A portrait of the artist as madman

This piece originally ran in a recent edition of Fah Thai, the Bangkok Airways magazine and one of the spiffy publications of the INK group.


Chalermchai Kositpipat is crazy like a fox. What does the fox say? “I am simply a painter … a small unit in human society, hoping to contribute by a small measure to the planet earth.”

     That is Chalermchai in Thai National Artist humblebrag mode. But the creator of Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple in Thailand’s northernmost province of Chiang Rai, is prone to more bombastic and bizarre soundbites.

ALL WHITE: BUDDHISM GOES POP AT THE WHITE TEMPLE, CHIANG RAI
insta-art © Jason Gagliardi

  “A living treasure”, “world masterpiece” and “a must see for every human being” is how the self-styled “creator of food for the soul of all humanity” describes his work, begun in 1997 and so far costing a reported THB 40 million, all funded by the artist. It is his meisterwerk and magnificent obsession, a visual epic poem and a hubristic shrine to his own talent, draped in ancient allegories and limned with pop culture references.

    Lanna Rococo meets Buddhist Disneyland on Ritalin might best sum up the style, all white plaster and shards of glass and curlicues upon flourishes, like a wedding cake dreamed by Dali and left to melt in the Siamese sun. Visitors run a gamut of gods and monsters, cross a bridge over hell, depicted by 500 outstretched arms, and enter the red and gold ubosoth, an inner sanctum where the struggle between good and evil gets a Warholian makeover:

George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden glitter in a demon’s eyes as Doraemon watches the Twin Towers burn. Spiderman, Superman, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, The Terminator, Kung Fu Panda, Ronald McDonald and Hello Kitty are there, dodging space ships and ancient ogres.

       Chalermchai uses western pop culture to highlight the delusion of desire and to poke the glazed eye of rigid tradition. Thailand’s most successful living artist has seen his paintings fetch over THB 500,000 at auction, and counts among his collectors HM King Bhumibol Adulydej.

      A serial talk show guest, the artist made a recent appearance on left-field lifestyle program The Toilet Show, little knowing he would soon be starring in a toilet show all of his own. It began with his ban on Chinese tourists at the White Temple, announced to journalists along with a rap sheet of Chinese potty atrocities.  The headlines plopped into the public domain and splashed around the world. WeChat whizzed the straight poop to every last Chinese with a smartphone. It was a gut-punch to national pride, a strain on bilateral relations and threatened to put the skids on the torrent of free-spending Chinese tourists – the one thing propping up Thailand’s moribund economy.

Street Smarts: 'Cool' Soi 22 doubles down, Soi 11 jumps shark

Sukhumvit Soi 22 is Bangkok's up-and-coming buzzworthy nightlife destination with cultured clubs, a members-only cinema, a home for the musical underground that's Overground, New Zealand culinary whiz Dave Hallam's gastropub No Idea, a name as cheeky as his Guiness Braised Beef Cheeks or signature Lamb Shank Redemption, one of Asia's best all-girl heavy metal bands playing in Titanium, and a new bar and diner from Bangkok's King of All Nightlife, Ashley Sutton, that is quite simply the bomb. This piece ran in Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post as the lead Review story this week. 



Thailand's iconic nightlife precincts require little introduction: the neon-bathed netherworlds of Nana, Soi Cowboy and Patpong, the Hi-So hotspots, indie kids' clubs and too-cool-for-school bars of Thonglor and Ekkamai, Japanese-only Soi Thaniya, the mega-clubs and rave dives of Royal City Avenue (RCA), and the bastion of Bangkok clubland, Sukhumvit Soi 11, home to iconic establishments such as Q Bar and, until recently, Bed Supperclub.

BETTY AND THE BEST: BANGOK BETTY LOOKS
 DOWN ON HER CREATOR, ASHLEY SUTTON, AND
 'WORLD'S BEST MIXOLOGIST' JOSEPH BOROSKI 
photo: William Vaughan, Saffron Asia

Twice the value of fading hotspot Soi 11, in the monetary and mathematical senses, Soi 22 is a contender for the title of the city's most interesting and buzzworthy nightlife and culture destination. A creeping creative zeitgeist clings to the likes of the Friese-Greene Club, a secret-door cinema with nine seats, RMA Institute, an experimental art space and gastro-cafe, where you can have your gravlax and chorizo ciabatta and throw it at a canvas as art too, the recently opened Overground, with bands including Kamp Krusty who do hip hop on ukelele with an American who can sing in perfect Thai), Panic Station, Aerolips (a Thai Eurythmics) and Wasabi Bytes, a two-man electro band headed by Overground's owner, Australian journalist Grahame Lynch.

The street will rachet up the buzz a notch or two this week as the cogs and gears of Bangkok Betty grind into life on the ground floor of the new Holiday Inn. At the base of this black obelisk, a short stroll from the sclerotic chaos of Asoke junction, the latest chapter in the fairytale rise to fame of antipodean ex-miner Ashley Sutton, Bangkok's "it boy" of bar and restaurant design, is being written. Bangkok Betty is a high-concept flight of fancy from the rich imagination of Sutton, preceded by the baroque steampunk decadence of Iron Fairies, fish and chips saloon Fat Gut'z, milk bar Mr Jones' Orphanage, black magic-inspired Five and the hipster-approved, smoke-shrouded, rammed-to-the-rafters orientalist fantasy that is Maggie Choo's.

THE FAT DUCK FOOD POISONING OUTBREAK
SAW RESTO OWNERS GET CREATIVE IN NAMING
photo: William Vaughan, Saffron Asia

Sutton, who reimagines the bar and diner as a bomb factory churning out high explosives for B17 bombers, did in-depth research on the planes and their place in the second world war. Ancient pulleys and levers descend from the high ceiling, racks of shiny stainless steel bombs are everywhere, and the bombshell that is Bangkok Betty is painted on the brown brick wall in B17 "nose art" style, above an artistic interpretation of a bomb assembly line.

The room is dominated by its centrepiece, a life-sized 90-kilogram bomb straight out of Dr Strangelove, polished to a sheen and mounted on a plinth: death mirroring art, pregnant with menace, more Fat Man than Little Boy.

A week out from opening, Sutton is pacing and muttering in the bar while mixologist Joseph Boroski, global adviser on cocktail culture to W Hotels, consultant to Hong Kong restaurant Sevva and Bangkok institution Eat Me, and on point for cocktails at all of Sutton's best bars, surveys the scene through hooded Buddha eyes and sips his water.

Bangkok's Golden boy brings fairy dust to Hong Kong

This piece ran as the lead in the Sunday Morning Post's Review section recently, below right: 


All my life I've been searching for something, 
Something never comes, never leads to nothing
Nothing satisfies but I'm getting close, 
Closer to the prize at the end of the rope...

And I'm done, done and I'm on to the next one.
All My Life, Foo Fighters


For Ashley Sutton, Bangkok's golden-haired boy of bar design, art is long, life is short, and so is his attention span. The feted creator of Iron Fairies, Clouds, fish and chips saloon Fat Gut'z, Mr Jones' Orphanage, Five and Maggie Choo's is a restless, questing soul, never satisfied, always searching.

