gregchambers

Half the UK's debt is held by the BOE, it can be written off and does not need tax rises to cover it. Normally excess electronic printing of money would wreck Sterling (as per Gordon Brown when the pound went from 60 to 40 baht almost overnight) but they got away with it because other large countries did the same thing. They do need to move to a balanced budget ASAP and stop QE so that UK does not end up as a third world country with a worthless currency  (pertinent to UK pensions). There is huge bloat in councils and government so no need for new taxes, just get things more efficient but that means - the major problem - getting politicians to accept less power over the populace.

UK figures suggest that the vaccine stops serious illness of current variants but still allows the vaccinated to pass on the virus if infected (hence Merkel trying to quarantine Brits even when vaccinated). As an unknown virus that possibly will have widespread infection in the UK but without serious illness, it will be interesting to see if variants emerge from this widespread dispersion. Also A & E is currently overwhelmed with kids with an excess of illnesses. Long term effects of Covid and vaccines are unknown.

I think Bernard Trink is still alive if not kicking and could surely be persuaded to restart his meanderings in the neon for a small stipend. Sounds like his deleted weekly diatribe seriously pissed off some dark characters who had a word with the new owner who in turn I suspect runs the escort agencies that feature on Stick's site (no proof of that so may be wrong)...  Stick to buy back his site for a cent on the dollar?

If you want to see a bunch of screaming, manic kids go to a shopping mall at the weekend in Manila... much worse than the Thais!

My own son was bought up the Thai Way and at 23 is a fine fellow who basically burns through any money his mother (not my wife fortunately) gets her hands on. She constantly complains about this but I find it hilarious as it is not my money!

thanks for the effort guys, grandson will be happy one day in the future!

Anyone translate this address for me (need for will) and know where I can get the postcode? Thanks in advance.

See attachment

you need to decide where u r going first and then apply to that country's embassy for the visa (after UK visa), need to have hotels and airplanes booked with paperwork (so you might want to find which euro countries are the easiest and go there first), I think u can go to Switzerland on the UK visa, though.

May have been a case of mistaken identity, Thais have problems telling farang apart and often not that concerned as long as they have someone to beat up. On a number of occasions I have been at Nana when some farang has been viciously beaten and am fairly sure it was meant for me! I am sure I am not the only on on the retribution list so fairly easy to be mistaken for someone else I would guess. Mafia thugs are still mired in peasant stupidity and not to be reasoned with, although it is great fun to take the piss out of them.

I seem to recall that at my school only the headmaster could cane kids, a fearsome creature to us kids, and it would have stopped things getting out of hand by frustrated teachers. I don't think the age has anything to do with it, in the UK you have three year olds strutting around full of their human rights who need to learn that every action has a consequence but very often don't. Parents look for schools that are caring and loving when they should be looking for schools that have a high level of discipline.

Visa rules can be changed on a government whim and businesses can be taken over by mafia thugs if you are obviously successful so not sure that either are great reasons to move to Cambodia... ten year ago I thought PP much safer than anywhere in PI but food quite expensive to same standard as Thailand but there were an awful lot of ex-brothel gals in the foreign biased nightclubs who were too dangerous (HIV etc) to play with and now seem be pricing themselves out of the market as per Thais so have not bothered with a new visit yet.

The Cambo government is to be congratulated on the protecting over-50 foreigners from the predatory young ladies of the night, though.

I misread this and thought he had been extradited from Farangland to Thailand and then been beaten in jail. The upside to this kind of story is that it is unlikely western government with extradite to Thailand because the way Thai treat prisoners (human rights) - which given the way Thais make things up is probably just as well,

Thanks for all, probably me mishearing the Tavin as Gavin. Nickname is Tak I guess.

Just realised who is sending me the emails then, Rattana she is using

cheers, that was quick and helpful!

Hi guys, anyone able to translate a couple of Thai names into English as per attachments

One is supposed to be Gavin or Tak, the other Dieppe but can't get them to match when I do english to Thai

I do agree, the woman should suffer more than the man, but the couple of guys I have destroyed who were playing around with my women in the past, sure gave me a nice kick... and I still had the women to amuse me!

Most likely, the Thai guy was around from the beginning and let his woman out to get as much dosh as she could, and the Singaporean guy should be given a round of applause (as should anyone else in a similar situation).

