Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia

Yesterday morning, May 13th 2022, I learnt from the Guardian newspaper that Robert Gillmor, the bird artist, had died. I was slightly shocked. He is probably the most famous person I have ever spoken to. We have several things in common: he loved birds; he was Reading born and bred; he was a teacher (at Leighton Park School in Reading); he knew my mother. I first came across him in Reading in the mid-1960s. At that time my mother was a private nurse, and her latest assignment was caring for Robert Gillmor’s old mother. When Robert learnt I was a keen bird-watcher and a member of ROC (Reading Ornithological Club), he made a point of meeting me. I can’t remember if he gave me anything, but he may have – possibly Xmas cards adorned with his ... read more

Many years ago I wrote an essay entitled ‘The Fascination of Chess’. Now I am writing a similar essay about snooker. The trigger for this essay is the World Snooker Championship, which I am watching on TV. The semi-finals finished yesterday – Saturday April 30th 2022 – and the final begins today. Ronnie O’Sullivan will be playing Judd Trump. The standard of play in this world championship has been very high. Three seasoned old pros – O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams - have been playing near or at their absolute best. In a semi-final that will live long in the memory, Judd Trump, a mere stripling at 32, vanquished Williams 17-16. Williams was trailing 1-7, and later 5-12, but, incredibly, took a 16-15 lead, before Trump won the final two frames and the match. Definitely ... read more

When ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was released in 1994, I couldn’t make head nor tail of the title and assumed it must be pretty boring. And it may have been the title that put off a large section of the public, because the movie earned a mere $16 million in its first theatrical run, way short of its $25 million budget. By contrast, the critics loved it, and in 1995 it was nominated for 7 Oscars. Since then ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ has become legendary, rated by all and sundry as one of the finest movies ever made. The imdb website gives it a 9.3 rating, the highest of any movie – higher than ‘The Godfather’ (9.2) or ‘The Godfather: Part 2’ (9.0) or ‘Pulp Fiction’ (8.9) or ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ ... read more

In 2010 I was still teaching at the American International School in HCMC. Here is the Xmas letter I sent out to friends: Dear Overseas Friend(s) When I sent out my 2009 Xmas encyclical, I was struggling to cope with a deranged boss. Well, he jumped ship last February, before they could sack him, and was replaced by a kindergarten-trained German lady with no previous experience of running a High School. She is a workaholic but directs her energy into some pretty useless channels and is too egotistical to seek advice. However, she is passably competent, which means I am probably saddled with her for as long as I remain at AIS (American International School) – which may be a long long time. My attempts to find employment at another, better, school in Saigon have, for ... read more

In 2015 I was in my final year at the Renaissance International School and worried about finding a new job. Saigon December 19th Dear Overseas Friends Not a vintage year for me, with one glorious exception. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. My wife Thuy’s brother-in-law died of meningitis at the age of 42. If he had received good hospital treatment from the start, he would be alive today, but hospitals in the provinces are piss-poor, and by the time we got him into a good hospital in Saigon, he was too far gone. He was a very nice guy, sorely missed by Thuy and all her family. Thuy’s Tan Chau restaurant and karaoke suffered in the exceptionally wet weather last September. The foundations of her restaurant subsided, and the karaoke was ... read more