Flying Sporran

Arrest follows British television documentaryFrom Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, September 9th 2009Pictures: Andrew Chant/Gavin Hill/Thai authorities have arrested the leader of a Thai mafia gang and charged with him with extortion based solely on the evidence of a British television documentary.Police today were holding a Thai known locally a JJ Naiman, aged 27, after he was […]

Dropped down last night to the Soi 8 bar on, Sukhumvit Soi 8 of course,  for the ‘wake’ of Lydia Riach.  People familiar with Scottish wakes of course will know they are a celebration of a life, rather than the mourning of a death and this was no exception.Some 200 people attended the cremation and […]

Picture special: by Andrew Drummond, Bangkok Pictures: Andy Chant/Gavin Hill/Vera Productions(pops rewrite) Royal Marines fresh from a tour of duty fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan have been involved in armed stand-off with the mafia thugs on the Thai holiday island of Phuket.The marine ‘section’,  on exercise in South East Asia on ‘Operation Taurus’, faced down a mafia gun-man […]

Murder hunts as Scots woman loses fight for life in Bangkok From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok An Inverness woman who was mugged in Thailand a week ago last Saturday has lost her fight for life in a Bangkok hospital. Lydia Riach, 58, was pronounced dead at the police hospital in Bangkok at 11.44 last night (Sunday) […]

Big Trouble in Thailand – Bravo Channel UKThis is a blog only(Warning this article comes with a drop-intro)I have a love-hate relationship with television.  Once in a blue moon I do a document then almost immediately afterwards, after the initial elation (because I almost always think they are good)  I vow never to do another one again, […]

Doctors in Bangkok have ceased to provide special medication for a 58-yr-old Scots woman who suffered severe head injuries when she was mugged in a Bangkok street at on her 30th wedding anniversary at the weekend. But they have refused to switch off life support systems for Lydia Riach from Inverness as it is against […]

From Andrew Drummond, BangkokLink The SUN A Scottish financial consultant was today keeping a bedside vigil beside his wife in Bangkok after she was violently attacked in the street last Saturday night. Douglas ‘Dougie’ Riach, 57, said he hoped his wife Lydia, 52, could hold on until their two sons arrived from Scotland later this week […]

A Thai court today jailed for life a Thai wife, her lover, and a professional hit man for the avaricious murder of her Canadian husband. Dale Henry, 48, was murdered on the orders of his 27-yr-old wife Maneerat  nicknamed ‘Nee’, the court found. She had conspired with her boyfriend Amornsak Ketkaew, and hired a professional […]

I am of course normally quite self-effacing. But I just could not resist giving this a larger audience. While on holiday recently in the Scottish Highlands I stayed for a night in Fort Augustus where I went to school.(Whenever I go back I usually have a few beers with the ‘village boys’ with whom in […]

I’m have been on holiday in Wester Ross  in the Western Highlands of Scotland with my wife Pat and daughter Annie and then finishing off down in Berkshire. Here’s Annie before the summer temperature dropped to 9 degrees C! and also in a second picture by the stream at the Mayfly pub near Andover when […]