Harry Nicolaides' Weekly Column

Exclusively for Phuket-Info.com

Who the fuck is Harry??

Working as a hotel concierge in Melbourne has prepared me well for the itinerant life as Writer-at-large in Thailand. My instinctive networking skills have gained me employment as an English teacher to beautiful Thai girls at the Amanpuri – the world’s most exclusive resort, helped me to develop friendships with the senior constabulary of the Phuket police force (avoiding liability for recklessly endangering the life of former Malaysian President Mahatir by nearly colliding with his 17 car motorcade on a private road) and become a senior lecturer to 120 students in social psychology at the Prince of Songkla University. A few phone calls and I can be on a million-dollar yacht sharing stories with a maverick boat captain who has smoked pot with Robert De Niro, got drunk with Mel Gibson and rubbed sun tan lotion on Nicole Kidman’s back. And all this happens in Phuket, Thailand exactly four degrees north of the Equator where there is just three degrees of separation between Nicole Kidman’s buttocks and my left hand. My right hand is vigorously networking...

My latest appointment as senior lecturer in social psychology at the Prince of Songkla University was the result of an extensive email campaign before I left shores in the Antipodes in July 2003. Joseph Goebbels, German Nazi leader and the minister for propaganda in the Third Reich, would have been proud of the mass dissemination of my CV to most educational institutions in Thailand. My CV may have even crossed the desk of a few paramilitary organisations and revolutionary groups on the border of Thailand and Burma. My anarchic tendencies would have made these applications ill fated as even terrorists are inclined towards petty officialdom. Notwithstanding the loss of these fertile opportunities as a writer I have managed to transform the current position at the university into a great source of inspiration for my students and myself. I just hope Identity fraud is not a serious crime in Thailand...

Garry Ridler, a friend from Australia was visiting Phuket as a tourist. I managed to convince him to assume my identity for the first lecture to the 120 students in the course of social psychology at the university. We had him tailored beautifully at Raymond’s on Rat-U-Thit Road, Patong Beach in a tattersall check shirt woven from Egyptian cotton with a silk, blue paisley tie and navy coloured, pleated trousers. As he stands nearly six feet 4 and is a man of generous girth the figure he cast was imposing. I briefed him on the subject matter and gave him an impressive resume which he noted on an overhead projector to the compliant audience of students in the massive university auditorium. PhD from Cambridge University, Doctoral thesis on psychoanalytic theory, Chairman of psychologists at Oxford University, author of two definitive textbooks in the field: Psychology and Society, 1987, 10th edition, Prentice Hall and Sociocultural Theories in the Modern World, 1962. None of the students recognised that as Garry looks about forty years old a book published in 1962 would make him somewhat of a child prodigy.

Garry spoke authoritatively about nothing for some time while all students paid meticulous attention and wrote copious lecture notes on the rambling dissertation. When I arrived and introduced myself as the course lecturer challenging Garry’s position an incredulous student remarked that Garry looked more credible than I did! In fact some thought I was his son! The exercise was an object lesson in the fallibility of human perception in the field of social psychology. Lecture number one was a resounding success. In the second lecture I presented a multiple-choice test which included the following question:

Behaviourism was developed through the empirical experiments of Ian Pavlov and

A. A dog that would salivate at the sound of a ringing bell
B. A monkey that would juggle coloured balls
C. A buffalo that could dance the Tango
D. A chicken that could sing the national anthem

One student circled D. This student has obviously been witness to the most astonishing case of identity fraud the world has ever seen (a man pretending to be a chicken)……. Now where did I put that gorilla suit……?

Harry Nicolaides (aka King Kong)

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