John Grant

The whole of the world is having to cut back, and the same here too in the Philippines.

One of the dangers of moving here is that you can seriously under estimate your finance and before its too late your safety margin has gone. However when some people do not have enough for a bowl of rice the rest of us are very lucky to moan that we cannot go out for a drink or show.

One of my close friends is considering going home to his own country as the credit crunch is hurting him and his young family. Of course going home may not be the answer!!

Not normaly do we have personnal ads on this site, but today is an exception as the sale of this vehicle may allow my friend and his family to stay here and plan another way out of his problems.

THIS IS A WARNING FOR US ALL PARADISE HAS A FINANCIAL COST TOO

CLICK ON PICTURE BELOW FOR FULL DETAILS

Nature has made it easier for a man to have to urinate (from now on I will call it whiz), and thus when caught short we can normally do a whiz very quickly and discreet. That is in our home countries,

Here it is a National competition to see who can whiz in the most strange place.
Here is the top five place i have seen.

1/I was working at a Resort having lunch when five yards away a member of staff just whizzed whilst I was eating and even waved over to me. The C r(toilet) was 30 secs from him but he told me later this is where we all whizz!! And guess what no one else in the restaurant was bothered only me.

2/Waiting for a friend to collect me outside my house I saw a guy walk up to me and whizz onto my wall and even say “hi” as he was doing so. When he finished I expected him just to walk off, but he did not he got a set of keys out and went into next door house. Apparently my wall was a better wall to whiz on.

3/On a late night drinking session in Cayagan De Oro I was on a jeepney that was travelling very fast when my fellow passenger stood up and whis out the back!! I am very glad there was no wind or it may have caused an unfortunate rain…if you know what I mean.

4/I saw a very important government official at a drinking session go over to the CR and found it full, so this well known person just did it outside whilst still having his conversation with officials.

5/When on a bus I saw a mother hold her baby to the window and let it whiz as we drove, again lucky it was blown back to the customers further back.

Now it is deemed ok here for any man to stop at any time to whizz, even if he is standing next to you. But what do the poor ladies have to do?? I hope that question will continue to go unanswered.

I think in total in my life in the UK I have seen wild Rats close up and personal a dozen times only, although we are told they are only yards away from you. In my home country if you see a Rat you chase it, kill it and it seems to make the Rats less obvious, or even they prefer not to be around such an atmosphere.

Now of course living in a tropical location I very much expected to see more Rats, but I have been so surprised the amount I see and how they seem to have less fear or concern from the human population.

I walk through local villages and they are walking across the path or even watching me from a corner. I have seen a huge Rat walk pass me in a friends house jump into the kitchen sink and every few seconds pop its head up to see if I am still looking. It judges me no threat and continues as the maid seems to work around it.

Here in my home I have had some hairy friends who at night regardless of lights or human noise pop in for free dinner and have the nerve to walk around even if you make a noise to frighten them.

Do not get me wrong its not everyday, but maybe once a week and I kill most with Rat poison and a great device called a Rat blanket.

This operates like a fly catcher sticky pad, as the Rat walks over the mat to eat my dinner, as soon as it stays still for a few seconds its feet get glued to the position and the more it struggles the more body mass touches the glue. Eventually its trapped solid and I just roll the mat around the Rat and take it to the bin. JOB DONE.

WELL THAT IS UNTIL ITS FRIENDS COME BACK NEXT WEEK OR IS IT A FORM OF REINCARNATION!!!!

I live on the ground floor and before that I lived on a first floor apartment and never saw one come up the stairs for lunch. Now I know why the nipper huts are built on stilts, its not just the rain its the pain of Rats too.

A few weeks ago my friend Ollie came over from the UK and we decided to take a trip to Mintel near Davao City, infact it may be technically part of Davao City.

A very enjoyable day was had walking and talking with the locals and this video captures part of that feeling.

Now having spent a few years here in the Philippines I have struggled with the heat and a few other things ,as you have seen if you are a regular reader to my columns here. And you are you know I love this country as the bad things are few in comparison to the all the pluses I can think of.

However I always struggle to find anything to watch regularly on TV that meets my western criteria, apart from the news of course, which the longer I am here becomes less important. Do I care what my politicians are doing in my own country and really do I care about the next American president?

I mean we have a version of DEAL OR NO DEAL in the UK, however it does not have the dancing women and a circus style presentation which seems to be the main way to present TV here, even the news networks have loud music in the background with “screaming” presenters that make TV NEWS like an entertainment than a serious news programme.

Even sitting down to thee FILM networks can be a disappointment , because if its not”edited” for content than the same film seems to be repeated several times a day and in the week, which that gives you the feel of “GROUNDHOG DAY”.

Here we use the American system of commercials all over the place ,so sometimes you are not sure why the plot has changed to find out we have cut to commercials without any warnings..ITS NOT THE BRITISH WAY LOL.

My friends sit down for hours and hours watching the reality programmes like PINOY BIG BROTHER,DREAM ACADAMY and POP IDOL all have good points but it seems to be wall to wall.

So I tried to get into the soap dramas that seemed to involve hundreds of hospital scenes where everyone screams than dies. than we get to hear the screams again as someone has to kiss the corpse.
Thank goodness that Bob sends me some of his VCD of programmes to give me some intellectual stimulus.. DESPERATE HOUSEWIFES!!!!!! BACK TO THE RADIO FOR ME