There is a decent-sized tree just over the wall at the back of my house in Bangkok which provides welcome shade. So I was a bit concerned the other day when workers from the local administration rolled up armed with a chainsaw, explaining the tree was threatening overhead electricity cables.
I feared the worst as one worker climbed the tree, but to my relief he only cut down the directly offending branches and not the whole tree -- we had been spared a chainsaw massacre. The squirrels were equally delighted their playground had survived the chop. I would like to thank the fellow for his restraint, something not often seen when it comes to trimming trees in Thailand.
Hopefully this worker's refreshing attitude is a spin-off from Governor Chadchart Sittipunt's plans concerning the "Greening of Bangkok". Mr Chadchart recently vowed to have a million trees planted during his four-year tenure. Normally this sort of thing would be greeted with yawns by the Bangkok populace as just another empty political promise. But you never know.
The new governor believes it can be done if every Sunday each of Bangkok's 50 districts plants 100 trees. Some will dismiss Mr Chadchart's efforts as daydreaming and admittedly he is more likely to end up swamped in a sea of red tape or permanently stuck in a traffic jam.
It is most unlikely the governor will be able to solve Bangkok's traffic problems -- you need Harry Potter's magic wand for that -- but when you are trapped in the daily gridlock you are certainly better off if your vehicle happens to be under the shade of a tree.
Misbehaving tree
There used to be a large leafy tree that arched over a soi near my residence. It provided shade for the motorcycle taxi drivers and pedestrians and was the spot's only natural shade. Then one day I came across a massive traffic jam on the soi caused by a large container truck which had cleverly got itself jammed with the lower branches of the overhanging tree. The truck was totally stuck and causing traffic chaos. The driver was standing there glaring at the tree as if it was responsible for the accident.
I thought no more of it until the following day. As I went down the soi it felt like something was missing -- the tree had totally disappeared, not just a few branches, but the whole damn thing. All that remained was a pathetic stub of the trunk. From what I had observed, all that had been required was to chop off the offending branch. Instead, the poor tree was summarily executed for getting in the way of the truck which I also suspect was taking an illegal short cut being far too big for the small lane.
Guilty squiggles
Unfortunately, producing any newspaper, including the Bangkok Post, also necessitates cutting down trees, making it a trifle tricky for anyone to sound convincing as a crusading environmental journalist. Some people in the publishing business succumb to a guilty conscience as they get older. British novelist Hammond Innes, explaining his role in a tree planting campaign, observed: "I'm replacing some of the timber used up by my books. Books are just trees with squiggles on them."
Reading or reading?
Last week's item about my home town of Reading failing to achieve city status prompted a number of comments, not all repeatable.
My thanks to a reader who worked for the WHSmith retail chain specialising in books. He was based at nearby Swindon when all the staff received a complimentary book from the chairman who loved literature. The book was titled The Joy of Reading. The reader asked a Swindon colleague if he enjoyed the book, to which the fellow replied that he didn't bother reading it because "everyone knows Reading is a dump".
Reading does admittedly experience a problem having the same spelling, but being pronounced differently, to that other much more commonly used "reading". I have a friend from Derby who loves winding me up by always deliberately mispronouncing Reading as "Reeding".
Barking mad
One exasperated American even took to TikTok not long ago to complain about the pronunciation of British towns, including Reading which he thought should be enunciated the same way as the other "reading". He commented "For the love of God make the city (town) make sense with the spelling. British town names are so confusing without reason".
The American probably would not be amused to learn that Reading's county of Berkshire is also not pronounced how it looks, but "Bark-shire" as in doggy noises.
After that all I can say is, "Woof woof!"
Sounds different
There are of course numerous English places that are not pronounced how you might first imagine. Readers will be familiar with many, but here's a few that even English folks might struggle with. One that caught my eye at an early age was the Cornish fishing village of Mousehole which is pronounced "Muzzle".
A fairly simple one is the Cornish port of Fowey pronounced "Foy". More challenging perhaps is the Cheshire town of Cholmondeley, known as "Chumlee". Then there is the Cambridgeshire town with the unlikely name of Godmanchester which thankfully has been trimmed down to "Gumster". And I have no idea why Belvoir Castle somehow came to be "Beaver Castle".
