*It's Kitchen God day, today. Can't remember what I'm supposed to do but it probably has something to do with the kitchen. Maybe cooking.

*What price would you put on being misdiagnosed as carrier of HIV? This dude got VND20 million out of a hospital, small change considering he spent seven years thinking he was HIV positive.

*"I didn't ask to be a millionaire so just leave me alone..." Vietnam's richest business people are miffed to be listed. Of course, don't they realise we can tell they're filthy rich? There are certain wee clues -- like living in enormous castles on the banks of West Lake is one way we know, driving a Hummer is a giveaway, as is pulling up outside a pho restaurant in a Lamborghini

* Speaking of millionaires: "The economy of Vietnam has been red hot in recent years and plenty of people have tapped different sectors to ride the created wave and make their riches. Tran Quang Thieu is one such man. This farmer from Van Binh Commune, Thuong Tin District of Ha Tay province which neighbours Hanoi, has become a billionaire, albeit in Vietnamese dong, thanks to his extraordinary ability to catch mice. That’s right – his company, the not so imaginatively named Quang Thieu’s Mice Killing Company, annihilates more than 2.5 million rodents on a yearly basis. This mass murder of mice as well as rats brings in a total revenue of over VND1 billion ($62,500). This lucrative business has grown from strength to strength and he now employs 30 people. The dynamic Thieu is also dabbling with consultancy and he has run workshops at plants, collective farms and airports across the land." Courtesy of Timeout's Hot Gossip.

*... "director Le Hoang’s film called Thu Thuong (Prime Minister), which is set to be released over Tet, is tipped to pull in a big slice at the box office, but rumour has it that the film about the romantic life of a fictional prime minister might have to be renamed Politician...."

I would have thought Da Vang, Prime Minister would have been the perfect title, but no one asked me.

* "The Americans sent in over 2,000 dogs," says the guide. "We said, thank you very much. The Vietnamese eat dog meat and we really needed the protein." Those guides get all the good lines -- from a piece on the Cu Chi tunnels.

* I just discovered people willingly "an thit chuot" (eat rat meat), as opposed to serve it saying it's beef, and apparently it tastes like... rabbit! Here's a not-too-shocking video of a rat catcher and how the rat is prepared for dinner. Not many dishes I'd shy away from in the interests of adventure but rats...



* The dream is over for the Stock Market (you can blame that Phap-trader, everyone else is). Everyone can go back to playing cards and watching football. Of course, if you believe Charlie Brooker it never really existed in the first place (recommended read). The stock market that is.

* The once-Leader of the pack and currently imprisoned Gary Glitter could be on his way back to the UK as he has a dodgy ticker...

* The street vendor law I mentioned before is up and running -- but.... "A day after Hanoi banned street vendors from sidewalks, most sellers were unaware of the prohibition and no officials appeared to be enforcing the new law." Not really surprising... I'd venture to say.

Statistics do not lie
Since his cruciate ligament snapped Minsk midfield dynamo Dan Trau/Buffalo Daiquiri has reinvented himself as the Minsk Football Club's prime statistician/ data bank.

So no review of Minsk FC's 3-0 drubbing of Arsenal , just the stats...


...and a picture of some true athletes at halftime. After all Johann Cruyff was a 20-a-day-man.

These streets are made for walking...
* A wee AFP piece on the new law concerning street vendors: "Vietnam's capital Hanoi plans to drive street vendors and hawkers off its sidewalks from Saturday in a push to bring order to the city and ease traffic flows, the administration said. Women in conical hats selling flowers and fruit have been an iconic part of Hanoi's colourful cityscape along with chanting vendors peddling wares from bicycle-stores, informal roadside cafes, open-air barbers and noodle shops." Read on. A Thanh Nien report here as well...

Bits and pieces...
* A letter from Hanoi: Short letter-article in the Irish Times today -- subscription only I'm afraid -- on Hanoi. Just a quick whirl through life at large and a chunk of history. One thing jarred.. "To a continual chorus of get-out-of-my-way toots, vehicles (mostly Honda scooters, buy shares now) weave in and out, overtake, intersect, in a world with no apparent traffic code and only the occasional set of lights to slow the mighty stream.

