Kent’s Beatles and Sergeant Pepper

The 50th Anniversary next year of the release of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a key event for Kent.

The album itself marks an astonishing achievement for the Great British Creative Industries in joining together Pop Music and Art for the first time.

But as with this year’s celebration of Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary it could be a dashed-off damp squib rather than a psychedelic firework lighting up the world all next year from Liverpool to Los Angeles.

Have you heard of any events yet? I haven’t.

The Kent Beatles you say?

The album cover by Peter Blake symbolising the end of the era of the Fab Four as their incarnation of Sergeant Pepper’s band stands over the grave of the Moptops.

The album being the first to print the lyrics of the songs as works of art in themselves.

And, whisper it quietly, it wasn’t even their best album.

Rubber Soul or Revolver or even Help could be argued to be more cohesive or experimental.

Sergeant Pepper is too long at 13 tracks and too many fillers: Fixing a Hole? And too much of Macca’s music hall ditties: When I’m Sixty-Four?

And just two years later The Beatles ended.

But the full blossoming of Flower Power and psychedelia and hard rock and a pop music was something substantial and far more than showbiz or Tin Pan Alley ephemera.

Macca in a recent The Spectator interview described how the first iteration of the Pepper cover was a municipal flower clock. No doubt badly-done and over-budget if left to the council: we might still be waiting for the album to be released.

But what an album it would have been if it had been trimmed down to say 8 tracks – and this is where Kent comes in – if Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane were included.


Strawberry Fields Forever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UQK-UcRezE

Penny Lane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rB0pHI9fU


Those songs were released as a double A-side in January 1967 and it was felt that only unreleased tracks should be on the album for its release on 1st June.

Both songs formed the first-ever music video filmed at Knole Park near Sevenoaks in Kent – surprising for Northern Songs about their childhoods in Liverpool which is a large part of the Pepper concept album – with avant-garde colour film techniques.

An especially unusual mix as Strawberry Fields Forever was written in Almeria on the location of How I Won The War, and the Advanced Area cricket pitch, inspiring the famous Lennon granny glasses – and apt for Kent given the huge regeneration success of Southern Spain with numerous EU awards and the UAL Group new universities from Almeria, Cordoba, Huelva etc.


http://cms.ual.es/UAL/planestrategico/index.htm


The song and Almeria even inspiring the film Living is Easy With Eyes Closed... winner of the Goyas and Academy Award selection.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/living-is-easy-eyes-closed-637423


Kent scored a second goal with Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite on Sgt Pepper inspired by a circus poster found in a Sevenoaks antiques shop during a break in filming by John Lennon.

And Kent scored a hat-trick later in the year with much of The Magical Mystery Tour album and film being shot in Kent especially in West Malling airfield with the famous I Am The Walrus scene.

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1967/09/24/filming-magical-mystery-tour-12

Just 5 years after their first Abbey Road recordings Sergeant Pepper marked a pinnacle for the Beatles and the dominance of British rock music that has never been relinquished.

And it cemented UK from the Carnaby St era onwards as the heart of cutting-edge Fashion and Art.

http://tinyurl.com/hcc5xhs

And what an album if the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, for the Our World first global broadcast, had recorded All You Need is Love a few weeks earlier.


The album sold 5.1M in USA and is still the third highest-selling album and regularly rated the best album ever. Perhaps only ever bettered by Pet Sounds or Exile on Main St.

How foolish if UK and Kent fail to deliver on that success from 1st June the 50th Anniversary next year.

Pepper with the salty tang of the seaside, if you will

While Margate and Ramsgate in their seaside town variety shows regularly hosted Kent's Beatles and Kent's Rolling Stones – again all unremarked.

The Kent Police Brass Band – the Blue Blowers – are tuning up to celebrate Sgt Pepper with the relaunch of the Grade 1 listed Victorian Eastcliff Bandstand – one of the world’s only polished-cement dancefloors.

