Ombra

A few days ago, I looked at an Associated Press article about the rising price of coffee in the US, and I was shocked by the opening sentence in which a woman laments the fact that she can no longer afford to go to McDonald's in the morning and buy a cup of coffee - to which she used to add ten lots of sugar and five lots of cream. What was equally shocking was the fact that the writer made no comment about this behavior. The rising cost of coffee force some to give up their brew | AP News

It certainly hasn't been in mine.

My wife has been putting toothpaste on my toothbrush for the past 40 years, but it is always too small an amount. As I appreciate the gesture, I have never said anything.

During a 'No Kings' protest in Washington, D.C., a speaker said, 'Donald Trump is the son of an immigrant, the grandson of an immigrant, and is married to an immigrant. In fact, two of his three wives were immigrants, proving yet again that immigrants will do the jobs that even Americans are not willing to do.' And Margery Taylor Greene wrote, 'I am not towing the party line.'

When articles about the Thai education system appear on this website, the stories are followed by mockery and worse. However, the article below suggests that American members ought to think twice before commenting. https://fortune.com/2025/10/10/pepsico-lays-rebrand-consumers-didnt-know-made-of-potatoes/

I just looked at the website and i was surprised to see that Immigration Division 3 is missing from the list. So it is not possible to make an appointment in Hua Hin.

Fake astronaut scams OAP telling her 'I'm stuck in space, send me money for oxygen'

The Drudge Report listed this clever headline yesterday: Vax Quack Lacks Facts.

As Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said, "Better to have him on the inside pissing out than on the outside pissing in."

Many years ago, my wife wanted to demonstrate how well her grandsons, who were then about ten and twelve, spoke English. The boys went to a private school and they showed me a chapter from their English textbook which they had just finished studying. It was titled, 'The duties of the clergy and the laity during Buddhist Lent,' and they had memorized it. But they didn't understand a word and neither did my wife, who had learnt English while working for the US air force in Nakhon Phanom during the Vietnam War. When I tested the boys' spoken English, all that they could say was, 'HellohowareyouIamfinethanks,' as though it were a single word.

The 'Daily Beast's' website today has a story about Prince A's visit to Thailand in 2006 when he demonstrated that he deserves to be known as Randy Andy. https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-new-details-on-prince-andrews-thai-orgies-expose-his-corrupt-abuse-of-power-for-sex/

I seem to remember that, decades ago, Ramkhamhaeng University faced criticism for proving easy qualifications for members of parliament - or is my memory at fault?

Sorry. I meant to say that I found it one month later.

A few years ago, I bought a small Cubic loaf for about 80 or 90 baht in Tops in Rangsit. The packet, containing one slice, got pushed to the back of the refrigerator and it was still as soft as the day I bought it. So, no more Cubic for me.

My last order for Arabica beans was about 30% more expensive than the price three months before.

'luxury handwoven nylon carpet' .... 'Luxury' and 'nylon' are not words that I expect to see together. And if it is nylon, who would notice it is hand woven?

On my Google News feed this morning, there is a story from the New York Times about the building that collapsed in Bangkok after the earthquake. It is written by three reporters: two men with Anglo names and an Indonesian. It includes this sentence: 'At the perimeter, the father of a Pakistani worker told reporters people were praying in temples all over Thailand.' I was surprised to read that a Pakistani was working on a construction site in Bangkok and that his father should refer to temples rather than mosques. Isn't it more likely, though, that the interpreter asked the man where he was from, and he said Phaak Isaan? Then the Americans made a mistake that Imade a very long time ago.

I agree with GreasyFingers. Although I wrote that my cat was attacked by dogs, the cat in fact was an animal that was abandoned, like so many others, during Covid. She arrived at our door in a terrible condition and my wife took her in. I never wanted a cat because I am aware of the damage that they cause, and I see that in Scotland the government is considering allowing people to own cats only if the animals spend their lives indoors. Cats are cute but very destructive.

I can sympathise with you entirely. My cat was attacked by four dogs a week ago, and they would have killed her if I had been seconds slower in getting to her. They bit her half a dozen times, but not deeply. It was a narrow escape, but she was so terrified that she didn't eat for four days and hardly moved. Thailand is the home of the irresponsible dog owner, and in my case I think that these four dogs belong to farang who lives nearby, or they are strays that he feeds. I am very sorry indeed for your poor wife.

This is a great thing for Thais. And wasn't this all begun by Pee Tony?

You are right. My mother was born in 1920 and died in 2004. When she went to a supermarket, she calculated the cost of items faster than the cashier and she had the exact amount of money in her hand when the cashier told her the total. It was normal with people of her generation. And she complained about younger people's failure to do the same.

How can a person be coerced into spending 40 million baht?

True. But dinner plates have almost doubled in size since the 1970s. Most people are eating far more than they need.

There is an article in The Daily Beast today in which RFK Junior describes Donald Trump's diet as 'poison.' He says he lives on junk food and Diet Coke and that he has never seen him drink a glass of water. How does an overweight 78-year-oild man eat like that and yet work a ten- or twelve-hour day seven days a week? Is every meal accompanied by a handful of pills? It reminds me of Morgan Spurlock's film 'Super Size Me,' in which he lived for a month on hamburgers and fries - and died at the age of 53. That someone can eat like that amazes me.

A couple of years ago, I read that Prachuap Prison had opened a car wash and that the work was being done by inmates, but I didn't try it until this week. The result was great. It was the most thorough cleaning that my car has ever had. For example, the plastic suction pad that holds my camera in place had left a series of rings on the inside of the windscreen, and I could never remember to clean them. The other car washes that I have been to over the past couple of years did nothing to remove them, but the prisoners did. This thorough cleaning cost 180 baht, which is half the price charged by the car wash at Lotus's. However, given that there are not many car washes in the town, other businesses may not be complaining about the very cheap labour at the prison. They might also be happy to see that young men are able to escape from their cells for a number of hours each day. Next to the car wash is an attractive cafe, a laundry, and a shop selling handicrafts made by prisoners.