retarius

Is it time to take money out of the banks here? But where to put it, it won't fit in the safe and someone might steal it if I leave it under the mattress or maybe dig a deep hole in the garden, but then small withdrawals become inconvenient ((all that digging).

Looks to me like last week's acquittal of Pita was only to avoid being accused of double standards.

Cheap Charlie, he should have made sure he had the money on his to pay for the overstay. Chizzler.

About the same but somehow bigger. I've lost muscle and added an equal amount of more voluminous fat.

My wife once employed a couple to be maid & gardener/driver for us. They lived on the property. One night the guy got drunk, and the woman pulled a knife on him. He ran into our house and complained to my wife. My wife told me to get out of bed and go to the woman and calm her down....which I did but not without some trepidation. They're no longer with us.

He mightn't have the 800k or 65k a month to get the retirement extension. Or have conscientious objections to agents....who can tell?

Having lived for a long time in Japan first in Osaka and then in Tokyo I have some perspective in the migration issue in the East. When I first lived in Osaka/Kobe in late80s/early90s I would say there was considerably disaffection with non-Japanese migrants and Western foreigners. It was not brutal prejudice but understated petty passive aggression. People wouldn't cooperate with me at work, workers went behind my back, in crowed buses people would not sit down next to me. I came back to live in the mid 2000s but in Tokyo. I found a big change but I'm not sure whether it was down to the change in city or that there had been some change in the decade or so I was away. For sure, I always had a seat by myself on the Metro even if it was standing room only...the Japanese think westerners smell....we smell of rancid milk to them. When the seat next to me was occupied, it was invariably occupied by a nice looking young Tokyoite woman )probably one that liked cheese). But I have to say the stuff with coworkers was almost totally gone and only the most dyed in the wool nationalist would risk my wrath by doing something underhand. People in shops are unfailingly polite to visitors and local alike and apart from local bureaucrats I never had much problem, except with the driving test. The local officials failed to tell me that with a UK license I could get a Japanese license without taking the driving test, and after failing it twice a pal in the office told me. The instructor in the car with you was on both occasions 'uncooperative ion not rude."

Didn't they kill the last panda sent here? Or am I thinking of something else. Why can't they just leave the animals alone. I'm sure this new panda would be happier off with its mates in Bambooland

You can always tell a crappy project when the reason for its proposal keeps on changing.

Let's see how many of them win in their categories.....or has than already been decided?

TBH I haven't flown them since 2008. It was a business class flight from Tokyo and the service was appalling. Never again, Fool me once....

Responsibility doesn't;'t just click on like a light bulb. I think there is an argument to be made for giving similar sentences to young offenders as adults, but younger adults should be kept in institutions where they are not going to be prey for older inmates.

I won't be here during the official festival....I'm off to less stupid climes.

I hate SongKran and all the idiots squirting and throwing water. The first time was a bit of fun, now it is just a giant bore. I guess I am officially a grumpy old man.

Sound like a decent offer. The only Thai I know who works abroad in oil earns 150K a month according to his mother. We works in Malaysia.

I suspect that some of the younger folk who may have to actually fight a war are a bit less keen on it deliberate provocation of another nation. But overall the US remain a nation of warmongers willingly abetted by the 'defence' industry and their countless lobbyists.

The UK is no more than a colony of the US, the US does what it wants in the UK, stationing missiles dozens of bases which all US personnel having immunity to mow down our kids on the roadways as they drive drunk on the wrong side of the road. If you want to be a vassal, this is the treatment you get, never allowed to devote from the US position even on genocides by Israel. The last time a UK politician had balls was in the Vietnam era.....that's been totally squashed since. I feel ashamed actually.

You are correct of course. I was quite left wing in my youth and in my student days. With the identity politics left wingers have forgotten the working classes and I am no longer left wing, but unclassifiable as no party of whichever shade speaks to me.

Excellent post. Thank you. Unlike so many who post here, you really get it don't you? Awake and alive to the barrage of propaganda from western media. A please to meet you sir.

You are entitled to your opinion.....but I don't cheer on genocide like you. And that's being nice.

I am a dual national.

I'm struck by the fact that many people cannot see a parallel between the US backing and funding Israel and Iran backing and funding (?) such groups as those who attacked the US base in Jordan. What did you want Joe Biden to do? Start a war with Iran to prevent them from backing militants? I'd call starting such a war dumb, and when Iran closes down the Straits of Hormuz and oil goes through the roof, chaps like you would be complaining about the price of gas, conveniently forgetting you were a warmonger who wanted Iran to be bombed.

A widening war? I wonder. Short of a large punitive attack on Iran, which would achieve little except the deaths of innocents (real or claimed) and would surely add to the antipathy that Iranians feel for the US, I don't see what actions the US can take without widening the war. There are US bases all over the ME and undoubtedly some are less well defended than others, but with attacks by multiple drones, the odds are with the attackers. The thing is that while a few individuals might suffer death or injury, there are no strategic implications to such attacks. It is not like the Red Sea initiative by the Houthis which is driving up the cost of insurance and causing ships to divert to longer routes. There are no direct or indirect implications of terror strikes on US bases, unless there are some negatives back home in an election year. I'm sure, our friend, Trump will use these strikes to attack Biden.

Moving a few dozen warheads to the UK is militarily insignificant. Russia has 7000 apparently with the US close to that number. Having nukes in the UK doesn't give the US the huge advantage that nukes in Ukraine would have ie only 8 minutes to Moscow. If it takes a missile 20 or 30 minutes to fly from the UK toy Russia (this is a guess) it removes much of the first strike advantage that a firing from Ukraine would have....which of course is why Putin is/was so vehemently against Ukraine in NATO and having a NATO airbase on his border. Does this make the UK more of a target for Russia? I'm surprised that the folk who are still 'left wing' in Britain haven't made more fuss.

I wonder who would buy such photos when there is plenty of stuff available free on the internet. Why would you pay for something inferior when you could get better for free? Presumably the women being upskirted don't know they have been snapped, in which case is I don't know what the fuss is about. If it happened to me when I'm wearing my kilt, I wouldn't care....but I have a thicker skin than most.