From the You Couldn't Make It Up Department

[Kay]

That newspaper was a goldmine of funny stories. They weren't intended to be funny - they were just reporting the local news. Here's another one.

A Japanese tourist hires a prostitute and pays her THB 1,000. He showered after their "romp" and discovered that the girl had left - along with THB 100,000 from his suitcase. Police are exploring bars in the area searching for a prostitute named Meow.

[Kay]

Grynge - what I forgot to say when I wrote about that story is that the newspaper article also includes a clear photo of the Japanese man at the police station reporting the crime. They also give his name and age. (Guess who's gonna be in trouble if that gets published on the Internet.)

I suppose you could say he was the victim - after all he was the victim of theft - but could there possibly be a bigger deterrent to reporting a crime than to have a photo and your name published in the newspaper for reporting it? Ah well, prostitution is illegal in Thailand anyway. How come he didn't get charged with breaking the law?

[grynge]

I am not sure I would report a crime from when a crime was being committed, though I have seen in our papers idiots will ring up and report that their house got broken into, when they are running a drug lab, or a marijuana crop, or a stolen goods fencing business and expect the cops to find their illegal produce for them.

I suppose if all criminals were smart, then the cops would have a much harder time catching people.

[Dave McM]

The cashpoint crime Kay posted about earlier wasn't even the only one in that paper. Apparently police lay in wait at a cashpoint and arrested a French guy carrying 97 fake cards and a map highlighting locations of cash machines. To his surprise, the cards kept being swallowed on him.

He'd agreed to share the proceeds with an unidentified partner, "but this plan had fallen through as there was nothing to share". Well, quite. Not to mention the fact that he'd been arrested.

[Chabrenas]

I don't think those guys in Thailand were the first to tear a safe out of a wall and find that they couldn't open it, even if they did manage to avoid being captured first. And there will be more.

True (in broad terms, if not the details) story from Ndola, Zambia, when I was working there about 20 years ago:

A man successfully held up a bank and drove off with the contents of the safe, a large sum. He was found by the police later that day, sitting under a tree near his mud hut home. He gave himself up willingly. In court, he pleaded that he hadn't expected a bank to have so much money - all he wanted was enough to give his ex-wife to shut her up for another month.

[DaveMurphy]

Here's a peach I found this morning :-

Firewalkers at a Tony Robbins seminar suffer 2nd & 3rd degree burns and blame themselves for their injuries - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/us...inar.html?_r=2

[Clinton]

The Muslim festival of Eid is in a few days and we've been searching for Eid related recipes for an Eid party we're hosting (no, I'm not Muslim myself).

Anyway, what do you think of the third ad in this Adsense block? If I choose a recipe from that site, what type of alcohol do I serve the dish with?

clinton.png

[crabfoot]

The Muslim festival of Eid is in a few days and we've been searching for Eid related recipes for an Eid party we're hosting (no, I'm not Muslim myself).

I love winding up Muslims about the Halal thing - so I would be serving a completely vegetarian menu (as I assume you will be doing), but including a lot of things that look like meat, especially vegetarian sausages, quorn "chicken", and Tesco vegetarian mince. You can keep the kids occupied in making those pickles on a cocktail stick things, using sections of vegetarian hot dogs instead of cocktail sausages.

When you get the inevitable "is this halal?" questions, you can give a variety of sarky responses, like "it wasn't slaughtered, it just died", "no, it was killed in a scientifically humane fashion", "the cabbage is, but I'm not sure about the onions,ginger and tomatoes", "there's so much mirch in it you wouldn't care anyway", and the classic "think of it as being like a very spicy chapati roll, like one of those Mexican wraps".

I don't know why I make these suggestions, your imagination is fertile enough already.

If I choose a recipe from that site, what type of alcohol do I serve the dish with?

As I was saying ...

[Kay]

I've been to several Eid feasts. I'm not Muslim, just happened to live in Muslim countries. Actually, I'm in a Muslim country right now. Anyway, lamb was usually the favourite offering, whether a whole spit-roasted lamb (or goat) or kebabs and all the usual accompaniments of bread, rice, salads, pickles, nuts, etc.

[Clinton]

crabfoot, you've gotta be careful with the Muslim jokes! I was in love with this Muslim girl and asked her father if I could have her hand. He thought she had been stealing!

Only kidding, only kidding.

At this meal nobody will ask if anything is halal because they all trust me implicitly on that score (I keep separate pans in my house for frying bacon and making pork vindaloo). But, yeah, goat (or Bakr-id) is always a good bet for the occasion. I'm going to cook it in a Persian style - cream/raisins/coconut - and have a Hyderbadi biryani and stuff to go with it. It's a bit of a shame as the weather is shaping up perfectly for a BBQ!