Scouse123

I love the concept of being minimalist but when it comes to it I won't throw my memories away much of which are tied up in ornaments etc and nor will my other half let me. My son is minimalist and when I visit him in the UK I envy and admire how he does it. Anyway, I have a big house for the two of us, so the clutter can stay.

Some of us are old school and love paper documents and files to flick through. I do and I have computers, i pads, android and Google Phones.

100%

Nothing special. What you saw was simply and example of how Thais fight. They consider it as (1) Standing by their friend and colleague and (2) The foreigners had the advantage of size so they took advantage of their numbers. No serious harm done. British guy should have kept his hands to himself. Yes, over reaction, but it is the norm.

Beer in, wits out. Just another day in Paradise. No major damage done. Dad should have kept his slaps to himself. The Thai doormen will overreact as they are not trained for such events and usually better off as night watchmen or security on housing estates.

We have a spare house on our land which we just rented yesterday for a year to a Filipina national who is coming to work for a big company nearby. She has signed the contract, got her copies and paid a deposit and just gone off to Bangkok to sort her affairs and returns next Monday to take up occupancy. Do we now inform Kalasin immigration of this arrangement? Last people in there were my other half's Thai family a long while ago. This is one house on our land, we are not professional landlords who rent out properties as a business.

Now this really IS drivel.

Show me what is nonsense in any of the above post or what is not true You made a statement, back it up.

Agreed but it doesn't happen here. The courts follow whoever is calling the shots and at the moment, it's the military.

I would and will still use Qatar, Emirates or Etihad in favour of this partnership.

Yes, You can't afford to upset hand picked military officials in the Senate. What were you thinking when you came up with that idea?

All this macaroni for the public sounds better than saying ' Hey guys, we overestimated and got our figures wrong! '

Hanoi and Halong Bay are great and so is Ho Chi Minh, Why not broaden your horizons and make your passport look better by staying a few days. It's fun, cheap over there and well worth the visit. Thailand will still be here in four or five days.

Is it for you or are you asking on behalf of some Arabs?

Apart from being an ex prime minister and a narcissist, why does Thaksin think he can circumvent laws he helped whilst in power, to create? He's been through all the courts and and all the procedures, he had the best lawyers, put forward all the arguments, and lost. However, he now feels if his own group get it, the Pheu Thai party then all is forgiven and he can return, thus breaking every rule of law on the books. He has been through all the procedures and took a gamble which he lost. Some of the long time residents here here will remember the ' box of chocolates ' incident, where he even tried to bribe the law courts at the 11th hour with a couple of million baht, and when it was refused and he was accused of ' corruption ', said his driver had mistakenly handed over the wrong box!!! I have no opinion on whether his conviction was fair, but were all the extra judicial killings (ordered and sanctioned by Thaksin) of alleged drug dealers fair? It turns out that many were not and many were falsely accused based on ' village grudges ' No courts of justice for them, they were murdered. Many people sit in Thai jails that are innocent but they don't have the funds to defend themselves with the odds stacked against them through policies introduced by the likes of Thaksin and his cronies as well as these clowns in power right now. As you sow, so shall you reap. They sure as hell don't like it when the shoe is on the other foot, do they? Then they ' squeal like stuffed pigs ' about how unfair the court system is. A system they helped create.

A few major points missing from the story. 1. Who says the operation was botched? It is very standard in any country after major surgery for shattered bones that they are not going to fit exactly as they used to be. It's a human body not a jigsaw. No evidence of botched surgery. 2. No mention of the accident, whose fault or is that purposely because if that was to come out people would be less inclined to donate. 3. No mention of health insurance for similar reasons, was he insured or not. ? His sisters comments seem a bit lame and address nothing apart from her hero worship of her brother and his dreams and ambitions. We all want to follow our dreams and ambitions but practicalities must be considered. OK, So he did well at a junior level in the UK, That looks to be a few years ago now to me, and hopes and dreams of climbing to the top in Muay Thai are somewhat a distant dream now, even without the motorbike accident. He seems to me like many, they want to come out to Thailand but haven't achieved the status of teaching degrees, retirement or marriage, so the next step is Education visas or Muay Thai visas. They save a bit of cash from their 9-5 jobs in the UK and then head off out to Thailand with these kind of ideas ill prepared for what life will throw at them and then want the old ' chestnut ' Go Fund Me as a bailout. I could understand Go fund me if this was some very poor African kid showing exceptional talent living in a mud hut in Ethiopia, but it isn't. It's a begging exercise and a personal refusal to accept the reality of the situation, from a guy that doesn't want to go home and get a job like the rest of us had to.

I also wonder if the motorbike had his headlights on? What is it with Thais that they think it's OK to drive along a dimly lit road with no headlights and for many of them, they think its cool to have no wing mirrors too! His friend was definitely driving way too close to the deceased. A tragedy and a big one for the girl and unborn child.

He's going to have to come up with a lot better story than that to be believed. Unless he comes up with something far more believable, his goose is cooked. He brought the tools with him, it was premeditated murder and then to come up with a pathetic excuse of the older man tried to force him to have sex and therefore resulted in the murder, is a very weak defense. He is a lot bigger guy and could have just refused. Nobody will believe this nonsense. The case is way too high profile to be swept away and after all, it's two foreigners in a lovers tiff as far as the Thais are concerned. I think it will be death commuted to life because he will have to accept his guilt, It will be the minimum eight years in the big house, then transferred under the prisoner treaty back to Spain for the remainder or balance of his sentence. He isn't going to get a Royal pardon for this heinous act. 29 years old, a business that was flying, a noted chef held in high regard, a good family with a good upbringing and he's thrown it all in the toilet. What a clown!

Hun Sen was installed by the Vietnamese and kept on a leash for years as a puppet on a string to do their bidding. Yes he was Khmer Rouge and yes there are indeed plenty of surviving members in high positions of government within Cambodia to this day. There were just a few notable Khmer Rouge exceptions who were high profile and couldn't refute the evidence against them and went down for the behaviour of all the others. Hun Sen constantly interfered in the war crimes tribunals behind the scenes and constantly refused and blocked assistance to their investigations. He is indeed an evil dictator but unfortunately has the people where he wants them and is now going head on to form a dynasty of his own making surrounded by cronies, family, and sycophants. He is now hedging his bets and sucking up to the Chinese and North Koreans.

I bet that will keep many awake at night.

Wow, You are cynical, I wonder why I was just thinking the same! Brother and father get a brief mention, obviously nothing of merit, almost a scolding for not sending regularly enough, but we got the full address for donations if anybody is minded to donate. At the end of the day it isn't much of a story except family having to pull together in sad and difficult times and some doing more than others. Reminds me of my own family in days gone by. I came from a family of seven children and a widowed mother who held down two full time jobs to keep our family afloat. There was no super ' benefits Britain ' in those days. The first up was the best dressed in our house!

I think the Police would be up for the ' fine ' bit of the equation.

Yeah well, Then maybe smashing the bike up of a kid with a gun toting meth addicted father isn't such a great idea?

Well, nationality becomes relevant especially to identify the culprits, when shopkeepers and bystanders are all saying that these are ' Arab youths on rental motorbikes '

No, he doesn't know because his narcissism won't allow the possibility.