned by Congress in 1982 and by former president George Herbert Walker Bush in 1990. Most Democrats point out that drilling off the coast of Florida, California, and other states would have a negligible effect on the nation’s current fuel crisis but a potentially devastating effect 
on tourism as well as the environment. Bill Nelson, Florida’s Democratic senator, noted that US oil companies already control large tracts of land in the Gulf of Mexico where they have not yet begun testing for future drilling. “The fact is, the industry should be sinking wells in areas already under lease, before demanding control of millions of new acres or destroying long-protected lands,” Nelson said in a statement. George W Bush lifted a presidential ban on oil drilling off American coastlines that was first signed by his father - A symbolic move aimed at pressuring Congress into lifting its own similar ban. “Clearly, Americans are being gouged. But we cannot allow the administration to take advantage of the situation to give away the store before the president leaves office.” Yet Bush and his fellow Republicans, including presidential hopeful John McCain, argue that the absence of short-term relief from high gas prices is no reason not to begin an offshore drilling process that would take years to bear fruit. Bush has argued that one of the reasons gas prices are climbing is that offshore areas remain off-limits to drilling. His administration claims that as many as 18 billion barrels of oil could eventually be harvested from US coastal areas.
The 26-year-old congressional drilling ban remains valid despite Bush’s move, and Democratic leaders have shown little interest in lifting it even as they discuss a possible deal with Republicans on energy. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, in fact, was one of the first to criticise the administration’s continued pursuit of more domestic drilling. “If offshore drilling would provide shortterm relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither. It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years.”
Arts & Culture
You may not have heard of Jean Renoir but you may have read about his father
Auguste Renoir if you followed our series on art movements. If you have listened to movie critics or looked at lists of all time greats you will definitely have heard about Jean Renoir. As with most of the directors we have featured his work has been an inspiration to many up and coming directors. His movie ‘The Rules of the Game’ is regarded by many as an all time classic. Read on, and make a list of some movies to watch out for. Jean Renoir (15 September, 1894–2 February, 1979), born in the Montmartre district of Paris, France, was a film director, actor and author. He was the second son of Aline Charigot and the French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He was also the brother of Pierre Renoir, a noted French stage and film actor; the uncle of Claude Renoir, a cinematographer; and the father of Alain Renoir, a professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley. As a film director and actor, he made over 40 films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. As an author, he wrote the definitive biography of his father, Renoir, My
Father (1962). When Jean Renoir was a child he moved with his family to the south of France. He and the rest of the Renoir family were the subjects of many of his father’s paintings. His father’s financial success ensured that the young Renoir was educated at fashionable boarding schools, which, as he later wrote, he was continually running away from. At the outbreak of World War I Renoir was serving in the French cavalry. Later, after receiving a bullet in his leg, he served as a reconnaissance pilot. His leg injury left him with a permanent limp, but allowed him to discover the cinema, where he use
d to recuperate with his leg elevated while watching the films of Charlie Chaplin and others. After the war, Renoir followed his father’s suggestion andtried his hand at making ceramics, but he soon set that aside in order to make films, inspired by Erich von Stroheim’s work. In 1924, Renoir directed the first of his nine silent films, most of which starred his first wife, who was also his father’s last model, Catherine Hessling. At this stage his films did not produce a return, and Renoir gradually sold paintings inherited from his father to finance them. During the 1930s Renoir enjoyed great success as a filmmaker. In 1931 he directedhis first sound films, On purge bébé and La Chienne (The Bitch). The following year he made Boudu Saved From Drowning (Boudu sauvé des eaux), which was strongly influenced by Chaplin’s Little Tramp character. Here, Michel Simon, playing a vagrant, is rescued from the River Seine and taken in by a bookseller. The materialist, bourgeois milieu of the bookseller and his family is contrasted with the simple, happygo- lucky personality of the tramp. By the middle of the decade Renoir was associated with the Popular Front, and several of his films, such as The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, 1935) and La Vie Est a Nous (People of France) (1936) reflect the movement’s politics. In 1937 he made one of his mostwell known films, Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion), starring Erich von Stroheim and the immensely popular Jean Gabin. A pacifist film about a series of escape attempts by French POWs during World War I, the film was enormously successful but was also banned in Germany, and later in Italy after having won the ‘Best Artistic Ensemble’ award at the Venice Film Festival. This was followed by another cinematic success: The Human Beast (La Bête Humaine), a film noir tragedy based on the novel by Émile Zola and starring Simone Simon and Jean Gabin. In 1939, now able to finance his own films, Renoir made The Rules of the Game (La Règle du Jeu), a satire on contemporary French society with an ensemble cast. Renoir
