rickudon

I find it ironic that when at school in the UK all our books were supplied free, by the school and collected up and reissued to the next year, while in Thailand you pay and throw away..... Oldest book i was issued was an atlas in the 1960's which was printed 30 years earlier - many countries had changed their names and borders since it was printed!

Should have thrown the book at them. All PAD members and protesters should have been prosecuted. I was stuck at the airport, and ended up having to sleep on the floor for one night and then spent over a week stuck in Thailand. My employer also didn't pay me for the time lost. Where's my compensation?

Sorry i hit a raw nerve on Porsche's, JB. I do find your posts on EVs, solar power and self sufficiency very interesting and educational. You have aspired and achieved what i just dream about. I am about 1% along on that journey and will never get even half way (not enough money and life expectancy left).

The article is pretty close to crap. Earths rotational speed only changes by about 2 milliseconds per century..... it does fluctuate, and did speed up a little bit, but is back to normal currently. https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-days-are-suddenly-increasing-in-length-mystifying-scientists And even that headline is not really accurate (read the article)

According to the video, nearly every Porsche of his model has suffered heater failure, and there is a 3 month plus waiting list to fix. Not what you expect from a 120,000 GBP car, and it has lost 2/3 of its retail value in 3 years. hardly seems to make it a good buy.... I am not anti EV, and will probably buy one when my current Nissan March expires (assuming I last longer than it does!) But not a Porsche.

The youtube video of the chap with the Porsche taught me - 1. Porsche electric cars are crap. 2. A new battery for one costs more than most electric cars (i.e. overpriced). Other electric cars are not necessarily so bad. Also, electric cars sales in the UK dipped over the last 2 years as electricity prices shot up (Ukraine war); to charge a car at a charging station was costing more than filling up an ICE. Electricity prices are now falling so probably cheaper to run an electric car again.

Golden eels are not that rare. We have had 2 in the last 10 years as pets/lottery diviners!

The main problem with lockdowns is they were all started too late. The aim of a lockdown should be to stop the disease spreading rapidly, but little point when there are multiple cases everywhere. Having said that, whenever lockdowns started, infection rates soon began to fall. Also, hard to provide adequate health services when bodies are piling up in hospital corridors. Early, targeted lockdowns would have slowed the spread and allowed area with few or no cases to operate normally. I saw what was happening in China and took precautions in January 2020. Air travel was to blame for the spread of Covid world wide in the first couple of months in 2020; countries like the UK carried on as if nothing was happening, then panicked (blame the government). Eventually, nearly everybody caught Covid, but those who caught it later had the advantages of vaccination and less severe strains. In 2020, the death rate was around 1%, without any lockdowns or other restrictions, the global death toll would have probably exceeded 10 million in that year alone. The first step in all outbreaks of serious disease is quarantine, that has been the case for hundreds of years. Prevention before cure. Forcing all businesses to close was perhaps to Draconian, but efforts to decrease human to human direct interactions should have been heavily promoted.

Not underground, but on the main road near us in Udon Thani, they have recently replaced the power poles with much thicker and taller ones and substantially thicker wires, so overloaded trucks can no longer snag the wires.... Also probably a substantial increase in capacity. Got to charge those electric cars....

The one kg Horeca cheddar blocks are quite acceptable, and better than the mild cheddar sold in UK supermarkets. Also similar in price to the UK. Do miss a bit of Wensleydale or Lancashire for a change, but costs 3 times as much as the cheddar. My daughter here in Thailand likes cheddar, adds it to here noodles.....

I have a friend who retired to Thailand at 60, from the UK. Unfortunately he didn't have a company pension, only a personal pension (which usually totally fail to live up to their 'projected' payouts; my ex-wife paid into one for 15 years, and ended up with a pension of 650 GBP a year....). He had to draw down until his state pension kicked in, UK state pension isn't generous, and that is frozen while in Thailand. He reckons he has about 5 years left before the personal pension runs out, he is only 71.

