"illegitimum non carborundum"
Legless Blog - Ian Reed / John McMiken
Legless blog archive for April 2008
For my current Blog click here!
Link to Legless HQ
British expat amputee in Thailand
'Let it be'
Legless Blog -I first decided to create this blog page after seeing all of the bad publicity given to and constant hounding of my fellow legless celebrity, Heather Mills on many other websites and in the media in general. This page I created as a place where I can state my personal opinions, thoughts and musings openly, and just share my views and feelings with the Internet World.
This is my legless website, I pay for it and I am the manager, owner/boss/ruler of it, so 'legless or not', as 'freedom of speech' is still a basic human right in true democratic countries where you can view this blog, then I feel that this is somewhere that I can speak my mind without recourse. This is not a commercial page, it is just my own social media page. Nobody has forced any of you to come here and nobody is holding you here, so if you don't agree or like what you are reading here, then please feel free to leave at anytime!
As someone who has exactly the same physical injuries that I have, I find that the hounding of Heather Mills by the media is disgusting. I now see how celebrities, legless or not, can never have a normal life, because they never have time to themselves without someone from the media trying to drag up any kind of dirt from what would just be a normal everyday incident to anyone else, but in Heather's case any normal incident gets sensationalised by the media. Heather's physical disability seems to incite them more, and being honest, if I personally was hounded the way that Heather is, then some of these media personnel would consider being only 'legless' a bonus after the physical injuries that I would personally inflict upon them. I am thoroughly disgusted at the treatment of Heather, I suppose you could call it a feeling of 'Legless unity', so if any of the media responsible are reading this blog, then in Paul McCartney's own words "Let it be". Listen to the music.
We are both legless!
****
You can email me anytime at: blog@leglessinthailand.com
'The Legless Blog March 2008
30Apr., 2008: Ongoing scam games and more 
I was waiting for further developments with the scams that I am currently playing with before I made another post on here. Well today, I have received an email telling me that the transferred funds ($40 M) are delayed in Canada and they require to contact me before they will be transferred. This is a new one on me, they haven't called for a fee YET, but I am expecting that to happen very soon, in the meantime I just continue playing the unsuspecting victim and keep asking them when I will receive my forty mllion dollars 
My Reed in Asia Asian Diaries I am still working on each day and I have to bring the first diary in Singapore to a close this week somehow and move on to the next one, so I shall be busy with that for the next few days and may not have time to post on here as regularly as I normally do. As usual, my writing is assisted by beer and being legless already, it does tend tohelp with my thought processes 
Cheers for now 
Legless anything in Thailand
27Apr., 2008: Ongoing scam games
Even though I haven't mentioned about it on here for a while, I am still playing with scammers everyday and I receive a new scam virtually every other day. I have about six on the go at the moment and two of them are due to transfer 42 million dollars into my bank account this week
I have been playing with these scammers for many years now and I have been in this position many times before, I know exactly what is going to happen next. The 'bank' will send me a fund wire transfer receipt to show me that the money is being transferred now, then about one day later I should receive an email with the subject heading 'Stop Order'. This email will show that it has been sent by a government, the IMF or some other official body and it will state the following:
Your fund wire transfer has been placed on hold because:
1. You do not have the required anti-terrorist or drug clearance certificate.
2. The fund requires a tax exemption certificate.
As soon as we receive a valid certificate, then your funds will continue to be transferred and should be in your bank within the next 48 hours. If you do not already have this certificate, then we can arrange it for you, please just send the cost of the certificate $2,500 by Western Union money transfer using the details below:
Name: Mr. Nkomo Scambo
Place: Lagos, Nigeria
Question: What for?
Answer: Transfer
MTCN No.: xxxxxxxx
So I am expecting these emails to arrive within the next couple of days, because the one thing that I can guarantee with these scammers, is that there are no real funds being transferred or I would be extremely wealthy already 
Cheers for now
Legless scam player in Thailand
26 Apr., 2008: Flying termite time again
Because the rains have started early here this year, so have the flying termites and I was not expecting them yet. Working at night as usual and outside on a farm, my light is the only light visible for miles here late at night, so the termites automatically head for it. I was just sitting legless at my computer with a beer last night and going over my new website pages, when it suddenly started to go a little dim, so I looked over at the neon light and it was covered and completely surrounded by flying termites, thousands of them and more arriving by the minute. There was nothing that I could do, if I switched the light off, they would all head for the only other light around, my computer monitor, so I just let them swarm around the light which is about four metres away from me and continued working at my computer and occasionally checking them. One or two ventured near me, so even though it was quite cool, I switched the fan on next to me to keep them away.
