mariner16

Just a quick query, I last flew in from overseas on 31/10/2019 but renewed my one year retirement extension of stay ay Chang Watthana on 20/01/2020 which reset the 90 day clock so now due 20/04/2020. However both online on my computer and the android app on my phone stall as the last date of entering the kingdom is outside the limit and the date of renewal finds no arrival information. Unless someone has an answer to this I guess it is either by post or a trip to the Immigration Office.

Thanks

41 minutes ago, Laughing Gravy said:

Really! I don't see the USA telling us (the UK) we have to have this legislation and we have to pay up billions to them. Or they don't say we can't trade we other non EU countries and if we do we will penalize you. Now if that is being led on a leash the EU must have been like been put in a straight jacket and wheeled around.

But if we want to increase trade with USA the payback will be giving US Health Insurers access to the NHS. If we want US companies building factories etc. in UK the payback will be loss of workers rights and benefits to "fit in" with the US idea of how a society should work. I am afraid that is not the kind of society I want to live in, and neither do most Europeans which is one of the reasons they pursued the European project in the first place, as a way of gaining critical mass against the overbearing USA exporting their brand of capitalism around the world.

Interesting article in the Times if you can access it. Thought this analogy was spot on.

"One thing is clear when you look at the ups and downs of our historic relationship with Brussels: billing Article 50 as the start of divorce proceedings misses the point. We were never in a marriage: no passion, no offspring. It was more like a flat-share where we squabbled about the bills, about the pilfering from the fridge and about the uninvited guests sleeping on the sofa."

"Last weekend, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the treaty, EU members committed themselves to the European idea — and pointedly excluded Britain. It was an exquisite historic irony. As Britain tried to sign up to the EEC, it repeatedly found itself rebuffed, above all by the French president Charles de Gaulle. The reasons for the Non! were manifold: EEC concern that Britain would turn their community into an elaborate free trade zone, expand its realm to include Commonwealth partners, make English the main language. Chiefly, though, De Gaulle smelled British desperation; it had nowhere else to go and the EEC could play for time."

Precisely, sums it up perfectly, at the end of the day UK has been nothing but a wrecker in EEC/EU attempting to subvert the whole project at every turn, particularly when a Tory government has been in power. The wonder is that they didn't have an article 50 equivalent to expel an unwanted member, because make no mistake there is as big a feeling on continental Europe wanting UK stripped of opt outs to the euro and schengen etc. and ejected if they wouldn't become full and committed members, irony is that UK has done it for them.

Back in 1973 it was as much about not becoming the 51st state of USA as it was about becoming part of the European project, now UK really will become the USA's poodle to be led around on a leash and do what we are told.

As I have posted before the question of whether UK should be in or out of the EEC/EU has dominated UK politics on and off for best part of 50 years. Even Nigel Farage was quoted before the referendum as saying a 52/48 win to remain in would not stop his and his followers crusade to leave. The overwhelming likelihood is that public opinion will never be swayed such that one or other side is in a dominant position unless the EU itself ceases to exist which although possible is highly unlikely.

Meanwhile the country stagnates while politics is dominated by self serving careerists only interested in being re-elected.

At least Sarah Olney, Tim Farron and the Liberal Democrats have a clearly articulated position and are campaigning on it.

Having just returned from UK after completing the sale of my house that has been rented out since I left, I wasn't surprised to find the whole subject of UK's membership of EU a total bore, in the same way that Trump v Clinton has nothing to do with reality, whether Brexit happens or not is a total irrelevance, the UK as a place to live is finished for me.

The main shame is the wasted 43 years that have past, the UK joined because it had to in order to replace its trading links that were disappearing with the end of empire, De Gaulle knew the UK would only be a disruptive force and tried to keep them out, but ultimately once he had lost power they managed to weedle their way in, and, surprise, have been nothing but a disruptive force ever since, with opt outs that no other country sought or wanted, seems to me if the referendum result had gone the other way the EU would ultimately have given UK the option, either you are fully in or get out.

However in the same way that a small group of anti EU persons have consistently caused political trouble for the last 40 odd years it now seems inevitable that the reverse will now happen for the next 40 years. The country is split neatly down the middle and the arguments will never stop, in fact are likely to get worse as the more affluent and skilled vote with their feet and get out and the rest are left behind at the mercy of a far right government and an ever worsening lifestyle.

