competition result

do you remember the competition from earlier in the month ?

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.com/2012/01/michael-sodeau-and-first-competition-of.html

well it's time to reveal the answer and to announce the winner.

here's the bottom of the second ring tree

i know... it's faded a lot. can you make out the number ?

here's a closer look

what the what ?!

yes... it's numbered 2/10

so although his reasoning is wrong, his answer is right and the prize goes to gary.

the prize though... oh dear.

what can i say ? i didn't get out much while i was in phuket and i only

spent money at one shop ( or rather stall ) during the entire two weeks.

so to gary goes a very dubious prize indeed.

maybe i'll show you in a later post... then again maybe i won't !

anyway, well played gary.

bonus self-portrait in w1

as we finished up in the w1 restaurant the other day, myself and

the assistant formerly known as stel found a place for another self-portrait.

i like this shot very much.
it's another one of my potential posters for the olympics that i think should
be blown up to billboard size and displayed with the simple words...

"welcome to n7"

rolex times

myself and mrs w had a pub lunch with credit and mrs credit on saturday.

it was a good laugh, we talked about trainers, bearbricks, holidays,

coffee and restaurants.

...all was good apart from the 'art' on the walls.

at one point i noticed mrs credit's watch, which i hadn't spotted previously

( and i'm a bit of a watch spotter )

it turned out she'd bought it just hours before meeting us.

naturally, it being a rolex, the timekeeping was a bit off so mrs w showed 

her how to change the time without ballsing up the date

how about that... mrs w and mrs credit have pretty much the same watch

( give or take a few diamonds )

of course neither of them are as good as a casio g-shock at keeping time

but that's the whole thing with a rolex isn't it ?

get yourself a nice panerai ladies... it's the way to go !

self-portrait in w1

on my first day back in london i had a shoot in a restaurant in w1.

i would say roughly 10 minutes into the shoot i saw the opportunity for 

a self-portrait. i was joined by the assistant formerly known as stel.

she was dressed from head to toe in primark's finest.
as for me...
t-shirt by hanes / supreme
trousers by reed space
shoes by nike / liberty
tan by the sun in phuket

eva air food

those who have followed my blog over the past two years will know

that i can in no way be described as a fussy eater right ?

i flew to thailand with eva air and although i can honestly say

the service on board was outstanding... i wasn't that impressed with the food.

this was probably the highlight of my main meal on the flight back to london.

having already turned away a massive salad, then politely refused the fennel soup

i was left with two little pieces of garlic bread and a glass of moet.

ok... this quickly turned into 6 glasses of moet, but the drink was absolutely
necessary if i was to sit through the whole of 'stupid crazy love'

if you're travelling between thailand and london i would highly recommend eva air.

and there you have it... the final post from my trip to thailand.

normal service will return in the next post.

finalhome in thailand

on the first day in phuket i left my sala unattended for a few minutes

while i went for a swim...

when i returned, who do you think i saw relaxing in my spot?

oh no !

it was finalhome !

helping himself to a drink and lounging around in my sala

he posed up for a photo

but i could tell from his facial expression that he was impatient to hit the hotel
bar and to charge a load of drinks to my room.

later in the afternoon i spotted him asleep on the branch of a tree

and a little while later he was sitting by the pool

trying to get a bit of sun on his back

finalhome is quite a lazy bear

he just likes to drink and sleep... ( and to annoy other holidaymakers )

one day i took him for a walk on the beach

i held him up for a photo in front of the sea

and then i left him to it

after that i didn't see much of him for the rest of the holiday.

i'm sure he was up to no good but generally when i did spot him he was

doing what he does best... lounging

and sleeping

hmmm...

the last time i saw him, one of the staff told me he'd refused to settle his bar bill

and he was being held under house arrest

oh dear !

( he was later deported back to n7 where he is now residing in my camera bag )

more of finalhome's adventures to come at the end of march

( happy ? ) birthday portrait

in phuket on 13th january i posed for my official birthday portrait.

as you can see from my playful smile i was in a happy mood.

on a style note, i finally decided to debut my new spectacles while i was

on holiday. they've got a bit of buddy holly about them and that's fine by me.

