Bangkok Bound: A Reporter’s Thrilling Journey to the WBC’s 63rd Annual Convention

The sly who fly

By James Blears

So goes the saying goes, that travel broadens the mind, hones the senses and wits plus sharpens the instincts.

All three options there, palpable, tangible and available during two long flights to reach the WBC’s Sixty third annual Convention, combined with its first ever Muay Thai Convention, all in Bangkok, Thailand.

On the second leg of the journey, a flight from Narita to here, during which many of the passengers were already weary, slumped and sleeping, due to long prior connecting flights. Yet not one young lady, sitting demurely in the aisle seat across the way.

As the stewardess, serving the drinks and snacks was momentarily distracted, this alert and quick thinking passenger,  purloined a packet snack from the food trolley, but was then artful and mindful enough,  to seamlessly and resourcefullyclose the protruding tray compartment, meticulously,  yet deftly placing the snaffled snack well out of sight, only to beamingly   accept a second one offered to her, with alacrity. She downed her beer in one and politely asked for, plus received another.

There was a rare empty seat next to her but another passenger in the window seat. He was fast asleep, having covered himself with a blanket and slumbered  through all of the ensuing culinary developments which then unfolded, blissfully oblivious. The doormouse at the Mad Hatter’s tea party would have been proud?

Nothing stoped or impeded her a tad or a jot. Seated crossed legged, like Buddha in a ten foot cell, she also ordered a meal for  him as well and proceeded to devour it plus her own, taking full advantage of and exploiting any lingering room for doubt.

Then after the wreckage and detritus of the meal was removed  and put on the trolley, the artful one unbuckled her seat belt, disappeared down the aisle, only to return from the galley area with yet another snack and a fresh can of beer. The Lord takes care of those who take care of themselves?

This single minded attention to detail and ruthless method acting, plus the smart clothes, suggested she might have been hardened via the privations of the boarding school regime/circuit, where only the quickest, fittest, toughest   and most adaptable adept,  are are  able survive, then thrive.

Unequivocally unencumbered by moralistic convention or slavish, prissy  attention to rules or regulations , she is a wily and smooth-operator, always willing to seek out the main chance and exploit it  to its fullest.

Some of the most successful champions in boxing are similarly alert and ready to avail themselves of any opportunity or lapse which occurs and presented, instantly turning plus exploiting it to their full advantage.

The best counter punchers are alert opportunists, patiently waiting for the guard of their opponent to slip or concentration to momentarily lapse,  for just a tad/split second, to enable them to land and inflict a TKO with pinpoint accuracy. or even get their retaliation in first to accomplish a KO.

An opportunist at thirty thousand feet, with feline instincts,  yet as the journalistic
community would proudly say…Rat like cunning. A queue jumper, a scene stealer with a keen eye for the main chance. Someone who’s going somewhere. In this case…to Bangkok.

As the devil is reportedly supposed to have retorted or  suggested: “If God didn’t intend them to be fleeced, why did he make them sheep?”

She opened a book and started reading. It was The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli…I should have guessed!