* Headline of the morning:
PM orders counter-offensive against north’s bitter cold spell.
"Slip on your long johns and woolly jumpers and fill the hot water bottles with piping hot trà, lads, we're going in!"
(Maybe Oslo can draw us a buffalo with a beanie or a cardigan?)

* Smoker's Delight... (via Vintage Advertising)



...of course, smoking killed the poor bastard in the end.

* "Nearby in a garden, thick vines curl around a concrete tree trunk that grows into a nude maiden, the main house. Two concrete giraffes house a cafe. A giant eagle perches on an egg-shaped fireplace. The giant spiderweb is made of wires and tubes and hangs over the pond. The solitary spider is carved out of wood, but there are other webs woven through the branches of the pines and extending to the house’s roof. They make bizarre patterns against the sky..."

Can you guess where? Need a clue? Think... Gnarls Barkley... Answer here.

* Well, in terms of Rolls Royces, TPHCM is leaving Hanoi trailing in its wake, with a 5-1 advantage. Even diminutive middle aged women are getting in on the act as Bà Diệp (pictured below) splashed out a cool $1.3 million for a rolls just before Tet. But as a responsible adult you'd have to be concerned that she might not be able see over the steering wheel, non? Or am I forgetting about Anh Jeeves?

Minsk Club Vietnam's 10th
anniversary and music festival



That's the email flier for the Minsk Club anniversary and music festival to be held early April and a clarion call for either a) sponsorship and b) photos (to be added to an open flickr account here)

You can email the club here --- minskclubvietnam@hotmail.com

It promises to be a hell of a day with loads and loads of great music... scratch that, AMAZING music with djs, bands and general hi-jinx going all day long at the American Club in Hanoi.

It'll be like Hanoi's answer to... um... Féile 1993!!!

I stress for the non-Minsk drivers or people unfamiliar with the club and its ethos, you DO NOT need to be a Minsk driver or have any interest in the Minsk or motorbikes at all. Doesn't matter if you ride a Honda Chaly or a Penny Farthing, you just have to live here!

So put the date in the diary and if you've any cool photos relating to Belorussia's finest steed then upload them at the flickr link.

Vietnamese consortium mulls Arsenal takeover bid
* Remember you always hear it here first. Even the gooner bloggers in old London Town (ain't burning down) won't have seen this one coming, but yes, apparently, a Vietnamese group have made tentative inquiries into buying up Arsenal stocks, taking the reins of power, replacing meat pies and lager with banh mi pate and Bia Ha Noi, sacking Arsene Wenger and employing Alfred Riedl as manager then promptly losing to Thailand on penalties.

The real story here, which I admit isn't quite as interesting as I probably made it sound, and I think it's just basically one guy shooting his mouth off as if him and his mates could buy Arsenal club, if they wanted to, but sure who cares what the real story is.

We don't start rumours, we just spread'em.

Bits and pieces...

* Hey! Leave those conical-hatted-women alone! Says this guy over at Thanh Nien.

* "Le Thi Man, a 31-year-old accountant, said her family of five has skipped the habit of starting the day with a streetside bowl of pho noodle soup.

"One bowl of pho a few months ago cost 10,000 dong," she said. "Now it's 15,000. Some places charge 20,000 or even 40,000 dong. Now I cook at home instead. I've just bought a box of instant noodles." "

AFP finally gets back after an extended Christmas-Tet holiday and covers the recent bout of inflation – sure, we've been talking about the price of cabbage and what have ya for months here at Pittstop HQ!!!

* "She burst through the door like a distressed damsel in an old movie; her mouth agog, her complexion rouge. Which of the exotic characters of modern Vietnam had she run up against, I wondered. Was it the pickpockets? The motorcycle gangs? A too-friendly taxi driver?"

Nope, it was the dreaded Hoi An tailors.

* From a very brief piece on Hanoi: "Besides, there cannot be many Asian capital cities of such large countries with so little traffic." Guess he was here over Tet... Pictured below is Vientiane. Now THAT'S a very quiet Asian capital... almost too quiet???



...and here's a shot of somewhere a wee bit busier. Almost... too busy???

* 'For VND10,000 notes, customers have to pay VND100,000 (US$6.25) for VND90,000 ($5.6) worth of notes. The smaller the value of the note, the higher the exchange price. "I have to pay VND160,000 ($10) to get 20 notes of VND5,000." said Tran Viet Hung of ABC Tourism.' What, what!?!?!?!?!

My tuppence worth of advice...

1) If you're in the business of giving mừng tuổi or li xi and need lots of small notes -- put whatever you just got in an envelope labelled do not open till next Tet. Then distribute freely in a year's time. Repeat annually ad infinitum.

