Currently I am in Thailand, inventing underwater-flyfishing. I don't know if you've ever been to Thailand (I hadn't - well not outside the airport) so I'll explain a little of it.

In the city

Bangkok is a big dirty sweaty heaving city of six million. If you can put up with the congestion it has a few nice features in the way of temples, curries and some other interesting stuff; although there appears to be little in the way of flyfishing opportunites.

There are fish in the canals, however, and although some brave reckess people do appear to fish for them, I really don't think they would give genuine sport.

Tuk Tuks

The tuk-tuk's on the other hand would. I could imagine some really first class sport from a hooked tuk-tuk.

Tuk-tuk's (for the uninitiated) are perilous three wheel taxi contraptions operated by the most annoying lunatic people in the world. This is how it goes:

You are walking along, minding your own business, and an annoying voice shouts:
'20 baht'.

'Go away little man', you repost.

'Where you from? England? I like England. For England I make special big price; only 15 baht'.

'I take you there, only 10 baht.'

And they chase you up and down the street yelling at you, until they see someone else who makes the mistake of giving them eye contact.

On the streets

Mobile tuk-tuk's are even worse. They are on the other side of a busy street, travelling in a cloud of smoke, in the opposite direction at 65 miles per hour and they spy you. You pretend not to notice, of course, and duck into a side alley, and round a corner hoping to shake him off. But too late! The swine handbrake turns across one of the busiest streets in the world and takes up hot pusuit:

'20 baht. For you special big price'.

'Go away little man...'

Global Roaming

Perhaps the most appealing aspect to internet business is being able to work almost anywhere in the world, I do this by using a Psion5 and a mobile phone. It's a pain in the arse at times, but its light to carry, can be done at all hours and most importantly; by and large it works.

In addition this is not as expensive as you may expect. In Australia I buy a sim card, bung it in the back of the phone, and pay as I go. It works out at about 8p per minute. In Thailand they don't have this system, because here they forge everything (student cards cost about 80p, special big price if you buy two) and so the networks don't allow sim card swaps.

So the only option here was for me to get my Orange service reconnected and international roaming enabled. Should be easy, you say. I mean they have a website. So I emailed them. No answer. And again. No answer. Why have an email address at all I wonder?

So I tried ringing at great expense. And got a voice message giving me many options, depending on which service I required. Of course my prefered option (involving whips) was unavailable and so I keyed in the appropriate number for the operator.

The next voice message informed me that they were currently very busy, and promptly cut me off! It was the very that really annoyed me. It was said in the sort of tone which indicates with no uncertainty, that they are so popular and great that everyone in the UK is ringing them just to find out why, and hey, what do you expect when they're so popular, and you can f' off if you don't like it; they only ever employ 2 operators and they're charging you big for this call and so you'd better be nice to them when you do finally get through (if you're lucky), because they sure as hell won't be.

Not only this, but exactly the same thing happened the next time I tried and so I became clever. I asked my accountant to give them bell and sort it all out (she is a very capable women, and so I expected to be connected almost before I had sent her the email).

Not possible. Even for her.

So the next plan was to arrange for someone to pretend to be me. I thought this was sure to work, but even this failed. In the end I did manage to get reconnected, and this cost me almost £30. I'm not so sure that the future is Orange. Incidentally this is another company in desperate need of some web-consultancy...

Ghecko biscuits

I'm particularly fond of chocolate biscuits. Munching my way through a packet is one of my great pleasures in life. Obviously I am not alone in this, for only the other night, whilst I was so engaged, I discovered at the end of my packet, not the last remaining chocy biscuit as one would perhaps expect, but rather a ghecko, staring up at me.

Well turmoil and confusion took over, biscuit crumbs and ghecko flew everywhere.

Multisport

In a moment of recklessness I have booked in for some triathlon races. It's about time I started competing again. Here in Phuket I am experiencing some of the hardest running I've ever had. It's 35 to 38 degrees, high humidity and steep hills all around. Fantastic.

Tackle shop updates

I've updated all the prices on the tackle shop and added new product. There are genetic capes, fly tying kits, fishfinders, GPS and (of course) TV's.

Very exciting (special big price) is Composite Developments, who make the blanks for Redington and DFR rods..Although I'm not supposed to tell you which is which, I'm sure you can work it out. If not then email me!

Underwater Flyfishing

You've been waiting for it, and now it's in development. New and exciting; underwater flyfishing. But first I have to learn to dive. As this newsletter goes up, I have just taken my open water diving certification and now, I'm in the process of persuading my diving instructors that underwater flyfishing is just the sort of sport they should help me develop.

And of course I am fishing. My very own charter boat taking me to all the exotic diving sites arout Phuket where trevally and shark abound...

I'll let you know how this develops and should have some nice photo's to show you soon.

Have a great month. I plan on returning to the UK late August and will be around for one month. Book your underwater flyfishing lesson now!