Tarragona

The Universiade (University Olympics) is being held in Thailand this year. It will take place in August and I know some universities will be shifting the October break to August to coincide with the games.

The reporting has been a little inconsistant as well. First they were found laying on the beach, then they were slumped over, finally the photo's show them laying back in the chairs.

Well, they probably moved around a bit.

Second penalty was clearly a penalty - there was contact.

The first one, Gerrard overdid the fall, was planning to do it, but the defender made it so so easy for him. The ref had warned him and was watching and he still held on. From the Grauniad report

"Replays suggested the intent was minimal as well as the contact and that Gerrard had used his experience to outwit a naive defender."

Using the example from Meadish, I've always thought of นี้ as equivalent to the English adjective 'this' e.g. 'this house'; นี่ is the pronoun 'this' e.g. 'This isn't right'.

I went to the consular section one afternoon a couple of weeks ago. It was so crowded up there that they suggested people went to sit downstairs. There was plenty of space down there with about 10 visa applicants waiting for their interviews.

Actually the atmosphere, while not exactly relaxed, did seem lighter than when the HABs were all hanging around in the past. Some girls were chatting and it probably helps to talk to others you feel are in the same boat. Some of the guys I saw in the past probably caused the girls a lot more stress than the interview.

Check first.

My impression is that you have to go to the Amphur office where your partner is registered.

Not necessary, they can do it anywhere (if they want to).

A bit slow loading but I got there with Firefox.

For a Thai, income tax is paid twice a year (I presume its the same for foreigners).

Where I work, Thais and foreigners have tax withheld every month and file a tax return annually.

I've been bidding for a nice pair of classic trainees on ebay. A colleague reckons if they're shipped here Thai customs will hold them until I pay duty on them. Is that right?

I am glad it's not just me! I have been reading the post for many, many years and I remember in the 1992 coup, when they had a big blank in the front page because it had been censored--rather than fill it with something else, they let the world know what was going on by printing a blank.

Though even then I think that The Nation went ahead and printed their stories anyway, defying the censors. My memory's a bit hazy but I seem to recall people feeling that the Post had 'chickened out' by comparison.

Why wouldn't it? (Assuming you're in a reasonable location).

The delivery guy might call you if you're difficult to find.

I've always used 'instructor' to mean someone who 'teaches' groups of people outside a school or university environment, for example apprentices or trainees learning a new IT system.

Yes, it seems something more 'practical' to me, sports also, but I've found it's used more widely in academic contexts in Thailand.

I've never understood that the extension counts as reporting and never started a count from that point. Just follow the date on the slip and you will be OK.

It is a bit odd.

I know at least a couple of the Thai newspapers bring out tomorrow's edition today. They used to be 'early' editions that appeared in the afternoon, but for quite a while now I've been reading Monday's Thai Rath on a Sunday while I'm waiting for my kid's art class to finish.

From The Guardian

From meatpackers to Globetrotters - Anfield can expect a fun ride from Gillett

Fall and rise of Liverpool's prospective new owner is built on flair for marketing

In September 2005 Glenn Wildenmann, a Montreal Canadiens fan, took his two daughters to watch his beloved ice hockey team in a pre-season training session. A photographer from the local paper took their picture and Wildenmann remarked to the journalist that this was now the only time a father of four could possibly afford to take his kids to see the side. The following day the club's owner, George N Gillett Jr, read the piece and phoned Wildenmann to invite him and the children to watch a National Hockey League game in the owner's private box once the season began.

Article continues

If Gillett's six years as owner of the Canadiens are anything to go by, Liverpool fans may be in for interesting times, because by early next week Gillett, and his partner on this venture, Tom Hicks - the owner of baseball's Texas Rangers - should be the new owners at Anfield.

After initial misgivings by Montrealers about an American purchasing Canada's oldest, most successful and revered club - their jersey is known as La Sainte-Flanelle, the Holy Sweater - Gillett has proved to be a hands-on owner of Les Habitants in the best possible way. Even though he lives a couple of thousand miles away in Denver he often travels on the team bus to games, has been known to phone fans back to answer their complaints and has thanked supporters personally at away matches for going the extra mile.

"There was concern around the city over having an owner not from Canada buying the team," said Matthew Macaskill, a contributor to Habsworld, a Canadiens online fanzine. "However, he quickly proved he was dedicated and expressed his willingness to do what he could to help the team, partly in the form of more money to go after more expensive free agents. Since the NHL has installed a salary cap, Mr Gillett is limited in his ability to help out economically. The cap hasn't completely limited him, though, as the club has the funds to spend up to the maximum amount thanks to him while other teams in the league have to work with a lower budget."

