​MERCURE Pattaya Ocean Resort on North Pattaya Soi 2 is moments away from the beach and the ideal choice for an escapade from the big city.
 
The hotel has direct access to the beach and from the 210 rooms available, aim for the 24 Deluxe Ocean View rooms or 8 Ocean View Suites. If you are here with family or a larger number of friends, the Executive Family Suite is for you. Besides the tranquility of the ocean view, these rooms/suites also come with added features of an espresso machine, Bose Bluetooth speakers and a selection of complimentary drinks.
 
The hotel has a water playground! A fabulous mini water park with a dramatic rock wall and caves, tropical gardens, two swimming pools and a slider. To catch up with your reading (and we don’t mean emails), grab your book and head to the pool deck.

Meet Julien Lavigne, culinary maestro and co-founder of Oskar, Bangkok’s outstanding bar and bistro where gourmet dining meets late night edgy glamour.​

​YOU have to admit it, the French do have an exceptional eye for style. And when that’s matched by a shrewd business brain, you’ve gone some way to explaining the phenomenal success of Oskar Bistro on Sukhumvit Soi 11. Stir into the equation a great location, good (or lucky) timing and above average chef, and there you have it: the perfect recipe for a hugely popular bar and restaurant.
 
There’s no question the French owners of Oskar have struck a seam of gold with this wonderfully edgy, exciting and un peu méchant venue. Often copied but as yet not convincingly duplicated, it has set the pace for more than a decade in one of Bangkok’s most thriving entertainment areas. Oskar’s mixture of great food and wine, risqué glamour, high energy music and that inimitable French style is really hard to beat.
 
Credit for its outstanding cuisine goes Julien Lavigne, one of the bistro’s co-founders and a talented chef who first learned his trade in the kitchens of his French and Sicilian grandmothers before perfecting it in collaborations with the Pourcel brothers, the acclaimed Michelin star restaurant owners.
 
These collaborations began at the renowned French brasserie La Compagnie des Comptoirs, and thereafter at the London-based French restaurant W’Sens. In 2006 Julien moved to Bangkok to join D’sens at the Dusit Thani. It was there he continued his association with the Pourcel brothers for the next five years.

Since becoming an independent nation in 1901, Australia has sent its armed forces to 14 wars in far-away places. More than 100,000 Australian soldiers have lost their lives in Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and many more were injured, captured or listed as missing.
 
Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Barry Petersen MC, MID was one of the more fortunate members of the Australian Defence Forces, serving in three wars and surviving to tell the tale.
 
Sadly, the prostate cancer he had battled since 2008 did what the communists in Malaya (now Malaysia), Borneo and the Viet Cong in two tours of duty in Vietnam failed to do. Petersen was finally felled by the disease and passed away in a Bangkok hospital at 8pm on February 28, three weeks after his 84th birthday. He always maintained the cancer was caused by exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Always a military man
Petersen was born at Sarina, a small town south of Mackay city in North Queensland, on February 8, 1935. He enjoyed his national military service, and in 1953 decided on a military career, graduating as a Second Lieutenant in the Australian Army in 1954. Later, in 1968, he graduated from the United States Special Warfare Centre (Long Psychological Operation Course), and he also received training at the Australian Army Command and Staff College to become a senior major in the Army.
 
Petersen’s active military duty began with his assignment to the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment in operations against communist insurgents in Malaya, where he served from 1959 to 1961. He gained valuable experience in guerrilla warfare tactics working alongside the Jahai and Temiar tribes of the indigenous Orang Asli peoples in the mountains and jungles south of the Thai-Malay border.
 
After returning to Australia, Army headquarters requested that he volunteer for “liaison duties with guerrillas in the event of future wars”. Because of his experience with the tribes in Malaya, Petersen was selected to join a small group of officers who were to receive special training, and then appointed to an elite group called Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTC) in 1962.
 
Petersen was then loaned to the CIA, and in 1963 sent to South Vietnam to recruit, train, command and develop a guerrilla style force of Montagnard (French term for the mountaindwelling tribesmen of the central highlands of southern Vietnam).
 
By 1964 Petersen had put together a group of several hundred men officially called Truong Son Force. They became known as “Tiger Men” because of the stripes on their camouflaged uniforms and a snarling tiger printed on their berets. Truong Son Force was highly successful in its goal of denying the Viet Cong control of much of the high plateau that dominates central Vietnam.
 