The uniforms are being tailored to replicate the Pepperland band uniforms (prima donna demands are in hand already for Thai silk not satin, and an extra bottle of whisky and a crate of Heineken rider, and concerns over the tonguing for Lovely Rita Meter Maid given the policeman’s fear of the parking ticket) but there’s one ingredient missing...


...Often overlooked in the success of the Beatles, is the star of the first full Pepper song...

...The one and only Billy Shears...

...The star of A Hard Day’s Night and Help with his magic ring...

...Liverpool’s finest railway man...

..The only British Spaghetti Western star with Blindman...

...The star of the best rock and roll film ever in That’ll Be The Day – produced by ASEAN Trade Minister and the Killing Fields’ David Puttnam...

...Putting the Ludwig into Beethoven and rolling over and telling Tchaikosky the news...

...The hardest working man in British showbusiness – eight days a week...

...A backbeat that you just can’t lose – even in a Yellow Submarine or the Octopus’ garden...

...Drumming up a hurricane and a roaring storm...


Laydeez and Gennelmen,

the one,

the only,

Mistaaaah Ringoooo Starrrrr...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93qXs9PdGJI


The beat goes on.

Time for Change
@timg33

Misc points:

* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

Thailand – UK Partnership: policy initiatives

Thailand – UK Partnership: policies
October 2016

Various policies that could form the basis of improved UK-Thai activity:

1. Hi-speed rail: Yangon(Kwai)-BKK-PP-HCMC (nb. Kasetsart and Newcastle Universities engineering depts. existing exchanges)
2. Vinh-Vientiane railway to capital city inland from deepsea port on Pacific
3. Increase Thai students to UK: 8k to 17k as Malay
4. East Asian languages in UK schools: Japanese now taught in UK primary schools - zero ASEAN?
5. 4x Kent Universities: East Asian Studies and language courses
6. TDRI and TRF exchanges with UK thinktanks eg Reform
7. Basson HCMC: UNESCO status for development
8. Danang University and Tech park: UK investment template – and True Digital Park expansion?
9. Discovery Park Kent: vaccines, AMR, Rabies etc
10. UK Tourism: 1M UK tourists to Thailand, and Thai visitors to UK 3rd highest spend, Gatwick/LHR: Vietnam Air/Thai Air slots
11. HS2/HS3 (Kent HS1): Hitachi, Fujitsu and Nissan - Panasonic Benelux
12. Chaopraya Promenade: Embankment example
13. BKK increase green spaces: town planning
14. Mobile: True and AIS
15. Exchanges: Chula, Thammasat, Kasetsart, SPU, Mahidol MMU
16. James Bond Day: 5th October: Thai film and BKK studios 2017 activity
17. Operation Masterdom and Long Thanh: Vietnam
18. Isaan tartan and language: Khon Kaen university
19. Chevening scholarships x3 – other scholarships/apprenticeships
20. Kwai Festival: UK promotion
21. Thai cookery: Michelin stars, celebrity chefs
22. Royal Mint: orchids stamps/coins etc promotions
23. GPO/Thai Post Office: orchids stamps etc
24. Sgt Pepper: 2017 Promotion
25. Sincerity PR: SCB, SCG, Landmark, Paragon, True, TAT, ThaiAir, Kasikorn
26. Surin Charity: Isaan and Cambodia schools
27. Sports: football and cycling (Carabao and Chelsea sponsorship)
28. Queen Sirikit Fashion Museum and V&A: exchanges
29. Retail: Boots, Tesco Lotus, Paragon, Gaysorn etc
30. UK/Thai Police: exchanges – CCU forensic dept
31. Morlam and Kundrum: music promotions
32. Ferry and swimming safety: RNLI
33. Rajabkhat: colleges/languages exchanges

Time for Change
@timg33

Misc points:

* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

Project Gilgamesh a failed National Plan in UK?

Has Humanity’s search for immortality has ground to a halt in UK?

Several scientists declare that the first 1,000 year old man or woman has already been born somewhere in the world.

Medical science provides new innovations almost each month: from DNA and genome mapping to the use of graphene as bone replacements for hip and knee operations and systemic blood and organ manufacturing with almost every body part now capable of being replaced.