2) If a shopkeeper offers you sweets instead of VND1,000 or VND500 change refuse and demand to be treated like an adult. Accept cigarettes, shots of ruou, peanuts,or else VND2,000. Definitely demand something on principle -- for skinflints everywhere you must fight back.

Another option I'm mulling over would be to accept the sweets then return one day, slap 2oo sweets on the counter and demand VND100,000 worth of goods.

CitiMart have made a few squid in the last 10 years on that oh-so-sneaky manoeuvre and I tell ya, I've had enough!

* Happiness is a warm gun: A young guy is stopped at Noi Bai for smuggling in a gun with bullets packed elsewhere in his suitcase.

His excuse? "My mother packed my bag."
* Freezing to death: It's so cold in some parts of the north that cows are dropping dead. What would Gary Larson think?

* "It might make some people’s skin crawl or stomach retch but it has been known for rats to be served up for dinner in Vietnam and there’s no respite just because it is the Year of the Rat." From TO.

Said it before, and I'll stand by my words, that's one dish I have yet to try and never will. But I really, really hate rats. But then doesn't everyone? Even David 'pick flowers with the gorillas' Attenborough hates rats.



*Nothing to do with Vietnam whatsoever #672: As nothing happened over Tet and just because he's a funny writer I'm reading a lot of lately, Charlie Brooker on UnValentine's Day.

Valentine's Day, International Women's Day and Vietnamese Women's Day never seem that far apart here (I might be very wrong about that...) and from a distance I really can't tell the difference in how people celebrate each one -- perhaps Valentine's Day is more discriminate. and on or either or both of the women's days whenever I'm out there's always a huge table of drunk men with the ladies who have on the day that's in it been allowed to tag along for the night and receive a dozen or so single red roses.

Each of these celebratory days, along with teacher's day, is also a time for florists to rejoice and think about adding another storey to the top of their house.





.

* "He's just 21, no one has ever heard of him, he is making his debut for France against Scotland at outside-half this afternoon, and he is only playing there because he grew too big for his original position of scrum-half. Welcome to Francois Trinh-Duc and the madcap world of French No 10s, a surreal environment in which Trinh-Duc, the newest member of an extraordinarily ineffective cast, is the seventh individual in 23 games to feature in the pivotal role for France."

Just for you rugby fans out there, keep an eye out, or spare a thought for Francois today as he braves the not-so-sunny climes of Scotland. The young player of Vietnamese extraction will be making his debut in a side "born of beautiful folly" according to Eddie Butler.

That means he also thinks they're completely bats playing young Francois.

We shall see.

Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down



I stumbled on this young lass Thao Nguyen's music thanks to Irish Times journalist Jim Carroll's music blog. She's more Virginia than Vina and now based in Washington DC-or-San Fran according to her myspace page. But thought I'd post it here 'cos she's Vietnamese and the music is dead cool. Maybe someday she'll come and play at the R&R tavern...

Here's her official website page. Some of you might notice her singing voice has a touch of Cat Power, at least that opening song on her myspace page Beat Health Life and Fire -- embedded below -- does. It's a cracker. Enjoy.

*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?

Pittstop Works' staffers are not in the office
We've done a legger back to sunny Ireland for the Christmas and will not be posting anything until sometime in the New Year and you shouldn't be on the computer and wasting your time on the bleeding internet anyway.

It's Christmas. Go put on your woolly jumper, read a book, watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, A Wonderful Life, etc, and drink, eat and be merry, fall asleep on the couch.

Have a good one.

Stop the traffic
Q-- How do you stop the tiny-wee-three-foot-above-sea-level people on the streets with no helmets?

A-- With a tiny wee stop sign of course.

Owl and the Sparrow
The film Owl and the Sparrow, directed by a Viet Kieu fellow called Stephen Gauger and set as well as shot in Saigon, has been in the press a bit here of late but it's been picking up awards around the world for the last year. Might be worth a look if you can find it -- wherever you are dear reader on foreign shores. Will be hitting the cinemas in Vietnam early next year.

Tom Waits for Christmas No.1 in Ireland
Nothing to do with Hanoi, Vietnam whatsoever: Could 'Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis' by Tom Waits be number one for Christmas back in sunny Ireland?

This guy hopes so because he wants to stick it to the man -- Louis Walsh, Westlife, daytime radio, etc -- and I urge my three Dublin based readers to support this ever-so naughty campaign.

"The song will need to be purchased online before the 20th of December in order to do this"... "anywhere IRMA use the stats for the charts..."

