nausea

No way this guy can pay 27m, which begs the question why award it in the first place. Symbolic, I suppose, and failure to pay may influence sentencing.

I remember a UK embassy guy, whose work involved sorting out these messes - contacting relatives, arranging burial, etc., telling me this sort of thing is not at all uncommon in Thailand. Many cases go unreported.

Yeah, I noticed this too. Put me off even going near the place, haven't visited in years. What I would say is that a lot of these guys aren't really local; Phuket is a kind of magnet that attracts people from all over the country. Case in point, my current SO is from Petchaburi, but I met her in Phuket.

Did the thrown grenade explode? The report doesn't say one way or the other. It does say one found inside the house with the pin pulled was a dud.

Why am I here? Kipling summed it up pretty much in his poem "Mandalay".

First thing I thought about on reading the headline; all very strange, who carries (even inadvertently) a single bullet, in their luggage.

There's a lot to be said for that old adage "walk into old age".

TDS

Lost, then found, one of our dogs recently, so I know where they're coming from. They really do become like family members after a while. Lost cats are even more problematic than lost dogs cos cats have so many predators in Thailand.

Tourist visas only.

This lawfare is destroying the legitimacy of the US legal system, a heavy price to pay for some petty, or maybe not so petty, political advantage. I mean, you sort of expect it in a country like Pakistan, with all their Imran Khan shenanigans, but the US?

Never really understood this conflict, but as long as it stays in the South, I don't much care.

RTP corruption is pretty much a given, I doubt any of these guys has clean hands, so Big Joke is probably right when he says that this is more to do with internal politicking rather than any real concern about alleged misconduct.

Which is worse, I wonder, Thai immigration jail or the Ukrainian front line.

You ain't seen nothing yet, wait 'till they start on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz gets closed

Magical thinking strikes again.

Well, hopefully she just ran off with the money, and 13 million bt ain't so much by Western standards; still, I am reminded of that old Farang maxim "never be worth more dead than you are alive" .

I did a few normal jumps, and you carry an emergency parachute which you can deploy should the main chute fail for some reason. BASE jumpers have no time to deploy an emergency 'chute, they're totally dependent on their main 'chute. This exponentially increases risk, as the chances of both an emergency and main 'chute failing would be statistically pretty improbable, that of the main 'chute failing, not so much. I guess BASE jumpers are playing a form of Russian Roulette, just one with a lot more empty chambers than a revolver, but a game that is, in essence, the same.

People are tightrning their belts, that translates to less tourists. No amount of magical thinking will change that reality.

Agree, there is risk, and not just for family and friends who might get roped in. Just because something hasn't happened before doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow (the problem of induction, to give it a fancy name). My own attitude is I can get by cos I have 2 pensions, and one of them is inflation linked, so it's just not worth the hassle. If I was totally dependent on my State pension I might take a different attitude, but more likely I'd just move to the Philippines.

Yeah, the headline (plummet) is a little hyperbolic, clickbait that caught me anyway. Given the current gobal geopolitical tensions, I'd be very surprised by any meaningfull drop in the price of gold, given its role as a store of value.

Thailand doing their thing, a foot in both camps.

Always thought of Thai food, tasty as it is, as a kind of fusion food, combining Indian and Chinese elements. Yeah, you're crazy if you eat Thai dishes that include raw meat or fish, the risk of parasites is just too great, almost certain, I would've thought, if you do it regularly. I do wonder about Japanese sushi, though; I mean I'm as partial to sushi as the next man, and whilst in Japan they're pretty rigourous about their food hygiene, with only minimal cases of parasitic infection occuring, I'm not so sure about the stuff produced and sold here.

Good news for me, if it translates to sterling; did notice we're going over 45 recently. I was expecting sterling to plummet, given the dire state of the UK economy, was doing my personal financial planning along those lines, so if it stays steady or increases, it's all a bonus. Still expect sterling to plummet eventually, hopefully with a more extended timeline than I originally thought, I may even be dead by the time it all comes fully to fruition (555).