cliveshep

Whatever is cheapest, we're both Christians so it matters nothing!

Was the crematorium a Budhist temple one?

@ advancebooking: Donating to science is not an option due to my age - we looked into that before. @jvsWhere would I look in shopping around. or rather where would my wife look? @Nanlaew@: Totally correct. @proton: The wizened witch of Maidenhead becamse Home Secretary at a time when loud voices were being heard to curb immigration numbers. The numbers were of course from poorer EU countries flooding in and working for far smaller wages and often doing a better job and working harder. Cries for Brexit went unheard by her Ladyship who was a staunch Europhile so her solution, draconian as it was, was to cut most foreign UNI entrances (which caused howls of anguish from cash-strapped UNI's) and also to virtually ban all foreign spouses or family members of same who did not already have indefinite leave to remain. She accomplished this by raising the minimum income to over £18k where before is was, quite reasonably, set at the Income Support level (assuming an adequate accomodation available which the local authority had to be paid to survey and certify!) For me the income level while still working was no problem, but once retired on a State Pension many English spouses like me suddenly found their wives or husbands facing deportation due to failing TM's income requirement. Also, the "Life in the UK" test was another matter along with uprated English speaking and reading requirements not previously required. Regarding the Life in UK test - who knows (or even cares) how many golf courses there are in Scotland? A test cleverly and viciously designed for failure. We saw the light and during the 2nd year and just after I retired accepted that way-laying TM and cutting her throat one dark night whilst desirable was not an option, the inevitable would be my wife would be deported like so many others after her husband retired so we sold everything including the house, bought our own shipping container and spent 6 months packing every last inch of it, and simply said our goodbyes to close friends and my adult kids and sent the container out and flew out the same day it was collected. We had the shipping time to find and buy a house - which we did - and a month or so later the container hit Lam Chabang port and was delivered. We sold it to the crane company that unloaded it.

While I'm in no hurry to depart this realm, at almost 78 it can only be a matter of time, and maybe not much of that. As I am a pensioner on a miserable UK pension living here with my Thai wife of 12 years who is 38 years younger and has no job, I am naturally concerned as to how she will manage after I'm gone. She insists she'll find factory work but it is my funeral costs that bother me. Like all foreigners married to Thais we got the 400,000 baht in the bank, and she has access to my bank account, passwords etc and her name is on the account but not visible in the passbook except under UV light so in theory she is legally able to withdraw money. In fact for the past 9 years since Theresa May forced us to leave the UK she often handles Transferwise transfers from my UK bank to my Thai bank account as well as paying bills via transfers from my Bangkok Bank to her own bank for that purpose. I have found I can trust her implicitly. I have told her to get a grip when I pass and transfer the money from my account to her own account immediately and before anything else. This is so that she has something to live on. She says if a farang dies the police have to be informed and they collect the body for a forensic examination etc. and also take away computers, phones etc always suspicious of foul play by the wife? That is what she says, is she right? Presumably being RTP they'll want to extort money too? Can any informed person advise me on likely procedures please? When I'm dead I won't be caring what happens to my body, she might as she is loving, but I've told her to deal with it the cheapest way possible. My experiences in the UK with my own parents show death is a big money-maker for some in that business, I don't want her in that trap so please can you folk offer information and advice I can pass on? A fire or hole in the garden is probably not a viable or legal option. So no suggestions of that ilk please. Is it temple or church or some cheaper alternative and what role if any to the venal RTP or other grasping civil servants have? BTW - I have made a will, it is written in both Thai and English, and I had it witnessed and signed on every page by a Government Employee and one other person - there are two copies which she keeps safe. In it I make quite clear my two adult kids want nothing and everything of mine is hers. Both cars, motorbike and house have always been in her sole name to keep away RTP and other vultures.

What I find remarkable is that the Parlimentary Vote on the choice of a new PM has been postponed indefinitely by the Speaker of the House following a statement by the Constitution Court. This could well bring matters to a head in a vote taking place after the current Senate is dismissed and assuming they cannot find justifiable reasons to abrogate the people's choice and ban Pita could see him made PM yet with a new and more amenable law-abiding bunch of senators prepared to abide by the wishes of the majority of the Thai voters.. Certainly the next lot of Senators won't be Prayut's stooges unless there is another democracy-denying coup.

