Election

So, surprise surprise, we have a hung parliament. I'll leave it to the legion of political analysts to comment on the situation. It was interesting following the election from Bangkok (which has its own political turmoil). I confess I didn't vote. I could have done so - by post - but I didn't. To be honest it's really hard to tell them apart these days. Anyway, I followed it on the BBC's website, which I must say was excellent.

My first election was the Big One in 1979. I had just turned 18 and knew nothing. After Callaghan, endless strikes, rubbish collecting on the streets, England not qualifing for the World Cups twice in succession, I voted for a woman. I knew no better. In 1983 I was doing my finals at Univ and voted for the SDP-Liberal Alliance who seemed a better bet than the extremes of the other two. In 1987 I was living in London and voted for Labour, and have done so ever since, though it took another 10 years for them to win.

No surprises in 'my' constituencies: my home town of Chichester swung even further to the Conservatives, and Streatham (our last UK home) remained Labour, though only just held off the LibDems. Somewhat disappointingly, I didn't spot any silly name parties.

E is for...

A fair number of good Es, but we'll limit it to 10 in no particular order:

- Brian Eno

- Eyeless in Gaza

- Eurythmics

- Roger Eno

- 808 State

- Einsturzende Neubaten

- Efterklang

- ELP

- ELO

- Echo & the Bunnymen

For those who know me, no surprises about Eno. And even his brother gets in. I've always loved Eyeless in Gaza (pictured, along with Mr Ambient), underrated, the missing link between folk, pop and experimental, and still going strong. Eurythmics are included for their first two or three albums only; Neubaten for continuing to plough their own unique furrow. 808 State were great & influential in the early 90s. I'm ashamed to say that Efterklang are the only 21st century combo amongst this lot.

What can I say about the inclusion of Emerson Lake & Palmer and Electric Light Orchestra?! ELP were certainly of their time, like most prog. But it was a genre I grew up with (along with Kraut, punk, new wave etc). It's true I went through a subsequent period of self-denial, but am happy to confess. Pompous, overblown and ridiculous? Yes! As for ELO, I was a sucker for their great period between 1976-79ish, in parallel with punk & new wave, when they released a succession of perfect pop singles. I even saw them on the 'spaceship' tour and will always remember Tony Curtis stepping out onto the stage to introduce 'the greatest band in the world'. Guilty pleasures.

Bubbling under: 801 (a one-off live band so don't really count), The Eagles (actually, they had their moments), Egg, Etron Fou Leloublan, Electronic (if only for their first single with the Pet Shop Boys), Eruption, Embryo, Eroc, Experimental Audio Research, Everything But The Girl, Editors, Erasure and, if pushed, Enya?

Confucius say...

..."If you are in a book store and cannot find the book for which you search, you are obviously in the...





(Thanks to Annette for this)

Volcano Fallout

Finally, a big box of Pump CDs have arrived (see 7 April), about a month after they were originally sent, delayed initially by the vagaries of the Belgian and/or UK postal system and then by a volcano in Iceland. No matter, they're in my sweaty palms and now I can start sending copies to those who might influence it becoming a million-seller. Or not. Ironically this will involve sending quite a number of them back to the UK, which one hopes will not take another month. You can see why downloading has become popular can't you?

Liz's birthday

It would be ungentlemanly to reveal my good wife’s age but suffice to say she is not looking it! As luck would have it, Liz’s birthday has fallen on a public holiday, though strangely this didn’t apply to A & N’s school. So we had the day together without the kids: a rare pleasure.

With just two months before we leave Thailand, we’re trying to tick off the things we’ve not yet done. So this morning Liz showed me round Chinatown which is a chaotic labyrinth of wholesale shops and stalls stretching a mile or so along the river. I have been a couple of times before but it was a disorientating experience. You have to know where to go and what you want. Liz is a real pro now and whisked me from a shop selling gold leaf to another one specialising in every type of bead you could possibly think of. And where to get the best wrapping paper. And a tailor selling good Japanese cloth, up an escalator which clearly hadn’t worked for decades. And finally to a shop in what was probably Bangkok’s first ever shopping mall to buy some ‘schlack’ (a kind of lacquer for silver). You rarely see foreigners here. There are no MacDonalds, Starbucks, Gap, anything resembling a western shop. It has the feel and patina of another era, tatty, but with character.

In the afternoon, we went to Khao San Road, the backpackers hangout, (in)famous for its cheapo hostels, bars and stalls selling CDs, DVDs and trinket tat. I’ve been a couple of times in four years but Liz, never. Actually, we quite enjoyed it. One end has loads of silver shops so Liz was able to stock up on supplies and we had a beer while watching dreadlocked and tatooed twenty-year-olds from every corner of the globe. We ended up in a Thai restaurant on the river with only one other group of diners. OK, it was a Monday night, but it’s obvious that the Red Shirts turmoil is taking its toll.

Children's books

One of the many pleasures of having a family is that you get to read children's books again. The ones you read the first time round, the ones you missed out on, and there's even some half-decent new ones out there.

Growing up in the 60s, the books I loved most were Richard Scarry's Busy Busy World, What Do People Do All Day? etc. Brilliantly drawn worlds of animals masquerading as humans going about their daily business in Busytown. Busy Busy World, particularly, got me interested in geography and travel. I've also enjoyed revisiting the weird world of Dr Seuss, and getting re-stuck into abridged classics like Oliver Twist, Little Women, Peter Pan, Swiss Family Robinson, Alice in Wonderland... And of course Hans Christian Anderson, Grimm and many a scary folk tale. Great stuff.

Apart from Noddy (which was too odd to ignore), Enid Blyton's 700+ titles passed me by, but the girls are really into the Famous Five and Secret Seven, and retrospectively I am too. Guilty pleasures... I also missed out on The Chronicles of Narnia which are all the rage now. And I don't recall reading Roald Dahl then either (A especially loves Matilda). An important discovery has been the Frog and Toad books written by Arnold Lobel in the 70s. Funny, dry and philosophical. Bizarrely, an ex-pat theatre group performed a musical version here in Bangkok. And there's always the Mr Men.

New faves include Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler's Gruffalo etc and some of Michael Morpurgo's output... but I'm getting to be like I am in music: the oldies are the best. Interestingly, the girls have just started appreciating Asterix. But whither Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons? I remember liking them - and my mother certainly did. They're a bit Blyton-ish so they might go for it. And just to wrap this up, here's a little-known fact: Ransome spent a good deal of his early writing career in Russia, before and after the Revolution, married Trotsky's personal secretary and dabbled in espionage.

Volcano and coincidence

Liz went topical on the cake front for A's birthday: a volcano. Difficult to see in the photo, but it's a chocolate cake covered in brown icing and red lava erupting from the top and spewing down the sides. No ash cloud. She had a nice party at home with half a dozen close friends. The easiest one we've done I think.

The strangest thing happened to our friend Iain on the way here to pick up A's friend Flora. Yesterday he had emailed an old college friend in London from 15 years ago, to see what she was up to these days, and got an out-of-office message saying she was travelling for six months. On his way over to us he stopped at traffic lights and there she was, crossing the road in front of him! An amazing coincidence. Before the lights changed he shouted out "Get in" and brought her to our party.