Much to my surprise I was alive and awake nice and early the morning after the gala festivities so I managed to get to the Siam Paragon for its 10am opening. It was probably just as well as I was one of the first in line to pick up my Press tickets for the next two days (you can only get tickets one day in advance, subject to availability) and the Box Office clearly hadn't been briefed... honestly, if you thought the glitches at the last FrightFest event were frustrating believe me, it's even more chaotic here! My worry that they were actually issuing hand-written tickets for me rather than consigning a complimentary ticket off their computerised system proved all too real when my seat was double-booked at the Tsotsi screening later that day. I met up with a girl called Claire who runs a cinema in Falkirk as we were queuing and she offered to buy me breakfast so we headed down to the food court on the ground floor of the Paragon - this place is so massive you really never need to leave, except when it's time to go home and sleep!The main event of the afternoon was the Masterclass with Terry Gilliam. He was a very witty speaker, talking about his Monty Python days, the cult following of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, his experience making Twelve Monkeys, and his unreserved contempt for the Weinstein brothers! Sadly the talk only lasted an hour... but I did manage to get his autograph afterwards. After a quick bite to eat - yes, I actually remembered food - it was off to see the gritty South African ghetto drama Tsotsi, which had a similar kind of feel to City Of God.
By happy coincidence a load of cool bands were playing the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival that night - Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, Ian Brown and dEUS - but tickets were expensive and it meant a journey out to Lakeside so in the end I decided not to bother and I settled for the bars off Sukhumvit Soi 23 to unwind instead.
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