On to Pieria he stepped from the upper air,
and swooped down upon the sea,
and then sped over the wave like a bird, the cormorant,
which in quest of fish over the dread gulfs of the unresting sea
wets its thick plumage in the brine.In such wise did Hermes ride upon the multitudinous waves. The Odyssey – Homer
A well-dressed man in a formal grey suit came up to me to ask where I was from. It was my third day in Bangkok, and until then, I had been alone. I was standing in a wide open grassy area in Sanam Luang Park, no one around, and I was facing away from the Grand Palace when he approached.
He introduced himself as “Somchai”. He had a generous smile and he spoke English fluently, with a hint of the BBC. He asked me where I was from, about London, and which team I supported. He was a Liverpool supporter; he knew all the players. “Rush, Grobbelaar, Dalglish,” he said. He knew the players that a casual fan would not remember.
“John Wark like Dalglish is Scottish, yes?” He continued. “But spaghetti legs Grobbelaar I like best. He’s from Zimbabwe. I want to visit his country.”
He knew some of my own team, Tottenham. “We’ll always beat you,” he teased.
We spent the better part of an hour talking football, after which I asked him, “So what do you do?”
“Rubies,” he replied. “And other jewels, but most of the time I trade rubies.”
December 1987
وا حد. Uncle Vartan’s Carrots 三. Hong Kong, a Love Story