The triumph of imagination over intelligence

The triumph of imagination over intelligence

In Amazing Thailand, we are never far away from the silly season, and it tends to get really silly at this time of the year, courtesy of Valentine’s Day.

Over the years we’ve had things like underwater weddings in Trang, tying the knot aboard elephants in Chiang Mai and nuptials hanging upside down during a bungee jump.

Even the animals can’t escape. A couple of years ago in Songkhla we witnessed a wedding of two orangutans.

A very handsome couple they were too, although they could have both done with a haircut.

Not to be outdone, in Chiang Mai they married off seven pairs of rabbits in a solemn ceremony, followed by a feast of carrots and cucumbers.

Of course it all comes down to “this thing called love”.

Perhaps the most accurate comment on this topic, but not particularly encouraging, was columnist HL Mencken’s view that: “Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.”

Putting it a bit more bluntly was actor John Barrymore, who observed: “Love is that delightful period between meeting a girl and discovering she looks like a haddock.”

Pattaya passion

I’m not sure what Valentine’s stunt they had in Pattaya this weekend, but in the past they have come up with marathon kissing contests.

In a kingdom in which kissing in public is still frowned upon, it was a curious location for such an event. Mind you, in Pattaya nothing seems to be frowned upon. In the 2013 contest, a Thai couple broke the world record by kissing non-stop for more than 58 hours. Imagine that.

Whine and roses

As you may have gathered, I am not exactly enamoured with Valentine’s Day. On one occasion in the 1990s I arrived at the Bangkok Post office to find a single red rose left on my desk. Admittedly it looked a little the worse for wear, but at least it was a rose. Somebody cared after all. I even put it in a jar of water to rescue it from becoming a dead rose.

Later in the evening the lady cleaner came around, spotted the rose, and apologised. She explained she had picked it off the floor the night before, put it on my desk and had forgotten to throw it away. So much for office romance.

Love is all around

In the late 1990s I happened to be in Macau. I wasn’t even aware it was Valentine’s Day until I ventured into the hotel restaurant for an evening meal. On previous nights the place had been as quiet as a morgue, with waitresses outnumbering customers.
But on Feb 14, I thought I had walked into the wrong place. It was spilling over with hundreds of young Chinese honeymooners seated at candle-lit tables, dripping with lots of cute heart-shaped decorations. Seeing my look of consternation, a waitress said I was quite welcome to join the young couples, as long as I ordered the set “Lover’s Menu” which began with Romeo and Juliet Soup, and deteriorated into Antony and Cleopatra noodles and something called Crepes of Cupid.

I ended up ordering a cheeseburger from room service.

The Saliva Song

There will be plenty of kisses exchanged this weekend. However, if any of the kissing couples are familiar with the Bobby Gentry song I’ll Never Fall In Love Again, they might have second thoughts. The song contains the lyrics:

What do you get when you kiss a guy?

You get enough germs to catch
pneumonia

After you do he’ll never phone ya

I’ll never fall in love again.

I have always loved the rhyming skills of “pneumonia/phone ya” — sheer poetry.

The message is that kissing can be very unhealthy. When you can taste what she or he had for dinner the previous night, you know you are in trouble.

The taste of romance

One key moment in any romance is that first kiss. It can be fun, although my first effort was a slobbering disaster. The following inspirational offering is entitled First Kiss by Walter McCorrisken, hailed as Scotland’s worst poet, and after reading this you will know why:

Ah kissed her shyly on the mouth

Tasted nectar from her lips

A taste between a chocolate flake

And my favourite French fried chips.

The poem rambles on, suffice to say that after his tongue encounters the lady’s tonsils and a forgotten “tattie crisp”, he found himself with a familiar romantic dilemma: “Did ah love her for herself, or the taste of barbecue?”

Unforgettable gifts

There will also be plenty of gifts exchanged, but some can be quite disastrous. On internet sites, women have been relating the worst Valentine’s presents gifts they have received.

They included second-hand shoes, a gift-wrapped rubbish bin, a crossword puzzle book, a garden gnome holding a football, artificial worm fishing bait and a text message which read “I want a divorce”.

There was also the husband who presented his wife with roses, but after an hour took them back as he had actually bought them for his mother. Then there was a card which read “your present is in my pants”.

My favourite is still the lady who received much smaller underwear than her size with a free pass to the local fitness centre and the romantic note, “hope you can eventually squeeze into these”. That sounds like perfect way to end a romance.


Contact PostScript via email at oldcrutch@hotmail.com.

Roger Crutchley

Bangkok Post columnist

A long time popular Bangkok Post columnist. In 1994 he won the Ayumongkol Literary Award. For many years he was Sports Editor at the Bangkok Post.

Email : oldcrutch@gmail.com

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