Sutton professes scant regard for his creations, says he couldn't care less about running bars anymore - “sh*tholes” is how he refers to them. As soon as the paint is dry on the latest talk-of-the-town Sutton special, the heavily-inked Freemantle native with the Australian Rules footballer's physique, matinee idol looks, fierce vodka thirst, raging insomnia and potty mouth is done, done and on to the next one.

IRON LORE:
THE FAIRY KING IN IS 

Fortunately for Hong Kong's more discerning barflies, the 'next one' but one (he first has to open Bangkok Betty, a new military themed diner in the Holiday Inn on the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 22) is a bigger, better incarnation of Iron Fairies to open mid-2014 in a yet-to-be-revealed Soho location. The original Iron Fairies in Bangkok's trendy Thong Lor district was a jazz-soaked, absinthe-drizzled, hard-boiled steampunk wonderland of a bar, which made Sutton an overnight sensation in Bangkok and saw the great and good begin queuing up to secure his services.

Sutton conceived the Iron Fairies mythology while driving cranes and digging mine shafts in Western Australia's rugged Pilbara region. “You’d be underground for so long you’d just about lose your mind,” he recalls. “I started thinking about fairies, and then I started doing some sketches.’’ Then he lost part of his left hand in an accident (not his drawing hand).

He visited China, set up a foundry in Dalian, and cleaned up selling wrought iron ware to Australian yuppies. His sales manager saw his fairy sketches, urged Sutton to turn them into a book, and the rest is history.

Now a three-volume set which has sold over 200,000 copies in four languages, part journal, part poetry and part mystery, Iron Fairies the book revolves around the adventures of a group of miners who live in tunnels in the rich red ore of the Pilbara.

One day, the miners begin making fairies, which exist in a state of suspended animation until they are touched by the first rays of the morning sun. Each fairy has a name, wings of a real insect, and a poem that details its provenance. the wings of a certain insect, and a poem that tells you what kind of fairy she is.

BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL:
SUTTON SETS HEARTS AFLUTTER

Sutton briefly opened prototype Iron Fairies bars in Perth and New York, before settling on Bangkok to perfect the concept. Entering Iron Fairies in full swing is always a trip; workers bustle about with files and moulds, leather aprons flapping. The beguiling titular fairies fairies are everywhere, coarse yet delicate, dense yet ethereal, dusted in a delicious patina of rust and verdigris. A wrought iron staircase spirals to nowhere and a New Orleans jazz band swings. Hand-tooled leather books spin fairy legends. Patrons dine on the kind of hamburgers you find in classic Australian milk bars and sip absinthe.

Divine secrets of the Bootylicious Sisterz

Greatest hits from the vault dept: Some years back, I dashed down to Phuket to interview Destiny's Child - well, let's be honest, to interview Beyonce. Imagine my surprise at finding her incapacitated by a respiratory bug ... 

SINGLE LADIES, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT

She's a survivor, sure. A diva, definitely. But Beyonce Knowles is also a super-trouper. While the merest tickle in the back of the throat is enough to send most pop stars swooning off in search of a health farm, leaving a trail of cancelled gigs and shattered fans, the brains behind this year's biggest female act on the planet, Destiny's Child, has proved she's made of sterner stuff.

Despite a severe upper respiratory tract infection which had literally left her speechless, Knowles refused to stay home in Houston and flew instead to Thailand with bandmates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.

The trio had been set to wow Asia's media and record company bigwigs with a showcase of their bootylicious ditties and hip-hop confections after a sell-out concert in Japan. Then the bug bit Beyonce (pronounced Beyon-say) and their gigs bit the dust.

Defying doctor's orders and unable to sing a note, Knowles hopped on the plane for the southern Thailand resort island of Phuket anyway. She's been told she can't say a word for three weeks, Rowland explains, as Knowles - usually the undisputed Child-in-charge - can only waggle her eyebrows, nod, frown, toss her hair and hold her thumbs aloft in agreement.

'It's been very hard for her. She did not want to miss the Asian trip, she was so excited about it. We were all ready to go, our crew was on the plane, we were about to get on board, but we had to get her to a doctor fast, because she couldn't say a word. It was right after we'd finished a very important concert and the doctor just said be quiet if you still want your voice.'

Prophet and loss: In the hall of the White Dragon King

WHITE MISCHIEF: THE  DRAGON KING
 TRIES CRANIAL SCREW-TOP ENTRY 
IN RARE CELEB LOBOTOMY

It's amazing what a bit of self-belief and snappy patter can do for your prospects. Chau Yum-nam started out as a jobbing electrician in Pattaya before plugging in to a different power source which would see him become the unofficial prophet of Cantopop and the high priest of Hong Kong show business as the self-styled White Dragon King.

When Chau popped his white dragon clogs earlier this month, more than 5,000 fans and disciples gathered for the funeral. This who's who of Hong Kong showbiz royalty included businessman Albert Yeung, movie director Meng Yao, Cantopop king Andy Lau, movie stars  Shu Qi and Tony Leung Chiu Wai. Thailand's King Bhumibol even sent some 'holy mud' for the burial. 

The White Dragon King was still at the height of his powers when I visited his lair  seven years ago for a brief and deeply weird audience. 


Hours before dawn they begin to assemble. Buses and cars form an orderly queue, disgorging white-clad figures who drift about like ghosts in the gloom. As dawn's fingers clutch at the bruised sky, a spark of excitement jumps from vehicle to vehicle. A small, bent figure has emerged from behind the spike-topped red gates and silently passes from group to group, handing out numbers.

At exactly 6am, the gates will be thrown open and this pale cavalcade will proceed along a winding driveway, stopping in the shadows of an impressive Chinese temple topped by two huge, bejewelled dragons rampant. The true believers will be ushered into an anteroom, where they will trade the number assigned their vehicle for individual numbers for each of their group. They will shake incense sticks at grotesquely rendered deities and purchase amulets and charms. They will quaff coffee and greasy, fried cakes. Then they will sit patiently and wait for their allotted minute or two with Thailand's most eccentric sage, an illiterate former electrician who has a growing portion of Hong Kong in his thrall, including Cantonese pop and movie royalty. Enter, if you will, the lair of the White Dragon King.

I had stood before the same red gates two days earlier, oozing sweat under a violent Pattaya sun. 'I'm sorry,' said the voice that answered a telephone number emblazoned on a sign by the fence. 'The master doesn't give interviews.'

WHITE  TANG CLAN: THE GURU
WILL SEE YOU NOW

I pleaded, stammered and grovelled, explaining I'd driven all the way from Bangkok and my editor wouldn't take no for an answer. 'I'm sorry,' said the voice again. 'No interviews. Ever. But you can come back on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday and wait in line with everybody else. The master might decide to speak with you.' And you would be? 'I,' said the voice, 'am Mr Lo.'

And so it is that at 4.30am one Friday I find myself waiting with the rest of the devout in the White Dragon King's driveway, dressed in my least-stained white T-shirt, whey-faced from lack of sleep. The mysterious Mr Lo, I had learned, is no faceless lackey: he is the master's right-hand man and translator, the chap who decodes the Dragon King's pronouncements for his Cantonese, Putonghua and English-speaking supplicants.