himself played the character Octave, a sort of master of ceremonies in the film. The
movie was greeted with derision by Parisian audiences upon its premiere and was
extensively re-edited by his partner and editor Marguerite, on Renoir’s behalf, but
without success. It was his greatest commercial failure. A few weeks after the outbreak of World War II, the film was banned. The ban was lifted briefly in 1940, but after the fall of France it was banned again, along with (La Grande Illusion). Subsequentlythe original negative of the film was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid. It was not until the 1950s that two French film enthusiasts, with Renoir’s cooperation, were able to reconstruct a complete print of the film. Today The Rules of the Game appears frequently near the top of critic’s polls as one of the best films ever made. A week after the disastrous premiere of The Rules of the Game, Renoir went to Rome with his new partner Dido Freire, subsequently his second wife, to work on the script for a film version of Tosca. This he abandoned to return to France just before the declaration of World War II, to make himself available for military service. At the
age of 45, he became a lieutenant in the Army Film Service, and was sent back to
Italy, to teach film at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and resume
work on Tosca. The French government hoped that this cultural exchange would help
to maintain friendly relations with Italy, which had not yet entered the war. When
Germany invaded and occupied France in May 1940, however, he was recalled to
France and then fled to the United States, followed by Dido. In Hollywood, Renoir had difficulty finding projects that suited him. In 1943, he produced and directed an anti-Nazi film set in France, This Land Is Mine, starring Maureen O’Hara and Charles Laughton. Two years later, he made The Southerner, a film about Texas sharecroppers that is often regarded as his best work in America and one for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing. In 1946, Renoir became a naturalised citizen of the United States. In that year he made Diary of a Chambermaid, an adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau novel, Le Journal d’une femme de chambre, starring Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith. The Woman on the Beach (1947) starring Joan Bennett and Robert Ryan was heavily reshot and reedited after it fared poorly among preview audiences in California. Both films were poorly received and were the last films Renoir made in America. In 1949 Renoir travelled to India and made The River, his first colour film. Based on the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden, the film is both a meditation on human beings’ relationship with nature and a coming of age story of three young girls in colonial India. The film won the International Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1951. After returning to work in Europe, Renoir made a trilogy of Technicolor musical comedies on the subjects of theatre, politics and commerce: Le Carrosse d’or (The Golden Coach) (1953) with Anna Magnani, French CanCan with Jean Gabin andMaria Felix (1954) and Eléna et les hommes (Elena and Her Men) with Ingrid Bergman and Jean Marais (1956). During the same period, Renoir produced the Clifford Odets play, The Big Knife, and wrote and produced in Paris for Leslie Caron his own play, Orvet. Renoir’s next films were made in 1959 using techniques Renoir adapted from live television at the time. The former was filmed on the grounds of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s home in Cagnes sur-Mer and the latter film was made in the streets of Paris and its suburbs. In 1962 Renoir made what was to be his penultimate film, Le Caporal épinglé (The Elusive Corporal) with Jean-Pierre Cassel and Claude Brasseur. Set among French POWs during their internment in labour camps by the Nazis during World War II, the film explores the twin human needs for freedom, on the one hand, and emotional and economic security, on the other. In 1962, Renoir published a loving memoir of his father, Renoir, My Father, in which he described the profound influence his father had on him and his work. As funds for his film projects were becoming harder to obtain, Renoir continued to write screenplays and then wrote a novel, The Notebooks of Captain Georges, published in
