Football's still coming home for Cambodia and Thailand and UK

As if anybody could have missed the soaring drama of England's victory over Sweden in the World Cup.

England progressing to Croatia and then almost France in the final. Already the young team with the most England goals (11) since the 1966 win. And Kane, with Hurst and Thailand and Japan and Leicester's Lineker, the only England hat trick scorers in a World Cup.

But the drama was almost eclipsed by the Wild Boars football team trapped in a Chiang Rai cave. And the sad death of Navy Seal UDT demolition expert.

With the young footballers now released from captivity, the Wild Boars in future surely in demand by football and UK and Thailand fans. Muangthong United already with a tribute and the FIFA CEO inviting them to next week's World Cup final if they are fit enough.

An invite to the England celebration party too no doubt or at least next year's FA Cup Final and a visit to the National Football Museum in Manchester.

And Amy Sawitta Lefevre on BBCTV detailing the rescue attempt and forlorn image of the schoolkids' bicycles at the cave mouth. And Jonathan xxxx detailing some of the heartfelt banter of the Wild Boars classmates urging them to return and finish their homework.

And a concern they were hungering for KFC fried chicken rather than Thai BBQ chicken.

The vast caverns of Thailand and Vietnam ably navigated by the Derbyshire cave rescue team surely now on every emergency services 112 speed dial much as cave temples such as Phraya Nakhon or just the beautiful secenry of the Peak District of Derbyshire will be on many tourists itinerary.

The Peaks perhaps rivalled only by the Whitby Coastliner rated as UK's most beautiful bus journey, or the 007 Ramsgate-Canterbury-Dover bus route the inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond.

Even the Manila side of the Pacific potential for Moneypenny BPO call centres and database work (Microsoft not Crapita? If it's delivered this side of the 22nd century) from Palawan to Zamboanga.

With UK football in the ascendancy even before the Premiership restarts there is the growing potential of Sports Diplomacy not just football in Thailand and ASEAN, but South America (this year's World Cup dominated by European teams and little showing of the silky skills of even Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina).

While Wimbledon tennis sparks off not just the potential for Thailand - that Buddha temple again and in London and here in East Kent - just around the corner from Centre Court. Or cycling such as the Tour de France and La Vuelta, even a Tour de Balkans through all points from Slovenia and Croatia and Albania and Montenegro.

With the Western Balkans Stabilisation Summit this week, even Kosovo, and North Macedonia now smoothing over its rivalry with Greek Macedonia - a miniCyprus in the making avoided.

Especially with the flashpoint danger of the heavily-armed Greek-Turkish mainland border.

But cricket in India and the Caribbean as easy a hole in one as Beach Soccer or Volleyball. East Kent also trialling specialist and community sports such as Pickleball, Walking Football and Boules, with Goalkeeper School and the weft and weave of the excellent FA Community grassroots programmes with Arsenal, Millwall and impressive Charlton Athletic work amongst many others.

Sports Diplomacy - and ASEAN's insatiable demand for UK football - an opportunity, as the FA's men in blazers do rather well, in extending the beautiful game beyond just the mega-clubs.

Certainly important in the trade aspect too for the UK's Thailand Trade Envoy, and UK's Cambodia Trade Envoy Ed Vaizey.

No doubt Liverpool and Manchester's United and City and West Ham are warming up though - the National Football Museum and World Cup BBC Russia Tapestry a highlight of the World Cup. Having been fortunate to work on advertising previous World Cup Soccer and Rugby, the new museum is a hidden gem of UK tourism and soccer.

Much as the Scotland-Eire bridge gained support amongst the latest Brexit shenanigans from former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. A bridge - the work of moments by Arup or Kent's BalfourBeatty/Quin or The Six Companies - freeing up Southern England's roads from freight traffic but also boosting Waterford with the main Eire Europort along with Dublin, Belfast and Space City Glasgow.

The latter place in need of something more than the highest-ever, and highest in EU, heroin deaths just announced. A bitter pill to swallow from the failure of Helmand and Shan through the last decade. Much the same in heroin hosptos of manchester, Dublin and London even the spread like Japanese knotweed of County Lines drugs through the regions.

And with Heathrow expansion, there is a grain of truth in the potential, beyond the Isle of Grain or Veetee Rice, for a Boris Airport in the North Sea and crowded South East, eventually, as with Hong Kong's floating airport.

But lost in the dangers of the cave rescue and fervour of UK soccer was the monsoon dangers of 100 dead in Japan storms. Parts of Japan with 3x times the highest rain levels ever recorded. And not one but three ferry sinkings again in a matter of days: two in Indonesia with over 200 dead and one in Thailand with 49 missing.
And not one of the Wild Boars (ages 11-25) being able to swim.

A statistic eclipsed in Vietnam with 4,000 drownings each year compared to 40 in UK - and every UK schoolchild learning to swim. Even without the 34 UK county Olympic swimming pools construction pencilled in by Kent's dynamic UK Sports Minister Tracey Crouch also a part-time football referee.