Mortality in the developed world is around 81 years old and a global average around 67 years old.

Even the poorest nations such as Afghanistan or Chad have mortality around 50 years old.

Lifespans have improved in leaps and bounds from around 33 years old in 1800 to around 45 in 1900.

But in UK there is no National Plan – a Gilgamesh Plan - to extend mortality.

Certainly there’s nothing beyond crossing your fingers and relying on the natural increases in mortality that inches forward by an average of 2 years per decade.

But South Africa is aiming to do more than that – it’s National Plan is to improve mortality from 63 years old to 70 years old before 2020. That’s partly to reverse the carnage wrought by the HIV epidemic, but a deliberate longer-term public health initiative too.

While the Dutch Actuarial Association believes that Holland will easily achieve mortality rates of 91 years old for a child born this year.

And Google has developed Calico Research Labs:

http://www.calicolabs.com/

Why isn’t UK doing more?

Why shouldn’t the NHS not just be rolling out basic improvements in cataract operation or 12,000 medical error deaths or speeding up the DNA tests – but putting in place a National Plan for Project Gilgamesh of say a minimum of 150 years old mortality by 2100?

Amortality is perfectly possible – extending mortality except for accidents – with current medical science and improvements in public health with air pollution and a focus on the 200 cancers, and basic cardiovascular problems that cause most natural deaths now.

UK is forecasting to be tobacco-free by 2025 which is muddling along at best with 16.9% of the adult population still smoking and gradually dying off.
And more could be done on food manufacturing: rapidly moving to sugar-free formulations in soda and food, and low-fat and low-chemical as a food standard.
New York City for example has already moved on bans of transfat fats and supersize fast food portions.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has not only called for 100% internet access which is completely feasible within a year or so. But he has also announced a $3BN to help end all diseases by 2100 – again a target that will easily be achieved.

The issue isn’t achieving the end of disease –but achieving it as rapidly as possible.

Malaria and HIV and TB are all falling well below the 1M deaths per year. Manufacturing and distributing a few million nets and condoms and tablets isn’t complicated.

It’s outrageous that the G20, that initiates 90% of the global economy, haven’t all already committed to 0.7% aid to achieve the UNSDG30.

And UK lags behind nations such as Philippines in ensuring the UNSDG30 are placed into national policy.

At the very least the G20 money could be printed and then the debt written off as a once-in-a-generation task.

And also with sewers and water filtration as basic public health initiatives, global mortality should be increased up from the average of 67 years old to 81 years old within 5 years or 10 years at the most.

Traffic accidents kill 1.2M people per year, and Smoking 5M, Air pollution 3M and Cancer 8M -so perhaps 20M lives worldwide each year could be saved from preventable causes.

Why hasn’t UK done it, when Netherlands and South Africa are already moving ahead on mortality?

And Sweden and Japan beat UK on most health indicators?
And certainly ending the horrifying regional discrepancies in mortality – a few miles and a different postcode in UK can mean dying upto 7 years earlier.

UK doesn’t even have a National Plan on ending air pollution with a requirement for all vehicles to be electric and all fuel sources to be fossil-free. By 2020? 2025? Who knows.

It’s a dying shame that UK isn’t more active on Project Gilgamesh.

@timg33

Misc points:

* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

Kent, birthplace of the church – and advertising?

A wonderful, evocative book review in yesterday’s Sunday Times newspaper that I can only quote directly:

“In AD597, a ship landed on the coast of Kent. On board were 40 or so Italian monks, led by one Augustine, the future St Augustine of Canterbury. These men had been sent by Pope Gregory the Great as the first official mission to the Anglo-Saxons, and Augustine’s conversion of King Ethelbert of Kent around AD600 marks the true beginning of Christianity in England. The missionaries established a new cathedral at Canterbury and Augustine became its first Archbishop.
Justin Welby the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury is his direct linear successor.

