Grusa

When an English speaker listens to a non-native English speaker (and even some native speakers) some effort is made to work around mispronunciation, incorrect grammar, incorrect usage, and totally wrong vocabulary. Often non-native speakers are better at this than native. In my experience, many native Thai speakers are quite incapable of making such allowances. One example is that quoted above, shirt and tiger. I once ordered in a restaurant, from the menu, laab moo. The waitress did not understand. I tried to the best of my limited ability all the possible tonal variations of "laab" and "moo" - no flicker of comprehension. So far as I know there is nothing in a restauarant called anything like "laab", other than spicy Isaan chopped meat salad, and "moo" is unlikely to be anything other than pork, although I have been served squid by mistake "mook". Eventually, I pointed to the photographic illiterates menu, "Oh, you want laab moo!". And yes, she was Thai, not a foreign worker. In deepest Bangkok, by the river.

If 10 good people do 10 good things on 10 consecutive days, no-one notices or remembers. If 1 bad person does 1 bad thing on 1 day, it will be remembered forever and held against the good people.

It's not rocket science. The overhead lockers are built to carry a certain load, and not collapse under the aircrafts rated g-limits, probably +4/-2g. Under 4g a 5kg bag weighs 20kg, a 7kg bag weigjs 28kg, and a 13kg bag weighs? Yes, you got it, a whopping 52kg! Now imagine two rows of 3 passengers each, all with overweight bags in the locker overhead, let's say 10 kg each. That's 60kg, under 4g becomes 240kg. The locker is only rated to 6*7kg*4g = 168kg. What happens to the excess 72kg? It breaks the locker, and dumps the contents (240kg!) on someone below. Not all aircraft lockers are equally strong, and I have used the 7kg limit. An A380 may be able to take 23kg, an ATR or a Caravan can not, and possibly budget airlines with denser seating patterns use weaker lockers. There is of course a designed-in safety margin above and beyond the rared limits, but - In a real emergency, the aircraft may well sustain g-loading well over the rated limit. Something will definitely break! I will not bore you to death with the small matters of loading, weight and balance, suffice it to say it is well within the capabilities of overweight, in all senses, passengers and their baggage, to render an aircraft unsafe if rules are ignored.

A plague on all their houses. Guy Fawkes had it right, get rid of all the snout-in-trough politicians, ban party politics, and start afresh. Not just in UK.

Our Thai mid-so lady friend simply pays the security guard 100baht to park in the disabled bays at the main doors of Central. The rest of Thailand double parks anywhere rather than walk 200 feet.

If a). Everyone simply gave up smoking, and B). Governments everywhere banned outright the production, sale, posession and use of tobacco products, There would not be any problem. The diehards would disappear through natural attrition. Look how well it has worked over the years with alcohol, opiates, etc. etc. (Irony) Pity about the tax revenues.