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This topic will not be of much interest to people living in the Philippines - where I was able to buy a drivers license for PHP 350 pesos and NO TEST whatsoever in 1995. (Things may have changed since then... You probably have to pay over PHP 500 for a pass result in your "driving test" now???) I passed my UK car driver's test, first time around, in 1975 - at the tender age of 17 Now, I know that things have got more difficult these days - and this was confirmed when it took me two attempts to get through my bike test, fairly recently... But here is an interesting storey regarding one of my driving instructors for my car test... I literally sacked my first driving instructor ONE WEEK before my test for taking control of the vehicle without any good cause whatsoever. I was furious with him and I made HIM drive me back to the college where I was staying at the time. That left me without a vehicle for my test. But I found another instructor, with an available vehicle for my test. It cost me an hour's lesson every day for the remaining 7 days before my test - (only way he would agree to providing a car at such short notice) - and I passed with flying colors and a smiling examiner! The incident where I sacked my first instructor? Well. Number one, I was paying HIM, afterall - not the other way around. I hadn't paid him for that lesson yet and I had absolutely NO intention of paying him unless he drove me back to the college. I was only 17 at the time. Number two... The driving instructor was totally wrong and to this day I don't regret or feel sorry for what I did. He said "Take the second left." We were actually passing a left turn at the time that he said this - but he didn't make it clear which second left he meant... (The one after the turn that we were already passing or the second one after the one coming up?) The best thing was that the car was dual control... So as he jammed HIS break on, simultaneously depressing HIS clutch - and yanked HIS steering wheel to the left, I held rigidly on to MY steering wheel and kept trying to keep going strait!!! (Don't forget, I was only a learner and I simply wasn't happy taking the turn that it transpired was the one he actually meant, at the speed that we were still doing?) Better, still... As he had his feet on HIS brake and HIS clutch peddle, I still had my foot on MY accelerator!!!! Result? A car right up on the pavement, (sidewalk,) with an engine revving at about 6,000 rpm!!!! And, when I finally removed my foot from MY accelerator peddle - a stalled and totally gassed-up engine that wouldn't start again for at least 5 minutes! He he he!!! Served the old bugger right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

I can say, that in my own, not so humble opinion, I don't believe that it is very easy to get justice in the Philippines, if you "don't have money." (Either you don't have the necessary funds to "grease the system" or you are unwilling to spend your hard-earned cash on seeking justice.) On the other hand, (equally, this is only my own, not so humble opinion,) I believe that it is very easy in this country to get a miscarriage of justice - provided that you do "have money." I refer only to my own recent case... My second Ex wife filed totally false, malicious and damaging criminal charges against me. In short, she was claiming that I had totally abandoned her and our two children without any financial support whatsoever - thus making me guilty of a criminal offense, under Philippine law: R.A. 9282 "The Violence Against Women and Their Children Act" Not charges to be taken lightly and, if found guilty, punishable by imprisonment. Well, I got myself a competent Attorney. I laboriously listed all payments made for the past 5 years. I went through all my junk and eventually found official bank receipts for most of the payments that I had made on a regular basis over the previous 5 years. I even found a small notebook - full of my ex-wife's signatures for cash that I had given her and for the expenses that I had incurred on behalf of our children - and for some of the material goods that I had given them I got fed-up of having to keep traipsing off to Calamba for preliminary hearing after preliminary hearing with the Calamba City Prosecutor - so I eventually gave my Lawyer 'power of attorney' to appear on my behalf. After months of this, I was absolutely flabbergasted to discover that the Prosecutor, having COMPLETLY IGNORED ALL THE MATERIAL EVIDENSE that I had presented and LISTENING TO THE EVIDENSE ONF NO-ONE EXCEPT MY EX-WIFE decided that there was "probable cause" for the case to go to court!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was the point when I realised that I was NOT up against a slow and ponderous legal system... I was up against a bunch of clowns in a "kangaroo court" system. At that point, my Attorney advised me to spend a substantial sum of money on a "Petition for Review" I wasn't happy but the thought of spending time in a jail in the Philippines for something that I was not even guilty of, left me cold with fear. What was I to do??? The whole thing, including legitimate legal fees and "expenses" eventually cost me PHP 113,000 pesos before I finally got the case against me dismissed - with the Presiding Judge stating: I wonder if the Prosecutor's little "oversight" would have been detected, had I not had sufficient funds to fight my case??? The average wage for a semi-skilled professional, (like an office worker or a primary school teacher, ) is somewhere around PHP 8,000 or PHP 10,000 pesos a month, in this country. Based on that kind of salary, PHP 113,000 pesos is about 10 or 12 month's salary !! So, had I been a lowly office-worker, instead of a seaman, earning a good foreign currency salary, I could well have ended up in prison - instead of being able to sit here and write this...

I spend quite a lot of time in Bangkok. I usually prefer to just wander around by myself and do my own thing but, if I ever get some spare cash, I wouldn't mind trying one of Photojournalist Jonathan Taylor 's intensive photography classes. Street photography is something that has interested me for a long time and a bit of practical guidance out on the streets in and around Bangkok certainly wouldn't go amiss. I understand from his website that the courses can be tailor-made to suit the individual participants' areas of interest. If you are interested, just click on the link below and you can take a look at the website to see for yourself what is on offer: http://photographyschoolasia.com/