Two hours later and they were still coming, the floor underneath the light was about three inches thick with swarming, dark brown bodies now, because they lose their wings after a while and all settle on the ground. I eventually finished my website work, I was quite tired and I had to switch my computer off before I switched the main light off, then I switched the main light off and quickly jumped on my sofa/bed and pulled a blanket over my body and head hoping that any termites still flying would go now and not come near me. This goes on for about two weeks now, so tonight I know that shall have them for company again, but this time I shall be expecting them and put some bowls of water under the light, so that they drop in the bowls when they lose their wings and don't swarm anywhere and I can feed them to the chickens tomorrow then.
Cheers for now
Legless on the farm with flying termites in Thailand
25 Apr., 2008: Website Asian diaries update and upcoming trip itinerary
Still raining each day now, so I am limiting my internet connection time to the times when there is absolutely no chance of my modem getting hit by the lightning again. I have added two more pages now to my Reed in Asia, Asian Diaries about my life in the RAF in Singapore in the mid-1970s.
Nothing much else to talk about today, I am still doing my daily SEO work and still trying to plan an escape from here, but other than that nothing unusual really. I am looking forward to going back to Penang for my next visa trip in about three weeks time and I shall probably have a couple of legless nights in the Blue Diamond hotel there. I think this time I shall also drop off in Hat Yai again on the way back to call in and see my new found friends at the 'I Red' cafe there and chat about things.
Cheers for now
Legless on the farm in Thailand
23 Apr., 2008: The times they are a changin'
The rains have started early in Thailand this year, usually the rainy season here doesn't start until the end of May, but for the last three or four days now the rain has been quite strong and starts at the same time of day everyday, about 16:00. I was caught unawares a few days ago and consequently my modem became a casualty of a localised electrical storm. The storm wasn't directly overhead at the time, but the lightning must have hit one of the telephone lines a few miles away and even though I wasn't connected to the internet at the time, my modem took the brunt of the strike and was fatally wounded. 
I now disconnect the telephone line from my computer when I go to bed and don't reconnect it again until the rains finish each evening, to renew my modem cost me $15 and I don't need to throw any more of my money away like that at the moment. The weather has changed here a lot over the last year, before, the seasons were fairly predictable here but this year that has changed, I think that it must be something to do with this global warming that is in the news a lot now, but not being a meteorologist/geologist, I don't understand how global warming can make some of the seasons colder here. 
Well, a few beers may help me to work that one out, so I shall start immediately.
Cheers for now
Legless logic in Thailand
22 Apr., 2008: Beer and ideas
I mainly work at night on my websites and also doing my SEO work for them, I am very nocturnal these days. What I have noticed recently is that I tend to get ideas for new webpages or new graphic designs usually very early in the morning when I am almost ready to go to sleep and I have to write them down or apply them before I sleep, otherwise I would forget about them. This has happened many times to me now and try as I may, during the day I just don't get any new ideas come into my brain as easily. I have tried to analyse this and the first thing that I came up with was that during the day there are more people around and more traffic passing by and so generally more noise, but even when there is nobody around and very little traffic, I still don't get new ideas as easily as I do at night time or early mornings. Again trying to analyse this, I started looking at the other differences between day time and night time and I realised that at night I know that I always feel far more relaxed in myself than during the day, so it must be the relaxation that is helping me.
Analysing this further, why am I more relaxed at night than daytime? I am still sitting at the same place legless at my computer, but then I realised that during the day I am working at my computer with a constantly filled cup of tea at the side of me, but at night time the cup of tea is replaced by a mug of beer So I have come to the conclusion now that ideas are related to beer consumption and when you reach your optimum intake of beer, then the ideas just flow through you like a river and I must reach my optimum point at the same time everyday, which for me is usually early morning. Therefore using legless logic, if I increase the speed of my intake of beer then I should reach my optimum point much earlier, so I would have to drink faster to achieve this. This seems like a very logical conclusion to me, so I shall end this post now and try to reach my optimum point much faster today.
