sandrabbit

madmitch, on 20 Nov 2015 - 08:19, said:

thailand49, on 20 Nov 2015 - 07:56, said:

Although, only 35 baht, add that to the millions of passengers we are talking about lots of Baht. When I purchase a ticket departing from Thailand the taxes are already 50% of the ticket price.

Just be grateful the taxes aren't similar to the UK.

You're right, I had enough air miles to do a business class return Bangkok to Cardiff with KLM and it cost me £450 which is almost a quarter of the ticket price.

^{I recommend you buy the dog you want, I have been told by a vet in the UK that there is a reason why dogs get dumped and he always told myself and the ex not to take rescue dogs. My wife ignored his advice once and I nearly had my face ripped off by a schizophrenic golden cocker spaniel, be very careful buying cockers as they bred them to make the heads smaller but not the brains and plain coloured ones are prone to going nuts. Here in Thailand we have 2 golden retriever bitches, 3 months old and just over a year old, and these are normally the most recommended breed for families but they can suffer in the heat but we live 700m from the beach and also put a big plastic bath in the garden for them. We opted for bitches as we didn't want our dogs to get involved in the top dog stakes as the alpha dog lives across the road from us and also dogs will scent your garden.}

^{As far as the snakes go I think you will find the mynah birds a better deterrent as they make a hell of a noise and chase the snake around the garden and we even had the sparrows helping to chase a 2m long rat snake away although some locals came and killed it as they wanted to eat it.}

Probably the guy was hoping for the airline to deliver the bags to him expecting them to bypass customs...

Aah - you may well have hit the nail on the head there - sad thing if true; if he investigated the rules he would find that when your bags are found you have to pick them up in person - this happened to a friend of mine a week or two back.

But I go along with your theory as nothing else makes much sense

My bags have been bumped and the airline brought them to me..

Had my bags delivered many times from swampy to Rayong, usually turn up the next day with no problems.

Hifx.co.uk a currency exchange company. I have never sent baht with them but all the times I have used them with other currencies a better rate could not be had. With the amount you are sending there should not be any charges. You can do it all on line. Just not sure if it will get here in time now, normally it would but can't remember if the weekend adds any delay. Register an account and they will give you a quote.

This is the only way I send money to Thailand, have sent more than £250K with them and no problems with one of the best rates. Takes 3 days now though, was 5 until recently.

I've just remembered something, if any of you have sheds with a metallic roof (ie galve sheets) and the walls of the shed are insulators then it's not a safe place to be even without a direct lightning strike. I read about this in the 70's, if you are close to a thunderstorm the air gets charged and the shed acts like a capacitor and if discharges the charge will go through you to ground. I see so many Thai homes with tin sheet roofs and it makes me nervous.

SoiBiker, on 14 Nov 2015 - 21:45, said:

I find that living in a low rise surrounded by tall buildings is the best protection.

you need to see some documentaries on lightning, it does some very strange things like going round in circles and even making 90deg direction changes.

I love the blame culture, why work for a living when you can be a victim. Clarkson was way out of order but this <deleted> is now suing, my understanding was he accepted the BBC's handling of the incident and it was closed. He's gonna have to <deleted> back to the emerald isle as he will be a target now and his picture is everywhere, if he didn't want the police involved at the time he shouldn't be allowed to sue. some ambulance chasing legal worker has got to him.

Beats56, on 14 Nov 2015 - 21:07, said:

Surge protection will not help with a lighting strike...too much voltage. I know because I lost a satellite reciver and a audio video reciver when my dish got hit in Canada. Was told they are useless with lighting. Best to just unplug electronics when a electrical storm is in the area.

you are correct, a direct lightning strike can put thousands of amps through your equipment or at least try to till it basically evaporates breaking the electrical connection. all this talk of galvanic isolation, ie a transformer, will not work because the high voltages involved with a direct lightning strike will just break down any insulation involved. the clock displays on my microwave and oven are damaged due to spikes on the line which these devices will prevent, I think I'm going to install a few constant voltage transformers and for the more delicate equipment ups's. you can't protect 100% against direct lightning strikes as the supply cables are hanging in mid air, if you have devices like ups's then maybe they will die to protect your equipment but unlikely, I'm from heavy steel industry industrial electronics and the joke is that the equipment dies to protect your fuses ............

Samet has some nice quiet beaches and snorkeling and such Not sure about night life

Samet can be bouncing, see the new year in on Sae Kaew beach at Ploy resort. Silver Sands has a good night club but don't go there during full moon if you're homophobic and it also has the best burger bar in Rayong.

I agree about overheating, when I first moved to Thailand I had problems with a UK spec acer laptop which had a gaming graphics card and that suffered with overheating until eventually the graphics card wouldn't work at the native resolution and would only boot into safe mode. The replacement Acer bought in Thailand runs hot but not enough to cause damage.

apocalypse?

there is a precedent to this, they did ally themselves to remove the Nazis...............

You are absolutely right abut the pronounciation. Native English speakers who do not speak a second language are oblivous to this issue.

