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Phimai, central Thailand.
This is the site of an ancient Khmer city, and has some very impressive ruins (kind of mini Angkor) and a great archaeological museum.
Few visitors here, nice and atmospheric for photos, though it’s very humid!
So I’ve stumbled upon an old Maltese soap opera from the…80s? called [Ghaddi il-bieb miftuh](https://youtu.be/mFTHLAqCO6E?si=ntPyyQ48lvd-uMJu). And despite not understanding Maltese, I’m absolutely mesmerised.
The language (and obviously bad acting/low production values) just absolutely sucks you in – it’s like Arabic, but they pepper in so many English words like “insurance” and “general manager” that you almost think you know what’s going on, but also don’t. And it’s not like in India where people might code-switch into English but keep their Indian accent and intonation – here they’ll properly lean into every English word and add this kind of affected posh English accent to it. That one middle-aged lady in particular really gives off [Hyacinth Bucket](https://youtu.be/sjkFKY2pddc?si=v95RB8P1dTFgdhJs) vibes.
The whole thing really reminds me of this running sketch on a TV series from the 90s called *The Fast Show* where they tried to parody the feeling you get when you go on holiday to a Southern European country, [turn on the telly](https://youtu.be/-WNxrZRhdPE?si=weQiNkqFcfbhjORk) and get [totally confused by whatever it is you’re watching.](https://youtu.be/t7PhS-bJXX0?si=99_uVbPsUbJ363P6&t=1m57s)
First day trying out the gymnastic ball. I must say, it is very comfortable. The whole body has more tension, so I can imagine you are also getting a little bit of workout in while sitting. My only problem is that I haven’t found an efficient way of turning to face one screen o the other (or the other). I need to experiment a bit. I don’t really think that this is a whole-day thing, though. We’ll see.
I’ve seen quite a lot of videos of different languages where someone makes a nonsense sentence out of words that sound very similar. Like “un ver vert verse un Verre vers un Verrier vers Vingt Heures”.
Presumably, native and fluent speakers are able to distinguish these words. But is there an equivalent sentence in English? I’ve not been able to think of one.
The Olympic gold medal count ended in a tie between the US and China this year; the overall medal count is in America’s favor. The medal count totals have long been an aspect of geopolitical competition.
You have to wonder if having rankings and flags promotes an inherent conflict between the “Olympic Spirit” and competition. But I guess that’s the way sports works to be honest even on smaller scales.