Given that any purchase of Liverpool would involve significant borrowing, the worrisome aspect for the Anfield faithful is that Gillett has a history of over-reaching himself. After an ill-fated $325m investment in a Florida television station, a transaction so unwise it was held up by the highly influential American investor Warren Buffet as an example of what he called "debt mania", Gillett Holdings Inc defaulted on $983m of junk bonds in 1991. A year later he filed for personal bankruptcy, with assets of $18.4m dwarfed by liabilities of $66.2m. As part of that settlement he paid off one creditor by giving him his antique car collection worth an estimated $5m and had to buy his clothes back from the trustee.

"My mistake," said Gillett in 1999, "was borrowing a tremendous amount of money that I could not pay back."

His fall from grace had been as spectacular as his rise. The son of a surgeon in Racine, Wisconsin, he was warned at the age of 18 that he would have to fend for himself - his father would be leaving his money to his daughters. Out of college, he started selling paper for Crown-Zellerbach before moving into marketing and consulting. At the age of 28 he owned a minority stake in the Miami Dolphins but left after a year to buy the Harlem Globetrotters. To revive that waning franchise he had the ingenious idea of getting Hanna-Barbera to produce an eponymous cartoon series which in the early 1970s helped acquaint a new generation with the antics of the basketball team.

From there, Gillett moved into the meatpacking, media and ski-resort industries. At every stop he's been praised more for his brilliant marketing (children's tickets to Canadiens games are an NHL-low C$10) than his canny management skills. In a typically American fable, the father of four boys returned from insolvency bigger and better than ever. Having failed several times to purchase NBA and NHL teams, he was finally allowed to pay $183m for Montreal in 2001 after no Canadian buyer could be found.

Gillett's compatriot, Thomas O Hicks, is in his 10th season as the owner and chairman of the Texas Rangers. Hicks, 61, is the chairman and chief executive of Hicks Holdings, a holding company for sport, real estate, manufacturing and technology assets and investments, which includes the ice hockey team the Dallas Stars.

"The businesses I've been in for the most part have been absolutely wonderful and enjoyable," Gillett once said. "We were able to put smiles on people's faces." Liverpool fans will take note.

The Independent can reveal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_N._Gillett_Jr.

I got stopped once and the officer was after 200 baht. I knew I had nothing smaller than a 500 note in my wallet so I wasn't going to open that. I had a couple of 20s in a pocket and we scrabbled around in the door pockets and glove compartment for coins until the guy said something to the effect of "Just gimme that" and went away with, I think, a grand total of 63 baht, a lot of it in small coins.

I was talking about this with some university students today and asked them if they thought a ban of some kind would be in order.

"Yes" they answered with one voice - "the ref deserves a ban"

A murder six and a half years ago? Sorry to say, but for a miracle, the trail will have gone cold. Even in the UK if they can't get some positive clues or info at the time it is highly unlikely they'll do so years afterwards. I hope I'm wrong and they catch the murderer but I don't see any conviction looming.

If I remember rightly, I think they got clues and info - but it may lead somewhere the Thai police don't want to go?

The penalty decision looked harsh but of course none of the Thai players or management can have had a look at a replay before having their sulk. And from the TV shots I've seen, it's not impossible the Thai player pulled the Singapore man down with him as he fell.

Even so, the ref's decision is final. You can complain about it afterwards but the Thai reaction here was pathetic.

It is not at all uncommon for people to be bilingual or multilingual. It generally just comes as a surprise to those of us who are native English speakers.

There are many Isaan people, especially in the lower Isaan border regions that have different dialects. It's not a question of Khmer people having moved there recently. The spread of people and languages goes way back historically. Movements were often forced as victors in war moved whole communities back with them. An Isaan native who says they speak Lao and Cambodian might use dialects that are different from any that can actually be found in Laos or Cambodia.

There used to be a young lad who delivered food from the local foodshop who was either from Ubon or Srisaket. His primary dialect was Suay (not sure if that is a Khmer dialect?) from home and village, but he was also comfortable with an Isaan Lao/Thai dialect (however you would like to describe it), from the village and surrounding areas, and was most awkward in mainstream Thai.

I'm still not getting any...

... I feel left out.

It's not happening to me. I'm using Firefox.

It could be adware.

All during the 70s the military retained power under Prem with a constant war on communist insurgents. Today, many people believe that 95% of the battle was mostly fabricated and unneccessary

That's interesting. Got any pointers as to where to read up on that, English or Thai.

If you knew the domain hadn't been renewed, couldn't you have mentioned it to her first?

Maybe that's what you have to do - apologize to her for your error and mumble something about not having had a chance to mention it to her. Hopefully she'll see what a nice chap you are.