My pal Gavin

My pal Gavin Hill is a genius. After more than a year of negotiations he is about to embark on filming a series of eight one hour fly-on-the-wall television documentary programmes under the working title Thai Cops. The shows follow the work of the police in exotic and sometimes seedy locations in Thailand, focusing a lot on the British recruits who have been specially hired to deal with the high numbers of foreign tourists. Many visitors, of course, end up worse for drink and in trouble with the law like the England fan in the picture taken from the "teaser tape" Gavin used to gain the commission. Gavin, who has come a long way since he read the news on Radio Piccadilly, has obtained amazing access from the authorities and will be visiting, among many places, the notorious "Bangkok Hilton" jail. What you might call his "Get Into Jail Free Card". Apparently several journalists have been killed on similar trips by inmates serving sentences of 60 or 70 years who rap their chains around your neck and choke the life out of you before you've even got your Press card out. Gavin is no stranger to danger, having dodged bullets in Afghanistan and in Iraq and been kidnapped by a tribe of cannibals on an island off Papua New Guinea, all high after munching on some hallucinogenic root vegetable. He also risked life and limb filming the outrageous antics of young people in the UK for a show called Generation Xcess here.