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I wish I could say the same for the steel band clamps. I tried them first, and stripped more than I put on. Go with the wire clamps, and do it right the first time!
I didn't figure that there was much of a differnce between hose clamps. I used both - steel band clamps and wire band clamps- with my ribbed hose for dust collection. The wire band clamps were easier to put on, held better, seated well, and stayed on.
3 inch diameter Wire hose clamps are used to connect piping to dust hoods, blast gates and fittings
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Robin Newbold

As well, the humorous, keen observations and a fast-paced story make this a compelling read that resonates long after reaching the climax.
Whew! VACUUM PACKED is one hell of a disturbing read, and that works both for and against the book. Newbold?s interlocking stories of two gay, London residents, in their early twenties, struggling through the stark and ugly final years of the twentieth century, are on one hand morbidly captivating, while on the other, horrendously depressing. If you?re looking for a light entertaining distraction, then, by all means, pass on this novel, but if you are fascinated by the seamy under-belly of a drug-addled, sex-obsessed gay sub-culture, where chemically induced satisfaction and indiscriminate sex are the behavior-patterns du jour, then this is most definitely a book for you.

As our tale unfolds, Jamie and Craig have split-up. Jamie, self-absorbed and cynical, is enraged by Craig?s confession of his HIV positive status. When Craig needs him most, Jamie walks defiantly away, leaving Craig to ponder his uncertain future alone. For Jamie it is just one more let-down in a life full of disappointments.

Jamie yearns to be hip and magazine-cool but, try as he may he never really finds the formula for this kind of superficial, hedonistic success. While he is cute and buff, there is always someone hotter around to spoil his ego-trip. He can?t live up to the socio-economic standard he has set for himself. For Jamie, it is easier to get lost in a haze of drugs and alcohol than to face this bitter reality.

Craig is hurt and horribly disillusioned. He desires nothing more than to escape his suffocating existence while he still can. Craig wants to travel to the distant corners of the globe where he can forget his immediate problems. He too refuses to face the realities of his life. The last thing he wants to deal with is his HIV diagnosis and all of its ramifications. With the financial help of his supportive mother and step-father, Craig takes a leave-of-absence from his nursing job, and boards a plane for Bangkok.

Jamie, stuck in frigid London, loses his insignificant job in a trendy club, and, as a last resort, contacts a gay-porn director who has taken a fancy to him, and offered him some ?film work?. While he never, in his wildest dreams, imagined himself "doing it" on screen, the money does help to pay the rent and feed his drug and alcohol habit; a habit that allows him to emotionally distance himself from this questionable choice of occupation. A vicious circle if you will. Jamie also mooches-off his guilt-ridden and physically abused mother, both resenting and pitying her as he squeezes her heart and purse-strings for yet another wad of cash. Jamie is barreling full-throttle down a highway of self-destruction, and he knows it, but he is unable and unwilling to make an exit.

Meanwhile, Craig, intent on experiencing Thailand?s notorious gay life, takes up residence in the Malaysia Hotel, a well-known establishment catering to the European and American sex-tourist trade. Craig quickly immerses himself in the red-light, anything-for-a-price culture of the teaming tropical city. Eye-candy is everywhere, and every piece can be bought. Craig has landed smack dab in the middle of a crude and lust-filled sweet-shop, and while he initially gorges himself, it isn?t long before his conscience develops a tummy ache.

This is a well written, gut-wrenching novel. The descriptive details are remarkable, and the situations, uncomfortably riveting, but the overall effect is gloomy and demoralizing, leaving a sour taste on the tongue. There is nothing to be hopeful for in Jamie?s world, except for an evening?s sexual possibilities, and a line of blow. What little light shines on Craig?s existence is half-hearted at best. The text doesn?t vary from this incredibly depressing format. The reader is never allowed to forget that life for these two holds very little promise. This inordinately bleak attitude, unfortunately, causes one to lose all empathy for the two main characters, and forces one to stay detached, rather than getting emotionally involved; as if watching a train wreck from a safe distance. It is hard to pull your eyes away from the ensuing tragedy, yet you are disgusted and saddened by what you see. This is gritty, thought-provoking stuff for those who have the stomach for it.
Vacuum-Packed portrays two British men in their very early 20s. Jamie and Craig have been lovers but when Craig tests HIV positive, shallow Jamie, who's only out to search for his own pleasures, if not necessarily happiness, tosses him away. Craig decides to holiday in Thailand, while Jamie pursues his movie career, which turns into a nightmarish trip to Spain with an abusive porn producer. Craig, on the other hand, finds numerous temptations in Thailand, seemingly fleeing from Bangkok to Koh Samui and back, only to realise that he won't find what he's been looking for - whatever it might be.

