A most amazing advertisement

The other day, over breakfast, I was reading 'The Philippine Star', one of the local newspapers.

Fascinating stuff. There's one column I won't miss when I'm here; 'A law each day (keeps trouble away)' by Jose C Sison. Most of the time he goes into some of the less obvious ramifications of some law here. Other times he almost does a blog. Thus, Sunday, he paid homage to his sister. I have to admit that part of the appeal is that what he wrote felt a lot like the stuff I blog about my own life. I really must find out if his column is published on the internet; if it is it goes straight into my daily favourites.

There are other fascinations. Did you know that the company which operates Frankfurt International Airport put up some of the capital to build the 3rd terminal at Manila Airport? I didn't. Heck I didn't even know there was a 3rd terminal.

Then there's the story of Pepsi Cola and the '349' lawsuit which has, apparently, been ongoing since 1992. Something to do with a promotion and some non winners disputing the outcome. It's obviously well known here and so the story doesn't fill in all the detail one might need to completely understand what they're talking about.

How about the misunderstanding over whether Monday August 29th 2005 is a public holiday? On Friday it wasn't a public holiday. On Saturday it was. On Sunday it wasn't. And on Monday it was, partly. It was a holiday if you were a student or if you were a government employee unless you worked for the customs service. The last Sunday in August is National Heroes day in the Philippines, somewhat akin to Anzac day (April 25) in Australia or Memorial day (Last Sunday in May) in the US or Remembrance Day (November 11) in the UK. It seems that the expectation here is that if a day that would otherwise be a public holiday falls on a weekend day the following Monday will be a de facto public holiday. That's pretty much how it works in Australia. Hence the expectation that Monday would be a holiday. The powers here couldn't make up their minds.

As I say, fascinating stuff. It helps that the newspapers I see here are published in English so I can actually read em. I can muddle my way through a German newspaper though there are things in there that baffle me. Sometimes the Philippines newspapers use Tagalog in italics, direct quotes. I don't understand those but it's usually easy to work out the meaning from the context.

There's scary stuff in there too. Reports of kidnappings for ransom of Westerners in Manila. I trust my driver and I doubt I'm in danger of kidnapping at Manila Airport so that only leaves random kidnapping if we stop at a red light. And, as I think I've said before, if I were to let every possibility stop me doing things I'd go mad from the paradox; accidents happen at home as well as outside. You can't play safe all the time but you can do things to minimise the risk. That's why we always use Ohmee's driving service. He charges about 6 times the bus fare from Manila to Baguio but he picks us up at the airport (the bus terminal is miles away) and returns us safely to the airport. If the boss can expense it so can I!

Ohmee also picks up my fags (cigarettes) for me. A carton here costs a little less than a single pack does in the US.

I do enjoy reading the papers here. Much more than I enjoy reading, for example, the newspapers in Dallas. They go so well with bacon and poached eggs on toast. Of course, for me, the newspaper of choice is The Melbourne Age. I read that daily on the internet.

On Sunday I found the most amazing advertisement. It was a full page ad for a satellite TV receiver system. It went on at some length about the advantages of tapping into the global TV stream and it finished with this line...

'The only thing more attractive is your wife!'

Oh so redolent with assumptions! That you're male. That you're married. That you find your wife, if you're male, attractive. For me all three are true but that's not going to tempt me in the slightest to check out their offer!