Hmmm - I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Any guidance would be likely to be aimed at mutual support of the Army.

Came across this article on, admitedly, a Christian site, a while back. ~It makes very interesting reading written from a Scientific viewpoint as opposed to a faith one. The conclusions are surprising but fact based. https://y-jesus.com/more/scc-science-christianity-compatible/

Now not joking, to fredwiggy and Walker88 and others who wish to bring the contentious issue of religion into the post, can I offer a few bible verses that might shed light? The mysteries of God and His works are not for us to know in entirety, Higgs Boson not withstanding. In the Bible Isaiah 42:8 puts it succinctly - "I will not share my glory with another". Or perhaps Deuteronomy 29:29 - "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever,..........". Not everything is capable of being revealed to science, much is in the realm of faith alone and if you expect to expose the nature of God without that vital ingredient you are barking up the wrong tree entirely because as Hebrews 11:6 puts it "........without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him". So one must conclude that God will not reveal His power to an unbeliever in general although that is not exclusive, and scientists will never prove God except by observing what is plain to see for everyone, quarks and Higg's bosons being part of a marvellous whole. Psalm 139:14 expressed that almost 3000 years ago and in all that time not one scientist can declare David wrong. The very abundance of diversity of life and the inanimate and the microscopic complexity in all living creatures, the varieties of human looks and traits as supposedly dictated by DNA are too vast to be the result of a "big bang". Any so-called "intellectual" who thinks that big bangs created life in all it's complexities and variances is clearly lacking in cognisant abilities.

I am English! That's cleared that up! Some years ago we had a motoring program on TV called "Top Gear" hosted by 3 individuals the chief of which was a chap called Jeremy Clarkson. He often showed where a car was built using a world map, one of his images was the world map had a blank space normally occupied by N. America - he always made jokes about Americans. I suspect sinineou might find his other one liner also unacceptable, faced with a disagreement in opinion from a live audience he responded by saying simply "I'm right, you're wrong!" and turning away from the audience member would simply change the subject. Having the camera and mic on him effectively won the argument. I made a few friends in the American military in the UK in the form of airmen who were smashing guys, but we were of course separated by a common language. With cars for example how do Americans get to call a boot a "trunk", a bonnet a "hood", a spanner a "wrench", an adjustable spanner a "monkey wrench"? It gets worse, offered a bag of chips at an Officer's Wive's Club do they gave me a bag of crisps. And they call us "Limeys" (amongst other things!). So clearly the correct response to downvotes or disapproving emoji's is to pretend they are Jeremy Clarkson's America, re-draw the map, take the mic and camera and move elsewhere thus cutting them off. With apologies to sinineou - I actually loved my American friends, even if chips were not "french fries" in their misguided judgement! I even forgave them for the appalling lack of good sense in wasting our national drink - tea - in Boston harbour years ago. Clearly poor judgement is a long-standing fault lol. Address hidden for personal safety - I'll get my hat and coat now!

Not wanting yet another browser so no Edge etc. But here's the thing - went to bed frustrated at 1.00am having prepared the packet to go to the post office this morning. Got up with the idea to call up the first times form I saved and simply copy everything on it onto the new one. First time it blanked it out as I completed each box, 2nd time amazingly it filled in the form and I was able to submit it. I'm losing the will to live! The only difference I can see between the forms was how I filled in the address, I was not completing it exactly the same and put my phone number instead of my wife's as I did last time. It must compare the minutae of form filling, anything different and it won't proceed. God help you if you submitted a form with an error last time then as you'll be stuck with it forever - you cannot enter correct info next time! Many thanks to all who answered me even if they are on a commission from Microsoft for Edge hahaha. Opera works fine (so long as I fill in the form the same) and with it's free VPN is the browser of choice for me when Thai Government paranoia otherwise won't allow me to even access British newspapers. I am mightily relieved lol! Now for morning coffee and breakfast!

