There are a number of Thai television channels. For the none-Thai speaker they are useless. For a Thai speaker they are brain numbing; abysmal quiz/comedy shows and dramatic soaps all of which seem to contain the same (bad) actors and actresses and have identical plots which involve women acting badly (in every sense) and screaming at people.
Thankfully, she who must be obeyed does not watch much Thai TV, other than the news on occasions. Provided I am prepared to keep her supplied with a regular flow of movies and TV programs via torrents, she doesn’t bother with Thai TV at all. Last night we watched “Miss Pettigrew lives for a day”, a pleasant enough period comedy, followed by a UK TV program called “Super Botox me”, where a 40 year old female reporter went to the USA with the objective of seeing how much she could spend on Botox and similar treatments. The answer was about $10,000, a world of pain and a lot of blood. I had my eyes closed for much of it, and judging from the squeaks coming from the person sat next to me, she will not be thinking of cosmetic surgery any time soon.
When my movie downloads can’t keep up and there is nothing but screaming women on Thai TV, we have a back-up in the form of a cable service from UBC. More channels than I can count, and almost all of them crap. I watch the news on BBC occasionally, the Formula One races usually, otherwise there is more entertainment to be had from my computer. She who must be obeyed has a liking for “E Entertainment News” which dedicates itself to reporting on celebrities, most of whom are celebrities based on the fact they have made themselves famous, not because they have any particular artistic skills. When the celebrity news is a little light, or has been repeated just one too many times, she goes channel surfing and will settle on some junk for five minutes, concentrating furiously, before moving on to the next mind numbing channel filler.
Tonight I want for a crucial umbala and came back to find her watching what appeared to be a team of midgets racing a camel round a track. What are you watching, I asked? A team of midgets racing a camel round a track, was the reply. The obvious next question would be “why?”, but it should be directed at the people who make this stuff and put it on the air in the name of entertainment. But she watched it intently to the end and then switched across to a breathless commentator who was describing the colour of the latest coat belonging to Paris Hilton’s dog.
In other news, the World Bank has issued a new estimate, that 1.4 billion people now live in poverty (although it doesn’t say what percentage of that has been caused by World Bank policies), and sixty children were killed by a coalition air strike in Afghanistan. But, more importantly, the midgets beat the camel, and the dog coat is pink.