BKKBike09

"Short-term speculative flows" I guess meaning international investment in Thai government debt. Strong baht also helps those here who want to/need to buy dollars for overseas investment or purchases. Thailand still buying a lot of LNG on the spot markets.

It all seems to be more flip-flop decision making on the fly. Anyone who has spent any time in Thailand should be well aware that the worst thing to do is to try and comply with a newly-introduced regulation before the officials that enforce it have received clear guidance as to how to interpret and administer - which they may never get. Just consider the endless threads about the differences in interpretation of various visa regultions by different immigration offices. If they are really going to say "money bought in the same tax year as it is earned or the next year is tax free" then that's good news. Who's to say when said money was earned, especially since by implication the remittances would not need to be declared on tax return (if you file one). The wrinkle I see is 'what does this means for income earned in the past and then remitted': currently if earned before 1 January 2024 it is not taxable. That to me is more of a concern. However I still feel best approach is do nothing with officialdom until directly asked to.

Actually this says "A cloth mask worn over a surgical mask gives 95% protection against Covid" - surely they should be pushing a properly fitted N95 mask - and also advising against removal of facial hair in order to provide a better fit. So I'm guessing this is an ancient history poster from the terror years of 2020/2021 ...

On a more general point - what's happened to the member (the bloke with the masked dog avatar) who used to bombard AN and these Covid threads with reams of stats and doom and gloom projections?

Schools closing classes? Madness. If Thailand cared more about its people it would focus on actually educating its children, rather than pushing a narrative of fear and the importance of simply doing what your 'elders and betters' tell you to do, because 'they know better'.

All very rum - total loss of pressure in both the normal and emergency brake systems? Looks like they were parked up on the West Apron. Surprised there isn't any video 'out in the wild' yet.

Fully agree - I meant more that all too often (both bikes and cars) come back from being serviced, tyre change etc with tyres way over inflated. I've had 50 psi put in some in the past.

Belize? https://www.belizetourismboard.org/programs-events/retirement-program/

Good news. Should lead to a report by Canadian TSB, even if nothing much comes out here. I see that the most senior officer on board is now described as 'pilot trainee': no inference or judgment here but will be interesting to find out from investigation who was PIC / PF / PM [Pilot In Charge / Pilot Flying / Pilot Monitoring] etc.

Good try to insinuate that a Thai might have been missing something when wo stupid foreigners are involved. Right, because it's not like a Thai might be able to read the Thai characters on a number plate. Need a foreigner for that. Fool.

Both props do seem to be turning; I don't know if the RTP Twin Otters have auto-feather but I guess not. Left engine is the critical engine in a Twin Otter but the RH rotation suggests stall and yaw to the right. But all just speculation. Poor buggers. Don't hold your breath for 'a good accident investigation'.

Crazy to have so many people on first flight post some seemingly significant maintenance (reports a/c was grounded at Hua Hin for a couple of days before this flight). I'm going for RH engine failure after take off, failure to pitch for / maintain min control speed, stall / spin to the right (into the dead engine) and not enough altitude to recover. In the video clip it looks like the rotation was stopped just before impact. RIP.

Actually this will be a great little earner for the BMA: I can just see teams of those Thessakit City Police a-holes roaming city parks and streets checking whether dogs being walked have been chipped. And of course the BMA will need to procure 10,000 or whatever hand held chip scanners at a bargain price of 10x whatever the actual price is. Plus there'll need to be a BMA database project to manage the details. Get those snouts in the trough!

You're talking about tyres for big bikes, right? I've never bought tyres from Lazada or online simply because I'd rather get them from a dealer so I can see them before they're fitted. I'd worry that buying online you might get genuine, but the tyres could be several years old etc. I guess if you buy online from a bricks and mortar stockist then things are more likely to be kosher - this place seems to have a good range, good prices and good reviews (even though they can't spell 'Diablo'). https://www.lazada.co.th/products/pirelli-diabro-rosso-iii-120160180190200-17-i2236345540-s19971024354.html The other top tip is that whoever fits your tyres, don't trust them to inflate them to the right pressures ...

Just for you Jonny! I wish I could find the one where Babs is chiding someone for talking about their holiday choices: "Isle of Man" - "Sexist!" "Isle of Wight" - "Racist!"

Channel 9 Neus my friend.

On principle, I greet all foreigners with a cheery 'Bono Estente'!

I thought there was a deadline of April a couple of years back for being able to pay for missing years? Or has that been postponed? And wasn't there also some limit to how many years could be paid up? I started paying the Voluntary Contributions maybe 7/8 years ago and then paid up a further tranche of missing years just before that deadline (2023?). I'm hazy on the details re the missing years process but recall phoning them and discussing on the phone how many years / how much to pay etc, which payment I made from my UK bank account. I recall there being something that needed to be done to ensure that the lump sum went to cover missing years, to avoid it going on account to cover future NIC payments (even though those are paid from my account by direct debit). I have a feeling that 'something that needed to be done' was to call them after the payment had been made to check that it was properly allocated. I appreciate this isn't very helpful advice and of course things may have all changed as I don't remember there being any online forms involved. If it's still possible to pay for missing years then, for many people, I think it's a great deal, especially for those who don't have a large private pension pot but instead will be reliant, in their dotage, on various different income streams. I think I paid around £2,000 to pay up a further 10 years: that lifted current forecast to something over £10,000 a year if I keep paying the contributions for a few more years, or around £8,000 if I were to stop now. Since the contributions are so low and cost about the same as three pints a month (less if London pints!) it's a great deal.

That is one family you do not want to be fighting with in Thailand.

I suspect management in many service businesses have come to believe (and they may be right, sadly), that the average customer now expects servers/customer-facing staff to wear masks, even if the customer does not. All part of the social hierarchy thing here where the customer is superior to the hired help.

Buddy - we're in 2025, not 2020. Why on earth would you cite an article from five years ago, which also reported research conducted "between 1 December 2019 and 31 August this year [2020]"? Back then, the super easy to catch Omicron variant wasn't around either, and there were no vaccines. If you're going to peddle claims about certain ethnic groups being more susceptible to Covid, at least cite up-to-date research.

What twaddle. They were not.

Having lived in Bangkok since the late 1980s I can assure you that, prior to Covid, virtually no-one wore masks at any time. Seasonal mask wearing because of air pollution only started once people had access to smartphone apps warning about PM2.5 levels and even then, it was a very small minority that wore masks. It is false to suggest otherwise. This is an image from 2016. Not a mask in sight.

I'm not sure how I feel about the faux engine noise but the Hyundai IONIQ 5 N is a beast. But GBP 65,000 in UK and I think THB 3.7 million here ... if money was no object, sign me up.

My charger would switch on okay but, as soon as plugged in to car, would flash an error message about current leakage and would not charge (the car would charge fine at PTT and using granny charger, so I figured it was the wall charger, not the car). It was not installed for me by BYD because back in Jan 2023 there was a queue of a month or so for the free install. I paid another firm to install (WallBox). They also supplied / installed the replacement charger. Like you I would turn the charger off at the breaker when not in use, since generally I was only charging the car once a week. The WallBox guy has now advised that it is best to leave switched on all the time. I wanted to try and repair the Duosida unit but the WallBox people said there are no spares for it. Anyway, I've given it to a Thai friend who likes fiddling with electronics and said that if he can fix it, he can have it. The new charger is a Zencar WPRO - the 7.4 kW version of this: https://www.zencar.net/product/zencar-ev-charging-station-wpro-11kw-22kw/