Cheers for now
Legless logic in Thailand
20 Apr., 2008: Legless information - Words!!
Working with the search engines again yesterday, I was just checking the words on my webpages, feeding some of them into the various search engines and seeing which ones picked up on the words that I input. Looking at my home page for Legless in Thailand, I input the two words 'legless' and 'information' and sure enough for these two words my website appeared on the first results page on every search engine that I used. I don't advertise legless information as a service, but on the same page it has 'Legless in Thailand' and in another part it says 'Thailand information' so this just shows how the search engines can latch onto any two words on any page, wheher truly relevant to a search or not.
So this got me thinking, as I always just speak my mind on this blog and use general English terms, if I were to say on here the old English expression of "I am really thirsty, I could just murder a pint of cool beer now", then if someone searched for legless murder, this page would show up in the results and maybe I could be accused of a crime that I did not commit
So as I now show up on a search for legless information, if any of you need any legless information, then you know who to contact
Cheers for now
Legless information Guru in Thailand
19 Apr., 2008: Act of God - Lightning strike 
I had just finished another page for my Reed in Asia site yesterday and I was going to connect to the internet and upload it, when there was a loud crack from inside my computer and it just shut down. A couple of seconds later there was an almighty crash of thunder and I thought that the electric had shut down from a lightning strike, but looking around me the electric fan was still working and nothing else seemed to be affected, just my computer had shutdown.
I was thankful that I had saved everything before it shutdown, so I thought "Okay I shall just restart it, connect to the internet and upload my files now". I restarted the computer okay and then tried to connect to the internet, but I kept getting the error message 'telephone number engaged', I tried many times with the same result, so then I went to the telephone and manually dialled the same number and I got the internet 'handshake sound', so I went back to my computer and tried again and I got 'telephone number engaged'. I then knew that I had a problem with my modem, it had obviously been fried by the lightning strike. Living in the countryside, I had to get a lift to the nearest town and went to the only computer shop in town, only to find out that they were closed for the day and that they would be open again today, so no internet yesterday.
I went to the computer shop again today and managed to get a modem, the last one in stock, the guy there told me that this happens a lot around here. I bought the modem, returned home and replaced the modem in my computer and I had my internet connection back again five minutes later. so my new resolution now is 'any sign of a storm nearby, take the telephone line out of the modem'.
Cheers for now
Legless back online in Thailand
17 Apr., 2008: Yet another page from the legless fool
Working again today on my 'Reed in Asia' site, I managed to complete yet another page and uploaded it to my website. The story on today's page is about discovering Singapore a little bit more, the title of the page today is Singapore our new home now. if you would like to view this new page then please click here.
Nothing else of interest really to talk about today, I still have my personal ongoing problems and trying to come up with a workable idea of how to fix them, but nothing so far that seems to fit the bill. I am now just looking forward to next month when I can go to Penang again and visit all my friends there, maybe I can talk to them about it and someone can come up with an idea.
Cheers for now
Legless fool in Thailand, Asia
16 Apr., 2008: Another page from the legless fool
Working again today on my 'Reed in Asia' site, I managed to complete another page and uploaded it to my website. The story on today's page is about first impressions and trying to get used to living in Singapore, the title of the page is Singapore acclimatisation. if you would like to see this page then please click here.
Also, working on my usual SEO for my websites today, I try to understand exactly what the search engines are doing and try my best to analyse their results, but Yahoo in the past couple of weeks has got me absolutely stumped. The webpages or sites of mine that come up on the first page and sometimes in first position, on other search engine's results, Yahoo now has me way down in their results pages and these are pages of mine that Yahoo have shown on the first results page before for the same keywords.
Today I was putting in the keywords for my legless book again and it was coming up very high on the first results pages for many keywords with other search engines, but not with Yahoo. Then I put in the descriptive comment of mine 'Legless fool' and my book came up number one on almost all of the search engine's results and this time I was even number one on Yahoo too. So I have come to the conclusion that Yahoo just has me categorised as a legless fool.