Turkeys voting for Christmas,

The cliff edge is disappearing beneath the feet of the lemmings, hope they enjoy the fall because the sudden stop is going to hurt like hell

Personally speaking having smoked for 40 years and throughly enjoyed it, quitting four years ago has had mixed blessings, I find I enjoy food more now, to the extent of putting on 10 kilos, i have had regular medicals for work and until now no life threatening condition has been found, now I am obese. So was giving up smoking worth it...just swapped one issue for another

Try this link for a argument as to why he is wrong

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/analysis-why-tony-abbotts-plan-for-europes-refugee-crisis-cannot-work?CMP=soc_567

Hasn't done Australia's standing in the world any favours either

"I’m at the site with Joan Heggie, a research fellow at Teesside University and an expert on the region’s steel industry. She is furious at what she sees as the government’s shortsightedness in allowing the furnace to be shut down. “It’s just been turned off; it’s killed it. You can’t start coke ovens up again; you have to rebuild them. Once they’ve gone cold, they crack and disintegrate.” The pheasants from the adjoining marshlands can have the run of the place.

The Redcar plant’s history over the past 40 years has been tangled. British Steel sold it to the Dutch company Corus then to the Indian giant Tata. The latter mothballed it in 2010 before selling it to the Thai conglomerate SSI, which, faced with falling steel prices, has now liquidated the plant. “It’s such a waste of money,” says Heggie. “It cost the Thai company the best part of half a billion to get it working. They put a huge amount of money in, and that technology is now wasted. If this site never makes steel again, which is looking increasingly likely, then all this has to be properly dismantled in accordance with environmental regulations.” She reckons the final clean up bill could be £1bn – payable by the taxpayer as the company that owned the site has gone into liquidation."

Above taken from todays Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/27/life-after-steel-redcar-future-consett?CMP=fb_gu

All sounds very terminal to me, and where did the "half a billion" (GBP I assume) come from

Coincidently I was reading Philip Kerr's "The One From The Other" last week (book 4 of his Bernie Gunther series) and this business with Haj Amin al-Husseini the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and his dealings with Italy & Germany during the fascist years was part of the plot, so I took myself off to Wikipedia (I know - don't believe everything on Wikipedia) for some background info and read this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini

I have to confess there was plenty in the article that I was only dimly aware of, and it makes one realise just how far back this whole business of Palestine/Israel goes

I remember all the publicity about him playing for Preston against West Ham in the 1964 FA Cup Final, he was 17 years old and at the time the youngest player ever in a Wembley final. As a young lad coming up to 12 years old and in the first year at Grammar School it seemed inconceivable to me that someone the same age as the prefects who were walloping my backside could be playing football at Wembley. He of course went on to have a fine career both as a player and a manager. Sad loss to the game at such a young age.

Nowadays it is more or less accepted that the reason given at the time which was the inevitable high body count that an invasion would have resulted in, was indeed a political message just for public consumption, Japan was surrounded and could have been starved into submission without any need for a military invasion against a defended country.

However the Soviet Union had declared war on Japan a week or so earlier and was advancing across Mongolia quickly and would have had no such qualms about body count if they had got into a position to invade Japan. Also the relationship between the UK/US and the Soviets was already degrading in Europe and as mentioned above a demonstration of the power of the atomic option was required. In fact Stalin already knew about the Manhattan project as the Soviets had spies embedded in the project but was in no position at that stage to counter such a threat.

In this context the two atomic explosions were more of a political act than an act of war and any justification must be in the political arena

I imagine that BO recognises that just as in a federalised USA where the industrial north financially subsidises the agricultural south in return for a flow of cheaper labour south to north, then the EU has to work the same way if it is to survive. If the citizens (taxpayers) of the northern countries are not prepared to accept that then the EU will disintegrate and the continent will be at war again within 100 years, which will be far from a great legacy to leave our great grand children.

I do agree however that at some point the UK has to decide whether it is a small island group off the west coast of Europe or a small island group off the east coast of the USA, for the last 70 years we have tried to keep a foot in both camps but with Europe moving politically further away from the USA and becoming a competitor in world influence/trade then the UK is runs the risk of being left out of both teams and being forced to watch the game from the touchline.

The last one a couple of years ago was without doubt the most dire game of football I have ever witnessed, we walked out 20 minutes before the end with the score at 0-0

Staying in the pub this time

Coincidentally was at the Australian Embassy yesterday to get copies of my (UK) Passport and Driving Licence certified for an Australian Superannuation company who have an account of mine dating back to when I worked in Aussie years ago which I am closing.

From arriving at front gate unannounced spent 15 minutes getting through an efficient security system at gate and entry to building, ten minutes at the relevant desk with an efficient official, and was having a coffee at the stall next door 30 minutes after getting out of the taxi. Cost THB 750 per document so THB 1500 in total

One hopes they keep it up and don't follow the UK system

Prime Minister is the leader of the political party which can command a majority in the governing chamber of elected representatives.

