nausea

Strange how birth rates are usually high where's there's squalid poverty, if it's an economic thing. 

Need to hear the other side to this story.

Take market share from 7-11? Nah, won't happen, 7-11 is just too dominant and has too much brand recognition. It'll just be a brawl in the other 30% of the market.

Whatever happened to the "stiff upper lip".

Well at least he wasn't stupid, and he wasn't mad.

Somebody's read The Beach.

Unless it's ridiculously low or ridiculously high, I don't think IQ has much relevance, given its problematic nature as a test of intelligence. In any case, even if it is a valid benchmark, myth has it that 83 was the floor for the US army, so 89 wouldn't be that bad, I suppose. Anyway, I knew a Mensa guy and he seemed pretty average to me, I always beat him at chess (he got quite upset about it), and I'm an average Joe, well, maybe a little above average, certainly not top 2% level.

It's high, relatively speaking, but I wonder how much of that has to do with property mortgages; the UK has a similarly high level, but we're mortgage obsessed.

So bread and Styrofoam are both bad, oh well, back to the drawing board; I guess we could try doing something with  slices of a banana tree trunk, and banana leaves.

The more complex things become, the more there is to go wrong, and the harder it is to fix. I pretty much understood the basics (of cars) in my youth, nowadays ... .

Boys will be boys, especially where drink is concerned, and bruises and broken noses are to be expected; but add knives to that mix, or, God forbid, guns; yeah, it's not good.

2 hours ago, roo860 said:

Don't take a knife to a gun fight.

True enough, but I I am a lot more worried about knives than guns, to be honest. Knives are ubiquitous here, every second person seems to carry a knife, women included, and more often than not you won't see it coming. "Jai Yen" is the best defence, in my opinion, it's also a useful phrase for de-escalation.

I stay away from attractions of this sort, health and safety isn't Thailand's strong point, and at 68 I'm risk averse.

6 hours ago, webfact said:

I was not fussy when I bought it

Says it all, really, if you buy from a random stranger then you take your chances. Incidentally, there are many informal lotteries, but these are guys with established customer bases, you are unlikely to get scammed cos they depend on their reputation to operate.

This non-alignment policy always worked for Thailand in the past and, as they say - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Thailand has nothing on the UK, energy and food there are through the roof; I'm not really into this doom monger YouTuber Joe Blogs, but he did do a video recently which pretty much nails it.

Kept expecting the guys in the audience to storm the stage, and the girls to be whisked off in a helicopter.

18 hours ago, jayboy said:

I've had both my doctor and dentist sign these off.

Use a local pharmacist myself, no payment, but then they're an acquaintance/friend I've known for some years.

This story smells, it smells of hyped up, hack (Daily Mirror?) hyperbole.

The juicy melons thing has just got to be a set up.

Thanks for all the comments; unfortunately, it seems there's no rhyme or reason to it. My other pension provider does all this by e-mail, time for the State Pension guys to enter the 21st century, methinks.

Got caught on the hop earlier this year, with the UK State Pension Life Certificate saga, so just to confirm, these are sent every two years c. January time, right?

Pattaya's image - ROFL.