Indeed, it was Lo whom the Dragon King sent to the fatal shores of Hong Kong during the height of the Sars scare to bestow a blessing on the 'camera-cranking ceremony' to mark the commencement of filming Infernal Affairs 2, the $40 million prequel to the smash hit starring Andy Lau Tak-wah and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. 'The master wanted to come, but he was worried about catching Sars,' revealed a spokesman from production company Media Asia at the time.

The White Dragon King had blessed the first instalment of the planned trilogy, and it went on to become the year's top-grosser, collected countless awards and is soon to be remade by Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt.

Not Fade Away: Bangkok Retro rules

Does Bangkok Retro rule? It seemed to when I wrote this piece five minutes ago, OK, a year ago, for N, the new Norwegian Airlines magazine. Trends are always old news anyway. By definition. It was a fun story to write and hopefully to read, whether the fad is fuelled or fading.  This was my first very exuberant version, which I toned down for the magazine, and its subeditors toned down once more. I rather like the original better though. 

PLAY IT AGAIN, SIAM

WASHINGTON, DC - At a press conference Monday, U.S. Retro Secretary Anson Williams issued a strongly worded warning of an imminent “national retro crisis,” cautioning that “if current levels of U.S. retro consumption are allowed to continue unchecked, we may run entirely out of past by as soon as 2005.” 
The Onion, November 5, 1997 

"The best time is always yesterday." 
Tatyana Tolstaya, poet 


Retro comes and goes; great waves of nostalgia that wash over cities, sometimes entire nations, leaving in their wake a cloying tide wrack of ersatz nostalgia and sucking sinkholes of junk that some of us find irresistible.

In Bangkok, the retro craze has never been, well, crazier; citizens seized by a sudden passion for an idealised past they never really knew, or perhaps glimpsed on some reruns of American TV shows. Retro nuts, once they've caught the bug, are more crazed than the Bakelite bits on a vintage Mixmaster. Vast markets have appeared to satisfy them, straining and bulging with bric-a-brac, gimcracks, knick-knacks and old stuff that was crap then and crap now. High-rent emporia in the trendiest lanes of Thong Lor and secluded loft spaces in Siam Square overflow with tin toys and antique telephones, vintage duds and do-dads, fifties and sixties furniture and assorted other 'spurniture'.

All of a sudden, five minutes ago is NOW. The best time is always yesterday. Bangkok may not yet be in danger of running out of past, but entire city blocks seem to have been whammied with a real-life Instagram filter. 'Retro' and 'vintage' are the mantras on hipsters' lips, as an eclectic mix of true believers, collectors, entrepreneurs and dabblers have jumped on the wood-panelled bandwagon or trotted off to their time machines, hoping to get kitsch quick.

Among them is Waleeya Phanomphan, the twentysomething proprietor of CinderallasRoom, a true believer, a collector and an entrepreneur; her virtual vintage clothing store found on Facebook from Monday to Friday briefly materialises weekends around dusk at Bangkok Retro’s ground zero, Talad Rod Fai.

CEASELESSLY BORN BACK INTO THE PAST,
IN FADED DENIM AND FLARES

Talad Rod Fai, or ‘the train market’, is located on Kampaengphet Road, a short hop from the more famous Chatuchak Weekend Market (which also has a vast vintage offering in Sections 5 and 6) and easily accessible from the Mass Rapid Transit subway. It consists of several old railway department storage buildings crammed with vintage shops, antique stores and pubs, some ancient-looking trains that long since ran off the rails, and hundreds of brightly coloured temporary stalls which multiply as the sun sets.

Fine dining's crisis: too many pairings, no full house

A FRUITY ITALIAN WITH LEATHERY TOP NOTES 
AND A LINGERING FINISH OF BURGER,
FRENCH FRIES, AND MOTOR OIL.

Sshh: That sound you can hear, that faint wooden rattle under an Evinrude's rudeboy roar, is the sound of The Fonz putting on The Skis so he can carry another fallen hero or epic failure on the now immortal waterski jump over The Shark. 

The latest fad du jour to jump the shark is wine pairing, which went from champagne supernova of cool to self-sucking sharknado of stale faster than you could say 'degustation menu'. Second raters and bandwagon jumpers cannibalised  the concept, and almost daily it descends to a new nadir.

You know the drill: Would-be or fading hotspot announces wine pairing menu, celebrity chef or sommelier is summoned to make the culinary couplings. If it's a hit, some quick PR buzz and celeb cachet rubs off. If it misses the mark ... see 'sharknado'. 

Done first, it was genius. Done well and with style, it had staying power. But the concept now is overcooked, burned and due to be scraped into the skip, and each breathlessly trumpeted new instance of this culinary charade is now haunted by the shadow of The Fonz as he soars overhead, legs akimbo, outsized wine balloon in one hand, huge rack of ribs in the other, and the towrope between his teeth.

It's clear things have gone too far when in certain Californian establishments, sommeliers spend their days investigating which fine wines work best with Pringles, Cool Ranch Doritos, KFC cole slaw, California rolls and pumpkin pie.

The entire industry is pretentious, drunk on self regard, bloated with hubris, and ripe for a reality check, if not a good stomping.

WINE PORN FOR
CONSENTING PAIRS

Some of the most celebrated wine tasters can't tell their eiswein from their elbow. The evidence is in: in a recent study, blindfolded wine experts given the same wine three times in a row delivered wildly fluctuating ratings on the same wines.

And pair that with this: A 2006 study, published by the American Association of Wine Economists, found that most people can't distinguish between paté and dog food.

For dessert, consider this critic's crash landing on the outer banks of wank: His 'principle flavour profile' for one bottle listed "red roses, lavender, geranium, dried hibiscus flowers, cranberry raisins, currant jelly, mango with skins, red plums, cobbler, cinnamon, star anise, blackberry bramble, and whole black peppercorn'', among others.

A king tide of pomposity and pretension is running, but this oenophilic onanism must have just about reached its high water mark. Soon, the ebb tide will begin its sucking scour. When grown men want to make a study of which Chilean chardonnays go best with what colour of M&M, it's time for change.

The World of Somchai Wong: Bangkok's great tourism takeaway

Bangkok's impending tourism boom is a bust for the bright sparks behind Hong Kong's Asia's World City campaign. Recent piece for South China Morning Post's Postmagazine ... my old stomping, and scribbling, ground. 

As it spares little expense in telling the entire planet, Hong Kong is Asia's World City. So how come Bangkok gets all the tourists?

Every year MasterCard compiles the Global Destination Cities Index forecast, based on anticipated visitor numbers and their anticipated spend. And for 2013, the Thai capital is its hot tip, beating London, Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore into top spot, the first Asian city to occupy that pinnacle.

According to the credit-card giant's seers, Bangkok will clock up 15.98 million arrivals this year - representing growth of 9.8 per cent on last year's figures. London comes a close second, with 15.96 million visitors.