Cheers for now
Legless fool in Thailand, Asia
15 Apr., 2008: Reed in Asia at Legless HQ new upload
No post again yesterday because I was again working on a new page (asia3.htm) for the Reed in Asia section of the legless HQ website. This concerns my first trip to SE Asia and an unusual incident on the aircraft that took me there. At that time I was still serving in the RAF and I had just been posted to RAF Tengah in Singapore. This was about thirty five years ago and Singapore was still quite a pleasant place to visit and live in then. I spent three years living in Singapore and I have quite a lot to talk about, so this part of the story will probably take me about one more week to complete properly. The completed page about the eventful journey to Singapore was completed and uploaded yesterday, so if anyone would like to take a look at it then please click here.
Cheers for now
Reed legless in Asia again
13 Apr., 2008: Reed in Asia at Legless HQ update
After a lot of work today, I finally completed and uploaded a second page to the Reed in Asia section of my new HQ website. Like the first page that I wrote, which is mainly about Bahrain, the second page is also set in a period of time when I was still serving in the RAF and it covers the build up to my first posting and subsequent trip to South East Asia and the major personal events that were happening in my life at that time. Writing about this period in my life is sometimes quite difficult for me, because it is the first time that I have thought about this period for many years and personal emotions from that time start flowing through me, but as usual these days, more beer helps me to cope with this quite well
Cheers for now
Reed legless in Asia again
12 Apr., 2008:Reed in Asia at Legless HQ
No blog post again yesterday, because I am still working on the new legless HQ websites. Yesterday I was working on the Reed in Asia section of the HQ website, this part is basically about an overall view of my life in different countries in Asia, where I have lived and worked before. Yesterday, I started with my first introduction to an Asian country and why I went there. I shall be adding to this Reed in Asia section with time and writing many of my experiences in this part of the world on there. It is still being worked on at the moment, but if anyone would like to see it now http://reedasia.leglesshq.com
Well, back to my website work now and also to play with the usual scams that I have going at the moment, I have 65 million dollars due to be transferred to me this week, so party time!
Cheers for now
Reed legless in Asia
10 Apr., 2008:Playing with scammers for distraction
The scam that I told you about yesterday I found quite funny and as usual I have received some more today. For some reason I must look like a good target to these scammers, but I would have thought by now that I would have been on a blacklist somewhere, because they never get anything from me. I just enjoy letting them think that I am one of their usual victims and I also enjoy imagining them squirm when they don't get what they want from me and change their tactics trying to find a way to get some money from me. I am keeping a record of all of these scams, their MOs, scenarios and tricks that they use, because I have plans to write a future book about them. Playing with these scammers also helps to distract me from my own pressing, personal problems, so these scams are a little useful for me.
Cheers for now
The crazy legless scam player in Thailand
9 Apr., 2008:Legless scam games in Thailand
I was awakened today by my mobile phone ringing, this is very unusual for me, because usually nobody ever phones me. The person on the other end of the line said that he was a diplomatic courier and that he was at Bangkok's Suwannabhumi airport and that he had problems at customs. My brain then started to go over some of the scam games that I have on the go at the moment and soon I realised which one this was supposed to be. I have had this scenario before with these scammers and usually they say that they are at Bangkok airport, but really they are in Nigeria or somewhere similar. This one surprised me a little though, because looking at my phone, the telephone number displayed was a Thai mobile phone number. So continuing to play their game, I asked him what the problem was, from experience I knew what he was going to say next. He said that he didn't have a required clearance certificate and that I could arrange this by sending $3,200 to a company colleague that he would send to me by email and went on to ask me to check my email now, then closed the line.
When I checked my email, he had given me the name and address of someone in UK and given instructions to send the required $3,200 to this person by Western Union money transfer. I know that this is all a scam game, even though this courier is supposed to be carrying $10,000,000 for me, so I just forwarded his email to the 'consignee' saying that if he needed his courier to be cleared by Thai customs, then he would have to sort out the clearance certificate, knowing full well that it is all just a pre-planned game to try and get money from me, but I enjoy playing them at their own game.
