"Honi soit qui mal y pense"
Legless Blog - Ian Reed / John McMiken
Legless blog archive for November 2008
For my current Blog click here!
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!
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You can email me anytime at: blog@leglessfool.com
'The Legless Blog November 2008 by The Legless Fool'
The people occupying the airports here seem to be making headlines around the world, whilst they are economically destroying the country that they supposedly love. I wish that I could get that much publicity for my Legless in Thailand book, but I don't think that it would quite get the same reaction from the media if some legless westerner tried to occupy one of the airports alone waving a book instead of banners 
.
If I had more than one battered copy of my book, I may even be tempted to give some to the demonstrators and explain to them that my story supports their cause, then maybe they would wave it for me in front of all of the foreign news cameras there 
.
Well, I suppose I can just hope now that my internet campaign for my book picks up at Christmas and people buy my book as a Xmas present for someone, maybe for one of their friends who are stuck here because of the problems at the airports, or maybe people will now be doing more searches on the internet for Thailand and find my websites, then at least one thing good could come out of all of this extra publicity .
Cheers for now 
The legless fool - Trying to push his book for Xmas
I have been quiet for a few days because I am still actively trying to sort out the situation that my stupid, irresponsible HSBC bank in UK has put me in. I returned to the British embassy in Bangkok on Monday and the helpful staff member there saw to me immediately and just as he promised he gave me the contact information for the UK forces pensions paymaster. So immediately I returned to my room and sent an email to them. They replied quite quickly and sent a form by attachment to email for me to fill in and return to them. The form however, was for me to have my RAF pension paid directly into a Thai bank account, this then posed another problem for me because I do not have a Thai bank account due to the fact that with the constant changes in the Thai government, they keep changing the rules about foreigners with none residential status holding bank accounts in Thailand.
The only idea that I could come up with was for me to go and see my English friend Peter who runs a travel agency in Bangkok, SP Thai Connections Travel and see if his Thai wife could stand as a local guarantor for me to open a bank account in Thailand. When I arrived at their office, they readily agreed to help me with this and because Peter's wife Mon, was very well known by the bank that they use for their business, with her help and her acting as my guarantor, I very quickly managed to open a new account with Bangkok Bank, the bank was just fifty metres away from their office so it was very easy. After opening the bank account and returning to their office, Mon made me a cup of tea and Peter and I then started talking about his travel business. It was only then that I heard from him that there was problems that day at Bangkok airport with a group of demonstrators occupying the airport and closing it down, I don't have a TV and this was all new for me and for the rest of the time that I spent in their office there were many people coming in asking when the airport was going to be opened again and Peter could only answer them truthfully saying that he didn't know and neither did the airlines.
On my eventual return back to my room that day, I quickly filled in the form from the forces paymaster, wrote the details of my new bank account in Thailand for them and quickly sent it as an attachment to email to them. So hopefully now my pension should be switched from HSBC bank to Bangkok bank in time for my January payment. The next problem for me is that the standing charges from my HSBC debit card for my UK website hosting will stop and I now have to find a way to pay them from Thailand, to stop them shutting down my websites, including this blog 
Cheers for now
The legless fool - still dealing with the latest crazy HSBC bank move
My trip to Vientiane went quite smoothly again, I got my new Thai visa and I met some new friends staying in the same guesthouse as me doing the same thing. We spent a lot of time there just sitting around, drinking beer and telling each other about our personal experiences, many of the people had very similar stories to tell and a common denominator soon emerged which linked everyone there together, which was: 'Censored'.
Cheers for now
The legless fool - dealing with the latest crazy HSBC bank move
The last two months have passed quite quickly and it is now time for me to travel out of the country again. I have everything prepared this time though, it is much easier for me living in Bangkok again now. For the first time, I have got my Laos visa in advance from the Laos Embassy here, so no problems queing at immigration on the Laos side of the 'Friendship Bridge' this time. I have my train ticket to Nong Khai already too, so today I am just packing a small bag and making sandwiches to take with me and I shall be on train No. 69 to Nong Khai tomorrow evening at 20:00. I am quite looking forward to it because I like the Laos people and everyone at the Viengsavanh guesthouse, Vientiane where I stay in Vientiane knows me now. The only thing that I shall miss whilst I am away is my internet connection, because the nearest internet cafe to where I stay in Vientiane is about 1 km distance and it is quite a walk for me on my prosthesis (false leg) (Long John Slither 'n' Stumble) .
I shall also have to get my mind back into the Laos currency (Kip) again now, it always sounds so expensive when I order a large bottle of Beer Lao and it costs me 8,000 Kip, but it is only the equivalent of 32 Thai Baht and it is really quite cheap. I hope that the weather in Vientiane is the same as Bangkok now, it should be and maybe even slightly cooler because it is much further North, so it should be even more refreshing than here, I shall tell you all about it when I get back here, probably on Thursday, 20th November. I hope that I do not have too much to write about then, I just want this trip to be a good break for me and not a new adventure with lots of unforeseen incidents happening, even though that is what I am used to now .
Cheers for now
The legless fool - World traveller
The evenings here now are very pleasant indeed, the rains have stopped and the humidity is at a very low level now. It reminds me of the evenings that I used to enjoy in UK, usually around the end of May or the beginning of June in UK, I used to love going to the local pub in the early evenings and sit in the garden there with a cool pint of real ale in the unusual pleasant temperatures at that time of year there. It is the same here in Thailand now and that is why this time of year is usually the start of the high tourist season here. Although the evenings are quite pleasant now, unlike the UK in spring, it still gets dark relatively early here, usually about 18:30 at this time of year, but I still enjoy sitting outside, enjoying my first beer of the evening and watching the sun go down in this pleasant climate at this time of year.
