Chapter 49

The Emperor’s New Clothes:

Kingsley Amis‘s eponymous hero “Lucky Jim“ in his riotous novel which I must have read in the nineteen sixties had a view about people which I have always subscribed to:

“There are two important categories of people - people I like and people I don’t like.”

I believe that the French have a saying that fifty percent of people were put on the earth - to annoy the other fifty percent.

This I do not agree with. It is rare for me to encounter somebody who annoys me and even rarer for me to encounter somebody who I actively dislike.

However my path re-crossed with such a person yesterday. A man who I have met a couple of times before and tried, unsuccessfully, to if not like, then to ignore.

He has all the qualities which I find unappealing in another human being.

I could of course merely run through a list of his attributes but this would scarcely do justice to the sense of loathing which his very presence instils in me.

One of my previous stories was about the size of this man’s ego. His effect on a certain lady was such that she very nearly literally scratched his eyes out.
With another lady he was lucky to escape with his life.

Yesterday he sat in khun Aor’s bar, in all his fine fat, bald pomp waving handfuls of money in all directions and insisting that any good looking lady who should happen to approach should work for him.

“How much does she earn? I will pay her twice that.”

Now without a doubt money does talk but also without a doubt these ludicrous offers are complete rubbish.

I suppose that probably what irritates me is that this pathetically macho spiel seems to work - at least superficially. This implies that the ladies on whom he practises this nonsense are stupid - and that I find offensive.

He introduced us to a young South African who he described as his bodyguard. Now I have never felt the need to have a bodyguard but I think perhaps it is just as well that he does.

During the course of the hour in which I tolerated his presence he sat, if my memory serves me right, five different ladies on his knee.

I must admit that it amused me that the last of these, perhaps the most strikingly beautiful, is in fact a ladyboy.

At this stage I gave up. I could not take anymore. I kissed all my lady friends goodnight and went to another bar.

I think life is too short to waste it in the presence of aggressively boring people like him.

I hope that by this afternoon he and his adoring entourage have swept on to irritate somebody else.

If not….. Then I will drink elsewhere.