It went quiet for a while, so I made myself my usual cup of tea and breakfast of bananas. I had already saved the telephone number in my mobile, so when my phone rang again about thirty minutes later it was flashing the name of 'Scam' as the caller, I answered the call and the person at the other end of the line was obviously getting flustered now, he asked me quickly if I had sent the money to clear him from customs, so I just slowly replied that I had sent an email to the consignee to clear this problem, this flustered him even more and he asked me if I had any money to help, so I just casually replied that I had about $15 and asked him if that would help. He then changed tactics and said that he would have to stay longer than expected and that he didn't have the money for his expences, so I then said to him, 'Well, just pass your phone over to a Thai customs official and I can sort this out in five minutes", he then asked me what I was going to say to the Thai customs, to which, I just replied that it was just between me and the Thai customs official and none of his business. At this point 'the courier' said that he would go to the customs office to arrange it and he closed the phone and that was the last I heard from him
The funny thing about this story is that the 'diplomatic courier', was supposed to be English and went by the name of 'Newman Charlton' and I almost laughed out loud when I first spoke to him on the phone, because he had the thickest Nigerian accent that I have ever heard before. Well! I don't think that I shall be hearing from that scam again, but I have another five scams on the go at the same time, so I shall have some fun with them too
Cheers for now
Legless scam player in Thailand
8 Apr., 2008:'Legless ex RAF' I am in good company on the web 
I was just using some of the words from my websites on the search engines yesterday, I put in the two words 'legless' and 'RAF'. These words are used on my websites because I am legless, I served in the RAF for more than 12 years and I was just checking if the search engines had registered these words for me. I was quite surprised that most of the search engines had me listed on the first results page for these words, even some of the pages from my new legless HQ website where there too. I was not surprised by the only other person listed in these results though and quite rightly for me, Douglas Bader dominated the results. Douglas Bader was my childhood hero, the famous, legless, World War II flying ace for the RAF. I personally met Douglas in the late 1960s when I had just finished studying at the RAF college, he even showed me one of his false legs then too.
I never thought at the time when I met Douglas, that about forty years later I would have the same physical disability that he had already been coping with for many years by that time and I think that it is because of the influence of his attitude upon me, that I don't let my own physical problem of being legless get me down. In fact, I don't even think about it most of the time at all, I can fully understand now how Douglas just got on with what he felt that he had to do at the time and didn't even give his personal disabilities a second thought.
So just by using the search engines to check my website rankings yesterday, brought back some good memories for me and prompted me to think about someone whom I hadn't thought about for a very long time and now having the same physical problem myself, it has given me an insight into the way that Douglas must have been thinking during the war and how he quite easily coped with it.
Thinking about all of this 'legless stuff' has made me thirsty now. "Time for more beer!"
Cheers for now
Ex RAF Legless in Thailand
7 Apr., 2008:Legless on overtime at HQ
I didn't write any post yesterday because I am still trying to iron out all of the glitches with my new HQ site, many times I have thought that I had finished it, but then working through all of the pages, I click on a link and my customised error page appears and usually the problem is either the file extension is wrong, or it is looking for the file in a folder that doesn't exist, because on the HQ site all of the folders / directories have new names, so the files that I have copied from my other sites now reside in different folders on the new site.
I still have plans to create more new pages and folders for this site, but they have to take a back seat at the moment whilst I get the site functioning 100% correctly, because this is something that the search engines check when they index / spider your site and it is very important. If anyone reading this post is interested in my HQ site, it is available now at http://www.leglesshq.com and if you find any problems whilst you are on there I would appreciate any feedback from any of you. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you, Yahoo has my HQ site in their cache memory now too.
Cheers for now
Legless problems at Legless HQ
5 Apr., 2008:Google first again
Working on my new website again today, I still have to make time to do my daily SEO work for my other websites. Today checking my search engine rankings I just typed in 'Legless HQ' to see what websites rank for these words and I got a pleasant surprise from Google again, Google has my new website ranked already. My Legless headquarters website has only been uploaded for five days and again Google has shown just how quick and efficient they are at monitoring the web as a whole.