( you know i'm a bit of a buddy holly fan right ? )

also the hair police might want to issue a warrant for the arrest of my quiff.

it's getting a little bit out of control these days... still, it was on holiday.

leicester city ? ( iphone pic )

what the what ?!

the biggest team in thailand... leicester city !

at bangkok airport only one english team has it's own shop... the foxes !

er...

the final breakfast

for my final breakfast in phuket i opted for steak and egg

the fried egg was perched on top of a portion of mashed / fried potatoes.

it was absolute genius... like a diamond bullet through the temple.

steak, egg, potatoes.

and all was good in my world.

girl on a swing

you know full well that i wanted to call this post "the odd couple"

or "the beauty and the beast" but that seemed a bit cheeky so i didn't.

the thing is... there was a couple staying at the same resort as me

and to cut a long story short, she was skinny as you like... you know,

really skinny and he... well he wasn't.

honestly, it's not just me being nosey, everybody would double take them as they

walked by. the bloke was by far the biggest bloke there and she was the skinniest.

i always wanted to take a photo of them as they walked by but it seemed a bit rude.

but one evening i was sitting with a beer getting ready for the sunset and they

walked in front of me. she got on a swing and he started pushing her.

i only took two shots as it seemed a bit cheeky, and even then i took

them off the hip so hopefully the other people nearby couldn't tell i was

'papping' them.

anyway, maybe it's not much of a story. maybe you had to be there to

find it interesting, but what i would say is... it's quite a nice photo isn't it ?

happy holiday

another pic of me bringing a little bit of n7 happiness to phuket

shirt by dolce and gabanna

trousers by dave's quality meat

shoes by nike / liberty

more iphone breakfast pics

i pretty much worked my way through the sala phuket breakfast menu

over the past two weeks. my favourite had to be the steak and eggs

but there were days when i just wasn't feeling hungry at breakfast.

on days like those, i opted for the n7 special... 2 poached eggs on brown toast.

of course it wasn't much like the n7 version.

here they give you mashed potato with every breakfast.

can you see the indentation in the centre of the mash ?

that's where there was a tomato before i had it removed.

also just one slice of toast... ordinarily this would irk me more than somewhat

but in phuket, the brown bread was massive... almost the size of two 

regular slices would be in n7, so i let it pass without complaining.

genius eggs too.

good work sala phuket.

coffee in phuket

i was having a nightmare with coffee every breakfast time.

i tried americano, espresso, filter, i was even given my worst enemy

( a latte in a tall glass ) one morning.

after maybe 8 days though i was given this bad boy...

i asked for a strong latte to be served in a cup with an extra shot.

it wasn't quite a flat white, but it was as close as i could hope for.

good coffee times.

strange boat, ship, yacht or whatever it's called.

on my last day at sala phuket a very strange looking boat turned up.

ok, boat probably isn't the word is it ? what do you call it ?

a ship ? a yacht ? vessel ?

well i'm no expert but it certainly looked like a strange effort... you know

... the design of it and all that.

the front and the back bits ( bow and stern ? ) seemed to be slanting

in the wrong way... do you know what i mean ?

here's a bit of a pull, where maybe you can see it better

oh, as you can see, after a while the side of the thing opened up and out of it

came two jet-skis and also two motor boats.

it certainly caught the attention of the people at my resort...

...one by one they all got off their loungers and got up to take a look.

and to take photos

so...

... any idea what this thing is ?

and what's the story with the bits sloping the wrong way ?

iphone pics of breakfast in phuket

i mentioned last week that part two of my daily breakfast in phuket

consisted of two freshly made doughnuts.

well i only stuck that diet for a couple of days...

...maybe 3 or four days later though i was jonesing for doughnuts at

breakfast-time again, so i got back on the doughnut train. this time however,

i accessorised and teamed them up with some pineapple slices

doughnuts and fruit... perfect.

on occasions i teamed the doughnuts up with pineapple and a cheeky thai banana

i hope you can guage just how small that banana is by the way.

phuket airport

on my twice daily walk from the poolside sala to the sea 

i never tired of watching the planes come in to land at phuket airport,

i swear it looked like they were landing just at the end of the beach

which seemed to be a ten minute walk away...

... but then the drive to the airport took about 20 minutes.

oh by the way. this is where i stayed:
www.salaresorts.com/phuket/

nearest good coffee to phuket

you know i'm a bit fussy about my coffee right ?

well about a week or so into my holiday i decided to check on my iphone

to see where the nearest decent coffee to me was...

grrr !