The SEA Games -- a striking pattern

The 2001 games Held in Malaysia...

Position	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Malaysia	111	75	85	271
2	Thailand	103	86	89	278
3	Indonesia	72	74	80	226
4	Vietnam	33	35	64	132
5	Philippines	30	66	67	163

.... the 2003 games held in Vietnam

	Vietnam	158	97	91	346
2	Thailand	90	93	98	281
3	Indonesia	55	68	98	221
4	Philippines	48	54	75	177
5	Malaysia	44	42	59	145

...the 2005 games held in Philippines

1	Philippines	113	84	94	291
2	Thailand	87	78	118	283
3	Vietnam	71	68	89	228
4	Malaysia	61	49	65	175
5	Indonesia	49	79	89	217

...and most recently in Thailand

Thailand	183	123	103	409	150[2]
2	Malaysia	68	52	96	216	64[3]
3	Vietnam	64	58	82	204	60-65[4]
4	Indonesia	56	64	83	203	65[5]
5	Singapore	43	43	41	127	35-4

The wonders of home advantage eh? The next games are in Laos so this pattern might come to an end unless snoozing, taking it easy, tubing down the Mekong and other such activities can become recognised sports. However... I did note that if the laid back Laoatians fail to get their act together the games will be moved to Singapore.

Consumers demand instructions
Irritated by suggestions on this very blog that they don't understand the concept of a helmet, people who've been whizzing around devil-may-care without their helmet-strapped on properly have pointed the finger at manufacturers, who have failed to supply instructions.

Deadly serious though, this article from those sterling people at Vietnamnet does actually provide instructions -- as you see below. Next week -- buckling up!



Helmets are already getting a bad rap from people tired of carrying them around everywhere as if you leave one on your bike, these days, now that you need to wear one, it'll be promptly thieved.

One answer is the helmet-padlock -- but can Ong Viet Tiep (Mr Padlock of Vietnam) manage to get 22 million padlocks to meet demand!? The website says they can only produce 10 million products a year. Get the lead out lads!

In the same video you'll also see Hanoi's latest street side business -- helmet-minders.

Life, eh?

Helmets on heads but...

A marvelous photo essay on Vietnamnet today, which gives you a good idea of why incidents of brain trauma won't be going down quite as much as expected/ hoped with introduction of the wear-a-helmet-or-else-law. The guy with his helmet on backwards is a winner, as well as the one with his mobile tucked into the side -- bravo! -- and the one with the strap on over the top of his helmet, as opposed to under his chin... well, what can we say, too cool for school, boys.



There's a fair bit of back slapping going on over the success of the new law: Compliance marks first day of helmet law says the Thanh Nien, with an estimated 90 per cent of the population at large wearing helmets, (99 per cent in Hanoi apparently -- ngoan the!).

But... as you'll see in the photo essay, quite a few of these compliant folk are not quite getting the concept behind the whole grand scheme. (How to wear a helmet workshops?)

You know what they say, if common sense was common, there'd be more of it around.

Off road driving
Sometimes in the morning you can get an instant almost instinctive sense of the madness on the roads. You just know something is going to happen. You spot subtle telltale signs such as the taxi driver on Xuan Dieu road this morning trying to overtake seven cars by slaloming in and out of the cars one by one while flashing his lights, tooting his horn and generally looking like an almighty accident about to happen, but one doesn't. He gets to his destination – to pick up a customer and then starts to drive slowly and carefully down Yen Phu road, perhaps making pleasant chit chat with his fare. "Traffic is awful today, isn't it?", "Oh yes, so many crazy drivers on the roads these days...", "All trees and bicycles when I was a young girl.", "Oh yes, if it weren't for the tigers we would have been sleeping out in the woods."

Then a little bit further down Nghi Tam road you see the road is jammed and you slip down the gutter-road below and spot this.






It's one of those just-as-terrifying-as-it-is-funny moments. And there's a touch of the giant turnip about it. All these guys were ready to put their bodies on the line and push as the driver tried to reverse the car back up, I think. I didn't stick around. I think they should just leave it there, to slowly rust and rot, and one day, years from now, it will be a wee-moss-covered hillock and young dandies will loll on top making daisy-chains, penning sonnets and blowing kisses to the ladies flowing past on electric-powered-unicycles.

Mind your 'Ps' and 'Qs' and the odd 'n'

Well, a small business cocking up their English spelling is more forgivable than say a national carrier getting the grammar wrong on several million cardboard boxes served to every English speaking customer on short hops from Hanoi or HCM City to Danang or Nha Trang, etc.

This shop just opened up on the top of Dang Thai Mai, beside this bia hoi joint.



