simon43

Very safe and very effective! Note that the report says 'a very rare adverse event...

According to Dr Google, your chance of getting this adverse event are about 0.003%

Update:  My thanks to AN for adding a photo of Rick Brown to this news article 🙂

12 hours ago, connda said:

You mean "snobby English." 

Interestingly enough, I'm a yank but spent my first three years in a "snobby English" private school back in the 50s.  Needless to say I came back to the US with that proper Oxford accent. It disappeared in due time.  Get me around those people though and I can flip back into the dialect to this day. Fun for messing with people's minds.
You imprint languages at a young age which is the best time to learn.  Dialects as well.

No, I don't mean 'snobby English'.  My family were middle class, living in a semi-detached house in working-class Leicester.  I was brought up to speak 'clear English'.

However, (and this is something that I mentioned in another thread), I also switched to a local, Leicester accent when chatting with school friends.  switching between RP and local accent according to the circumstances.

When I speak with adult colleagues who have local accents from eg - Birmingham, Manchester etc, and I ask them to switch off their local accent, they look at me as if I have come from Mars!  It seems they have no ability to switch off their local accent, and I find that positively weird!

If I encounter a taxi driver in Phuket who speaks with a Southern Thai accent, (which I find difficult to understand), I simply ask them to speak Bangkok Thai and they do so.

Are people not taught to switch off their accents? As a teacher, I am appalled when I hear an English teacher speaking with a 'thick' local accent.  It's not fair for the students and it shows a failing by the employer to ascertain whether or not the potential employee can speak English clearly. This kind of problem would be avoided if the teacher had learnt to switch off their accent when teaching students.

By the way, I am still trying to understand this 'waheh' for water 🙂.  Do you mean using a glottal stop in the middle and pronouncing the word as 'wor-er'?  

They were studying this project when I lived in Phuket 10 or more years ago....

I must get my reading glasses checked - I thought you wrote 'cattle bells'!

30 minutes ago, Martin71 said:

 

You can also pay more and build your qualifying contributions up to the 37 years, I had about 32 years and paid the outstanding amount on what 5 years class 2 voluntary contributions would be ( a few hundred quid but the amount it bumps your pension up is quite considerable and well worth shelling out for).. and now I will receive the full state pension when I come to 67 years old...

Unfortunately I can't do that.  The years that I missed were about 20 years ago, and the NI office/gov website tells me that it is too late to top up for those years.  But 29 years is not bad and quite adequate for a modest retirement 🙂

2 hours ago, JonnyF said:

 

But you lived in the golden age.

 

I don't think NI is 2 quid a week any more. And the pension age is increasing. The payout is pathetic as well. 

 

The fact it is mandatory is just another big state money grab. 

 

I paid into it for 8 years and then fortunately escaped to Thailand. No national insurance, no tax on company car or fuel, and thanks to the ltr visa a flat rate of 17%. VAT also low. 

 

Viva thailand. 

I left the UK about 20 years ago, but I was sensible enough to continue paying my NI via voluntary contributions.  I was/am self-employed, so pay Class 2 NI which is about 3.50 quid a week....  When I reach retirement age (66) next year I will have paid in for 29 years (I missed a few!).  But that will give me about $1,000 USD a month in pension which is quite enough to live in Luang Prabang (Laos), where I have currently settled.

Brexit removed the right for British citizens to reside in EU countries without proof of income, and now most of those countries require that you have an income of at least $2,000 USD per month.

I did research moving to other countries that do have the UK pension increase, and I lived in those countries for a few months just after Covid. One country is Mauritius -hot, safe, beautiful, but requires a monthly income of $1,500 USD.  The other country that I stayed in was Turkey, which seems the perfect choice if you are retired and living on a UK pension.  There are no income requirements to get your one-year (renewable) residency visa - I was issued with mine after 3 weeks of living in the country and I had to show no proof of income or any other documents in order to get the visa. The cost of living is low and I stayed in the coastal resort of Fethiye, renting a small house just outside the town for about $250 per month.

Although I'm very happy in Laos, there is the question of what happens if I live a long time!  A frozen UK pension will have a reducing value every year.  If I retire to Turkey, then my pension will increase and medical facilities in Turkey are quite adequate 🙂

6 hours ago, theoldgit said:

Without wishing to sound pedantic the policy has nothing to do with a double tax agreement, Thailand and the UK already have one.

 

To receive increases in State Pension increases there needs to be a social security agreement between the two countries.

...

Yes, mea culpa, I meant a social security agreement!

The policy of freezing pensions has nothing to do with racism or discrimination.  It's available to UK pensioners in those countries which have signed a double tax agreement with the UK, such as the Philippines.  

For whatever reason, Thailand (and Laos and ...) have not signed such an agreement, probably never even requested such an agreement with the UK.

Therefore, if you want to moan at someone, moan at the Thai government for failing to request a double tax agreement with the UK!

15 minutes ago, onthemoon said:

here is no reason to keep it secret whether you like men or women. If I am invited with a +1, I bring my husband. It's nobody's business to comment on that, and I don't see any reason to hide it. So sorry for you, my husband is as private as your wife. You show everybody that you are heterosexual, don't you?

 

Everybody announces to the world that they are hetero (if they are). Why did you just plaster all over social media that you are hetero, I wonder.

Huh? I'm not heterosexual! Whatever my sexual preferences are, there is no reason to shout these details out to everyone.  The only relevant person is my partner (if I have one) or a potential partner.

 So zero points for you to assume that I'm announcing all over SM that I'm straight.....

5 hours ago, jaywalker2 said:

The problem with hydrogen peroxide is that it doesn't really penetrate very far if the wax runs deep or is impacted. Plus, you're putting an acid in your ear, so you don't want to do it on a regular basis.

Well, it's a base (alkaline) actually.  But indeed it could be nasty.  Think of blocked loo pipe cleaner >> similar kind of chemical.