Nope - clearing cache and cookies and a reboot, even a hard reboot (pull out the plug!) made no difference. Thai techno gremlins are alive and well!

IS IT JUST ME?? I signed up for the on-line 90 day reporting last time, previously I had posted it with copies of passport pages etc and an SAE and posted it signed for tracked. Been doing that since 2016. Last time I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. That all changed tonight and I have spent over an hour wrestling with the stupid website on-line form to no avail. I tried it on Opera first, then on Firefox, but on botrh on repeated attempts it got as for as City/State on the form - Bangkok for me, but refused to let me fill in the next lines amphur and tambon, as soon as I filled in one and moved down it deleted the line and blanked it out. So I have had a half-hour sorting out necessary paperwork, printing it all out and getting it in an envekope for taking to the post office tomorrow. BUT one thing I will try tonight, I'll clear cache and cookies on Opera (not on Firefox as that is kept for banking matters only and it will destroy my trusted device status) and reboot and try one more time!

Got my booster shot - finally. Not the one I wanted but Anutin has as usual cocked it all up. Went walk in a week ago to a State Hospital in Ramintra just up from Fashion Island but got turned away - again! This time because it was the Coronation holiday 4th and 5th May and no vaccinations happening. Then of course followed by a weekend and a helpful Security man suggested we went in on Monday 8th early (they open at 9.00am.) So on Monday we went in early, got directed to a balcony around the attrium 1st floor. The noise was indescribable - I've heard far quieter chicken farms. Full of people yakking their heads off, couldn't hear my wife on the phone even on loudspeaker mode. Crazy, how could sick people get peace? Anyway, got to the pretty young miss manning one of the reception desks for vaccines and gave her my vaccine record certificate and passport. Here is where Anutin's incompetant hand came into play. They started giving Pfizer boosters on Monday 1st May, and gave them for only 3 days before stopping for a Coronation holiday. So on Monday the 8th at 9.00am in the morning only 3 days into their programe - no more Pfizer vaccine booster shots available, they were not given enough. Anutin says ALL vulnerable people, old people, children, should get their free booster shots at State Hospitals starting Monday 1st May and running for 2 weeks. You got to assume that with the experience of the past he'd have some idea of the number of doses. Nope! So was about to leave in disgust but helpful girl said "we still have some Moderna available and you can have one of those if you like." So seeing which way the wind was blowing and after facing failure in several other places I accepted. There were only 4 or 5 people in the queue in front of me and in 5 minutes or so all done and waiting for my certificate which when it came helpfully listed every Pfizer shot and details and dates as well as this Moderna shot. Apart from the sheer bedlam going on around me and the Health Minister's predictable failure to provide a reasonable quantity of vaccine shots the hospital operation was a dream. In 10 minutes I was out the door and back in the car. Beat that!

Thanks TallGuyJohninBKK but have checked with Minburi Hospital and they'll jab this farang with the latest Pfizer and they are only a few miles away anyway. Going on Wednesday as wife is taking her sisters back to Robinson's tomorrow in Lad Krabang so they can get jabbed. All free unlike some hospitals who charge for "service" apparently.

KIhlong Sam Wa Hospital are crap, my Thai wife went for a booster last year as all advice was get boosted after 3 months. THEY said no, 4 months, come back when the 4 months are up which then was in another 2 weeks, Great, 1 week later boosters were discontinued so she never did get jabbed. This was after paying 3600 baht for her to the Government who took almost a year to give her the two shots of Moderna I had paid for. THIS time Khlong Sam Wa are open Tuesday and Thursday for 1 hour only, maximum 60 people per day. So they are a waste of time. My wife queued fruitlessly for several hours before as her queue number was in the 900's and only then was told NO! So we went to Lat Krabang to 2nd floor Robinson's Mall, easy to queue, only doing Moderna so they did my wife free and no problem but for me - NO again excuse being I had Pfizer before and they could not access my records. BUT then the supervisor when pressed agreed that in any event and in spite of Government intentions they would not jab any farang anyway. The woman in front of my wife had already had 7 shots, 2 plus 5 boosters (but none for the farang). Here we go again! So there is a hospital at Minburi at the Suwintawong/Ramintra junction, open daily for one more week, doing Pfizer and also accepting farang on a walk in basis so Wednesday I'm going there.