My understanding is that English is two thirds a Latin language (Latin/French) and one third Germanic with smatterings of other languages due to the effects of colonisation. The Latin influence is from the Norman conquest of 1066 and I would also add that that English is not precise as we have no accents or additional letters like German in the written language to show how to pronounce words when reading so you have to learn by rote how to pronounce certain words. Take for example lead & lead - (leed & led), wallet & ballet is another good example. I'm Welsh so even though I come from a non Welsh speaking area there are a lot of Welsh words mixed in with our language and a similar thing occurs in the NE of England with Scandinavian influence due to the Viking invasion.

I'm sure the 1000+ Spaniards (of the 1588 Spanish Armada catastrophe) who washed ashore, and remained in Fastnet region of Ireland (Black Irish) and England, certainly made a significant Spanish language impact upon that region, as well. Moving progressively along.

I lived, and worked in both Germany and Denmark for a number of years. I managed to obtain a working proficiency level of both languages (despite the fact that many of my native, indigenous colleagues, actually spoke better English than myself). In an effort to not become overly verbose, regarding the off-topic minute historical details, English is considered to be, and remains a fundamentally Teutonic based language (according to the Anglo/Saxon natives, themselves), despite the 1066 Norman invasion.

Thus, the quite specific ethnic designation of the White_Anglo_Saxon_Protestant demographic. The Romance Languages based Catholicism, is not withstanding, within that particular reality. A totally different OP topic of debate!

Cheers

You're not averse to emphasising words are you, it just makes your words look jumbled?. WASP is not used in the UK it is an American expression and it is still 2/3rds Latin and it is not a minute detail no matter how many times you underline, make bold etc. You are the one Americanising UK English. As far the Angle heritage goes it is almost extinct in the UK, the British people are predominantly Saxon even amongst the so called Celtic nations although there are a lot of Norman descent amongst the Irish. I always remember an Irish colleague getting quite mad when an Englishman explained that his surname Burke was Norman not Irish.

My understanding is that English is two thirds a Latin language (Latin/French) and one third Germanic with smatterings of other languages due to the effects of colonisation. The Latin influence is from the Norman conquest of 1066 and I would also add that that English is not precise as we have no accents or additional letters like German in the written language to show how to pronounce words when reading so you have to learn by rote how to pronounce certain words. Take for example lead & lead - (leed & led), wallet & ballet is another good example. I'm Welsh so even though I come from a non Welsh speaking area there are a lot of Welsh words mixed in with our language and a similar thing occurs in the NE of England with Scandinavian influence due to the Viking invasion.

you just need to see the convoys of tour buses here in Rayong overtaking everything and hogging the outside lane bullying most vehicles on the road sometimes with a traffic police vehicle riding shotgun for them.

zaphod reborn, on 28 Oct 2015 - 16:53, said:zaphod reborn, on 28 Oct 2015 - 16:53, said:

It's amazing how many manufacturing warehouses go up in flames due to electrical shorts in Thailand. I realize that the electrical work is as shoddy as it gets, but you would think that the insurers, and all of these fires result in insurance claims, would finally catch on and insert a special requirement for Thailand that there has to be a qualified electrical inspection of the warehouse prior to the policy binder being issued.

They are cathode ray tubes, I worked for SONY in the 80's manufacturing them. They don't catch fire, the polystyrene holding them will but it burns very quickly. They are very hard to recycle as the glass is leaded, to stop you being hit by x-rays so it is very specialist recycling because if you just melt it you get lead fumes . The front panel, the bit you look at is at least 20mm thick and full of lead to stop you being x rayed. A high voltage in a vacuum, above 25KV (25,000) volts starts giving off x-rays and the later large screen high brightness tubes would have an anode voltage in excess or around 45KV so they were similar to low powered industrial x-ray machines I had worked on previously in the steel industry. Also the front panel is full of phosphorous which would emit light when hit by the beam from the electron gun depending how it was coated, for the different colours.

I presume they are trying to recycle the metals as the electron gun(s), depending on manufacturer, were expensive alloys and the aperture grill plus support frame were also light weight alloys. Sony had huge problems with disposing of broken tubes because it was almost impossible to recycle the leaded glass in the UK in the late 80's so I hate to imagine what happens here.

bangkapi, on 27 Oct 2015 - 17:31, said:

What do you want to bet that nobody will serve time for this disaster?

What do you want to bet that nobody will even spend a day in court defending charges of being responsible for this?

As far as I know no charges were pressed over the oil spill on Koh Samet in Rayong 2 years ago by a PTT tanker so don't expect much if they don't even know who's responsible.

Basil B, on 27 Oct 2015 - 15:53, said:

Comair not BA...

