sprq

"It was realised about 10 years ago that we need to invest in rail to reduce transport costs, but governments have been slow," said academic Saksith Chalermpong of the department of civil engineering at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

Funny thing, I realised the whole system needed expanding and modernising the first time I lived in Thailand three decades ago.

This report could also do with clarifying which lines are to be high-speed - the Chinese-built ones as Far as I know - and which are to be normal.

Not a newspaper anyone takes seriously. They desperately need proof readers.

Actually, the more modern and common usage of the word is "proofreaders", not two words, same as what happened with the word "today" which was reduced to a single word over hundreds of years.

Hey, The Nation has a job for you! They'll pay you peanuts, but you'll be very happy cleaning up their English and teaching the local staff arcane pieces of etymology.

Just pondering on why the Nations staff would need to learn about insects ???? ;-)

He's got an 'ology...........

That's entomology. Time you invested in a dictionary, or tried some better jokes, one or the other.

Not a newspaper anyone takes seriously. They desperately need proof readers.

Actually, the more modern and common usage of the word is "proofreaders", not two words, same as what happened with the word "today" which was reduced to a single word over hundreds of years.

Hey, The Nation has a job for you! They'll pay you peanuts, but you'll be very happy cleaning up their English and teaching the local staff arcane pieces of etymology.

The nation fair and non bias as long as you wear a yellow shirt!

If only they reached the standard of editorial balance of a paper like Khaosod, eh ?

I think it's not unreasonable to expect most media here, or in any other country, to have a bias of some sort.

Just a problem of the whole media industry.

But I do wish the sub-editors at 'The Nation' were better, the standard of written English is sometimes lacking, IMO.

Several years ago, when forced to economise, they fired most of their native speaker sub-editors. The English won't improve until the paper makes enough money to pay for hiring enough subs again.

Nice to see the new charges clearly explained for a change. Now Thai PBS needs to learn a bit of spelling. In British English, a meter is the instrument, a metre is the measure. In American English, a meter is both the instrument and the measure. And in every form of English, the plural of taxi is taxis. Are you listening, Thai PBS? I doubt it.

Adjusted or not I'm betting that most of them will still not be used !

what an utter nonsense. Have you ever been to Bangkok in your life ? Of maybe 1000 rides I had there, there were not more than 3 or 4 who refused to switch on the Meter. Easy to get out of the Cab then and hail down the next one.

I do not frequent sites such as lower Sukhumvit after midnight, though

Lived in BKK for 7 years around soi 11 area. And I can only say you are lucky, what i wrote is far from nonsense. They refuse 100s of people unless the meter is off, and this includes the Thais.

You lived in a black spot for this kind of gouging. It usually only happens in particular parts of Bangkok such as tourist hubs and shopping centres.

its about time to replace those many decade old smoky buses poising the bangkok population everyday...

No, I love them, an essential part of the city's ecology -- and there's no corruption with them, just honest-to-goodness antique charm.

What other nations so obsessed? Venezuela for a start.

What a garbled report. I await a proper and precise description of the changes, because what I see here is just nonsensical.

Things are cheap, people are frugal (taking the positive view). I hate the American use of the word "cheap" applied to people; if you want to be negative, use "mean" (British sense) or stingy or tight-fisted or penny-pinching, etc etc.

Remember the LM laws apply to the head of state of all countries.

I'm scared to death. Maybe someone will report me to Brussels, which is the Head of State of the UK, right?

No but if one person reports you to the Thai Police they must investigate. Are you sure you only have friends who read this forum?

The third group is insult against the Head of State of foreign countries or lèse-majesté. Insulting or threatening the King, Queen, Consort, Heir-apparent or Head of State of foreign countries (Section 133), which is an offence against the friendly relations with foreign states, is punishable by 1 to 7 years imprisonment or a fine of 2,000-140,000 baht, or both

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9_in_Thailand

I seem to recall rampant Bush-bashing -- quite right, of course -- by both Thais and foreigners back in those wonderful neo-con days of the early 2000s with nobody getting arrested, so I wouldn't worry too much about this law.

Remember the LM laws apply to the head of state of all countries.

I'm scared to death. Maybe someone will report me to Brussels, which is the Head of State of the UK, right?

I don't detect a brainless UKIP voter, do I?

I find I can do age-ing anywhere. In fact, I'm doing it right now.

Good news, strange vocabulary. What is this Thai obsession with misusing the word "footpath"? The thing in question is what the British call "pavements" and the Americans call "sidewalks", i.e. the paved spaces alongside streets dedicated to pedestrians. A footpath, by contrast, is a walking path or trail which has no connection at all to streets or roads, such as runs through a park, or a forest, or across the countryside, across a campus, etc etc etc. I believe I first heard this misuse in Malaysia and Singapore, so I suppose Thailand got it from the neighbours. I always find it a good policy in life to be wary of the neighbours.

Is it really a monorail, i.e. a single rail line, or is it in fact a conventional railway with double-rail tracks? Does NNT just mean an elevated railway line, like the BTS lines? It would be nice to know.

Isnt the BTS a monorail?

No, it's an elevated railway. A monorail, contrary to what many people think, is a railway running on a single rail (mono = single, geddit?) track. It's usually elevated, but it doesn't have to be. You could have an underground monorail if you wanted.

Nice to see the cocks seeing off the roosters in this thread. To hell with Americanese!

Nice to see the cocks seeing off the roosters in this thread. To hell with Americanese!

Another fools' errand. These people have no idea what it takes to get a World Heritage Site listing, yet off they go, blabbering nonsense to the media. For a start, UNESCO doesn't give WHS status to whole provinces; not knowing that makes the governor look a prize <deleted>. And picking out a few pretty unremarkable places isn't going to impress anyone anyway, even in the rest of Thailand, let alone in the global community which UNESCO represents.

But I suppose when you get down to "Police, soldiers and locals were also trying to ensure that Nan was completely free of prostitution", you know these people are impervious to reason and incapable of any kind of mature thinking.

This is one of those cases where you think the right name for this country is Toyland.

Quote: It said main reasons for the traffic jams on this section of the road were gridlocks where continuous queues of vehicles block an entire network of intersecting roads, construction of subway and sky train projects, railway crossings, and toll gates of the expressway system where vehicles queuing up to pay toll.

No, the main reason is that too many vehicles try to use the roads because there is no adequate public transport, there are parking spaces for them at businesses, shopping centres and entertainment places (not so in central London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, etc, etc), and people want to gain face by driving around.

Solve those and traffic jams will ease rapidly. In other words, there's no hope.

"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled … except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

Eight centuries in place in England: though often violated, it eventually came true. Thailand is still waiting.

Ah, nostalgic! Two decades and more back, banks used to shut down their ATMs every night from 11pm to 6am.

If they have any sense, they'll tax the sugary drinks and leave the rest alone. Some tea drinks, for example, have no sugar.