Or Surin Village Charity Schoools as a hub for the 65M unchooled in the world to dispense vaccines and spectacles and swimming lessons with the English lessons.
But the RNLI whether from the Thames or Ramsgate UK's busiest lifeboat station needed as much as those medevac and search and rescue helicopters airlifting the Wild Boars to hospital. Interim Head of the Civil Service Mark Sedwill the proud Trustees Chair of the RNLI at its Thames base a few metres from the Houses of Parliament. Ramsgate featuring in the design of the Palace of Westminster by Pugin.

And new Ambassador in Cambodia xxx must surely be pondeirng the potential from Bill Longhurst on a range of measures:

* Road safety - Cambodia as dangerous as Thailand and those medevac air ambulances as needed.

* RNLI on the Mekong and Tonle Sap and coast, although it may be too early for a Tour de Tonle Sap cycle event.

* ASEAN Rail: July pencilled in for PM's Prayut and Hun Sen to open the first stage of the BKK-PP route, and completed by December from PP to HCMC. Although no sight yet of the new PP-HCMC route and stations. As with the BBB-Build and New Clark City strategies in Philippines, ASEAN Rail so far a rapid and sustained and excellent effort through the highways and byeways and subways and ports of a resilient and prosperous 21st century ASEAN from Chiang Rai to Cebu.

* Tourism: UK's Newmarket Holidays the xxx boosting the caves and Bamboo Railway and bridges of Battambang in its first tour.

* The Royal Road to link Siem Reap/Angkor and Isaan temples in Thailand - even the Thousand Islands of Laos (a marathon and cycle track and swim route all in one?). The Ironmen of Krupp and Tata no doubt beefing up their steel output for ASEAN Rail.

* LIDAR aerial ground surveys of the temples around Angkor Wat: UK and Australia advances cited in a BBCTV documentary on Mayan Guatemala and EU xxx supporting the excellent work by xxx. The PP National Museum brief animation of Angkor surely the basis of, if not Pixar and Pocahontas, then EKFOS: East Kent Film Office and Studio with PP's film studio. And LIDAR relevant for the Forgotten Palace work in BKK and other UK embassies even forgotten North African landmines?

* AusAid already bridging Cambodia and the Commonwealth - surely expanded Commonwealth memberships a key issue for any UK embassy and trade dept from Chad to China.

Myanmar or East Timor aside in Asia, Prince William's first Royal visit to Palestine, as was, laying the groundwork for Palestine now, and hitech Israel, even, with Jordan already, a Levant Federation of smaller states with Lebanon that is the Anglophone speciality of the Commonwealth. All the more so with NEOM and solar energy tilting the strategic focus and centre of gravity of Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean from the oil of the Gulf states.

* French colonial architecture restoration in Phnom Penh, a rare gem too, even HCMC's Basson.

* Cambodian silk or PP ballet might well rival Thailand's creative industries too.

* 40% malnutrition in Laos and Cambodia: just 10 days underground leaving the Wild Boars emaciated and that a horrific daily reality in many parts of ASEAN - and certainly a positive reality for UNFAO in Rome and Bari and UNICEF and Red Cross and SUN in BKK and London.

* Charity work beyond Surin Village School charity activity such as Clearly spectacles and treeplanting both features of the successful Commonwealth Summit, and malaria nets and Operation Smile cleft lip palate surgery and hospital ships.

On that last point the 170 universites in Thailand needing UK links (and Australia and USA) whether teacher training Rajabhat colleges or the Wild Boar schools. As would Chiang Ria hospital on the Golden Triangle with Laos and Myanmar and unknown Cambodia hospitals.

All against the backdrop of Pandemic as the UK #1 Strategic Threat, beyond a Russian invasion of the Baltics and Visegrad nations or nuclear war betwen Pakistan and India or terrorism spread beyond the Sahel and Arabia or ASEAN, or even meteor strikes littering Arizona or Cancun or Siberia.

Mars 2030 and Space Industry surely a strategic priority too beyond the Cambodia Space Project and Resilience satellites.

For TB and Bird Flu is the main hotspot in ASEAN by UN, and rabies whether dogs or bat droppings - those Wild Boar cavers held in isolation wards - with 40k deaths in India a year and first cases in Kalasin for a generation.

ASEAN hospital links vital for UK security as well as diplomacy as Chevening scholarships expend from 20 Cambodians a year from Bristol to Exeter to Newcastle's Kasetsart to Kent's 4 universites - as vital as vaccines and pandmeic details in the NHS.

The quietly capable John Ashworth Shadow NHS Minister providing a rigorus critique of the ageing and threadbare kit in UK hospitals from CAT scanners to Xray machines to AI diagnostics. USA Ambo Johnson will be ensuring healthcare providers such as Janssen and Pfizer, or Bayer or Deloitte (both TrumpDavos15Friends) are stepping upto the plate this side of the Atlantic?

Just as well as the Trump Summit this week might not have anyone to meet him from the meltdown of the PM May government.