Cheers for now
The legless fool - relaxing in the evenings
Today is the 90th anniversary of Armistice day in Europe 1918. I personally always make a point of acknowledging/remembering what our forefathers did for us ninety years ago now. The total number of our forces killed and injured in that war was 2,367,000. Even though this is sometimes still referred to as the 'Great war', there was more to come 21 years later. Maybe there is a cycle to this, or maybe someone is specifically created/born to cause the human race as a whole problems every so often.
In comparison, we have lived free of any major global conflict for more than sixty years now, but is this just the calm before the storm? I personally attribute our present global war free existance for so many years to the development of Nuclear weapons as a deterrent to any future Hitler or the like emerging again. I know that this subject is very controversial, but I think that the existance of a nuclear deterrent is just that, a deterrent to any would be morons in any country with grandiose ideas of themselves. We do still have relatively minor wars in many parts of the world all of the time, but the vast majority of the people in the world can live their daily lives relatively unaffected by these distant skirmishes.
But now we are faced with a new kind of threat to our lives, 'world terrorist factions'. Unlike the past, this is not just one country visibly threatening others, these people are masters of the covert way of war. They could be your friends or next door neighbours and you would never know until they decide, or are ordered to carry out attacks in the name of 'whatever'. Nuclear deterrance is not a deterrent to them, because they are not geographically stable in any particular location. The biggest problem that the world as a whole faces now, is if these terrorists can acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to ultimately achieve their aims. We can fairly effectively monitor countries as a threat, but we cannot monitor individuals.
To give you an example of what I am talking about here, I personally have the knowledge and ability, given the required materials, to assemble/produce a tactical nuclear (thermo-nuclear) device given about three to four weeks to do it and I don't consider myself to be that unique, so if I could do it, then maybe some of these 'terrorist crazies' could too, with access to the necessary materials. Fortunately, many of the required materials to construct a nuclear device are very strictly controlled and can be detected fairly easily with the right equipment, but with the break up of some areas of a former nuclear power, maybe these materials are not as difficult to acquire anymore.
I wondered off the initial topic a little there, as is my way, but I would now like to return to the remembrance of those people who gave their all for us to live our lives in relative freedom as we do today.
Talking of wars around the world, the Congo has just erupted into a state of war and irrespective of the factions involved, the people that suffer the most in these conflicts are the civilians. Many people are now fleeing their homes to get away from any potential battle zones and these people still have to live and take care of their children. Even if they personally have not been physically injured, the psychological wounds from an experience like this are far more damaging than any physical wounds, last a lost longer and are a lot more difficult to heal. There are some concerned people and organisations that try to help in these situations, but they do not have sufficient funds readily available to take care of everyone involved. For the innocent people that are in danger in the Congo at this time, then one of the best things to ease their psychological wounds is just to know that other people care about them. Please click on the banner below if you think that you could help.
Cheers for now
The legless fool - Lest we forget
I went to the pub again on Friday evening for the first time in about three weeks. I treated myself because I managed to get my money again before my bank got their hands on it .
In the pub, everyone greeted me and asked me where I had been, so I told them that I didn't have the money to go out a lot these days. I then noticed that the barman (Lee) was wearing a poppy and I asked him where I could get one, so he then brought a box of poppies and a collection box from the far end of the bar and I bought one. This is usually something that I do religiously at this time of year every year, but the poppies are difficult to find in Thailand and nobody here understands the reason for it anyway.
I woke up reasonably early this morning and started doing my search engine rankings and whilst I was sitting at my computer a tune came into my head and I started whistling it, it was only after a short while that I suddenly realised 'Hey, I can whistle again!' For Nine months now, ever since I got the Ramsay Hunt Syndrome (RHS), I haven't been able to whistle and they state on the internet about this, that when you can actually whistle again, it is a sure sign that the RHS has finally finished.
Cheers for now
The legless fool whistling Colonel Bogey
I have been quiet again on here for a while, because I have been trying to get back into my writing mode and start working on my Asian Diaries again. I find that I am still not quite in the right mood for it though at the moment, but I have been running through my memories about that time and on one of my returns to England after finishing a project in Thailand, I was installing a new anti-aircraft defence simulator system (ADT3) at an army base named Larkhill which was very adjacent to Stonehenge. Running over this in my mind, I remember staying at a pub/guesthouse in the nearby town and I really enjoyed staying there. They used to serve up some marvellous lunches and I would top them off with a glass of port and a large slice of Stilton which they served, 'The Good Old Days'. Thinking about this, it annoyed me that I could not for the life of me remember the name of the town and I used to stay there quite regularly.
I get quite annoyed with myself when I cannot remember something that I should quite easily remember and it smouldered inside of me. Eventually, I decided to look at a map of England on the internet to clear my mind, so I did a search on Google for maps of England and it came up with many websites, I picked one that looked favourable and on this site I quite soon found 'Stonehenge' and consequently I found the name of the town that I used to stay in 'Amesbury'. I could relax then having finally cleared this in my mind, so I then started looking around this new website and it was very, very good, the large amount of information on there about many parts of England and good places to visit was very interesting and I spent a long time going over many places that I have visited before, it even had pictures of my home town 'St Helens' on there, it is a very comprehensive website and very well put together. They even have lists of the cheapest places to stay, hotels and guesthouses, in almost all locations too. So today I decided that I would tell you about this excellent website, the name of the website is: http://www.picturesofengland.com and it really is well worth a visit, even if you think that you already know England quite well, it is full of facts and useful information. I have linked to this website on all of my own websites now.
Oh, I almost forgot! Today is Guy Fawkes day, watch out for strange flying objects and things that go bang in the night.
Cheers for now
The legless fool reflecting on England
To my blog Archive for October 2008
For my Current Blog click here!
To my Legless Fool 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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