Hi fellow Pollution Chokers and coughers. As if rank poisonous air that the Government are disinclined to face up to and deal with - unlike the "boil the water to get rid of the salt" advice from Uncle Tu previously no help is forthcoming from him or any of his cronies in actually doing something concrete to deal with the chronic bad air in BKK (or anywhere else for that matter!). BUT there might be a glimmer of hope for some on the Covid front. Predictably the 150% Covid infection spike that followed Songkran (we all said "told you so" to deaf ears) has led to the Government allegedly offering from tomorrow, May 1st, until August, free Covid booster shots at State run hospitals for all persons living in Thailand. Now Bangkok Post do have a bit of a reputation for getting it wrong or misleading us in their articles so can the good folk on here offer any confirmation on that snippet because my wife and I would love to gedt boosted as our shots are now almost a year past. And we are in Khlong Sam Wa, NE of Minburi, so any info on where to go if obese and aged farangs are included in this bounty from an otherwise incompetent shower trying to run (ruin) the country. They are also apparently offering free flu jabs to old timers and fatties etc, not sure if one has to register for those though? Thanks all for help, and let us all pray that the country gets a completely new government elected this month, with no military connections and no more Army Coups to screw things up. You never know - there just might be flying pigs!

Same for us but in our own car with homicidal wife driving - she could show those mad bus drivers a thing or two. Have no idea what was up with everyone and his car/truck/bike converging on CW earler this week but getting clear and back onto Ramintra with a little moving traffic as opposed to stationary/having a picnic took us a half hour too. But even past the expressway the menace of unfinished railway works caused repeated holdups. It is infuriatingf to drive mile after mile with one lane permanently closed off but no discernable activity.

But you got to leave the country every 90 days and then come back to trigger the next 90 days and so on. You think that's a bargain do you? I had to get the same visa when I and my wife moved back here from the UK, sorry - I moved here but she moved back. Glad don't have to go that route again and am settled in our own lovely home with our dogs. Plus one can plan one's life but when the year is up - what then? Will they give you another one?

Had to go to Chang Wattana today to get annual extension stamp - did the earlier interview/handing over truck-load of paper bit 4 weeks ago. Traffic was insane around Laksi area, outside the Government building not a parking space in sight and massive traffic queues just to drive past. My wife managed to get to the turnoff outside and dropped me at the entrance closest to the Immigration Bureau area and went to park the car, intending to do that and then come find me and go downstairs to update my bank book and get 2 photo copies of it. So while she went to find a spot I went through security and then got a ticket at check-in. After getting the ticket, as usual L2 so looke at the overhead displays and as I walked in my number was already there. Hurried to the correct counter and handed over passport to a gorgeous girl trainee - same one I drooled over 4 weeks earlier haha. Told he had not done bank book and copies and she said not needed so I queried that and an I.O behind her said something I didn't understand to I said is that "yes or no?". So she said "NO!" Wow, so called my wife who was parking and suggested she just waited in the car with the air-con on rather than continue to struggle to find a parking space but she had already found a spot and was locking the car. Walked towards the seating area where I had spotted an empty seat. Just as I sat down the lovely trainee girl came out and called me back over. She gave me back my passport, I thought there was a problem but no, it was already stamped for extension to next April. Thanked her and rapidly called my wife who by then had locked the car and according to her had walked all of 5 steps. I asked her to go back to the car and come back to the entrance to collect me. Maybe it was upcoming Songkran or Thai Holidays the cause of the crowds but that was the fastest stamping ever. Mind you the traffic getting back out of the area was dreadful, much of the problem of course Chan Ocha's bloody overhead train works where the highway repeatedly goes from 3 lanes to 2 and then back again to 3 then 1. Madness! But...........well done Immigration Bureau!

