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

Diego Maradona is dead. One of the greatest footballers of all time – perhaps the greatest – died yesterday, November 25th, in Buenos Aires at the age of 60. Nine ambulances arrived to try and revive him after he was found lifeless, apparently from a heart attack, shortly before midday at his rented home. Maradona had been recovering from brain surgery. The Argentinian President has decreed three days of national mourning to “honour the memory of Diego Armando Maradona … the best football player in the world and a person who made Argentinians immensely happy.” At least one million people are expected to march past Maradona’s coffin tomorrow while he lies in state at the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires. The life of Maradona has been documented to the nth degree, so I am ... read more

I have just counted my shirts. I possess 66. A ridiculous number. Is 66 symbolic – the Mark of the Shirt Beast? My shirt collection stretches back into antiquity. I have one white cotton shirt which I bought in Silver’s, a posh menswear shop in Reading, in the early 1980’s. I bought it in a sale. A posh-sounding label - ‘The Paris House Collection’ - is sewn beneath the collar, and it has a unique feature (unique, that is, to my shirt collection): after you do up the buttons, they are hidden from view. Ancient it may be, but it remains my best white shirt. I wore it a couple of weeks ago at a friend’s wedding. That is my oldest shirt, and the fact that it has lasted all these years attests to its quality. ... read more

In his poem, The Municipal Gallery Revisited, W. B. Yeats revisits the Dublin Municipal Art Gallery and contemplates the portraits of people he has known – Augusta and Robert Gregory, Hugh Lane, John Millington Synge and a few others. He concludes: You that would judge me, do not judge alone This book or that, come to this hallowed place Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon; Ireland's history in their lineaments trace; Think where man's glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends. I have always liked this poem, especially the idea that a person should be judged by the quality of his friends. It reminds me of what my mother used to say: ‘Show me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are’. Well, my HCMC bedroom ... read more

Sean Connery has died aged 90 - a good innings, so we shouldn’t feel too sad. However, he means a lot to me, and I want to share some personal opinions and a few things that may not feature in the obituaries. Sean Connery has a connection with Vietnam. When I visited the Furama Resort, a beach hotel in Danang, around 2005, there was a sign telling us that Sean Connery reckoned it to be the best hotel he’d ever stayed in. I tried, today, to verify this on the internet but found nothing. However, I have a clear memory of Mr Connery’s fulsome endorsement. Sean Connery has a connection with me! On at least five occasions, a stranger has remarked on my facial resemblance to Sean Connery, which I have taken as a huge compliment. ... read more

I worked 39 years as a full-time English teacher and never sought to increase my income by giving private lessons. I was more than happy with my salary, and I treasured my free time. Only once – when I was teaching in England circa 1981 – did I tutor someone privately. He was a weak English student, so weak he was studying CSE English (now obsolete), not English ‘O’ level. As I recall, I took him on out of sympathy. I did my best, but he failed miserably despite my brilliant coaching. I retired from full-time teaching in 2017, at the age of 65, after 39 years on the chalk face. I was tired. The plan now was to earn money as a supply teacher and as a private tutor. Our apartment in District 2, HCMC, ... read more

I don’t propose to mention all the doctors and dentists I have encountered during my 68 years on earth – only the more memorable ones. I have enjoyed a largely illness-free life, but there have been occasions when a doctor or dentist has come to the rescue and made a long-lasting impression, not just on my body but on my memory too. As a primary schoolboy, I was sick most years with either bronchitis or pleurisy. I would be laid low for a week or two, looked after by Mum. In those days – the 1950’s - it was normal for a family doctor to visit the patient at home, so Dr Gledhill and Dr Walford, whose practice was in Denmark Road, a 10-minute walk from our house, would visit me in my bedroom. As I ... read more