In an honest depiction of gay lives, Newbold manages to describe the shallowness of the gay scene. The all-pervading egocentricity of young (and not-so-young) men, who are stuck in a permanent loop of physicality, a world where everything and everybody becomes a mere commodity, is described with vivacity.

The lonely, dispassionate gay scenes of London and Bangkok destroy these character's lives and turn them into emotional zombies who are unable to grasp anything besides stilling their hunger for sex and a certain glimpse of the hope that everything will turn out for the better. However, Newbold is relentless: there is no salvation for any of them. The almost complete depersonalisation follows in the satirical tradition of Bret Easton Ellis and Michel Houellebecq.

Bangkok chaos is described with the fine eye of the observer; sex tourism and the commercialisation of sex is a fact of Thailand's socio-biography still largely disregarded, most of all by expatriates and travel companies. Newbold not only depicts sex tourism but also tries to find explanations for the rampant sex trade, and he finds it in the economic gap between Caucasians and Thais. Nevertheless, Newbold neither preaches nor condemns this - he is a remorseless portraitist.

This novel is the first truthful description of Bangkok's gay scene, without the rose-tinted glasses. In a mixture of graphic, honest scenes and outrageous, shocking tales, Newbold has created an amazing debut novel: you'll be annoyed, dazed, appalled but also intrigued.
Given the mountain of expat novels that paint Thailand as exotic sex paradise, you'd think Bangkok's throbbing gay subculture would figure in at least some of them.

But other than Peter Jackson's The Intrinsic Quality of Skin (Floating Lotus, 1994), an oddly baroque tale of a gay Australian who thinks he's a Thai man trapped in a white man's body, there's been nothing until this small press offering from Robin Newbold.

The two principle characters are: Jamie, a vacuous disco bunny with the attention span of a squirrel; and, Craig, the lover he dumps after discovering he?s HIV-positive. What can one learn from the self-absorbed musings of such post-literate, designer drug-popping slackers?

A fair bit, it turns out. Newbold, who has obviously read his P.P. Hartnett and Bret Easton Ellis, describes the emptiness of pop culture and the wreckage of lost young lives with a world-weary cynicism that can sting with its bite:

"According to Attitude if someone held your stare for over twelve seconds it meant they wanted you and Jamie calculated the guy had held his gaze for at least fifteen seconds last visit. He normally relied on such pop psychology as gospel and certainly hoped it was true as he was desperate for some 'boy on boy action', as it was so charmingly termed in the pink press."

In alternating chapters, we get the story of Craig, who travels to Thailand to rediscover the meaning of life post-diagnosis, and Jamie, who stays in London to seek fame and fortune as a pop star while avoiding his homophobic father and abused mother.

When the book begins, the young men are social equals. But as their stories progress, Jamie and Craig assume opposite roles in the same exploitation dynamic: Craig, as white tourist patron of handsome young Thai boys, and Jamie, as submissive boytoy of the creepy older English men, including a porn producer, who use him. One world, indeed.

The Thai chapters follow Craig's wanderings through Bangkok and the surrounding area. The sex scenes are well drawn, reflecting the disappointment of hurried, emotionless commercial transaction. While everyone's guilty of bad behaviour, the Western characters are singled out for well-deserved skewering. Like the American who keeps a harem of teenaged Thai freelancers at his hotel:

"Craig was confronted with several badly dressed, skinny boys shivering in the icy air-conditioned room. They looked so timid and out of place with the bold and extravagant furnishings and fittings. The huddle nervously slurped beer and tried to blend into the background, their chatter obliterated by MTV?"

Vacuum-Packed is not without flaws. Jamie and Craig's relationship is treated as a mere detail; a little more plot reference to their time together might have added layers of depth. A misspelling or two ("hoards" instead of "hordes" for crowds) escaped the editor?s notice, and Newbold"s fondness for adverbs occasionally grates.

But these are minor quibbles in a first novel that reveals a surprisingly confident voice and an instinct for good storytelling - a fact that bodes well for a second novel.
Two Worlds In the closing decade of the twentieth century, Craig is an HIV-positive young man seeking meaning through escape, traveling from London to Bangkok, discovering that "The Land of Smiles" is one in distress. Meanwhile Jamie, Craig's ex, immerses himself in London's club scene, trying to hide from the realities of his disintegrating life and a family that is too wrapped up in its own troubles to care what happens to him. In this tale of desperation, damnation and redemption, we discover that sometimes to be human means simply to be.

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