Hong Kong comes in at No9 - despite spending far more on branding itself than Bangkok, which also happens to be Unesco's World Book Capital for 2013 and benefits from being in "Amazing Thailand", which "Always Amazes you", as the slogan currently has it.

And to further wound Hong Kong's pride, it is listed as onLost in Thailand, was shot.

e of the top five "feeder" cities - along with Singapore, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur and Seoul - from which most visitors to Bangkok come. The mainland provides the largest number of arrivals - almost three million - with many perhaps keen to see where their nation's highest grossing film, 

Bill Barnett, a Phuket-based Asian hospitality expert and head of consultancy C9 Hotelworks, says Bangkok's rise is concurrent with the "global surge" of Asia.

"East is the new West," he says, adding that "the allure of Bangkok goes well beyond the destination; it's all about a meteoric rise in airlift.

"After the global financial crisis a dynamic travel shift changed the market. Asian travellers take short trips but travel much more frequently; unlike Europeans or Americans … people here jump on planes for a weekend or just an overnighter."

As for Hong Kong, Barnett says it has been marginalised by Shanghai and is also perceived as being too closely linked to the mainland. By contrast, Thailand offers "a little bit of everything on the menu".

But Asia's City of Angels is not for resting on its laurels, with Sansern Ngaorungsi of the Tourism Authority of Thailand leading a drive to focus on social media, youth markets and niche sectors such as golf and honeymooning. The overall strategy is referred to as DISCO: digital marketing, image building, sustainability, crystallisation and crisis management, and organisation management.

To adapt MasterCard's own advertising mantra, then …

Asia's World City destination brand campaign: HK$400 million.

Victoria Harbour Symphony of Lights: HK$44 million.

Bangkok's destination bragging rights: priceless.

Loogie Hocking with Rocky Horror and Darth Veda

This piece was recently written for the splendid new Australian glossy Heart Beauty, and its guru-like editor Rosemary Hamilton, who has both in spades. 

"You have too much phlegm,’’ opines Dr Alvin James B.A.M.S., A Class Medical Practitioner and avatar of all things Ayurvedic at Avista Hideaway Resort and Spa Phuket. The resort island’s latest luxury eyrie enjoys a panoptic perch atop the steep green hills between Patong and Karon beaches, a surfeit of the titular vistas, and a spa where then ancient Indian art of well-being is getting a modern-day makeover.

I clear my throat and fight the urge to hock a loogie. Dr Alvin is an affable chap from Kerala with soft doe eyes and a slow motion head bobble that quickly becomes hypnotic. I am slouched in an outsized chair in the consultation room, where he plans to identify my prakriti, or body type, and discern which of three doshas, or humours, is prevalent.

“There is vata, pitha and kapha,’’ he explains, “vata being air, wind, kinetic energy, pitha being fire, or digestion, controlling emotions like anger, fear and bravado, and kapha being phlegm, which is potential energy, resistance to disease, immunity and keeps the joints lubricated.’’

Snakes on a Plain: the weird life and foolish death of the 'Snakeman of Sisaket'

If you want wack-jobs wont to live in small spaces with fierce critters, then it's hard to beat amazing Thailand. In the land of the Scorpion Queen and the Centipede King, one would hardly choke on one's cornflakes to learn there is indeed a 'Snakeman', from the dry dusty plains of unlovely Sisaket province in darkest Isaan. This one from the vaults originally ran in the Sunday Telegraph magazine (UK) and South China Morning Post's Postmagazine. It was later picked up by National Geographic channel, who coaxed me back to Sisaket to be part of filming for a piece on the 'Snakeman of Sisaket' for its 'Hunter/Hunted' series (Series 1: Victims of Venom ... see it here http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/videos/victims-of-venom/ ) While filming a segment in the Red Cross snake farm in Bangkok, the gung ho serpent wrangler dropped a fiesty cobra on the floor inches from my feet. It then slithered through my legs before he pinned it with his snake-wrangling rake and restored it to its plastic box piled upon dozens of other snakes in plastic boxes waiting to be milked of their venom. I'm all for getting deep into the story, but a cobra bite to feel what the Snakeman felt before he popped his clogs would have been going too far, even by my usual silly standards ...

PHAO BUACHAN SMILES through a web of wrinkles, spits a jet of bright red betel juice through what's left of her crimson teeth, and regards me with a rheumy eye. 'I can't speak about my son without begging his permission,' she says. 'I'm scared the snakes will come, and they'll be angry.'

ELIZABETH TAYLOR'S UNDERSTUDY ON THE
SET OF 'CLEOPATRA'

She hands me a candle and a stick of smouldering incense, and we pick our way through a building site at the back of her wooden house to a white shrine dappled with shards of coloured glass and tiny mirrors. She nods. I kneel, mumble a few words and deposit the candle and incense in a jar of sand. Her prayer is longer, a rambling entreaty punctuated by slow-motion prostrations. When she's finally finished she stands, smiles again and says, 'Now we may speak.'

Her son, Boonreung Buachan, was the 'Snakeman of Sisaket'. In 1998, he had a fleeting taste of international fame when he appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records for spending seven days in an enclosure with venomous snakes.

Before and after setting the record - which still stands - Boonreung made a living by performing throughout Thailand. In his hour-long shows, he would pluck cobras from wooden boxes and drape them round his neck, stroking and kissing them as he kept up a steady patter of cobra lore. He would milk their venom, letting people get close as the deadly, viscous liquid oozed from scimitar fangs.

The sense of danger was heightened for those who knew him because Boonreung was epileptic and prone to seizures. While his friends say he never had an attack during a show, the risk weighed heavily on the snakeman's mind.

International attention was to come his way just once more. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be around to enjoy it. Three months ago, Boonreung, aged 34, was bitten by one of his pet cobras while putting on a show for three tourists. He collapsed in the dirt beneath his parents' house in Ping Pong village, a parched corner of one of Thailand's poorest provinces. By the time he was taken to hospital, his respiratory system had all but shut down. He never recovered.

STICKS AND STONES WILL BREAK MY BONES
BUT SNAKES WILL NEVER HURT ME

'A lot of people came after he died, but since then, no one,' says Phao, in her village of Ping Pong, 640km northeast of Bangkok. 'I'm glad you've come. I don't want the world to forget about my boy.'

The Buachans, while far from wealthy, became the envy of the poor farming village because of the success of their son. Their humble house is a palace compared with some nearby. Phao says she knew her second son was special from the start. 'When he was born, he had a patch of scales on his waist,' she says. Psoriasis, perhaps? 'No, no,' she insists. 'These were real scales - like a snake.'

Midnight in Janette Slack's Garden of Good and Evil

This piece just appeared in the South China Morning Post's Postmagazine ... meet the one and only Janette Slack .... in fact, meet her in person when she makes her triumphal return to Asia this month following the release of her first album, Torture Garden Session



The biggest DJs don’t always live up to their names. Fatboy Slim was neither fat nor particularly slim. Plump DJs are notably svelte. Meat Katie is a bloke who prefers broccoli to beef. Pale weedy Moby is hardly leviathan. John Digweed does not in fact dig weed. DJ Scratch is a so-so scratcher. Beardyman is beardless. And Hong Kong’s prodigal DJ daughter and rising global star Janette Slack is anything but.