In AD601 when it was clear that Augustine’s mission had been a success, Pope Gregory sent the Archbishop a parcel of books for use by the fledgling English Church. Among then was a small illuminated gospel book, containing the four New Testament Gospels in Jerome’s Latin translation. This manuscript a little faded by 1,400 years of use stands at the head of Christopher de Hamel’s spectacular Meetings with Manuscripts book.

For, wonder of wonders, St Augustine’s gospel book survives today, in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It is, writes de Hamel: “probably the oldest non-archaeological artefact of any kind to have survived in England””

Quite astonishing also that it was in effect the first advertisement in England – promoting the Church and Christianity - that still survives.

And then:

“…de Hamel, the librarian of Corpus Christi College, describes bringing the Gospels to Canterbury Cathedral in February 2003 for the enthronement of Rowan Williams as Archbishop (the book is used for the swearing of the oaths of office). As de Hamel entered the nave, the congregation was singing the Welsh hymn “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”, he was holding the Gospels of St Augustine open on a cushion. The parchment leaves of the manuscript are extremely fine and of tissue thinness and they picked up the vibrations and they hummed and fluttered in time with the music. At that moment it was as if the 6th century manuscript on its cushion had come to life and was taking part in the service.”

How astonishing that here in East Kent nothing exists to commemorate St Augustine beyond a small stone cross near the landing site at Pegwell Bay. The latter a UNESCO and SSSI site along with The White Cliffs of Dover just around the headland, and the 3 UNESCO sites in Canterbury.

And the nearby Roman ruins of the fort at Richborough.

While Pegwell Bay is contaminated by the ruins of the old hovercraft site and dumped coal ash still not cleared away along with the rubble of the demolished Richboro power station.

Surely the Landings site, a version of the Jorvik attraction at York, with Caesar and St Augustine and Hengist and Horsa and Wellington and Hitler, should be brought back to life?

Even the Gospel book of St Augustine manuscript book brought back home and put on display in Canterbury after 1,400 years?

And all the more apt with the 950th anniversary of the 1066 Battle of Hastings and recreation of the 300 mile march of King Harold from the victory over the Vikings at Stamford Bridge to Hastings:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-37472193

A narrow defeat by William the Conqueror that ended the reign of the Anglo-Saxons and ushered in the Norman Conquest, and first delineations of Britain with the Bayeux Tapestry, and Domesday Book.

@timg33

Misc points:

* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

Export growth driven through Thailand and UK?

Khun Bandid Nijathworn, CEO of Hitotsubashi University, and Thai Institute of Directors, makes some profound points on the global economy in his Bangkok Post article yesterday: “Thailand’s economy needs new growth drivers”.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1091109/thai-economy-needs-new-growth-drivers

China’s slow growth and debt and low interest rates is but one aspect of a global triple whammy along with the parlous state of the USA housing market and fragile Eurozone.

Here in UK interest rates are at their lowest-ever level since the founding of the Bank of England in 1694 and even Japan has slumped into negative interest rates. The effects of the Brexit announcements for UK are yet to be fully-realised although OECD data this week suggests the UK economy has remained robust through the Summer with a slight increase in growth from 1.7% to 1.8%.

And with Thailand also recording a slight increase in growth to 3.3%, as detailed by Khun Bandid, but a 90% reduction in FDI - and the OECD slightly downgrading UK growth next year from 2% to 1%, then he is right that more in both nations needs to be done with such weak growth beyond just calls for government stimulus.

Politically, Thailand has a clear and stable roadmap back to full democracy and the kudos of the G77 chair, while the UK’s politics is still froth rather than substance at the moment – the LibDems party conference this week, the UK’s middle ground party between the Yellowshirts and Redshirts if you will, joked that they had the longest-serving UK party leader…all of 12 months.

Thailand, more so than UK at the moment, also has a clear action plan for its economy: the 2017 budget bill has been passed with a focus on hi-quality workers, SEZ, SME, R&D and higher priced branded agricultural products.

--Future Thailand and UK--

Surely, in my politics work of Meiji reforms in UK, and advertising role, such activity should form the basis of a joint UK-Thai economic programme to drive growth in both nations?

