cliveshep

Title says it all - it simply freezes on sign in. So I got a new e-mail and signed up again - with a new name and new details not the same as the other name - same thing! Emailed them - no answer of course, posted on Facebook and sent a message on Facebook Messenger - response was diddley-squat. Standard auto response from messenger only. Am I the only one? Been a couple of days now. Clearly others can sign in as some posts have comments dated today.

@sometimewoodworker: Lacking knowledge is a bit steep when you don't know what I work on. The clutch is vital when working on electronics as I sometimes do, like our recalcitrant tv, lap top, kettle, coffee machine, freezer, washing machine, compressor etc all of which I have worked on in our home since we have been here. Availability of parts is far better than it is in the UK with it's "chuck it away not repair" culture. For example, the UK washing machine tub & drum bearings failed due to a leaking seal and it's pump and drive belt needed replacement. The replacement bearings, identical Timkin bearing numbers, came from an autoparts shop in Minburi, the oil seal from a different shop also Minburi, the pump from Amorn in Rangsit, compressor capacitor from a spares place in a Ragsit back street, and the washing machine belt from ebay. The cordless was invaluable in speeding up dismantling/repair/reassembly of all of these. You dare not use an impact wrench on a pcb, not if you only intend to de-solder duff components and solder in new ones so the cordless is perfect. I got a compressor and retractable hose reel in the workshop, and all the impact air tools if I get stuck with lug nots for example but for most things like cowlings and casing parts on the motorbike for example, or the dashboard elements on the lorry a cordless is ideal. You are right, an impact wrench would be a useful addition to the workshop, but my pension supports a wife, her family, a total of 3 large and 1 medium and 3 small dogs including my own Berger Picard, not a small dog by any means, owned by familt members so I got to spend wisely. No one is working, and two older of her relatives are not well, one requiring expensive medication, and that constrains me.

@xtrnuno41 - That is very informative, thanks. Had an epiphany this morning, at 77 and 78 at Christmas, chronic back pain, arthritis etc, realised that while Crossy and others are absolutely correct about an impact driver reality says 3 things. 1. I'm too old and decrepit to ever need it's massive power and 2. it would be useless to undo small screws in things as it would smash the item. Also 3, my wife will often use the cordless for her jobs and she won't want some super-powered tool that will rip itself out of her hands and when I am gone it is she who wants one available. So we cancelled the impact driver that was costing twice as much as the one below that might or might not use the same batteries although they look identical, Muscle Cow ordered and on it's way. As for the smoking old machine I can't open, as it is cooler in the mornings I'll take it into the workshop, clamp it in a vice, and belt the living hell out of it with a hammer and pry-bar as all the screws are out of it so it ought to come apart. Sh*t or Bust as they say, I suspect front thrust bearing is seized in the housing which is why the front won't come off although the main shell separates. But lots of gentle smoke wafting out of it in use suggests terminal short circuit somewhere. Still, it might be a capacitor and they are easily replaced.

@OneMoreFarang - all my corded tools bar two are Bosch or Makita. One exception is a 9 inch angle grinder which replaced a similar cheapo machine that had been cutting bricks and paving slabs for many years. If you are English you'll know of Wickes which at £40 is where it came from back in the late 90's. I bought a Chinese similar 9 inch one last year that cost me the same (converted from the baht) probably 30 years later! So far I have cut down the external wall openings in our house (rendered concrete block) for 10 new ali windows replacing old wooden ones, plus several hundred paving slabs probably, and loads of Sheera roofing sheets all with a cheap chinese diamond blade still showing almost no signs of wear. Frankly if the machine quit tomorrow it has earned it's keep already saving us many thousands of getting in a company to cut down the walls.

@Crossy - Sorry - got waylaid answering other posts. Taken your advice and ordered a really heavy-duty cordless impact wrench plus a chuck and adapter for normal drills. It comes with screwdriver bit attachment as part of the kit. So thanks for the advice there, it will do a lot more than originally anticipated. @ TimeMachine - see above and other posts. I'm ahead of you lol!

Wow, are you expecting to live that long that you can justify 50,000 baht? Sorry friend, for that amount I'd build the house as well! Out of my league, good tools can be had for a fraction of that and unless you are full-time working, for you as with most farang "lifetime working" is not daily hard use but occasional jobs around the house.

Brushless motor actually! I've now ordered a 24volt impact wrench 2260Nm as Crossy advised, plus a chuck and adapter for normal drills. Comes with a set of impact sockets although having an air impact wrench I have those anyway. Wife is a bit concerned as other buyers complained it is very powerful, told her if undoing lug nuts hang on tight! But she is unlikely to do much of that, her car got new "boots" all round and my lorry has too but is a bit too heavy for her to work on anyway. However, I will take the smoky machine to bits when I get a minute but like I say - 6 years of heavy use is good going really for a cordless.

@Crossy - I am calling you-hoo-hoo-hoo!................You know the song I'll bet!

50,000 baht - are you nuts? Look, if you got loads to chuck around I'll send you my bank details! I've bought good quality machines before, AEG, Bosch , Hitachi machines etc, I would not buy DeWalt - owned by the Woolworth's brand and from observation on site not a lot of good. TBH the expensive machines sell you their name but the quality and longevity does not warrant the extra expense. When you hammer a machine in professional use and it lasts 6 years to me that is a damn good bit of kit because few high-end machines would do as well. I speak as a former construction professional working on tools in the UK so I know from experience what I'm talking about!

Ah yes, he has been inestimable help on other matters before. thanks, I'll wait.

My 600 baht 5 year old 24 volt cordless drill/driver started pouring out smoke so I guess it's probably knackered. Can't complain, it has worked tirelessly doing sheera walls,and after 7 ceilings and sheera roofing on our new extension, plus sundry other jobs. Adapters allow it to be used with 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 sockets so it has earned it's keep many times over. The batteries are remarkably good and once charged will put up dry-wall all day almost and after 6 years do not seem to have deteriorated so while I will probably junk the machine choosing one that uses the same batteries makes sense. Found one called Muscle Cow 24volt on Lazada at 780 baht almost identical and one of the few 24 volt machines there. That's the background - here comes the question. Most offerings on Lazada quote what seem to be preposterous voltages, 98v (Makita), 149v (Bosch) and 259v (De Walt), Some cheaper machines offer 9980 Vf - what the hell does it all mean. Google says vf is "forward voltage", one customer is still awaiting an answer to his question "is this machine 12 or 24 volt?" so clearly the seller hasn't a clue either. I can't believe that a lithium ion battery gives 259 volts, or 149 or even 98. Can someone please shed some light on the numbers and what they might mean in terms of more prosaic 6, 12 or 24 volts etc? Help!!!!!!

Apart from being illegal also impossible as the British Embassy get notified and the passport is cancelled which in turn cancels pensions.

The UNIs will not accept older dead people - end of! Young ones - yes, for research or possibly as organ donors.

Good for her, she has been, still is, the best possible wife, loving and caring.

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!