Slack is a force of nature in corsets; a genuine steel wheel diva, self-starter and anti-slacker with killer looks and the skills to back them up. She has become the avatar of Torture Garden, London’s premier fetish club which began with cult nights at Opera on the Green before landing its present home at the sprawling Ministry of Sound. Her glam brand of raunchy tech house infused with electro and breakbeats plus a personal interest in fetish fashion found a perfect home where the freaks come out and the gimps are brought out. Torture Garden’s legion of latex and leather-clad fans include Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Tease, Jean Paul Gaultier, Boy George, Courtney Love and Marc Almond (Adam Ant was famously refused entry for not dressing outlandishly enough). Slack has spun before most of them.

OH BEHIVE: JANETTE SLACK PROVES THE THEORY
YOU CAN FIX ANYTHING WITH GAFFER TAPE 

Part Eurasian sex bomb, part one-woman self-promotional juggernaut and part relentless energizer bunny, she has barely paused for breath since leaving Hong Kong and a well-paid teaching job for London on a make-or-break mission to achieve international DJ fame. And now she’s on her way back for a triumphal return, following a two-month tour of Australia, with gigs in Hong Kong and Bangkok to mark the launch of her first album, Torture Garden Session, a mixed journey concieved to capture the spirit of Torture Garden featuring six original Slack tracks and ‘re-rubs’, as she pervily terms her remixes, of the likes of D. Ramirez and Meat Katie.

Slack had to overcome parental disapproval and near starvation to make it in a city with ‘more DJs than bus drivers’, as Slack herself admits in ‘Veer’, one of a short film series sponsored by Dr Martens by cult director Doug ‘Scratch’ Pray on ‘people who embody an independent attitude’. The film’s release four years ago marked the turning point for Slack’s career and she’s been riding a rubber-studded rocket to DJ fantasy land ever since.

Slack’s sonic boom-boom has substance. No Eurasian Paris Hilton or DJ bimbo eruption, she is a professional sound engineer who writes and produces her own tracks, which she describes as “cheeky, chunky, twisted and demented ... a blend of rock riffs, funk, progressive melodies, sexy vocals and cinematic soundscapes with relentless basslines and thick, grooving drums’’. The first single from her album, ‘You Can’t Stop This’, a collaboration with Kickflip and Channel 4’s Phone Shop star Javone Prince, is at number four on Beatport’s electro chart and has been granted ‘must have’ status. Next to be released as a single is ‘Slave to System’ with Tyrrell, producer of Sasha’s Miami hit ‘Lalalalalala’ and 90s band PM dawn, and vocalist Kris Widakay.

She’s a Mixmag future hero, she’s won London’s prestigious Denon DJousts competition and Europe’s 2010 Pink Armada female DJ battle, been nominated for Best Breakthrough DJ, hosted the International Breakbeat Awards twice, and secured residencies at Torture Garden and Air. Her apartment has a sound studio and features an authentic replica of Dr Who’s time-travelling Tardis (an old London phone box) as its entrance, and she scoots around London in fetish regalia on rollerblades. As her biography reports, she ‘has the UK breaks and electro scene by its hairy balls and rides around London in a gold-plated beach lounger pulled by a team of pedigree swans’. This hyperbolic missive was penned by Frank Broughton, Mixmag deputy editor and author of Last Night a DJ Saved my Life. Co-opting influential friends to her cause is useful tool in the Slack skill set: she has been bigged up by everyone from Hybrid to Carl Cox and from Utah Saints to Air.

She has appeared recently on SKY1’s Gadget Geeks and spoofing a Eurotrash DJ on former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond’s new BBC show ‘Secret Service’. She is regularly called up for photoshoots with London's edgiest independent designers, models for Vauxhall and Pepsi, and collaborates with one of London’s hottest makeup and hair designers, Sammm Agnew, while fetish godfathers Murray and Vern, Lady Lucie Latex and Kaori’s Latex Dreams now custom-make her outfits for gigs.

DAMMIT JANETTE: KISS KISS,
BANG BANG, AND HOLD THE PORNO HOUSE

“Even before I got into DJing, I always enjoyed any excuse to dress a bit differently to the herd,’’ says Slack. “Not in a rebelious way, I just saw stuff I liked and got inspired and intrigued by certain characters I saw in movies, TV or in real life. So when I discovered that bindis look good when even just wearing jeans and a tank top (inspired by Gwen Stefani) i did just that I school.

“When it came to DJing, for the first seven years, I did tone it down, as I was playing breakbeat, which is very male dominated compared to, say, house. So I went back to wearing baggy trousers, over size T-shirts and baseball caps, as I didn't want to appear to be a gimmick if I got all dressed up. I de-sexed myself, rather.

“I was in my mid-20s when I got my first gig at Torture Garden. I knew what I normally wore would make me stand out in the wrong way, as everyone makes an extra effort to dress up. So it was a good excuse to go shopping and buy a load of clothes I've actually always wanted but thought I could never get away with wearing. I thought f*** it, I've been DJing for 7 years now, on vinyl and on 3 decks, so I can wear what the hell I like.’’

CONTROLLER FREAK: TORTURE GARDEN'S 
LIMITED EDITION JANETTE SLACK BLOW UP 
DOLL WITH REAL NIP SLIP

Of her upcoming gigs, Slack says she loves playing in Bangkok but Hong Kong’s kinetic 24-hour clubbing scene will always be home. “Living in London for the past 13 years, it’s easier to take a step back to observe the countries I visit. When I had a chance to explore Bangkok for a month as a DJ a couple years ago, it didn’t take much time at all to settle in. It really reminded of the vibe in Hong Kong, where people are out every night and there’s always something to do.

“Bangkok is bigger and can afford to have stand-alone clubs like Bed Supperclub and Q Bar and the multi-room palaces of Royal City Avenue. In Hong Kong most of the clubs are part of high rises and are smaller. But both cities are equally vibrant and both have clubbers who demand and appreciate underground music.’’


Janette Slack’s Asian science fiction double feature opens at Club Fly in Icehouse Street on December 22, and then moves across the pond to Bangkok, with gigs to be confirmed at ‘one or two clubbing institutions’. With a brutal schedule of globe-trotting gigs in place for the next 12 months to lock in global dominatrix status, it’s a rare chance to catch the hardest working freak in show business on her home turf.