What is so difficult to understand about that

Police clearing the streets of protesters - obviously not Bangkok then.....

Oh dear, are things so bad in the UK, they need a new bogus war to prevent civil unrest.

The problem is that there are no Brits in Britain left to fight. They are all living expat somewhere else.

Looks like they will have to send all the Argentine expats there to fight instead.

The irony here is that in the last Falklands War, Maggie Thatcher and the UK Generals sent in the Welsh Guards (and others), overlooking the historical fact that much of southern Argentina was populated long ago by Welsh people seeking new lands to farm sheep. When Goose Green was finally taken and the Argentinian soldiers taken captive, the British soldiers in talking to their captives discovered they'd been shooting at their own (admittedly distant) relations.

I think for many people, and especially Argentinians, the geography somewhat speaks for itself because Port Stanley is just a wee bit closer to Buenos Aires than London. It's hard to believe that the British government gives a rats ____ about a handful of farmers (1516 people apparently) in the Southern Ocean (Maggie herself, for those who were not around at the time, had far more impact on the 20,000 coal miners she threw out of work back home). The mock sincerity about the wishes of the islanders only thinly veils the financial prospect of rich oil and mineral resources.

The "wee bit closer" has become a problem since 1982, successive UK governments, starting with the government in power in 1982 and the ships returning from the South Atlantic, have allowed the Merchant Navy to be decimated by ship-owners intent only on profit, with their flag of convenience ships and foreign crews, that now there is no way to replicate what was achieved then.

Probably don't need to what with the larger garrison and the longer runway, and the Argentine armed forces are nothing like they were then in size or equipment, but the fact remains that in 1982 the whole operation would have never happened without UK flagged merchant vessels and crews being available at short notice.

The writing is on the wall

Simon and Garfunkel in 1964 and still very apt today 50 years later

Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you"

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls"

And whispered in the sounds of silence

In one thing i agree with general.What is the use of democracy in thailand?

Because of vote buying,corruption,rich beyond possible officials,politicians who make laws to hide their own crimes..criminals who the law wont touch.

you could go on forever but doesnt matter if the people get to voted in who they want. Will still just be different pigs in the same troff.

One thing that you can say...at least in a Thai style democracy they can trow out a government which is proven to be rotten and destroying the country..dont have to keep them full term to do more damage.

Australia threw out one of their democratically elected prime miniters in history

Actually it was the English who threw out gough whitlam. The Queen of England signed off and the Governor General Acted on behalf of England.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to be technically correct, but hey everybody else in the world calls it England, no wonder the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish get seriously p****d off

If I thought for one minute that the GPM would use the 93% approval rating to move the country and people forward to the promised land then I would support the present system continuing with a veneer of democratic electoral camouflage. There are very few examples in history of a beneficiate dictator, off hand I can only think of only Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore where one man's vision was followed by a population willing to allow individual rights to be suppressed for the benefit of the whole. Of course he managed to persuade the dominant Singapore Chinese families that there was even more money to be made from liberal capitalism then by continuing with a system of patronage, nepotism and corruption which had served them well in the past, quite how well that turned out for the population only future history will tell.

I see you are intellectually challenged by the word dictator. To help you, Webster define dictator as a ruler who obtained power by force and has absolute and restricted control over a country. Lee Kuan Yew was elected and so is Thaksin. Now go figure out who fits the word dictator.

Of those mentioned in my post and your response only one fits your definition, certainly LKY and Thaksin did not obtain the PM position by force and did not have absolute and unrestricted control over their respective countries, as was proved by the eventual loss of the position by the latter. However what Lee Kuan Yew did do was get the backing of all seats of power and hold the position through a policy of compromise, possibly Thaksin would have liked to have followed that example but the forces arrayed against him were such that it was never going to be allowed to happen.

If I thought for one minute that the GPM would use the 93% approval rating to move the country and people forward to the promised land then I would support the present system continuing with a veneer of democratic electoral camouflage. There are very few examples in history of a beneficiate dictator, off hand I can only think of only Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore where one man's vision was followed by a population willing to allow individual rights to be suppressed for the benefit of the whole. Of course he managed to persuade the dominant Singapore Chinese families that there was even more money to be made from liberal capitalism then by continuing with a system of patronage, nepotism and corruption which had served them well in the past, quite how well that turned out for the population only future history will tell.

Sounds like they are setting up a little club only for the elite and powerful who will own and dominate the ordinary person. You could see it from the day Suthep and the Mad Monk 1st stepped onto the street and started his March for domination.

"for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"

GALATIANS 6: 7 (KJV)