QuoteComair operates regional and local flights in South Africa. It flies as a British Airways franchise, with aircraft painted in BA livery

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34639853

is Nicolas Cage involved?.

huawei, on 26 Oct 2015 - 19:25, said:huawei, on 26 Oct 2015 - 19:25, said:

People have been overstaying through the ages, hasn't really effected anyone else. I think those that could get other visas but kept doing border runs ( for whatever reason) caused more trouble, or those who get extensions to their retirement visas without the 800k in the bank etc..What I don't like about the overstay if you over stay initially and do nothing then you seem to be in no worse a position if you overstay for 5 years. Shit hits the fan here just like at home, we all make emotional decisions and sometimes not the most responsible decision under duress, compound that with money constraints..tough!

agreed but you have to be an adult and realise it will bite you in the arse eventually, all you need is to be knocked off your scooter bicycle etc to find out how it can bit you.

edited for grammar

micmichd, on 26 Oct 2015 - 13:06, said:

Let's hope for a really big energy crisis in Northern Europe in Winter time, maybe that'll teach them how dependent they are.

looks like the gulf stream is shutting down, north Atlantic sea temperatures are falling rapidly and with this el Niño it looks like a cold winter in northern Europe this winter. they are even talking about 50 yrs of bad winters for the UK already which has a mild climate because of the gulf stream - look at Newfoundland for your future winter weather.

I do believe the EU wii survive this but there will be a cost.

Even more mistrust amongst members has been sewn by Merkel and Junker's rush to show what wonderful humanitarians they are with no regard to the long lasting nightmare they were bringing to Europe by ignoring the sovereignty and national borders of member countries.

Let's not forget too the burden they have imposed, in both real and financial terms, on members struggling with the never ending flow of unwanted migrants.

It seems the EU survives, just, in spite of Brussels and not because of it.

People already have the burden of the retirement age increased without having to accept the burden of paying for these refugees and the strain it puts on medical, school & social services. This is why I think the people of the UK will vote to leave the EU and it's looking like Slovakia might do the same as it's not democratic having these refugees forced on anyone. I realise it's two faced of the UK to complain about refugees when successive governments have helped cause some of the crisis.

I read this headline wrong, came to this page to see how T Rex were going to play a concert without Marc Bolan ..................

Just use Filmon or xbmc kodi no vpn needed hence no buffering ..

agreed use filmon.tv, watching the rugby world cup coverage on ITV using this website

If you have ever stayed in Thailand a while in a hut or house in the Jungle or surrounded with a lot of greenery and water ponds etc... you will soon realize that the nightly sounds of the woods in Thailand is ear shattering, There are the frogs, lizards, night birds, all the bugs, a westerner will certainly not be able to sleep the first few days.

One have to consider this when living in Thailand, a rooster is nothing compared to the sound of the woods. Many Thais are so used to the constant ear shattering nightly noise they can sleep out a heavy metal rock concert. This is the key to why you can see Thais sleep almost in any environment.

Try to get used to it as a first strategy.

What I mean is, the thought of the noise bothering anybody would not even enter the mind of a Thai, being so used and "unbothered" by noise themselves.

This is a good reply, I'm one of the lightest sleepers around and when we built our house and first moved in I struggled to sleep because of the noise from chickens and dogs. The chickens are from 3 houses directly behind my bedroom where they breed fighting cocks free range and they are noisy all the way through the night and their families have lived in the area from long before foreigners moved here. At first I struggled even with ear plugs to sleep but as a few people have pointed you do get used to it. At the moment because of the rains the most disturbing things are toads and crickets, most of the local dogs were young when we moved in but now seem calmer as they've got older but obviously if something sets them off the whole neighbourhood erupts in barks or howls. Most of the people in our part of the village are friendly and most of them are in bed early as they all seem to be getting ready for work from about 4am and my wife gifted some fighting cocks from her home to the people behind us after a visit home. We eat at a beach restaurant run by a daughter of one of the women living behind us and get treated very well whenever we spend the afternoon with our dogs at their restaurant so it is give and take from all parties.

_{Accuweather hasn't issued any weather warnings for Rayong just forecast rain and occasional thunderstorms.}

for those of you who were complaining about the Andrew Drummond link someone posted the link to a pdf summary from the judge in the UK about releasing the police report which is mentioned and I have to say it's heavy going but the judge's conclusion was that there was nothing being hidden in the unreleased report and if you read it, it isn't some conspiracy theory it's about real life between 2 countries which share confidential information and have agreed before the British police witnessed some of the RTP's investigation that it would be confidential so as not to prejudice the case and it has nothing to with the RTP investigation.

he only mentions things which have been in the public domain and also the problems the UK has with being involved in investigations which could lead to the death penalty. as I've mentioned it's heavy going but if you can follow it I have to commend the judge for his tenacity in getting as close as he can to mentioning things in the report without giving details. basically there isn't a conclusion except for there being nothing hidden in the report which would help prosecute or defend the case, I think at many points neutrality is mentioned.

don't bite my head off I think the guys are innocent but if the judge is to be believed, and I believe him, there is nothing in the report to help the B2. it's an incredible read in helping to see how the UK legal system works and I doff my cap to the judge, after reading it I think he went as far as he could and he makes many plain English descriptions for the layman to understand.