Roast babies, black magic and Michael Jackson

CAUSE THIS IS GRILLER, GRILLER NIGHT

This story gave me the heebie jeebies for months after I wrote it. And it recently came back to mind in the course of writing a South China Morning Post column on a British citizen of Taiwanese extraction busted in a Bangkok hotel room with six babies' corpses in his suitcase. Police were called to room 301 of a Chinatown hotel room after - wait for it - neighbours complained they couldn't sleep because of babies crying all night. (Cue Twilight Zone music). Black magic, or 'sayasut', is alive and well in Thailand. I ventured into the lair of 'Nain Ae', along with fellow journalist Thomas Brecelic, to try and get a handle on the famously defrocked 'baby griller' of Thailand. Nain Ae boasted that he prowled backyard abortion clinics for fresh foetuses that he could use to extract 'nam mun prae', a black magic love potion highly prized by high society dames. I've got photos of him, but they are buried in a box somewhere. Will add them when I have time to dig them out. After this story ran, a Hong Kong woman contacted me seeking directions to Nain Ae's abode, which as a friendly chap I passed on, with a warning to be careful. Two weeks later, she called me in tears, saying she had just been raped by, you guessed it, Nain Ae. This nasty piece of work got a jail term of 100 years for sexual assault and other crimes against decency. Although my wife tells me he was released recently and is once more at large. I've done a short film treatment on some of the above. I hope this doesn't give anybody nightmares.


Nain Ae can’t understand what all the fuss is about. “I have grilled a lot of babies, but they were already dead,’’ he shrugs. The defrocked monk from the central Thailand province of Saraburi did a stint in prison thanks to his penchant for grisly black magic, but he’s back in business now and teaching his trade to eager apprentices.

I WON'T DO YOU NO HARN: RAKSAJIT

When you walk into his magic room, you realise this is not the abode of an ordinary monk. A desicated foetus, mouth open in a silent scream, stares with unseeing eyes over a row of human skulls daubed with scribbles and spells. Cobwebs depend from dusty statues of ancient Hindu and Khmer gods and demons, covering  mouldering stacks of books filled with centuries of black magic wisdom. Moth-eaten animal pelts festoon the walls. Incense sticks smoulder as waxen voodoo dolls wilt in the heat.
 
Nain Ae’s fame has spread far and wide in the Land of Smiles since he was jailed for six months by the Supreme Court and branded “the biggest threat to the monkhood since communism.’’ That was after a television crew filmed him grilling a stillborn infant, to summon the spirit of “khumon tong’’, or the golden baby. Oil collected from the chin of a basted babe is said to be the basis of a potent love potion, and Nain Ae says everyone from gangsters to high society dames have come to his chicken ranch, looking for a little help with their love lives.
 
"I'm Nain Ae,'' says the tiny chap in baggy blue cut-off jeans advancing down the stairs. He's covered from head to toe in intricate tattoos. He bows, hands touching in a traditional wai, and flashes a stony-eyed smile. Then he ascends the stairs with nimble hops, rattling the yellow fangs of a tiger skull on the doorstep, before settling into a throne of sorts.

MY PRECIOUS: A 'KHUMON TONG'
 OR 'GOLD BABY' 

Small pointed teeth tear off a great wodge of chewing tobacco and he masticates noisly before directing a feculent jet into a spittoon.  ''Do you know about my powers?’’ he asks. “I am super-powerful. You see these tattoos? You cannot shoot me or hurt me. Bullets will bounce off. Knives can't do any harm.'' I'm thinking, 'Bat Fink (and Karate!)'. He pulls down one of the swords and half-heartedly jabs it into his stomach.


He spits again, then hops up and disappears. A moment later, he’s back, dressed in baggy white karate pants, a gold fez and several loops of chunky wooden beads around his neck. A finger beckons, and we follow him down a gloomy hall, past a cooking pot full of skulls. "They’re fresh from a graveyard,’’ he says. In his lair, more skulls are arrayed on a shelf.
 
So, er, when did you start grilling babies? "Shut up,'' he snaps. "I want to tell you my life's story first.'' Born Harn Raksajit, he was reared an orphan in a Saraburi temple. A precocious child who believed himself touched by the Lord Buddha, he followed other dek wat (temple boys) to train as a Nain (novice) and adopted the nickname Nain Ae.
 
"Even from a young age, I was attracted to magic,'' he says in a weird, high-pitched monotone. "But there was no-one here to teach me.'' Despite a lack of tuition he scoured books and honed his powers, making his first real foray into magic by predicting lottery numbers. Then he left, to roam Burma and Cambodia, in search of further instruction.
 
"See these books,'' he says, gesturing at the musty tomes stacked on the floor. are full of Khmer magic. These belonged to my ajarn (teacher). Some are hundreds of years old.'' He returned to Saraburi and, keeping mum about his occult powers, was duly ordained a monk. But it wasn't long until the robed renegade realised the commercial potential of his skills and began promoting himself as an expert in sayasut, or black magic.
 

SIZE DOESN'T MATTER: A 'PHALAT KIK'
USED IN MAGIC FERTILITY RITES 

Belief in baby-grilling is particularly strong in the provinces around Ayutthya. It has its origins in 19th century poet Sunthon Phu's quasi-historical epic Khun Chang, Khun Phaen. Khun Phaen, the central character, was a high-ranking soldier during the reign of King Ramathibodi II (AD1491-1529), long before the ancient capital was sacked by Burmese maurauders.
 
After an argument with his father-in-law, Khun Phaen stabs his pregant wife to death then cuts his unborn son from her stomach and takes the foetus to the temple. He builds a fire, places a grate over it, then wraps the infant in pieces of sacred cloth covered with prayers and grills the body until nothing is left but skin and bone. This ghost child, with whom Khun Phaen can communicate, becomes a talisman and a secret weapon, protecting and advising him.
 
Nain Ae breaks into an upbeat folk song about his exploits, which he explains was composed by a zealous fan. He points to several big lao khao (rice wine) jars, full of evil slime, sitting in front of the skulls. "That's the glass I pickle foetuses in,'' he grins. He reaches over them, into a hidden space under the shrine and extracts a smaller jar containing a liquid roughly the colour and consistency of cooking grease.
 
Reverently, he unscrews the top and sucks out some gloop with a day-glo orange syringe. "This is  the oil from Khumon Tong,'' he says. "One drop of this rubbed onto someone you want to love you, they will be yours within an hour. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. It cannot fail. If I rubbed some on your wife, she would be mine and never leave this house.'' He sells a small vial for anything up to 100,000 baht.

GRAVE OFFENCE: THIS AMULET CONTAINS
DIRT FROM SEVEN CEMETERIES

Nain Ae says obtaining the stillborn infants was easy.  He developed mutually profitable agreements with local hospitals. Some parents would even bring their stillborn offspring to him. The choicest babies came from the womb on Sundays, and the best day for grilling was Tuesday. To conjure up the baby spirit, the grilling had to be done in the temple's ordination hall. The child is then wrapped in sacred cloth inscribed with prayers and roasted for four hours over hot coals until mummified.
   
So has he ever grilled a live baby? "Are you stupid? I'm not someone you want to joke with with. Don't you believe in my powers yet?'' He fixes our female translator with unblinking eyes and seems to go back into his trance. A dribble of tobacco juice rolls down his chin. "You had a miscarriage when you were young and you've had two husbands,'' he intones. Her face goes white. "How did you know that?'' she stammers.
 
Nain Ae says he won’t give up sayasut, but won’t be so foolish as to demonstrate his black arts on national television again. He disappears into his bedroom again, then reemerges, dressed as Michael Jackson. He busts a few moves, attempts the Moonwalk, and grins like a hyena. "I'm not a bad man, you know. My magic is good magic.’’




