THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES - PATTAYA TIMES LEAVES A BLOT ON THE LANDSCAPE

Even though the Pattaya Times is no more here is a reminder of a newspaper so unique in its structure and content that it should at least be remembered as one of the world’s most feeble attempt by one individual to be a Citizen Kane.

Founder Drew Noyes and his ‘editor’ #WanrapaBoonsu alas have relinquished what Drew Noyes claimed was the second biggest English language newspaper in Thailand with a readership of 500,000 – which meant that over 100 people had to reach every copy of the newspaper.

Most remained stacked up at places like this supermarket and at Pattaya’s Immigration Office. But Drew did not want readers, or if he did he did not know to attract them.  He wanted a vehicle for self-promotion, to establish himself as a ‘civic’ leader in the city of sin.

So what readers there were each week were treated to pictures of Drew Noyes with civic leaders, police, army generals etc. who he said were all his mates.  He even announced he was the international advisor to the Mayor of Pattaya and posed with Chonburi and Pattaya judges.

Amongst the notable exclusives the newspaper had were; that it had discovered the cure for AIDS; it had patented an invention which would solve the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill; and that foreigners who owned property in Pattaya would have it confiscated by the goivernment unless they went to #DrewNoyes for assistance.

And once he put his wife’s byline on a story about oral sex. Drew is a bit of a wag.

Alas, that all went by the board last year when Noyes and Wanrapa were jailed for two years for extortion.  He told the owner of the Thonglor Clinic in Jomtien that if he wanted to continue business in his city he would have to fork out 7 million baht…later rather timidly reduced to 2.3 million.

Failing that the clinic would be raided by, presumably corrupt, CSD officers and illegal stuff would be found, the Pattaya Provincial Court was told.

Alas clinic boss Michel Goulet reported the matter to police, who no doubt thinking ‘if anyone is going to extort people in Pattaya it’s going to us and no-one else,’ ran a sting operation on the blackmailers…and Bonnie and Clyde were nabbed.

In days gone by when local officials supported Thaksin and later Yingluck Shinawatra Noyes was an avid ‘red-shirt’ but he knows how to go with the flow and in one court case being brought against him in Bangkok he produced an army colonel to say that Drew Noyes was sponsoring a special seminar in Pattaya dedicated to living in harmony under Thai military rule.

Six months on as we continue to live happily or not happily as the case may be, under the military government, we are still waiting for that seminar to happen.

Nevertheless such is the army’s faith in old Drew that when he made trips to America so start distributing the first two of a brood of children born to several Thai women, the army were happy to provide him with an escort through immigration.