Embarkation

When I worked for Arab News, the Bangladesh correspondent was forever sending stories that began, 'Opposition Awami League has embarked...,' so instead of saying how are you we'd greet each other with the words, 'Has it embarked?' to which the polite answer was, 'It has embarked.'

Well, Nek has embarked: he's torn out the gypsum half-wall between bedroom and bathroom and will replace it with the lightweight brick, which looks sturdy and white, and do the same for the facing wall until the bedroom starts. We agreed, although I fear he doesn't see the point, simply to fill the bedroom wall with cheap foam rather than Stay Cool, 3 inches of it, and he persuaded me to pay extra for that (2,000 baht). When I promised, it seemed to uncap a great underwater oil well of activity, probably because he now no longer thinks I'm ripping him off. He immediately struck out to buy some cement, and by quittin' time they'd laid down (or whatever the verb is) the under-cement (or whatever the noun is) for the counter, working peacefully together, him and the mooncalf and an older knotty fellow whose shirtlessness seemed a kind of camouflage.

Nek thinks the courtyard will need a layer of sand under the soil, which is probably right. Six bags, he reckons, for about 1,800 baht. We'll come to that as and when.

Meanwhile a couple had a terrible fight outside, the woman screaming abuse and throwing their motorcycle helmets at the man across the road, picking them up and throwing them again. When she walked off and came back for the third time, he gave her an almighty kick and she ran off down the side soi. The neighbour, a nice American, claimed it was the liveliest it'd been for seven years. He also says Big Jim was a horrible man and has now left the country.