Can't really say anything to that can you. Recently built, it has yet to open. In a country with a few thousand menus advertising 'fried crap' and so on, not a big surprise, but if you're going for high-end, as they are in this case, it's a rather calamitous error.

(How's my spelling and grammar there? I realise I'm not necessarily one to be on the high horse in that regard)

Hit and Runs -- that's plural
Oh lord, all these new cars and people learning as they go makes me very nervous. Last week local newspapers reported a series of hit and runs – that’s plural – all by the same car. A black Porsche Cayenne SUV knocked a bunch of motorbikes over while driving over Thanh Nien Road in Hanoi, injuring two people seriously – the billion-dong car only stopped when one of its tires went flat. There were two people inside – a 25-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man – and when the police caught up with them and hauled them down the station both of them pointed the finger at each other and said “He/ she was driving!” Apparently both were behind the wheel at different stages. The woman has no driving license and she said she was suffering from low blood pressure which is why she couldn’t control the car (nothing to do with the fact she couldn’t drive).

Here's a video of the trail of destruction left behind.

Weird futuristic helmets
This is it, the last days before December 15th, the day helmets become compulsory for EVERYONE! The police will be out en masse ready to take down you helmet-less mavericks.

Though let's see what happens. Everyone is buying one, though plenty of people aren't actually wearing them yet, stubbornly waiting for the deadline day, enjoying those last days of the wind-blowing-through-your-hair-freedom and the way she might look at you at the traffic lights...

This xe om driver told AFP why he has bought two helmets but is enjoying his last days blowing around with the lid off: "When everybody starts to wear rice cookers on their heads, we will look like we all come from another planet. We'll look like we're living in the 25th century."

Say what?

See also this recent Time article -- Fashion police vs. Traffic Police

Scorpions on a plane
A passenger airliner in Vietnam was halted on the runway in Danang yesterday when scorpions were found loose in the cabin -- "I am sick and tired of these mudderfuggin' scorpions on this mudderfuggin plane," someone should have said.

A sequel for Samuel Jackson and the boys?

Vietnam football team flops, Coach Reidl resigns, will the betrayed fan want his kidney back?

When I clicked on Alfred Riedl's homepage this morning it appeared I was the first ever visitor. At least the counter was set at zero. It felt like an honour...



...and honour is what the Vietnam Football Federation wanted him to resign with -- after Vietnam flopped at the SEA games and grown men wept-- pleading with him to leave voluntarily so they didn't have to sack him (and shell out more dollars).

But he wasn't going easy -- claiming he wasn't to blame, entirely, and that's fair enough, as he certainly didn't take one of the penalties in the shoot out against the might of Myanmar and Vietnam missed three out of four. Anyway, eventually he settled for a pay out of less than 100 % and more than what the VFF first suggested and life goes on.

That was the third stint for Riedl as coach of the national team since 1998. He was hailed a hero after the 2007 Asia Cup when Vietnam reached the quarter finals and -- feel the love! -- when he required a new kidney earlier in the year more than 70 football fans offered to donate the vital organ to him! One was chosen and Riedl made a full recovery.

"I asked them why they wanted to do this, and they said: 'You did something good for us, and now we help you,'" Riedl later told reporters.

Can this 'kidney for a favour philosophy' be reversed and if so, will the irate fan now demand his kidney back? Worrying times indeed for the Austrian coach.

Anyway, we here at Pittstop Works salute the man who once answered the Timeout reporter's question 'if the goal posts were widened in football would there be more shots off the post?' with a cold and reasoned 'no'.

How can you fault this blunt, pragmatic, logic?

When asked in July if his side could ever be a major force in Asia he said, simply, no.

"We can do something in the Southeast Asian region and sometimes in the Asian region but generally we can't have success because we are too small," he said. "You saw this, their players are 1.85m (Iraqis) and ours are 1.70m-something."

A team of wee men -- you know like Maradona, Carlos Tevez... em, Terry Phelan ...

Your best Wee-Men Football XI on a postcard.

Named and shamed
These two poor French backpackers travelling in Thailand not only got mugged and robbed by a pack of thieving trannies in Bangkok after agreeing to a bit of horseplay back in their hotel room but the Nation went to the trouble of publishing their names for added embarrassment.

"Oh merde," I imagine one of them might have said to the other this morning.

STOP THE PRESS!

The CAMA party this Saturday has been forced to change locations -- the party will be held at same venue where CAMA threw their last MONSTER party with Stylish Nonsense et al.

For those who weren't there... S'il Vous plait.



The CAMA team asked us to tell you to tell your friends and your friends' friends about the change in venue.