Just because scientists do not fully understand why ocean temperatures have been at record highs for the last year, doesn't mean that human caused climate change isn't happening. Weather, climate. vulcanism and many other factors are all subject to chaos - the results you get all come down to probability, and not the same every time. But trends do tell you where things are going. The climatic changes now happening are having hard to predict outcomes, like rain in winter in the Arctic - this has a catastrophic effect on the snowpack, stopping grazing animals reach plants beneath the ice which then forms, and changing albedo (causing more warming). Caribou herds are rapidly shrinking, some by more than 90%. And this is just the start. Sit back and do nothing, and yes, the global civilisation will start to break down. Mass extinction? To hard to predict, but could happen. Or, we can try to undo some of what we have done. But little hope of that, going by so many of the dolts on here....

Of course it has been compromised. Udon thani general hospital had all its patient records locked by cyber criminals for months (maybe still are, i will find out next week). They couldn't afford to pay the ransom demand.

94,000 users a year. How is that going to be economic, equals about one flight a day!

William and Kate are so anodyne that most younger people in the UK couldn't care less whether they became king and Queen or not. As for King Charles, yes he has strong opinions, but he cares about the UK and the commonwealth. If he refused to agree to some stupid new law, good for him, current government are a load of idiots.

Interesting map, the area with the least fires is NE Thailand. Isaan is showing the way!

She doesn't pay VAT. Her annual turnover is under one million.

Scuba, The Mastercard exchange rate may be 0.5 baht lower than Wise, but Wise also has a fee .... that usually cancels out the difference. Clarity doesn't add any on top (but you will be charged interest if you do not immediately pay it off). The 3 Krungsri branches i have used for counter withdrawals in Udon Thani do not charge a fee. I once tried Siam, and they ripped me off. Hopefully Krungsri branches everywhere are the same, but, TIT (just had to get that in !)

When i first came to live in Thailand, every night sleep was disrupted by dogs barking in the street. If i had a gun, i might have used it. One night, i heard a gunshot. we got about a week of peace after that. Even Thai's patience snaps. Eventually one dog returned, limping. But they were a bit subdued after that. On average we would see one dog/bike attack about once a week. Eventually a woman was injured when she fell off; the Puijai baan then ordered all dogs to be locked up at night. Now barking is about 25% of what it used to be. Still get dogs around in the day and too many bins ransacked.

started statins in late 2021, first foot problems May 2023. In April 2023 was in UK and no problems then, lots of walking.

Halifax Clarity card is 0% commission, but as the payment is processed by Mastercard, their will be the Mastercard exchange rate fee. I used my card on Monday, and the pending rate was 45.1xxx. Sure they company that took the credit card payment didn't do dynamic conversion to GBP for you? Whenever i check Wise rates, once you take into account their exchange rate and fees, Clarity nearly always cheaper. Cash withdrawals - at Krungsri, i do a counter withdrawal and avoid the ATM fee.

My wife runs a shop. She has to pay for various licences, or opt to do accounts and pay VAT. She pays for the licences ( at least one of which is self declared turn over related). She obviously chooses the cheapest level. Their are no real accounts, most is cash purchases. She doesn't even know how much profit she makes! She isn't registered for income tax; but i doubt if she makes much more than 10,000 baht a month profit.

A year ago in Udon Thani an electric car was still a novelty. Now, doing the morning school run i will see some every day.

A question about frequency of taking Atorvastatin. I am on 10 mg per day, but hospital can only provide 40mg tabs. They say cut into 4, but this is difficult to do, cutting into 2 is easy though. Rather than every day, can i take 20 mg every other day? I could buy different size tabs from a pharmacy, but the 40mg tabs are really cheap from the government hospital (less than half the price). I am also beginning to experience some problems with my feet. Seems to affect my metatarsals, feel dislocated in the mornings, then gets better after walking a bit, but get pains if you walk a lot.....

I live in Udon Thani. I like the parks. We have 3 urban parks, and all are infinitely better than most in the UK. Many years ago UK parks were OK, but 30 years of cost cutting has left many parks with no permanent staff, just a contractor with a mowing machine. The only things there are grass and a few trees. On my very first day in Udon, i walked through a park, and fell in love.... Other attractions - Chinese temple, Sino-Thai friendship centre, both free to visit. UDtown, also very attractive water features and vegetation, and at Halloween, Xmas, Chinese new year also have some nice displays for the kids. Rural areas just a few kilometres from the centre. Could do with a few big hills though, rather flat.