The problems of Thailand’s recent floods (and here in UK) and horrifying Ayutthaya ferry disaster are specific incidents underlining the need for prompt action as part of longer-term activity. On floods, shouldn’t UK and Thailand and Netherlands, the latter probably the world’s experts on water management, form a consortium for specific activity? To be blunt, UK and NL support would unlock not only their national funding but more importantly sustained EU and ADB/ASEAN activity in the Thailand and Mekong Delta for river management and sewer and monkey cheeks programmes?

While the UK need take no lessons from any nation in river and sea safety(or road safety with only 1,700 deaths and Kent Police active this week on Project Edward an EU-wide road safety programme) - with the RNLI lifeboats charity on coasts and rivers, also now even in the Thames in London following the Marchioness riverboat disaster of 51 deaths.

Prince William the heir to the UK throne after Prince Charles has also highlighted his search-and-rescue helicopter work. Along with the UK-Japan helicopter project that is waiting to take flight.

School swimming programmes and sports centre and swimming pool infrastructure must be ripe for UK-Thai cooperation – even preparation for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Thailand’s 2017 budget bill provides for £323BN THB, 13% of public expenditure, such as 47M THB to two universities, again surely ripe for cooperation between UK universities and Hitotsubashi and Thai universities? Today Oxford University becomes the first UK university to top the Times University league table – and with 19 other UK universities in the top 100.

The Science Ministry provides for 1.1BN THB for STEM activity with schools and universities. While the PM’s Office provides for 8.5M THB for digital training alone.

And with SRT, its 3.3BN THB funding allocation is timely, with the announcement this week of the completion of the Thai-Cambodia railway link at the border. The challenge now with dynamic companies such as Hitachi and their work on Thailand’s Purple Line, and HS1 hi-speed rail here in Kent's Ashford, is to deliver the rest of the rail network across Cambodia and through to HCMC.

That’s a distance about the same as London-Newcastle (the UK HS2 route) which is apt given the existing Kasetsart and Newcastle University rail engineering cooperation, and site of the second major Hitachi depot in the UK’s North East – one of the largest outside Japan.

--Beyond Big Ticket Economics--

And beyond the big-ticket multi-national projects and global macro-economics, surely UK and Thailand could work together on OTOP activity on silk or rice, expanding the dynamic Thai bank and insurance offering into London, and creating a raft of SME and start-up activity for both nations?

UK and Thai cooperation on Zika and Dengue and AMR vaccines and hospital exchange programmes must surely be pushing against an open door? While the potential in retail, automotive and textiles and fishing and mega-infrastructure projects all down the line needs little explanation.

On automotive for example, the UK this week announced its highest 6 month car manufacturing figures since 2000 of 1,023,723 cars, and highest August manufacturing figures since 2002 of 109,000 cars. While the Ford Bridgend auto factory celebrates its 20 millionth engine produced in 37 years.

The dynamic Local Government Minister and former Tourism and Business Minister Sajid Javid is getting into the fast lane too, with Kent’s dynamic Business Minister Greg Clark and dynamic Trade Minister Liam Fox, leading a US trade mission for the Midlands Engine, part of the Northern Powerhouse business-growth programmes.

All must be ripe for partnership with Thailand’s expanding automotive parts sector. And that volume of automotive expertise drives through into the hispeed rail and aerospace and space markets too as Thailand steps up the value chain.

Just one point on the latter, Germany’s street protests against TTIP between EU and USA, can only mean greater emphasis on the less contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership, and links such as say Vinh deep sea port with rail connectivity through to the markets of Vientiane and Isaan.

The ships of the future jostling for space in Vinh harbour destined for the USA and Latin American markets should be full not just of Vietnamese coffee and Lao sticky rice and Thai orchids, but Thai automotive parts, Vietnamese mobile phone parts and Lao water turbines.

And hopefully there will room in the shipping and rail containers for even more sticky rice too.

The EU Bratislava Summit concluded last week with the bold announcement of free wifi and 5G in every European city before 2020. London alone would require 500,000 mini-masts, and the likes of True and AIS and their manufacturing supply chain, and engineers and software designers, must surely want to participate in European markets?