 
 

Bamboozling sex life of kung fu pandas

A version of this appeared recently in the South China Morning Post. Respun and revved up for the bloggy-wog.

EATS, ROOTS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES

Hong Kong’s superstar pandas are randy. Ying Ying and Le Le have been seen batting big black goo-goo eyes at each other and generally getting jiggy in their Ocean Park love shack.

This is news because pandas are not nature’s porn stars. They are shy, coy and rarely mate in captivity, eschewing the libidinous lewdness of, say, bonobo chimps and humans. There is no Panda Craigslist, awash with importunate urgings and sad pleas of perversion. Pandas don’t whack off in their cages, hump the nearest object or toss scat at each other. They are gentle souls, the animal kingdom’s slackers and sofa surfers, laid back in every sense. The three-toed sloth, should he creep by, would raise a gnarled paw in slow-motion salute to a kindred spirit. For the panda, life doesn’t get any better than lolling about, munching bamboo shoots.

The fact that pandas exist, however, is evidence that from time to time they do answer nature’s call to mate. So the kind folks at Ocean Park recently closed the panda exhibit for three days after Ying Ying, the female, reached what zoo experts termed “the peak of her estrus’’. Alas, this was to be no Last Tango for Pandas. Le Le failed to deliver the yang for Ying Ying’s yin, even when she brought out the kinky stuff, including “increased water play’’ and “bleating’’.

DOES MY BUM LOOK BIG ON THIS?

“They responded well to each other and unclose (sic) interactions have been observed from the pair. Unfortunately no successful mating behaviours have been observed,’’ said a zoo panda handler.

As a married man, I know a thing or two about unsuccessful mating behaviours. Le Le has my sympathies. While Ying Ying was shaking her substantial money-maker and oozing estrus, Le Le was most likely fretting over the male panda’s famously small equipment, pondering his bad press and pining for springy length of bamboo.

News of the thwarted coupling prompted sad, knowing smiles in Thailand, where the Chiang Mai Zoo's most famous guests, Lin Hui and Chuang Chuang, became overnight soap opera stars following the launch of a 24-hour Panda Channel.

CUTENESS: IN THE EYE
OF THE BEHOLDER

Absenteeism soared and productivity plummeted as a nation was transfixed by each new plot twist. Chuang Chuang, the male, was pronounced 'too heavy' and put on a low carb diet. Zoo staff screened 'Panda porn’ clips of successful matings. But nothing worked ... and no wonder. They could have tossed him tabs of panda Viagra, lined his cage with satin sheets, bought him a studded collar and stuck a mirror on the ceiling: the poor fellow would still have been pinching his love handles and pouting.

Artificial insemination succeeded where nature failed. The birth of Linping in 2009 saw panda-monium, panda-mania and other bad panda puns reach a peak. If Linping’s birth almost ruined Thailand, the cub's early years sparked a spectacular revival. Zoo visits doubled, along with toy makers' profits. Panda fans queued in all weather and often for hours to get a glimpse of the famous family.


Should Le Le get lucky, Hong Kong might one day have its own bouncing panda cub. Enjoy the bonanza. Take the ride. But not too far: in Bangkok, hawkers recently began flogging ceramic pandas with Hitler moustaches in “Sig Heil’’ poses. The international opprobrium was instant, and a bearish backlash began.

Surely this faux paw will be a wake up call for Hong Kong’s panjandrums. Learn from Thailand's mistakes. Drop the pressure. Ditch the love shack. Don't rush down the slippery slope of 'panda porn' and cable channels. Do the right thing: it's black and white.

Mos Eisley Cantona

This piece records my frustrating and ultimately futile mission to get up close and personal with that great footballing enigma, Eric Cantona, when he journeyed to Thailand for a spot of beach football. It ran in the South African and Australian issues of Sports Illustrated, as well as in the South China Morning Post. 

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.06f0b401397a029733492d9253a0a0a0?vgnextoid=337dacec75361110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&s=Archive

SARDINE CANTONA

The trawler steamed through Thailand last week, but the seagulls went hungry. French football deity and Renaissance man Eric Cantona wasn't giving anything away. One of the many strings to his bow is that of philosopher. And arguably the most famous of his metaphysical utterances runs thus: 'When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think the sardines will be thrown into the sea.' The great man is the trawler and journalists the squawking, insatiable gulls.


If there was any lingering uncertainty about his attitude to the media, he cleared it up when he told two French sports journalists earlier this year: 'I p*** on all of you.'


But 'Cantona in Pattaya!', as the Bangkok free-sheet shrieked, sounded too good to miss. Little did I realise it was to prove an ill-starred mission that would end in much gnashing of teeth, intemperate language, vein-popping frustration and heat exhaustion.


'Former Manchester United star Eric Cantona will lead the French beach soccer team against local football heroes in Asia's first Pro Beach Soccer event,' the free-sheet said. And suddenly Cantona's seaside aphorism seemed fresh and piquant. Images swam before my eyes of flabby white Germans in g-strings fighting over loungers, sun-bleached sand, unlimited alcohol, hooligans with rampant libidos and, in the middle of it all, gazing magisterially over the maelstrom from under that granite-hewed brow, pigeon chest puffed out - ooh, aah Cantona.


The first disappointment arrives after a couple of phone calls. Cantona is to visit Pattaya, but only fleetingly. His primary destination is Muang Thong Thani, a soulless cluster of low-rent condos on the edge of Bangkok's sprawl and home to the Impact Arena. It is here the inaugural Tipco Pro Beach Soccer match will unfold, despite its distance from any of Thailand's beaches.


I contact organiser Paul-Dominique Vachirasindhu, who has smouldering Eurasian looks, an expensive collection of suits and a shaky grasp of what journalists hoping to cover his event would consider pertinent.


'Allo? Yes, the match is on Saturday. Fax my office and they will put your name down.' With that, he hangs up. I try to call back, but get an answering service. Oh well, I think, Cantona mustn't be arriving for a day or two or he would have said something.


Later I turn on the evening news to see scenes of chaos at the airport as that familiar form towers over a red sea of screaming fans, each sporting enough pirated Manchester United clobber to give Sir Alex Ferguson apoplexy. I may be the only person in Bangkok who isn't at the airport.


My mood doesn't improve the next morning when I learn Vachirasindhu failed to apprise me of the previous day's press conference. Not that I appear to have missed too much. Cantona, it is reported, seems tired. 'I am living in sport. That is the most exciting thing,' he says, after repeating his explanation for quitting top-level football: 'I lost the passion.'


Asked whether he wants to succeed Sir Alex at Old Trafford, he knits his mono-brow gnomically for a moment then says: 'No. But maybe 'yes' tomorrow.' It's all downhill from there. Who else could take on Sir Alex's mantle? 'John Woo.' Which players should the club consider purchasing to bolster its ranks? 'John Woo.'


He does divulge, despite his obvious affection for Hong Kong action fare, that he's lost interest in acting following a string of minor roles because there's 'too much hanging around'. He still dabbles in painting and poetry, however.