Cheers Google
Legless at Legless HQ
4 Apr., 2008:Back on the hunt
I am very busy at the moment with the new website, but I just took a quick break to write this post. Although my new website has virtually the same content as my existing websites, the links and button destinations are completely different and also because I am relocating some of the pages it is very easy to overlook that although 'home' points to the 'index page', sometimes the index has an 'htm' extention and sometimes it has an 'html' extension, so consequently the odd one doesn't work having been relocated now. So now I am having to check through all of my new webpages and it takes a lot of time and a lot of beer to do it properly =
Something that I have not spoken about for a long time is my Ramsay Hunt Syndrome 'RHS', I am still suffering with it a little but it has eased a lot, now the only symptoms are the drooping mouth and jaw on one side of my face and I am still unable to close one of my eyes properly. There has been no facial pain again for more than a month now, so hopefully it is repairing itself gradually, only time will tell!
Well, back to the websites again.
Cheers for now
Legless with the hunt in Thailand
3 Apr., 2008:My legless name
When I lost my leg, it didn't really cause me any great concern and still doesn't today, I don't let physical problems get me down, just something that you have to put up with and accept. So now I am 'legless' just accept it and make the most of it if you can. I find it a little amusing sometimes that other people feel sorry or pity for my physical disability, because I don't feel any of those things for myself about being an amputee, it's just normal for me now.
Living in Thailand, every two months I have to travel to Penang for Thai visa regulations and I had been doing this for a while now. When I first went to Penang, I found a good, reasonably priced place to stay, the Blue Diamond Hotel in Georgetown. This hotel also has a good food and drink area at the front and features live music in the evenings, which I enjoy, so this soon became my regular haunt when visiting Penang. The staff in the hotel are very friendly and because I am a regular visitor, fairly soon they all recognised me on sight each time I went there. But probably because they have hundreds of different guests each week, the one thing that they had problems remembering about me, was my name.
So just after I received my first copy of my published book early last year, I had to go again to Penang for Thai visa regulations and whilst I was sitting in the cafe area at the Blue Diamond, just proof-reading my book, the owner of the hotel there spotted me, recognised me and came over to greet me. He was interested in my book and asked if he could borrow it to read, so I agreed and gave it to him. He then started to thank me and I could see that he was struggling to remember my name, but he glanced at the book and then said "Thank you John, I shall make sure that you have it back before you leave". I started smiling then and explained to him that John McMiken is only my writing name and that my real name is Ian, he had my book 'Legless in Thailand' in his hand, so I just pointed to it and said "Maybe it is easier if you just call me 'Legless'" and pointed to my false leg and said "You know that I am legless anyway, so it will be much easier for you to remember".
So that was how my name 'Legless' started and now everyone who knows me in Penang greets me by shouting "Hi Legless, how's it going?" and nobody forgets my name anymore.
Cheers for now
Legless in body and name
2 Apr., 2008:Legless Headquarters HQ
I have been quiet for a few days now because I have been working on a new website full time snd I have not even had time for this blog. The new website is called Legless Headquarters (HQ) and is now operational at http://www.leglesshq.com What I have been doing with this new website is consolidating all of my websites into one server for ease of use and speed for the viewer. I still have my old veteran websites like this blog and my new websites still look and feel the same as the existing ones. The time that it has taken me is because every single link on every page on all of my websites had to be changed and it has been a real legless nightmare trying to make everything perfect without hitches.
It is still not perfect yet and will take some time to iron out all of the glitches that I haven't spotted yet, but the majority of the work is done now and the rest will just take regular routine maintenance. Because of the extra webspace that I have now, I have treated myself to a personal website in my new group of sites and I shall be putting a lot of personal information on there with time that I can use to refer people from my blog here to see, my new personal site is available at: http://reedasia.leglesshq.com it is just basic at the moment, because that was the last thing that I was doing before I eventually got to sleep early this morning.
This blog should be back to normal now, so I shall write again tomorrow.
Cheers for now
Legless at legless headquarters
To my blog Archive for March 2008
For Current Blog click here!
To my Legless Headquarters site
P.S. "I don't remember reading the small print when I signed on for this life, in fact, I don't remember signing on at all, I was probably legless then too! So seeing as you wont let me resign, can we renegotiate the contract please?"
My first published book - Legless in Thailand
My other blog at the St Helens Star newpaper, UK
My home town St Helens, UK and their famous rugby team
Some of my short stories HERE
Biography of author John McMiken
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