If the UK and Thai Royal Mint are already working together – in literally printing money – then why shouldn’t British Telecom and True metaphorically do the same?

UK and Laos have announced their first Lao postage stamp with a British designer – why shouldn’t the dynamic UK and Thai post offices create stamps and coins by UK and Thai artists of say Kent and Thai orchids, or music given The Beatles Sgt Pepper anniversary next year? UK music and arts fans might want their ears opened to Morlam rather just Penny Lane or Peter Blake.

Initial figures show another record year for UK tourism abroad: over 6M to Spain – surely that should be a template to boost the 1M UK tourist visits to Thailand say with a tourism simcard and promotional offers? Even expansion of the already-booming UK cruise ships Asian market from Honiara to Hanoi – Saga the major over-50’s travel group, based here in East Kent announcing an 8.5% increase in profits.

Almost nothing can stop the Great British Tourist pulling on their Union Jack shorts or bikini and heading for the sun. Thailand and ASEAN with UK partnerships should be aiming for a greater slice of that cake. Or, Japan's tourists to Kent sipping on a taste of home as Shepherd Neame the UK's oldest brewer (just 4 years shy of the Bank of England) barrels along with both Kentish ale and Asahi.

Khun Bandid is right to highlight the slow growth that afflicts both UK and Thailand and the need for new growth drivers so shouldn’t both nations change gears, and get motoring on increasing growth?


Tim Garbutt is director of Sincerity Advertising and PR agency, director of Surin Village School Charity with the first school built in Isaan and plans to build 1,000 schools each year, and is standing for MP in 2020 for better UK-Thailand and ASEAN activity. He likes Asahi but is not too sure about Oranjeboom.

@timg33


Misc points:

* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

Bangkok: A Green Lung, and a City of Orchids?

Khun Sirinya Wattana Sukchai makes some very eloquent points in her Makkasan park article: Makkasan Snag is Good News.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1085448/makkasan-snag-is-good-news

The photographs supporting her article are eloquent too and make Makkasan look to have the potential to rival New York City’s Central Park – pressures to nibble away at the green space resisted even with 60M tourists each year - – or through my British eyes, London’s Hyde Park.

And why not: Bangkok as a world city, or just as with any city of 11M people, is desperately in need of parks and green spaces. It’s one of the world’s worst and certainly one of the worst in Asia.

According to the 2011 Asian Green City Index – a research project conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Siemens – Bangkok ranked fifth, out of six Southeast Asian cities surveyed, in terms of green space per city dweller. The city’s green space per capita came in at a meagre 3.3 square meters.

Singapore has 66.2 square meters of green space per person amidst its skyscrapers, Kuala Lumpur has 43.9 square meters, Hanoi has 11.2 square meters and Manila 4.5 square meters.

Bangkok beats only Jakarta, which scores a measly 2.3 square meters per person.

As well, Bangkok’s amount of greenery is almost three times less than the international standard of nine square meters per person set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

~~Cities and quality of Life~~


Put simply, too many skyscrapers and concrete is unhealthy. The quality of life flowing from the design of such buildings is a separate point.

Both the reopening and cleaning of klongs and the Chaopraya River Walk would move Krungthep back to a more liveable city when it was billed as the Venice of the East. Friends remember the jungle encroaching upto Siam Square just 50 years ago.

And Phnom Penh is under similar overdevelopment town centre pressures with the rather bizarre draining and infill of Boeung Kak lake. Or the danger of losing the British colonial architecture of Yangon’s iconic waterfront for, of course, more identikit skyscrapers.

Does the SRT railway really need to sell the Makkasan land for yet more identikit skyscrapers and malls?

In a previous blog article I’ve mentioned the Colliers Property Reports forecasting a trend for the smaller-scale Community Malls. These would fit in with Khun Sirinya’s view of a museum (to Thai architecture?) or gallery at Makkasan.

Even an open air amphitheatre for plays or khon, or fashion catwalk, and a lido open-air swimming pool?