In my Sincerity Advertising work the new Sorrell S4 venture of Holland's MediaMonks digital agency described as "a peanut" by mega-WPP, or the humble Idaho potato symbolic of the potential surge in UK-USA trade beyind the chimera of mega-MOU and hard-soft-or-softboiled-Brexit or chlorinated chickens.

All tepid tea and biscuits twaddle compated to the vigorous activity of Idaho and its red potatos (was former VP Dan Quayle right and it's potatoe?) with extended promotion in Walmart-Asda. Or Wyoming and its broader ASEAN activity: more than UK. Probably Montana and Utah and Colorado too.

An astonishingly weak cup of trade tea served up by UK although the rising tides of vigorous work by Liam Fox Trade Minister and DIT Trade and Chambers of Commerce designed to bridge the UK-USA trade gap with Kent and Singapore's Antony Philippson.

Sincerity Advertising USA aside, there's surely potential for say 50 states and 1,000 companies of UK and USA extraction (#50x1000x2) to be cherrypicked to have their slice of the trade cake and eat it? The warm words and hot air of Brexit buttering no parsnips for over two years now.

While the Channel Four documentary (preparing for USA Sports again?) Inside the USA Embassy in London, has Ambo Woody nervously seeking views on the value of the F35. Pricey junk mainly seems to be the consensus. Even without the UK's empty aircraft carriers. With the 100th anniversary of the RAF, surely the last manned flight is at hand in a year or two with drones? Even folding the RAF helicopters out of interservice rivalry and bloat and into the Army Air Corps.

Sonny Perdue's xxxx or Yale research on healthy eating and peanuts and walnuts and pistachio nuts. And East Kent core company Bakkavor Foods (with Saga Holidays and Hornby toys, Givaudin perfumes, Channel Tunnel/Eurostar and P&O ships and Dreamland and Paramount theme parks and Kent orchids) expanding to Charlotte USA for speciality breadsxx Texas (with South Carolina peanut butter or Virginia cranberries?).

Washed down with a Californian chardonnay or Maine craft beer (or a Pepsi?).

And Hornby-Airfix surely ideal for links with the hidden gem of ApBac museum and its dioramas.

And that before the kickoff of USA football, soccer if you must, World Cup 2026 - or 2024 Los Angeles Olympics. Sepp Blatter of FIFA even raising a potential UK Home Nations World Cup for 2030. That 2030's decade a crowded field with Morocco and ASEAN and China football potential.

East Kent needing further medical assistance not just with ensuring 3 excellent East Kent NHS hospitals rather than cuts for bloat and oensions, or the mirage of hard-to-reach and still under-performing mega-hospitals, but also tobacco cessation with Thanet featuring in the Independent as the 2nd worst hotspot in UK for tobacco: 24.7% smokers.

Just as UK smoking falls to a youth low of 19% from 26%. Horrifyingly, parts of Kent with a worse mortality rate than Afghanistan - even without the civil war or B52 bombings.

Tarmac seems to have eaten more of KCC's $3BN budget (separate from the NHS and Education budgets) than reducing the tar coating Kent's blackened lungs.
While rot seems to have set into both NHS dentistry services - mentioned in PMQ's- and provision of GP's in Kent.
With my MP and Mayor hat on, the only real solution is each town controlling its tax budget - both council tax and business rates - and the 3 Kent districts such as East Kent controlling their portion of the $3BN budget with any deprivation weightings and (the krama of shame or xxxxx in Kent Year Zero Ground Zero) doublehatter reductions.

Perhaps an England-Belgium match is best for Kent services rather than just the World Cup.

Even England-France, with the delays on Eurostar/Channel rail commuter services to Lille or derelict Pfizer wind turbine and National Grid at Broad Oak megapylons blighting Vattenfall efforts, and Dungeness nuclear and Channel shipping air pollution with the Cote d'Opal.

Shades of Khun xxxx Thailand Tourism Minister continuing the efforts begun by his predecessor Khun Kobkarn Thailand's Japan and tech expert, on the overlap of Sports Science and Medical Science and AI along the EEC Corridor (and a repurposed UTapao airport a stone's throw away from the pineapples of Chantaburi and Hua Hin), from Toshiba to Mitsubishi to Hitachi. And of course Panasonic.

That important for ageing societies such as UK and Thailand - new materials for tennis rackets and tennis elbow arthritis for example. And the importance of STEM deftly translated for younger generations with Blue Broccoli for girl engineers (those girls can as Sport England hoardings have it) by Bryony Matthews for Deputy Ambo for Cambodia and author of Skytrain STEM books.

The potential perhaps not for Skytrain through the very different broad Toulousean boulevards of Phnom Penh over the klongs and caals of Bangkok but certainly Great British expertise in the bus and train and public transport, even those Chinook air ambulances again an impetus (for solar power and tress?) for Sheffield with former Green Leader xx and former Deputy PM Nick Clegg.

While Hun Sen election aside and EU sanctions, Cambodia must be keen to raise its tourism potential from 4M visitors without jeopardising Angkor Wat in the future.

But as of now, football is coming home on track for the Wild Boars and World Cup England.

Time for Change
@timg33