Their primary aim was to fight and interrupt Viet Cong and the regular North Vietnamese Army along the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran from north to south through the mountains of Vietnam. They were recognized for their excellent combat record as well as their brutality, inflicting heavy human and material losses on the Viet Cong, who feared them.
 
By 1965 the Tiger Men numbered about 1,200 Montagnard fighters who used the same guerrilla tactics as the Viet Cong, which were to ambush the enemy, cause as much damage as possible and then vanish into the jungle. Petersen claimed the Americans asked him to form his force into small assassination units as part of the CIA’s Phoenix Program, a controversial joint venture between the US, South Vietnamese and Australian militaries. The program’s purpose was to identify and destroy the Viet Cong via infiltration, torture, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and summary execution.
 
Petersen said he refused because he didn’t want his men to become assassins. He also felt it breached Australian military rules of engagement.

Name: Gareth Vaughan Hughes
 
Nickname (if any): Not sure what the Thais call me but the most commonly used nicknames that I encounter in Wales and Australia are Hughesy, Gazza and sometimes Gary.
 
Age: 57
 
Born: Coventry, England, as my Welsh parents sadly were working there in the 60s and my Mum refused to do what a lot of pregnant Welsh mothers residing in England did at the time, which was to hop on the train to deliver her children in Wales to provide the best advantages for them going forward!
 
Education: Primary and secondary education predominantly in Senghenydd Primary Welsh school (a village where one of the worst mining disasters of all time occurred) and Rhydfelen Welsh Comprehensive school. Obtained a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (now University of Cardiff Business School). I am also a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) and a member of Chartered Accountants – Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ).
 
Family background: Father (deceased) was a town planner from Cardigan County in South Wales and Mother (deceased) a nurse from Anglesey County North Wales. Both were fluent Welsh speakers. Twin Sister (deceased) and younger brother.
 
Family today: Married to Janice Marie Hughes (qualified zoologist) from Sydney, Australia. We have two children – Jack (14) and Alyssa (10), both born in Bangkok and attend Harrow International School.

The Russian embassy in Bangkok has become a centre of ballet excellence, thanks to the young and beautiful Julia Tutarskya, a former prima donna who is working wonders as a dance teacher at the in-house school.
 
Opened in 2014, the ballet school was the brainchild of former Russian Ambassador to Thailand, Mr Kirill Barsky. Since then it has attracted students from many nationalities, including Thais and Russians.
 
Julia was born in Michurinsk, a town named after the great biologist Ivan Vladimirivich Michurin, located in the Tambov region of Russia.
 
When Julia was just four years old, her parents took her and her elder sister to the Michurinsk Choreography School for ballet classes. “At that young age, I already knew I wanted to become a ballet dancer,” says Julia.
 
With support from her parents and the school, Julia pursued her dream, which eventually led to her current profession.

Julia’s childhood was filled with exciting concerts, daily dance lessons, and both classic ballet and traditional folkdance. She began piano lessons at the same age as she started dancing and wanted to become as good a piano player as her mother. Julia was a dedicated student and loved history, literature and foreign languages.
 
She talks fondly about her first teacher, Mrs Lyubov Viktorovna Benderskaya, who not only taught her students a perfect ‘pas de deux’ but also instilled a love and appreciation of ballet.
 
“I started to explore classic ballet and learned a lot from her. In this school, choreography became a part of the students’ lives. Russia is known for supporting children with a certain gift - ballet, gymnastics, music or anything else.

Featuring 35 stunning villas overlooking the glittering Gulf of Thailand, this amazing beachfront retreat blends contemporary style with cultural sophistication, artistic design and an outstanding setting.

Many observers believed that 2019 would be the year when the most successful side in the Chiang Mai Sixes would finally meet their match.

NCL Dynamites had won six matches in a row to reach the Cup final as they comfortably disposed of UN Irish Pub in the semi-finals, but Gloucestershire Gipsies had matched the defending champions win for win as they also had an unbeaten record after easily beating NCL Masters in the semi-finals.
 
Gloucestershire Gipsies were in fact regarded at potentially the stronger side at least on paper, but it was a different story when the two teams met in a high-class Cup final. Faysal Ahmed bowled Henry Cooper, the leading run-scorer in New Zealand first-class cricket last season, with the third ball of the innings and Toufiqul Haque dismissed Ben Hyde in the next over as Gipsies slipped to 16 for 2. Nick Kelly and Tom Smith had launched an array of shots earlier in the competition, but although they rebuilt the innings they found the Dynamites bowling and field tough to combat.