And with Thong Lor breathing new life into the hip bars and cafes and galleries, surely a Makkasan equivalent of NYC’s Greenwich Village, in the surrounding streets, would be of more use to Bangkok’s ambitious tourism targets?

Almost certainly it would be of more use than yet more half-empty hi-so mega-malls selling very few Chanel handbags?

Eventually the Skytrain expansion and electric cars and autonomous taxis and lorries will remove much of the traffic jams and choking air pollution from Bangkok. But the concrete canyons along Ploenchit will still block out much of the light and atmosphere of Bangkok without such counterbalances as Makkasan.

HCMC in Vietnam has made huge strides in cleaning and opening up the Saigon River in District 1 –literally an open sewer not so long ago - and ensuring the central parks are maintained and protection of heritage assets such as the French colonial architecture and Basson inner port.

Even in London the pollution cleanup has been so successful that there are now signs of salmon the whole length of the River Thames and as far downstream as Parliament.

London rail though (both above ground and the Tube) have been bedevilled by such urban black-holes of development so it feels a very familiar problem. Liverpool St station in the heart of the City was surrounded by derelict land, even WW2 bomb sites for decades.

~~East Kent city planning~~


And here in East Kent municipal incompetence, public apathy and rampant political and civil service corruption have left the iconic Dreamland amusement park and Pleasurama site, both Kent’s largest seafront developments, derelict for years through a mix of insurance fires and British Virgin islands tax haven mystery paydays.

But London does better than most cities with a ribbon of green space through the centre of the city allowing you to walk from Hyde Park through to Green Park and Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus and onto the Thames Embankment river walks.

And even pocket parks such as the Embankment Gardens next to Parliament, with its statue of Chinese Gordon of Khartoum and Chin lions from Myanmar, and rows of hanging baskets of flowers on the lampposts.

Surely SRT could turn the land over to a Community Trust to develop plans for a park and preserve the railway houses in time for their 120th Anniversary next year?
With the expansion of ASEAN Rail hispeed rail and a Makkasan park, both SRT and the public would have cause for celebration.

And Bangkok a City of Orchids as per the headline? Why not a park and botanical garden, similar to Kew Gardens in London, to showcase Thailand’s orchids and orchid industries?

No unsightly greenhouses needed just row after row of flower displays as ay Keukenhof tulips in Netherlands.

http://www.keukenhof.nl/en/discover-the-park/what-keukenhof/

And what a wonderful flourish to say give away to Bangkokians a fresh orchid every day?

The glib epithets of BKK as the Venice of the East or Saigon as the Paris of East fade away to so much old-fashioned and neo-colonial tourist brochure cliches compared to home-grown industries such as orchids.

Here in East Kent with the rare Kentish orchids as our District flower, we’d be keen to support that too.

And a park at Makkasan would be a Green Lung for all Bangkok, and a lifebuoy in an ocean of cement.


Tim Garbutt is director of Sincerity Advertising and PR agency, director of Surin Village School Charity with the first school built in Isaan and plans to build 1,000 schools each year, and is standing for MP in 2020 for better UK-Thailand and ASEAN activity. He likes orchids.

@timg33


Misc points:

* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

The smile wiped off Thailand’s face?

What a heart-breaking week for Thai students. First the appalling hazing incident at Kasetsart Chonburi campus with Khun Chokchai almost drowning in a water treatment pond. And only now recovering and off a hospital respirator. (If water training was involved why wasn't the Kasetsart swimming pool used?).

Then the egg-tofu incident of a Surin schoolgirl being forced by a teacher to eat a tofu she was allergic to – a serious allergic reaction could have killed her.

And now Khun Narudee the Korat schoolgirl disfigured by a PE teacher throwing a china mug at her. And the report of a Mae Hot Son schoolboy having part of his ear cut off by a teacher!?

Obviously such incidents must be rare in Thailand, and are non-existent in UK except by other schoolchildren bulling each other. If anything many UK teachers are bullied by the schoolkids.

But what a horrifying indictment on Thai education. And surely Thailand’s excellent hospitals and surgeons should be stepping forward to help Khun Narudee?