All this is conducted with an impassive calm, perhaps born of the prevailing Buddhism. Road rage is not Vietnamese. The southeast Asian cultural norm of never displaying anger could be the reason."

That's of course until someone really loses it and an almighty mill breaks out. That idea of the Asian "norm of never losing your cool" is utter shite. Fairly true for a long time that the majority of people remained admirably calm in chaotic traffic, but sadly methinks that's on the wane... people do lose the rag here, and when they do, stand back, or run.

In Dublin there's a healthy amount of verbal abuse for sure. People muttering in their cars to themselves about how everyone else on the road is a total langer. Of course, living here, when I'm back in Dublin the streets, in my eyes, are like a scene out of 28 Days Later or I Am Legend ... empty, quiet, deserted. The traffic is orderly, everyone stops at red lights, indicates, pulls up outside yellow boxes, and so forth, ... now that's what I call impassive calm, born from the "prevailing Catholicism..." no doubt...




* Snakes on a plane, dude: One tonne of snakes on a Vietnam Airlines flight seized... – one tonne? PUN ALERT: However did they slip through check in...
* Buoc day di: Helmets on, straps open... not encouraging numbers on head injuries post-wear-a-helmet-or-else law. I sense a return for Summertime Ryan, the Kickstand monitor of yesteryear with a comeback campaign to help people strap up...

Ouch...
* Via the GoGo rider and Tien Phong online -- a traffic policeman fails to hold onto a motorbike driver in Hanoi and gets rolled in the process (pictures here + report in tieng Viet). Had to have hurt, but fair play, he dusts himself off for a wee interview with the impromptu cameraman.

Dog owner eats dog meat and likes what he tastes!

* "At first I got forced into it by friends, you know, it was someone's birthday and I couldn't not turn up, so I went along thinking I'd just pig out on the crackers and drink a few beers," explains Trung, a young dog-owner turned dog-eater. "But of course, when I got there everyone is going "an di! an di!", so i felt as if I should nibble a little, just to fit in or be polite. But then when I did, I was gobsmacked -- I mean, how good is this dog meat dipped in mam tom!? It was like there was party going on inside my mouth and everyone was invited -- especially dogs!"

Okay I just made that up. One day though. Must be one dog owner dog eater out there. A man leading a double life. Shampooing his dog on Saturdays, walking around west lake in the evenings armed with his poop-a-scoop, playing fetch in the park on Sundays, then once a month gorging on thit cho and hitting the town with the lads...

This is the usual fare that hits the papers: "For some Vietnamese dogs, life is full of home-cooked meals, motorbike rides and regular shampoos. Others are not so lucky. They end up as thit cho or dog meat...", "Van said she adores dogs so much she feels sick when she sees the dog meat stalls in the Lang Cha Ca area of Tan Binh District in HCMC and when she sees cages of condemned dogs on the back of motorbikes. “The dogs’ faces are so sad and scared because they know they’re going to die,” she said. “I want to stop the motorbikes and set them free!”

Vendors squeezed out
* The street vendors are officially being squeezed out as of Jan 24th and motorised tricycles days are numbered in TPHCM... instantly transforming urban areas into visions of Singapore, that kept me up past the dawn...

Motorbike on fire

* An Attila went on fire somewhere in Hanoi -- and there's video footage here. Love the fact lots of people stop to take a look. Curiosity and a bunch of cats.

Beep beep
* I've prattled on about beeps before -- and I won't do it again as I wear ear plugs and I think I'm 60% deaf anyway -- but here's a first, for me at least, a local writer complaining about noise pollution ...a sea change, perhaps.

Stop...
* Nothing to do with Hanoi whatsoever part 763, just for the laugh, from the streets of Dublin...

Good auld Hammer, "he is legend" and he's a blogger... as well as a superdope homeboy from the Oaktown.

* You stay classy Hanoi zoo...