6,121 miles !

and before any australians start griping, yes it was a london coffee map

and yes i'm sure there are lots of great coffee joints in australia.

in fact let's face it... most of the great coffee joints in london are

australian anyway aren't they ?

frog

another night in sala phuket.

another stop by the pond to listen to the frog chorus and to take

a sneaky photo of one of the lads.

asahi beer at sunset

although there was plenty of singha and chang kicking around

at the resort in phuket, my choice of evening drink was always asahi.

i like asahi so much that i even took a stroll with my glass one evening

to take a photo of it with the sunset as a backdrop.

just after taking this shot i put my camera where the beer was and 

set up the self-portrait which is in the post below...

self-portrait in bangkok 10500

a far from satisfactory postcode system in thailand.

i would have preferred it to be bk10500 but never mind.

a couple of mights from the end of my trip to phuket

i posed up for my first self-portrait in two weeks.

top by charles svingholm*

trousers by paul smith

footwear by nike / liberty

spectacles by tom ford

*this top was made especially for me by charles. 

he only makes clothes for women ( and for himself )

but after doing a shoot for him he kindly measured me up

and made this top. he also made me a similar top in white

and two pairs of linen trousers... one pair in black, the other white.

yes the sleeves are kind of flared at the end and it is trimmed with lots

of sequins but i think it's a great thing to wear on holiday in thailand.

www.charlessvingholm.com

japanese food in thailand

i love thai food. that much has been well established on the streets of n7

( where i am treated like royalty when i make my weekly trip to nid ting ) 

in fact i rate thai second in my list of favourite foods from countries.

however there's only so much chicken massaman i can take, so one night

last week i ate at a japanese place in patong called "fuji"

it had a queue outside the place which all japofiles ( is that a word ? ) will know,

is a very good sign of japanese food.

after waiting outside for 10 minutes i was seated and given a menu with

photographs of the available dishes... it didn't take long to spot my favourite

the wagamama no.71 !








after necking back a fresh lime juice the 139 turned up

and all was well in my world.

holiday footwear ( part three )

i don't think i've ever worn these bad boys in england.

i took them to italy back in september and wore them every day.

now they're my evening footwear of choice in thailand.

nike blazer lows in liberty pattern.

trust me on this matter... they really do look good with a pair of black paul smith lightweight
round the houses...
they also go nicely with a pair of white linen charles svingholm trousers with white sequin belt
but you'll have to take my word on that matter as luckily i don't have any photos of me
dressed from head to toe in white linen with sequin trimmings !

evening at sala phuket

i just realised i've haven't shown you any photos of where i'm staying in phuket.

so here's one i took a couple of evenings ago, just before sitting down to some tod mon pla.

the infinity pool just infront of a restaurant staffed by beautiful and friendly locals...

... i know... this photo could have been taken in aberystwyth, but trust me, it's at sala phuket.

frogs

for the past 7 or so evenings, i've stopped at a little pond in the hotel grounds

and listened to the frogs chatting away to each other.

some evenings i hear them but don't see them... but other times

 i spot one or two of them and i try to take some photos.

here's one little chap sitting by the edge of the pond.

he had a piece of straw on his back by the way.

and here's one i took of a little frog on a tree nearby. i had to use a flash on this one.

if anybody is interested, they were both taken with a lumix gf-1 and a 20mm f1.7 lens

( which plays as a 40mm f1.7 )

breakfast part two

for the first two or thre days in phuket, the second phase of my breakfast looked like this.

warm, freshly made doughnuts.

in a few days i'll show you how i fine-tuned this second course of my breakfast

with some pineapple and some skill.

holiday footwear ( part two )

the second pair of kicks i brought with me to thailand are these...

my marc newson designed nike zvedochkas.

i always take these with me if i'm going somewhere near the sea

but i've never really appreciated just how great these bad boys are until this holiday.

they are three pairs of shoes in one, but not only that, i would say that the level of

design on these, right down to the smallest detail, is absolutely off the hook.

i'll do a proper post showing what i mean when i'm back in sunny n7.

but for now i'm a bit busy taking my hat off to marc newson...

and wondering where i can pick up another pair of these !

breakfast part one

breakfast as it arrived at my table

bacon and cheese omelette with potatoes in the background

then with a little fine tuning...

on go the specially requested portion of baked beans and off goes the tomato

which was sitting menacingly on top of my potatoes.

skill.

holiday footwear ( part one )

i travelled, or ( as i've discovered playing scrabble on an ipad which uses a u.s. dictionary )

"traveled" to thailand wearing these bad boys...

one of my two pairs of adidas x colette century lows.
i haven't worn adidas for ages and although i don't like the style of this shoe as much
as i like the adidas superstar or shell-toe, i do like the colette customising on these.








it's a simple enough idea isn't it ? just take an all white pair of century lows...

... and attack them with a fat black felt tip pen.








the dubres and lace tips are a nice touch too

 these came with white laces too and a special adidas x colette drawstring bag.

bringing heat ( that wasn't really needed ) to a very hot thailand.