Dido grates on my nerves and makes me want to kill myself

Like, when I hear her voice I want to stab myself in the eyeball repeatedly with a blunt pencil. Now watch this:



It's some kind of promo video for Dido's new album, I don't care enough to do the research. The boxer in the film is Nong Tum ("toom" with short "oo"), a kathoey kick-boxer. I think. I remember watching a movie based on her life called Beautiful Boxer which came out in 2003.

Kathoeys and hijras consistently try to establish themselves as "the third sex" only to be refered to by the rest of us as "ladyboys" and "eunuchs", i.e. freaks or sexless. Although, kathoeys are relatively well mainstreamed, at least in Bangkok, and homosexuality is relatively more tolerated in Thailand compared to the rest of Asia. They don't really seem to face the same stigma the hijras face in India where they are systemically more impoverished, etc. One of the best nights of my life involves a gay club near Patpong and 4 ladyboys. Just thought I'd share.

There was also an earlier movie called Satree Lek (The Iron Ladies) which was about a kathoey volleyball team, it was done in kind of a slapstick comedy style while Beautiful Boxer quite seriously attempted to explore poverty and gender/sex constructs within Thai society. Incidentally, "satree lek" means little women.

Anyway, I found this video through Ultrabrown where you can watch Dido do Bombay. Watch it with the sound turned off, it's for your own good. It's interesting how the clip kind of depicts the isolation and disconnect among people in Bombay. In a city where you're constantly colliding with people and are surrounded only by chatter and the sound of car horns, where everything is full speed and schizzophrenic, that even in this city people are alone and there is disconnect. I miss my Bombay city.