There was confusion and wonderment in a Bangkok shopping centre this evening, when a foreign teacher living in the city was taken aback by a contraption being worn on the head by a Muslim woman, that caused the foreigner to think immediately of Professor Yaffle, the carved wooden bookend from the children's TV series Bagpuss.
The 'contraption', a kind of gold-plated metal frame, was in two parts. The first looked like a kind of small visor which rested on her forehead just above her eyes.
The second, linked to the first by a thin rod, seemed to be a 'moustache protector', situated, as it was, over her top lip.
The 'gizmo' may have been a mechanical burq'a-type wotsit, designed to avert the eyes of men taking a sneaky look at a Muslim woman.
Clad entirely in black, however, this old tart must have been at least 60 years of age, and had no realistic need of the strange gizmo, as she was, in truth, as ugly as sin, and couldn't have drawn a man's glance if she had stood in the mall in her birthday suit.
The incident took place just after tea tonight in the Mahboonkrong Shopping Centre in the heart of the steamy metropolis, and caused much laughter for the man, although, it has to be said, most of it inwardly.
"You never know just what they'd do to a foreigner laughing out loud at them, do you?" thought the man, "I remember that poor bloke getting his head cut off in Iraq."
The 'thing', whatever it was, looked quite simply the most ridiculous thing I - for it was me - had ever seen in my entire life, and, believe me, I've seen some pretty ridiculous things in my time!
Police are not investigating.
