simon43

Committed suicide. lol that's a good one.........

Except that it's probably not heartbreaking for the community. For them It's karma and now the boys are now in their next life. One of my Thai nieces (when younger), used to show me photos of her best friend with her head splattered all over the road after headbutting a concrete post. Not a tinge of sadness as she explained how they had to pick bits of brain out of the grass verge..... she's gone onto her next life - that's all.

Rote learning good! Questions bad!! Everyone write it down and repeat out loud.....

Yes. there are other renewables, such as ocean wave kinetic energy, which is still somewhat in its infancy - technology-wise. But it all seems to come back to the problem of efficient energy storage during outage time from solar, wind, wave etc. It's getting there, but trying to achieve net-zero on Milliband's timescales is crazy!

Speaking with my scientist hat on, a net-zero policy is a commendable idea. But the target period to achieve net-zero should be set to something rather more realistic, such as 100 or 200 years..... Technology is simply not ready to achieve net-zero in one or two decades. Battery storage technology for wind and solar is way-behind in development of suitable renewable energy storage when there's no sun and no wind. Right now, we are 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'. Not using our cheap fossil fuel supplies for Drax is ludicrous, when we are importing biomass fuel from Canada and the associated huge carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation. 'Learn to walk before you try to run Milliband...'

I think Bob is more of the "I like to eat meat and two veg" variety...

As regards the kind of women that are available and cost, my advice would be to save up and buy the latest sex doll from China, which will be far prettier than the Beach road gals, and will give you hours and hours of endless enjoyment! They don't ask for lady drinks either.....

From the reports that I read about this incident, the deceased woman was ... er... a lardbucket! The cabin crew were trying to carry her into business class, but the effort was ... er ... killing them.

As a scientist, (but not with a huge interest in penises), I wonder why the guys in the Congo have such big willies. Do they hang weights on them? Perhaps the length is big but the girth is small, like a pipe-cleaner. And what about the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), just next door? Surely they must also feature in the big willie chart?

Grumpy old men syndrome. I avoid elderly westerners like the plague - most are totally negative and haven't smiled in decades!

Strange, but when I walked into Pattaya Central Shopping Centre this morning, the entrance had a walk-through metal detector. Not seen that for many years...

This is bad news for some of my online students in Myanmar. Due to the international bandwidth restrictions imposed by the junta, for an online video/audio lesson. one needs to use an application that uses a minimal bandwidth as possible. Skype meets that requirement. Zoom and Voov require more bandwidth, and ClassIn is unbelievably greedy/wasteful of bandwidth (I know - I've done tests on all these apps...)

Whoosh!!!! Right over your head 🙂

[quote] ... But it's fun to watch them wai the hookers and serving staff. [/quote] Some Russian guy did this today in 7/11, a high wai to the serving girls. They looked at each other, looked at me and burst out laughing. I said to one of them (in Thai). "Are you a monk???" 🙂

I believe that this is a very dangerous decision by Thailand. Who remembers the 2015 bomb in Bangkok, which many have suggested was 'pay-back' for the deportation of 100 or so Uyghur refugees. If that were the reason for the 2015 bombing, then I suggest we all avoid crowded places in Thailand, especially those popular with Chinese....

Churchill was a top bloke. You sir are not.....

His father was Julius Mathison Turing 🙂

They actually said that the 1st payment could be delayed up to 4 months.... You can't apply now, only within 4 months of your pension start date 🙂

I have no idea why people actually buy cannabis here in Pattaya because you can get stoned just walking down the road and smelling the stuff waffing out of every second shop, or from the joints from those walking along. I'm not against the smell, but I'm not sure young kids should be 'partaking'.

Yes, this is exactly why I walk around stark bollok naked all the time... never had any problem from these Thai teenagers🙂 Mind you, I do have to be wary of ladyboys and gardeners with shears...

Less than 4 months to my UK state pension date. so I telephoned the international pensions department to make my claim. They did ask for some information that threw me! "What date did you leave the UK?" Huh? I can't remember... "OK fine!" "Does your British ex-wife pay NI?" Er, maybe ask her! "OK fine" "About how much tax did you pay when teaching in Myanmar?" "I didn't. 'cos they had no system to collect tax!!" "Oh.... fine" Anyway, these questions seemed to just be to provide general background information, not actually relevant to my pension. So having ticked the boxes on his form, the pensions chap took my bank details and said all was fine, and my pension money will start to flow, probably a little delayed for the first payment 'cos' of paperwork, but back-dated. So all good and easy! I was impressed at how quick and easy the process was 🙂

"Hey farang, I give you the food that you ordered, but you forgot your knife, come back!"

Mark, you're free to post whatever you want, but be aware that I do not read the content of your posts if it pertains to any religion. I have an inbuilt HATRED of all religions! They are akin to snake oil salesmen. How rich is the Catholic Church? How many millions of dollars do Buddhist temples have? Please don't waste my time with this fairy story rubbish 🙂

Hurrah! My updated learning app is on the Playstore. Now to make people in Myanmar aware of it! I've mentioned many times about my visits to orphanages/monastery schools. A colleague (not a forum member) raised a valid question concerning child safeguarding issues and also orphanages using the poverty of their kids to attract donations etc. Concerning the safeguarding issues, I do have background clearance for working with kids. But to be honest, I usually don't see the orphans or children who stay at the orphanages. They are often attending the government school during my visit time. It's the local teachers who are important for me to interact with, either to find out what resources are needed, to donate those resources, or to install my app on their phones, (if they are unsure about how to do this). So for this reason, I rarely actually take English classes at the orphanages, 'cos the kids aren't there 🙂 On the second point, I think poverty tourism is more of a problem in countries like Cambodia, where some orphanage directors deliberately keep the kids looking poverty-stricken etc, to garner sympathy and financial donations from foreign tourists. In Myanmar, they don't need to pretend to be poverty-stricken! and there ain't any foreign tourists!😞 The majority of children in these orphanages and monasteries are not actually orphans. Rather, their parents are unable to care for them at home. By placing them in a monastery or orphanage, the children are assured of a safe place to live with their young friends, basic, food, accommodation, clothing and hopefully education. It's probably the most realistic option for their future.

Actually I provided the link in a post some months ago. I'll try to dig out the link. The Thai government requested an agreement similar to that which the Philippines has and their request was ignored by the UK government at the time..... 100% blame for this situation lies with the UK government. (Of course, it's not just Thailand with this frozen pension issue - most countries outside the EU don't have such agreements either. The list of countries that do is short!