Over the years that I was in Thailand, numerous times when upcountry I heard of rich Bangkok people buying land upcountry that was way above sea level... the city is below sea level with most of the original canals that allowed the water to flow away filled in, it is inevitable that the place will eventually implode and turn to dust - all those skyscrapers are built on poor quality soil that is continually inundated by water and they will fall down one by one. Fantastic energetic city but built on ether, may survive this flood and the next but eventually the whole infrastructure will go bang.

U can probably get away with an extra week or two without any problems next time around. I used to ask for six weeks and get away with twice that for the GF, did it many times without problems. Surprised you actually managed to get a visa for a friend, BTW.

It should be self-limiting. If you have HIV and have unprotected sex you are going to be very vulnerable to any diseases and they will be more difficult to treat successfully, so it should be a quick trip to the mortuary. Obviously, no help to the victims but modern treatments mean it will not ruin their lives, unless they are particularly unlucky.

Oddly both the Soi 6 in Bangkok and in Pattaya are notorious for the high rate of HIV infection and there probably should be some arrangement whereby HIV infected hookers and HIV infected customers can amuse each other, which of course would soon produce some wild strains of the HIV infection that would wipe most of them out.

Two versions of the 135 - if you are into proper motorcycles go for the one with a clutch and gearchange that works the same way as the bigger bikes, saves messing up your head recalling to go the right way through the gearbox. It IS NOT a scooter, BTW, but a step-thru, the big difference being the engine is in the middle of the bike and not on the swinging arm, about ten times safer in tricky conditions due to vastly superior weight distribution, low centre of gravity. I managed to do 50.000 kilometres on the Spark 110, mostly two-up, so if that is anything to go by the 135 Spark should be nicely tough. Scooters are mostly knackered after 20k, their auto transmissions needing frequent servicing. If you must have an automatic, Honda do a step-thru with an automatic gearbox (forget what it is called) which might be the best of both worlds, though it is only a 110cc.

Thailand has been most fortunate to have such a good king for so long. It would be a touch more sensible for the Thai police to give website owners 24 hours to shut down if they have broken this law rather than being put into the Thai legal system but the country is infested with underemployed police so I suppose they have to justify their existence.

The bit about kits being assembled in Brazil does not preclude whole bikes being made in Thailand or even the UK, looks like Triumph are setting up yet another factory in Thailand. Seems to me to be the next step on from the way Honda have perfected the cheap manufacture of their step-thrus and strongly hints at Triumph's belief in the decline of bigger bike sales (why bother otherwise, much more difficult to produce small bikes very cheaply and make a profit starting from ground zero in that sector). It is typical of the way Triumph do things that they are not running to China to subcontract engine production, etc, having initially despaired of the quality of UK engineering and produced a huge amount of stuff themselves. The prices of small Japanese bikes in the UK/Euro a disgrace, let's hope Triumph can do better.

The savings from using common engine parts is probably trivial given the flexibility of modern factories. In the seventies Ducati made an interesting range of thumpers from 250-450cc, using a common bottom end. They were notable for economy (90-100mpg) and vibration. Euroland has a 33hp limit for learning so that would be one area Triumph would aim at. I think it was noted that Triumph have a Brazilian factory not that the bike would solely be assembled there. Makes sense to make it wherever they get the best deal on tax-free zones and exchange rates and design it in such a way that limits personal exports back to the UK/Euro where small machines are normally priced at exorbitant levels (compulsory rider insurance is one area that limits individual imports, trying to insure a CBR150 rather than CBR125 would cost a lot more, for instance). Given that most western countries are in decline and fun vehicles like motorcycles will be the first to be hit, a much more practical 250/350 thumper might well save Triumph from future fiscal disintegration a decade down the line.

Well, for all its problems Thailand does seem to work okay, without the excessive and intrusive laws that our Western leaders deem necessary to justify their existence

Actually, to be serious, 100 baht a day is more than enough to cover food and essentials in Isarn. It is vitally important that there is not any kind of surplus to fund the Thia boyfriend etc. Schools and hospitals are almost free for Thai citizens so maybe 10,000 baht on the birthday as a bonus would be about right. A complete waste of time paying more as it will all be raked off by the family/boyfriend.

A lot of farang on here get hysterical because they have been ruined by Western women and taken to the cleaners, and can't take it that some guys in the West have children with Thais and don't get done over.

Having said that, I would put all the money you don't send but could afford to send in a savings account for the child and given it to them when you think they can handle it without getting ripped off by their Thai family (18 or 21?)

This is what I have done for my kids and now that they can think for themselves they are not complaining!