JET SKIS GONE WILD?

I set off for Pattaya the next day, hoping Cantona will be more forthcoming once he's unwinding by the beach. Bangkok's lunch-hour traffic means I don't reach the resort until well after sundown. This means I've missed Cantona being handed the keys to the city. I've also missed him ploughing into a lissome Thai liaison officer with his jet ski. The mass circulation Thai Rath splashes the next morning with pictures of a bedraggled Cantona, 35, being helped to shore as the liaison officer is taken off to be treated for minor injuries. The jet ski operator is paid 4000 baht (HK$680) compensation. Another local paper has concocted a wild and implausible tale in which Cantona rams the woman's jet ski in a jealous rage because he's besotted with her and can't tolerate her flirting with other members of the French team.


My timing is impeccable. I finally track down the team and Cantona's in a world-class funk, refusing to say anything to the press and threatening to cancel the rest of his programme if the media prints another word about the accident. Organisers make clucking noises and smile sadly when I ask if there's any chance of an interview today.
Back to Bangkok.


I trek out to the stadium. It's mid-afternoon and there is no air-conditioning inside the arena. Conditions are somewhere between a sauna and a steam bath. and the Thai team is practising on the 'beach'. There's no sign of the French, who are still back at the Oriental hotel. A scan through the French team doesn't ring any bells, apart from Cantona's younger brother, Joel, who played for Marseilles. The Pro Beach Soccer Web site says the sport is 'fun, healthy and very, very spectacular', with a shot on goal every 30 seconds on average, a goal scored every 3.4 minutes, live music during the tournament, and regulated by FIFA rules of fair play.

             YOU MUST BE THE

KUNG FU KICK, GRASSHOPPER

The pitch measures 28 metres by 37 metres of soft sand. There are five players aside, including the goalkeeper. The game is divided into three periods of 12 minutes, with unlimited substitutions. Yellow cards mean a three-minute sit-out, free kicks are always direct and there are no draws. France are the current world number one team.


It's after 4pm when the French team arrives. Cantona leads them out in a white singlet, looking a tad over his fighting weight of 87kgs. Women with rakes scurry about the pitch, faced with the Sisyphean task of keeping the sand level. Cantona lazily swings his leg back and 'thump', a bright orange ball crashes over the crossbar and into the PA system.


With a chorus of Gallic grunts and shouts, they go through their paces. It's fast and furious, the balls zipping about like tracer rounds. They divide into two teams, blue singlets versus white, for a practice match. It is relentless, compelling, but far from elegant. When the ball hits the sand, it lands not with a bounce but a deadened splat.


Dribbling is an ankle-twisting ordeal, so volleys are the favoured method of attack. There are no boots or shin-pads, and the sickening crack of bone on bone accompanies most tackles. Former Thai national team striker and Bangkok celebrity Piyapon Piew-on is watching from the stands. He will captain the Thai team, who have only been practising for three weeks. He looks shell-shocked. 'Do you think we have a chance?' he asks, not really expecting an answer.


The teams are tied when the time is up. 'Golden goal,' yells Cantona. Just before the added minutes run out, the other team scores. His face darkens and he storms toward the sideline. This is my moment. There are no other journalists about. I've got the great man to myself. I step forward, tape recorder at the ready. 'Merde,' he snarls, kicking a plastic water bottle into the stands as he marches past and into the dressing room. I try to follow, but grim-faced security men with big sticks bar the way. 'Never mind,' consoles Vachir-asindhu. 'He'll definitely be talking to the press tomorrow.' When? 'The best time will be in the afternoon. You should get here around three or four.'


Match day dawns, hot and sticky. After lunch and I'm about to head out to the stadium but decide to call Vachirasindhu just to confirm the previous day's instructions. I've been pestering the man for days, but he's making noises like he has no idea who I am I jog his memory. 'Ah yes. You will be able to talk to him after the match, for sure. There will be a press conference,' he says and hangs up.


The match starts around 8pm, so I figure leaving around 6.30pm should get me there in plenty of time. I figure wrong. There may be clear afternoon skies over the middle of Bangkok, but above Muang Thong Thani, a fierce storm is dumping the heaviest rainfall of the year.


They've already kicked off by the time I get there. There's a crowd of about 3,000 - far fewer than expected, with many deterred by the storm. The game is being beamed live across Thailand and the local media are out in force, determined to give beach soccer, ahem, blanket coverage. The score is 2-2 at the start of the second phase and the Thais seem to be holding their own against the vastly more experienced French side.


Cantona is strutting around the midfield like a colossus, blue shirt emblazoned with his famed number seven. Something doesn't look right, then I realise it's his collar - he's got it folded in the normal manner rather than turned up. He hasn't scored but each time he touches the ball the crowd goes berserk. There's a furious beating of bongo drums and the stands bleed red.


Chants of 'Eric, Eric' vie with 'Ooh, aah, Eric Cantona' sung to the tune of the Village People's Go West. 'Me, I love to caress, stroke, tease and make love to the ball,' Cantona wrote in his autobiography. But this is ugly, more like rape; a grunting, grubby tumble in the dirt-brown sand. He's getting frustrated, as the tenacious Thais cling to his legs like limpets. It's not until the third, er, third that Cantona's array of flicks and trickery actually lands a ball in the back of the net. The roar is deafening.

               IT DID WONDERS FOR

MIKE TYSON'S CAREER TOO

The score is five apiece. A draw would be a major upset for the favoured French. But Cantona reverts to match-winning type after his slow start and heads in the deciding goal with 11 seconds left on the clock. Pandemonium ensues, naturally. A local television type named 'Green Bean' is dressed up, pantomime style, as Napoleon and his horse. He careens around like a dervish on his spindly legs until four French players crash-tackle him. That seems to be the sign for the pitch invasion. Cantona fumes and glowers when one upstart grabs a signed ball from his hands. The security staff seem hopelessly outnumbered and the crowd are baying for autographs. The guards form a human chain around Cantona, as posters and scarves and shirts and postcards and picture books and even bared chests and bellies are proffered.


The successful few who managed to snare his moniker look like they've just had multiple orgasms. The chaos is brought under control just long enough for Cantona and his team to watch a lip-synced number by local chanteuse Ya-Ya Ying. No sooner has she put her ya-yas away, however, and things are going seriously pear-shaped again. Cantona's shooting savage glances at his minders, as hundreds of wild-eyed fans press ever closer. A speech drones on and on, some doddering football luminary oblivious to the anarchy all around.


Suddenly Cantona's had enough. He grabs the trophy, holds it aloft and then, followed by his teammates and a phalanx of minders, sprints for the dressing rooms. A quick change and they file on to the bus, then go haring off into the Bangkok night. With them go all hopes of a quote. I'm despondently kicking sand about as a keen young thing from one of the Thai television stations bowls up, cameraman in tow. 'So, when's the press conference with Eric Cantona going to be?' she asks me brightly.


I point over to the shiny black knot of Hugo Boss and Armani, which unravels slightly to reveal Vachirasindhu and his cronies deep in mutual congratulations, and I mutter: 'Ask them.'