And now, a special report from our correspondent who is risking life and limb on the front lines of the red shirts demonstration in Bangkok. Is there nothing that the fearless Spike won’t do to bring you the latest news?
Yeah, put myself in harms way for a start (or get out of bed early, or go near anything that features country and western music).
Actually, I was here today:
Teams from around the world competing for something (a token can of paint perhaps), in one of the world’s weirder pastimes. Two teams at opposite ends of an enclosure, last man not covered in paint wins, or something like that. They certainly shoot a lot of paint balls:
There was a thick green mesh around the whole compound, which meant that any photos I took would look rather crap, like this:
(The streaks coming out of the front of the guns are the paint balls. This was taken at 1/800th of a second, so I am sure one of my intelligent readers could estimate the muzzle speed. Or you could do what I did and look it up, about 320 kph).
Then I noticed that the competitors were entering the compound through a small gap in the fence in one corner; so I wangled my way down there and got some better shots:
And then I got this:
And then I got several more like it. Maybe the netting was in the way? No. Maybe the settings on the camera had been changed by mistake? No. Maybe a large albatross had done a shit on the front of my lens? Yes. Or rather, some bastard had managed to shoot an orange paint ball right onto the front of my lens, and my gorgeous 300mm lens was now soaked in orange paint.
A seasoned professional war photographer would have muttered “collateral damage” and phoned up Canon from the nearest bunker and order a new lens. This seasoned whimp muttered “oh shit” and frantically wiped the front of the lens with a cleaning cloth. Got off most of the paint, but the there was still a nasty smearing to contend with. Back home I tried lens cleaner and alcohol and window cleaner; none of which really made much difference. So I checked on the web and the advice was WD40.
When my son was 21 I thought it was time to impart the sum total of my years of experience. And it was “never be without a tin of WD40”. Wise words indeed, and so somewhat embarrassing to discover I didn’t have any at home. Tomorrow I will buy some and hopefully restore my lens to full optical order.
The paintball competition continues tomorrow if you want to watch. Not for me though, too bloody dangerous. I’d rather risk it with the red shirts in Bangkok, I bet they’re not slinging paint around at 320kph.
Comments 🔗
2010-03-14| Steroids UK saysI got hit on the inner thigh near my balls during a game twenty years ago it was soo painful I couldn’t walk for 30 mins and the huge bruise lasted for weeks.
Todays guns look far more powerful and probably hurt even more.
2010-03-15| Spike saysMust have been a good chat-up line though.
“Hi baby, wanna see my paintball bruise?”