Showing 1 - 4 of 4
An uninvited guest for breakfast
Roger Crutchley, Published on 28/04/2024
» Last Monday morning breakfast was abruptly interrupted when my dog on his daily sniffing patrol came charging into the living room and began barking agitatedly at the sofa on which I was sitting. Although the hound regularly enjoys a healthy bark in the garden, he knows the house rules for indoors… strictly no yelping. So this blatant breach of barking etiquette had me a little concerned.
Once it was almost a botanical garden
News, Roger Crutchley, Published on 18/11/2018
» About 20 years ago I was standing on the steps of the British ambassador's residence in Bangkok after interviewing England and Manchester United football legend Sir Bobby Charlton. Shameless name-dropping again, l know, but there is a point. While we were waiting for transport, Sir Bobby surveyed the embassy grounds and remarked what an idyllic scene it was, with all the trees, ponds and well-manicured lawns. He was definitely impressed. With traffic gridlock only a stone's throw away, it was a truly tranquil oasis presided over with aplomb by the statue of Queen Victoria.
The all-Thai American dream team
B Magazine, Published on 28/04/2013
» In the early 1890s, when my grandfather Arthur Eckardt arrived in New York from Germany, he couldn't speak a word of English. Waiting for him at the dock was his big brother Otto. Arthur came strutting down the gangplank, proud of the big hat he wore: a high crowned, broad billed hat like Otto Von Bismarck's that symbolised that he had risen from an apprentice to a journeyman to a master ironmonger. Otto grabbed the hat off his head and threw it into the East River.
Where did the wild things go?
B Magazine, Published on 07/10/2012
» Every Sunday during my salad days in Songkhla I would march out onto the sands of Samila beach with the mighty Boontongs Bombers _ the Volleyball Team for Gentlemen _ whose blue shirts were emblazoned with our motto from Cicero: Otium Cum Dignitate which, if you remember your Latin, means Leisure with Dignity. We played the screaming hellions of Songkhla Nursing College, the tough Taiwanese construction chiefs of the new Songkhla Port, the Charming Hostesses of the Smile Bar, but our most common foes were the loathsome troglodytes of Songkhla's Hash House Harriers. Thus every Sunday was a battle of Good against Evil.