Hospitals in Nakhon Ratchasima must be in touch with say Mahidol University and then the range of specialist hospitals and doctors in Thailand or ASEAN?

In my candidacy I would even make sure the UK government and NHS stepped in to help, whether Khun Narudee is flown to England or a UK surgeon flown to Thailand. Even Operation Smile and its work on similar facial disfigurements for cleft-palates must be able to help.

(update: Khun Pavena Honsakula and The Pavena Foundation for women and Children are helping and Yanhee hospital in BKK).

Shouldn’t UK and Thai hospitals and nursing colleges and governments pull together a specialist fund for such unusual and needy cases?

Here in Kent some UK hospital services are already available in Benelux so the other EU embassies in Thailand would no doubt be supportive too?

The UK NHS is world-class and with the largest number of staff after the Peoples Liberation Army and Walmart so one injured Thai schoolgirl would pose no problems.

And there is wider concern of the NHS brand being rolled out with UK tax by say Moorfields Eye Hospital to bling-bling Dubai – but for paying cataract operations etc not the free at source basis of the NHS.

Indeed a recent BBCTV documentary highlighted the work of foreign staff in the NHS – with worries over the 3.6% EU (and 4% Commonwealth and 2.6% other international) staff in the NHS being put off by Brexit and leaving UK. In that instance Myleene Klass the singer, radio DJ and piano player’s Filipino mother who worked at Norfolk hospitals. And reporting from Belfast on the upgrade of the first specialist NHS hospital built in 1962.

As a Surin School charity founder surely there is no place for teachers behaving in thus way to the schoolkids – and the potential for greater UK and Thailand links?

While the former Chief Constable for Greater Manchester Police has opened a Street Kids charity for the street kids of Cambodia and Philippines and East Africa.

A positive change from the dark days of Latin America and the Brazilian military regime exterminating street kids, but the Olympic Rio favelas still with desperate poverty and crime. 19 out of 20 of the world’s most dangerous cities in Latin America as worse than most warzones – only Cape Town and Joburg in South Africa as bad.

Even the boiling water burns common in Isaan – here in South East England there is the Queen Victoria specialist burns hospital supported by the famous UK actress Angela Redman who suffered serious cooking burns as a child. The hospital was originally developed as a pioneer in burns treatments for the “Guinea Pig Club” of RAF pilots injured by burning planes in WW2 and telepresence training and surgery is available.

https://www.rafbf.org/guinea-pig-club/about-the-guinea-pig-club

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria_Hospital


While the Khun Chokchai highlights the appalling number of drownings in ASEAN: 35 each day just in Vietnam.

http://swimforlifevietnam.org/

Wouldn’t the Thai Red Cross be a relevant port of call too for assistance? It can do no harm for the UK and Thai Red Crosses to have closer links with each other. And expand work with the Red Crescent in Malaysia and Myanmar?

An interesting new advertising campaign in UK with 59% of road deaths occur before an ambulance arrives providing a spur for Red Cross First Aid training. Or simply to raise awareness of innovative products such as Lucky Iron Fish to reduce iron deficiency and anaemia in malnutrition.

http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/First-aid/Dont-stop-at-999


And both the Red Cross and RNLI lifeboats would be relevant to help with swim training and to reduce drownings in rivers or the sea.

I’ve written before on the dangers of cooking fires, cook stoves and an excellent UNSDG fires report that far exceeds anything UK has done so far:

http://unfoundationblog.org/cooking-smoke-and-public-health-what-we-saw-in-kenya/

Thailand in its dying days of the G77 presidency should be urging each nation to adopt and adapt the UNSDG30 goals through their public sector ie schools, hospitals, police, local government etc? Otherwise the goals will simply be a piece of paper ignored in the filing cabinet and 2030 will come and go with nothing done.

20M preventable deaths each year before 2030 for the lack of soap, clean water, vaccines, malaria nets and condoms, would be a terrible epitaph to such failure.
But surely UK and Thailand between them can restore Khun Narudee's smile?

Time for Change
@timg33