1966. Captain Georges is the nostalgic account of an aristocrat’s sentimental education and love for a peasant girl. The book continues the same theme explored earlier in the films Diary of a Chambermaid and Picnic on the Grass. Renoir made his last film in 1969, Le Petit théâtre de Jean Renoir (The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir). In sympathy with the student demonstrations at the time, Renoir’s original title for the film was It’s a Revolution! The film is a series of four short films made in a variety of styles with one unifying theme. In Renoir’s words, “The pitcher goes so often to the well that eventually it breaks.” Thereafter, unable to find financing for his films and in declining health, Renoir spent the last years of his life receiving friends at his home in Beverly Hills and writing novels and his memoirs. In 1973 Renoir was preparing a production of his stage play Carola with Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer when he fell ill and was unable to direct. The producer Norman Lloyd, a friend and actor in The Southerner, took over the direction of the play. In his memoirs My Life and My Films (1974) Renoir wrote of the influence exercised upon him by his cousin, Gabrielle Renard. Shortly before his birth, she came to live with the Renoir family, and helped raise the young boy. She introduced him to the Guignol puppet shows in the Montmartre of his childhood: “She taught me to see the face behind the mask and the fraud behind the flourishes”, he wrote. He concluded his memoirs with the words he had often spoken as a child, “Wait for me, Gabrielle.” In 1975 he received a lifetime Academy Award for his contribution to the motion picture industry and that same year a retrospective of his work was shown at the National Film Theatre in London. In 1977, the government of France elevated him to the rank of commander in the Legion of Honour. Jean Renoir died in Beverly Hills, California on 12 February 1979. His body was returned to France and buried beside his family in the cemetery at Essoyes, Aube, France.
Art Lessons
Art Lessons on the beach Karin Faaborg, a talented painter and art teacher from Denmark, conducted a course in oil painting from 11 to 13 July at Nern Chalet Hotel on Khao Takiab Beach. Ms Faaborg lived with her family for almost a year in Thailand in 1995 and confesses that, “We all fell in love with this very beautiful and lovely country. The Thai people were very hospitable and we all felt very welcome at once. I was painting at our house in Nichada near Bangkok and I also arranged an exhibition there of my oil paintings.’ She continues, “When I start a painting,
I do not have a certain motif or a certain composition in mind. I simply rely on inspiration and my subconscious mind. Formerly my work was based on the naturalistic style when I started to paint, whether it was oil painting or watercolour.”
Ms Faaborg and her husband visit Thailand every year, and always spend some time at the Nern Chalet Hotel at Khao Takiab, where she says the surroundings are always inspirational. She has worked in Greenland and also has an ambition to visit the continent of Africa sometime in the future to absorb further inspirational images for her work. Her immediate schedule included visits to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam before she and her husband return to Denmark. “My paintings are my little babies”, she says. “I care for them and have some difficulties in letting them go, although it is very important to me to arrange exhibitions and to search out an audience for my paintings in order to move on with my work. But it is also important to me that I should keep some of my paintings. I always give each of my paintings a name, and I can remember most of them, even though this can be difficult after finishing
more than 500 of them.” Eager students gathered for the course in the lobby of the Nern Chalet on Saturday 12 July, where Ms Faaborg took them step by step through the painting process, working from a still life image on a table. The preliminary sketchings were done in charcoal before the students commencedto using oils. Says Khun Faaborg “We love to visit Thailand where we enjoy the climate, the friendly people, the atmosphere, the food - in fact everything. My husband and I also enjoy the noise and apparent chaos of Bangkok which is a bustling city which has a great life force. In Thailand, we are never bored.” www.karinfaaborg.dk
Health Matters
There are some diseases that have been around since the birth of time. Others seem to
be more recent in origin. Appendicitis is one of the most common surgical emergencies and there can be few people who have not either had appendicitis or have a friend or relative who has had this problem. This was not always the case. Often when we have a good understanding of a disease we can go back and read medical reports, letters, books and diaries written many years ago and say “Oh that sounds like *********.” Strangely, with appendicitis, this is not the case and it would seem that this is a problem that has been around for only a little over a hundred years. This may be due to the fact that our diet today contains very little fiber and a great amount of processed food. Our ancestors ate more fiber this had the
effect of protecting the guts against appendicitis and also against cancer.
One of the most famous cases occurred in Britain in the early years of the last century.
It grabbed the public’s attention and gave the disease the recognition it deserved.
Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 her eldest son Edward, the Prince
of Wales, became Edward the VII and preparations were made for his Coronation.
Unfortunately he was taken ill with abdominal pain a few days before the ceremonyand took to his bed. The leading doctors of the day were called to see him.
It is the nature of things that there are two groups of people who get poor medical
care, the very po
or and powerless and the very rich and famous. There are several
historical situations where politically important patients have received medical care
that in retrospect was very inadequate. The problem is that too many doctors are
called, too many opinions are sought and nobody is really in charge. Additionally, the
‘Best doctors of the day’ may actually be the best doctors of yesterday.
When the head of state is taken ill, it is a political event, and not just a medical one.
The world is watching and the doctors are aware that all their decisions will be secondguessed. The King was allowed to suffer for several days surrounded by a great deal of uncertainty; none of the surgeons were willing to insist that surgery be performed, even though they would surely have done so with a less regal patient. Only when the King’s condition was rapidly worsening was the decision made to operate. Abdominal surgery was a frightening affair at that time. Anesthesia had been around for about 40 years but was still a primitive business and it had few of the safety precautions that are standard today. They decided that they would open the abdomen and insert drains to help drain the pus and infection away, but that
they would not attempt to remove the appendix. Given the surgical capabilities of the time and considering how long thedisease had been in progress, this was an appropriate decision. The operation was a great success: the King made an excellent but lengthy recovery and the Coronation was rescheduled and held a few months later. The doctors were all heroes, received knighthoods, became rich and their names are remembered to this day. Don’t you love a story with a happy ending? The diagnosis of appendicitis can be very easy. We had a phone call early one morning from a young British lady in rural Thailand and within two minutes of talking to her
we were certain that she had appendicitis. Things were in the early stages and she was
able to travel to Bangkok and have surgery performed that evening. It is not always
as obvious as that and careful assessment by an experienced surgeon may be needed
before the diagnosis can be made. The course of the disease usually follows a pattern. The patient may have a day or more of generally not feeling well. Loss of appetite and nausea are often present, but initially no pain. The pain often starts in the upper abdomen and then settles in the lower abdomen, below and to the right of the belly button. There may be a fever but in the early stages not usually a high one. The pain increases with time accompanied
by nausea and often with some vomiting. A blood test will show that the white cells in
the blood are increased, a general sign of infection. The diagnosis may be difficult and examination by an experienced surgeon is the first diagnostic step. Ultrasound and CT can help in diagnosing this condition, particularlyin difficult cases. Patients may have very little pain; minimal fever and even the blood test may be normal. The one symptom that always seems to be present is loss of appetite and nausea. This can of course be present in many other conditions. The diagnosis is less confusing in men than in women. In men pain in the right lower quadrant is usually caused by the appendix, although it may be from the bowel and even kidney-stones can cause some confusion. Unfortunately in the female, the ovary and tube are very close to the appendix and problems in these organs can give symptoms similar to appendicitis.
Appendicitis is most common in young people, the majority of cases being in patients under 20 years old. However it is not totally restricted to this age group and I have seen a lady that was 82 years old with classical appendicitis. If the disease is in the very early stages and the diagnosis is unsure, then bed rest, a liquid only diet and antibiotics may be appropriate for a while. If however the diagnosis is certain, then surgery will be performed as soon as possible. If it is left too long the appendix may rupture and infected fluids then spill into the abdomen and can make the patient very ill. The appendix can be removed and the operation finished in less than half an hour, but it can take much longer, depending on the position of the appendix and the degree of inflammation present. In recent years many appendixes are removed using a laparoscopic method where only small incisions are made in order to allow the instruments to be introduced. The surgeon then operates watching a video produced by the instruments inside the abdomen. Our patients are usually out of bed and walking the next day particularly if the laparoscopic method is used. They are usually ready to go home in about two to four days. I really think that if King Eddie had come to the Bangkok Hospital Medical Center, we could have got him to the church on time! And talking of BHMC: as you may have heard, we are planning a new state-ofthe-art hospital in Hua Hin to serve the many patients that we see from the area. We will be having an information evening, probably in October to tell you of our plans and ask for your suggestions. More later!
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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