* The price of bia is now officially really, really expensive... (tieng Viet only, but just look at the prices and you'll get the gist). Of course, when we say expensive, we mean, you know, like, relatively speaking, and comparing prices to back in 1999 BC, when it came out of the taps of every house in Bach Khoa. Today it's VND5,ooo to VND6,000 for a glass of Bia Hoi Ha Noi.

Tigers, the runs, Chicken tamiflu...

* An English version of the story about the two tigers that were found in a car in Hanoi here at AFP HQ.

* And guess who's back? The runs, that's who. Now that's something for us all to look forward to...

* Bird flu has also resurfaced, most recently in Son La province, so might be "Chicken tamiflu" for Tet.

Review of the month (last month)
Missed this review of a new restaurant from last month over at the SNooze. Definitely a contender for most astonishing restaurant review I have ever seen printed even though I haven't a rashers what he's on about.

Stand out snippets: the interior is "Cozy contempo-minimalist", the concierge desk is a "slanted grey marshmallow", the total effect is "short of opulent but thoroughly Oriental in a temporarily satisfying way. It’s like King Herod’s breakfast nook – no leopards, belly dancers or sandalwood smoke, yet its intentions seemingly pay lip service to "decadence", "the street’s audio-spatial cacophony of tchotchkes for sale is suddenly gone, like putting on a pair of velvet earplugs... ", "In its own way (that is, removing fun and Truman Capote from the equation), going to Green Mango is an experience akin to having gone to Studio 54 in New York preternaturally cursed with the foreknowledge of all that would come after: here is a Disneyland ride where one can feel wealthy and with-it while consuming the raw distillate of a certain moment in a city and a nation’s history. Like Studio 54, the last greatest disco, one is on hand as a trend is perfected, transcended, and rendered obsolete in the very same instant. Green Mango merits consideration, as do the processes of history that brought it to an ageless mercantile avenue of Thang Long."

Oh, and the food is "wonderful".

My Chemical Romance in TPHCM
Not my cup of tea, and not in Hanoi, but very interesting to see that a band of My Chemical Romance's stature (not to mention rock stance capabilities) will be playing in the sunny South this month ...



..."Music junkies in HCM City will get their chance to enjoy the American smash-hit emo band My Chemical Romance (MCR) at the international rock show Unite 08 on January 20," says the SNooze, before cheekily quipping "Let’s hope MCR’s five members... can keep up with their Vietnamese counterparts."

Let's hope this is the start of more big acts heading this way.

O'Bama's Irish heritage
Nothing to do with Vietnam whatsoever #72: You should know by now you'll never beat the Irish, so bad news indeed for poor Hilary that the bauld buachaill Barack O'bama is actually from Co. Offaly... (Hilarious/ dodgy image of the decade: the closing shot of a pint of the black stuff being poured -- oh dearie me...)



Tiocfaidh ar la anyone?

Who could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Some feckers with a Toyota, that's who. Read more here (Tieng Viet only).



I like to imagine whoever owned the car popping down the road for pho and leaving Shere Khan jnr. here sitting in the front seat...

Water Puppets left high and dry?
The Red River is at its lowest level in a hundred years and water shortages may very well leave the Water Puppets having to rethink their aquatic nature.

Representatives of the troupe of pool faring wooden-homunculi have already announced that the script writers have been brainstorming ideas and plans for a production of Lawrence cua Arabia to hit the stage before Tet have already been mooted.

Okay, I just made that up as I've nothing better to do. We're all avoiding work here at Pittstop HQ, if only to discover the essence of laziness, like these Colombian guys I just read about.

Work, after all, is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.

Jobs for the boys
I've overheard a number of people around town saying, 'whatever happened to all the shoeshine boys', as there appears to be less in Hanoi in recent times, but perhaps we're about to see more coming back to plying this trade as with the advent of the wear-a-helmet-or-else-law the lads currently out there have come up with a nifty business plan -- a diversification of their services, if you will. (About one minute in to that video.)

Can't say I'd bother myself, but the kid interviewed says he's doing a-ok out of it.

Million dollar baby

* Ladies and gents, we have a new leader in the competitive sport of flash-the-cash: "She likes BMWs and already owns three..." So sure why wouldn't she splash out another $1.5 million on a Rolls?