I did that a couple of times. copying and pasting from the email, but I have been here long enough to understand the sh*t one falls into if the pc crashes and all data gets lost so being able to change a password to one I'd always remember is a really good option. Like all my UK stuff - returning if I lose it is not an option so I have with my UK bank my phone set up, and two pc's as "trusted devices". Remember Henry Fonda's comment in "How the West was Won" talking about a man who uses braces as well as a belt to hold his pants up because he trusts neither? That's me to a "T" with computers, passwords and logins! Make sure not make misery!

Having copied and pasted the impossible password they sent THAT is really worth knowing - thank you. And.........approval came in tonight's email so thanks all for your valued responses. Mind at rest for next time now except I managed to mis-type my phone number on the application - probably not important - but I'll correct next time.

Ok, thanks. As for the last 8 years I have done it via registered mail i wasn't sure on online stuff. Thailand's reputation for computer incompetancy is legend and my wife and I didn't trust them. Even now years later when they are supposed to be more capable on our last visit to CW for the marriage extension they caught us out as for the first time the IO demanded TWO copies of everything so clearly THEY don't have a great deal of confidence in their systems either! Bit like helicopter builders, they fit them with floats, skis and wheels covering all eventualities indicating massive distrust in their own product!

Sent in my first (well 2nd actually, actual first one rejected because they'd already posted it although to date still not arrived 3 months later!) on-line report on 27th March, last Monday. The acknowledgement came very quickly by e-mail as did a pdf of the on-line info on a TM.47 form. 4 days later I am still waiting for the receipt. I go into CW next Wednesday 5th April to collect the stamp in my passport, the current 90 day expires on Friday next week - the 7th. Assuming I still don't have a receipt I'll again have to go to the 90 day report counter, show them the application acknowledgement, and get a printed receipt as i did last time. Everyone on here avows that on-line reporting is the way to go - my experience is if I hired an ox-cart and a driver to take me to CW with a TM.47 form it would be quicker than so called instant internet. Any one else found them tardy in the extreme in replying with a receipt from CW (Chang Wattana) or is this just standard inefficient service and I need to just wait a few more days, weeks, months?? At least I have the proof they had the notice in good time, their web site just says "Pending".

Title says it all. We got Mitsubishi 8000 btu inverter units in all rooms installed new 7 years ago. One is in twice-daily use, 2 hours or so after noon siesta and 10 hours over night every night. It quit, we had Mitsubishi come out, not cheap but it is a fixed price regardless, of what is broken plus cost of any parts. The guys were brilliant, stripped it to clean it thoroughly as an "on the side" service separately, fixed a couple of leaks, replaced a thermister (the cause of the original fault) and re-gassed it as it was leaking. But it had a small leak on the inside unit and one on the valve block on the outside they fixed, the inside one took a patch. They said it was old, showed me pictures of the ionside of the inside unit - plastic was simply crumbling, blade broken off fan so it runs but is unbalanced a little and noisy they say, cost to replace all broken parts would work out at a whopping 5500 - 6000 baht. The advised not worth it, get a new one but at 17000 baht too expensive for us with the exchange rate so bad. We found a complete Haier Candy 9000 btu inverter split for 7495 baht on Lazada. We got one here in one bedroom bought new, slow to get cold but really cold when it gets going. Wife's sister has an apartment we built on the side of the house and she bought it so I know little about it. She uses it but rarely when she visits but I know it had a couple of problems in the first year covered under warranty. I have no idea what the problems were. QUESTION - are they any good, has anyone got one installed, they are cheap and once going seem to work well but how reliable? My sample of one failing twice I put down to the cowboys who installed it - anyone else got any experience? In the UK Candy is a well known cheap line of electrical goods sold by a couple of big electrical goods store chains Dixons and Currys.

Would that be the "big girl ladyboy" helper? He/she/it (choose appropriate pronoun) has worked there for a number of years and yes, that was the recipient of my ire. Noticed my I.O had a trainee helper who was frankly gorgeous and friendly - sigh!!!!! Apart from a load of black 2nd copies hurriedly obtained by my beloved downstairs and their own forms all of my package as has been the result of a scanner/printer at home and have been accepted since I started in 2015. The ONLY one arguing about photoio-copying and not scanning in full hi-res colour has been my wife!