WLBOTT has been invited to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. We will be flying the WLBOTT flag as an independent nation-state.
But first, some random musings on WLBOTT:
I was a bit concerned that I sometimes break the 4th wall and address my visitors directly. Then I began to feel bad that I might be presumptuous using visitors (plural) rather than visitor (singular). But UC#2 talked me down. “In English, zero is also plural.”
Opening Ceremonies
Focus on Laos
Laos is sending a single competitor to this year’s Olympics. This must be both exciting and a little frightening for the 19 year old Praewa Philaphandeth.
Praewa Misato Philaphandeth (born 6 December 2004) is a Lao rhythmic gymnast. She will represent Laos at the 2024 Summer Olympics. Philaphandeth studies at the Singapore International School of Bangkok.
Semi-Sequitur: Singapore International School of Bangkok
Philaphandeth attends the Singapore International School of Bangkok.
Will there be a Buffet?
Let’s see what’s cookin’ at the Singapore International School of Bangkok.
Laos
Laos, officially the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, is the only landlocked country and one of the two Marxist-Leninist states in Southeast Asia. At the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula, Laos is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Vientiane.
There is a wonderful fictional crime series set in Laos by Colin Cotterill. The series follows Laos’ only coroner, Dr. Siri Paiboun. Dr. Siri is in his early 70’s, and the books are set in the 1970’s, when Laos is trying to get a handle on the whole Marxist-Leninist thing. The books are quite humorous and clever, and we learn a lot about a very different culture.
Semi-Sequitur – We’ve read most of Colin Cotterill’s Laos series and enjoyed them all. But Colin also has a very humorous series of books set in Thailand, starting with Killed at the Whim of a Hat.
Colin Cotterill was born in London and trained as a teacher. He worked as a physical education instructor in Israel, a primary school teacher in Australia, a counsellor for educationally handicapped adults in the United States and a university lecturer in Japan. More recently he has taught and trained teachers in Thailand and on the Burmese border. He spent several years in Laos, initially with UNESCO, and wrote and produced a forty-programme language teaching series; English By Accident, for Thai national television.
Cotterill became involved in child protection in the region and set up an NGO in Phuket, which he ran for the first two years. After two more years studying child abuse and one more stint in Phuket, he moved on to ECPAT, an international organisation combating child prostitution and pornography, and established their training programme for caregivers. During this time Cotterill contributed regular columns to the Bangkok Post.
Cotterill set up the Books for Laos project to send books to Lao children and sponsor trainee teachers. Books for Laos receives support from fans of the books and is administered on a voluntary basis. He has also been involved in Big Brother Mouse, a not-for-profit publishing project in Laos founded by Sasha Alyson
I believe Collin’s Killed at the Whim of a Hat is set in Phuket province in Thailand. I didn’t really do much research, but, well, Phuket.
Phuket is one of the southern provinces of Thailand. It consists of the island of Phuket, the country’s largest island, and another 32 smaller islands off its coast. Phuket lies off the west coast of mainland Thailand in the Andaman Sea. Phuket Island is connected by the Sarasin Bridge to Phang Nga province to the north.
By Bennypc – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98195626
By NordNordWest – self-made, usingThailand location map.svg, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6603203
Toponymy There are several possible derivations of the relatively recent name “Phuket” (of which the digraph ph represents an aspirated /pʰ/). One theory is it is derived from the word Bukit (Jawi: بوکيت) in Malay which means “hill”, as this is what the island appears like from a distance.
Estimates of the total number of hotel rooms in Phuket vary. According to Oxfam, Phuket has approximately 60,000 hotel rooms to cater to its 9.1 million annual visitors.
Plane spotting is a popular activity on the beach adjacent to the Phuket International Airport.
One reply on “WLBOTT at the Olympics (part I of XXXIII)”
Thanks for the interesting glimpse into an area of the world that is completely unknown to me. I am curious as to the correct pronunciation of Phuket – is it really as you suggest in your comment about researching the plot location in “Killed at the Whim of a Hat?”
One reply on “WLBOTT at the Olympics (part I of XXXIII)”
Thanks for the interesting glimpse into an area of the world that is completely unknown to me. I am curious as to the correct pronunciation of Phuket – is it really as you suggest in your comment about researching the plot location in “Killed at the Whim of a Hat?”