Bark all you want but we're still going to name you 'Euro'

The ministry, improbably citing budget restraints, declines to survey pet names, so Talingchan Animal Hospital took up the task and offers equally astonishing results: Most people give their dog a names that reflects their taste (the owner’s, not the dog’s). Specifically, a Thai human looks at his Thai dog and thinks of food, sports, the rich-and-famous or some other facet of his life or wished-for life.
The hospital’s marketing department (they all have one these days) perused the names of its “patients” and found that the 10 most popular canine names are Cocoa, Ang Pao, Lucky, Sushi, Uan, Latte, Cookie, Chow-kuay (meaning black jelly), Chi Chi and Cola. Basically we’re looking at a list of the owners’ favourite stars, cartoon characters and food and drinks.
Other names crop up that reflect the latest trends – or else might cheer you up, like Lucky, Euro, Yuan and Ang Pao (the last being the cash packet handed out at Chinese New Year). Football-mad Thais repeat the names Messi, Ronaldo, Owen, Rooney, Torres and Oscar all day long, so naturally their pets start answering to those names. Thai celebrities get to share their names with dogs whether they like it or not, among them Tono, Joey and James Ji, and several South Koreans sneak in there too (think Tae Yeon and Young Jae). If you’re really, really hungry while choosing a name, the dog is likely to be called Pepo after the kid’s jelly, or Tofu, Kowlad or Thong Yod.
Do we have no imagination at all? Some people do. Ask the owner of Tor Lae, who might or might not know his moniker means “flirtatious”, or Took Ting, which means “dumped”.
Keep in mind, though, that these are all the names of dogs that actually get taken to an animal hospital when they’re sick. Finding out the most common names of street dogs would be a whole other survey, but we’re betting the “less is more” rule applies. Glancing around, we can see Kow (white), Dam (black) and Namtan (brown). Functional and easy to remember, they suffice when we don’t want to get close enough to sniff out any actual personality.

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An ad of few words
Hardly anyone who reads (or glances at) Thai Rath missed the full-page advert last week that was nothing but a vast white space with the words “HomePro Expo” in small print in the centre. For that the home-supplies retail chain show paid the newspaper Bt720,000.
Well, yes, we’re jealous, but never mind that. We’re just amazed at the buzz about it on the social media. One Twitter user declared that the “minimalist” ad in fact represented an expensive goof-up by HomePro. He claimed the advertiser failed to provide the artwork on time but still had to pay for the page, which Thai Rath dutifully “marked” as belonging to HomePro.
It was a credible notion, because Thai Rath has a massive circulation and thus huge demand for ad space. But HomePro management soon revealed that the design was quite deliberate. It also had billboard advertising around the city that bore nothing but the name of the fair and the date. The date (the show at Impact Arena ended yesterday) wasn’t even on the Thai Rath ad, but that’s what helped make it so unusual that the ad enjoyed a hearty second life online.
The bad news in all this is that the world no longer actually needs ad copywriters or graphic designers.